It expressly protests against the Romish doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope, and it recognises our Lord, the Saviour, as the head of the Church. Surely, these are points of the greatest moment, such indeed as ought not to have been overlooked by impartial writers, when dwelling on the character and doctrines of a vast religious body; but there are others of an equally important nature.
According to its doctrines, the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father alone, and not from the Father and Son as is asserted by the Romists, and by the dissenters from the Orthodox Eastern Church, whose origin and history will be stated in another part of this book. The latter Church accepts the death of the Saviour as an abundant satisfaction for the sins of the world; it holds the doctrine of justification by faith; it denounces the belief in transubstantiation, and in purgatory; and it departs in another most important point from the practice of that of Rome, by authorising the marriage of its ministers.
It is not my purpose to fatigue my readers by establishing a relationship between the Orthodox Eastern Church and that of the United Kingdom, or of any other country, I am satisfied with having shewn the little value to be attached to the statements of hasty travellers, and with having, I hope, fully established a thorough dissimilarity on the most important points of religious belief between the doctrines and practice of the Orthodox Eastern Church and that of Rome.
I should have had much more difficulty in doing justice to the claims of the Orthodox Eastern Church in the eyes of the Protestant public, had the writers who have sought to establish its affinity to Rome, availed themselves of other points of weakness, which my pen can neither defend nor conceal.
First and foremost, to my mind, stands that foolish proceeding, which the priesthood of the Eastern Church annually practise on the ignorant and credulous of their disciples; when, on Easter Sunday, following the example of the Romish Church in manufacturing miracles, they pretend to draw fire down from heaven; the agency employed on the occasion being either a lucifer match or a phosphorus bottle. Also the practice of burning incense during divine service, and of requiring a particular, not a general, confession before taking the Lord’s Supper.