sacraments hold a place much below that of the truth. Whereas in all churches in a state of decay the reverse is the fact. The Jewish Church in the time of Christ, had become completely rit- ualistic. Rites and ceremonies had usurped the place of truth and holy living. A man might be proud, avaricious, unjust, and as our Lord expresses it, in every way a " child of the devil," yet if punctilious in the observance of church rites and church festi- vals, he esteemed himself and was esteemed by others, a saint so holy as to be contaminated by fellowship or contact with those who were the true children of God. This was the form in which corruption entered the Christian Church soon after the age of the Apostles. This " mystery of iniquity " even in that age had begun to work, and when he that " did let " was taken out of the way, the evil was fully revealed, and the Christian Church became as thoroughly ritualistic as the Jewish Church had been when Christ came. The Reformation was in its essential charac- ter a protest against ritualism. It proclaimed salvation by a liv- ing faith which purified the heart, in opposition to the doctrine of salvation by rites and ceremonies. It insisted that religion was a matter of the heart, and therefore denounced as apostasy the Church returning to " weak and beggarly elements," to observ- ing "days, and months, and times, and years," subjecting the people to " ordinances, touch not ; taste not ; handle not ; which are all to perish with the using ; after the commandments and doc- trines of men." Ritualism is a broad, smooth, and easy road to heaven, and is always crowded. It was much easier in Paul's time to be a Jew outwardly than to be one inwardly ; and circum- cision of the flesh was a slight matter when compared to the cir- cumcision of the heart. A theory which allows a man to be re- ligious, without being holy ; to serve both God and mammon ; to gain heaven without renouncing the world, will never fail to find numerous supporters. That there is such a theory ; that it has prevailed extensively and influentially in the Church ; and that it is prevalent over a large part of Christendom, cannot be dis- puted. It does not follow, however, that all who are called ritual- ists, or who in fact attribute undue importance to external rites, are mere formalists. Many of them are, no doubt, not only sin- cere, but spiritual Christian men. This is no proof that the system is not false and evil. All Protestants cheerfully admit that many Romanists are holy men ; but they no less strenuously denounce Romanism as an apostasy from the pure Gospel.
As the corruption of the Church of Rome consisted largely in
584 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
making Christianity to consist in the punctual attendance on church rites ; in teaching that the merits of Christ and the renew- ing of the Holy Ghost were conveyed in baptism even to unbe- lievers (i. e., to those destitute of saving faith) ; that when those blessings had been forfeited by sin, they could be restored by confession and absolution ; that the eucharist is a true propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead ; and that, in short, the relig- ion of Christ is purely ritualistic, its benefits being conferred through external rites, and in no other way, so that those rites were indispensably necessary to salvation; it would have been natural had the Reformers gone to the opposite extreme, and un- duly depreciated the importance of the sacraments which Christ himself had appointed. From this extreme, however, they were mercifully preserved. They taught, first, that in one sense, —
Baptism is a Condition of /Salvation.
This is included in the commission which Christ gave to the Apostles, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." (Matt. xvi. 15, 16.) Baptism, therefore, has the necessity of precept, not that of a means. Our Lord does not say that he that is unbaptized shall be damned. That denunciation falls only on those who believe not. In this respect baptism is analogous to confession. Christ attributes the same necessity to the latter as to the former. In Matthew x. 32, it is written, " "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." And St. Paul says (Rom. x. 9, 10), " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Confession does not make a man a Christian. It is the public avowal that he is a Christian ; that he is a believer in Christ, in his divinity, in his incarnation, and in his being and doing all that He claimed to be, and that the Scriptures declare He did for us and our salvation. Such confession is a duty, a privilege, and a dictate of gratitude and loyalty, which cannot be repressed. His people will glory in confessing Him. While there is this desire and purpose to acknowl- edge Christ before men, due occasion for this confession may not be afforded, or it may be hindered by self-diffidence or ignorance.