XXIII. But this surpasses all folly, that in every one of their orders they make Christ a colleague with them. First, they say, he executed the office of beadle, when he made a whip of small cords, and drove all the buyers and sellers out of the temple. He showed himself to be a beadle, when he said, “I am the door.” He assumed the place of a reader, when he read a passage of Isaiah in the synagogue. He discharged the function of an exorcist, when, applying spittle to the ears and tongue of a man who was deaf and dumb, he restored his hearing and speech. He declared himself to be an acolothist in these words: “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness.” He discharged the duty of a subdeacon, when he girded himself with a towel, and washed the feet of his disciples. He sustained the character of a deacon, when he distributed his body and blood in the supper. He acted the part of a priest, when he offered himself on the cross a sacrifice to the Father. It is impossible to hear these things without laughing, so that I wonder they were written without laughing; at least, if those who wrote them were men. But the most remarkable of all is, the subtlety with which they reason on the word _acolothist_, which they call _ceroferarius_, a taper-bearer; a term of magic, I suppose, certainly unknown in any nation or language; whereas the Greek word ακολουθος, _acolothist_, simply signifies a _follower_ or _attendant_. But I should justly incur ridicule myself, if I were to dwell on a serious refutation of such things, they are so frivolous and ludicrous.
XXIV. To prevent them, however, from continuing their impositions on silly women, it is necessary, as we proceed, to expose their vanity. They create with great pomp and solemnity their readers, psalmists, beadles, acolothists, to discharge those offices in which they employ either boys, or at least those whom they call laymen. For who, in most cases, lights the wax tapers, who pours wine and water out of the flagon, but a boy, or some mean layman, who gets his livelihood by it? Do not the same persons chant? Do they not open and shut the doors of the churches? For who ever saw in their temples an acolothist or beadle performing his office? On the contrary, he who, when a boy, discharged the duty of an acolothist, as soon as he is admitted into that order, ceases to be what he begins to be called; so that it should seem to be their deliberate intention to discard the office when they assume the title. We see what need they have to be consecrated by sacraments, and to receive the Holy Spirit; it is, that they may do nothing. If they allege, that this arises from the perverseness of the present age, that men desert and neglect their official duties, let them at the same time confess, that their holy orders, which they so wonderfully extol, are of no use or benefit to the Church in the present day, and that their whole Church is filled with a curse, since it permits boys and laymen to handle the tapers and flagons, which none are worthy of touching except those who have been consecrated as acolothists; and since it leaves boys to chant those services, which ought never to be heard but from a consecrated mouth. But for what purpose do they consecrate their exorcists? I know that the Jews had their exorcists; but I find that they derived their name from the exorcisms which they practised. Respecting these counterfeit exorcists, who ever heard of their exhibiting one specimen of their profession? It is pretended that they are invested with power to lay hands upon maniacs, demoniacs, and catechumens; but they cannot persuade the demons that they are endued with such power; not only because the demons do not submit to their commands, but because they even exercise dominion over them. For scarcely one in ten can be found among them who is not influenced by an evil spirit. Whatever ridiculous pretensions they may set up respecting their contemptible orders, are the mere compositions of ignorance and falsehood. Of the ancient acolothists, beadles, and readers, we have spoken already, when we discussed the order of the Church. Our present design is only to combat that novel invention of a sevenfold sacrament in ecclesiastical orders; on which not a syllable is any where to be found, except among those sapient theologues, the Sorbonists and Canonists.
XXV. Let us now examine the ceremonies which they employ. In the first place, all whom they enrol in their army they initiate into the rank of clergy by a common sign. They shave them on the crown of the head, that the crown may denote regal dignity; because ecclesiastics ought to be kings, to rule themselves and others, according to the language in which Peter addresses them: “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” But it was sacrilege for them to arrogate exclusively to themselves that which is attributed to the whole Church, and proudly to glory in the title which they had stolen from the believers. Peter addresses the whole Church; they misapply his words to a few shavelings, as if they were the only holy persons, as if they alone had been redeemed by the blood of Christ, as if they alone had been made by him kings and priests unto God. They proceed to assign other reasons; that the top of their head is laid bare, to show that their mind is free to the Lord, and can with open face contemplate the glory of God; or to indicate that the faults of their mouth and eyes ought to be cut off. Or the tonsure of the crown signifies the relinquishment and renunciation of temporal things; and the hair left round the crown denotes the relics of property which are reserved for their sustenance. Every thing is symbolical; because, with respect to them, the veil of the temple has not yet been rent asunder. Therefore, having persuaded themselves that they have completely discharged their duties, when they have represented such things by their shaven crown, they, in reality, fulfil none of them. How long will they impose upon us with such deceptions and falsehoods? Ecclesiastics, by shaving off a few hairs, signify that they have relinquished an abundance of temporal possessions, to be at liberty to contemplate the glory of God, and that they have mortified the inordinate propensities of their ears and eyes; but there is no class of men more rapacious, ignorant, or libidinous. Why do they not make an actual exhibition of sanctity, rather than counterfeit the appearance of it by false and delusive symbols?
XXVI. When they say that their clerical tonsure derives its origin and reason from the Nazarites, what is this but declaring that their mysteries have sprung from Jewish ceremonies, or, rather, are mere Judaism? But when they add, that Priscilla, Aquila, and Paul himself, after having made a vow, shaved their heads in order to purify themselves, they betray their gross ignorance. For this is nowhere said of Priscilla; and there is some uncertainty even respecting Aquila; for that tonsure may as well be referred to Paul as to Aquila.[1386] But not to leave them what they require, that they have an example of this tonsure in Paul, it ought to be observed by the plain reader, that Paul never shaved his head with a view to any sanctity, but merely to accommodate himself to the weakness of his brethren. I am accustomed to call vows of this kind vows of charity, and not of piety; that is to say, they were not made for any purpose of religion, or as acts of service to God, but in order to bear the ignorance of weak brethren; as the apostle himself says: “Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.”[1387] Therefore he did this act, and that once, and for a short period, that he might accommodate himself to the Jews. When these men desire, without any cause, to imitate the purifications of the Nazarites, what is this but raising up a new Judaism by a culpable affectation of emulating that which is abolished? The same superstition dictated that decretal epistle which prohibits ecclesiastics, according to the apostle, to let their hair grow, but enjoins them to shave in a circular form; as though the apostle, when he mentioned what is becoming to all men, were concerned about the circular tonsure of the clergy. Hence the readers may form some opinion of the importance and dignity of other succeeding mysteries, to which there is such an introduction.
XXVII. The true origin of the clerical tonsure is very evident from the testimony of Augustine. As, in that age, no persons suffered their hair to grow long, but such as were effeminate, and affected an elegance and delicacy not sufficiently manly, it was thought that it would be a bad example to permit this custom in the clergy. They were, therefore, commanded to shave their heads, that they might exhibit no appearance of effeminate ornament. The tonsure then became so common, that some monks, to display their superior sanctity by something remarkable and distinguished from others, left their hair to grow very long. Afterwards, when the custom of wearing long hair was revived, and several nations were converted to Christianity, who had always been accustomed to wear their hair, as France, Germany, and England, it is probable that ecclesiastics every where shaved their heads, that they might not appear to be fond of the ornament of hair. At length, in a more corrupt age, when all the ancient institutions were either perverted or degenerated into superstition, because they saw no reason in the clerical tonsure (for they had retained nothing but a foolish imitation of their predecessors,) they had recourse to a mystery, which they now superstitiously obtrude upon us as a proof of their sacrament. Beadles, at their consecration, receive the keys of the Church, as a sign that the custody of it is committed to them. Readers are presented with the Holy Bible. To exorcists are given the forms of exorcisms to be used over catechumens and maniacs. Acolothists receive their tapers and flagons. These are the ceremonies which, if we believe them, contain such secret virtue as to be, not only signs and tokens, but even causes, of an invisible grace. For, according to their definition, all this is assumed when they insist on their being numbered among the sacraments. But, to conclude in a few words, I maintain it to be absurd for canonists and scholastic theologues to give the title of sacraments to these, which they themselves call _lesser orders_; since, even according to their own confession, they were unknown to the primitive Church, and were invented many years after. But, as sacraments contain some promises of God, they cannot be instituted by men or angels, but by God alone, whose prerogative it is to give the promise.
XXVIII. There remain three orders, which they call _greater orders_; of which sub-deaconry, they say, was transferred to this class after the number of the lesser orders began to increase. As they think that they have a testimony for these from the word of God, they peculiarly denominate them, for the sake of honour, _holy orders_. But we must now examine how perversely they abuse the Divine appointments of God in their own vindication. We will begin with the order of presbyters, or priests. For by these two names they signify one thing; and these are the appellations which they apply to those whose office, they say, it is, to offer the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ upon the altar, to say prayers and to pronounce benedictions on the gifts of God. Therefore, at their ordination, they receive a chalice, with the patine and host, as symbols of the power committed to them to offer expiatory sacrifices to God; and their hands are anointed with oil, as a symbol to show that they are invested with power to consecrate. The ceremonies we shall notice hereafter. Of the thing itself, I affirm, that it is so far from having a syllable of the Divine word to support it, that it was impossible for them to have introduced a viler corruption of the order instituted by God. In the first place, it ought to be taken for granted, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, on the Papal Mass, that great injury is done to Christ by all those who call themselves priests to offer sacrifices of expiation. He was constituted and consecrated by the Father, with an oath, a priest after the order of Melchisedec, without end, and without a successor. He once offered a sacrifice of eternal expiation and reconciliation; and now, having entered into the sanctuary of heaven, intercedes for us. In him we are all priests; but it is only to offer to God praises and thanksgivings, in short, ourselves and all that belongs to us. It was his province alone, by his oblation, to appease God and expiate sins. When these men usurp that office to themselves, what follows, but that their priesthood is chargeable with impiety and sacrilege? They certainly betray the greatest effrontery when they dare to dignify it with the title of a sacrament. The imposition of hands, which is used at the introduction of the true presbyters and ministers of the Church into their office, I have no objection to consider as a sacrament; for, in the first place, that ceremony is taken from the Scripture, and, in the next place, it is declared by Paul to be not unnecessary or useless, but a faithful symbol of spiritual grace.[1388] I have not enumerated it as the third among the sacraments, because it is not ordinary or common to all believers, but a special rite for a particular office. The ascription of this honour to the Christian ministry, however, furnishes no reason for the pride of Romish priests; for Christ has commanded the ordination of ministers to dispense his gospel and his mysteries, not the inauguration of priests to offer sacrifices. He has commissioned them to preach the gospel and to feed his flock, and not to immolate victims. He has promised them the grace of the Holy Spirit, not in order to effect an expiation for sins, but rightly to sustain and conduct the government of the Church.
XXIX. There is an excellent correspondence between the ceremonies and the thing itself. Our Lord, when he sent forth his disciples to preach the gospel, “breathed upon them;”[1389] by that symbol representing the power of the Holy Spirit which he imparted to them. These sapient theologues retain the _breathing_, and, as if they disgorged the Holy Spirit from their throats, they mutter over the priests whom they ordain, _Receive ye the Holy Ghost_. Thus they leave nothing that they do not preposterously counterfeit, I do not say like comedians, whose gesticulations are not without art and meaning, but like apes, who imitate every thing without any taste or design. We observe, they say, the example of our Lord. But our Lord did many things which he never intended to be examples to us. He said to his disciples, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” He said to Lazarus, “Lazarus, Come forth.”[1390] He said to the paralytic, “Arise and walk.”[1391] Why do not they say the same to all deceased persons and paralytics? When he breathed upon his apostles, and filled them with the grace of the Holy Spirit, he exhibited a specimen of his Divine power. If they attempt to do the same, they emulate God, and, as it were, challenge him to contend with them; but they are very far from producing a similar effect, and the foolish mimicry is a mere mockery of Christ. They have the effrontery, indeed, to dare to assert, that they confer the Holy Ghost; but how far this is true is shown by experience, which proves, that those who are consecrated priests, from being horses become asses, and are changed from fools to madmen. Nor do I contend with them on this account; I only condemn the ceremony itself, which ought not to be made a precedent, since it was used by Christ as a special sign of a particular miracle; so far is their pretence of imitating him from justifying their conduct.
XXX. But from whom have they received the unction? Their answer is, that they have received it from the sons of Aaron, from whom also their order derived its origin. Thus they always prefer defending themselves by improper examples, to confessing that which they practise without just reason to be their own invention; but at the same time, they do not consider that, in professing themselves successors of the sons of Aaron, they do an injury to the priesthood of Christ; which was the only thing adumbrated and prefigured by all the ancient priesthoods. In him, therefore, they were all accomplished and concluded; in him they ceased, as we have more than once already stated, and the Epistle to the Hebrews declares without the help of any comment. But, if they are so highly delighted with the Mosaic ceremonies, why do they not take oxen, and calves, and lambs, and offer them as sacrifices? They have, indeed, a great part of the ancient tabernacle, and of all the Jewish worship; but their religion is still deficient in that they do not sacrifice animal victims. Who does not see that this custom of anointing is far more pernicious than circumcision; especially when it is attended with superstition and a pharisaical opinion of the merit of the act? The Jews placed a confidence of righteousness in circumcision; in unction these men place spiritual graces. Therefore, while they desire to be imitators of the Levites, they become apostates from Christ, and renounce the office of pastors.
XXXI. This is their consecrated oil, which, it is pretended, impresses a character never to be effaced; as though oil could not be cleansed away with dust and salt, or, if it be more adhesive, with soap. But this character, they say, is spiritual. What connection has oil with the soul? Have they forgotten an observation, which they often quote to us from Augustine—That, if the word be separated from the water, it will be nothing but water, and that it is the word which makes it a sacrament? What word will they show in their unction? Will they produce the command which was given to Moses to anoint the sons of Aaron? But in that case there was also a command given respecting the coat, the ephod, the mitre, the holy crown, with which Aaron was to be adorned; and respecting the coats, girdles, and mitres, with which his sons were to be invested. It was commanded to kill a bullock, to burn his fat, to cut one ram asunder and burn it, to sanctify their ears and garments with the blood of another ram; and numerous other observances, which I wonder how it is that they have entirely omitted, and taken only the anointing oil. But if they are fond of being sprinkled, why are they sprinkled with oil rather than with blood? They attempt, indeed, a most ingenious thing; to frame one religion out of a number of fragments collected together from Christianity, Judaism, and Paganism. Their unction, therefore, is quite fetid, for want of the salt, the word of God. There remains imposition of hands, which I confess to be a sacrament in true and legitimate ordinations, but I deny that it has any place in this farce, in which they neither obey the command of Christ, nor regard the end to which the promise ought to lead us. If they wish the sign not to be refused to them, they must apply it to the very object to which it was dedicated.
XXXII. Respecting the order of deacons, also, I should have no controversy with them, if that office were restored to its primitive purity, as it existed under the apostles, and in the purer times of the Church. But what resemblance to it is to be found among those whom the Romanists pretend to be deacons? I speak not of the persons, lest they should complain that it is unjust to estimate their doctrine by the faults of individuals; but I contend that, taking their deacons exactly as their doctrine describes them to us, it is absurd to fetch any testimony in their favour from the examples of those who were appointed deacons by the apostolic Church. They say that it belongs to their deacons to assist the priests, to minister in every thing that is done in the sacraments, as in baptism, in chrism, to pour the wine into the chalice, to place the bread in the patine; to lay and dispose the oblations upon the altar, to prepare and cover the table of the Lord, to bear the cross, to read and chant the gospel and epistle to the people. Is there in all this a single word of the true duty of deacons? Now, let us hear how they are inaugurated. On the deacon who is ordained the bishop alone lays his hand; on his left shoulder he places a stole, to teach him that he has taken upon him the light yoke of the Lord, to subject to the fear of God every thing belonging to the left side. He gives him the text of the gospel, that he may know himself to be a herald of it. And what have these things to do with deacons? It is no better than if any one pretended to ordain apostles, while he only appointed them to burn incense, to adorn the images, to trim the lamps, to sweep the Churches, to catch mice, and to drive out dogs. Who could suffer such persons to be called apostles, and to be compared with the apostles of Christ? Let them never again falsely represent those as deacons, whom they merely appoint to act a part in their farcical exhibitions. The very name which they bear sufficiently declares the nature of their office. For they call them Levites, and wish to deduce their origin from the sons of Levi. This I have no objection to their doing, provided they drop their pretensions to Christianity.
XXXIII. Of what use is it to say any thing respecting sub-deacons? In ancient times they actually had the care of the poor. The Romanists attribute to them I know not what nugatory functions; as to bring the chalice and patine, the flagon with water, and the towel to the altar, to pour out water for washing the hands of the priests, and similar services. When they speak of the sub-deacons receiving and bringing oblations, they mean those which they devour as consecrated to their use. With this office the ceremony of their initiation perfectly corresponds: they receive from the bishop the patine and chalice, from the archdeacon the flagon with water, the manual, and similar trumpery. They require us to confess the Holy Ghost to be contained in these fooleries. What pious person can bear to admit this? But to come to an end, we may draw the same conclusion respecting them as respecting the rest; nor is it necessary to repeat any more of what we have already stated. This will be sufficient for persons of modest and docile minds, to whom this book is addressed; that there is no sacrament of God, which does not exhibit a ceremony annexed to a promise, or rather which does not present a promise in a ceremony. In this case not a syllable is to be found of any certain promise; and, therefore, it is in vain to seek for a ceremony to confirm the promise. And of all the ceremonies which they use, not one appears to have been instituted by God; therefore there can be no sacrament.
MATRIMONY.
XXXIV. The last of their sacraments is matrimony, which all confess to have been instituted by God, but which no one, till the time of Gregory, ever discovered to have been enjoined as a sacrament. And what man, in his sober senses, would ever have taken it into his head? It is alleged to be a good and holy ordinance of God; and so agriculture, architecture, shoemaking, and many other things, are legitimate ordinances of God, and yet they are not sacraments. For it is required in a sacrament, not only that it be a work of God, but that it be an external ceremony appointed by God for the confirmation of a promise. That there is nothing of this kind in matrimony even children can judge. But, they say, it is a sign of a sacred thing, that is, of the spiritual union of Christ with the Church. If by the word _sign_, they mean a symbol presented to us by God to support our faith, they are very far from the truth. If by a sign they merely understand that which is adduced as a similitude, I will show how acutely they reason. Paul says, “One star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead.”[1392] Here is one sacrament. Christ says, “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed.” Here is another. Again: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven.”[1393] Here is a third. Isaiah says, “Behold, the Lord shall feed his flock like a shepherd.”[1394] Here is a fourth. Again: “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man.”[1395] Here is a fifth. And what end will there be? Upon this principle, every thing will be a sacrament; as many parables and similitudes as there are in the Scripture, there will be so many sacraments. Even theft will be a sacrament; because it is written, “The day of the Lord cometh as a thief.”[1396] Who can bear the foolish babblings of these sophists? I confess indeed, that, whenever we see a vine, it is very desirable to recall to remembrance the language of Christ: “I am the vine, ye are the branches, and my Father is the husbandman.”[1397] Whenever we meet a shepherd with his flock, it is good for us to remember another declaration of our Lord: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”[1398] But if any one should class such similitudes among the sacraments, it would argue a want of mental sanity.
XXXV. They obtrude upon us the language of Paul, in which, they say, he expressly calls matrimony a sacrament. “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and his bones; for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery (or _sacrament_, as the word is rendered in the Vulgate;) but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”[1399] But to treat the Scriptures in this manner, is to confound heaven and earth together. To show to husbands what peculiar affection they ought to bear to their wives, Paul proposes Christ to them as an example. For as he has poured forth all the treasures of his kindness upon the Church, which he had espoused to himself, so the apostle would have every man to evince a similar affection towards his wife. It follows, “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; even as the Lord the Church.” Now, to declare how Christ has loved the Church, even as himself, and how he has made himself one with the Church his spouse, Paul applies to him what Moses relates Adam to have spoken of himself. For when Eve was brought into his presence, knowing her to have been formed out of his side, he said, “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”[1400] Paul testifies that all this has been spiritually fulfilled in Christ and us, when he says, “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” and consequently “one flesh” with him. At length he concludes with an exclamation, “This is a great mystery;” and, that no one might be deceived by an ambiguity of language, he expressly states, that he intends not the conjugal union of man and woman, but the spiritual marriage of Christ and his Church: “I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” And, indeed, it is a great mystery that Christ has suffered a rib to be taken from him, of which we might be formed: that is to say, though he was strong, he voluntarily became weak, that we might be strengthened with his might; so that now we “live, yet not” we, “but Christ liveth in” us.[1401] XXXVI. They have been deceived by the word _sacrament_ in the Vulgate version. But was it reasonable that the whole Church should suffer the punishment of their ignorance? Paul has used the word μυστηριον, _mystery_—a word which the translator might have retained, _mysterium_ being not unfamiliar to Latin ears, or he might have rendered it _arcanum_, secret; he preferred, however, to use the word _sacramentum_, sacrament, but in the same sense in which Paul has used the Greek word μυστηριον, _mystery_. Now, let them go and clamorously rail against the critical knowledge of languages, through ignorance of which they have so long been most shamefully deceived in a thing so easy and obvious to every one. But why do they so strenuously insist on the word _sacrament_ in this one passage, and pass it over in so many others without the least notice? For that translator has used it twice in the First Epistle to Timothy,[1402] and in another place in this Epistle to the Ephesians,[1403] and in every other case where the word _mystery_ occurs. Let this oversight, however, be forgiven them; liars ought, at least, to have good memories. For, after having dignified matrimony with the title of a sacrament, what brainless versatility is it for them to stigmatize it with the characters of impurity, pollution, and carnal defilement! What an absurdity is it to exclude priests from a sacrament! If they deny that they are interdicted from the sacrament, but only from the conjugal intercourse, I shall not be satisfied with this evasion. For they inculcate that the conjugal intercourse itself is part of the sacrament, and that it represents the union which we have with Christ in conformity of nature; because it is by that intercourse that a husband and wife become one flesh. Here some of them have found two sacraments; one, of God and the soul, in the man and woman when betrothed; the other, of Christ and the Church, in the husband and wife. The conjugal intercourse, upon their principles, however, is a sacrament, from which no Christian ought to be prohibited; unless the sacraments of Christians are so incompatible, that they cannot consist together. There is also another absurdity in their doctrine. They affirm that the grace of the Holy Spirit is conferred in every sacrament; they acknowledge that the conjugal intercourse is a sacrament; yet they deny that the Holy Spirit is ever present in that intercourse.