cise of our obedience. All this may
be so; and if it can be shown to be so, there remains no other course
than to believe God's word, and obey his commandments; only the strength
of the external evidence must be in proportion to the weakness of the
internal. A good man would ask for no sign from heaven to assure him
that God commands judgment, mercy, and truth; whatsoever things are
pure, and lovely, and of good report, bear in themselves the seal of
their origin; a seal which to doubt were blasphemy. But the cloud and
the lightnings and thunders, and all the signs and wonders wrought in
Egypt and in the Red Sea, were justly required to give divine authority
to mere positive ordinances, in which, without such external warrant,
none could have recognised the voice of God. We ask of Mr. Newman and
his friends to bring some warrant of Scripture for that which they
declare to be God's will. They speak very positively and say, that "the
security by our Lord no less expressly authorized for the continuance
and due application of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is the
apostolical commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters of
the Church." They say that our Lord has authorized this "no less
expressly" than he has authorized the Holy Supper as the mean of
partaking in his body and blood. What our Lord has said concerning the
communion is not truly represented: he instituted it as one mean of
grace among many; not as_the_ mean; neither the sole mean, nor the
principal. But allow, for an instant, that it was instituted as_the_
mean; and give this sense to those well-known and ever-memorable words
in which our Lord commanded his disciples to eat the bread and drink of
the cup, in remembrance of him. His words commanding us to do this are
express; "not less express," we are told, is his "sanction of the
apostolical commission of the bishops, as the security for the
continuance and due application of the Sacrament." Surely these writers
allow themselves to pervert language so habitually, that they do not
consider when, and with regard to whom, they are doing it. They say that
our Lord has sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession, in
order to secure the continuance and efficacy of the sacrament, "no less
expressly" than he instituted the sacrament itself. If they had merely
asserted that he had sanctioned the necessity of apostolical succession,
we might have supposed that, by some interpretation of their own,