RITUALISM.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 122, 29 February 1872, Page 3

RITUALISM.

To the Editor of the Thames ucaudiax. Sir, — 1 have been reading your leader of February 14lli, upon the above subject. You have brought the battle of the crosses into something like a perceptible shape, which is more than any oi: the writers in your contemporaries have done. I will therefore, with your permission, offer a few remarks upon t ho subject. The religion of Jesus Christ is emphatically spiritual, it is within every man who reallv lias possession of if. It does not consist of forms and ceremonies of an outward nature ; neither can these contribute to its growth. The spiritual man is born from above. The man dcsciibed by Paul, i Cor. ii., lias the religious flame kept alive by the direct operation of the Holy Spirit ; lie needs no forms or ceremonies, be needs,no types or shadows, for lie lias grasped the substance—Christ, and upon that substance bo lives daily and hourly : such an one is the temple of the Holy Spirit: be delights only in the purpose of God as revealed through holy men of God, ns they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The first churches were composed for the most part of these spiritual men, and their worship was of the most simple and spiritual character; conducted in a house, or in an upper room, in fact in any place where two or three could meet together in the name of Jesus Christ. These spiritual disciples understood the words of their master uttered in conversation with the Samaralan woman, Jolm i v., *• Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, “ and yet (Jews) say that in Jerusalem “ is the place where men ought to worship. “ Jesus saitli unto her ; . . • the hour

“ cometh, and non.' /.s, when the true wor- “ shippers shall worship the Father in “ spirit and in truth, for the Father socketh “such to worship him. God is a spirit, “and they that worship him must “ worship him in spirit find iu “ truth.” This is the sort of worship required by God, and this was the worship offered by the persecuted and unpretending disciples of Christ in the early da\ s of the church. Xo gorgeous cathedrals ; no cross decorated buildings ; no assumed priest with gaudy trappings; no parsons as a class educated at the schools of carnality, and wearing an endless /;/«»■/• suit to make them appear the more conspicuous as such class. These early disciples knew nojbing of such things; the apostolic writings make no mention of such abominations ; they are all inimical to the Christianity of Jesus Christ. llow, then, come these things, with a thousand others of ritualistic folly, to he associated with Christianity ? Viewed by New Testament light, the answer to this enquiry is clear enough. What says the great apostle of the Gentiles, when addressing the Ephesian ciders, (Acts xx.) ; elders of the most spiritual Church (no doubt) then iu existence? Hear him, “I know this, that after my departing shall </rin ion:< train's enter in amongst you, not sparing the Hock ; also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after tinm. These words disclose the secret of all ritualistic practice, and every evil of doctrine and practice that now j exists in (he churches. Carnal men got j into the churches; the tares multiplied: ; false teachers abounded; false doctrines j were enunciated, and false practices fob I lowed, and disciples more carnal than I spiritual were drawn after these evil men. The church at Corinth was fill' d with such teachers, while Paul informs the Church j at Thessalonica, ii. Tlics. ii, that the | tni/xtii'!/ of i nil/ a Hi/ had then begun to j work even in his days. The whole of the j Epistle to the Galatian Church may be , said to have been written against Ritual- | ism; the Ritualism of the Hebrews; I right and proper enough amongvt these j people, until Christ, to whom it all pointed, |. came, ami fulfilled his mission of love lor | a guilty world; right and proper, as types j and figures of the great purpose of God in i Christ, in mercy to the whole creation; ! hut wholly inimical to a profession of ; Christianity. Seeing that the Son of God I had come, had suffered, had wrought out J

a perfect righteousness, had died, and had risen from tho dead. Thus fulfilling in himself so far, these types and figures, ( lie became tho »übstance of such fun-shadowings. Those therefore who have a linn faith in the substance requires no longer the shadow. If wc have Cliwstin in our hearts, the hope of glory yet to come, Ritualism of any kind becomes a dead letter. Even the institutions of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, I do not mean sprinkling, for that is wholly an unmeaning invention of men, and sets forth nothing at all of the great purpose of (iod in Christ. I mean immersion and the Lord’s Supper: immersion upon confession of faith—there is no other baptism in the New Testament. Even these figurative iiitstitutions can of themselves impart no spiritual life, neither can they cause any growth in grace or spirituality. It is the spirit that takes of the tilings of Christ, and reveal them unto those who are born from above, born of the spirit, and this is done in a direct, manner by" the study of the sacred writings. These institutions were intended by the Lord to keep always before the Church, and before the world also (for the whole creation is interested in what they prefigure) the great fundamental truths of the Bible.. As Christ died, and lose again from the dead, su do believers, or spiritual men. buried with him in baptism such rise again at bis return to reign on the earth with him ; these are the truths prefigured in baptism, see Col. 2 and 3 chap. In the Lord’s supper the great truth prefigured is the Atonement made for the sins of the world on Cavalry, in the broken body, and the shed blood, of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Now it was God’s intention that these fundamental truths of 11 is purpose in the Son of his love should bo ever kept before mankind ; witness the words of Paul when referring to the institution, 1 Cor. 11 : “As often ns yc eat this bread (it was unleavened bread, for no other bread could symbolize Christ, lie being without corruption) and drink this cup, shew ye the Lord’s death until become.” Hence, then, those two simple but effectual institutions so long as simplicity was adhered to. The first,however, baptism, lias been obliterated by nearly all Christendom, and the second lias been so corrupted by Ritualism as to bo scarcely recognised by a spiritual linn as the Lord’s-supper at all. Now, what is the consequence? Y\ by, that very Jew believe in any literal resurrection : while the doctrine of the atonement is being undermined by many, and actually denied in all directions by carnal preachers and writers; while wc have a merely nominal Christianity introduced everywhere, by which form has usurped the place of life, and ceremonial observance, with false doctrine, the place of spiritual power, communion, and worship. Thus the Clod of this World lias and still is blinding the eyes of those trim heiierr not , lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them. The Latin Church and and her numerous daughters are all alike, one way or another, in this respect. Forms and ceremonies, with carnal instead of spiritual life, abound amongst them all : neither is it any better in the Greek Church. The A post acy marks everything religious. From the days when Paul, the Apostle, penned those ominous words, the “ Muster;/ of Ino/niii /” does already work until now, what a fearful picture, does history presold of tho degeneracy of Christianity through false, carnal teachers. Nothing hut the shell is left, 1 lie kernel is eaten clean away by the devil’s agents, wlio appear as angels of light. \ cry few indeed know w?iere they arc in religious matters: all is doubt and faithlessness. But how does it all end? In (lie same second epistle to the Thessalonian Church, chap. ii. the Apostle tells us plainly that it all ends in the vain of sin, the personal political aiili-christ, or beast, and bis ecclesiastical prophet of the l.Olli of Revelation : a public and ecclesiastical tyranny, such as was never before known in the world ; a rule of downright, nthiesm, and the time fast draws nigh. When this is ovei —it will last but three and a half rears, the Son of Righteousness will arise with healing in his wings, the Suns of God or /In Church wiil be manifested, and the everlasting reign of righteousness commence : that, will lie tho “good time coming” which all tho earth seems to he expecting ; only, they arc unaware of what nature it will be, or how it will be brought about, because of their limited knowledge of the sacred scriptures, or their little faith in the teachings of that Book. William Wood.