IN our last number we spoke of the doctrine of Transubstantiation as the very stronghold of the Romish faith, and showed how the doctrine had by degrees established itself in Christendom.
The church may change its belief; the truth never varies. Man adds to his notions; the word of God ever remains the same—it cannot be added to or diminished from. “Believe the church; bow to the church;” cries Rome and her children; but we may inquire, What is meant by believing the church? The Church of Rome has developed a system of doctrine and practice by slow degrees. If we of this day believe the church, we believe what our fathers did neither believe nor know of nine hundred or eleven hundred years ago!
Bede flourished in England in 700, and, “for the advantage of the church,” translated portions of the Bible into the language spoken in England in those days. He thus wrote: “Poor men.... understand in bread and wine, being visibly set before them, a thing invisible, to wit, the true body and true blood of the Lord, which are true meat and true, drink, wherewith, not the belly is filled, but the mind is nourished.” And Bertram, who was of the same age, says, “Outwardly it is bread, the same as before.” From a sermon in Saxon of Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 996, who, as has already been noted, affirmed that whoever would be one with God must often pray and often read the Scriptures, we take these sentences: “Christ is said to be bread by signification, and a lamb, and a lion, and a mountain. He is called bread because He is our life and angels’ life; He is said to be a lamb for His innocency; a lion, for strength, wherewith He overcomes the strong devil. But Christ is not so, notwithstanding, after true nature; neither bread, nor a lamb, nor a lion. Why is, then, the holy house! [the Eucharist, the sacred bread] called Christ’s body, or His blood, if it be not truly what it is called... Without they be seen bread and wine, both in figure and in taste, and they be truly, after their hallowing, Christ’s body and His blood, through ghostly mystery.”
These quotations show that the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as now laid down to be believed, was not held in 996, but they also prove that something very like it was growing up in men’s minds. Thus we are not surprised to learn that, less than a hundred years later than Elfric (A.D. 1059), a synod of archbishops, bishops, abbots, and other prelates, enforced one Berengarius to recant his belief in the bread and the wine not being made by the priest the body and the blood of Christ.
In those rude old days, as in our educated times, miracles came in to the support of a new doctrine. The host, it was said, was turned into the likeness of flesh and blood. Actual blood was seen dropping in the cup. The bread on the altar became a child, whom the priest handled and kissed; and after having so done returned the child to the likeness of bread! As to this last miracle, Berengarius observed that the “false varlet,” the priest, “goeth about to tear him with his teeth whom he had kissed before with his mouth!” Other similar miracles or visions were reported, and thus, by miracles and councils, the doctrine, in all its terribleness, at length took firm hold of the church.
We need not question the appearances and the visions; the question is, Who sent them—God or Satan? All the visions or the miracles that may be seen or wrought do not unmake one letter of the truth of God. In the dark days yet to come, the Wicked, who will be revealed, will by Satan’s energy do great things in “all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:99Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, (2 Thessalonians 2:9)); therefore small tokens of Satan’s power, communicated to his agents before these days, need not be considered surprising.
The doctrine being more or less generally accepted in Christendom, it next became necessary to stamp it with the authority of the church. In 1215 a great council was held, under Pope Innocent III., and thirteen hundred bishops enacted and decreed that “the body and blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into the blood.” This is the date when the professors of Christ’s name in their daring first raised in the church the black banner of idolatry. Then it was that men bearing Christ’s name, men called Christians, were by the church’s authority commanded to believe in salvation through the priests’ work instead of Christ’s work. And such as would not so believe were brought under the pains and penalties attaching to heresy.
Further to fix the idolatry into the souls of men, a few years later, it was decreed and commanded that the bread made by the priests’ work into God’s Christ should be lifted by the priest over his head, and adored by the people. And further still, as a few more years proceeded, other popes commanded the offering up to God of this sacrifice as propitiatory for the living, and for the dead, in order to the remission of sins, and for the good of souls in purgatory.
Thus, little by little, Satan introduced heathenism into Christendom. “While men slept, His enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” (Matt. 13:2525But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. (Matthew 13:25)).
Though God has ever had His witnesses to His truth in the church, the church, as she was in the dark ages had become the prey of evil men and seducers, who wax worse and worse, deceivers, and being deceived. (2 Tim. 3:1313But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13)). Holy men there were then as there are now, but Rome’s effort was to crush them, and to remove their witness from the face of the earth. As we view the present in the light of the past, we tremble at the progress made in our land towards the doctrine we are speaking about. May our readers arouse themselves to what Rome is doing in our country in the nineteenth century!
England is now her hunting ground; here she is seeking her converts, and gradually, and little by little, is she leading the minds of this Protestant country, and accustoming its people to sights and to doctrines that surround the awful idolatry of Transubstantiation. The truths of the Christian faith—of God’s own love in giving His Son to die for sinners, of the satisfaction rendered to God on account of sins by Christ on the cross, of the pardon of the sins of all who believe, of Christ’s present glory on high, having taken His seat at God’s right hand, and being before God and for us as the High Priest—are all undermined or overturned in the soul by the notion that a priest can offer to God a sacrifice which shall propitiate Him.
We will now take up two more examples of the courage and constancy of the martyrs who died in defense of the truths attacked by the doctrine that has been before us.
Sir Walter Mille, a Scotchman, was one of these, and his courage stimulated very many in the cause of God’s truth. When Sir Walter was imprisoned, he was an aged man, and very feeble. He was brought out of prison to answer for himself before a great assemblage of bishops, doctors, and friars, and he had to be helped up into the pulpit of the church where the proceedings were carried on. He knelt in prayer, and remained so long praying that the archbishop’s priest who questioned him called on him: “Sir Walter Mille, arise and answer to the articles; for you cannot hold my lord here over-long.”
“Thou art against the blessed sacrament of the altar,” proceeded the priest, “and sayest that the mass is wrong, and is idolatry.”
Then, with a strong, clear voice, which made the church ring and astonished the mass of people present, Sir Walter answered: “A lord or a king sendeth and taketh many to a dinner, and when dinner is in readiness he causeth to ring a bell, and the men come to the hall, and sit down to be partakers of the dinner; but the lord, turning his back unto them, eateth all himself, and mocketh them: so do ye.”
“Thou deniest the sacrament of the altar to be the very body of Christ really in flesh and blood.”
“The Scripture of God is not to be taken carnally, but spiritually, and standeth in faith only. And as for the mass, it is wrong, for Christ was once offered on the cross for man’s trespass, and will never be offered again, for He ended all sacrifice.”
“Thou preachest secretly and privately in houses, and openly in the fields.”
“Yea, man, and on the sea also, sailing in a ship,” replied the brave old man.
“Wilt thou not recant thy erroneous opinions? And if thou wilt not, I will pronounce sentence against thee.”
“I am accused of my life,” rang out the reply; “I know I must die once, and, therefore, as Christ said to Judas, ‘What thou dost, do quickly.’ Ye shall know that I will not recant the truth, for I am corn, and no chaff: I will not be blown away with the wind, nor burst with the flail; but I will abide both.”
Upon these firm words sentence was pronounced against the old man, and it was determined that he should be burned. But his consistency and courage had so moved the town, that the provost would not give orders for the execution of the sentence. The people would not sell the bishop’s servants a cord to bind Sir Walter Mille, nor a tar barrel in which to burn him.
At length he was led by the bishop’s armed men to the place of martyrdom, and the priest in command bade him go up to the stake.
“Nay,” replied Sir Walter; “wilt thou put me up with thy hand, and take part of my death? Thou shalt see me pass up gladly, but by the law of God I am forbidden to put hands upon myself.”
Then the priest led him up to the coals and the wood, and he ascended gladly, exclaiming, “I enter into the altar of God.”
Seeing him about to speak to the people, the armed men sought to stop him, but the vehement cries of the multitude, and especially of a number of young men, who shouted that the bishops would go to the devil for their sin, intimidated them, and gained a hearing for the old Christian warrior.
He knelt upon the coals, then arose, and said: “Dear friends—The cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid to my charge (albeit I be a miserable sinner before God), but only for the defense of the faith of Jesus Christ, set forth in the New and Old Testaments unto us; for which, as the faithful martyrs have offered themselves gladly before, being assured, after the death of their bodies, of eternal felicity, so this day I praise God that He hath called me of His mercy, among the rest of His servants, to seal up His truth with my life, which, as I have received it of Him, so willingly I offer it to His glory.
“Therefore, as you will escape the eternal death, be no more seduced with the lies of priests, monks, friars, abbots, bishops, and the rest of the sect of Antichrist, but depend upon Jesus and His mercy, that ye may be delivered from condemnation.”
As his voice swept over the crowd the people answered with lamentations and tears.
Having prayed again, his executioners hoisted him upon the stake, the flames encircled him, and he cried, “Lord, have mercy on me! Pray, people, while there is time.”
The stoutness of his spirit and his constancy in Christ so stirred up the people, that no other martyr was burned after Sir Walter Mille in Scotland.
The touching testimony of that godly man, Master Laurence Saunders, parson of All Hallows, in Bread Street, London, who suffered martyrdom in February, 1555, shall end this paper.
“Grace and comfort in Christ! Amen. Dear wife, be merry in the mercies of our Christ... We be shortly to be dispatched hence unto our good Christ. Amen, amen. Wife, I would you sent me my shirt, which you know whereunto it is consecrated. Let it be sewed down on both sides, and not open.”
Can we imagine her tears as she fulfilled his desire, and as she sent him the garment in which he was to be burned?
“Oh, my heavenly Father, look upon me in the face of Thy Christ... He will do so, and therefore I will not be afraid what sin, death, hell, and damnation can do against me. O wife, always remember the Lord. God bless you! Yea, He will bless thee, good-wife, and thy poor boy also. Only cleave unto Him, and He will give thee all things. Pray, pray, pray!”
The following extract is from a letter written on the very morning he was burned.
“Oh, my dear brethren, whom I love in the Lord, being loved of you also in the Lord, be merry and rejoice for me, now ready to go up to that mine inheritance, which I myself am most unworthy of; but my dear Christ is worthy, who hath purchased the same for me at so dear a price...
“God’s blessing be with you always! Amen. Even now towards the offering of a burnt sacrifice. Oh, my Christ, help, or else I perish!
“LAURENCE SAUNDERS.”