11 ENTIRE MEANING OF GREAT CRISES IN CHRISTIAN LIFE CHANGED
12. THE JESUITICAL DOCTRINES OF THE SACRAMENTS FAVORED BY THE REVISED
Atonement, that Christ’s death paid the debt for our sins, but all other doctrines, and pave the way for a different mentality, a different gospel, wherever the ascendancy of the King James Bible was broken down. The evidences produced in connection with the American Revisers will show this more fully.
12. THE JESUITICAL DOCTRINES OF THE
admitting that others look upon the Movement of the Jesuits as counter to the Reformation, himself, holds a different view. He says:
“I say the Reformation, because I can see no sound reason for calling the events of that period which occurred within the Roman Communion a ‘Counter-Reformation.’ It was a movement which involved a great revival of personal piety and devotion to God and desire to do His will, and an equally clear realization of the fact that that desire could only be realized in good works in dependence on the Person of Christ. Thus far we have a remarkable parallel to our own Evangelical Revival. But in this case there was a clearer grasp of the fact that it is as the God Incarnate of the Creed that Christ is mighty to save, and that He communicates Himself to those who desire to live through Him by means of the Sacraments. That is, that the individual is grafted into Christ in the New Birth of Baptism, that he feeds on Christ, ‘Who is verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper,’ and that His healing grace is applied to the sinner and the results of sin by the receiving of the ‘Benefit of Absolution.’”f430 (Italics mine.)
In Catholic theology, “Absolution” means the forgiveness which follows confession to a priest. Another quotation by the same author, presents the strong part Westcott had in this work: “Maurice and Kingsley, and Bishop Westcott, in his insistence on the social significance of the Incarnation, have done their work.”f431
The significant remarks above, that “Christ is mighty to save,” only “as the God incarnate of the creed,” — which is made available to us in the Lord’s Supper or in the Mass, the reincarnation, — and that “He communicates Himself to those who desire to live through Him by means of the
Sacraments,” were the central doctrines of the Jesuits. The Revisers changed the words of the King James Version to embody the very same sentiments. On this, Milligan, in his book on the Revised Version, says:
“The doctrine of the Sacraments may next engage our attention, and here again the variations in the renderings of familiar texts, though they may not appear at first of great importance, involve far-reaching truths... The Bread — that is, the Body of Christ — recalls more particularly His Incarnation, apart from His
sufferings.”f432
Now we see why the word “broken” was left out of the Revised text under consideration, as it is also in the Douay. A footnote of Milligan, in
connection with the above quotation, emphasizes the disappearance of
“broken.”f433
How we are supposed to come in touch with the “Person of Christ,” and receive His power and blessing, is shown by the following quotation from a ritualistic clergyman:
“Now there are, of course, many Catholic practices that necessarily result from a belief in the Real Presence of our dear Lord upon the Altar.
. . . Bowing and genuflecting. Bowing to the Altar at all times...
because the Altar is the throne of God Incarnate, where daily now, thank God, in many a Church in the land He deigns to rest... And genuflecting, not to the Altar, but to the Gift that is upon it ; to the God-man, Christ Jesus, when He is there.”f434
This is the doctrine of the “Person of Christ,” as taught by the Ritualists and Revisers. The priest in every Mass created from bread the very body, the “Person of Christ,” and then worships, and causes others to worship, the work of his own hands. We would not wish to offend or speak
unfeelingly when we express our opinion that this is as truly idolatry as was the ancient paganism, or as is the heathenism of to-day. This localizing of the literal body and “Person of Christ,” by making Him present in every particle of the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, or the Mass, is exactly the opposite, and contrary to the statement of the Saviour when about to bid farewell to His disciples, — ”It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” <431607>
John 16:7.
When Christ ascended, He withdrew His personal presence from the disciples, and the era of the ministration of the Holy Spirit began. His words indicate that it was necessary for His person to go away, that His Spirit might come to His disciples. He who, like doubting Thomas, depends only on the local, personal, literal, presence of Christ, walks by sight and not by faith and deprives himself of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. “God is a Spirit: they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” <430424>John 4:24. No Scripture commands us to worship in the Lord’s supper the “Person of Christ.” the Romanists, the Ritualists, and the