Sacraments.

Wherever he has found the right to execute his functions, it still remains to be inquired, where he is to find spiritual power to give value and energy to his official actions? Where is he to obtain "the ability which God giveth1!" The next step, therefore, is to renounce the mysteriousness of the Sacraments; to reduce them to mere badges of profession, forms of initiation and Church fellowship; in point of fact,―to parts of the machinery of sectarian exclusiveness. The mysterious presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist must be denied, and the forgiveness of sins in Baptism; and in fine, the necessity of baptism, as an ordinance of the Christian Church.

Such is a brief but correct outline of the progress of error which was actually made in the Sixteenth Century, when shortly after the Reformation, the denial of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, became the distinction of a Sect. Whether low and erroneous views of the nature of the Church

1 1 Pet. iv. 11.

and the Sacraments may not, in like manner, have a tendency towards errors concerning the divine nature, so that, starting from Socinus's conclusions, a clever man, with courage or vanity enough to follow out the natural results of his own reasonings, will not be likely to arrive at Socinus's principles, I shall not now stop to consider. I cannot but fear, that such is likely to be the result. The almighty power and omnipresence of our Redeemer, and the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, are so involved in the Scriptural doctrine of the Church and Sacraments, that I apprehend, there would be no difficulty in foreseeing the progress of error in this direction likewise, even if history had afforded no aid to our inquiries. '.

1 It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to select from the whole range of Theological Science, a subject more interesting, or involving consequences more momentous, than the connexion which, in all ages, has existed between the Antitrinitarian Heresies under all their phases, and low views of the ministry and sacraments and general constitution of the Church. I have elsewhere (Order and Mission, p. 36, note) noticed the denial by Socinus of the doctrine of Apostolical

whom he has not yet revealed the object

of faith.

But wholly different is the case of those who live in a Christian country, where the object of faith has been clearly and abundantly revealed. The Scriptures must be taken as a whole, or rejected altogether. Our first question is; what reason have we for believing them to be a revelation from God? If they bear external and internal evidence of a divine and supernatural original, it is as irrational, as it is profane, either to torture their language with the excruciations and wrenchings, of figurative and spiritual interpretations, and double senses, until the reluctant text has uttered some meaning that may suit our preconceived notions; or, on the other hand, (for men have at last dared even to do such things,) to mutilate and lop, until we have made a Bible of our own, which will have nothing in it beyond what our ignorance and presumption have thought fit to sanction. The Bible is either a revelation from our Creator, or it is not. If it be not, it is a wicked fiction. If it be, I,

for one, can feel no respect for the understanding or the integrity of the man, who will dare to explain away a single word of it. Take it as it stands, or reject it altogether.

The man who pretends to reverence the Scriptures, and yet will believe just as much, or rather as little of them as he pleases, is after all a very silly man. The first principles of his theology are false. He attempts to be wiser than his Creator, and more sublime than the Almighty. He has determined to measure the most transcendent subject, the nature and existence of the Almighty, by a rule, which he would not venture to apply to the nature and existence of an insect or a worm. He will believe nothing, except what he can understand. He will understand nothing, except what he chooses to understand. He must comprehend the incomprehensible. He must have such a notion of the infinite and eternal God, as shall be free from all that is difficult and mysterious. He will receive nothing in a divine revelation, except what he imagines he could

have discovered without it. If, indeed, it could be proved, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was to be found in but one or two isolated passages of Scripture, then such conduct might have some little show of palliation. But taking the fact as it really is, that the doctrine is interwoven through the whole book, and implicated and involved in every doctrine contained in it, I will not say, that the man who deliberately rejects it, cannot be an honest man,—but this I do say, that I cannot conceive how he can possibly entertain the slightest respect for the book or its contents: nor do I believe that any man, who had the least regard for his character for truth, integrity, or common sense, would take similar liberties, in the interpretation of any other document, to which he pretended to attach any, even the lowest degree of value. There is a wrong principle at the root of this man's religion. The first step of his inquiry is, to extinguish the light, and turn his back on truth. Well, then, may it be said to such an one, in the language of our Saviour, “If