to provide a learned and godly ministry, schools also and synods, as likewise to restrain and punish as well atheists, blasphemers, heretics and schismatics, as the violators of justice and public peace.' 95. "Christian magistrates and princes embracing Christ, and sincerely giving their names to Him, do not only serve Him as men, but also use their office to His glory and the good of the Church; they defend, stand for, and take care to propagate the true faith and godliness; they afford places of habitation to the Church, and furnish necessary helps and supports; turn away injuries done to it, restrain false religion, and cherish, underprop, and defend the rights and liberties of the Church; so far they are from diminishing, changing, or restraining those rights; for so the condition of the Church were in that respect worse, and the liberty thereof more cut short, under the Christian magistrate, than under the infidel or heathen." 96. "Wherefore seeing these nursing-fathers, favourers and defenders, can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth, nor have any right against the gospel, but for the gospel; and their power in respect of the Church whereof they bear the care, being not privative or destructive, but cumulative and auxiliary, thereby it is sufficiently clear that they ought to cherish, and by their authority ought to establish the ecclesiastical discipline; but yet not with implicit faith or blind obedience;-for the Reformed Churches do not deny to any of the faithful, much less to the magistrate, the judgment of Christian prudence and discretion concerning those things which are decreed or determined by the Church." 97. "Therefore, as to each member of the Church respectively, so unto the magistrate, belongeth the judgment of such things, both to apprehend and to judge of them; for although the magistrate is not ordained and preferred of God, that he should be a judge of matters and causes spiritual, of which there is controversy in the Church, YET IS HE QUESTIONLESS JUDGE OF HIS OWN CIVIL ACT ABOUT SPIRITUAL THINGS; namely, of defending them in his own dominions, and of approving or tolerating the same; and if, in this business, he judge and determine according to the wisdom of the flesh, and not according to the wisdom which is from above, he is to render an account thereof before the supreme tribunal." 98. "However, the ecclesiastical discipline, according as it is ordained by Christ, whether it be established and ratified by civil authority or not, ought to be retained and exercised in the society of the faithful (as long as it is free and safe for them to come together in holy assemblies), for the want of civil authority is unto the Church like a ceasing gain, but not like damage or loss ensuing; as it superaddeth nothing more, so it takes nothing away." On the subject of the magistrate's function and duty about synods, which some may perhaps think the most difficult part of the twenty-third chapter, the Propositions are particularly explicit. 51. "The magistrate calleth together synods, not as touching those things which are proper to synods, but in respect of the things which are common to synods with other meetings and civil public assemblies, that is, not as they are assemblies in the name of Christ, to treat of matters spiritual, but as they are public assemblies within his territories." 65. "By his command he assembleth synods when there is need of them. He maketh synods also safe and secure, and in a civil way presideth or moderateth in them (if it so scem good to him), either by himself, or by a substitute commissioner: in all which the power of the magistrate, though occupied about spiritual things, is not for all that spiritual, but civil.” This evidence is sufficient as to the meaning which the Confession of Faith truly bears, and which was intended to be put upon it by those who framed and adopted it.* The Act of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647, by which she approved and adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith, contains the following explanation of the sense in which she understands and receives certain statements of the Confession in regard to the power of the Civil Magistrate in connection with the church:-"Lest our intention and meaning be in some particulars misunderstood, it is hereby expressly declared and provided, That the not mentioning in this Confession the several sorts of ecclesiastical officers and assemblies, shall be no prejudice to the truth of Christ in these particulars, to be expressed fully in the Directory of Government. It is further declared, That the Assembly understandeth some parts of the second article of the thirtyone chapter only of kirks not settled or constituted in point of government; And that although, in such kirks, a synod of Ministers and other fit persons may be called by the Magistrate's authority and nomination, without any other call, to consult and advise with about matters of religion; and although, likewise, the Ministers of Christ, without delegation from their churches, may of themselves, and by virtue of their office, meet together synodically in such kirks not yet constituted, yet neither of these ought to be done in kirks constituted and settled; it being always free to the Magistrate to advise with synods of ministers and ruling elders, meeting upon delegation from their churches, either ordinarily, or, being indicted by his authority, occasionally, and pro re nata; it being also free to assemble together synodically, as well pro re nata as at the ordinary times, upon delegation from the churches, by the intrinsical power received from Christ, as often as it is necessary for the good of the Church, so to assemble, in case the Magistrate, to the detriment of the Church, withhold or deny his consent; the necessity of occasional assemblies being first remonstrate unto him by humble supplication." (Edrs.) power was conferred by our Lord upon the apostles in the words above quoted, and that from them it has descended to all who are legitimately invested with the priesthood. : Protestants usually admit that the words seem, prima facie, to favour this notion, so far as the apostles are concerned. And the ground they usually take in opposing the doctrine of the Church of Rome upon the subject may be embodied in the following positions First, That whatever might be the case with the apostles, there are very clear and conclusive grounds in Scripture for denying any such power, as Popish priests pretend to exercise, to uninspired and fallible men; and that if the words necessarily import the bestowal of a power to remit and retain sins upon earth, the exercise of which is to be certainly and invariably ratified in heaven, it must be confined to the apostles, and cannot be extended to an uninspired fallible priesthood in succeeding ages; and, secondly, That there is a sense, opposed to the Popish one, but in accordance with the analogy of faith and the general tenor of Scripture, in which the words may be regarded as extending to the office-bearers of the church in all ages, and as descriptive of a power which they still possess, and are entitled to exercise. Although the Church of Rome does not hesitate to inculcate the general doctrine that no one can be admitted into heaven unless the door be opened by the priests, and labour most strenuously to impress this upon men's minds, she is of course obliged to qualify this position to some extent, in order to conceal its palpable inconsistency, taken in its proper import, with Scripture and common sense. Accordingly, Papists admit that the absolution of the priest in the sacrament of penance is certainly ratified in heaven only when it has been preceded not only by confession, but also by contrition, or at least by attrition, which is an inferior and defective species of contrition, on the part of the penitent. If contrition be necessary to forgiveness, and if it be also true, that wherever contrition or true repentance is exercised, forgiveness is bestowed by God, then it is plain, from the nature of the case, that no sentence pronounced by a priest can in substance amount to more than a declaration that in his judgment, or so far as he sees, real and sincere contrition exists, and such a judgment or declaration can be of material importance as a ground of confidence and comfort only if the priest-every priest-is invested with infallibility, or the power of discerning spirits. God, in His word, has connected the forgiveness of sin with faith and repentance, and has assured us that whenever these graces are exercised, forgiveness is bestowed. He has not delegated to men any power of bestowing forgiveness at their own discretion; He has Himself settled the conditions on which the gift is conferred, and no room is left for human agency in the matter, except to judge in their own cases, or in the case of others, whether or not the conditions have been complied with. And this, of course, men will do fallibly, or infallibly, in other words, so that their judgment shall always coincide with God's, and be certainly ratified by His,—just as God does not, or does, give them infallible guidance in this matter. These general principles are so clearly accordant with the whole tenor of Scripture, that Papists have been obliged to admit, that when men really exercise contrition or godly sorrow for sin, the guilt is remitted before, and without the absolution of the priest in the sacrament of penance. This might seem to overturn their whole doctrine and practice upon the subject; and so it would but for a very singular and characteristic contrivance. They assert that contrition, or godly sorrow for sin, though commanded by God, is attainable by very few-rather a singular position to be maintained by those who at the same time teach that men can obey the whole law of God, and can supererogate—and that if it were indispensable, few could ever obtain forgiveness. They have therefore invented what they call attrition,—a defective and imperfect kind of penitence, resembling more, from the descriptions they give of it, the sorrow of "the world which worketh death," than "the godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation." This attrition is more casily attainable, and of course is much more common than contrition, but then it is not so efficacious. It does not, like contrition, secure forgiveness without absolution by the priest; but when followed by priestly absolution, it makes forgiveness certain. Thus they plainly make the act of the priest pronouncing a sentence of absolution to serve as a substitute for a state of mind and heart which God's word requires. And there is perhaps no one single point in which the Church of Rome has so directly and explicitly perverted the scriptural plan of salvation by means of outward ceremonies and observances. In most other departments of the Popish system, Satan has trusted to the natural tendency of the enforced observance of rites and ceremonies to lead men to disregard or neglect the state of their minds and hearts, without formally committing himself to an explicit declaration that the one will serve as a substitute for the other. But in this instance he has taken a bolder and more decided course, and his success has fully established the soundness of his policy. The admission that contrition. secures forgiveness before and without absolution, is a reluctant concession to these scriptural principles; and the invention of attrition, which is not sufficient of itself, but which secures forgiveness when accompanied with confession, and followed by the absolution of the priest, is a bold stroke to repair the effects of this concession. Of course, Papists who act upon the principles of their church have no sense of the obligation of contrition, or godly sorrow for sin, though God's word requires it, and will usually be contented-(especially as they are carefully taught that no man can ever be sure that he has it)— with having attrition, or something they don't know what, since this, when followed by absolution, certainly effects all they wish for. It is scarcely necessary to observe that these scriptural principles above referred to, which have extorted from Romanists the confession that contrition secures forgiveness before and without absolution, are sufficient, when fairly and fully applied, to overturn their whole doctrine about the power of the keys as exercised in conferring absolution in the sacrament of penance. We have not the slightest reason to believe that the apostles were accustomed to pronounce sentences of absolution in the ordinary administration of the affairs of the church as a part of their habitual functions as ecclesiastical office-bearers; but if it could be proved that they were, and if it could further be proved from the words which our Saviour addressed to them, that these sentences of theirs were always and certainly ratified in heaven, still even then we would be entitled to conclude from the scriptural principles referred to, that this result arose solely from their having been enabled to determine in each case with infallible certainty the presence or the absence of faith and contrition; and that consequently absolution in the Popish sense, as a sentence, always and certainly ratified in heaven, is entitled to no regard whatever, unless it be exercised by men who have the same infallible power of discerning spirits. It is generally admitted that some gifts were conferred on, and some promises made to, the apostles which were intended for themselves personally, and were not to be enjoyed by, or |