5. The doctrine of the sacrificial character of the eucharist, is an integral part of the great system of error, which must stand or fall as a whole. Romanism is another gospel. It proposes a different method of salvation from that presented in the word of God. It teaches that no one can be saved who is out of the pale of that visible society of which the pope of Rome is the head ; and that all are saved who die within that pale. It teaches that no one can be regenerated who is not baptized ; and that there is no forgiveness for post-baptismal sins, except by the sacrament of penance and absolution at the hands of a priest. It teaches that no one can have the benefit of the Lord's Supper, who does not receive it at the hands of a properly ordained officer of the Church of Rome. It teaches that there is no valid ministry, and that there are no valid ordinances except in the line of the apostolic succession as recognized by the pope. It follows men beyond the grave. It teaches that the souls in purgatory are still under the power of the keys ; that their stay in that place or state of torment, can be prolonged or shortened at the will of the Church. The pope assumes, and has often pretended to ex- ercise, the power of granting indulgences for even a thousand years. This whole theory hangs together. If one assumption be false, the whole is false. And if the theory in its primary principle of a perpetual apostleship, infallible in teaching and of plenary power in government and .discipline, be false, then every particular doctrine involving that principle must be false.
Moehler, whose philosophical and mitigated Romanism, has called down upon him no little censure from his stricter brethren, represents the doctrine of the eucharist as the point in which all the differences between Romanists and Protestants converge. On the view taken of this doctrine depends the question whether the Christian Church has a true living " cultus " or not. With him the Church, of course, is the body, which, professing the true re- ligion, is united in the reception of the same sacraments, in sub- jection to bishops canonically consecrated, and especially to the pope of Rome. For him, and all Romanists, this Church is Christ. He dwells in it ; animates it ; operates through it exclusively in the salvation of men. The teaching of the Church is his teach- ing ; its commands are his commands ; He regenerates only through its sacrament of baptism ; He remits sin only through the sacrament of penance ; He strengthens in confirmation ; Ho nourishes his people with his body and blood in the eucharist ; and in the ordination of priests. He appoints the organs through
692 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
which all this is done by his ceaseless activity. " The Church,' ' says Moehler, "is vicariously (auf ejne abbildlich-lebendige Weise) Christ manifested and working through all time. The Redeemer did not merely live eighteen hundred years ago, and then disap- pear, to be remembered only as a historical person as any other of the departed ; on the contrary He is ever living in the Church.1'1 Romanists, therefore, practically take away Christ, and give us the Church in his stead. It is to be remembered that by the Church they do not mean the body consisting of true believers, but the external, organized body of which the pope is the head. It is this body represented in history by the Hildebrands, the Borgias, and the Leos, which Romanism puts in the place of Christ, clothing it with his prerogatives, and claiming for it the obedience, the reverence, and the confidence due to God alone. It is against this theory, which practically puts man in the place of God, that the most fearful denunciations of the Scriptures are pronounced.
§ 20. Prayer.
Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for his divine perfection, our gratitude for all his mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in his forgiving love, our submission to his au- thority, our confidence in his care, our desires for his favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others. As religion, in the subjective sense of the word, is the state of mind induced by the due apprehension of the charac- ter of God and of our relation to Him as our Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer ; so prayer is the expression, uttered or unuttered, of all the feelings and desires which that state of mind produces or excites. A prayerless man is of necessity, and thoroughly irre- ligious. There can be no life without activity. As the body is dead when it ceases to act, so the soul that goes not forth in its actions towards God, that fives as though there were no God, is spiritually dead.
Prayer takes a great deal for granted. It assumes, in the first place, the personality of God. Only a person can say I, or be addressed as Thou ; only a person can be the subject and object of intelligent action, can apprehend and answer, can love and be loved, or hold converse with other persons. If God, therefore, be only a name for an unknown force, or for the moral order of the
1 Symbolik, von Dr. J. A. Moehler, 6th edit. Mainz, 1843, p. 300.