of the body which was broken, and of the blood which was shed for them-when "the love of God" is "shed abroad" in their hearts "by the Holy Ghost which he giveth us"—then are they rich partakers of a true sacramental communion-then are they honoured guests, even here, at the TABLE OF the LORD, in his kingdom. CHAPTER VIII. ON JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION. A VERY slight knowledge of the papal and hierarchical system, may suffice to convince every honest inquirer, that under its darkening and deadening influence, the grounds of the Christian's hope of salvation have been fearfully obscured, and the hope itself, to a very great extent, placed in jeopardy. The greatest of all evils is sin; and Christianity teaches us that all men are under condemnation, because all have sinned. The awful penalty consequent on that condemnation, is the death of the soul, or in other words, its eternal separation from God, in a state of unutterable woe. How, then, in the first place, are we to experience deliverance from this weight of condemnation ; how are we to make our escape from this dreaded penalty? Under the dismal effects of moral and doctrinal apostacy, the professing church answers, By plenary indulgences from the pope; by penance; by priestly absolution; by the extraordinary mortifications of the flesh; by fastings frequent and severe; by voluntary torture; by the repetition of prayers without number; by the hardships of monasticism and hermitage; by the magical influence of relics, and pictures, and images; by the intercession of Mary and the saints; by the sacrifice of the mass; by the faithful observance of all kinds of ceremonies; and finally, by purgatory-that last resource for the cleansing away of those stains of sin, in the Christian, which the other means now alluded to have left untouched. In what measure and in what proportion these various modes of reconciliation with God are depended on by the votaries of Rome, I have no means of forming an adequate judgment; but it is evident, that they are severally objects of faith, on which poor deluded souls are taught to rely for the blotting out of their sins, and for securing their escape from the pains of eternal death. There is a strong tendency in the heart of man to rest on these delusions, instead of coming fully and unreservedly to Jesus Christ and him crucified; for Christ crucified continues to be " "to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness." It is a fact, amply proved by experience, that visible and tangible representations of the crucified Saviour, and ceremonies in worship, which are intended to renew his sacrifice for sin-with all other departures from simplicity in religion-are so far from truly leading the soul to Christ as the only ground of the sinner's hope, that they often operate as diversions from the truth, and let in a vast variety of ways of salvation, as they are falsely supposed to be, instead of the Lord Jesus, who is himself, the way, the truth, and the life. Well may this strange medley of satisfactions for sin, be described as a quicksand, in which many currents meet, and hollow out a pit beneath the glowing surface, into which the children of superstition are prone to fall, never more to rise— unless some peculiar miracle of grace be wrought in their favour. True, indeed, it is, that the Romish church pro fesses a firm faith in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the doctrine of his propitiatory sacrifice on the cross; and that many pious adherents of that church availingly believe in Christ as their Saviour, and seek for the forgiveness of sin through his atoning blood. Yet there can be no doubt, as I conceive, that the superstitious notions and practices to which we have now alluded these strange paths and by-ways to heaven-are fraught with peculiar peril to the soul. They may often be the means of preventing an entrance through the door into the sheepfold; and therefore properly belong to the system and reign of antichrist, the false prophet, or the second beast who has the visage of a lamb, and the voice of a dragon. It is greatly to be feared that there is a recurrence in the present day, even among churches called protestant, to many of these unauthorized and dangerous inventions. More than a few of the professors of scriptural religion have lapsed into a disregard and concealment of those cardinal truths which once occupied their chief attention, and seem to have lost the strength and clearness |