thing had better be written about these five extra sacraments. I wonder that was never thought of before. It is surprising that it never occurred to the apostles, when they were writing their Epistles, to say a syllable about these seven sacraments. It would seem to have been very thoughtless in them. I may be very hard to please, but I cannot help feeling a desire to have Scripture, as well as unwritten tradition, in support of a doctrine or a practice called Christian. I like to be able to trace a doctrine all the way back to the Bible, and to find it originating in the very oracles of God themselves. Some think it sufficient, if they can follow a doctrine back as far as the earlier fathers; and especially if they can trace it to the Epistles of Ignatius. But this does not satisfy me. There are certain other Epistles, rather more ancient, in which I should like to find the doctrine. Ignatius was a very good man, but he did not belong to the days of Paul, by any means. Ignatius, Clemens, and all those good fathers, stood on the bank of the stream: but Paul and his associates sat around the fountain. These last saw truth in its rise; the others only saw it in its flow. True, they were near the source, but they were not at it; and who knows not that a stream may be corrupted very near its source? If I live eighteen or nineteen miles distant from a certain fountain, whose stream passes by my residence, and I want to know whether its waters have been corrupted, do I trace back the stream until I come within a mile or two of the fountain, and there stop,-concluding, that such as the water is there, such it must be at the spring? Do I not rather go all the way up to the fountain? Which ought I to do? It strikes me as very strange, that any should suspend their search after truth a century or two this side of the Bible era. I think they should go all the way back to the Bible. which is the One is marHow does it answer to the definition of sacrament?* What spiritual thing is signified by it? Marriage is said to be "honourable in all :" but nothing is said of its being a sacrament. If it be a sacrament, why are not priests, as well as others, permitted to take this sacrament. Why should the universal clergy be debarred the privilege of this holy thing? Does its sacred character render it unsuitable to those who fill the sacred office? The other day I was thinking-for, being a Protestant, I dare to think even on religion-and this thought occurred to me: "Is it possible that God has denied the whole body of the clergy, of all nations and ages, the privilege of knowing how He pitieth them that fear him; and of approaching to the experimental knowledge of his exceeding readiness to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him-the privilege, in other words, of being able to feel the force of some of the most touching representations which He has made of His dispositions towards His creatures, founded on the parental relation?" I read in the Bible (Ps. ciii. 13), that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." Now, can it be sinful for a minister of Jesus Christ to know by experience (the only way in which it can be fully known), how a father pitieth, and how, consequently, the Lord pitieth His people? I think it is man, and not God, that constitutes this a sin. Again, *The Romanists contrive to make for themselves a Scriptural proof that marriage is a Sacrament, in the following manner: The Greek word musterion (mystery) occurs 27 times in the Greek Testament. In every other instance, the Rhemish version translates it by the word mystery; but in Eph. v. 32 (referring to the preceding context, verses 22-31), they render it by the word sacrament: "This is a great sacrament." (The Vulgate here reads sacramentum-as also in Eph. i. 9; iii. 3, 9; Col. i. 27; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Rev. i. 20; xvii. 7; but in most of these passages it cannot mean a sacrament, in the technical sense of the term; but is only another word for mystery, as the Rhemish themselves translate it. So that in this single instance it is evidently translated sacrament only to serve a purpose, and to bolster up the notion that marriage is a sacrament.-A. S. T. does God make this general appeal to His creatures, (Matt. vii. 11), "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!" And has He, at the same time, excluded a large class of His creatures from the privilege of ever knowing, how well disposed parents are to bestow good things on their children? And has he laid under this ban, the very persons whom He has appointed to represent and testify of Him to men? Has He appealed to the parental feelings of His creatures, and then forbidden a large and important class of them to know what those feelings are? This is rather more than I can believe. A minister of Jesus Christ may decline the privilege of marriage in his own case; he may not use that power, as Paul, in his peculiar circumstances, did not; and as many a Protestant minister does not. This is one thing; but has God cut off the whole order of the clergy from even the right to marry? That is the question. that is a very different thing. And Because Christ says, in reference to the bread, "This is my body," the Roman Catholics contend that the bread is changed into the body of Christ; and this they call Transubstantiation. And when we say, that the passage is not to be interpreted literally, but that the bread is merely indicated as the representative of Christ's body, they reply with wonderful confidence, "Ah, but does He not say it is his body?-does He say it represents his body merely ?-what authority have Protestants to bring in a figure here?" Now let me be heard. I have no disposition to ridicule the doctrine of Transubstantiation, especially as it professes to be founded on Scripture. I would give always a candid hearing to the claims of a doctrine, which even seems to be held out of respect to the authority of the Bible. But I must say, that the Roman Catholic does not carry his veneration for the Scriptures far enough; or he is not consistent in his interpretation of them. I think I can show that, to be consistent with himself, he should believe in many more than one Transubstantiations. Let him turn to Luke xxii. 19, 20. He reads in verse 19, "This is my body." Therefore, he reasons, the bread becomes the body of Christ. Very well. But read verse 20, "This cup is the new testament." Here is another Transubstantiation. The cup or chalice becomes the new testament. It is no longer gold or silver, but a testament or will. Does not Christ say it is the new testament? What right have Roman Catholics to bring in a figure here. The cup is a will-Christ says so. To be sure, if it were carried to a probate office, it would be thought out of place, and an article for a silversmith to prove rather than a judge of probate. But no matter for that. What if the senses do tell you that it is still a cup, and the body still bread, will you believe those liars—the senses? But if they are such liars as this would make them out to be, why should I ever believe them-why should I believe them, when they tell me that I see in the Bible those words: "This is my body?" That testimony of the senses the Roman Catholic believes : but if they lie about the body, still declaring it is bread, after it has ceased to be any such thing,-why may they not lie in regard to the letters which spell this is my body." Under the appearance of these letters there may be something quite different, even as, under the appearance of bread in the eucharist, is the body of Christ as the Roman Catholics affirm! But these are not the only instances of Transubstantiation. The Bible is full of them. I find two cases of this change recorded in Rev. i. 20; one in which certain stars become angels, and another in which certain candlesticks become churches. Do you doubt it? Read for yourself: "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." The construction here is pre cisely similar to "this is my body." Christ is the speaker in each case, and He says the stars are angels, and the candlesticks are churches. Who has any right to imagine a figure here? Perhaps every body does not know that Transubstantiation is an Old Testament doctrine. But, according to this mode of interpretation, it is. St. Paul, in 1 Cor. x 4, alluding to the rock which Moses smote in the wilderness, says, "That rock was Christ"-not, it represented, but it was Christ! Away with your figures. Many other examples of Transubstantiation might be given from the Old Testament. Let two remarkable cases suffice, of which we have an account in Genesis xli. 26, 27: "The seven good kine are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years," &c. Here seven cows and seven ears of corn are changed into seven years of three hundred and sixty-five days each! I suppose I might find many hundred examples of these Transubstantiations. Now, does the Roman Catholic believe in all of them? He ought, most undoubtedly he ought, on the same ground that he believes in one. Let him, then, either believe in them all, or else never adduce," This is my body," in proof of the Transubstantiation held by his church. I wish Mr. H. or somebody else would set me right, if I err in this argument.* *This argument might be drawn out at much greater length. In short, any one who carefully studies the language of the Old Testament, even in our Authorized Version, will clearly see that this metaphorical mode of speaking-such as saying, "All flesh is grass" (Isaiah xi. 8) rather than "all flesh is like unto grass" (omitting the words as or like) belongs to the very genius of the Original Hebrew: for he will find no end of instances, in which the word as is printed in italics, in order to indicate that there is nothing in the Hebrew to correspond with it, even in cases in which the idiom of our language requires it. “Behold, Thou hast made my days an handbreadth" (Ps. xxxix. 5). "The wrath of a king is messengers of death." Pleasant words are an honeycomb" (Prov. xxi. 14, 24), &c., &c.-A. S. T. |