Reformed Church

“ The Reformed Churches in their turn, after the first "kindness of their youth," the first "love of their espousals," have often fallen into the very abuses against which their great leaders protested; they have given way to the ritualistic spirit, have put the Church in the place of Christ, and have claimed for human formulæ the authority that can only belong to the inspired Word of God. ”

“ Consequently the whole of the Reformed Church in some degree is contaminated with the doctrines, and now in this nineteenth century the great battle is on, for all denominations are contending for the truth of their own views. ”

“ That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed churches ”

“ The revolution constitution and settlement of religion, as has been already observed, laid our solemn covenants and work of reformation, sworn to therein, in a grave, and many stones have since been brought and cast upon them: many ways and measures have both church and state taken to make sure the revolution sepulcher of a covenanted work of reformation, and prevent, if possible, its future resurrection: against all which, the presbytery judge themselves bound to lift up their testimony. ”

“ No greater mistake was ever made by Reformed churches than this quenching of the Spirit in the body of Christ, by the denial to its members of the liberty of progressing beyond the limits of their creeds. ”

“ So too is it with the doctrine of the sacraments, and hence the idea of an opus operatum and of transubstantiation. So in regard to the priesthood, hence hierarchism; so in regard to the idea of sanctification, and hence semipelagianism and the doctrine of merits. Thoroughly antagonistic to all this was the view of the Reformed church. It was inclined rather to sever completely the Divine in Christianity from its earthly, visible vehicle, and to think of the operation of the Divine upon man as merely spiritual and communicated only through subjective faith. ”

“ Many pious souls resumed the ancient faith of the Reformed churches, and displayed in acts of religion and proselytism, an energy, a zeal, and an ardour of which later generations had lost the tradition. This change was not always well understood, not only by the masses, but by men of superior intelligence, and provoked painful dissensions. ”

“ For after the Bible was translated into English, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over. *And so* the reverence and obedience due to the Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors therein, was cast off; and every man became a judge of religion, and an interpreter of the Scriptures to himself. ”

“ As in most of the other Reformed or Calvinistic Confessions, greater prominence is assigned to the Invisible Church, consisting of the elect of all times and nations, than to the general visible church subsisting at any particular time in the world and embracing all who profess faith in Christ and submit to the godly discipline He has prescribed. ”

“ The controversy which arose between the Associate and Reformed churches, on the doctrine of civil magistracy, was the occasion of greater divergency between them, on collateral subjects. From false principles, consistent reasoning must produce erroneous conclusions. Assuming that the Son of God, as Mediator, has nothing to do with the concerns of God's moral government beyond the precincts of the visible church, it would follow, that church members, as citizens of the "kingdoms of this world," neither owe him allegiance nor are bound to thank him for "common benefits." ”

“ The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, which are come to a period in religion, and will go, at present, no further than the instruments of their reformation. ”

“ Or will this void in heart and soul, which some of our contemporaries begin to feel, dispose others of them to apply to the new Protestantism which has in several places supplanted the principal doctrines taught in the days of the Apostles and Reformers? [9] A great vagueness of doctrine reigns in many of those Reformed Churches whose original members gave their blood as a seal of the living faith which animated them. Men of distinguished talents, alive to all that is beautiful in creation, have fallen into singular aberrations. ”

“ The grand doctrine of the Reformation was that of justification by faith, and was therefore held by all the Lutheran and Reformed churches. The Papists assert that man’s inherent righteousness is the meritorious cause of his justification; many Protestant divines have endeavoured to unite the two, and have held that men are justified by faith and good works ”

“ Then again the principles of the Reformation were set forth in different ways, and Protestantism branched off into two divisions, the Lutheran and the Reformed. Besides these three new western churches and the one old eastern church, which all rested upon the common œcumenical basis of the old Catholic church, a variety of sects sprang out of them. Through these greater and lesser divisions, modern church history, where, with some advantages and some disadvantages, one church is pitted against another, possesses a character entirely different from the church history of earlier times. ”

“ And what is testified against, is, in the nature of it, an homologation of the church's faithful opposition to backsliders, in their course of defection, from the national, attainments in religion and reformation, resisting even unto blood, striving against sin. ”

“ It was this fearless and powerful spirit, keen and quick to see inferences and intolerant of compromises, that the disturbances of Roman Catholic Emancipation and of the Reform time roused from the common round of pursuits, natural to a serious and thoughtful clergyman of scholarlike mind and as yet no definite objects, and brought him with all his enthusiasm and thoroughness into a companionship with men who had devoted their lives, and given up every worldly object, to save the Church by raising it to its original idea and spirit. ”

“ The instrument of reformation is simple; viz. the Word of God as it stands written in the Sacred Scriptures, pure as our forefathers received it, powerful in itself to change the face of the whole universe. The truths of that inspired volume constitute the whole of Christianity; out of it there exists no truth for the Church. Be it yours, then, with the Holy Bible in your hand, to reform the doctrine corrupted by your predecessors! No one can do this work so well as you; no one so much as you is bound to do it by conscience and by special obligation. ”

“ The Methodist Reformation, while it had found no practical sympathy within the established church, left a deep sense of its reason and purpose in the minds of the more devout Episcopalians, and this feeling, instead of taking form in popular revival methods, prompted them to deeper sincerity and more spiritual fervor in their traditional rites of worship. Many of the next generation inherited this pious ecclesiasticism, and carried their loyalty to the old Christian culture to the extreme of devotion till they saw in the sacraments the highest good of the soul. ”

“ We do not let the priest proclaim for himself the ordinance of Christ; but he is the mouthpiece of us all, and we all say it with him in our hearts with true faith in the Lamb of God Who feeds us with His Body and Blood.” It was this principle of the Priesthood of all Believers which delivered men from the vague fear of the clergy, and which was a spur to incite them to undertake the reformation of the Church which was so much needed. It is the one great religious principle which lies at the basis of the whole Reformation movement. ”

“ We need not wonder that the Reformers, with all their influence, could not carry their reformation, on this head, to any thing like the Bible pattern, or to what they themselves saw to have been the primitive practice: when we consider that multitudes embraced the reformed doctrines, who gave no evidence of conversion to God, and that all who became Protestants, were admitted to fellowship with the Protestant churches. ”

“ One of the first things necessary in the Reformation was to restore to its true place the doctrine laid down by the Saviour, that a change of heart—that regeneration by the Holy Ghost—was necessary to membership in the church, and that the true church was composed of those who had been thus renewed in the spirit of their mind. ”

“ The degree in which afterward any individual within the communion of the English Church was prompted to pursue what he regarded as the work of reformation, whether he were prelate, noble, gentleman, scholar, husbandman, or artisan, and whether it drove him to conformity or to any phase of Puritanism, or even Separatism, depended mainly upon the estimate which he assigned to the Scriptures, whether as the sole or only the co-ordinate authority for the institution and discipline of the Christian Church. ”

“ Already in the age of the Reformation the human intellect was sapping the foundations of the structure. But the religious imagination was still intensely susceptible, and when the moral sense was sharply awakened by the reformers both within and without the Catholic church, it fell back on the imagination as its familiar ally, and clothed with new life the ancient forms. The Catholic turned with fresh ardor to mass and miracle and holy church. ”

“ From the Reformation till the latter part of the last century, we are told, the Protestant Church dwelt chiefly on the human side of Christ, and since that time many works have been written to show how the two—perfect Deity and perfect manhood—were united in His character. ”

“ They have ambitiously undertaken to set up again an authoritative visible Church, even though they lacked the gifts of the Spirit for it, and were without the necessary apostolic commission. They insisted on their form of sacraments as essential to salvation; they {122} drew up their infallible creeds; they set up Church officials who were to rule over other men's faith, and they assumed a certain divine right to compel the consciences of their members. Most of the Reformers have even sanctioned the use of bonds and prisons to secure uniformity of faith! ”

“ The purity that went out from that sacred house into the lives of those who were married there has been the guiding star and the savior of thousands of men and women in the Church. How strange, how remarkable, that a place with such sacred and uplifting influence should be made the object of vicious attacks by those who were the enemies of the Church and its persecutors!
The completion of the font signalized the importance of the so-called Reformation in the Church which began in that year. ”

“ Furthermore {112} there is no authoritative Scripture or revelation for the new forms of the sacrament that have been introduced by the Reformers and are being made essential to salvation. The true Reformation, he thinks, should be devoted to the construction of the invisible Church, which has existed in all ages of the world, but which is kept from realizing its full scope and power because the attention of men is too greatly absorbed with signs and symbols and outward things. ”

“ You must not judge by individuals but by principles. You must join your hand to a great work of restoring what has been lost, and saving what remains. And for the present you must thank God that your reformation was carried on, not like the Lutheran, without the Church, but with the Church ”

“ So long as the new organisation claims to be Christian at all, it must go back for its foundation to Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and he himself can appear only as a reformer, a restorer of what professes, and must profess, to be the religion which they delivered to mankind. ”

“ Let the reform come from within the church. The church is something more than either its creeds, its clergy, or its laymen. Look at your cathedral rising out of and dominating Princhester. It stands not simply for Athanasius; it stands but incidentally for Athanasius; it stands for all religion. Within that fabric—let me be as frank here as in our private conversation—doctrine has altered again and again. To-day two distinct religions worship there side by side; one that fades and one that grows brighter. ”

“ Add, lastly, the large class who have been studiously brought up, with all the dominant authority of the English tradition of three hundred years, to believe sincerely, and without a doubt, that the Catholic Church is corrupt, has changed the doctrines of the faith, and that the author of the Reformation is the Spirit of holiness and truth. It may seem incredible to some that such an illusion exists. ”

“ If the majority should violate the terms upon which church members were united, it is lawful for the minority to testify against the defection, and to walk by the rule of their former attainments. And when any community assuming to be the Church of Christ, imposes sinful terms of communion—when the constitution is anti-scriptural—when the administration is corrupt, and attempts at its reformation have proved ineffectual—it is the duty of Christians to separate from it: "Come out of her, my people," &c. ”