DISCOURSE XXI. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, ETC.-Continued. “Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men that turn from the truth."- Titus i. 13, 14. As the present Discourse is to be devoted to the further discussion of the subject under consideration in the last one, I place at its head the same text that was there employed; it being equally applicable to what I have to say in both cases. The more important and especially distinguishing features of the Protestant Episcopal Church Creed appear in the Articles already examined and commented upon at considerable length. The remaining ones, requiring less extended notice, will be more readily and summarily treated and adjudged. The discussion continues in regular order from the point of suspension. Articles 12 and 13 declare "that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification," "are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ," that is, not inherently and for their own sake but for Christ's sake; and that such good works done before justification, and hence without the inspiration of Christ's spirit, "are not pleasant to God," "but have the nature of sin." From such declarations and the distinctions and limitations involved in them I can but re-affirm and urge anew the utter and most emphatic dissent expressed in reference to the three preceding Articles. The idea that good works, honestly and conscientiously performed, right actions and virtuous deeds, can be otherwise than praiseworthy and acceptable to God, for their own inherent worth and not by reason of any mystical relation to Christ, is profoundly repugnant and offensive to my own best judgment, as I have no doubt it is to the fundamental principles of sound morality and to the most unquestionable teachings of Jesus, his Evangelists, and early Apostles. And so I dismiss at once the Articles which affirm or imply otherwise. The 14th Article is a truthful, well-deserved protest against the doctrine of "Works of Supererogation," so persistently taught and urged by the Roman Catholic Church since the Twelfth Century, when it was first promulgated; the doctrine "that there actually existed an immense treasure of merit, composed of pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had performed beyond what was necessary for their own salvation, and which were applicable for the benefit of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this precious treasure was the Roman pontiff, who was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit suited. to their respective guilt and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes." So mighty and deplorable is the power of superstition over the minds and hearts of men that this doctrine, most absurd in its nature and pernicious in its effects, has held sway in the church which originated it for more than six hundred years, and is still maintained as one of the effective means of promoting its own narrow, sectarian ends and aims. This in itself is an all-sufficient reason for its condemnation, and the English church may be justly honored for lifting its voice of dissent and censure against it. Credit to whom credit is due. The 15th Article affirms the sinlessness of Christ while declaring the peccability of all other beings. wearing the human form, "although baptized and born again in Christ." There is too little that is objectionable in this to require special consideration. In accepting it, however, as a general statement I should retain the right of giving it my own. interpretation and application. The 16th Article concerning "sin after baptism" may be passed by with the same comment, though I deem the subject too unimportant to appear in a standard of faith. Moreover, as it stands, it is cumbered with a mass of theological verbiage which is offensiveboth to my taste and judgment. The 17th Article treats of "Predestination and. Election," and demands more elaborate and careful examination. That it may be the more intelligently discussed I give the remarkable manifesto in full. "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God,. whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid,) He hath constantly decreed, by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Wherefore they, which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season; they, through grace, obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made like the image of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. "As the godly consideration of predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of secret, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation, to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God; so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation. "Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture; and, in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God." This is a long, tedious, circumvolved article of distinctly Calvinistic character, embodying a doctrine so fundamental, so central to a long prevailing theory of God and the universe of souls, and so obnoxious withal to reason, ethics, and Scripture, that it requires more than a passing notice requires extended and critical examination. Let us look at it with a clear vision and in all candor under several important heads : I. Predestination, we are told, is "the everlasting purpose of God," formed "before the foundations of the earth were laid," "to deliver from curse and damnation" such as He had chosen out of mankind unto everlasting salvation and never-failing felicity. From which it logically follows that when Adam was created, God foresaw, and, as the Infinite Designer of all events and destinies, foredoomed the so-called fall of the new-born being, and, through him, of all his posterity, into that state of curse and damnation from which He at the same time decreed the deliverance of a chosen few, to be made "the Sons of God by adoption," and "attain everlasting felicity." And foreseeing and foredooming all men to the condition set forth, He, in decreeing the salvation of an elected few in Christ, virtually decreed the continued curse and damnation of all the untold millions of the non-elect, and their consignment to the pains and agonies of hell forever. The article under notice does not state this horrible doctrine in so many words but it implies and involves it all the same. To elect and ordain the few to never-ending lifeand blessedness, passing by the many and leaving them to their fate, is really and indubitably to elect and ordain them to never-ending death and misery.. 2. This doctrine fixes, beyond all question or peradventure, beyond all possibility of increase or diminution in either direction, the number of the saved and lost to all eternity. Nothing in the nature |