Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

lions of those who profess Romanism that we call its distinguishing tenets poison, and that of the deadliest kind. A system which, while it assumes to work out the mind and will of God, yet authoritatively decrees and teaches what is in direct opposition to the very revelation of God, which even Rome itself possesses and acknowledges, cannot but be pronounced poisonous to the souls of men. As was said in an article in the last number, the Rhemish Testament, taken apart from the falsifying glosses and comments of its false interpreters, serves but to convict the Romish Church of turning the truth of God into a lie. By the text, even of that version, Rome is condemned; and, were the Romanist allowed its unrestricted and unpolluted perusal, the light of that book would serve to scatter the darkness with which Rome has covered the Gospel.

It were easy to tell of the precious medicines, healing balms, and refreshing cordials, which the word of God affords for every sin, for every wound, and for every sorrow ;-it were a dark and melancholy tale to contrast with them those inventions of Rome which act as poisonous drugs, intoxicating draughts, and opiates for the soul. Christ the Great Physician, Rome supersedes, and practically despises, by setting a far higher value on the person and work of His blessed, but human mother, Mary. With a sad mockery of that atonement He once for all offered for the sins of man, Rome, by the hands of its priests, impiously pretends to change the wafer and the wine into Christ's body and blood, and then continually offers Him upon its altars, as an ever-fresh sacrifice for quick and dead. With this false atonement, and with its vain and wicked

repetitions, Rome mingles works of living sinners, so-called merits of dead saints, and prayers of apostles and evangelists of old, with those of its own canonized army of men and women famous, or infamous, for their devotion to its Church.

For the precious balms and cordials of the Gospel, the wine, the milk, the honey, and the oil of joy for mourning;-for these, and all other consolations, bought without money and without price, Rome substitutes the entire shifting of the moral responsibility of its worshippers upon priests and priestly services,—its impure confessional, its absolution, its round of gorgeous public rites, its private masses, its highly romantic and too often sensual books, its monasteries and convents, professed retreats from the world, but too frequently worlds of iniquity within themselves.

The pages of this magazine need not be taken up with the repetition of the many poisonous doctrines and practices of Rome. The grand error which our statesmen,—and the men who pride themselves upon being liberal and enlightened,—fall into, is in treating Rome and its system as one among the many sects of real Christianity. Could we once get these men to sit down with unprejudiced and unpolitical feelings, to examine into the reality and true character of the Roman communion,—in its creed, its ceremonials, its past and present history,-they must either give their voices for the suppression, or at least the total discouragement of so monstrous and mischievous a system.

To allow the existence and working of a Church so hostile to true Christianity, and so disastrous in its very nature to free government and

ENDOWMENT OF MAYNOOTH.

social harmony, is no slight stretch of that charity and toleration which it is the glory of England to maintain; but it is not only a palpable abuse of those qualities, but a suicidal act, and a sin of the deepest character, for our country to foster and pay for the more perfect development of a system at enmity with God and man.

As a first step, then, to purge ourselves from this inconsistency, Maynooth must no longer receive a shilling from the funds of the United Kingdom. Whatever reasons of political expediency led to the first bestowal of the grant have ceased to exist, and the hopes which were held out as infallible consequences from such a national provision for the education of the Romish priesthood, have been scattered to the winds. As far as regards any gaining over of that priesthood to the support of order and the strengthening of the hands of authority, all has been the reverse. But what marvel! we have sown to the wind and reaped the whirlwind. And as to that much abused term religion, we must have made Romanists mock and triumph over our own faith, when we could with one hand protest against Romanism, and yet with the other pay, and that largely, for its more perfect and extensive propagation.

In dealing, however, with Maynooth, and with every other question affecting Romanists, it will be necessary that Protestants be firm, united, and cautious. We have to do with an ancient enemy, which combines these three qualities in a manner the most perfectly adapted to secure its

483

ends against us, and we have therefore the more abundant need for fervent prayer that God may make us valiant for His truth, united in one holy band, merging all minor differences in the common defence of Protestant faith, and that we may have poured out upon us the largest measures of that wisdom which shall guide us aright in all our movements.

In Ireland itself a mighty work has commenced,-a work which, if God vouchsafes to continue His blessing, bids fair to change the features of that hitherto unhappy country's history. Surely, no Protestant government will so stultify the efforts of a Protestant people, and so move the just indignation of God, as to continue a grant towards that Maynooth which sends forth its agents provided with the very weapons wherewith to fight against the faith with which we can alone hope successfully to regenerate Ireland.

Should Ireland be rescued from the degrading yoke of Popery, and should its sons and daughters embrace, in all godly sincerity, the faith of her far happier sister England, statesmen will witness with wonder, and we trust with humble gratitude, such a change in its religious, political, and social condition, as shall cause them to look back with shame and humiliation upon the almost countless measures of alternate coercion and conciliation with which they have vainly sought to rule a country ever bleeding and struggling in the throes of domestic discord and misery.

Dibinity.

“TAKE HEED WHAT YE HEAR.”
No. 3.-THE LEADING CHARACTERISTIC OF SCRIPture Truth.

We have lately considered the main
features of evidence for the inspiration
of Scripture, and consequently the
wisdom and the duty of our assem-
bling to hear instruction grounded
upon, or drawn from the Scriptures.
We have noticed, also, the several
strong natural reasons which operate
powerfully upon the human mind, to
lead man to seek for more accurate
and satisfactory knowledge of God,
and of his future destiny, than he na-
turally possesses; and we endeavoured
to shew that the consciousness of our
being afflicted, dissatisfied, sinful, and
dying, does, when rightly viewed, press
strongly upon us the necessity of seek-
ing for help, instruction, and com-
fort; and that in many cases these
strong natural impressions, combining
with the general conviction of the in-
spiration of Scripture, do appear to
operate as ample reasons for our re-
gular and diligent attendance upon
the ordinances of christian instruc-
tion. They do so operate with many;
and we doubt not that if these con-
victions, combined with the evidence
for the Scripture's being a revelation
from God, were honestly attended to;
if men regarded them as they know
they ought, they would be the means
of leading all seriously to consider the
offer of mercy in the preached Gos-
pel, or they would condemn every
man, who did not so consider, out of
his own mouth. The reasons are so
simple, so strong, and so convincing,
that every nominal Christian, who is
careless, negligent, and unbelieving,
has a record lodged in his conscience,
if he would but read it, that he is cri-

minally inconsistent, and that if he is yet unsaved, and ultimately ruined for ever, the fault is entirely his

own.

The next point to which we come, is the substance of the statement made in the revealed word: What is the leading truth, the characteristic message, which it sets before us, and to which we are called to give heed? And to this a very plain answer may be given, in the words of the book itself. The beloved disciple John, who appears to have entered most deeply into his Master's views and spirit, says, “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." By which he evidently means that this is the sum and substance of the testimony of revelation, the real object of its being made; that, though it may contain much subordinate matter, yet, that this is the grand truth it was to make known,-that God had] provided for the children of sin, and sorrow, and death, in this world, the gift of eternal life. He speaks of it also as “the witness of God, which He hath testified of His Son;" "the record that God gave of His Son." And in the Book of the Revelation, St. John relates the fact of an angel from heaven calling it "the testimony of Jesus,” and advancing this general principle respecting Christ, that "the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.”

An examination, then, of this plain and simple passage, will lead us at once to consider the substance of scriptural truth: "God hath given to us eternal life, and that life is in

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ing of the passage very distinct. service, the occupying of the mind Consider,

1. The blessing here mentioned. 2. In what way is this blessing made accessible to us?

3. How it is offered to us.

he

First. The blessing spoken of in the record," eternal life." Now this term is in the first place very evidently used in the record to designate a never-ending state of happiness beyond this world. That we die and pass away here, is one of the overwhelming distresses of man. He looks with cheerless gloom at the grave; recoils from the thought either of annihilation at death, or of the uncertainty of his lot beyond; he dare not face the probability either of total destruction, or of a visitation of judgment when God will call him to account. But whatever be the natural speculations and doubts of the mind, the revelation draws aside the veil, and declares a heaven of glory, of unclouded felicity, a heaven where God is made known in all His fulness of excellency and glory, as the joy of His rational and moral creatures, and the source from which infinite delight is imparted; that He who made the worlds, and all the intelligences that inhabit them, will open to the minds of men, hitherto repressed and kept in comparative ignorance, the joy of communion with Him to the whole extent of the capacity of the creature; so that we may be filled with the fulness of God,- -so that we may know as we are known. Of course, to enter fully into the idea of the happiness of such a state, there needs a moral bias towards the goodness of the great God; and without this, men will never have

of the creature with his Maker's excellencies and glory,-would be so contrary to their habits and desires, that eternity would be to them irksome indeed. If the habits of mind in it were to be regulated by Divine purity, and the great object of contemplation were a holy God, they would rather not be there. But some faint notion of the nature of eternal joy may be formed even by such men from analogy. Did we ever feel joy in the contemplation of the natural world, as the work of a wise Architect? Did we ever so consider the first principles on which the fabric of nature is built? Did we ever look with wonder and delight at the powers of the human mind? Did we ever feel that a full expansion of its capacities to a comprehension of all the works of God, and all their mysteries, would be unspeakably delightful? This, then, may give a faint apprehension of eternal joys; for, surely, however we may now be biassed and prejudiced against the subject, yet the moral nature of God must be His highest dignity, and consequently the knowledge and study of that must be the highest grade of science; and if it would be delightful to trace the wonders of God's creation, and the mysteries of His providence, it must be much more gratifying still to have the eye of the mind reverentially opened on the fathomless deep of infinite goodness; and to know God in these respects, as we know, appreciate, and delight in the moral characteristics of a friend. And this is one of the leading features of the scriptural notion of eternal life. The manifest distance between God and the soul of man,

which is the consequence, and partly the punishment, of sin,-is to be removed. God is to be made known with all that fulness which we can even now conceive of as possible, though we do not realize it; and with that knowledge of God to which we are to be elevated, we are to enjoy all the delights of holiness and perfection which are essentially connected with such a state of reconciliation, and resemblance, and nearness, to the Almighty Being who fills and governs all things.

But eternal life is used also in Scripture in another sense, as meaning the commencement in this present world of that state of spiritual existence which is thus to be perfected in the other world. So the Saviour says: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto life." And the same statement is made repeatedly in the sixth chapter of John. From this passage it appears that the condemnation of man for sin is the great impediment to the eternal happiness of the immortal soul; but that the provision of grace in Jesus Christ meets this difficulty, by removing the guilt of sin, and reconciling the soul, and bringing it into a state of favour with God; and then, as the bar to eternal life is removed, and the soul has commenced upon a state of reconciliation to, and peace with God; therefore, in fact, eternal life, a life which has no season for break and interruption in it, is begun. And, though the remainder of this present life has to be passed over, and some trials are yet to be endured, and though the separation of the body and soul take place at natural death, yet, that existence has

commenced which has its essential character in the love and service of God, and the holy influence of His Spirit. So says St. John,(1,v. 18—20:) "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

This, then, is the blessing which the gracious message of God sets before us. It meets the careless, dark, unhappy child of transgression and of wrath, looking through his few scanty and unsatisfying pleasures towards their termination in the grave; and it sets before him the hope of immortal happiness, and the present commencement of it in the actual reconciliation of the soul to God here; and the discovery of God as a Friend and Father, reconciled even here, and shewing to the believing soul the light of His countenance: so that even here, though in a subordinate degree, he realizes a state of favour with God which nothing has power to interrupt. The error and defect of his nature has been remedied, and his soul is at peace, as it is written,-" Being therefore justified by faith we have peace with God." The burden of conscious guilt is removed; the oppressive dread of God as an angry God is taken away; the fear of death is met by the promise of eternal happiness beyond it; and we rest with composure in the hands of Omnipotence, as knowing that God is love,-that He will order

« VorigeDoorgaan »