Boultbee on Article VII: Of the Old Testament

1. The Latin is very closely followed in the English version. In the Article of 1552, non sunt audiendi was read instead of male sentiunt^ and the former is still to be seen in the English version, * they are not to be heard.’

2. The Article obviously consists of two principal sections : — L What was the condition upon which salvation was»

obtained under the Law.

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n. How far the Mosaic Law is binding upon Christians.

This question involves the distinction between moral commandments, and precepts ceremonial, ritual, or civil.

3. This Article combines with some modifications the Sixth and Nineteenth of 1552. As it will throw some light on the subsequent discussion of the doctrines involved, and the errors which our Eeformers had in view, those Articles are subjoined.

Aeticlb VI. (1552).

The Old Testament not to he refused.

The Old Testament is not to be put away as though it were contrary to the New, but to be kept still ; for both in the Old and New Testaments, everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, Who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises.

Aeticlb XIX. (1552).

All men are hound to keep the Moral Commandments of the Law,

The Law which was given of God by Moses, although it bind not Christian men as concerning the Ceremonies and Eites of the same : Neither is it required that the Civil Pre- cepts and Orders of it should of necessity be l*eceived in any common weal : Yet no man (be he never so perfect a Christian) is exempt and loose from the obedience of those Commandments which are called Moral. Wherefore they are not to be hearkened unto, who affirm that Holy Scripture is given only to the weak, and do boast themselves continually of the Spirit, of Whom (they say) they have learned such things as they teach, although the same be most evidently repugnant to the Holy Scripture.

The Proof from Scripture.

Tor the first section of the Article : —

1. Such passages may be alleged from the Old Testament

as show that ’ the old Fathers * had a hope reaching beyond the grave (e^. Ps. xvi. 8-11).

2. Positive declarations made by our Lord about the hope of the Patriarchs (e.g. John viii. 56).

3. The eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

4. The frequent declarations of Christ and the Apostles as to the true bearing of the (Old Testament) Scriptures on gospel times and promises.

The second section of the Article may be dealt with scrip- turally imder such an arrangement as follows : —

1. A consideration of the relation of the civil law to the theocracy of the Old Testament. It relates to a limited country, and to a past condition of a peculiar race. It is not possible for any nation at will to set up a similar theocracy. Therefore, the civil law which depends upon it cannot be re-enacted and enforced.

2. St. Paul teaches obedience to magistrates generally; and to laws, irrespective of any revealed origin. The de- claration of our Lord is express — * My kingdom is not of this world.’

3. St. Patd argues urgently not only that the Christian is free from the ceremonial law, but that he may not place himself under it. The Epistles to the Romans and Galatians may be freely quoted on this head. Gal. v. 3 is, in fiict, a demonstration. The obligation of the Law is bound up with the rite of circumcision, and absolutely ceases with it.

4. The Epistle to the Hebrews asserts and argues in many places the transitory nature and the abolition of the sacrificial system (e.g. Heb. viii. 13).

5. To the moral law the above considerations will not apply, because it was antecedent to the peculiarities of the Jewish Law. It was adopted in the law, but was itself older than the law, and remains when the Mosaiciil super-addition has passed away.

Hence Christ and His Apostles recogulao the Ten Com-

mandments as binding. St. Paul refers to aU of them (Kom. xiii. 9), and to the Fifth expressly (Eph. vi. 2). St. James (dso speaks of them all ( Jas. ii. 10).

Observations on Article VII.

It will be sufficient to remind the student of the manner in which the Gnostics and Manichees in the early days of Chris- tianity dealt with the authority of the Old Testament. It is assumed that these portions of ecclesiastical history need not be recapitulated.

The Articles of 1552, quoted above, make it abimdantly manifest that in, framing this Article there was a reference to the &natical sects of that time. Those who have read the correspondence of the Reformers, printed in the * Zurich Letters’ published by the Parker Society, know weU how these hydra- headed heresies embarrassed their work.

We may refer to Mosheim^ for some account of those sects which arose first in Germany. But the following extract from Hardwick’s * History of the Articles ’ (chap v.) will give a general view of the heresies with which that stormy period was rife, and will illustrate not only this Article, but several others: —

• The ramification of these varied misbelievers may be traced in many cases to the scene of the original collisions be- tween the old and new learning. One of their distinctive errors, though not the grand characteristic of their system, was the absolute rejection of infant baptism, and fi:om this

peculiarity came the title ” Anabaptists.” But the

points at which they had departed from the ground of the Reformers were not limited to infant baptism. They pro- ceeded to assail the Lutheran formula, in which salvation was attributed to faith only, and in agitating this they fell into a further question respecting the two natures of our blessed Lord and His essential divinity. John Denk and others now afiirmed that man may earn salvation by his own virtuous actions, and regarded the Founder of Christianity chiefly in His

’ ’ Cent. XVI.’ part ii. c. i. 26, 26, and c iii.

character of Teacher and Exemplar. In Him, as one of the most spotless of our race, the Father was peculiarly manifested to the world, but to assert that Christ is the Redeemer, in the ordinary meaning of the term, was to convert Him into an idol. He was held to be a Saviour of His people, because He was the leader and forerunner of all who would be saved.’

• While notions of this kind were rapidly spreading on every side, a second school of ” Anabaptists ” were devising a very different creed. The tone of thought prevailing in the former school was strongly rationalistic : in the latter it was more entirely mystical. They introduced a dualistic (quasi- Manichean) distinction between the ” flesh ” and the ” spirit ; ” and instead of holding, like the former sect, that man, though fellen, may be rescued by his natural powers, they alleged that the ” flesh ” alone participated in the fell, and further that when the material element in him was most of all obnoxious to the indignation of God, the spirit still continued £ree and uncontaminated by the vilest of the outward actions. They attributed the restoration of harmony between these elements of our nature to the intervention of the Logos, but maintained that His humanity was peculiar, not consisting of flesh and blood which He derived from the substance of the Virgin. Not a few of these same Anabaptists afterwards abandoned every semblance of belief in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and so passed over to the Arian and Socinian schools, then rising up in Switzerland, in Italy, and in Poland.’

• In addition to these deadly errors, some of the original Anabaptists had insisted on the dogma of an absolute neces- sity. Others preached the restoration of all things and the ultimate conversion of the devil. Others fancied that’the soul will sleep throughout the interval between death and judg- ment : while the great majority of them cherished the belief that in a kingdom (the millennial) to be speedily established, there would be no longer any need of an external magistracy, nor even of the guidance furnished by the written “Word of God. In close connexion with this hope, they now asserted the community of goods. They censured military service of a merely secular kind, and steadily objected to the taking of

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an oath in their negotiations with the world in general. Some moreover held that the obser?aiice of the Lord^s Day was anti- Christian ; others openly advocated a license of polygamy, and are even charged with holding that to those who had received the Spirit, or in other words had passed the Anabaptist ordeal of initiation, adultery was itself no sin. By all it was agreed that Anabaptists were at liberty to evade the jurisdiction both of civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, to denounce the lat- ter as a grievous burden, and to aid in the emancipation of all Christians firom the discipline as well as doctrine of the Catho- lic Church.’

• If we add to this imperfect sketch of continental Anabap- tism one of the most prominent of its remaining features, we shall imderstand how formidable the system must have looked to all the sober and devout Reformers. It was advocated as a leading principle iJiat every Anabaptist was not only able, but was boundj to execute the office of a teacher as soon as he per- ceived within his breast the motions of the Holy Spirit. The effect of this immediate inspiration also made the preacher independent of the sacred volume, which he sometimes ven- tured to denominate ” mere dead letter,” obsolete in itself, and in the course of its transmission falsified in such a manner as to be unworthy of the feith of full-grown Christians. Thus the last external check imposed on man’s presumptuous spe- culations ran the risk of being summarily demolished ; and if Anabaptism had prevailed, it would have reared its throne upon the ruins of all ancient institutions, and have trampled under foot the “Word of God itself.’

This account of the Anabaptist heresies will prepare the student for many passages in the Articles, doctrinal, cere- monial, and civil. A few observations may be necessary.

1. It will be seen that the general term ‘Anabaptist’ groups together a vast variety of opinions, from those which simply rejected infant baptism, to those which destroyed the very foundations of Christianity itself. Hence it will be seen how modern sects of various hues are more or less directly traceable to these ramifications. The Baptist of modem times springs directly from the moderate section of Anabap-

tists who retained the main doctrines of Christianity and faith in Holy Scripture. The mysticism, and claims to inspiration, and independence of Church order, and even of the Scripture itself, asserted by George Fox and the early Quakers, have also their manifest origin among some sections of continental Anabaptists. The family of love and other extravagances of the seventeenth century are also traced to their root in the more extreme of these £matics of the previous age.

2. It is, however, needful to caution the student not to suppose that the monstrous evils pourtrayed above ever obtained deep hold of the English mind. They were suffi- ciently formidable ; they distracted the attention of the Re- formers ; they caused a great reaction in &vour of Bomanism, if indeed they were not wilfully fomented by Romish agents, of which there is some evidence, but the mass of the English people rejected these impious absurdities.

3. It is just to the cause of the Reformation to note that fanatical opinions akin to those of the extreme Anabaptists had been secretly held for centuries, and had occasionally broken out, especially in Germany.’

4. Finally, to return more precisely to the Article before us, we may note among the successors of those against whom it was levelled, that the Brownists, the fathers of the Indepen- dents, and after them many of the Puritans, held that * we are necessarily tied unto all the judicials of Moses.’ Thomas Cartwright, Hooker’s opponent, held that idolaters, among whom he included * contemners of the Word and prayers,’ should be put to death according to the Mosaic Law. Stubbs — 1585 — speaking of blasphemers being stoned, adds, ‘which law judicial standeth in force to the world’s end.’^ The Puritan colonists, commonly known as Pilgrim Fathers, enacted some portion of the Mosaic judicial Law in their new settlement in America, and put it in force with severity.

’ See the account of * The Beghards/ Gieseler, vol. iv. p. 220 ; or Mosheim, on ‘The Brethren of the Free Spirit and kindred Sects in the Thirteenth Century,* * Cent. XIII.* part ii. c. v. 9-15.

• See Rogers * On Uie Articles.* Parker Society. Art. VII. 4.

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And, generally speaking, in the reasonings and policy of a large portion of the Puritans in the days of the Commonwealth there will be fotmd a great confusion between their own condition and that of the Jews under the theocracy.

Turning to our own times, although Antinomian principles may be held directly or indirectly in many various quarters^ no considerable section professing to belong to the Church of Christ is chargeable with the errors denounced in this Articlew

Notes

• . The demonstration of the doctrine of justification by faith drawn by St. Paul from the Old Testament (e.g. Hom. iv. ; Gal. iii).