Popery: The Accommodation of Christianity to the Natural Heart

by Edward Hoare

Thus has Popery taken hold of the great grand gift of Christianity, and presented it to its votaries in a form accommodated to human nature. It does not deny the necessity of holiness, but it so transforms its character that the unholy man may think he has attained it, and the Italian murderer conscientiously believe himself religious.

A second substitution for true holiness is asceticism: according to which system the unholy heart finds its refuge in a separation from ordinary men. Christianity carries holiness into life, asceticism takes the hermit out of it. But yet it is perfectly natural that men should seek such a refuge. When they feel the burden of sin, and experience the temptations of a surrounding world, it is no wonder that they should seek a remedy in a complete retirement from its influence. To give themselves up to fasting, penance, and solitary communion with God, must lead, they very naturally argue, to the enjoyment of more holy peace than they can hope to find in the midst of the duties and varied engagements of society. Hence every false faith has produced its devotees. Under different systems they have assumed a different character, but in all the principle is the same. The Hindoo separates himself from the world, and stands with his arm erect till it becomes stiffened into a fixed position; while the Buddhist and the Romanist retire to the convent that they may there withdraw from the world, and devote themselves wholly to spiritual exercises and to God. But though this is natural, it is a mere accommodation. The real evil of the human heart is not corrected by the change, nor have the hair shirt and the leathern girdle the slightest influence in controlling the corrupt passions of the nature. There may be as much pride, self-righteousness, and ill-governed temper in the lonely hermit’s cheerless cell, as in the deep current of the world’s society. At the same time it is an accommodation, for it employs the name of Christ, and gives the semblance of a very elevated piety. It adopts the language of devotion, and prescribes a course of action and self-denial. It gives the inquirer something to do, and something to bear; it separates him also from other men, and so, though his heart be not purified, it gives him the hope that he is holy. This was remarkably seen in the case of Ignatius Loyola. Like Luther, he was awakened to a deep sense of sin, and it is a remarkable fact that the two greatest phenomena of the sixteenth century, the Reformation, and Jesuitism, should have sprung out of the same uneasiness for sin. Luther found peace through the blood of the Lamb, and holiness in the work of the Spirit; Loyola was as much distressed as he, and failing in his discovery of Christ, he took refuge in the substitute of an ascetic life. He tore himself away from his kindred and father’s house, determining to undergo penances of the severest character, and to serve God in Jerusalem. He hung up his shield before an image of the Virgin, and, having clothed himself in coarse raiment, he stood before it for whole nights with his pilgrim’s staff in his hand. At Manresa he passed seven hours daily on his knees, and scourged himself regularly thrice a-day. He devoted three whole days to making a general confession for sin, but the more he explored the depths of his heart, the more painful were the doubts which assailed him. Having read in some of the fathers that God had been moved to compassion by a total abstinence from food, he remained from Sunday to Sunday without tasting anything, and at last only broke his fast in obedience to the positive injunctions of his confessor.

Such were the efforts of a master mind, to create for itself an artificial holiness, and such are the principles more or less involved in the whole system of the monasticism of Rome. It substitutes devotion of act, which withdraws men from their appointed sphere, for devotion of heart which glorifies God in its varied duties: and thus presents a spurious holiness within reach of unconverted minds.

IV. But the great root of the matter yet remains in the craving of the soul for Reconciliation.

That there is this craving none can deny. It is seen in all classes, in all nations. Buddhists, Hindoos, Mussulmen, Jews, Protestants, Romanists, and even Infidels, all bear testimony to a certain undefined longing after peace. Now this peace is given by the Gospel, in the free, full justification of the believer through the perfect atonement and imputed righteousness of the Lord. But in the practical application of it to the heart there arises this difficulty. Our safety depends on an invisible union with an invisible Redeemer. Faith is not a thing which can be seen and felt. It looks away from self to Christ, and disappears as soon as you look back on self to find it. Now if a man be enabled by the Holy Ghost to look simply to Christ, this difficulty vanishes through the all-sufficiency of the one object there presented to his view. But if, on the other hand, this faith be wanting, and the freedom of Divine grace remain unknown, the human heart at once makes an effort for some visible, tangible mode of laying hold of acceptance in Christ Jesus. The system, therefore, best accommodated to the natural man would be one which embraced all the rich promises of the Gospel, but connected them with something which could be said or done, so leaving men in no doubt as to their position.

Now this desire is exactly met by the Church of Rome. It presents its pardon in a tangible, visible form, and it leads the soul to rest for its assurance upon something safely done. The sin is confessed, the penance performed, the absolution pronounced, and there the matter ends. The guilty man has no further occasion to distress his mind upon the subject. The language of the catechism of the Council of Trent is very curious as illustrating the endeavour to connect pardon with a visible act. It first draws the distinction between the inward disposition of repentance and the outward act of penance, and adds, § 13, “That it is the outward penance in which the sacrament consists, and which contains certain external actions, which are subjects of sense through which the inner feelings of the mind are manifest.” The next section explains the reason why the sacrament of penance is said to have been instituted, viz., to assure us of our pardon, for without it, “there must have been most anxious suspense of mind respecting inward repentance, since every man would have had good reason to doubt his own judgment in those things which he was doing.” To avoid this anxiety, therefore, the pardon is connected with a visible act. It is found, accordingly, in practical life, that the priest’s absolution is regarded by the Romanist in the same light as God’s forgiveness, and that, whatever be the state of heart, that visible act is deemed sufficient. Pat Burns, now a devoted Scripture Reader under the Irish Society, was for ten years the leader of a desperate gang of Ribbandmen, and he told a friend of mine that during that time he frequently went to the priest, paid him all dues regularly, and obtained absolution from time to time, as his conscience felt uneasy after the commission of crime; that the priest generally put a penance upon him, and that when it was performed, he considered himself as good a man as any other, and as fit for heaven. This same person added that the priest had never once directed him to the Word of God, or to the Lord Jesus for salvation.

The same connexion between confession and reconciliation was curiously illustrated by the following fact. The priest in my friend’s parish gave nothing during the late contribution towards Irish distress, but the poor creatures excused his penuriousness on the plea that it was unlucky to take a priest’s money—that a priest’s money being paid at confession and absolution, is the price of sin, and often comes from murderers and other bad characters, as the price of absolution and pardon; and if, therefore, you buy a horse with it, he will get lame; and if you buy seed corn it will be blighted.

I am perfectly aware that it may be justly argued that these facts among the people do not prove that the principle has been adopted by the Church; but I think it must also be admitted that they do show how exactly suited to the natural man is the connexion which Rome does assert between the pardon of sin and certain visible actions amongst men. God connects his pardon with a deep seated spiritual faith. The human heart says, “Let me do something. Let me work it out. Let me have some assurance that I am forgiven.” Popery steps in, and adapts its principles to both, asserting on the one hand the necessity of faith, but prescribing on the other a certain penance, and then sealing the whole with the priest’s absolution, so as to leave no doubt on the sinner’s mind. According to the language of a late pervert, the priest “shewed her how she must unite her sacrifice with the holy atoning blood of Christ, and then in his name pardoned and blessed her. Thus sin had not been suffered to remain upon her soul.” See how the Gospel was retained, and at the same time accommodated to the natural cravings of the anxious heart. The atoning blood was preached, but the act of penance received with it, so as to give it a tangible application.

But this accommodation fails in giving lasting peace. Nothing, in short, can really satisfy but the atoning blood of Christ alone, and to this failure may be traced the whole tissue of Romish rites. Penances, absolutions, masses, holy waters, holy pilgrimages, holy retreats, and, last of all, extreme unction, are nothing more than fresh efforts to satisfy the heart; and, though all be combined, they are all found insufficient. There are, we know, true believers, who, though trammelled by the system, yet rise above it to Christ; and there are others, again, whose conscience is so deadened that they live at ease in Zion; but for conscientious anxious souls the means are insufficient, and anxious fears keep rising up within the heart. From these remaining doubts has arisen the last crowning accommodation in the system, namely, purgatory.

In former days I used to wonder what could be the attraction of the doctrine of purgatory, more especially when I found that there was scarcely any portion of the system which persons embraced with equal readiness. It is said of it in the catechism of the Council of Trent, “Besides hell there is a fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the pious being tormented for a definite time, expiate their sin; that so an entrance may be opened to them into the eternal country, into which nothing defiled can enter.” Now it may be fairly asked from what principle in the human heart can such a decree have sprung? We can understand men cheerfully performing penance, and craving the absolution of the priest. But what can make a pious soul desire to be burnt up in purgatory? It is not merely a heavenly purification of the ransomed spirit to prepare it sweetly for the rich enjoyments of the kingdom, but it is a burning in the fire, and that, strange to say, is the peculiar privilege of pious souls. Can anything be more extraordinary? And yet, when you consider it, can anything be more simple? Just take the case of one of these anxious minds, of which we have been speaking. He has been going about to establish his own righteousness, but his heart is not holy. He has endeavoured to unite his sacrifice of penance with the atoning blood of Christ, and he has received the priest’s pardon, but yet sin remains. There it is, eating into his heart’s peace, and cleaving like a leprosy to his soul. And now death approaches, the delusions of the lower world begin to vanish, and then comes the question, Is sin forgiven? He has received his last viaticum. Still, is he safe? He has man’s absolution. Has he God’s pardon? He has performed his penance. Is sin fully expiated? Oh, that we could point him at once to the simple sufficiency of the Lamb’s most precious blood! But in default of that, what must be done? There must be a further accommodation of Christianity. The heart tells him that his own penance has been insufficient, so the work of expiation must be carried out beyond the grave. His conscience whispers that he is not yet prepared to die, so he clings readily to the hope that something may still be done, that complete preparation here on earth is not needful, for that an intermediate state is to follow, in which, though unprepared at his dying hour, he may yet be made meet for the kingdom of the saints.