It is the consentient testimony of the universal Church that salvation is from God, and from God alone. The tendency constantly showing itself in all branches of the Church alike to conceive of salvation as, in one way or another, to a greater or less degree, from man, is thus branded by the entire Church in its official testimony as a heathen remainder not yet fully eliminated from the thinking and feeling of those who profess and call themselves Christians. The incessant reappearance of this tendency in one or another form throughout the Church is evidence enough, however, of the difficulty which men feel in preserving in its purity the Christian ascription of salvation to God alone. And this difficulty obtrudes itself in another way in a great and far-reaching difference which has arisen in the organized testimony of the Church itself with respect to the mode of the divine operation in working salvation in man.
Though salvation is declared to be wholly of God, who alone can save, it has yet been taught in a large portion of the Church, (up to to-day in the larger portion of the Church), that God in working salvation does not operate upon the human soul directly but indirectly; that is to say, through instrumentalities
[63]
THE PLAN OF SALVATION
which. he has established as the means by which his saving grace is communicated to men. As these in- strumentalities are committed to human hands for their administration, a human factor is thus intruded between the saving grace of God and its effective operation in the souls of men; and this human factor, indeed, is made the determining factor in salvation.” Against this Sacerdotal system, as it is appropriately called, the whole Protestant Church, in all its parts, Lutheran and Reformed, Calvinistic and Arminian, raises its passionate protest. Inthe interests of the pure supernaturalism of salvation it insists that God the Lord himself works by his grace immediately on the souls of men, and has not suspended any man’s salvation upon the faithfulness or caprice of his fel- lows. In the words of old John Hooper, it condemns as *an ungodly opinion" the notion “that attributeth the salvation of man unto the receiving of an external sacrament,” “as though God’s Holy Spirit could not be carried by faith into the penitent and sorrowful conscience except it rid always in a chariot and ex- ternal sacrament.” In opposition to this “ungodly opinion” Protestantism suspends the welfare of the soul directly, without any intermediaries at all, upon the grace of God alone.
The sacerdotal principle finds very complete ex- pression in the thoroughly developed and logically compacted system of the Church of Rome. Ассога- ing to this system God the Lord does nothing looking to the salvation of men directly and immediately: all
[ 64 |
SACERDOTALISM
that he does for the salvation of men he does through the mediation of the Church, to which, having en- dowed it with powers adequate to the task, he has committed the whole work of salvation.” “It is hardly incorrect to say," remarks Dr. W. P. Paterson in expounding the doctrine of the Church of Rome on this point," *that in the Roman Catholic conception the central feature of the Christian religion is the supernatural institution which represents Christ, which carries on his work, and which acts as the virtual mediator of the blessings of salvation. Its vocation or commission is nothing less than the per- petuation of the work of the Redeemer. It does not, of course, supersede the work of Christ. Its pre- supposition is that Christ, the eternal Son of God, laid the foundation of its work in his incarnation and his atoning death; that from him come ultimately all power, authority and grace; and that as from him all spiritual blessing proceeds, so to him belongs all the glory. But in the present dispensation, the Church, in large measure, has taken over the work of Christ. It is in a real sense, a reincarnation of Christ to the end of the continuation and completion of his re- demptive mission. Through his Church he continues to execute the offices of a Prophet, of a Priest, and of a King. His prophet office it perpetuates by witness- ing to the truth once delivered to the saints, and by interpreting and determining doctrine with an in- fallible authority that carries the same weight and assurance as his own original revelation. It succeeds [65]
THE PLAN OF SALVATION