he, they interfere, “that satisfaction be not given to God in His anger.....  All pains are taken that sins be not expiated by due satisfactions and lamentations, that wounds be not washed clean by tears.” [460:7] It may be said that some of these expressions are rhetorical, and that those by whom they were employed did not mean to deny the all-sufficiency of the Great Sacrifice; but had these fathers clearly apprehended the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ, they would have recoiled from the use of language so exceedingly objectionable.

There are many who imagine that, had they lived in the days of Tertullian or of Origen, they would have enjoyed spiritual advantages far higher than any to which they have now access.  But a more minute acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of the third century might convince them that they have no reason to complain of their present privileges.  The amount of material light which surrounds us does not depend on our proximity to the sun.  When our planet is most remote from its great luminary, we may bask in the splendour of his effulgence; and, when it approaches nearer, we may be involved in thick darkness.  So it is with the Church.  The amount of our religious knowledge does not depend on our proximity to the days of primitive Christianity.  The Bible is the sun of the spiritual firmament; and this divine illuminator, like the glorious orb of day, pours forth its light with equal brilliancy from generation to generation.  The Church may retire into “chambers of imagery” erected by her own folly; and there, with the light shut out from her, may sink into a slumber disturbed only, now and then, by some dream of superstition; or, with the light still shining on her, her eye may be dim or disordered, and she may stumble at noonday.  But the light is as pure as in the days of the apostles; and, if we have eyes to profit by it, we may “understand more than the ancients.”  The art of printing has supplied us with facilities for the study of the Scriptures which were denied to the fathers of the second century; and the ecclesiastical documents, relative to that age, which have been transmitted to us from antiquity, contain, perhaps, the greater part of even the traditionary information which was preserved in the Church.  If we are only “taught of God,” we are in as good a position for acquiring a correct acquaintance with the way of salvation as was Polycarp or Justin Martyr.  What an encouragement for every one to pray—­“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.  I am a stranger in the earth:  hide not thy commandments from me!” [461:11]

SECTION III.

     THE WORSHIP AND CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH.