The matter was treated in the council as if infant baptism was a custom of long standing. This proves, not that infant baptism is a correct doctrine, or that it was derived from the teachings of the apostles—as some aver22—but that in a century or so after the introduction of the gospel, men began to pervert it by changing and misapplying its ordinances. The false doctrine of infant baptism is now practiced by nearly all so-called Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant.
Much as the simple rite of baptism was burdened with useless ceremonies, changed in its form and misapplied, it was not more distorted than was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The nature of the sacrament—usually called Eucharist—and the purposes for which it was instituted are so plain that he who runs may read. From Paul's description of the ordinance, it is clear' that the broken bread was intended to be an emblem of the Messiah's broken body; the wine an emblem of his blood, shed for sinful man; and his disciples were to eat the one and drink the other in remembrance of him until he should return; and by this ceremony show forth the Lord's death.23 It was designed as a memorial of Messiah's great atonement for mankind, a token and witness unto the Father that the Son was always remembered. It was to be a sign that those partaking of it were willing to take upon them the name of Christ, to remember him always and keep his commandments. In consideration of these things being observed, the saints were always to have the Spirit of the Lord to be with them.
In this spirit and without great ceremony the sacrament was administered for some time. But in the third century there were longer prayers and more ceremony connected with the administration of the sacrament than in the century preceding. Disputations arose as to the proper time of administering it. Some considered the morning, others the afternoon, and some the evening the most suitable time. All were not agreed either as to how often the ordinance should be celebrated. Gold and silver vessels were used, and neither those doing penance, nor those unbaptized, though believers, were permitted to be present at the celebration of the ordinance; "which practice, it is well known, was derived from the pagan mysteries."24 Very much of mystery began to be associated with it even at an early date. The bread and the wine through the prayer of consecration were considered to undergo a mystic change, by which they were converted into and became the very body and the very blood of Jesus Christ; so that they were no longer regarded as emblems of Messiah's body and blood, but the body and blood itself.25 This is the doctrine of transubstantiation. This dogma established, it was but a short step to the "elevation of the host;" that is, the elevation of the bread and wine before it was distributed, so that it might be viewed and worshiped by the people. This was called the adoration of the symbols. It was idolatry—the worship of the bread and wine falsely taught to be the Lord Jesus.26
Hence came the Mass, or the idea of a sacrifice being connected with the celebration of the Eucharist. It was held that as Jesus was truly present in the bread and wine he could be offered up as an oblation to his Eternal Father. The death of the victim was not supposed to occur in reality, but mystically, in such a way, however, as to constitute a true sacrifice, commemorative of that of the cross and not different from it in essence. The same Victim was present, and offered up by Christ through his minister the priest. The sacrifice at the cross was offered with real suffering, true shedding of blood, and real death of the Victim; in the mass it was taught there was a mystical suffering, a mystical shedding of blood and a mystical death of the same Victim.
Into such absurdities was the simple sacrament of the Lord's Supper distorted! When attended with all the pomp and ceremony of splendid altars, lighted tapers, processions, elevations and chantings; offered up by the priests and bishops clad in splendid vestments and in the midst of clouds of incense, accompanied by mystic movements and genuflections of bishops and priests, the church could congratulate itself on having removed the reproach at the first fastened upon the Christians for not having altars and a sacrifice. The mass took away the reproach; and the new converts to Christianity were accustomed to see the same rites and ceremonies employed in this mystical sacrifice of the Son of God as they had seen employed in offering up sacrifices to the pagan deities.
In time the idea became prevalent that the body and blood of Messiah were equally and entirely present under each "species"—that is, equally and entirely present in the bread and in the wine; and was equally and entirely given to the faithful which ever they received. This idea, of course, rendered it unnecessary to partake of both bread and wine—hence the practice of communion in one kind. That is, the sacrament was administered by giving bread alone to the communicant. To remark that this was changing the ordinance of the sacrament as instituted by Messiah—suppressing half of it in fact—can scarcely be necessary, since it is so well known that he administered both bread and wine when instituting the sacred ordinance.27
Thus, through changing the ordinances of the gospel; by misapplying them in some cases, and adding pagan rites to them in others; by dragging into the service of the church the ceremonies employed in heathen temples in the worship of pagan gods; by departing from the moral law of the gospel, until the pages of Christian church history are well nigh as dark in immorality, as cruel and bloody as those that recount the wickedness of pagan Rome;28 by changing the form and departing from the spirit of government in the church as fixed by Jesus, coupled with the corrupting influence of luxury which came with repose and wealth, together with the destruction visited upon the noblest and best of the servants and saints of God by the pagan persecutions which continued through three centuries—all this, I say, brought to pass the apostasy for which I am contending in these pages—the destruction of the Church of Christ on earth.
Footnotes
1. Justin Martyr, First Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius.
2. Mosheim.
3. Tertullian's Apology, ch. xiii.
4. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., vol. I, bk. ii, ch. 4.
5. Historie de Manicheism, tom ii, p. 642.
6. Eccl. Hist. (Mosheim), vol. I, bk. ii, part ii.
7. Nyssen's Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus.
8. I Cor. xii: 8—10.
9. "It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit (speaking of I Cor. xii) were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian; and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they [the spiritual gifts] almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not (as has been supposed) because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake, not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christians. The real cause of it was the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of Man, when he came to examine his church, could hardly find faith upon earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church—because the Christians were turned heathens again and only had a dead form left."—John Wesley (Wesley's Works, vol. vii, Sermon 89, pages 26, 27).
10. "That it was proper for the Christian bishops to increase restraints upon the licentiousness of transgressors will be readily granted by all who consider the circumstances of those times. But whether it was for the advantage of Christianity to borrow rules for this salutary ordinance from the enemies of truth, and thus to consecrate, as it were, a part of pagan superstition, many persons very justly call in question."—Eccl. History (Mosheim), book i, cent, ii, part ii, ch. iii.
11. Acts ii: 41. Acts viii: 12, 35—40.
12. Mosheim, vol. i, book i, part ii, ch. iv.
13. That exorcism was not annexed to baptism till some time in the third century, and after the admission of the Platonic philosophy into the church, may almost be demonstrated.