84 TRUTH'S EMBANKMENT UNDERMINED. infallible guide in all matters of faith, worship, and practice, we must never any more quote the language of the Saviour, although he said, in direct opposition to the dogmas of traditionists, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." Well then, in contending for the faith, be this our war-cry-" To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Venerate scripture; contemn tradition.

Just in proportion as this main principle (that written tradition, as contained in the canonical books of the inspired scriptures is the only divine rule of faith and practice) is weakened, or in the least degree invalidated, a threatening and dangerous fissure is made in that strong and noble embankment, which our reformers set up to keep out and to impede the influx of Rome's damnable heresies. But there are men-aye, and preachers and prelates too-who have long been industriously (and at first secretly at work) weakening this embankment; and they have made a chasm in it-and, alas! through this chasm, error at first oozed gently out, but, by their continued efforts, the chasm gets every day wider and wider, and, if not speedily repairedif the flood which is now flowing forth through it, is not arrested, by this fearful injury being

FALSE LIGHTS SET UP.

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well stopped up-it will soon lay the whole of Protestant England under a desolating flood, where awful ruin will universally prevail. Or, to change the figure, observe, if the man who wilfully obscures or extinguishes the warning rays which emanate from the lantern tower of a lighthouse, is morally guilty, as the procuring cause of all the wrecks, and consequent loss of life, which may be the sad result of the obscurity and darkness which his folly or his temerity may have occasioned, so, by a parity of reasoning, the individual who sets up false lights instead of the bright and authorized flame, he is equally guilty with the former delinquent if wreck and ruin ensue. Know, then, that the Puseyites are doing this every day. The Bible is the only true and all-sufficient light which God has given for the spiritual illumination of a benighted world. David says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light upon my path." But, "NO!" say the Oxford Tractmen and their proselytes, "you must have Tradition's lantern, the unwritten word, as well as the Bible, or you will never find your way!" Oh, the evils which Puseyite teachers are effecting! They are trying to bedim the light of Inspiration, and are rearing up, here, there, and every where, the false lights of Tradition and Romanism-and we fear and feel assured that, through their

86

AN EXCLUSIVE PRIESTHOOD.

delusive guidance, thousands will make awful shipwreck of faith, and sink eventually into endless, hopeless, bottomless perdition. For if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.

Having thus shown how Popery and Puseyism conjointly attempt to sap and undermine the deep foundations of that axiom which may most properly be regarded as the very citadel of Protestantism, and that they both try to tarnish the brightest jewel in the diadem of the reformer's faith, by denying the sufficiency and unlimited authority of the written word of God, we once more reiterate, in the hearing of all (and would to God it were the creed of all) "THE BIBLE, and THE BIBLE ALONE, is the religion of Protestants."

We must proceed, now, to the consideration of another kindred error, as embraced and extensively propagated by the partizans of Laudean and high church principles in the present day.

SECONDLY. PUSEYISM AND POPERY SET UP A HUMAN EXCLUSIVE PRIESTHOOD, AND GIVE UNDUE INFLUENCE AND IMPORTANCE TO THOSE WHO ENGAGE IN THEIR PUBLIC RELIGIOUS SERVICES.

The exclusive authority of the clergy is most unhesitatingly asserted by each party. Accordingly, this arrogant and insolent assumption is now dogmatically disseminated, viz. That, in the

A SUCCESSIONAL MINISTRY.

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true Church there is but one order of men, who are the genuine ministers of the true sanctuary, and therefore, that all who have not been episcopally ordained are impudent intruders into the sacred office, only pretenders to holy orders, having no true ministerial authority, and therefore are nothing but imposters and deceivers of the people. By one summary act of excommunication they cast out of the pale of the Church a vast multitude of faithful and successful preachers of Christ's holy gospel, and thus bid them away, whom the Head of the Church has called, qualified, and sent forth as labourers into his vineyard. The exclusive, arrogant, and unfounded claims of a large portion of the present episcopally - ordained priesthood is amazing. Now, in opposition to Popery and Puseyism, we deny that, under the christian dispensation, there is a successive priesthood, or any actual altar at which they may serve-or any repeated sacrifice (as in the mass is pretended) that can by such priests be ever offered. In reference to the new and gospel dispensation and worship, there is not a word (in the senses in which Puseyites and Papists apply them) about priests, or priesthood, altars, sacrifices, or aught of the sacrificial language to which their several hierarchies are so devoted. Puseyism has thought fit, and she must answer for it at the great and

88

TRENT AND OXFORD TENETS.

terrible day of the Lord, to bring back and affix to her clergy and their functions, to her sacramental table and its symbolic elements, a set of denominations which the Holy Ghost not only never annexed to the ministry and ordinances of his own creation, but which he had, with pointed care, excluded from the New Testament system altogether. Puseyism has pilfered them from Rome-she cannot gain them from the Bible. In proof, ponder the following extracts, which will show that ecclesiastical domination and priestly arrogance and imposture are zealously defended, and with equal jealousy guarded both by the professors of Tractarian doctrine at Oxford, and the proud priests of Rome. Hear, first, an extract from the Council of Trent; hear, secondly, an extract from a modern episcopally-ordained divine of London.

The following passage is taken from the debates of the Council of Trent, and selected from the chapter "Of the Institution of the Priesthood of the Law:"

"Sacrifice and priesthood are so joined by the ordinance of God, that both are found together in every dispensation. Since, therefore, under the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, by divine institution, the holy and visible sacrifice of the eucharist, it must be acknowledged that she has a new, and visible, and external priesthood, in the place of the old. Now the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught that