Part 4

Thus, my children, I discovered that these two primary doctrines of the Romish church, viz. purgatory and the supremacy of St. Peter, had not, at any rate, been inculcated by the writers of the Gospel. I cannot tell you what interest I felt in the new ideas I had acquired. The New Testament, which I was still far from regarding as a divine revelation, appeared to me a collection of precious documents, in whose authority I then began to feel some degree of confidence. Though I found this study novel and difficult to a poor uneducated artisan like myself, it was at the same time so attractive to me, that I was induced to continue my researches.

I have already mentioned to you, my dear children, the invincible repugnance which I had always felt to receiving the sacrament as administered in the Romish church. I have said that nothing in the world could have forced me to this act, by which it is profanely pretended that the _creature_ EATS _his Creator_!! I could never even think of it without shuddering. This doctrine, which asserts that Jesus Christ is present, in body and in spirit, in the consecrated wafer, and that every communicant is actually nourished by his flesh and blood, is, of all the tenets of popery, that which contributed the most to alienate me from the Christian religion, to which I attached it, and to drive me to infidelity.

This, therefore, now attracted all my attention; and again I began to read the New Testament, entirely occupied, as previously, by the one object which I had in view.

I found nothing in the three Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. Luke, which gave me the least reason to suppose that their author had recognized the real and corporeal presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the holy supper. The words of the institution, as related by the first, Matt. 26:26, 27, 28, by the second, Mark, 14:22, 23, 24, and by the third, Luke, 22:19, 20, reported with slight variations by the three Evangelists, and which I took great pains to collate and compare, conveyed no other idea than that of a _commemorative ceremony_, designed to preserve and call to remembrance the sufferings, the passion, and the death of Christ. In my then wretched condition of unbelief, the magnitude, the sanctity, and the power of the sacrament did not strike my mind; but, excepting that, I imbibed from the consideration of these passages the views which I still hold. So far, then, I had not discovered the doctrine of the real presence; but I thought I _had_ indeed found it specifically established when I read these words: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, we have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." John, 6:51-56. These words appeared to me to be undoubtedly the foundation of the Romish faith on this head. I even thought that the writer of them had the establishment of this doctrine especially in view. At that moment I was tempted to stop, and to carry no further my researches on a doctrine which I thought I had found clearly set forth, but the absurdity of which had never appeared to me so palpable. I then felt an utter disgust towards the Gospel; nevertheless, internally spurred on by an invisible power, which was then unknown to me, but which I now recognize to have been the Holy Spirit, the author of all divine revelation; and attracted, as it were, in spite of myself, by the Spirit of God, who graciously purposed to teach me to appreciate, and in time to receive, the truth of his word, I resumed my New Testament, which I had for a moment thrown aside, and recommencing the perusal of the sixth chapter of St. John, I read it to the end, which I had not done before.

When I reached the sixty-third verse, I was struck as by a flash of light, which instantaneously discovered to me the mistake that I had at first made in the meaning of the six verses transcribed above, and imparted a new value to the Gospel. When I read "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing--the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life," John, 6:63, I had, as it were, the key of the chapter, and no longer discerned in it the doctrine of the real presence. I perceived that it in no way referred to swallowing and digesting, with our corporeal organs, the body and blood of Christ: I saw that the expressions of eating and drinking were used figuratively, and that they really signified nothing but knowing Christ, coming to him, and believing in him, as it is explained in the thirty-fifth verse of the same chapter, where Jesus Christ says, "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

It was, then, as clear to me as the day, that Jesus Christ used the terms _eating_ and _drinking_ only in a spiritual manner; and (as I now understand them) as referring to that faith, which, while it is living and active in our hearts, unites us to him in an inexplicable manner, and clothes us in his merits at the same time that it purifies and sanctifies our views, our sentiments, and our desires. After having thus discovered my error, I found myself more than ever inclined to persevere in my reading, and to search and see whether the doctrine of the real presence would not he better established in the subsequent parts of the book. The further I advanced, my dear children, the more reason I had to be convinced that neither Jesus nor his apostles ever intended to convey such an idea. I should be too tedious were I to point out to you all the passages which I found expressly contradictory to this revolting tenet; it will be sufficient to quote a few.

I found in the Acts, that the apostles saw Jesus Christ ascend on high, carried upward by a cloud which concealed him from their sight, and that two angels appeared and said unto them, "Men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in _like manner_ as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts, 1:9, 11. "There never was a priest," said I, "there never was a Roman Catholic, administering or receiving the sacrament, that ever saw Christ descending from heaven, in this manner, to enter into the bread. Nevertheless, the angels declared that he should descend from heaven in the same manner as he went up into heaven."

I found, in the same book, "that the heavens must receive Jesus Christ till the time of the restitution of all things." Acts, 3:21. "He is then," said I, "no longer corporeally on the earth." I found, in the Epistle to the Colossians, that "Christ sitteth on the right hand of God;" chap. 3:1; from whence I drew the inference that he certainly cannot be actually present on so many altars, or in so great a number of wafers, as the doctrine of the real presence necessarily supposes.

I found, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapters 9 and 10, the strongest declarations, not only against the real presence, but against the whole system of the mass, by which it is pretended daily to renew the passion and sacrifice of our Saviour. When the apostle says that "Christ is entered into heaven itself;" Heb. 9:24; when he says that "unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation;" ver. 28; lastly, when he says it is the will of God to sanctify us "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once made," chap. 10:10, and that "this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God," ver. 12, having "by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified," ver. 14, it appeared to me to prove, with the most unanswerable evidence, that the doctrine of the real presence, and all connected with it, was as far removed from the creed of the apostle as the east is from the west, or as heaven from hell.

Finally, my dear children, the very words of the institution of the Lord's Supper, related by St. Paul, 1 Cor. 11, and to which I paid particular and repeated attention, did not leave a shadow of doubt on my mind that the doctrine of the Romish church, on the subject of the Eucharist, is utterly devoid of any foundation in the Gospel, and must, consequently, have been derived from some other source. In fact, all that our Saviour says on the occasion of instituting the Lord's Supper, clearly shows that it was a _memorial of himself_ which he established, and which he wished to leave behind him. After having taken, blessed, and broken the bread, he commands that it should be eaten _in remembrance of him._ Having given them the cup to drink, he adds, "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, _in remembrance_ of me." The words, "this is my body--this cup is the New Testament in my blood," appeared to me only what they really are, figurative expressions, signifying that the bread _represented_ his body, and the wine his blood. These words do in no degree change or modify the principal idea, that of _commemoration_, which runs throughout this action of our Lord.

Had it even been possible that these words had deceived me; had I taken them in their literal meaning, I should soon have been undeceived by those which immediately follow, which in themselves utterly overthrow the doctrine of the real presence, and the whole system of the mass. These are the words: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do _show_ the Lord's death _till he come."_ 1 Cor. 11:26. After this declaration, connected with so many others, what further proof was wanting that St. Paul never believed that the bread and wine contained the actual body of Christ? I clearly saw that in this passage he meant that it is really bread we eat, and wine we drink, in the sacrament, and not the actual body and blood of the Son of God. I perceived that he taught that the Lord is not actually present in that ceremony according to the sense of the Romish church, because he distinctly says, "that by participating in it, we do _show_ the Lord's death _till he come_"

In short, I was convinced that, according to St. Paul, it is not the body and blood of Jesus Christ that the priests hold in their hands, and which they offer as a sacrifice in the mass.

Here, my children, I suspended my researches, convinced, as much as it is possible to be convinced of any thing, that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not to be found in the New Testament. I concluded that it must have the same origin as those of the papacy and of purgatory.

Diverted as I had been from my usual occupation, during the time that I had thus devoted to study and meditation; obliged to maintain myself and you by the sweat of my brow, and having no other immediate subject of perplexity, I returned to my daily labour, and discontinued the perusal of the Gospel. My New Testament had certainly gained much in my esteem; but without stopping to consider exactly in what way I valued it, I think I may say that it was _not_ as containing the Word of God, and the knowledge which is unto salvation.

Thus not being really or heartily interested in it, I replaced it a second time on the spot it had so long occupied on the chimney-piece of my room, and eighteen months or two years passed without my thinking of consulting it anew.

During this period I married again: your tender age, and the care you required, which my business and absence prevented my giving you, were the motives which induced me to take this step. God in his fatherly kindness mercifully directed my choice, though I had never thought of asking him to do so; and you have found a second mother in her who has ever been to me the most estimable and best of friends. During this period also, I thought more of religion than ever before. Though I had read the Gospel only to satisfy my curiosity on the three points of doctrine that I have mentioned, and although my attention had been exclusively directed to these points, it is probable, notwithstanding, that I had almost unconsciously imbibed some of the impressions which the word of God is calculated to produce, and that even then I was in some measure under its secret influence. One thing I am sure of, that from that time some idea of religion, although then comparatively vague and confused, never left me; I frequently caught myself musing on the origin of the universe, on the vicissitudes of nature, and on the future condition of those numerous beings, who are seen for a short time on the earth and then disappear. My own destiny, also, frequently engaged my thoughts. But I was far from referring it to Him, on whom I now see that it entirely depends. In all these thoughts God was excluded from the place he ought to have held. With nothing but false and uncertain notions of him, I was far indeed from regarding him as the vivifying principle, which, to the eye of the Christian, animates and embellishes every thing, and as that pure light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

I am bound to tell you, my children, what was the real state of my soul at that time. I was in so deplorable a condition of blindness and ignorance, that sometimes I thought there was no God, but that he was an imaginary being; and sometimes confounding him with the works of his almighty hands, I attributed divinity to the material world. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God," and I dare not deny that these words of David were for a long time, and even perhaps at the period of which I am speaking, applicable to me. But while I acknowledge that the natural corruption of my heart, and the bad books I had read, were in part the causes of the sad state I have described, I cannot help also attributing the greatest part of them to the _abuses_, the _superstition_, and the _errors_ which disfigure Christianity in the Romish church, and which had so disgusted me that they had driven me into total infidelity.

Such, then, being in fact my religious state, you may well believe, my children, that I was not happy; for it is impossible to be so without trusting in God, who is the source of supreme good and true peace. I was assiduous in my occupation; I frequented the society of my friends; but, my heart empty and incessantly craving after something which I could not obtain, was never content. My mind, restless and agitated, could no where find an object to fix and satisfy it. Listlessness followed me every where, and seemed to increase upon me. O how unhappy, and how pitiable are those, who are, as was then, without God, without Christ, without hope in the world!

I was in this wretched state when it pleased God to have pity upon me, and to cause a ray of light to penetrate my mind. One evening, after the labours of the day, instead of going as usual to the club which I frequented, I went alone upon the public walk, where I remained till the night was far advanced: the moon shone clear and bright: I had never before been so struck by the magnificence of the heavens, and I felt unusually disposed to reflection. "No," I said, (after contemplating for a long time the impressive scene before me,) "no, nature is not God," (for till then I had entertained this opinion,) "God is certainly distinct from nature: in all this I can only recognise a _work_ replete with harmony, order, and beauty. Although I cannot perceive the Author, whose power, intelligence, and wisdom are every where so strongly imprinted on it; still, both my reason and my feeling combine to convince me of his existence."

This conclusion, which I sincerely adopted, was the result of the reflections in which I had been that evening absorbed.

Some days after this, the examination of a watch, its springs, its various wheels, and its motions, brought me afresh to the same conclusion, and for ever confirmed me in the belief of a God, the Creator of all things. "If this watch," I argued, "could not make itself, and necessarily leads us to suppose an artist who made each part, and so arranged the whole as to produce these movements--how much stronger reasons have we for concluding that the universe has a Contriver and Maker?"

I was no sooner fully satisfied of the existence of a God, than I trembled at the thought of his attributes, and my relationship to him. The sense of my unworthiness and sinfulness deeply affected me. When I called to mind the many years I had passed in forgetfulness of this great God; in indifference to, or in a culpable unbelief of his existence; I felt that I must indeed be, in his sight, the most ungrateful, and the most sinful of his creatures. My next feeling was an anxious desire to amend my conduct, and I determined to lay down such a plan for my future life, as I hoped might not be unworthy of that Being whose eye I then felt was upon me. After having made many efforts to recall the best maxims of wisdom and rules of virtue that I had met with in the course of my reading, I at length came to a resolution of examining what moral precepts the New Testament might contain, and whether it might not afford me the rules I was seeking for the regulation of my conduct.

This was the motive which brought me again to the New Testament, and induced me to undertake a fourth time the perusal of it. I wish it were in my power to recount to you, my dear children, all the effects that the eternal word of God produced upon my heart; for from that time I recognised it to be, what it is in fact, the revelation of sovereign wisdom; the genuine expression of the Divine will; the message of a tender and compassionate Father, addressed to his ungrateful and rebellious children, soliciting them to return and find happiness in him. I wish I could retrace all the impressions that this divine message produced on my mind, the vivid emotions I experienced, and the thoughts and feelings (never, I trust, to be forgotten) excited by that reading.

I was like a man born blind, who should suddenly recover his sight in a magnificent apartment, splendidly illuminated. My feelings at least corresponded with those of a man under such circumstances, were they possible. How glorious was the light of the Gospel to me! I sought for morality, and I found _there_ the most simple, clear, complete, and perfect system of morality that could be conceived; and _there_ I found precepts suited to every circumstance that could present itself in life, as a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a subject, a servant, a labourer, a man, a reasonable creature: my duty in every relation of life I there found inculcated in the most admirable manner. I could not imagine one moral duty for which I did not there find a precept; not one precept unaccompanied by a motive; and no motive that did not appear to me to be dictated by reason, or enforced by an authority against which I felt that I had nothing to object. I observed two kinds of precepts which, though tending to the same end, i.e. perfection, produced a different effect upon me. The _positive_ precepts presented to my mind an idea of the high degree of holiness at which that man would arrive who could keep them without a single violation. The _negative_ precepts, by leading me to a close self-examination, impressed me with a deep sense of my corruption, and convinced me that the authors of them must have possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart in general, and of my heart individually.

"Who then," said I, "were the writers of this book?" And when I reflected that they were poor, uneducated mechanics like myself, the question immediately presented itself--how could fishermen, tax-gatherers, and tent-makers, acquire such extraordinary sagacity, penetration, wisdom, and knowledge? "Ah!" I exclaimed, "this is indeed a problem, which can only be solved by admitting their own assertion, that the Spirit of God directed their pens, and that all they wrote was divinely inspired." Such, my children, was my conclusion after this examination of the morality laid down in the Gospel.

Thus I recognised the divine origin of the New Testament, and took my first step toward Christianity.

When I had once acknowledged the divine origin of the _morality_ of the Gospel, reason and personal experience combined to convince me of the truth and divine source of the _doctrines_ on which it was founded.

"If God inspired the apostles, and enabled them to give to the world the purest and most perfect system of morality that can be conceived, is it to be supposed that in the remainder of their writings he would leave them to themselves, and permit error or imposture to be mixed and confounded with truth?" No: from the same source cannot proceed sweet waters and bitter. As the moral precepts of the Gospel are divinely inspired, so, likewise, _must_ be its doctrines. This reasoning appeared to me incontrovertible, and I received with full conviction the whole contents of the New Testament, as dictated by the Spirit of truth.

From that time Jesus Christ, his history, his divine character, his miracles, the end for which he came into the world, his sufferings and death, attracted and absorbed my whole attention. At the account of his passion, which, till then, I had read with indifference, my heart was melted, and my eyes overflowed with tears. In short, I found and felt such a suitableness between the wants of my sinful soul, destitute as it was of all peace and comfort, and the work which the Saviour had accomplished by his death on the cross, that I no longer doubted that the promises of the Gospel were personally addressed to me. I believed that Jesus Christ had offered himself a sacrifice for me, to expiate my sins, and to reconcile me unto God; and from that moment I have enjoyed an inward peace, the source of which I believe to be faith in Christ alone--a peace which the world can neither give nor take away, and which, as I myself have frequently experienced, is alone able to support and strengthen us through all the sufferings and afflictions of life.

In this manner you see how, a sinner and prodigal as I was, our heavenly Father met me, and received me to the arms of his mercy; how he made known to me his free grace and heavenly gift, of which I was utterly unworthy. It is his grace that has accomplished all in me. He it was who began, who carried on, and who, I trust, will perfect this work of salvation.

Without his intervention, that is to say, without the aid of his Spirit operating upon my heart, it never could have experienced a _real_ conversion. To him also do I ascribe, with gratitude, my admission into the protestant church, of which I have now the privilege of being a member--as I shall proceed to tell you.

Having found, as I have already said, peace and joy in that word of God which I had received with my whole heart, I immediately felt the desire and the need of intercourse with gospel Christians; I was convinced that such there were, because the Saviour had promised "that the powers of hell should never prevail against his church." But not finding them in the Roman Catholic church, which presented to me nothing but a religion of tradition, equally degenerate in doctrine and worship, I was greatly at a loss where to find the real Christians for whom I was in search.