LECTURE II.

THE TRIBUNAL, BY WHICH THIS PRELATICAL DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION MUST BE ADJUDICATED.

WHILE the nature of man is so constituted, as to dispose him to submit to that authority which is true and valid, it also compels him to resist that which is unlawful. Thus, when our Saviour had entered upon his public ministry, and had manifested his design to interfere with the established usages and opinions of the Jews, they came unto him, as he was teaching in the temple, and said, "by what authority doest thou these things?-who gave thee this authority?" (Math. 21, 23.) The propriety and reasonableness of such an inquiry, (while, in view of the captious manner in which it was, at this time, proposed, Christ gave only an indirect and parabolic answer,)— our Saviour has fully allowed, by the frequent appeals which he, at other times, makes to the evidences of his divine mission.

When, therefore, any body of men assume to themselves the exclusive possession of the gifts and calling of God;—declare themselves to be the one and only true church of Christ, out of which there is no covenanted salvation; and pronounce a sentence of excommunication, and of withering anathema, upon all other denominations, who call themselves christian;-unchurching their churches; deposing their ministers; confounding their orders; protesting, as forgeries, their commissions; despoiling of all virtue their most solemn ordinances; and thus casting them out of the temple, as intruders;—we seriously put to them the question, which was arrogantly addressed to Christ, and ask, "by what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority? And, since these claims are either founded on assured divine sanctions, and are, therefore,

to be most humbly and implicity allowed; or are based upon the prescriptions of uninspired and fallible men, and are, in this case, mere assumptions, involving the deepest criminality; it will not do for their abetters, to draw themselves up in lordly dignity, and with the declaration that the ground of such authority is too notorious to be denied,' violate the spirit while adopting the language of our Saviour, when he said, "neither tell I you by what authority I do these things."

To this question, therefore, which we propound in all sincerity and honesty of purpose, and with an unfeigned desire to know and obey the truth as it is in Jesus, that in all things by His grace given unto us, we may please God, and walk obediently in his statutes and ordinances, we must demand a reply. And as we are not willing to abandon that position which we have taken, and as we believe, by the guidance of holy Scripture, we cannot bow down to these masters, or serve them, until they have duly authenticated the divine warrant of their supremacy.

The first point, therefore, to be decided, and which is of vital importance to the determination of the whole scheme of church policy, is the rule by which the claims of prelacy, or of popery, or of presbytery, are to be measured.-What is the tribunal to which their claims are to be brought for adjudication? Who is the judge, by whom our appeal is to be finally issued? For until these preliminaries are decided, "we will but be led," as Alexander Henderson told King Charles, "into a labyrinth and want a thread to wind us out again."2

Now this inquiry is, we humbly think, most plainly decided for us in a celebrated passage in the book of Isaiah. The Jews were prone to seek counsel and direction in their perplexities from diviners, wizards, and enchantments. The prophet is, therefore, instructed to rebuke them for this heaven-daring course, which was as foolish as it was impious. "Should not a people," he asks, "seek unto their God?-to the law and to the testimony?" "The law of God is the standard of duty; his sure testimony the fountain of truth; his promise the firm ground of hope." All principles, practices and characters, are to be tried by this criterion. All doctrines, counsels, or claims, by whatever advisers or priestly instructers they are offered, must be brought to this unerring touchstone. All asserted privileges, and pretended endowments, must be submitted to the arbitrament of the law and the testimony; so that, if not found

1) See Oxford Tr. No. vii., p. 2, and Dr. Hook's Two Sermons, p. 7.

2) See Life of Alexander Henderson, p. 655.

LECT. II.] NO SUBMISSION TO THE FATHERS.

35

warranted and authorized by the word of God, then is there not even the shadow of a foundation upon which they can be made to rest. They are manifestly without authority. "Here," says the learned, and more pious, episcopal commentator, Mr. Scott, "here, in this passage, we have a solemn, decisive, and scriptural appeal, applicable in all ages and cases."

This appeal we now make, and the answer to our inquiry"who gave thee this authority?"-we require shall be adduced from the law and the testimony, and not from antiquity, perpetual succession, universal consent of the fathers, or the universal practice of the primitive church. To these inferior sources of evidence we will freely allow weight and value, as historians of facts or of opinions, so far at least as they are borne out by the positive and authoritative warrant of the divine word; but when considered in themselves, and as measured by their own intrinsic importance, we at once reject them as of no authoritative value whatever. Apart from scripture, and from a reasonable support in scripture, we give place, by subjection, no, not far an hour, were it even to the whole church, in all its priests, prelates and councils, from the year of A. D. 100, when the last inspired apostle had died, to the present hour. We utterly repudiate all antiquarian servility, and spiritual prostration to the ghostly rule of church guides and church principles.

Our first beginning in this discussion must be, the principle of the supreme authority of scripture, as arbiter and judge. And this first principle we regard as most reasonable, in a controversy between two parties, both of whom professedly receive the Bible as the only, or at least as an infallible, rule of faith and practice. Both parties mutually acknowledge the divine origin and authority of the Bible, while one party most peremptorily rejects any other rule, except as "unauthoritative tradition." We cannot, therefore, allow prelatists to found their argument for their exclusive claims upon the acknowledged existence of prelacy in an advanced age of the church; and thence to argue backward to the apostolic age; for we yield no submission whatever to the opinions of the church, as such, and this too, at a time, when she had corrupted the plain doctrines and ordinances of God, and had almost suffocated christianity by a superincumbent load of vain and foolish ceremonies. We protest against the judgment of the Nicene, or even of the earlier church, because they had both, in many and grievous respects, made the word of God of none effect, by their

1) See Hawkins Dissert. on Unauthoritative Tradition, Oxford, 1819.

traditions received from the fathers. We make our appeal from ancient, to apostolic christianity; and, from all will-worship of men, to the pure word and worship of God. "The church," when the argument suits a prelatic purpose, "is not built upon individuals-nor knows individuals." Neither does it rest, do we affirm, upon "catholic teaching, expressing and representing that more ancient religion which of old time found voice, and attained consistency in Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, Chrysostom and other primitive doctors."2 Our church, and the true catholic church, rests upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. This rule of scripture, then, being a first principle among those concerned in this discussion, while the authority of the fathers is a question of most serious dispute; and since the authority of the church depends, at best, only upon human testimony, we cast our anchor in the haven of divine truth, fearless of whatever storms, from the turbulent ocean of ecclesiastical antiquity, may burst upon us. Let those who will, venture on it, and make shipwreck of their faith.

Now, since Christ has positively declared that in his church there should be-as we understand him to affirm-no such distinctions and no such arrogant claims to superiority, as are presented by prelatists, (Mark iv. 42,)-since the Bible was adapted to the necessities of the present, as much as of the ancient church; since it expressly forewarns us against false teachers and false doctrines which should prevail even "in the temple of God;" and since, on the other hand, the system of prelacy is declared by its advocates to be one of "the fundamental" and "great doctrines of religion," so that to "regard it as no doctrine but only alterable discipline, is not to keep the SUBSTANCE of the FAITH entire," and to oppose it is to "violate not a small, but a great duty of the christian religion," and to become "schismatics, if not heretics;"-seeing that these things are so, we demand before God and the world that they, who thus sit in judgment upon us, and peril by their decision, our everlasting interests-shall produce divine authority for the rendition of such a judgment. On them, and

1) Newman on Romanism, p. 288. 2) Ibid, p. 289.

3) See Chillingworth, vol. iii., p. 237, 238.

4) See Palmer on the Ch., vol. ii., p. 86.

5) This description of ecclesiastical antiquity is given by the fathers of the Council of Trent, in their fifth session, where they speak of "enter

LECT. II.]

THE QUESTION AT ISSUE stated.

37

not on us, rests the whole burden of proof. We hold firmly to the Bible-to the law and the testimony. And by that sacred institute they must disprove our claim, and bring us in guilty before God. Till then-we charge them with "sitting in the temple of God as God, and defying those whom the Lord has not defied."

Addressing them in the adapted language of Dryden, we may

say,

Despair at our foundations, then to strike,
Till you can PROVE YOUR FAITH, apostolic;
A limpid stream drawn from the native source,
Succession lawful, in a lineal course.

"For" such high claims "traditions must not fight,
But you must prove that prelacy is right."1

Before proceeding to the discussion of this point, it will, however, be important to present a full view of the doctrine in question. We will, therefore, endeavor to state what is the faith on this subject of the presbyterian church-wherein that church. harmonizes with the prelatical-wherein they differ from each other and what is precisely that doctrine against which we contend.

The presbyterian church teaches, that besides the catholic or universal church, which is invisible, and consists of the whole number of the elect, there is "the visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel, (that is, not confined to one nation, as before, under the law,) and consists of all those, throughout the world, that profess the true religion, together with their children, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God; out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation."

As "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and his benefits, and to confirm our interest in him; as also to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his word," which "with a precept authorizing their use, contain a promise of benefit to worthy receivers ;" "there be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the gospel, that is to say, baptism and the Lord's supper, neither of which may be dispensed by any but by a minister of the word lawfully ordained."

1) See the "Hind and Panther," in Poetical Works, vol. 2, p. 61 and 67.

2) Conf. of Faith, chap. xxv., § 2.

3) Conf. of Faith, chap, xxvii., § 1 and 3.

4) Ibid., § 4.