No. XI.

FAITH IS IN GOD AND HIS WORD, NOT IN

THE CHURCH.

FIRST CONVERSATION.

N*. WELL, James, I hear you have been visited by some Roman Catholics, and are in some perplexity.

James. I have, and they spoke very fair; and I can't deny that I do not see clear. Christ surely left a church on earth, and some authority to guide us poor people, and instruct us in the right way. It is a great comfort to feel assured that one is of the true Church that Christ founded. And, after I had been reflecting awhile on what they said, I began to feel that I have got no proof that the Bible is the word of God.

N*. And did you ever doubt it before, James?

James. No, I can't say I did; I have always believed it to be the word of God; and, though I am afraid I have sadly neglected it many a year, still I, and my wife more than myself, used to find comfort in it; and the children, too, used to read a chapter when they came from school; and I think it used to do us all good, and bring God home to us somehow, and keep our consciences alive; and the children took wonderfully to beautiful histories that are in it, and so, indeed, did we, and it made our home happy. There was only Jem that paid no heed to it; and he was an unruly New Series.

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boy; I have had a deal of trouble with him. But, since I have got more serious and anxious in my mind, I have found the Bible bring trouble into my conscience. I hardly know where I am with God; it condemns me; I see there is goodness and wonderful grace in Jesus; but then, I have no peace in myself, and now I see there is a deal I do not understand, and I should like to know the bottom of it. Bill M. (my neighbour, who has turned Catholic), says he has never been so happy in his life, his soul never got rest till now. He never thought much about religion, it is true, and those ladies that visit were wonderful kind when his lass was sick; but he says he knows some who never got a minute's rest in their souls, that were always seeking it, till they found it in the true Church. It was he that asked me how I knew it was the Bible; and if the true Church had not kept the Bible and given it, who could say it was the word of God? and how did I, an ignorant man, know it was the word of God, as I called it? and that has dashed me uncommonly, because, though I never doubted it a moment before, and saw in infidels that there was no good nor godliness in their ways, yet, I felt I had no proof to give, and what am I to do? I know it speaks of a church that Christ would build on the rock, and I think if that would give me certainty, it would be a great rest to me. But my Mary says she could not think of such a thing; that she could no more doubt it to be the word of God than that the sun shines, and less, if that were possible; that there is more light and comfort to her soul in the Bible than there is light for her eyes and warmth in the sun. And she is a rare wife to me, and I see she has great sense in the things of God, and is a comfort in the house, and wonderful to the childrenvery civil to those black ladies that visit, but shy of them and the way they try to get into the family. I do not think that I doubt at bottom, that it is the word of God; my conscience and my heart too, I think, make me feel it is. But since this talk with Bill M. my mind is all in perplexity, and I feel I have no proof it is the word of God; and just because I have begun to be anxious about it, and about my soul, I should like to have something

certain to rest upon. You'll forgive, I'm sure, Sir, my saying everything, and telling you all that is in my mind, because I have known you so long and your kindness, and I am in perplexity, and, to say the truth, glad to open my mind to some one I can trust, though I do not rightly know what to trust now. I thought I could entirely trust the word of God, and what am I to do now? You'll excuse me.

N*. I am very much obliged to you, James, for telling me what was passing in your mind, and grateful for the confidence you have shown me, and thankful to God that He disposed your heart to do so, and we could not do better than take up the subject; there cannot be a more important one. The faith, or, to speak more truly, Christ, is everything for us poor sinners, and we do want some sure ground on which to believe. Our faith must be a divine faith, in its nature and source, as well as in the things which it reveals; and for a divine faith we must have divine testimony. But there is, in what you say, one thing which strikes me much, namely that your Roman Catholic friends have only led you to doubt of the authority of the Scriptures, which yet, they believe to be divine, or they are infidels themselves. They have not ventured to say the Scriptures are not divine; that would be infidelity, and, as far as man went, straightforward infidelity; but they have sought to make you doubt of the certainty of their being divine. This may be all very well to bring you under their influence, and to make you believe that they only can give you this certainty; but I confess that I do not see the honesty of making you uncertain as to the authority of the Scriptures, when they own that authority themselves.

James. That is true. If they do believe they are the word of God, I do not see why they should seek to make me doubt as to how I can be sure of it.

N*. Just so; and in respect of such a matter as the word of God, it is something approaching to blasphemy. It is saying, that when God has spoken to men, His word has no certain authority of itself over their consciences. They deprive your soul of certainty in the word of God

on one side, and they deprive the word of God of its authority over your soul on the other. This, I must say, seems to me a wicked course, seeing they do not dare to say it is not the Word of God. Now, an upright heart can very often judge of a thing by the conscience, when it is quite unable to meet argument. These men seek, as to what they believe is the word of God, and which they believe ought to exercise authority over your conscience, to make you doubt whether you have any proof whereby you may know it to be such when you read it. Is not this the course your infidel acquaintance took with you? Only they took it openly.

James. Well, it is just the same.

N*. The word of God, James, carries its own authority in the heart of him in whom it has wrought. And, mark this, if it has not wrought in a man's heart, though all the churches in the world should accredit him, that man is lost. Why, if they believe it to be the word of God, not take it and see what it says? They dare not, it is too plain, it condemns their whole system. For instance, you know that it is said, "Where remission of these (sins and iniquities) is, there is no more offering for sin." (Heb. x. 13). Now, their whole system depends upon there being still offerings for sin. The very way a Roman Catholic is described is-he goes to Mass. Now the Mass is an offering for the sins of the living and the dead. And when the Word says there is no more offering for sin, and the most important distinctive point in their doctrine, and the keystone of the system they belong to, is, that there is still an offering for sin, it is easy to understand why they try to shake your confidence in the Word, or to make you think that you cannot understand it. It is because it is very plain indeed, for the poorest, that they do not like it. You are a poor man, but it does not require much learning to understand that the declaration that "there is no more offering for sin" upsets a system which is built upon offering one continually. They may quote Fathers of all names to prove that there ought to be one, or that there was one; but, if the word of God has authority, they cannot say there is one according to the authority of God. There is a kind of learning,

James, learning such as your wife has, being taught of God-a learning from Him according to the promise of that Word, the only learning that saves-which gives a weight and power to the truth I am referring to, which all the sophistry of Romanists or infidels cannot shake— I mean, the knowledge of the unchangeable value of the one offering of Christ, offered once for all. A man taught of God knows that it is in force for ever, that it gives peace to the conscience, that Christ suffered agonies in accomplishing our salvation in that offering; and, as is expressly said, that if it had to be repeated, Christ must suffer repeatedly; that if it be an offering wherein Christ. does not suffer-an offering wherein he does not shed his blood-it is an utterly worthless sacrifice-a base pretension to be an offering a mockery, really, of the solemn truth of the sufferings and agonies of the Son of God for us.

It is said (Heb. ix. 25), "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once, in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And, as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Mark the words "ONCE," and "bear the sins." Does Christ bear sins in the Roman Catholic mass? If not, it is a new way of getting forgiveness, which sets aside the unspeakably gracious but heart-bowing way in which God has wrought salvation out for us, namely the dreadful but infinitely precious sufferings of His own Son. If Christ does suffer in the mass, He is not glorified at the right hand of God. True Christianity and the doctrine of the mass cannot go together. And the more you examine the 9th and the 10th chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the more you will see how the truth of God is set aside by the mass. For the apostle is showing the value of Christ's offering because it was only once, in contrast with the Jewish offerings which were repeated. Those offerings, he says, were a remembrance of sins, brought them to mind; the sins were