Church was said to generate' sons by Baptism."-p. 324, note. XXVIII. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign &c. . . . a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, "The opposition of controversy, whilst it led the orthodox to assert an actual presence of the incarnate Christ under the sacramental symbols of bread and wine, made them charge their adversaries with holding the Sacraments to be only signs.... And this may account for the pointed expression in our Article, that the Supper of the Lord is not only a sign' &c. ... In denying an actual communication of Christ to the sacred emblems, it became necessary to guard against the construction of asserting a merely commemorative rite, and thus evacuating the Sacrament of its holy burthen of Grace.... "The relative importance of the Eucharist in comparison with the other Sacraments, and indeed with the whole doctrine and ritual of Christianity in the system of the Church of Rome, may be drawn from this primary notion of sacramental efficiency. It may well be asked, why this sacred rite should stand so preeminent in the scheme of Christianity. I do not say that it ought not to hold a principal station among the observances of a holy life; but it is the doctrinal supremacy given to it to which I refer ....we may find an answer in the Scholastic theory. ... this is the passion itself of Christ, the whole virtue of his priesthood mystically represented and conveyed. The priesthood of Christ comprehending in it the whole of Christianity, the rite by which that priesthood was especially signified would become the great act of human ministration, when the notion was once established of an instrumental causality attached to the use of the sign."-p. 319-321. Transubstantiation ... overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given rise to many superstitions c. The Body of Christ is given", taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. "It remained then for later discussion, for the restless penetrating spirit of Scholasticism, to analyze, by the philosophical power of language, the operation of Grace in the Sacraments. The subtile speculations about matter and form..... were accordingly introduced to establish and perfect the theory of instrumental efficiency ascribed to the rites themselves." (p. 331.)...." Hence the use of the word Element. .... A certain matter and certain form are thus considered as indispensable to a Sacrament." [In a note,]" Hence the inquiries in our Baptismal Service, With what matter was this child baptized?' With what words was this child baptized?'' Because some things,' it is said, ' essential to this Sacrament may happen to be omitted through haste." (p.335,6.)... "The discussion of such points exactly suited the genius of the Scholastic Philosophy, and at length matured the theory of the Eucharist, as professed in the Latin Church under the name of Transubstantiation."-p. 338. e ... remained "Had transubstantiation. . as a simple opinion, there might have been no harm in it. It is the enforcing it as a real fact of religion, as a primary indispensable truth concerning the mode of Christ's presence, that has thrown a just scandal on the tenet." -Observ. p. 15. "Here (in" the questionings of the Ninth century on the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist,") the original Platonism of the Church ruled the case. A Real Presence was asserted." (p. 72.) "Ratramn distinctly asserts a real presence, though he does not admit a presence of the crucified body of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. ... It is a real and true presence that he asserts; the virtue of Christ acting in the way of efficacious assistance to the receiver of the Sacrament. The Church of England doctrine of the Sacraments, it is well known, is founded on the views given by this author. Cranmer and Ridley &c." p. 320. It is right, in conclusion, to add the positive statements with which Dr. Hampden sums up his Bampton Lectures. "But however successfully I may have established the desired conclusion; there may, I fear, remain in some minds,where there has existed an indiscriminate veneration of the names and terms attached to Christianity, as of parts of the holy religion itself, a painful impression of mistrust; . . . that, either the argument must be erroneous, or they have followed cunningle devised fables-the imaginations of the sophistical wisdom of this world-as the Gospel of Truth. For the sake of such persons, I would once more call attention to the divine part of Christianity, as entirely distinct from its episodic additions. Whatever may have been... the speculations of false Philosophy on the facts of Christianity; those facts themselves are not touched... These facts form part of the great History of mankind: they account for the present condition of things in the world; and we cannot deny them without involving ourselves in universal scepticism. There can be no rational doubt; that man is in a degraded, disadvantageous condition-that Jesus Christ came into the world in the mercy of God to produce a restoration of man, that He brought Life and Immortality to light by his coming, that He died on the cross for our sins, and rose again for our justification, that the Holy Ghost came by his promise to abide with his Church, miraculously assisting the Apostles in the first institution of it, and ever since that period, interceding with the hearts of believers. These, and other truths connected with them, are not collected merely from texts or sentences of Scripture; they are parts of its records. Infinite theories may be raised upon them; but these theories, whether true or false, leave the facts where they were. There is enough in them to warm and comfort the heart, though we had assurance of nothing more." p. 389-391. Dr. Hampden distinctly disavows being a Socinian, and avows himself a believer in the Blessed Trinity, and it is our duty in his sense to believe him; but in this and other confessions of his faith, there is nothing to which even a Socinian might not, in his own sense, subscribe, while Dr. Hampden attacks those points in the Creed of the whole Christian Church, which are the especial stay against Socinianism. His theories are the parents of Socinianism: may God continue to preserve him from it. |