APPENDIX I

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM AND BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.

ALL Christians recognise that baptism is - in the true, as distinguished from the superstitious sense of the word - a sacrament; that is, it is an outward symbol to represent a spiritual truth. But most even of those who reject that root error of apostasy, baptismal regeneration, cling to the belief that the truth which the rite symbolises is the new birth.

This is one of the many amazing vagaries of religious thought. For, as already noticed, Scripture in the plainest possible way connects baptism with death; and there is not one solitary passage in which it is mentioned in connection with regeneration or birth; not one which connects it in any way with the operation of the Holy Spirit, or the communication of spiritual life.

But, it will be said, there are two passages in which, though not expressly mentioned, it is clearly referred to, For the Christian, death implies resurrection ; but we must not confound the resurrection with the new birth. which negative this statement. I allude of course to i John iii. and Titus iii. With these passages therefore I now propose to deal.

The occasion of the Nicodemus sermon was the first Passover of the Lord’s ministry. The fame of His miracles was abroad, and many were led thereby to “believe in His name” They were miracle made disciples. Theirs was a political faith, for the hope of a Messiah was part of the politics of every Jew. Nicodemus, however, seems to have had deeper aspirations, which led him to seek out the Lord, albeit he came to Him in secret. The multitude thought only of a greater Judas Maccabus; Nicodemus hailed him as a God sent teacher. He was as much in advance of the sensual crowd as is the Pharisee of our own day, but he was just as far from the Kingdom. Therefore he was "answered" at the very threshold by the overwhelming announcement," Except a man be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God."

The retort of Nicodemus was not the expression of ignorant coarseness. Coming from such a man, it betokens rather his impatience at being met by what may have seemed to him an enigmatical subtlety. Possibly it was a weariness of such subtleties, the stock-in-trade of the Rabbis, which brought him to the Saviour. But his question only brought out the still more explicit statement, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

Now, first it is essential to notice that this is not a twofold birth (of water, and of the Spirit), but emphatically one - a birth of water-and-Spirit, in contrast with the birth which is of flesh. This is not obvious in a translation; but in the original it is unmistakable. And the context emphasises it, for in the very next sentence, and again in verse 8, the water is omitted altogether, and the new man is spoken of merely as "born of the Spirit." It follows, therefore, that whatever the water signifies it must be implied in the words "born of the Spirit," and every one who has been "born anew" has been "born of water and the Spirit."

Secondly, it is certain that the doctrine here implied ought to have been known to Nicodemus; for the Lord rebuked his ignorance of it. But what is called "Christian baptism" had not yet been instituted. Even "the Twelve" knew nothing of it: how then could Nicodemus have known of it? The only baptism then known was that of the Baptist, and that baptism was expressly contrasted with the Spirit’s work Matt. iii. ix). It was a public confession of failure and sin, preparatory to receiving a coming Messiah. But "Christian baptism" was a public confession of faith in Christ already come and gone back to heaven, and a public submission to the Lordship of Christ on the part of those who professed to have been already "born of the Spirit."’ That is to say, baptism followed the new birth.

When Cornelius and his household were brought in, the question was not "Why should not baptized persons receive the Spirit?" but "Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" Their baptism was not the completion of the new birth, but the recognition that they were already born of water and the Spirit.

(Acts xix. i - 6 gives in a marked way the contrast between the two baptisms. The disciples then were re-baptized, not to make them Christians, but because they were Christians. And the coming upon them of the Holy Spirit, as theiEe mentioned, had reference expressly to the exercise of Pentecostal gifts. )

But all this is negative. The water of John iii. does not refer to baptism: the question remains, What is its symbolism ? Here we must keep prominently in view that the truth involved ought to have been known to Nicodemus. "Art thou the teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?" the Lord exclaimed in indignant wonder at his ignorance. Therefore in speaking of the new birth by water and the Spirit the Lord referred to some distinctive truth of the Old Testament Scriptures, which ought to have been familiar to a Rabbi of the Sanhedrin.

Before we turn to the Old Testament, it is important to inquire whether any further light can be obtained from the New. The second passage already mentioned at once suggests itself: "According to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus iii. 5).

Each of the prominent words here used occurs but once again in the New Testament: "renewing" in Rom. xii. "regeneration" in Matt. xix. 28; and "washing" in Eph. v. 26. The word rendered "washing" is a noun, not a verb. This loutron is, strictly speaking, not the washing, but the vessel which contains the water. Certain expositors of course wish to read it "font" or "laver" ; but this is a false exegesis. The New Testament is written in the language of the Septuagint version of the Old; and we turn to that authority to settle for us the meaning of any doubtful term. Appeal may here be made to a weighty minority of theologians, from Calvin to the late Bishop Ryle (of Liverpool). Dr. Ryle’s "six reasons" for rejecting the popular exegesis are conclusive. In his Commentary on John iii. 5 Calvin writes, "I cannot bring myself to believe that Christ speaks of baptism; for it would have been inappropriate."

And for this purpose the Apocryphal books are sometimes as useful as the sacred Scriptures. Now, loutron is not the rendering for "laver" in the Greek version. The LXX use it twice; namely in Cant. iv. 2 (where it is the washing place for sheep); and in Ecclesiasticus XXX1. 25, where the Son of Sirach writes: "He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again what avails his loutron?"

This last passage is of the very highest importance here, and gives us the clew we are in search of. The reference is to one of the principal ordinances of the Mosaic ritual - a type, moreover, which fills a large place in New Testament doctrine - especially in Hebrews - namely, the great sin-offering as connected with "the water of purification" (Numb. xix.).

In Titus iii. 5, as in John iii. 5, a false exegesis depends on separating the words in a way that the original will not permit. The absence of both preposition and article before "renewing," requires that the words shall be construed together : - " the loutron of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." The reference here is not to a mystical rite established in after times by the Church in its decadence, but to one of the greatest of the types of the divinely ordered Hebrew religion. The great sin- offering of Numb. xix. was burned outside the camp, and water which had flowed over the ashes had cleansing efficacy.

But does Scripture connect this type with the Spirit’s work? First let us note that in Matt. xix. 28 - the only other passage where the word "regeneration"’ is used - it refers to the fulfilment of the Kingdom blessings to Israel, the epoch described in Acts iii. 21 as "the of the restoratian of all things, which God hath from the mouth of all His holy prophets." With this to guide us, we turn to one of the most definite of the prophecies, Ezek. xxxvi., xxxvii. We there read: "I .. take you from among the heathen, and gather you of all countries, and will bring you into your own. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you. . . . A heart also will I give you. . . . And I will put My heart within you." Then follows the vision of the valley of dry bones. The prophet is commanded to say, "thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, 0 beat and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." - once again the words are repeated, " I shall put My heart in you, and ye shall live."

Here then is the most characteristic of all the prophecy of that great revival which the Lord’s own lips have described as the "regeneration " - a prophecy to which the Jew clung with special earnestness, a prophecy ignorance of which in a Rabbi of the Sanhedrin was a disgraceful as if an English theologian knew nothing of the Nicodemus sermon! And it was the great truth of this prophecy - salvation through the sin-offering in the power of the Divine Spirit, that the Lord enforced in His words to Nicodemus, and which the Apostle emphasised in the Epistle to Titus. Thus only could the sinner enter the Kingdom.

We conclude, then, that whatever the water typified ii Ezek. xxxvi. and Numb. xix., it symbolised also in John iii. How could the defiled Israelite gain access to the sacrifice of the great sin-offering for purification? Water which had flowed over the ashes of the sacrifice was sprinkled upon him. We know what the sacrifice typified, what did the water typify? What is the means by which the defiled sinner is brought into contact, as it were, with the great sin-offering, of Calvary? By "the word of the truth of the Gospel." And so we find in the only other passage where the word loutron occurs, the cleansing is by "the loutron of water in the Word" (Eph. v. 26).

Baptism is a public act performed by man, for which man can fix the day and hour. The new birth of water and the Spirit is altogether the work of God; and as our Lord so expressly declares, no man can forecast, no man can command it. "The Spirit breathes where He wills, and thou hearest His voice, but knowest not whence He cometh and whither He goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." It was presumably the obvious reference to Ezekiel which led our translators to render irvEisa by wind. Of course it may have that meaning; just as in English "spirit" may mean alcohol. But the word occurs 370 times in the New Testament (23 times in John), and yet nowhere else is it translated wind.

But the need of all this discussion depends solely on necessity of clearing away the accumulations of error prejudice which obscure and distort the teaching of the passage. In added words the Lord Himself has made His meaning unequivocally clear. In the ninth verse Nicodemus repeats as a humbled seeker after truth, the question which he has previously raised (verse 4) petulant unbelief, "How can a man be born anew And now the answer is vouchsafed to him: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." The new birth is not the result of a mystical human rite, but of faith in Christ - not as a teacher or an example, but as the ant type of the great sin-offering; as "lifted up," that is, crucified (comp. chap. viii. 28, and xii. 32). And as other Scriptures tell us, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." "We are born again by the living and eternally abiding Word of God" (x Pet. i. 23) Every one who sanctions the baneful delusion that the water of John iii. refers to baptism, serves as a decoy not only for the advocates of baptismal regeneration but also for those who preach salvation apart from the great sacrifice of Calvary.

In this matter Christendom is in direct conflict with Scripture. Christendom teaches that baptism symbolises birth. Holy Scripture declares that it symbolises death. Christendom teaches that it is the putting away of the filth of the flesh. Holy Scripture declares it is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward And in the same passage (i Pet. iii. 21) the apostle enforces the symbolism of death by declaring that baptism is the antitype of the Flood. The water which overwhelmed the world bore up the ark.

Noah was thus saved from death by death; as is the sinner who on believing in Christ becomes one with Him in death. But if it be a question of the new birth we are "born again BY THE WORD OF GOD.’ (i Pet. . 23).

The word "baptism" occurs 22 times, and the verb "baptize" 77 times, in the New Testament. But this statement might leave a false impression as to the prominence given it in the doctrinal teaching of the Scriptures. Of these 99 occurences, 55 are in the Gospel narratives, and 27 in the Acts of the Apostles. The rest only are in the Epistles, and in only nine passages. Of these, one (i Cor. x. 2) relates to the Israelites being "baptized unto Moses," another (i Cor. xii. 13) to the Spirit’s baptism and a third (i Cor. xv. 29) to "baptism for the dead."

But a further analysis will show results still more startling. In i Cor. i. 13 - 17, not only is the mention of baptism not doctrinal, but the Apostle there thanks God that he himself had not baptized, and declares that Christ had not sent him to baptize. Could he have possibly used such language if he had been acting under the commission of Matt. xxviii. 19, or if baptism held the place which Christendom has given it?

It appears, therefore, that in the theology of the Epistles there are but five passages where baptism is doctrinally mentioned. They are as follows : - "Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized unto Christ Jesus were baptized unto His death? We were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto death" (Rom. vi. 3, 4). "For as many of you as were baptized unto Christ did put on Christ" (Gal. iii. 27). "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv. 5). "Buried with Him in baptism "(Col. ii. 12). "Which also [i.e., Noah’s flood] in the antitype doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (i Pet. iii. 21). The words of i Cor. vi.ii have been adapted by both translators and revisers to suit the popular reference of them to baptism. But the margin of R.V. gives what the Apostle actually wrote. He specifies sinners of the worst type, and adds: "And such were some of you; but ye washed yourselves, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and "in the Spirit of our God." Now, the "washing" is a figure; sanctification and justification are facts : what, then,, does the figure denote? The typology of the Mosaic ritual will supply the answer. Washing with water always means practical cleansing.’

Ignorance of this has had baneful effects on Christian doctrine, tending, as it does, to make the great Atonement seem an excuse for neglecting practical purity of life. The Apostle’s meaning is thus clear: "You turned from your sins, you were sanctified, you were justified." And this will enable us to understand Acts xxii. (the only other passage where the same expression occurs). The Apostle records the words which Ananias addresseci to him at his conversion: "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." To suppose that, in direct opposition to his definite, teaching about baptism, the Apostle in this didactic and incidental way intended teach that it was a purging from sin, is too wild for discussion.

Such is its meaning, ex. gr., in Heb. x. 22. It is a reference to the ritual of Numb. xix. The Israelite was cleansed by being sprinkled with the water which had flowed over the ashes of the great sin-offering, and then by bathing himself in water.

His meaning again is clear: "Arise and be baptized, and turn away from your evil courses, calling on His name."

This note would be incomplete without some reference to Matt. xxviii. iv. But the questions to which the passage gives rise are much too large to allow, of their being adequately discussed here. The fact that the commission there recorded remained a dead letter is wrongly used to discredit the authenticity of the words. That the commission was not acted on by the Apostles is clear to every student of the Acts. It directed them to go out and make disciples of the Gentiles, whereas they preached to the Jews only. A special vision was needed to lead Peter to visit the house of Cornelius; and the Apostle to the Gentiles declared emphatically, "He sent me not to baptize." At the Council of Acts xv. no one of the inspired apostles was led to refer to this commission, and there is no mention in Acts of any case of baptism in the name of the Trinity.

All this is urged as proof that the passage is an interpolation. But here the answer is obvious that, were this so, the passage would have been so framed as to avoid such a criticism. The solution of the difficulty is to be found in the essentially prophetic character of the first Gospel, and the well-known distinction between ultimate and intermediate fulfilment. If this distinction be overlooked, many a page of Holy Scripture musts be rejected on the same ground.

Regarded as a prophecy, the commission belongs to the day, still future, when "the Lord shall be king over all the earth," and "all peoples, nations, and languages shall serve Him." And when that day comes, the question will not be of individual faith in an absent and rejected Saviour and Lord, but of submission to Divine sovereignty, openly declared and enforced on earth. And baptism will become "the outward and visible sign" of that submission. The intelligent Bible student will here turn at once to passages like Daniel vii. 13,14, Zechariah xiv., and the many "kingdom" Psalms (such as xcvi. to c.). And now we can understand still more fully why it should be at the close of Matthew’s Gospel that this commission is recorded, and why it is to the Gentile nations that the messengers are sent forth, blessing to Israel being assumed. The reason is simple and clear, namely, that prophetically the commission belongs to the age when the Church of this dispensation shall have passed to heaven (i Thess. iv. i6, 17), and When the true remnant of Israel - the "all Israel" of Romans Xi. 26 (see ix. 6, 27), typified by the "five hundred brethren" who gathered round the Lord upon the mountain - shall be the missionaries to the world.!

( It is generally admitted that this was the appearing mentioned in x Cor. xv. 6. If not, then this, the most important event of the "forty days," is unnoticed in the Gospels - an incredible suppositioh. I may here remark that the English reader is apt to be misled by the "then" and the "they’s" of Matt. xxviii. i6, i7. These words, which seem so emphatically to limit the appearing to the Eleven, are in fact not in the Greek at all. "Then" is "the 8s resumptive," often untranslatable, sometimes (as in verse z) left untranslated. It here marks that verse s6 is not a continuation of a consecutive narrative, but the record of a special event, and the pronouns are merely implied in the verbs used. The Eleven are expressly mentioned, no doubt, because every one knew that the "five hundred brethren" were there, and the Lord’s command to the Apostles to remain in Jerusalem might have a cast a doubt upon the fact that they were present.)

May I add that any one of "the five hundred" could have framed a narrative of all the appearings of the "forty days"? The omission of such a record in Matthew is not to be explained by ignorant talk about "fragmentrary materials," &c. As I have said elsewhere, those who profess to account for the Bible on natural principles can give no explanation of the omissions of Scripture. The first Gospel ignores the Lord’s appearances in Jerusalem for the same reason that it ignores Jerusalem altogether, so far as it was possible to ignore it, in the record of the Lord’s ministry from first to last.

The purpose of the four Gospels in the Divine scheme of revelation is to present Christ in different aspects of His Person and work, as Israel’s Messiah, Jehovah’s Servant, Son of Man, and Son of God. It is with the first that we have here to do. Galilee was prophetically and dispensationally connected with the godly remnant, which, in the apostasy of the nation, was divinely regarded as the true Israel. Therefore it is that to the Lord’s ministry in Galilee such prominence is given in the Hebrew Gospel. According to Matthew, the last words spoken to the Eleven before the agony in Gethsemane were that after He was risen again He would go before them into Galilee (Matt. xxvi. 32). And the first message sent to His "brethren" after the resurrection, first by the mouth of the angel who appeared to the woman at the sepulchre, and afterwards by His own lips, was that He would meet them in Galilee (Matt. xxviii. 7, so).

What then was needed to complete the book? But for the guiding and restraining Spirit of God, the Apostle would doubtless have given a record of the events of those forty days. From a practical and common-sense point of view, it is idle to talk here of "fragmentary materials." Any one of the disciples could have compiled such a narrative, but it would have been wholly foreign to the scope and purpose of the first Gospel. As it is the Galilee ministry which is the burden of it, all that remains is to record how, in the scene of that ministry, the Lord gathered His disciples round Him, and gave them the pregnant and prophetic words with which that Gospel closes.

As regards the meaning of this difficult text, 1 Cor 15:29, Bengel declares that "baptism for the advantage of the dead came into use from a wrong interpretation of this very passage." "Nor is it to be believed," Bloomfield writes, "that the Apostle would for the sake of a very precarious argument countenance so grovelling a superstition." And yet we are told that the reference is to "a practice not otherwise known to us" (Alford). If it be so, it is a most pitiable collapse of a sublime passage - " a splendid outburst of mingled rhetoric and logic." Indeed the suggestion is as silly as it is irreverent. If, as Alford supposes, it is an ad hominem argument, it must be an appeal to the common faith and practice of all Christians everywhere. The solution of the enigma is to be found in correcting the punctuation. Verses 20 - 28 are in a separate paragraph. And resuming at verse 29 the argument of verse 19, the Apostle exclaims, "What shall they do who are baptized?" For while baptism connotes death it implies resurrection; and if this be gone both the blessing and even the meaning of the ordinance are gone with it. "It is for corpses if the dead rise not: why are they then baptized for them?"

See Dr. Bullinger’s Figures of Speech, pp. 41 - 44). 15

APPENDIX II.

ROMISH PROPAGANDISM

A FEW years ago I received a letter from a gentleman living near London, expressing solicitude for my spiritual welfare, and an earnest desire to see me within the fold of the Catholic Church.

Though the writer was a stranger to me, the tone in which he wrote was such that I was careful to reply in terms befitting the courtesy and grace which marked his letter. My acknowledgment drew from him a rejoinder of several sheets, in which, still more urgently, he pressed his appeal. In answer to this I wrote in terms which I supposed would be deemed final, and enclosed a copy of one of my books (The Gospel and its Ministry), to which I referred as proof that I already possessed in Christ every blessing which he imagined the Church could give; and moreover, that I was, from his point of view, a hopeless heretic. My surprise therefore was great at receiving again a prompt reply at considerable length, assuring me of the pleasure with which he had read my book, and of the increasing desire be felt that I should be in my right place, namely, within "the Church."

My kind and courteous, though unknown, friend, never failed promptly to renew his appeals to me, whenever, by replying to his letters (which I did generally after long intervals), I afforded him the opportunity. I fear my Protestant zeal led me to say many things that were galling and some that were unjust ; but nothing from my pen availed to betray my correspondent into an expression of anger or even of disappointment.

Towards the close of our correspondence he sent me a copy of a Catholic treatise, to show me how grievously I misjudged his Church. His letter, enclosing the book, gave me the first definite hint of what I naturally guessed, that his letters to me were part of a systematic effort to lead selected Protestants to make their submission to Rome. This fact renders the correspondence worthy of mention in these pages. Nor is there any breach of confidence in my giving extracts from his letters, for I exclude everything that could possibly betray his identity. Such are the methods by which the perverts to Rome are won. Here are the arguments which influence them.

In returning the book I wrote refusing to listen to the Church and appealing to Holy Scripture.

The following is an extract from his reply :—

You refuse to listen to the Church, and you turn with confidence to a Book—a Book which you have received from the Church, and apart from which you cannot understand. Christ referred you to no book. He told you to hear the Church, and no one for 16oo years after His ascension ever thought that faith came by reading a book or a collection of books, but by humbly hearing the voice of the Divine Teacher. I know the Book is the written Word of God, and I value it and reverence it as such; but the written word and the spoken word are to me one and the same Word. God does not speak one thing, and cause men to write as His Word another thing. God’s Word is one, spoken and written; and He cannot contradict Himself. What the Church teaches is Divine; she is God’s voice speaking to the unbelieving world; qui vos audit me audit. What has been preserved to us of the written Word confirms the teaching of the Church. The Church received her teaching, not from the Bible, but from Christ. She taught before a word of the New Testament was ever written, she could have gone on teaching for ever if it had never been written, or if it had perished. The living Word of God can never perish, the Church’s voice is eternal and it is world-wide.

To this letter I wrote a reply at once, but my letter lay unposted for more than six months. I then sent it with an explanatory note, again expressing my appreciation of his kindness and zeal, and making one more appeal to him. The following is copied from the enclosure

"You refuse my appeal to the written Word of God, and point me to "the Church." But when I ask, "Why should I trust ‘the Church’?" you refer me to the written Word of God! It amazes me that an intelligent man like yourself cannot see the inconsistency of such a position. Either "the Church" can justify its pretensions by an appeal to Scripture, or it cannot. If it cannot there is an end of the matter. If it can, then let us turn to Scripture and bow to its decision. The passage you have quoted again and again (Luke x. i6) consists of words spoken by the Lord to a company of Jews who were sent out as Jews to preach the kingdom to Jews, in a dispensation before the Church was constituted ! .

I accept your clearly implied, but courteously veiled, taunt that I am setting up my judgment against that of Christendom. And I am not afraid of this. Even if I stood alone I should not swerve. But behind me are the apostles and prophets and the million martyrs who have dared to stand for God and His Word against an apostate Christendom, and have sealed their testimony with their blood. And speaking of martyrs, may I ask in the name of common fairness and common sense, how is it that if your Church believes, as you say, that God alone, and His grace alone, can produce the change of mind and heart which is called conversion, that same Church has tortured and murdered the unnumbered victims of her persecutions -for not getting "converted" ? Do you not know that if my lot had been cast in darker days, your Church would have burned me at the stake, or torn me to pieces on the rack? You seem to me to shut your eyes both to history and Scripture, and blindly to accept a theory which Scripture knows nothing of and history refutes. Have you not read such passages as the close of Matt. xxiii.? If the Church of the last dispensation merited such scathing words, may not the Church of this dispensation be equally apostate ?- Have you never read 2 Tim.? And pray look at the close of chap. iii. In the midst of error and apostasy, even then leavening the whole lump, "the Holy Scriptures" are declared to be the true safeguard and guide."

This brought me a reply, from which I quote the following

"I am much obliged to you for your letter of yesterday’s date, enclosing your reply written last September. My correspondence is rather voluminous, and I regret to say that I forget what I then said.

I am always very grateful to any one who wishes and tries to do me what he conscientiously believes is good, however misled and mistaken I may myself find him to be. It is therefore no mere form when I cordially thank you for your kind wishes and kind expressions. I value both, but I believe your religeous opinions to be in many important matters entirely erroneous arid, indeed pernicious and contrary to revealed truth and to the revealed will of God. Therefore it would be the greatest calamity to me if I were able and perfectly impossible to adopt such opinions in lieu of the one eternal truth revealed by God, and taught by the Divine Teacher sent by God, i.e., His Church. If I lost confidence in the Divine Teacher, I should at once lose confidence in the Deity whose mouthpiece she is. If the Catholic Church is not true, not Divine, therefore fallible, "apostate," &c., &c. (as her enemies suppose), then to me Christianity is an illusion a mythology, a falsehood, a merely human thing on a level with Buddhism, Islamism, &c., &c., in many respects superior to them, doubtless, but no more Divine than they. I see no alternative between Catholicism and Agnosticism. I accepted the former in exchange for the latter, and I daily see more and more its holiness, beauty, perfection, divinity, truth. You are surprised at this. No wonder. You see the painted window on the outside, I see it from within—that is the difference. . . . You trust the New Testament which came after the Church and which she has declared to be the written word. I require no Bible to convince me of the truth and divinity of the Holy Church of God. I value the Bible because the Church tells me it is the written word. . . . -

You ask me how it is that the Church "has tortured and murdered the unnumbered victims of her persecutions for not getting converted." The answer is most simple. The Church has never "tortured or murdered" any one whatever! Did not Fénélon say, what all her best divines approve: "By force hypocrites and not converts are made." You read "history" written by bigots, who distort and pervert the truth. The cruelties inflicted by kings and statesmen for State reasons cannot with justice be referred to the Church. . . . The Church is not the author of those uncivilised methods, and they form no part of her teaching; - The Church and Christ are one. Her voice is His voice and so long as we hear that, and obey, we are doing God’s will. That is our position. Conversion is the work of God alone—no force, argument, or persuasion of man’s invention can accomplish it.

Place yourself on your knees before God and ask light and grace from Him, tell Him you will sacrifice all things for His sake; that you are ready to do His will and to obey; and you will rise up, if He will, as new a creature as Saul of Tarsus after he had heard the voice."

His last letter remains unanswered ; for I am utterly at a loss to know what answer is possible to one who thus ignores or distorts both history and Scripture, and honestly and earnestly believes in what he calls "the Church." Here, I repeat, are the arguments by which the perverts to Rome are being won. Here, in its most advanced development, is the pestilently evil and profane view of "the Church" which is slowly but surely undermining Christianity in the Church of England at this moment.

APPENDIX, III

PAOLO SARPI AND THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

OF Paolo Sarpi it has been said that “there was no department of human knowledge about which he did not know everything that had been ascertained by others, and few to which he did not make substantial contributions.” In truth, he seems to have been one of the most extraordinary men of his own or of any age. Born in Venice in 1552, he joined the Servites at thirteen years of age, and was immediately put forward as their champion at the great annual disputation in the Frari Church, where, before all the noble and great and wise of Venice, he held his own against all disputants. Five years later, at eighteen, he was appointed to the chair of Positive Theology at Mantua, and became private theologian to the Duke. In 1575 he returned to Venice, where he held the chairs of Philosophy and Mathematics in the monastery until, in 1579, he became a Principal of his Order. His high character, his intense piety, and his altogether phenomenal erudition and genius, secured for him the friendship of all who were best qualified to supply him with materials for his history of the Council of Trent.

His quarrel with the Vatican came later, and was brought about as follows: In 1606 the Senate of Venice, in order to secure his services, created for him the office of Theological Counsellor; and in the fierce struggle of that year between the Republic and the Pope, Paolo Sarpi was the adviser of the Senate. Paul V. launched his Bull of interdict and excommunication against Venice. Sarpi held that this action was ultra vires; and, acting on their Counsellor’s advice, the Senate confronted and thwarted the Pope at every point. The Pope ordered the clergy to close the churches and suspend all services and sacraments. The Republic threatened to punish any priest who acted on the order. The Pope ordered the clergy to leave the country and repair to Rome. They were warned that if they attempted to act on the order they would be hanged at the frontier. The Pope was brought to his knees, and after pleading in vain for some way to save his dignity, he was compelled to issue another Bull, withdrawing the interdict; and this the Senate, acting on Sarpi’s advice, would not permit to be read in the churches. Never since has any Pope dared to issue such an interdict.

Needless to say, the result was to make the Pope the bitter enemy of Paolo Sarpi. Having tried in vain every artifice to get him to Rome, he determined to be revenged by other means. Though, honours and money were pressed upon Sarpi, he refused to change his mode of life and while his days were spent in the public service, he insisted on returning nightly to his cell in the monastery. On the night of the 5th October, 1607, he was waylaid by assassins hired by Paul V., and left for dead within a few hundred yards of the monastery. But to the bitter disappointment of the Pope, and to the amazement of everybody, he recovered. For another fifteen years he continued his career of service to Venice and the world, and notwithstanding further Papal plots against his life, he died peacefully in his cell on the 15th January, 1623.

His fame may be judged by the fact that his death was formally reported to all the Courts of Europe, and that he was voted a State funeral and a public monument. But the malignity of the Vatican is undying. Plot after plot was hatched to desecrate the dead friar’s tomb and scatter his ashes. Ten times those ashes were disturbed, and secretly reinterred to save them from the Papal emissaries; and for 270 years the decree of the Senate to erect a monument to his memory remained in abeyance. It was not till the 20th September, 1892, that, in pursuance of that decree, the statue which now stands in the Campo di Santa Fosca was unveiled in honour of that truly great and noble man.

“To magnify the importance of the Council of Trent I believe to be impossible,” says Froude; and for the sake of those who may not have access to such a book as his, I give the following brief outline of the wonderful story.

The Papal Bull summoning the Council bore date the 22nd of May, 1542, but the ecclesiastics who came together at Trent in the August following were too few in number to enter on their task. France, in alliance with the Turks, had declared war against the Emperor, and neither French nor German bishops could attend. England, of course, stood aloof; for Cardinal Pole represented no one but himself and the Pope. And the Spaniard had not yet arrived. Thus the year passed away, and when in the winter the Italian bishops, impatient of delay, seemed about to proceed to business, Granvelle, the Imperial chancellor, was despatched to stop them. On January 9, 1543, he delivered in peremptory terms his master’s orders; and though Pope Paul would have gladly disregarded them, the fear of man restrained him; for not sixteen years had passed since Rome had been stormed by a German army, and what had happened so recently might happen again. After many delays, the 15th of March, 1545, was fixed by another Bull for the Council to reassemble, but it was not until May that any of the bishops arrived. Cardinal Del Monti, afterwards Pope Julius III., was the chief Papal Legate.

His first trouble was the claim of the Emperor’s representative, Mendoza, Spanish ambassador at Venice, to sit next to him, and above the bishops. Next came Mendoza’s demand for further delay: By the end of May only twenty bishops were present, all Italians. They must wait for the Spaniards. Again the year almost ran out, and it was not till the 13th of December that the opening ceremony at last took place. But Monti’s patience and skill were sorely taxed. One of the first dangers he had to meet was a demand on the part of the bishops to make the Council independent of the Pope. This was with difficulty avoided. The next was the Imperial demand that the question of morals should have precedence of discussions upon doctrine. This was regarded by Paul as a covert attack upon himself. There was too much glass about his house to make stone-throwing pleasant or safe. Del Monti was ordered to force forward the examination of doctrine and to thrust aside reform. But all he was able to attain was a compromise, that doctrine and morals should be dealt with in alternate sessions. The Imperial representative remonstrated that three cardinals and forty bishops, all of whom were personally insignificant, were incompetent to settle the faith of the world: but the forty bishops thought otherwise, and the Council proceeded to redress. On the motion of Cardinal Pole, they began by affirming the “Apostles’ creed.” The next proposal, to declare allegiance to “the apostolic see,” might have caused a division had not the news of Luther’s death (February 18, 1546) come opportunely to put every one in good humour. They proceeded to consider and anathematise the arch-heretic’s doctrines. The Vulgate, that most depraved translation, was canonised as being itself (including the Apocrypha) Divine Scripture; human tradition was raised to the same level as the Scriptures themselves, and the laity were declared incompetent to interpret, or even to understand them. Explosions occurred from time to time, as one bishop or another paraded his personal grievances against the Pope or the Curia; but in spite of these interruptions the formulating of dogmas went on apace by the obedient vote of “the Pope’s brigade” of Italian bishops. The Emperor was itidignant. It was a reform of morals he wanted, and a fair hearing for the Protestants. But he was helpless. Twenty Spanish bishops had joined the Council, but the Spaniards, though personally abler and purer than the Italians, were, as ecclesiastics, still less disposed to parley with heretics. They forced to the front, however, the question of the corruptions which allowed the Roman Cardinals to live in splendid idleness by drawing the revenues of benefices which they never visited; and it taxed the firmness of Paul and the diplomacy of Del Monti to save the offenders.

The winter of 1546 was exceptionally severe, and the effeminate Italians were miserable at Trent. It was the Emperor’s determination alone which had fixed a German town as the meeting-place, and it was fear of the Emperor that kept them there. But the action of the Spaniards threatened to wreck the whole fabric of the Papacy, and in the following spring, under Del Monti’s advice, the Pope decided to remove the Council to Papal territory. A rumour was started that the plague was in Trent. Paolo Sarpi declares that two physicians were secretly instructed to encourage the belief. The Papal Legate arranged the scheme in spite of the protests of the Imperial representative, and the Council adjourned to Bologna, Don Francis of Toledo and most of the Spaniards alone remaining in Trent. But the work of the Council was practically accomplished. The creed of Christendom - that astounding monument of narrow intolerance and base superstition - had been settled.

The rest is easily told. In November, 1549, Paul III. died, and Del Monti succeeded to the Pontificate. Willing to propitiate the Emperor, he offered to send the Fathers back to Trent. But doctrines had been settled, and the reform of morals was hopeless. Paolo Sarpi narrates that on one occasion when the question was brought up, the bishops set to discussing whether their own exemption from the jurisdiction of ordinary courts ought not to be extended to their concubines! All that remained, therefore, of Charles’ original scheme was to get the German Reformers to the Council. But the Council of Constance had decided that a safe conduct granted to a heretic need not be respected; and, with the fate of Huss before their minds, the Reformers were cautious. The Council was to reassemble on May 2, 1551, but another year passed, and these difficulties still blocked the way. And even then the only Germans who attended were laymen.

The full Council met, and the foreign ministers of State were present in their robes. In plain language Leonard Badehorn addressed the brilliant assembly, repudiating the authority of the Council, because the Scriptures were not the rule of controversy with them, and the members were the servants of the Pope who ought to be on his trial with the rest of them. He scouted the idea that sixty such bishops could settle the faith of the world. He spoke, he declared, as the representative of the Elector Maurice of Saxony. The next day, after Mass in the cathedral, the reply of the Council was read, acceding to the full the German demand for a safe conduct such as they could trust. But it was made plain that the Protestants were to be heard only to please the Emperor. They were to have no deliberative voice, nor were the decrees already passed in condemnation of their doctrines to be reconsidered. Melanchthon and the divines of the Augsburg Confession therefore never attended. The events which followed in Germany - the march of Maurice of Saxony upon Innspruck, and the flight of the Emperor - are among the enigmas of history. But Innspruck was only three days’ march from Trent; and when the news reached the Council, the Italian bishops stampeded, as the historian describes it, “like a gang of coiners surprised by the police.” ‘The Papal Legate, Cardinal Crescentio, and a few of the Spaniards, lingered long enough to pass a vote declaring that all their decrees should be valid for ever.

The Council of Trent of ten years later was, in everything but name, a new assembly. Such in briefest outline is the story of a Council which was repudiated, not only by England and Germany, but even by Catholic France. Thus was the faith of Christendom decreed by a gang of some three-score Italian and Spanish priests. Thus ended one of the most transparent, and yet one of the most successful, impostures in the history of the world.

APPENDIX IV.

NOTE I. - BISHOPS.

THE Epistle to the Philippians is addressed to "all the saints," "with the bishops and ministers." Upon which Dean Alford remarks, "The simple juxtaposition of the officers with the members of the Church, and indeed their being placed after those members, shows the absence of hierarchical views such as those in the Epistles of the apostolic Fathers." And again, in his comments on Acts xx. 17, 28 (which records that Paul addressed the elders of the Church in Ephesus as bishops), he refers thus to the perversion of the passage by Ireneus: "So early did interested and disingenuous interpretations begin to cloud the light which Scripture might have thrown on ecclesiastical questions." And he notices the mistranslation of verse 28 in A.V. ("overseers" in lieu of bishops), as concealing "the fact of elders and bishops having been originally and apostolically synonymous." This is obvious from Tit. i. 5, 7, which enjoins the appointment of "elders in every city . . . if any man is blameless . . . for the bishop must be blameless." And so again in Acts xiv. 23, "And when they had appointed for them elders in every church."

And in his essay on "The Christian Ministry," (Philippians, p. 97) Bishop Lightfoot of Durham writes:

"It is a fact now generally recognised by theologians of all shades of opinion, that in the language of the New Testament the same officer in the Church is called indifferently 'bishop' and 'elder' or 'presbyter.'

Some who would despise these great Protestant theologians, and who would regard a layman who discusses such subjects as being "in the gainsaying of Korah," will listen perhaps to the most learned of the Latin Fathers. In Jerome's Commentary on Titus they will find all this in the plainest words. He says, "A presbyter is the same as a bishop and. . . Churches were governed by a common council of presbyters." And again, "Therefore, as we have shown, among the ancients presbyters were the same as bishops; but by degrees, that the plants of dissension might be rooted up, all responsibility was transferred to one person."

NOTE II. - "DEACONS."

The word deacon occurs in two passages in our English Bible, viz., Phil. i. i and 1 Tim. iii. 8-13. It there represents the Greek word, which occurs eight times in the Gospels and twenty-two times in the Pauline Epistles, and nowhere else. In the Gospels it means servant in the common sense of that word, save only in John xii. 26 ("There shall My servant be"). The Apostle uses it only in the higher sense, save in Rom. xiii. 4. But by an extraordinary vagary of Christian thought, the seven men appointed, as recorded in Acts vi., to take charge of the collections are called deacons; and the word having thus acquired the meaning of a subordinate minister, it was then, with an ecclesiastical bias, introduced into the two passages above indicated. Its use there is not translation but exegesis ; for when the New Testament was written the Greek language possessed no word corresponding to it. And "using the office of a deacon" (A.V.) or "serving as a deacon" (R.V) in verses io and 13, is a sheer mis-translation. The verb thus rendered is the kindred term used thirty-six times in the New Testament, and it ought to be rendered "to minister." The New Testament knows nothing of "the office of a deacon." Besides the apostles, there were in the Church "bishops" and" ministers." The functions of an elder or bishop were not ministry, but rule. If he ruled well he was to be doubly esteemed, and still more esteemed if (in addition to discharging the duties of his office) he "laboured in the word and in teaching" (i Tim. v. 17). The " bishop" was generally appointed by an apostle or his delegate (Tit. i. 5). But the practice of appointing "ministers" belongs to post-apostolic times. The call to the ministry was altogether of God. They who claimed to have received the call were duly tested; the command was, "Let them first be proved, and then, if they be blameless, let them minister" (i Tim. iii. io). This survives in the service for "the making of deacons," which is very ancient. (The service for "ordering of priests" belongs to a later and more corrupt era.) Before the bishop proceeds to ordain the candidate he requires him to declare that he is "truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the ministry." The call itself is neither of men nor by men.

NOTE III.-"THE CHURCH"

In controversies of the kind raised by "the Oxford movement" and by the present ritualistic revival, the real question at issue is "the Church." On the one side there is the Romish view; on the other is that of the Reformers. Which is right? This question is of vital importance. No one, whatever his opinions may be, can fail to be struck by the silence of Scripture respecting that which is the paramount reality in the religion of Christendom. Prominence is given to "the Church which is His body" ; but about the Church as an organised society on earth, there is, if we except i Cor. Xii. 28 and i Tim. iii. 15, practically nothing in the New Testament, save warnings of its apostasy. Latin theology, however, maintains its position, first, by ignoring all this; secondly, by confounding the Church with the kingdom; and thirdly, by taking words spoken to the apostles in the days of the Lord's earthly ministry as applicable to "the Church" of Christendom.

John xx. 23 may seem an exception to this. But let the objector answer this question, Whether were the Lord's words addressed to the whole company of the disciples there assembled, or to the Apostles as such? If the former, there is an end of the matter from the Romish standpoint; if the latter, then let those who claim to have the powers of Apostles in the spiritual sphere, give proof that they possess such powers, in the sphere where we can test them.

Since the beginning of the "Oxford movement" to the present hour, no one has seceded to Rome who has not taken that step as the result of deciding the question, Whether is the Church of Rome or the Church of England the Church? It is like one of those catch questions which are framed so to fix the attention on a side issue that the real issue involved escapes notice. Of course we answer, with the Reformers, "Neither the one nor the other." - According to them "the Church" is "a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same" (Art. xix.). This is the creed of the Church of England. And if any bigot should set up the plea that by these concluding words the Reformers intended to limit their definition to episcopacy, he is answered by the language of the 55th Canon of the Convocation of 1603, which is as follows: "Before all sermons, lectures, and homilies, the preachers and ministers shall move the people to join with them in prayer, in this form, or to this effect, as briefly as conveniently they may; Ye shall pray for Christ's Holy Catholic Church, that is, for the whole congregation of Christian periple dispersed throughout the whole world, and especially for the Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland." Such is " the Catholic Church" for whose "good estate" prayer is made continually in our churches. In 1603 the only Episcopal Churches outside the kingdom were those which Article xix. expressly excludes; and the Church of Scotland (which is here expressly named) was Presbyterian. All that Dean Hook has here to urge is that, as othe Archbishop who presided at the Convention was (he declares) a bitter and unscrupulous bigot, it is "monstrous to suppose" the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was intended. But the fact remains that there was no Episcopal Church in Scotland. The plain truth is that the Church of England does not teach this anti-Christian figment of Apostolic Succession in an episcopacy. Article xxiii. could never have been framed by men corrupted by such an error. And Hooker-a high authority upon the doctrines of the Church-repudiates it. "Some do infer" (he says) "that no ordination can stand but such only as is made by Bishops, which have had their ordination likewise by other Bishops before them till we come to the very apostles, . . . to this we answer, that there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a Bishop" (Eccies. Pol. vii. i4).

If Rome has paramount claims to the position she assumes, it is as being indisputably the most distinctive and advanced embodiment of the apostasy. When the historic Church adopted the pagan rite of baptism (see ch. viii) it ceased to have any moral right to be considered the Church of God; and when in a later age it gave up the Lordship and Headship of Christ its fall was complete. For if baptismal regeneration is un-christian, apostolic succession is antichristian.

In Christianity the Church holds its true place as "a congregation of faithfulmen," and the test of faithfulness is that the Lord Jesus Christ is all in all. But in "the Christian religion" the Church is everything. Indeed there is more about "the Church" in many an evangelical sermon than in the whole of the New Testament.!

(Footnote - The expression "Church of Christ" is not found in Scripture, though "Churches of Christ" occurs (Rom. xvi. i6). The word "Church" in 'the singular occurs but fifty times in the Epistles; in the vast majority of these occurrences it is used narratively, or with reference to some local congregation. Eph. and Col. deal with the Church as the vital unity-the body of Christ; and all that the New Testament has to say of the visible or professing Church corporately, will be found in i Cor. xii. and xiv. and i Tim. iii. 15.)

NOTE IV.-"THE PRIEST IN ABSOLUTION"

In the course of official duty I have read many obscene books, but I have seldom read anything more gratuitously filthy than the standard works intended for the guidance of priests in questioning penitents. Compared with Romish treatises, those in use among the Romanisers in the Church of England seem mild. Dr. Pusey's Manual for Confessors (based on Abbé Gaume's work) entirely omits the section relating to the seventh commandment-an acknowledgment that, in his day, Englishmen would not tolerate it. But impurity is an evil plant of rapid growth, and no such reserve was used by "The Society of the Holy Cross" when, in 1866, they issued The Priest in Absolution. Part I. of this work, a tract of 90 pages, was published and sold openly, and reached a second edition in 1869. Part II., a book of 322 pages, was "privately printed for the use of the clergy." It was dedicated "to the Masters, Vicars, and Brethren of the Society of the Holy Cross," and its circulation has been chiefly among the conspirators of that Jesuitical organisation. I have been fortunate enough, however, to see a copy of it, and I have made extracts which I intended to set out here. But this purpose I have abandoned, for I have sought to exclude everything from these pages which would render them unfit for general readers. When the late Lord Redesdale brought the book before the House of Lords (June 14, 1877) the extracts he read from it were deemed too indecent even for the secular newspapers; and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait), who followed Lord Redesdale, declared "that it is a disgrace to the community that such a book should be circulated under the authority of clergymen of the Established Church."

The history of this shameful book, and of the controversy to which it gave rise, will be found in Chapter IV. of Mr. Walsh's Secret History of the Oxford Movement-a work which ought to be in the hands of every voter in the country. With his usual coldness he discusses them question as though these "priests" who practise this abominable system were all excellent men, whose only error is doctrinal. But suffice it to say - for the subject is a delicate one - that those who claim to be priests with authority to forgive sins need expect no quarter when they outrage morality. The scandal is still recent respecting one leading member of the Society of the Holy Cross, whose name figures in Mr. Walsh's pages; and were I to refer to others it would not betoken Protestant bigotry, but special knowledge.

NOTE VI.-THE "VIRGIN MARY" MYTH

If, in the face of the plain statements of the 19th, 20th, and 25th verses of the first chapter of Matthew, people can deny that the mother of our Lord became Joseph's wife, it is idle to argue the question. Jerome it was who first formulated the Virgin Mary myth in a systematic way. With reference to the verses above cited, he exposed the fallacy of holding, as Hooker expresses it, "that a thing denied with special circumstance doth import an opposite affirmative when once that circumstance is expired." Sound logic this, provided "the thing denied" be something against the doing of which there exists a presumption, on account of its being vicious or wrong. And this Jerome's argument assumes, thus begging the whole question. If we deny that a man committed some grossly immoral act on the day when a wife whom he dearly loved lay dying, we do not imply that he committed such acts on other days, but merely give a special reason for rejecting the charge that he did so on the day in question. But if we assert that a man did not eat meat during Lent we do distinctly imply that he did do so at Easter. Some who deplore Mariolatry may perhaps shrink from the thought that Mary became the wife of Joseph. But the question arises, how far that feeling may be due to the very error which God intended to correct by recording so plainly that she, whom all generations call blessed, entered into the marriage relationship. "Let marriage be had in honour among ALL", (Heb. xiii. 4, R.V.).

NOTE VII.-THE APOSTLE PAUL ON CELIBACY.

The Apostle Paul's words in i Cor. vii. 25-40 have been misused in support of pernicious teaching on the subject of celibacy. But as Dr. Chr. Wordsworth writes

(Church History, vol. iii. chap. vi.), he "qualifies his commendations of celibacy by grounding them on considerations of the present distress (in i Cor. vii. 26) in which the Christian Church was, in tha.t age of persecution; and he condemns in the strongest terms those who forbid to marry, even as contravening the divine truths which flow from the doctrine of the Incarnation, and as led astray by seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, and declares his will that younger women should marry and bear children. (i Tim. V. 14), and that every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband (i Cor. vii. 2), and that marriage is honourable in all (Heb. xiii. 4) and 'a great mystery,' being a figure of Christ's union with His Church (Eph. V. 23-33)."

But the Bishop overlooks the fact that the Apostle never contemplates pledged celibacy. A life pledge not to do that which God sanctions to be done is entirely beyond the scope of his words. And any suggestion of monasticism is absolutely abhorrent to his teaching. And further, not only are these words of counsel framed with special reference to the persecution then prevailing, but the Apostle prefaces them by the express warning, "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord." Such reservations are of immense importance as indicating the meaning of inspiration, and the supreme authority of inspired Scripture. "The exception proves the rule," and of the rest of the Epistle the Apostle could write, "If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord ' (i Cor. xiv. 37). Nothing can be more explicit than the distinction. In the one case it is, "I command, yet not I, but the Lord" ; in the other case it is, "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord'? (i Cor. vii. 10, 12).

NOTE VIII.-" WE HAVE AN ALTAR."

The language of Heb. xiii. 2o is freely used against the truth which it is the main object of the Epistle to establish. Here is the passage: "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach."

The briefest summary of the views of commentators upon the words "We have an altar," would fill many a page. And it would convey the false impression that the statement is a hopeless enigma; whereas, in fact, its meaning is simple and clear to those who understand the language in which it is written, i.e., the typology of Scripture, "now entirely neglected" (as Hengstenberg so truly says). But let us keep in view:

(1) That the passage belongs, not to the doctrinal, but to the practical teaching of the Epistle;

(2) That so far from its being the promulgation of some deep or mysterious truth, it is merely an incidental appeal to one of the plainest and best known ordinances of the law, and this, as the basis of the practical exhortation of verse 13; and

(3) That there is no emphasis on the pronouns "we" and "they": as a matter of fact they are not expressed in the original at all.

We may therefore at once rule out any explanation which makes the " we refer to Christians and the "they" to Jews; or which "involves the anachronism of a distinction between clergy and laity, which certainly then had no place" (Alford). The words are equivalent to "There is an altar." And as the words were addressed to Hebrews, and no one versed in the teaching of the law would tolerate the thought of eating the great sin-offering, we may rule out also any exposition which rests on a blunder so gross. The priests were to eat of the ordinary sin-offerings, but not of those of which the blood was carried into the holy place (Lev. vi. 30; x. i6, i8). Having regard to (3) we dismiss also of course the, exegesis, "We have an altar," namely, the Cross. Moreover, this also rests upon ignorance of the types; for under the law no victim was ever killed upon the altar, and there was no altar of sin-offering at all. The blood of the sin-offering was put upon the altar of burnt-offering, and in certain specified cases, upon the altar of incense. The use of the word " altar" in the passage is merely an instance of the familiar figure of Metonymy; as when, ex. gr., we say that a man keeps a good table, meaning thereby that he has goodfood.

To conclude: the passage may be thus amplified and explained :-We know that in the aspect of His work, which was typified by the great sin-offering, Christ stood absolutely alone and apart from His people. But the Cross does not speak to us merely of the curse of God upon sin; it expresses also the reproach of men, poured out without measure upon Him who was the Sin-bearer. We cannot share the Cross in its aspect toward God; but let us on that very account be eager to share it in its aspect toward the world-"Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach."

It is the Hebrews version of Galatians vi. 14. And as the tense of the verb makes clear in the original, it is not a call to some heroic act of renunciation, but (like the "Let us draw near" of ch. x. 22) an exhortation to the habit and attitude of life and heart which become those who profess to have been saved by the Cross of Christ.

Space forbids my noticing, important though it be, either the way in which this passage brackets together Exod. xxiv. 8 and xxxiii. 7, and Lev. xvi.; or those other aspects of the great Sacrifice of Calvary in respect of which His people are "partakers of the Altar" (in the Passover, ex. gr., the people fed upon the lamb whose blood brought them redemption). In repudiating the very word "altar" the Reformers gave proof of spiritual intelligence. Just as the only Priest known to Christianity is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself,' so the only altar is in the scene of His priestly ministry - the Divine presence in heaven. An altar upon earth must be either Jewish or Pagan. The. Church of England knows nothing of it; albeit her paid servants revel in the apostasy betokened by the revival of the name, and the re-introduction of the abomination itself, in violation of the truth of God and of the law of this realm.