: Popery: The Accommodation of Christianity to the Natural Heart by Hoare Edward - Catholic Church Controversial literature Protestant authors

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POPERY THE ACCOMMODATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE NATURAL HEART.

A LECTURE, DELIVERED BEFORE THE ISLINGTON PROTESTANT INSTITUTE, ON MONDAY, 26TH JUNE, 1848.

LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE ISLINGTON PROTESTANT INSTITUTE, BY J. H. JACKSON, ISLINGTON GREEN; SEELEYS, FLEET STREET; HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY.

ALEXANDER MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW-STREET, LONDON.

ISLINGTON PROTESTANT INSTITUTE.

Committee.

RULES.

--And that all members be entitled to attend the General Meetings of the Society, and to receive the Annual Reports, and other publications, as far as the funds will admit, preference being given to the Subscribing Members, to whom also the privilege of voting will be confined.

N.B. 1. Contributions in aid of the Institute will be thankfully received by any of the officers.

THE ACCOMMODATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE NATURAL HEART.

THERE are two points of view in which every system may be regarded--its external action, and its internal principle. We may examine either the great effects of its machinery, its plans, its purposes, its advances, and its perils; or we may trace its inner principle, and endeavour to detect the secret spring by which the whole is set in motion. It must at once be obvious that this latter inquiry is by far the more difficult; for our attention is directed rather to the philosophy than the action of the system; and we are called to examine the subtle tendencies of the human heart, which, of course, are more difficult both of detection and exhibition than the great, broad, startling facts which lie on the surface of the world's history. This difficulty I have seriously felt in the preparation of the present lecture, the subject of which, is, "Popery the accommodation of Christianity to the natural heart." The subject plainly requires that we should study the secret working of the natural heart, and should also examine into the corresponding principles of Popery, in order to discover their mutual accommodation, and to show how the whole system of the one is dexterously fitted to allay the fears and supply the cravings of the other. Throughout, therefore, we have to deal more with principles than with facts. I must ask your forbearance, therefore, if the lecture assumes a somewhat abstract form, and contains but few of those startling statements which abound in the history of Popery, and which are of the utmost importance in arousing the dormant Protestantism of the land. But yet, as facts are but the development of principles, I must ask the attention of thinking minds, and earnestly beg the candid consideration of all those Christian friends, whose desire it is to be established in the truth.

But if this were the only manner in which Popery adapts itself to the natural man, there would be comparatively little cause for complaint. There is no sin in an attractive exhibition of the truth, nor is it wrong to enlist the tastes in favour of the Redeemer's kingdom, for the Apostle to the Gentiles was himself "made all things to all men." So soon, however, as the truth itself is modified in order to suit the prejudices or inclinations of those to whom it is addressed, the accommodation from that moment becomes sinful in its character. Now it is impossible to study the records of Romanism without perceiving that it is perpetually guilty of this sinful modification. Thus in different countries it assumes different external aspects. In catechisms for the Irish, for example, it omits the second commandment, while in those for England it generally inserts it, adapting itself in each case to what it considers that the people's mind can bear. In China the Jesuist missionaries actually went so far as to omit from their teaching the great fact of the crucifixion, because they considered that a truth so humbling would be unwelcome to that proud and self-sufficient people. The foundation of Christianity was removed in order to accommodate it to the pride of the natural heart.

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