“Do you not accept the interpretation of the Church?”
What his Lordship meant by this well-sounding term was a certain bundle of ideas—some of them very illiterate, some very delicate hair-splitting, some curious even to comicality,—gathered out of the writings of a certain number of men, who assuredly were not inspired, since they often travesty Scripture, and at times diametrically contradict it. Having lived in the darkest times of the Church, they were extremely ignorant and superstitious, even the best of them being enslaved by fancies as untrue in fact as they were unspiritual in tone. It might well have been asked as the response, Where is it?—for no Church, not even that of Rome herself, has ever put forward an authorised commentary explanatory of holy Scripture. Her “interpretation of the Church” has to be gathered here and there by abstruse study, and so far as her lay members are concerned, is practically received from the lips of the nearest priest. Gerhardt, however, did not take this line in replying, but preferred to answer the Bishop’s inaccurate use of the word Church, which Rome impudently denies to all save her corrupt self. He replied—
“Of the true Church, which is the elect of God throughout all ages, fore-ordained to eternal life? I see no reason to refuse it.”
The Scriptural doctrine of predestination has been compared to “a red rag” offered to a bull, in respect of its effect on those—whether votaries of idols or latitudinarianism—who are conscious that they are not the subjects of saving grace. To none is it more offensive than to a devout servant of the Church of Rome. The Bishop took up the offence at once.
“You hold that heresy—that men are fore-ordained to eternal life?”
“I follow therein the Apostle Paul and Saint Austin.”
This was becoming intolerable.
“Doth not the Apostle command his hearers to ‘work out their own salvation’?”
“Would it please my Lord to finish the verse?”
It did not please my Lord to finish the verse, as that would have put an extinguisher on his interpretation of it.