Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

SERMON XXXI.

1 PET. V. 12.

-Exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.

THE general rule of conduct for men to go by is reason: contrary to what this plainly teaches, we neither can nor ought to believe; but beyond what it teaches, on sufficient authority, we justly may. Persuasion founded on authority is called faith: and that which is founded on the authority of our blessed Lord, Christian faith.

Now the rule of this faith, the only means by which we, who live so many ages after him, can learn with certainty what things he hath required as necessary, and what he hath forbidden as unlawful, I have proved to be the holy Scriptures. For these, which confessedly give us a true account of Christianity, do also, as I have shewn to you, give us a full and sufficiently clear account of it; and there is none whatever besides that can be equally depended on. Other antiquity compared with that of Scripture is modern: tradition in its own nature soon grows uncertain and infallibility is no where to be found upon earth. The only thing then we have to rely on in Christianity, is the written word of God. Whatever this forbids is sinful: whatever it requires as a condition of salvation is necessary: whatever it does not so require, is not necessary. By these rules therefore of reason. and Scripture, let us now proceed, as

was proposed in the second place, to try the chief of those Doctrines which distinguish the Church of Rome from ours.

To begin with that which is naturally first, the object of worship. We worship God, and pray to him through the mediation of Jesus Christ. This they acknowledge to be right. The Saints in Heaven we love and honour as members of the same mystical body with ourselves. The holy angels we reverence as the ministers of the divine will. But as for praying to either, there being no argument for it in reason, nor precept in Scriptnre, nor indeed example in antiquity for at least 300 years after Scripture, it surely cannot be a thing necessary. Letting it alone is undoubtedly safe: whether practising it be so, the Church of Rome would do well to consider. They tell us indeed that they only beg the prayers of the Saints in Heaven, as we do those of good persons on earth. And were this true; (as I shall prove it is not ;) we desire our fellow Christians on earth to pray for us because we know they hear our desires: and surely it is reason enough not to ask those in Heaven to do it, because we do not know they hear us, nor have the least cause to think they do. For Scripture, which alone could tell us so, hath told us no such thing. But besides, if we can at all understand Scripture, it hath expressly forbidden all applications to the inhabitants of the invisible world, excepting the Supreme Being. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, says Moses, and him only shalt thou serve*. There is one God and one Mediator, says St. Paul, between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus t. Accordingly we find, that the Angel which appeared to St. John in the Revelation, forbids any religious honour to be paid him, even 1 Tim. ii. 5.

* Matt. iv. 10.

when present. See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant: worship God*. And when some among the Colossians had affected unjustifiable practices of this kind, St. Paul censures them as being in a very dangerous error. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen t. Yet does the Church of Rome intrude so much farther as to pay undue worship to beings far below angels: not only to the Saints in Heaven, but to some who were so wicked on earth, that there is great reason to fear they are in Hell, and to others that are mere fictions of their own imaginations, and never were at all. For the sake of these, and through their merits, they desire in their public and authorized prayers, God's mercy, sometimes quite omitting to mention the merits of Christ, and sometimes joining his and theirs together. Farther than this, they directly pray to them, in the house of God, and in the same posture in which they pray to God; and that not only to intercede with him for them, but, in so many words, that they themselves would bestow grace and mercy upon them, would forgive the guilt of their sins, deliver them from Hell, and grant them a place in Heaven. What pretence is there now in Christianity for such things as these? and what doth this tend to, but making the ignorant, especially, think their favourite Saint can do every thing for them, right or wrong? To him therefore they recommend themselves, not by a religious life, but by flattering addresses and costly presents: on his intercession they often depend much more than on our blessed Saviour's; and being secure, as they think, of the favour of these courtiers of Heaven, pay little † Col. ii. 18.

Rev. xix. 10. xxii. 9.

regard to the King of it. Thus is the intent of religion destroyed, and the Heathen multitude of deities brought silently back into Christianity. But above all their worship of the Virgin Mary is very remarkable. We honour her memory as a person whom he that is mighty hath peculiarly magnified, and whom all generations shall call blessed. But they address her in such terms as follow: Empress of Heaven; Queen of Angels and men: Through whom after God, the whole Earth liveth; Mother of Mercy: the Fountain of Grace and Salvation; the only hope of Sinners: Who ever trusted in thee, and was confounded? To thee I commit all my hope, and all my comfort: under thy defence is my refuge; make haste to help me in all things which I shall either do or think every moment of my life, loose the bonds of the guilty, enlighten the eyes of the blind, free us from all sin, and drive away from us all evil; grant us to escape eternal damnation, and cause the glory of Paradise to be bestowed on us. What authority or what excuse is there now for such expressions as these? And yet every one of them I have myself collected partly out of their public offices, partly from others of their authorized and approved books of devotion. Formerly in their very Mass Book they went yet farther: And begged her, by virtue of her parental authority, to command of her Son what they wanted. But to this very day, in another office, they imitate the same thing, by exhorting her that she would shew herself to be his mother. And the better to make sure of her doing so, they apply to St. Joachim, who, they say, was her father, though indeed it is not certainly known at all who her father was; much less whether he was Saint or sinner: how

*Luke i. 48, 49.

ever they apply to St. Joachim and tell him, that as his daughter can possibly deny him nothing, it is in his power to do every thing he will for them. This, you see, is being very artful in making interest: only it is more art than is necessary. For since we are both permitted and appointed to approach God through Christ directly, who, we are certain, both doth hear and will help us, we shall prejudice, instead of benefiting our cause, by making underhand applications to other persons, who perhaps never come to know of our petitions, and, if they do, are displeased at them; or, if they were not, can be in comparison of little use to us.

Yet to judge by the practice of the Romish Church, who would not think that the whole New Testament were filled with precepts for the worship of the Saints, especially the blessed Virgin? Whereas, even in the Gospels she is but seldom and occasionally mentioned; our Saviour seeming on purpose to take less notice of her, as if he foresaw what advantages taking more would give to the extravagancies of after times. In the Acts she is just mentioned once. In the Epistles and Revelation not at all. Yet these are not half the monstrous things that the Romanists are guilty of about her. They have invented a fable of her body being taken up into Heaven, and appointed a solemn festival in honour of it. They have instituted a form of devotion called the Rosary, in which ten addresses are made to her, for one to God; and successive Popes have granted large indulgencies and blessings to all that shall say it. Then their private writers about her have gone incredible lengths. One of their Cardinals, Bonaventure, by putting her name instead of God's, and some other necessary alterations, hath applied the whole Book of Psalms to

« AnteriorContinuar »