No right-minded Christian will otherwise than highly esteem the two ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper instituted by our Lord—the latter previous to His death, and the former subsequent to it. Why the Supper should have been previous to it, and the commission to baptize after it, may be an interesting question, but it is one not expressly answered in Scripture. It should at least have preserved the church from the gross error of taking in the literal and carnal sense the words, “This is My body,” “This is My blood.” Indeed, even this should not have been necessary to guard against the degradation of a spiritual truth, and a prostitution of our moral sense, which nothing but the deliberate intention of establishing and justifying sacerdotalism could possibly have brought about. And what will men not do when they are bent on anything? What will they not at length believe? They then take credit for sincerity—a sincerity however in error, which is the consequence of the rejection of truth, and which is therefore altogether without excuse. If utter darkness has no less arisen from an original and continued departure from a divine testimony in the traditional form in which it was known to, and held by, the patriarchs, then spiritual darkness has come about in the church from the rejection, and even perversion, of divine truth. But as all men have not faith, so all Christians have not spirituality. Writing to the church at Corinth, Paul says, “Ye are carnal.” He does not say they were natural, for in that case they would not be Christians—at least not true Christians; but he says they are carnal, at the same time distinguishing the spiritual from the carnal (1 Cor. 2:14, 15; 3:3). Yet nothing then in the church approached the imbecility of a later time. “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat,” says Paul. Is this to be taken literally? A believer in transubstantiation will perhaps say, “Well, Paul was a priest in the church of God, and in the Eucharist” (why not call it always, the Lord's Supper?): “he at least fed them with the flesh of Christ.” But so degraded a notion had at that time neither entered the head of Paul, nor of any other Christian. It was those who were destitute of faith, who, taking, the Lord's words literally, said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Utterly unspiritual, and taking His words in a gross, carnal, and literal sense, they were of course stumbled. Again, the Lord says, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” Is this to be taken literally? On the other hand, the prophet Jeremiah says (ch. xx. 16), “Thy words were found, and I did eat them,” i.e. the food was spiritual and non-material, and the eating was consequently also spiritual, and non-literal. So in John 6, and in reply to those who, once disciples, went back and walked no more with Him, Jesus said, “Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life;” as much as to say, “If you so grossly misunderstand My words, now that I am with you, how much more egregiously will you misunderstand them when I have ascended to heaven?” The words He had just spoken were to be taken spiritually and not literally, and the eating is in this case also a spiritual and not a literal process.
It is a not uncommon notion, though it is a very incorrect one, that to be baptized, and to partake of the Lord's Supper, are commands. To a nation—a people in the flesh and under the law, circumcision and the observance of the Passover were indeed commands, at least so long as individuals remained members of the commonwealth of Israel. Every legal obligation had to be fulfilled by such. To put Christianity on this ground, however, is to mistake its spirit and genius. The Christian ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper are matters of privilege, not of enforced requirement; nor is there such a thing to be found in the New Testament as “the New Law” —or a new legal system. A person is not a Christian by birth, but a person was a Jew by birth, and upon that ground was under the law.
As regards the Lord's Supper, 1 Cor. 11:24, 25 simply enjoins us, as often as we partake of it, to do so in remembrance of Him. As to baptism, there was a command to make disciples of all nations, and to baptize them, but no command to people to be baptized. Acts 10:48 is no exception to this, it is rather “commanded that they should be baptized in the name of the Lord.” Privilege and blessing are not matters of command, but of divine grace: Christians are indeed subject to Christ, but this is not being under law. There is one advantage which the Church of Rome possesses over most other professedly Christian bodies. It meets, in its own way (which after all is but a parody of the truth), the varied needs of souls, and it does this with a dogmatic clearness and fixity of meaning wholly wanting to the usual Protestant systems. It thus meets the felt want of an age feeble in faith, and wearied with uncertainty and confusion. And truly there can be no rest for the conscience, no repose for the heart and mind, without authority to rest on. When the soul has not rest and peace through the finished work of Christ—where justification by faith only is unknown, or the proper (forensic) meaning of the word is denied, and the meaning of infused righteousness substituted for it—where consequently the soul knows not what it is to find perfect rest in Christ, a present and an assumed authority, such as that of the church, or of the Pope, saves the trouble of faith, and the exercises of soul connected with it, and gives at least a superficial and temporary rest or rather lull. The conscience is, as it were, drugged.
Now we feel as strongly as any Roman Catholic that, unless there is adequate authority for our confidence, that confidence is worth nothing, and will certainly fail us sooner or later. But the word of the living God as contained in the holy Scriptures is our authority—that word, in the Spirit's favor, is our confidence. We acknowledge no other, and we place implicit confidence in it. Ministers of that word may be used and blessed to us; but if so, they will be the first to own the distinction between a rule of faith—i.e. a divinely—given standard of what is to be believed—and a means of communicating it. The former cannot err, the latter can. As to the faith even the apostle Paul says, “Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand” (2 Cor. 1:24). If true to the Lord, whose servants they are, they will repudiate any personal authority in matters of faith, and will exhort and encourage their hearers or readers to base their convictions on the Scriptures alone. Tradition is but the enemy's device to injure the integrity of the Bible, as the sole authority for what is to be believed.
In the patriarchal age, and when there were no written records, certain men were the depositaries of simple yet divine revelations, which they communicated to others; but in these days, and in order to preserve such revelations from the alterations and corruptions which frequent repetition would inevitably bring about, human life was vastly prolonged. For instance, Adam was for more than sixty years the contemporary of, Noah's father, Lamech; and Shem died only twenty-four years before the death of Abraham. Shem therefore may have related to Abraham what Lamech had heard from Adam. Here we have, for tradition, certainty of origin and of transmission. Tradition was in the case of the patriarchs alike genuine and authentic. What now goes by the name of tradition in the Church is devoid of either. The attempt is made to justify it, and there is no want of boldness, or rather of impudence, in assertion: but assertion is not proof; and the written word, the Holy Scriptures, remain, and will remain, the sole standard and authority for what is to be believed. The law may require judges to carry it out; but they are not judges of the law, but of those who transgress the law, still less do they constitute authority to enact. So the true believer is no judge of God's word, but he has competency to understand and apply it. “I have not written to you because ye know not the troth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21); and in the preceding verse, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” Such only have the true verifying faculty. Nor should we be disturbed or alarmed by any expression of horror at what is called “the right of private judgment.” By this is properly meant, not, of course, the right to judge God's word when we have it in our possession, but the obligation to judge of everything by that word. It is not so much a right as an obligation. We are individually responsible to God that we do judge everything by His word, and shape our conduct accordingly. Take for example the first Epistle to the Corinthians. Here is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the saints at Corinth, and to “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” He sends this epistle, not through any official or presiding individual, for no reference to such a person or office exists in any of the Epistles. Even where in a local assembly bishops or elders, and deacons, are spoken of, it is always as indicating a plurality of them. No trace of a presiding officer is to be found in any one of Paul's Epistles—still less of diocesan episcopacy. The apostle writes to the saints, or to the church, directly and immediately; in fact, upon many points, in reply to questions they had asked him (1 Cor. 7:1). Now, is it to be believed that those Christians either had not the right to take this Epistle as being to them immediately, or if such were the case, that they were unable to read and understand it, as an inspired writing? And so with all the Epistles; excepting those called pastoral.” They were addressed to what was afterward called the “laity;” and will it be pretended that the laity could understand them then, but that we cannot understand them now? To take another example. The Epistle to the Colossians is thus addressed, “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse,” &c. Communication between the apostle and the saints or brethren is direct and immediate. There is not the slightest allusion to any presiding individual: had there been such an office, it is impossible it could be so entirely and so systematically overlooked. We read indeed in. this Epistle (iv. 17), that Archippus had some ministry committed to him by the Lord. Is the Epistle sent either to or through Archippus? On the contrary, Paul requests the Colossian saints to read it amongst themselves, and directs further that it should be read in the church (i.e. assembly) of the Laodiceans, and, moreover, they are to say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it.” The letter itself would probably suffice to convey this message to Archippus, yet such are the Apostle's words, such is the way in which he puts it. If Archippus was (to use the phrase) “their minister,” we get a fine instance of independency here. But he was nothing of the sort, for, as has been shown, no such office was in existence in the early Church. Ministry indeed was, in its purity; but the office of a presiding minister was the invention of a later date.
Where there is no motive for distorting or falsifying God's word, how simple it is! Infinite depths in it, no doubt—how could it be otherwise if it is the word of God?—yet, for the most part, very and purposely simple. Why, then, should it be wrested out of the hands of individual Christians, or be nullified by committing its interpretation to others, unless to bolster up the fictitious claims of a sacerdotal caste 2 Difference amongst Christians is a very convenient plea for robbing them of the privilege and responsibility committed to them by their Savior and Lord, to hold and to heed His word. But, in fact, the remedy would be worse than the disease; less of truth would be known and held in common by them, than ever, and, in short, the same reason existed for taking the Scriptures out of the hands of the so-called “Fathers” (of whom it may be said, without exaggeration, quot homines, tot sententiae), had there only been in those days an infallible Pope to have done anything so advantageous for the church. But, unfortunately, infallibility came too late to make sense and consistency, much more orthodoxy, out of the Fathers.
A text (2 Peter 1:20) is sometimes quoted, or rather misquoted, in denial of the right of private judgment, “no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation;” but such is not the meaning of this text. It simply means that no prophecy of the Scripture is of self-interpretation, or of isolated meaning and application—that it must be taken as part only of the whole coordinated system of Divine revelation. This holds true of the word of God generally, though applying here more particularly to the coming kingdom. Acts of Uniformity, or the crafty policy of Rome, in instigating the civil power to punish those who, desirous of rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's, cannot, if obedient to their Lord, accept the dogmas and dictates of a cruel and corrupt church, may bring about a certain amount of outward uniformity; yet, after all, we never read in Scripture of the unity of the church, though we do, read of the unity of the Spirit, and of endeavoring to keep this in the bond of peace. But the Spirit is truth; unity in error, therefore, has another origin and source. “To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4, 5). This was addressed by the Apostle “to the strangers scattered,” &c., evidently converted Jews, true Christians, and applies no less to true Christians now; none the less, if true Christians are sadly scattered in the days in which we live. Living stones themselves, and coming unto Christ as a living stone, they are built up a spiritual house, in the binding power of the Holy Spirit.
Babylon is a specious imitation of this, bricks for stone and slime for mortar, like the Babylon of old; and coming unto the Pope, the spiritual Babylon referred to in Rev. 17:5 rises into view—a vast meretricious system, destined yet to a limited sway, but soon to incur the everlasting judgment of God. And most artfully is the Church of Rome availing herself of the boasted but godless liberty of the day to recover her lost power in this favored but guilty land. It is often imagined that the Romish Church has herself become liberalised by the liberty accorded to her, and to all other ungodliness. Has she ceased to teach her candidates for orders, “Tolerantia religiosa, est impia et absurda” Has she revoked the article of the Council of Trent which decrees thus? “In matters of faith and morals, and whatever relates to the maintenance of Christian doctrine, no one confiding in his own judgment shall dare to wrest the Sacred Scriptures to his own sense of them..... If any disobey, let them be denounced by the ordinaries, and punished according to law.” Has she canceled the following clause in the oath taken by the Roman Catholic Bishops? “The rules of the holy Fathers and Mandates Apostolic, I will with all my power observe, and cause to be observed by others. Heretics, Schismatics, and rebels against the same our Lord (the Pope) aforesaid, I will persecute and attack.”
This is the sort of church which England is at the present time fostering, these are the principles which that church is cherishing. The way from Protestantism to Rome is easy and clear. Baptismal regeneration and apostolical succession are taught us by the orthodox Church of England. From this we have only to pass through the Ritualistic phase: consistency must then land us in Popery. The figment of baptismal regeneration, in place of the quickening power of the Spirit by the word, producing bricks instead of living stones; church ordinances holding people together, instead of the binding power of the Spirit, slime for mortar—this is the Babylon which Satan is building, the counterfeit city of God, the woman who falsely assumes to be the bride of Christ. But though she has yet to reach the climax of her audacity and wickedness, her time is getting short, her cup of iniquity fall, and ready for judgment; strong is the Lord God who will judge in her destruction, the sufferings of the saints whom she has persecuted with all the cruelty of religions, rancor.
The word “sacrament” is from the Latin sacramentum, the military oath of allegiance administered to the Roman soldiers, and is thus an ecclesiastical and not a Scriptural term. In the Latin translation it is used as the equivalent of the Greek word μυστήριον, mystery. It is so used in Eph. 5:32, where speaking of marriage the Apostle says, “this is a great mystery.” Hence the Roman Catholics make matrimony a sacrament. The absurdity of this is evident when it is seen that the usual ecclesiastical sense of the word would be gone if the Greek word μυστήριον is always to be considered as meaning a sacrament; for instance, “the mystery of the gospel,” “the mystery of godliness,” “the mystery of iniquity,” &c. Yet if not always, with what authority in Eph. 5:32? The Catechism of the Church of England tells us that “a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” &c., “as a means whereby we receive the same.” According to the Prayer-book, therefore, the elements in the Sacraments are channels or vehicles of divine grace. But the above definition of a Sacrament is erroneous, for the “inward and spiritual grace” is not necessary to the definition of a Sacrament, and is mischievously false if we are to regard the water in baptism, or the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, as its channels or vehicles. Yet everyone knows that baptismal regeneration is the teaching of the Prayer-book, and as to the Lord's Supper, the Catechism, in answer to the question “What is the inward part, or thing signified?” replies, “The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.” But the import of a sacrament in no way depends upon any subjective effort in the individual. Sacraments have also been compared with the tree of life in the garden of Eden, or with that in Rev. 22:2. These, however, in no way represent the death of Christ, and this would be moreover to maintain the opus operatum, to make them operative in themselves, a theory rejected by nearly all the Reformers.