Part 4

Look then at the present happiness of believers, the present joy of the new born child of God. He does not see Christ, it is true, with the eye of sense; but he knows him, he loves him, he delights in him, he speaks to him, his soul is filled with joy at the assurance of his grace. “Whom having not seen we love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” In every care and trial he can find a sweet repose, for he knows that Christ is near, and he has the precious promise “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long.” So when his frame becomes enfeebled and the time of his departure seems at hand, he can lie down peacefully upon the bed of languishing, for he has the precious promise that the Lord shall strengthen him; the sweet assurance “_Thou_ wilt make _all_ his bed in his sickness.” Ay! and when the illness itself draws to a close, when all power to alleviate is gone, when the physician’s skill is helpless, and the wife’s affection fruitless; when the dying man is passing alone through the valley of the shadow of death, he is still supported, still happy, still at peace. For the same Lord is nigh. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” Oh! Blessed life! Oh! happy death of the child of God! “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” {44}

But now suppose the valley crossed. The arm has upheld him through the struggle; the beloved of the Lord has been borne safely through. Is the first sight which meets his affrighted eye the lurid glare of the flashing flames of purgatorial fire?—the first sound that startles his ear the groaning of God’s beloved children writhing under the torments of expiating torture? Is that calm repose on Jesus suddenly changed by one terrific plunge into the scorching agony of a purgatorial flame? Would it be gain thus to die? Would such a death be “far better” than the life of faith? It would be better surely to dwell safely as the beloved of the Lord, than to burn miserably in the expiation of unforgiven sin.

We may conclude then that the doctrine of purgatory is in direct opposition to the word of God, but we have a yet farther, and, if possible, graver charge to urge against it, viz.,

III. That it is in direct opposition to the doctrine of atonement as set forth in scripture.

You will remember the extract already quoted from the Catechism of the Council of Trent, in which it was stated that in the fire of purgatory the souls of the pious make expiation for their sin. Pause for a moment to observe these words. There are two things to be noticed in them, (1.) they assert directly that man’s sufferings can make expiation for his sin, and (2.) they imply that the death of our Lord was not a complete expiation for our sin. Let us examine each part separately.

(1.) First then we have a direct assertion that by enduring pain the believer makes expiation for his soul; that is, that our temporary sufferings satisfy God’s broken law.

If this be true, what occasion was there for the blood of Jesus. Why the stupendous mystery of man’s redemption? Why the agony in the garden? Why the burden of the cross? Why the hiding of God’s countenance? Why the endurance of the curse in our stead? Such a work was surely needless, a mere mistake on the part of Jesus. The atonement is become a fable, if man’s passing pain can make expiation for his sin.

But, again, if pain is expiation, how is it that hell-fire burns for ever? Was ever suffering so intense as that? Was there ever such a scene of woe and misery, of hatefulness and hopelessness, as that? But does it make expiation for the sinner’s sin? Does it blot out the curse? Does the fire burn out its fuel? “It is the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.” Yea, verily, if the curse of one single sin could be burned out by ten thousand centuries of pain, hell would be no longer hell, for there would be a faint gleam of far distant hope, shining even upon the miseries of the damned.

There is no expiation then in pain. Believers are chastened, but chastening is not atonement. It is God’s gentle discipline by which he prepares his jewels for his crown; and just as the finest gold is wrought most carefully, so the most precious of God’s children are often chastened most heavily, for “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” There must be a melting of the gold, before it can be separated from the ore; there must be a rending of the root, before the tree can be taken from the wilderness and transplanted into the garden of the Lord. And so it is with believers. There must be a melting of the heart, a humbling of the earthly will, a weaning of soul, that they may cleave to Christ alone. And this is the purpose for which, beloved, we are chastened. He does it for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Affliction has the same effect that Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace had on the three children in captivity. It could not touch their person, but it burnt the bands that bound them, and enabled them to walk more freely with their Lord. But expiation! That is Christ’s work. “He is the propitiation for our sins,” and if suffering in man could expiate for sin in man, then the suffering of Christ were a waste of blood, a waste of agony, a waste of life, a waste of love.

(2.) And this leads us to our second remark, that the doctrine of expiation through purgatorial fire implies an incompleteness in the atonement of our blessed Lord. If expiation be still needful, then in his atonement there must be something wanting. Nor is this the mere conclusion of a bigoted protestant, it is the bold assertion of the Church of Rome herself. Listen to her canon, “If any man shall say that after the gift of Justification has been received, sin is so remitted to any repentant sinner,” (observe it speaks of justified believers and true penitents) “and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out, that there remains no debt of temporary punishment to be endured either in this world or the world to come in purgatory, before a way can be opened into the kingdom of heaven, let him be Anathema.” {47}

I feel utterly at a loss in attempting to speak on such an awful passage. Can they remember that they are speaking of the atonement wrought by the Son of God? He gave his own most precious life to satisfy the law, and can any portion of the debt remain? He purchased us with the price of his own most precious blood: is farther payment needed? The eternal Redeemer was our ransom: are we not free? The well beloved of the Father endured the curse as our substitute: was his work so ineffectual that the curse still hangs over the very men he came to save? Awful dishonour to the Son of God! Now Rome thou must indeed be Antichrist, for thou dost rob Christ of his glory; thou strivest to tarnish the beauty of his diadem. He says “Behold the Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world.” But thou contradictest Christ and sayest that there is a remnant left to be punished in the believer still. He says “I, even I, am he, that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” But thou sayest that the blot is not effaced, that the sin is still remembered, still punished, even in the child of God. He says “I am the way,” “I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” But thou sayest that the door cannot be opened, except it be through purgatorial pain. He says that he has loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and the Father. But thou sayest the washing was incomplete, for sin must after all be burned out by fire; that love is still defective, for the saints must yet be punished; the inheritance not fully purchased, for, after all that Christ has done, the justified believer has still to make an expiation for his sin. {49}

No! beloved! we will not for a moment admit the thought of any other expiation, than that wrought out for us by the Lamb of God. And as for our dear departed brethren, nothing that Rome can say shall ever rob us of our delightful hope. They have felt no pain since the day we parted; their sainted spirits have been basking in the sunshine of the countenance of God. I myself have parted with a mother, such a mother that I often wonder if the world can ever more behold her equal: so strong in faith; so ardent in her thirsting after God; so pure in spirit; so sensitive to sin; so beaming in her holy loveliness, that you might almost believe you saw the Father’s name written legibly by the Holy Ghost upon her forehead. To this day do I hear the tones of her dying voice, when in answer to my questions respecting her soul’s peace, she replied “I can reverently say with the deepest humility, ‘Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.’” And I would rather have this arm torn from its socket, I would rather be scorched and scathed in Moloch’s fire, than I would abandon my firm and fixed persuasion that such love has never been interrupted, that her Redeeming Lord has never left her for a moment; my perfect assurance, that while we were weeping in solemn stillness around her bed of death, she was taking her place amongst the company of palm bearers, and is now standing before the throne, having washed her robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

So also for ourselves! dear brethren! for we too must die; our day is hastening on, our time drawing to its close. A few short years and multitudes amongst us must change their faith for sight, the world of flesh for the world of spirits: a few, short, rapid years, and every one, both you and I, shall find ourselves in heaven or in hell. But let us fear nothing. Only let us be found in Christ, justified through his blood, with our name written in his book of life, and the Father’s name engraven by the Holy Ghost on our forehead, and then neither death or hell can ever prevail to hurt us. In Christ we are safe; washed in his blood we are completely pardoned; clad in his righteousness we are completely justified; and kept in his right hand we are completely and for ever safe.

Only let us be found in Christ. Then the outward man may decay; the poor frame may wax faint and feeble; the eye may become dim, even with the dim fixedness of death: and then, when all earthly power has sunk under exhaustion, the eye will open; a new world will spring up before us; attendant angels will hover around the new-born citizen of heaven; and without tears, or fears, or weakness, we shall behold Christ in the brightness of his glory, and cry aloud in the heartfelt thankfulness of unutterable joy, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb.”

SERMON IV. TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

HEBREWS x. 12.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God.

THERE was never a more tremendous judgment than that uttered by the voice of Malachi, {52} “I will curse your blessings.” There can be no scourge more heavy than a blessing cursed. The more choice the gift, the more fatal is the misuse of it; the richer the blessing, the deadlier its corruption. So it was with Christ himself. He was the most precious gift that could be found even in the treasuries of heaven—the well beloved Son of God; but to those who rejected him he became a stone of stumbling and rock of offence. So it has been with that sacred feast, which he left as a parting legacy to his church. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is one of the richest blessings in the church’s birthright. It is a sacred opportunity of feeding in faith upon the body and blood of the Lamb, a perpetual remembrance of his boundless grace, a bond of holy fellowship with our brethren in the faith, a sacred pledge of our union and communion with the Lord. Yet even this has been corrupted. As with the Jews of old, so with professing Christians “their table has become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare has become a trap.” {53a} We allude, of course, to the doctrine of transubstantiation, of which the Council of Trent decrees as follows:

“By the consecration of the bread and wine there is effected a change in the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.” {53b} Here we have the bread and wine transformed into the actual substance of the person of our blessed Lord: so transformed that according to the Catechism {53c} there are “bones and nerves in it.” Nay, more! so changed that there is actually his whole person, not excepting his soul and his divinity, for the Council declares {53d} “If any man shall say that the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, together with his soul and divinity, and, in short, that a whole Christ, is not contained truly, really, and substantially in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist, but shall say that he is in it only in sign, or figure, or power, let him be anathema.”

There is no misunderstanding such words as these. And if there were, the 6th canon shows how Rome herself interprets them, for she not only acknowledges the fact, but follows it consistently to its conclusion, and declares plainly that we are to worship it with the worship due to God. {54}

“If any shall say that in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of Latria (the worship paid to God), and that he ought not to be . . . carried solemnly about in processions, or that he ought not to be set before the people that he may be worshipped, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters, let him be anathema.”

But even this is not all: for not merely do they claim the power of thus making the bread into the very person of the only begotten of the Father, they add yet this also, that they can put that Saviour to death, and by that sacrifice make a propitiation for the sins of the dead and living. The Council of Trent declares {55a} “In the sacrifice of the mass, that same Christ is sacrificed without blood who once with blood offered himself upon the cross.” And in Canon iii. {55b} it adds that “If any man shall say that the sacrifice is not propitiatory and profits the receiver only, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities, let him be anathema.”

Such is the doctrine of transubstantiation as taught by the Church of Rome. According to it by a few words of consecration a wafer of unleavened bread is transformed into the very person of the Son of God: a man may be worshipping with divine honour in the afternoon a morsel of that same wheaten flour on which he made his breakfast in the morning: the one half he may bake for the sustenance of his children, the other he may be bound to adore when the priest has transubstantiated it into God. On reading such a doctrine it is impossible altogether to forget God’s cutting language against the sin of Israel.

“He burneth part of it in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, deliver me for thou art my god.” {56}

Surely, then, it is reasonable to ask that the truth of such a principle should be tried by the word of God alone. It is opposed to the evidence of our senses, it is opposed to reason, and it is no less opposed to the general tenor of the sacred scriptures. It is a case, therefore, in which no human evidence can avail any thing; the best, the wisest, the holiest of men, are wholly insufficient witnesses to prove, that what is apparently a piece of bread, lifeless, motionless, and powerless, is the very person of Christ himself, the only begotten of the Father, reigning triumphantly at the right hand of the throne of God. Such a fact, if it be a fact, must be taught by God himself.

At the same time, if God has said it we are bound cheerfully to believe it. It is condemned by every faculty which God has given us; it is opposed to experience, and to every pre-existent principle of religion, yet so complete should be our submission to the Bible, so absolute and unquestioning our conviction of its certain truth, that if we clearly find even transubstantiation there, we must believe without a murmur, we must abandon all human thoughts in submission to his all perfect wisdom. Yea though our revered church declares it plainly both “a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit;” {57} though the martyred fathers of the Reformation chose rather to die in agony than admit its truth; yet if God says it we will joyfully believe it, “for God is in heaven and we upon earth, therefore must our words be few.”

By the word of God, then, let us proceed to try the question, and we will examine the language of Scripture,

I. With reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper;

II. With reference to the life and work of our blessed Lord.

May the Holy Ghost lead us calmly, seriously, and dispassionately to learn the truths of his own most holy word!

I. The language of Scripture with reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

The doctrine is supposed to rest upon the words of our blessed Saviour, “This is my body,” or as they were revealed to St. Paul, “This is my body which is broken for you.”

This sentence is thought to contain a plain, literal, absolute, assertion that the bread was changed into his body; changed so completely that while the Saviour spoke the words, that bread which he held within his hand, was his real, natural, whole, and substantial person. The belief of the Church of England is that the words have no such literal meaning; but were employed to teach that the bread and wine were signs, figures, or emblems of his body broken, and his blood shed upon the cross. {58a} He says, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” “I am the door:” but none suppose that he was a real vine, a real door, or his people real branches of a growing tree. St. Paul says “That rock was Christ:” but none believe that the flinty rock was in very fact a living man. {58b} In all these passages we never doubt for a single moment what was the meaning of the Holy Ghost. The vine and the rock represented Christ, and the door was a figure of him. Just so we believe it to be with the words of consecration; the bread was a figure of his body and the wine of his blood.

That this is the true meaning of the passage seems to lie upon its very surface. Let us turn to 1st Corinthians xi. We shall there find that

1st. It is inconsistent to take the words literally; for they are quite as explicit and literal when spoken of the wine as of the bread. “This is my body which is broken for you.” “This cup is the New Testament in my blood.” But in this one passage there are no less than three figures. The cup stands as the emblem or figure of the wine contained in it; the new covenant is said to be the New Testament _in_ his blood, because it was sealed and ratified by his blood; and the cup itself is declared positively to be the testament. This must be figurative, it must mean that the cup is a sign, emblem, or figure of the testament. Thus the warmest advocate of the doctrine of transubstantiation is compelled to allow the use of figure with reference to the cup. Is it consistent? is it defensible or any principle of scriptural interpretation to deny it with reference to the bread? ought they not to be interpreted on the same principles? Here are two sentences, spoken at the same time, by the same person, under the same circumstances, to the same company, and for the same purpose. But there must be a figure in the one, who shall deny it in the other? The cup must be an emblem of the testament, can we be wrong in believing also that the bread is an emblem of the body?

2d. But this is not all. We have besides the direct testimony of the Holy Ghost that the bread remains bread, and the wine remains wine after consecration. Of the wine our Lord spoke in terms which it is quite impossible to mistake or misinterpret. In Matthew xxvi. 29, he expressly says, “I will drink no more of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” These words were spoken _after_ the consecration, and they seem uttered with especial caution as if he had foreseen the error which was about to creep into his professing church. He does not rest content with the name of “wine,” but calls it “fruit of the vine,” as if to prove beyond the possibility of a doubt that it had gained no new substance, but remained as it was before, the natural produce of the vine, the simple unaltered juice of the grape. Nor is the evidence less positive with reference to the bread. Again and again do we read of the breaking of the bread, never once of the sacrifice of the body. Nor is this merely accidental, for in the 10th and 11th chapters of 1st Corinthians we have the bread called bread by the Holy Ghost, no less than four times after consecration. In 1 Cor. x. 17, the Christian communicant is said to partake of bread, not of flesh with bones and nerves; “We are all partakers of that one _bread_.” In 1 Cor. xi. 26, “For as often as ye eat this _bread_, and drink this _cup_, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.” In 27, “Whosoever shall eat this _bread_, and drink this _cup_ of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord;” and 28, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that _bread_, and drink of that _cup_.” We do not, therefore, rest on human reason only when we deny the doctrine of transubstantiation. We boldly cast ourselves upon the teaching of the Bible, yea, upon the teaching of the Son of God himself, and believe the bread to be still bread, and the wine to remain as the fruit of the vine. We behold in them the signs and symbols of the passion of our Lord; and beholding the sign, we feed in faith on the reality. They are the figures of himself; the representations of his passion; the emblems and signs of his atoning death. As such we value, we receive, we honour them: but we live on Christ himself; we rest on the passion itself, on the atonement itself; and so by a strong, spiritual, realizing faith we are made partakers of his flesh and blood. “The words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life.”