precisely the same place with Christ's making clay of spittle, and anointing therewith the eyes of the blind man; or with Naaman's being directed to go and wash seven times in Jordan. It was, like each of these, an external, and in itself inefficacious sign of a miraculous recovery; and even now there is no objection to the use of the sign, if the thing signified is to be expected. Let the priests anoint with abundance of oil all their sick, if they can accompany that unction with such a prayer of faith as shall save the sick. But if the miraculous recoveries have ceased, or be not expected, let there be a doing away of the sign. As soon as any sign becomes insignificant, let it cease to be used. Extreme unction is now a sign of nothing. It would have been useless to go down into the pool of Bethesda, after the angel had ceased to pay his periodical visit to it. So in this case, there being now no healing expected, there need be, and there should be, no anointing.

How the priests now differ, in their use of the oil, from those whose successors they pretend to be! The apostles and elders anointed persons with a view to their living; but the priests with a view to their dying. The former would not anoint, if they foresaw the person was to die; the latter will not, if they foresee that he is to live. How much at odds they are! How Scripture and tradition do quarrel! And the worst of it is, there is no such thing as bringing about a reconciliation between them.

Among the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church, I am at a loss whether to give the palm to this or to purgatory. Purgatory teaches the doctrine of salvation by fire. Extreme unction, the doctrine of salvation, by oil. There does not seem to be much Christianity in either. Extreme unction is, however, the smoothest doctrine. Decidedly so. Jesus Christ came by water and blood. The salvation He proclaims is by these; and the sacraments He instituted, are Baptism and the Lord's Supper. These signify something: the first, regene ration; the second, the propitiation made for our sins.

-bInsufferable! What? Why, that the Roman Catholic translators of the Bible should render the Greek word, which signifies repentance, by the phrase, doing penance! I would not willingly be uncharitable, imputing a bad motive where a good one might have been present. But I must say, that I know not how to reconcile this rendering of the word with their integrity as translators. I cannot help believing that they knew better. Could they have supposed, that they were se lecting the most judicious method of conveying the mind of the Spirit as expressed in that word, when they concluded on rendering it doing penance? Why did they use two English words (coining one of them, moreover, for the occasion) to convey the meaning of one Greek word? Was there any necessity for it? Was there no single English word that would express the sense? There was repentance, the word adopted by the translators of the common English Bible. What objection was there to the use of that? Why was that passed by? and especially, why was it passed by, in order to give a preference to such a phrase as doing penance? If they had disliked repentance, they might, with more propriety, have employed the word reformation. It would seem as if they were anxious to avoid the use of any word which expressed or implied either sorrow or amendment, and therefore they fixed on the phrase doing penance. I am mistaken if these translators have not a heavy account to give. This single rendering, if it were the only exceptionable one, would be as a millstone about the neck of that translator. Just think of the false impression, and that on the point of the highest moment, made on the minds of so many millions by this one egregiously erroneous version.

Contemplate the state of the case. God, in prospect of the judgment-day, and by the terror of it, commands all men every where to do a certain thing (Acts xvii. 30, 31); and Christ says that except they

R

do it, they shall perish (Luke xiii. 3.) This thing God expresses by the Greek term metanoia. But all do not understand Greek. Wherefore, for lithe Ladmonition and instruction of thoseo Román: Catholics who read only the English language, and who cannot be persuaded of the sin of reading the Bibleit becomes necessary to render that word into English. Certain persons undertake to do it; that is to interpret the mind of God as expressed by metanoia. And what do they make it out to mean? Doing penance That is it, they say.d: "Do the penance which your priest appoints, after you have made your confession to him, and that is all." It is no such thing. This is a misre presentation of the Almighty. This is not the subject of the command and warning to which reference has been made. And to suppose that it is on account of this that angels rejoice, i.e when a sinner does penance, is truly absurd. Oh, what a translation!There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that doth penance." Luke XV:57. Truly angels must be easily made to rejoice, if this be the case. How it sounds! How offensive to ot multa di zi inap di

*It pray be well to look a little into the history of this renfor it will shew how stealthily error creeps into the Church. The Latin Vulgate sometimes translates the Greek word metanoeite, by the two Latin words, Penitentiam agite (Matt. iv. 17). Now this means, in good Latin, no more than actor repentance,

or repent. But this evidently equivalent to

to repentance being commonly accompanied, in the early Church, with some command to do special acts prescribed by the priest, or presbyter, as works meet for repentance (Matt. iii. 8), these acts thus prescribed came to be considered as the especial part of repentance,

and so the ionon of penance was substituted for the

Scriptural

repentance and thus penitentiam agite acquired the Popish sense of Do Penance. And finally, in Popish translations of the Vulgate, this phrase came to be almost universally used for the true translation, Repent,—the translations from the Vulgate being decidedly much worse than the Vulgate itself, in which penitentiam agite is evidently equivalent to penitemini. (Compare Matt. iv. 17, with Mark 115.JAZ SICTI

the very ear, and how much more to the enlightened judgment, is this rendering! "God commands all to do penance." Acts xvii. 30. "Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish." Luke xiii. 3, 5. "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to penance!" 2 Pet. iii. 9. Shocking! Away with such a translation from the earth. The Douay Bible is not God's Bible; for it purposely misrepresents Him in a main point, viz: on the article of repentance. Here is a translation of metanoia implying no sorrow for sin, no change of mind (which the word literally signifies), nor any moral reformation; but only the doing of certain external, and generally puerile, things prescribed by a priest; all which may be done without any internal exercise without any emotion of any kind. The word, according to the Roman Catholics, makes no requisition on the heart whatever. And truly, a man may be good Roman Catholic, without ever feeling any thing,unless it be the bodily pain of self-inflicted penance. And every one knows, that thinking is not necessary to constitute a good Roman Catholic. Wherefore a man may be a good Roman Catholic without either thinking or feeling, that is, without any exercise of either minu or heart. All that seems requisite is mechanical action, Maelzel, the constructor of automatons, could almost make one. Is this uncharitable? It is true; and it ought to be said. It ought to be known and proclaimed, that the religion of the church of Rome overlooks the reason conscience, and heart of man, addressing no appeal to them, and indeed inaking no use of them. Is it then the religion of the Holy Ghost? Is this the Christianity of Christ? It cannot be.

a

I ought, perhaps, to say, that I find, in one place in the Rhemish Testament, the Greek metanoeite translated correctly, repent. It occurs in Mark i. 15. Whether it was done in a moment of relenting, or through inadvertence, I cannot say. It was never repeated that I can find. Perhaps the translators had to do penance, for presuming to render the word in that one case correctly.

Do you not see what a difference it makes to the priests, if you give it out, that repentance is what is required? Then a sinner will be saved if he repent, irrespective of the priest. The great High Priest that is passed into the heavens will see to the case of every true penitent. But if the requisition be doing penance, in that case, there being something necessary which the priest prescribes, he has the poor sinner completely in his power. It makes the salvation to depend on the acts prescribed by the priest. Do you wonder that the priests insist on the translation do penance, and forbid the people to read in a Bible which requires them to repent?

There is a precious note in the Douay Bible connected with this subject, which may afford me a topic hereafter.

31. The Hardest Religion.

Among the compliments which our brethren of the Church of Rome pay to their religion, this is one. They say it is the hardest religion-that no other religion requires so much of its votary. Hence they would have it inferred, that theirs must be the divine and only true religion. The yoke being so hard, and the burden so heavy, they must, of course, be Christ's.

I shall examine this claim to the precedence in point of difficulty. And something I am prepared to concede to the Church of Rome on this score. There is a part of her faith which I acknowledge it is exceedingly hard to receive. It requires a powerful effort, doubtless, to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation-namely, that the bread and wine of the sacrament are changed into

-what? The body and blood of Christ? Not that alone, but also into his soul and divinity! Yes, it is hard to believe it is so, when one sees it is not so, and knows it cannot be so. It is hard to disbelieve at will those long-tried and faithful servants, the senses; and especially that first of the five, the sight. There is