1829.] ' The Greek Church. 6r?7 



dependent, and too careless to hazai-d their emoluments for truth. To 

 the people, already astounded by the fall of the empire, and with the 

 new and terrible tyranny of the Turk crushing them at every step, there 

 was but one sound on earth, the sound of the whip, and but one desire, 

 to escape its lash for the day, and creep with as little suffering as they 

 might, through a miserable life, down to a miserable grave. Of the three 

 chief objects of popery — the papal supremacy — the reduction of a large 

 number of the Greek Christians under the Romish communion — and the 

 introduction of the Romish doctrines, the whole failed on a large scale, 

 and succeeded on a small one. The supremacy was virtually acknow- 

 ledged by the long succession of patriarchs from the middle of the 15th 

 centui-y, at least till its close ; it then gradually perished. The reduction 

 of the Greeks as converts also took effect in the instance of many 

 detached societies. And in the third point of doctrine, Rome, though 

 unable to urge the Greeks to adopt her superstitions in their full sense in 

 the worship of saints, and her other corruptions, yet fatally succeeded in 

 fixing on her the most monstrous of them all, Transubstantiation. 



The doctrines now acknowledged by the Greek Church have that 

 mixture of truth and error which must be expected from the debasement 

 of a pure religion by a long period of moral depravity and personal 

 degradation. Yet the memory of the early councils is retained with sin- 

 gular veneration ; and from the authority of those councils they have 

 shaped their general tenets. 



They hold, with all true Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity, but 

 they differ from both Protestant and Papist, as to the " procession of the 

 Holy Spirit," which they determine to proceed from the Father only. It 

 is one of the many evidences of the fondness of the Greeks for quarrelling 

 upon points above human reason, that on this doctrine their quarrels 

 have been the most violent and interminable, and that to it is to be traced 

 especiallj'^ the source of that great Separation which alienates this church 

 from the general body of the Christian world. 



The Greek doctrine on the Atonement is nearly the same with that of 

 the reformed churches. " Original sin had stained mankind ; for all sin 

 there must be punishment or expiation. The expiation was offered in the 

 sacrifice of Christ voluntarily dying for the sins of man." 



The great doctrine of Justification by Faith, is expressed in nearly the 

 terms of our own Liturgy ; the Greek defining scriptural faith to be, a 

 perfect and solid belief in the divine declarations, attended by an active 

 and sincere performance of our duties as men and Christians. 



So far the Greek is guided by the word of scripture. But beyond this 

 he strays into the obscure and bewildering ground of superstition. He 

 numbers seven sacraments, agreeing with the Protestant in the divine 

 appointment of baptism and the Lord's Supper ; but adding to them, with 

 the Romanist, ordination, penance, marriage, confirmation, and extreme 

 unction ; and differing from the Romanist in declaring the first four, the 

 special ordinance of the Lord, and the latter three, the command of the 

 scriptures and tradition. 



The Greek baptism is by immersion ; children are baptised on the 

 eighth day, and confirmed shortly after. 



Tlie Lord'.s Supper is administered to the laity as in the Protestant 

 church, under both forms of tlie bread arul the cup. But as in the 

 Romanist, the transubstantiation is supposed to be complete. The Greek 

 notion is, that the sacrament is an oblation. The ceremonial is peculiar ; 



