“We feel the presentiment of this danger, and the need of a safer path, in which the security of Divine teaching is ours. This can only be when the written Word is the seed of Divine knowledge, and the faculties of man the ground in which the seed takes root.”
So far Preger. It may also be remarked, that whilst Matilda evidently grounded her salvation and enjoyment of God upon the atoning work of Christ, she does not allude to it very frequently. We must remember that amongst all the errors of mediæval Catholicism, the blood-shedding of Christ was still regarded as the means by which sin was expiated. It was still an article of faith, though disfigured, and often kept out of sight by all that man had added to the Scriptures.
Matilda, therefore, regarded it as an understood necessity in Christian faith, and as not demanding frequent assertion or proof. Had she lived in our days it might have been otherwise.
That “Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,” was a truth known and believed amongst the “Friends of God,” Catholic or Waldensian. That “it is the Blood that maketh atonement for the soul,” that “without shedding of Blood there is no remission,” that on Christ, the Lamb who was slain, did “the Lord lay the iniquity of us all,” they knew, and rejoiced to know. However overlaid in Roman Catholicism by the teaching of human merit, and of the mediation and intercession of the saints, this truth was preserved through God’s great mercy in the corruption of the Church. It may be found yet as the anchor of the soul in the confession of faith of many an ignorant and unlearned Roman Catholic, who know little of the doctrines of their Church, but who do know from their service-books that “Christ died for our sins.”
The three have ever borne witness on earth, the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one—a witness never silenced through the darkest ages of the Church.
It was during the last years of Matilda’s life that she wrote for “the children of the world” a call to Christ.
Wilt thou, sinner, be converted?
Christ, the Lord of glory, see
By His own denied, deserted,
Bleeding, bound, and scourged for thee.