any thing was added in regard to the object of the confession, that it did not designate God as the being to whom the sins should be confessed. The sins are all done against Him, and why should they not be told to Him? I cannot get rid of the notion, that we ought to confess all our sins to God alone, the being whom we have offended by them. But no, says this guide to heaven, the confession must be made to a priest; it is good for nothing without it. If the publican, of whom we read, had lived now, it would have been quite irregular, according to the Roman Catholic notion, that he should have gone down to his house justified, when he confessed only to God. And the penitent must take care what sort of a priest it is to whom he confesses, else he might as well remain impenitent. It must be a priest approved by the bishop. Well, now, this is very strange, that our pardon should be suspended on such a condition that angels, in other words, must wait before they express any joy that a sinner has repented, until he has gone and told his sins to a priest approved by a bishop! Who suspended it there, I wonder? Not Isaiah. Read his 55th chapter. Not Peter, nor Solomon, nor John, nor Paul. Read them and see. There is not a word in the Bible about confessing to a priest. So I found that the two guides did not agree in this matter. "The Catholic Manual" said, the confession must be made to a priest; but the Holy Scriptures insist on no such thing, but direct, that the confession be made to God.

This thought occurred to me: What if a sinner confess his sins with sincere repentance, though not to a priest, what is to be done with his soul? Must pardon be denied him, and must he be consigned to perdition, because, though he confessed penitently, yet he did not do so to a priest? Really this is making rather too much of the priest. I do not believe that our salvation is so dependent on the deference we pay to the priest.

Before the conditions, on one of which I have been remarking, are mentioned, there is this general statement: "Plenary indulgences granted to the faithful throughout these States at the following times;" then and

follows a specification of nine different seasons when plenary indulgences may be had. I did not know before that pardons were confined to any set times; I always supposed, that they might be had summer and winter, night and day, and at any hour of either-in short, whenever a penitent heart breathes its desire to God. My mistake must have arisen from the fact, that I have been in the habit of consulting the Bible on these matters. I never saw "The Christian's Guide to Heaven" before in my life. I have always used the Bible as a guide. Now that I am on the subject of confession, I may as well make another reference to the Manual. There is an article or chapter headed "The Confiteor." In it, the person wishing to be guided to heaven makes this confession, from which it will appear that Roman Catholics do not confine their confessions to the priest, but extend them to many other beings: "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned." Now, I do not see the use of naming so many. The confession, I think, should have stopped with the first mentioned-Almighty God. What have the rest to do with it? How is it any business of theirs? The person has not sinned against them. Surely every sinner may say to God. "Against thee, thee ONLY have I sinned," since David could. (Psalm li. 4). Besides, this coupling of these creatures with the Creator, as worthy equally with Himself to receive our confessions of sin, savours strongly of idolatry. Confession is made to them on the same principle that prayer is. Each is an act of worship-one of those things which should be confined exclusively to God. I wonder that Romanists will not be satisfied with one great and glorious object of worship, God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. Why will they, in their devotions, associate creatures with the Creator? The book I am reviewing contains numerous and very offensive examples of it. I shall continue the review in my next.

17.

The Review of the Catholic Book, continued.

The next thing that struck me as worthy of notice in the perusal of the book was this-that the devout Roman Catholicis represented as making the following solemn declaration concerning the Holy Scriptures: "Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." I smiled when I read this, and I thought within myself, if that is his determination, he will not be likely ever to take them at all. What an intention is this, which the Roman Catholic expresses-never to attach any meaning to a passage which he may read in the Bible, until he has first ascertained whether certain ancient persons called the Fathers all agreed in any interpretation of it; and if so, what that interpretation is! What should give such authority and weight to the interpretation of the fathers? Why cannot we ascertain what the Bible means as well as they could? What helps had they which we have not? and why require that they be unanimous ? What a roundabout method this of finding out what a book means! First, the reader has to ascertain who are entitled to be called fathers. He must make out a list of them all. If one is overlooked, it vitiates the interpretation, though all the rest should agree in it. But supposing him to have a catalogue of the whole number from Barnabas to Bernard, the next step in the process is, to ascertain how they all interpreted the Bible. For this purpose he must pore over their works. But some of them left no works behind them. How shall he ever find out, what they thought of this and that passage of Scripture? And yet he must somehow or other ascertain their opinions; else how can he compare them with the opinions of the other fathers, and discover their agreement with them? For you will remember, that the consent must be unanimous. Others of the fathers left works behind them, but they have not come down to us. How shall the reader of

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the Bible know, what those lost works contained? Yet he must know what they thought, else how can he be sure, that they thought in accordance with the views of those fathers whose works are preserved to us. I cannot see how this difficulty is to be got over, for my part. It is altogether beyond me. But, supposing it to be surmounted, there remains the task of comparing the opinions of all these Greek and Latin fathers, to the number of a hundred or two, one with another, to see if they all agree; for the consent you see must be unanimous. Those parts of Scripture in the interpretation of which they did not agree, are to go for nothing. Indeed, if ninety-nine should be found to accord in a particular interpretation, it must be rejected, if the hundredth father had a different opinion of its meaning. I cannot belp thinking, that it is the better, as certainly it is the shorter and easier method, just for every one to take up and "search the Scriptures," and "if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally." (Jas. i. 5.)

As the case is, I do not wonder that Roman Catholics do not read the Bible. They have not come to that yet. They are still among the fathers, searching out and comparing their opinions, so as to know how to take the Bible. By-and-by, if they live long enough, when they have ascertained what the fathers agreed on, they may go to reading the Scriptures.*

*By way of illustrating the confusion into which the poor Romanist is plunged by this rule, I need only refer to the different interpretations given by different fathers of that passage in Matt. xvi. 18, on which the Romanists lay so much stress, and which indeed with them involves a fundamental point. "And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." It is rather awkward for them that this is one of the passages, which a Romanist must not presume to understand or interpret; for the most eminent fathers are at hopeless variance in their interpretations of it. Chrysostom understands by the Rock, the confession of Christ which Peter had just made; Jerome, Christ Himself; Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius, Ambrose, Hilary, agree with Chry

THOUGHTS ON POPERY.

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It seems odd that one cannot, without mortal sin, attach a meaning to such a passage as John iii. 16: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," until he has first ascertained what Cyprian, Jerome, Hilary, both the Gregorys, and indeed all the fathers thought of it, and whether they agreed in their interpretation of it. How any one can read it, without understanding it in spite of

sostom; Augustine interprets it sometimes one way, and sometimes another, and leaves the question doubtful; Origen thinks that it applies just as much to the rest of the Apostles as to Peter. But in regard to the Article of the Creed of Pius IV., quoted in the text, the reader is referred to the Note in pages 22 and 23, in which the first and second Articles of the Unapostolical Creed of Pope Pius IV, are quoted at full: from the examination of which it is there shown, that the Romish Priests and Ecclesiastics-who are bound by solemn oath to "retain and confess" the "true Catholic faith" (as they call it) which is set forth in that Creed "to the last breath of life" -can be no better than blind leaders of the blind. And it is written, "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." (Matt. xv, 14).

It may not be amiss to give an illustration of this blindness: it would be easy to adduce many; but this one shall suffice. There is a Romish book of instruction, entitled, "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine," composed in 1645, by Henry Turberville, D.D., of the English College of Douay,-which has been reprinted again and again, and which was carefully revised by the Right Rev. James Doyle, D.D., and prescribed by him to be used in the united Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin. It is printed permissu superiorum. It appears to have been a standard book of instruction among the Romanists for more than 200 years. We may therefore take it as a very fair sample of the instruction which the Romish ecclesiastics give to their poor deluded votaries and victims. Now, in chapter xvii, entitled, "The Kinds of Sin Expounded," we find the following passage. (I quote enough to make the sense complete, in order to be clear from all imputation of unfairness.)

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"Q.-Is all sin voluntary and deliberate?

A.-It is, because (speaking of actual sin) no man sinneth in doing that which it is not in his power to avoid. Q.-What other proof have you?