Part 2

There are two aspects in which this new enrolment will present itself to the mind as connected with our national state. And there are different conclusions to be drawn from it, according as they are viewed or not in the light which the Scripture gives us, and tried by the rules which it affords. It may be thought, when this new list is making out of our people from one end of the country to the other, advancing as they probably are in numbers, intelligence, and wealth, the result of it will rather speak the language of exultation than of abasement. While we are arranging in their different classes our men of opulence, and our men of business, and our men of science, “_merchants_,” like those of the “_crowning city_,” equal to “_princes_, _and traffickers ranked among the honourable of the earth_;” {14a} our cunning artificers and our tillers of the ground surpassing those of other lands in diligence, enterprise, and talent; there is enough here, it may be thought, to assure us that God is well pleased with us, and that all these proofs of worldly prosperity are pledges of His favour. Surely, it will be said by some who witness it, “_this great nation is a wise and understanding people_.” {14b} And yet let us remember, that the distinctions of nations, like those of individuals, are given to them as talents to be accounted for and improved, not in order to flatter pride, or to promote the comparison of themselves with others. The higher is the measure of our privileges, the heavier is the weight of our responsibilities. These signs of greatness may be found utterly worthless when they are weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and may be tending only to increase our condemnation. If, indeed, our zeal for God’s glory had kept pace with our experience of His mercies; if, placed as we are at the head of the commerce of the world, our influence reaching to every sea and every shore on which the sun shines, we had carried with us that best of our national treasures, that which is interdicted to some nations, and, alas! as yet unknown to many more, the pure, the full, the free gospel of the grace of God; if, many years ago, we had taken up that position, to the importance of which we seem only to have awakened of late, that of being, as the heralds of the Church, the evangelizers of mankind; if the moral and spiritual improvement of our people at home had advanced as rapidly as their intellectual character, then, indeed, we might have given up the account of our resources with joy and not with grief. But since it is most true, as you yourselves also know, that while the largest funds are never wanting for every scheme, the wildest, the most uncertain, of worldly speculation or display, they are often left to fail, and to fall away, and to be importuned for in the prosecution of the soberest, the most scriptural plans for promoting the glory of God, or the welfare of some distressed portion or other of our fellow-men; if all the boasted improvements in our means of communication are only carrying into the quietest and least corrupted districts of the land new incentives to Sabbath desecration; if while we have been spared from the desolations of foreign war, we are given up, at this very hour, to intestine divisions pervading equally the Church and the State, and upon questions where a Christian people ought to be found essentially agreed; here, again, we have cause rather to humble than to exalt ourselves, and to fear lest our God should enter into judgment with us for this poor requital of all the distinctions with which we have been blessed.

The most remarkable event which, within _the last ten years_, has affected the spiritual state of our own parish, has been the erection, in a district scarcely built upon before, but in the midst of a poor and now rapidly increasing population, of a spacious and splendid Roman Catholic church, with extensive school-rooms and the residence of a priest attached to it. My brethren, there are but few probably among us who would lament this measure, if its only design and its only effect were to provide for the instruction of that large number of Roman Catholic labourers who inhabit that and the contiguous districts. Shut out as they are, by the stern prohibitions of their own priesthood, from all access to our means of grace; taught to believe that all doctrine is heresy, and all instruction hurtful, which does not flow directly from their own communion; living among us, as they did, for so many years, like sheep having no shepherd, who would condemn the only provision being at length made for them, of which their unhappy state admitted? Nay more; may we not hope that having been left hitherto equally ignorant and fettered, ignorant of the commonest means of knowledge, and fettered and precluded from attaining it, the instruction now given to their children will one day become the blessed means of enabling them to throw off their fetters, and make an opening for the light of Gospel truth to shine upon their souls? But, alas! all that we see and hear forbids us to believe that the only design or effect of this measure is to enable the Romanists to provide for their own people. There is already too much evidence to show that it has all the character of an aggression upon the faith of the members of our Church. It is in full accordance with those measures, which within the last few months have happily awakened the Protestant spirit of our whole people, and have shown in its true colours the influence of that unscriptural and grasping Church from which they sprang. By devices the most insidious, our people are invited to witness the imposing ritual of this new building; while depositaries are opened, even at our own doors, for the public sale of cheap tracts, that tend, with bitter irony and gross misstatements, to discredit _our_ institutions and to recommend _theirs_. {17a} What will be the actual result of all this conflict between truth and error before _ten more years_ have passed, it may not be easy to say. If those among us who are spared to outlive them are enabled to “_hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering_,” {17b} they may not only save their own souls, but lead others, who can only view Him now through the mists of their corruptions, to honour the holy name of Him by whom we are called. But surely, with these facts before us, there is the strongest inducement for us all, not only to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith, but why, and on what grounds we are in it; {17c} while there is a motive created strong enough to induce all who have the means at their command to promote any well-advised plans for arresting the evil, or turning it, through God’s blessing, to good. {17d}

To conclude. The inquiry which will be going on to-morrow throughout the country is addressed to us all, as the heads of our separate households; each giving a return of the names, and ages, and birthplace, and occupations of those, who will pass this very night under his own roof. But surely the thought will occur to _some_ among us, I would to God that it might be brought home by His Spirit to the hearts of _all_, that there are several other points of inquiry besides these, upon which the great Head of the Church may be expecting, and really does expect, an account to be rendered by us. We may have no power to influence the character or to regulate the habits of those large masses of the people whose irreligion, in the crowded districts that surround us, we may deplore. The influence which is to affect a whole nation falls within the power of very few. But that which affects the character of any family or household, (and nations are made up of families) depends mainly on the principles, aye, and even on the tempers and way of life of those whom God places over them; for this also is an allotment of His providence. Let us then suppose for an instant, that it was desired to obtain, as on this same day, a return of what might be called the spiritual statistics of England. Suppose, that laying aside, or rather looking beyond the mere considerations of civil or political economy, it were wished to learn by such distinct and palpable records as might be furnished, the actual state of religion through the whole extent of our population. I well know, indeed, that there are signs and marks of which no earthly inquiries could take cognizance; proofs of spiritual growth in some, and of declension in others; secret concessions to the corrupt nature in one class, or inward aspirations after holiness in the other; hypocrisies which no eye can detect among “_the children of this world_,” and spiritual conflicts in the “_children of light_,” which can only be known to the Supreme Searcher of their hearts. But when all this is allowed, we might lay down some distinctions in every case, the existence or the absence of which would go far to show, whether the master of that house, and those around him, were really serving God or not. If it were inquired throughout the land, or if, limiting the supposition to our own parish, it were asked in every house, Is family prayer maintained _under this roof_? {18a} Is the Sabbath observed by the master, by the servants, by the children, as “_a delight_, _the holy of the Lord_, _honourable_?” {18b} all work suspended which may be left undone, and every pursuit given up which is inconsistent with the real spirit of the day, as one of holy rest? Would the general answers to these questions be such as we could really ponder over with any comfort? Or again, if it were asked, How many Bibles _in this house_ are diligently searched? How many of its inmates are not only permitted, but encouraged and invited, and if need be, urged to attend upon the public worship of God? Is there a servants’ library _in this house_, to which every one of them may have recourse for some edifying or self-improving reading during the leisure intervals of their service? {19a} How many communicants are there _in this family_ among those who have reached the proper age of full communion with the Church, and with her living Head? How many of the children are really reared in the spirit of their baptismal vows, “_virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life_?” {19b} Are not these subjects of inquiry on which there would be too great cause for self-reproach to many among us; the reproach resting upon those who had all the means afforded them for their spiritual sustenance and growth, but have carelessly neglected to improve them?

My brethren, I commend these remarks in all faithfulness and affection to your private meditations and your prayers. And may your own consciences, enlightened by the Spirit of God, guide you to some profitable application of them! May it be given to each of us to feel this day, that we are supplying a return of so many beings, not merely connected with us by the ties and duties of an earthly relation, or a short-lived existence here; but of those who are travelling on quickly with ourselves to an eternity of bliss or woe; precious, never-dying souls; the objects equally with us of the Saviour’s love, the Spirit’s teaching, and the Father’s care; called equally with us to be members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. What “_I say unto you I would say unto all_, _Watch_! _for ye know not when the Master of the house will come_” to reckon with us, whether at the close, or the middle, or the opening of this new decade on which we are now entering.

But this we know, that when the Lord does come the second time from heaven, then will be the great numbering of the nations: not the mere periodical census of a single kingdom, which, with all its boasted wealth and enterprise, is but a mere speck upon the surface of our earth; but a numbering of all the myriads that have ever peopled it, from the family of the first man until there “_shall be time no longer_;” {20a} “_the sea giving up the dead which are in it_; _and death and the grave delivering up the dead_” {20b} which are in them; and all distinctions of age, or rank, or learning, or riches, or power, lost and sunk, in the simple but everlasting distinction between those who served God, and those who served Him not; those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, and those not to be found there. And then will these inquiries and such as these, which your ministers urge upon you now in “_the foolishness of preaching_,” {20c} but which too often reach only unwilling ears and careless hearts, then shall they be enforced by “_the voice of the archangel and by the trump of God_.” {20d}

Let us then “_walk circumspectly_, _not as fools_, _but as wise_, _redeeming the time_, _because the days are evil_.” {20e} And may we be found so far faithful to Him who calls us, that out of these our earthly households, some may be continually gathering to join that “_multitude which no man can number_,” {20f} who, on the sea of glass and before the sapphire throne, are worshipping Him that sits upon the throne, and casting their crowns before Him, and saying, “_Thou art worthy to receive glory_, _and honour_, _and power_; _for thou hast created all things_, _and for Thy pleasure they are and were created_!” {20g}

NOTES.

Note A. (P. 17.)

During the evenings of the late winter months a series of scenic representations, twice in every week, was displayed in the school-room, which is near the church; and the admission being free, they were attended by large numbers of the poorer class, Roman Catholic and Protestant. On these occasions the priest always attended, and explained the subjects represented, which were uniformly taken from the Scripture. And he lost no opportunity of inviting his audience to hear the same subjects enforced in the church which thus interested them in the school-room.

The following extracts from some of these tracts, which are all announced upon a large printed placard in the window of the house where they are sold, as having received

THE “APPROBATION OF HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WISEMAN AND ALL THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS,”

will justify, it is presumed, without a comment, the epithets here applied to them, as describing their character and tendency. They are either untrue, unfair, or ironical.

Extracts from a tract, entitled, “_Protestantism weighed in its own Balance_, _and found wanting_. No. 1. _The Bible_, _and the Bible only_.”

“It is worth observing that this rule of faith, as well in its short and popular form, as also when more fully drawn out and explained, is rather negative than positive. Those who use it are more careful to say what they do _not_ than what they _do_. They insist upon ‘the Bible _only_’ to the exclusion of everything else, but they are not equally jealous about receiving the whole Bible, every part of it. They say that nothing is to be required of any man that it should be believed which is not to be found in the Bible, or at least may not be proved thereby; but they do not with equal distinctness insist upon the duty of believing everything which _is_ read in that sacred book or _may be_ proved by it. This is no idle assertion, but is plain matter of fact.”—P. 1.

“There are many texts even then which they do not really receive; some which are to them as an unknown tongue, without any meaning at all, and which they therefore make no use of whatever; others which seem to be opposed to their own creed, and which they therefore try to escape from and to explain away; lastly, there are others which they even boldly contradict.”—P. 2.

“If God did not intend the Bible to be man’s only guide and teacher in matters of religion, but appointed His Church for this very purpose, that she should fulfil this office, and promised her His guidance, so that she should never be deceived in proposing anything to our belief that was not true and had not been revealed by Him, then of course, not only is the Catholic Church right upon this point, but also of necessity right upon every other point also.”—P. 6.

“The Protestant professes that the only sure way of knowing God’s will is for every man to read the Holy Scriptures for himself. I take up the Holy Scriptures, therefore, for this purpose, and I find there that our Lord appointed, and the apostles practised, quite another way of learning God’s will and the right road to heaven. I find that our Lord sent, not a message, but messengers; not a book for men to read, but apostles for men to obey; and in like manner I find that the apostles do say not a word about the necessity of not believing anything that is not written in a certain book, but on the contrary, that they distinctly say, Believe all that you have been taught, whether written or unwritten.”—P. 9.

“It is plain that our Lord did not use the words, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ in the sense in which the Protestants use them. He did not refer His hearers to the Scriptures in the same way that the Protestant refers you. For if so, why did they need His further teaching? He made the same use of the Scriptures as Catholics do in speaking to Protestants at this day. The Catholic says to Protestants, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ for these are they which testify of the Church as well as of her Head. They expressly command you to ‘hear the Church’ (St. Matt, xviii. 17).”—P. 11.

“A Catholic priest at the present day might follow the example of St. Paul, and show that Jesus whom he preached was Christ; that the Church which he preached to them was in very deed the society to which such high and noble privileges were promised in Holy Scripture. And every one who should give heed to his preaching in the same way as the Bereans did, would not fail to meet with the same reward. He also would ‘believe;’ believe not only the one doctrine which had been thus proved to him from Holy Scripture, viz. that the Church was the appointed teacher of mankind, but also every other doctrine which the same teacher might propose to his belief, whether written in the Holy Bible or not.”—P. 14.

Extract from another tract, entitled, “_The Church_, _the Guardian of Scripture_, or, _How does the Bible come to us_?”

“People are apt to think of the Bible, as if it were a whole without parts, indivisible, self-existent, in short, a kind of divinity; or, at least, as if it had come down from heaven precisely such as we now have it, ready bound to our hands, if not with the Bible Society’s stamp upon it.”—P. 7.

Extract from another tract, entitled, “_The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary_, or, _The use of the Beads no vain Repetition_.”

“Perhaps you find something that shocks you in the fact of the ‘Hail Mary’ being repeated so much oftener than the Lord’s Prayer; and it may be that there is in this a fresh instance of that unhappy creature-worship which disfigures every part of the Catholic religion. Now do not suppose that the reason of this is, that we consider prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin better than prayers addressed to God. We do certainly think her prayers for us are better, and more likely to be heard and answered than our own; because we know that she was ever perfectly free from all stain of guilt, and is now nearest to God in glory; and we feel ourselves full of the defilement of sin.”—P. 10.

“Christ has entered into His kingdom, and His saints are reigning with Him. Which of them shall be nearest to Him in glory as once in suffering, but her through whom He joined our human nature to Deity itself? The anguish over, the grace and virtue crowned, the glory never to pass away; surely, well may we again call the Queen of Heaven, ‘Blessed among women!’ and more than ever trusting in the power of her intercession, more than ever call on her, ‘Holy Mary, mother of God! pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of death.’”—P. 14.

SECOND AND FOURTH OF THE FIVE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES.

“2d. The scourging of our Blessed Lord, at the pillar by soldiers, in Pilate’s house; the number of stripes they gave him being above five thousand.

“4th. The carrying of the Cross; in which our Lord Jesus Christ, being sentenced to die, bears with most amazing patience the cross which is laid upon Him for His greater torment and ignominy, meeting His blessed mother by the way.”

FOURTH AND FIFTH OF THE FIVE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES.

“4th. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; in which after her death, twelve years after the Resurrection, she is assumed into heaven by her Divine Son accompanied by the holy angels.

“5th. The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin; in which, amid the great jubilee and exultation of the whole court of heaven, and to the particular glory of all the saints, she is crowned by her Son with the brightest diadem of glory.”—P. 16.

Extracts from a tract, entitled, “_Our Parish Churches as they were and as they are_. 1. _Old stones tell tales_.”

“I declare, it seems to me that the very idea of worship has almost died out in England. Do you think that if people really felt they were speaking to Almighty God, they would sit at their ease, or look over a book, and never do more? Church of Englandism has such a _comfortable_ look about it; it is the religion of people well to do in the world, and have too much business to transact to turn their minds thoroughly to anything else. It is a _one day a week_ religion. Every thing about it is so formal, so decent, so sober, so proper and respectable. It would look so odd to seem in earnest; to be on your knees in prayer before so many well-dressed people, as though you had a soul to be saved. Church of Englandism is such a human thing; it smacks so much of the world and of ‘good society.’ It makes a poor man feel awkward, just as he does when he finds himself in a gentleman’s drawing-room.”—P. 10.

“The Church of England would never have built such churches, though it is very proud of them now it has got them, and lately has taken to making a few others in imitation of the old ones. People never seem to think of this. They are always bragging about their fine old parish churches, and their venerable cathedrals, and all the while they were built by the Papists, as they call them; and if it had not been for the Papists they would never have had them to brag of. The sparrow stole into the martin’s nest, and said, See what a nice warm house I have got. He couldn’t say he had _made_ it, but he was quite as cocky as if he had.”—P. 11.

“‘And what is this?’ said I again; and I pointed at a curious sort of niche with a hole at the bottom of it. ‘That,’ said he, ‘is a _piscina_; it was for pouring the water away after the priest had washed his hands.’ ‘Why should he wash his hands,’ said I, ‘more than our ministers?’ ‘Because,’ said Peter, ‘he had to touch the body of the Lord, and to lift Him up, as when He was raised on the cross. And your ministers have no need to wash theirs, because they have not got the body of our Lord there at all.’”—p. 14.

“‘What was the use of saying mass for him,’ said I, ‘when he was dead and buried?’ Peter smiled, and answered, ‘It is said in the Scriptures, that it is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, and it certainly must be so.’”—P. 15.

Extracts from a tract, entitled, “_The Church of our Fathers_.”