History of the Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Oriental | Page 6

the lights of the Gospel should once more burn on
those candlesticks, that everywhere there should be living examples of
the religion of Jesus Christ, that Christianity should no longer be
associated in the Moslem mind with all that is sordid and base.
The continued existence of large bodies of nominal Christians among
these Mohammedans, is a remarkable fact. They constitute more than a
third part of the population of Constantinople, and are found in all the
provinces of the empire, as, also, in Persia, and are supposed to number
at least twelve millions. Being so numerous and so widely dispersed,
should spiritual life be revived among them a flood of light would
illumine the Turkish empire, and shine far up into Central Asia. The
followers of Mohammed would look on with wonder, and perhaps, at
first, with hatred and persecution; but new views of the Gospel would
thus be forced upon them, and no longer would they be able to boast of
the superiority of their own religion.
It is true of the Oriental Churches, that they have lost nearly all the
essential principles of the Gospel; at least that those principles have, in
great measure, ceased to have a practical influence.1 Their views of the
Trinity, and of the divine and human natures of Christ, are not
unscriptural; but their views of the way of salvation through the Son,
and of the work of the Holy Spirit, are sadly perverted. The efficacy of
Christ's death for the pardon of sin, is secured to the sinner, they
suppose, by baptism and penance. The belief is universal, that baptism
cancels guilt, and is regeneration. They also believe baptism to be the
instrumental cause of justification. Hence faith is practically regarded

as no more than a general assent of the understanding to the creeds of
their churches. Of the doctrine of a justifying faith of the heart,--the
distinguishing doctrine of the Gospel,--the people of the Oriental
Churches are believed to have been wholly ignorant, before the arrival
of Protestant missionaries among them.
1 This brief description of the religion of the Oriental Churches, is
condensed from a statement by that eminent missionary, Dr. Eli Smith,
in a sermon published in 1833, but now accessible to very few. I often
use his words, as best adapted to convey the true idea. Subsequent
observations, so far as I know, have never called for any modification
in his statement.
Being thus freed from the condemning power of original sin, and
regenerated by baptism, men were expected to work their way to
heaven by observing the laws of God and the rites of the church. These
rites were fasting, masses, saying of prayers, pilgrimages, and the like,
and in practice crowded the moral law out of mind. The race of merit
was hindered by daily sins, but not stopped, provided the sins were of a
class denominated venial. These could be canceled by the rites of the
church, the most important of which was the mass, or the consecration
and oblation of the elements of the Lord's Supper. That ordinance is to
be observed in remembrance of Christ, but the people of the Oriental
Churches are taught to look upon it as a renewal of his death. On the
priest's pronouncing the words, "This is my body," the elements are
believed to be changed from bread and wine, and thenceforth to contain
the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of Christ; so that He is
crucified afresh, and made an expiatory sacrifice for sin, every time the
consecration is performed; which, in most churches, is almost every
morning in the year. Its merit attaches not only to the offerer and the
partaker, but to all the faithful, living and dead; especially to those who,
by paying the priest, or by some other service, have their names
mentioned in the prayers that form a part of the ceremony.
Thus a ministry to offer sacrifices is substituted for a ministry to feed
the flock of God with sound doctrine, and the spiritual worship of God
is converted into the formal adoration of a wafer. Preaching is nowhere

regarded as the leading duty of the clergy, but to say mass. By exalting
the eucharist into an expiatory sacrifice, the partaking of the elements
by the people came to be considered quite unessential, and is generally
neglected. They need not understand, nor even hear the language of the
officiating priest. It is enough, if they see and adore. A bell warns them
when to make the needful genuflections and crosses. Nor can there be a
reasonable doubt, that the adoration of the host (which is required on
pain of excommunication in the Romish Church) is the grossest species
of idolatry.
But there are deadly, as well as venial, sins; and