REMARKS UPON DR. CLARKE'S EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH CATECHISM. DOCTOR Clarke's Exposition of the Church Catechism is a book which will fall into many hands, both of clergy and laity; and into some, very probably, that will not readily distinguish between the sound and the unsound parts of it, as it is a mixture of both. My design therefore is to point out such places of it as are most ensnaring, to prevent the deception of unwary readers; that so the useful parts of it may be rendered more useful, when carefully separated from such as would do harm. Had the author expounded our Church Catechism, throughout, according to the known doctrine and principles of our Church, and according to the plain and full meaning of the Catechism itself, he might have done good service to religion in general, and to our Church in particular: and there could not have been any thing more seasonable at this juncture, when our most holy religion is so boldly insulted by profane men, and seems to want the friendly assistance of every pious and learned hand. But if this Exposition, while it contains many excellent things, is itself very defective and faulty in others; and while it aims to support natural religion and Christian morality, gives up, or too slightly maintains the most essential parts of Christian faith and worship: if in some of the most fundamental articles the author has either dropped the true sense, or disguised it, or, under colour of expounding, has been confronting and contradicting it; then it may highly concern every faithful Minister of Christ, to remonstrate against such artifices, and to caution the less discerning readers, that they be not imposed upon by them. I have no design to detract from the just reputation of the learned author in his grave, nor to undervalue what he has now, or at any time, well written for the real service of religion: but the better he has performed in some points, the more necessary is it to take notice where he has deserved censure; lest truth and error, good and bad, so mingled, should be imbibed together, and one should serve to recommend and ingratiate the other. I consider further, that the very name of an Exposition of the Church Catechism carries an awful sound with it, and commands respect; and when put to a book, that does not really answer the title it pretends to, is a dangerous snare, and may deceive many. We can never be too careful to preserve the purity, and keep up the dignity, of our Church's forms, such as our Articles, Liturgy, Creeds, and Catechism. Any foul play here, in wresting the words, and perverting the meaning, is corrupting the sincere milk, and poisoning the fountains. The Baptismal Creed in particular, which is included in the Catechism, and is expounded, as to the chief articles, in the Catechism itself, ought to be kept sacred and inviolable against all attempts, either to disguise the sense, or to elude the truths wrapped up in it. If any persons have new articles of faith, or new catechisms to produce, let them be produced as new, and not imposed upon us as expositions of the old. Let the old ones retain their own meaning, and their full meaning, and let the new ones have theirs and so let both be tried by the Scripture-rule, to see whether the new or old be better. But enough hath been hinted by way of preface: I now proceed directly to the matter in hand. I. I pass over the first twenty-four pages of the Exposition, which have several good things in them, and nothing offensive, so far as I have observed. But in page 25, the author has an : observation about worship, which must be carefully examined. In explaining that part of the Catechism, which concerns the RENOUNCING THE DEVIL AND ALL HIS WORKS, he enumerates the works of the Devil, emphatically so called, namely, lying, pride, murder, &c. and last of all, idolatry. Under the head of idolatry, he very justly condemns the Popish practices in worshipping images and consecrated elements, and in "setting up and praying "to imaginary intercessors, angels and saints, and the blessed “Virgin, instead of praying in the name of him who is the one "Mediator between God and man, even our Lord Jesus Christ." He might better have said, instead of praying to God for the fault of the Romanists is not barely their offering up prayers in the name of those imaginary intercessors, or their praying to God through them, but their praying directly to them, as the author himself, in the words but now cited, acknowledges. So that the latter part of the sentence does not well answer to his former, but seems rather to be oddly brought in, only to countenance a favourite groundless notion of the author, that their idolatry consists not in setting up idol gods, (the only true and Scriptural notion of idolatry,) but in setting up idol mediators. He goes on: "All which practices are manifest idolatry, worship paid to "idol gods, and idol mediators." He might have spared the latter, because idol mediator is a mere fiction, and the word has neither sense nor significancy. The worshipping of any thing, either as a medium or otherwise, is making a God of it, and the paying any religious worship to an idol is setting up an idol god. But now comes in the offensive passage, and for which the author hitherto had been only paving the way. "And indeed," adds he, "every thing is faulty of this kind, beside the worship "of him alone who created the world by his power, who re"deemed mankind by his Son, and who sanctifies all good "persons by his Holy Spirit." Is not this as much as saying, that all religious worship is faulty, except the worship of the Father only? And he seems further to insinuate the reason why the Father alone, in opposition both to the Son and Holy Spirit, is to be worshipped: it is because they do not of themselves. redeem or sanctify, but the Father does all by them, and they are as instruments only in his hand to him therefore, and not a Clarke's Script. Doctrine, p. 344. edit. 2. with which compare Emlyn of the Worship of Jesus Christ, p. 113. b See my Second Defence, vol. ii. p. 656, 657. |