THE RULE OF FAITH: A DISCOURSE, TO VINDICATE THE INCARNATE WORD. DELIVERED By order of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, for 1841, before that for 1842. BY ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D. PHILADELPHIA: WILLIAM S. MARTIEN. THE RULE OF FAITH. FAITH SHOULD NOT STAND IN THE WISDOM OF MEN, BUT IN THE POWER OF GOD.-1 Cor. ii. 5. THE service which I am about to perform, Fathers and Brethren of the General Assembly, and the theme which I am to discuss, were both assigned to me by your immediate predecessors in this venerable court. Called to address them while then in session, and by them, thus, a second time distinguished,* only on account of my known devotion to the great principles of the Reformation, and my humble but abundant labours in defence of the common doctrine of the Reformed Churches; I hail with joy these proofs of the reviving interest of the people of God in these great subjects, and proceed to the discussion of the one before me, as to that which presents one of the broadest lines of demarcation between an age of darkness and an age of light, between a Church in bondage and a Church set free, between a pure and evangelical faith and a blind, perfidious and cruel superstition. For that faith which rests upon the wisdom of man, cannot fail to be unstable, contradictory, corrupt and false as the nature of him, who at his best estate is altogether vanity; while that which stands in the power and demonstration of God, must needs be like himself, perfect and eternal. I. There is, no doubt, an apparent resemblance between the religion of the Bible and that of Rome; a resem. blance strengthened by the addition of the name Christian, to those of Catholic, Roman, and Apostolic, adopted * See printed Minutes of the Assembly of 1841, p. 432 and p. 437. by the followers of the Pope; and still further, in our age and country, by vague and hollow claims of fellowship with us, by those whose creed demands our blood and whose annals are crowded with their cruel mockings and pitiless butcheries of our brethren in Christ Jesus. But this resemblance exists only in appearance, and vanishes utterly before the slightest inspection of the two systems. Thus, there is an apparent resemblance in this, that both the Bible and Rome teach the unity of the Godhead, as the grand distinction and chief foundation of revealed religion. But the Bible holds up to us the one only and self existent God-as the sole object of all religious worship, and denounces all worship rendered to any other object, or even to this glorious God himself by the intervention of images, as heinous sin. Rome, on the contrary, teaches that divine worship is due to the Virgin, to the consecrated host, to the true cross; and that religious adoration is to be paid to angels, to departed saints, and even to their relics, yea to pictures and images. So that they whose faith stands in the power of God, differ from those whose faith stands in carnal wisdom, even as to the grand and fundamental question of the object of religious worship.* So as to the way of access to the only true and adorable God, and the whole method of salvation for sinful men-the religion of the Bible and that of Rome, however apparently alike to the superficial observer, are in fact wholly irreconcilable. For the one teaches us that the only access to God is by the blood of a divine Redeemer, who is Christ the Lord, and who is the way, the truth, and the life; and that it is solely through faith in his name, effectually manifested in godly repentance and new obedience, that we are made partakers of the benefits of his work of redemption. But the other teaches, that there *See Stillingfleet's" Discourse Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome;" and his Defence of that Discourse entitled, "An Answer to Several late Treatises," &c.-See also the Decrees of the Council of Trent. are multitudes of intercessors for us with God, to whom we ought to apply, and to whom an important part of our salvation is to be ascribed; that the merit of our good works is efficacious with God, and a proper ground of our hope before him; that the sacraments have an inherent power to commend us to God; and that faith in Christ is not the true method of a sinner's justification. So that their teachings are precisely opposite to each other upon the most vital parts of practical religion.* Again, as to the nature of sin, of holiness and of the retributions of the world to come, however, at first sight, we may suppose a certain resemblance to exist, there is in reality an exact contrariety. The Bible teaches that nothing is sinful but want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God, but that every sin deserves his wrath and curse; Rome, that the transgression of her commands is heinous sin, that the violation of many of those of God is only a venial offence, and that separation from her communion draws after it the perdition of the soul. The Bible teaches that holiness of heart and life is the fruit of free grace, and the efficacious work of the divine Spirit in the soul of man, and that without this, ho liness no man shall see God's face in peace: Rome, that men are regenerated by baptism, kept in an estate of sal vation by confirmation, confession, penance, fasts, alms, the sacrifice of the mass, &c. &c., and finally assured of salvation by virtue of indulgences, absolution, and ex treme unction; the doctrine of the new birth as held by all Christians of all ages, being pronounced by her, not only false but accursed. The Bible teaches that this life is our only season of probation, and that after it the bodies of men remain under the power of death till the great day of God Almighty, at which they shall be reunited to the souls, which, if they be of the just have been in heaven, or if of the unjust in hell-since their *See Decrees and Canons of of the Council of Trent, on Justification, the Sacraments, the Mass, Indulgences, and the Invocation of Saints. |