The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps — John Shaqi
The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its HelpsArnold, Thomas
Religion
The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps
Arnold, Thomas
Christian life; Sermons, English
[Footnote 3: "To believe, therefore, as the word stands in the front of
the Creed, ... is to assent to the whole and every part of it as to a
certain and infallible truth revealed by God, ... and delivered unto us
in the writings of the blessed apostles and prophets immediately
inspired, moved, and acted by God, out of whose writings this brief sum
of necessary points of faith was first collected." (P. 12.) And in the
paragraph immediately preceding, Pearson had said, "The household of God
is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, who are
continued unto us only in their writings, and by them alone convoy unto
us the truths which they received from God, upon whose testimony we
believe." It appears, therefore, that Pearson not only subscribed the
6th Article of the Church of England, but also believed it.]
Many reasons, therefore, concur to make it doubtful whether the authors
of the Tracts have discovered the true remedy for the evils of their
age; whether they have really inculcated "something better and deeper
than satisfied the last century." The violent prejudice which previously
possessed them, and the strong feelings of passion and fear which led
immediately to their first systematic publications, must in the first
instance awaken a suspicion as to their wisdom; and this suspicion
becomes stronger when we find their writings different from the best of
those which they profess to admire, and bearing a close resemblance only
to those of the nonjurors. A third consideration is also of much
weight--that their doctrines do not enforce any great points of moral or
spiritual perfection which other Christians had neglected; nor do they,
in any especial manner, "preach Christ." In this they offer a striking
contrast to the religious movement, if I may so call it, which began
some years since in the University at Cambridge. That movement, whatever
human alloy might have mingled with it, bore on it most clear evidence
that it was in the main God's work. It called upon men to turn from sin
and be reconciled to God; it emphatically preached Christ crucified. But
Mr. Newman and his friends have preached as their peculiar doctrine, not
Christ but the Church; we must go even farther and say, not the Church,
but themselves. What they teach has no moral or spiritual excellence in
itself; but it tends greatly to their own exaltation. They exalt the
sacraments highly, but all that they say of their virtue, all their
admiration of them as so setting forth the excellence of faith, inasmuch
as in them the whole work is of God, and man has only to receive and
believe, would be quite as true, and quite as well-grounded, if they
were to abandon altogether that doctrine which it is their avowed object
especially to enforce--the doctrine of apostolical succession.
Referring again to the preamble of their original resolutions, already
quoted, we see that the two first articles alone relate to our Lord and
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