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

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 these expose the soul to eternal punishment. When these are committed after baptism, they can be remitted only by auricular confession, or the sacrifice of penance, of which confession forms an essential part. To the efficacy of this ceremony, contrition of heart is supposed, in theory, to be essential; but its necessity is rarely taught, and the great mass of the community go away from the confessional fully satisfied that their sins are canceled by the mere external form.
Pardon by the priest is not, however, absolute. Grace is restored, and eternal punishment remitted, but there must be a temporary