If Popes have erred and Councils have erred, it will not be pretended that the Pope can impart to a Bishop an infallibility he does not possess, or that a Bishop can convey to a Priest that which he has not received; and yet implicit submission to the teaching of the Church is demanded! How fearful is a system which under such circumstances claims for the Clergy the right of withholding the inspired volume, and designates them the only authorized expounders of the divine will! And yet in the fourth rule of the Congregation of the Index we have this authoritative statement :"It is in this point referred to the judgment of the Bishops or Inquisitors, who may by the advices of the Priest or Confessor permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented and not injured by it, and this permission they must have in writing. But if any one shall have the presumption to read or possess it without such written permission, he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such Bible to the Ordinary." When such permission is granted Pope Pius's Creed is binding :-" I also admit the Sacred Scriptures according to the sense which the holy mother Church has held, and still does

hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers." Of what use is a Bible with a chain clasped round it and padlocked thus ? Where is the unanimous consent of the Fathers to be found? There never has been a combined and authorized commentary sanctioned. We would not undervalue the early Fathers of the Church: their piety and talent, so far as they appear in their writings, ought to be profited by; but they were not authorities while living, and how death and the lapse of ages can canonize their writings, we are at a loss to conceive. the early Fathers wrote; we have but fragments of their writings; and both Protestant and Roman controversialists charge each other's Churches with mutilating and dismembering those that have come down, when they are not found to accord with their systems. Why they should be supposed to understand the Scriptures better than theologians in the present day, is hard to conceive: they were not inspired; the Scriptures are the same; and every age, having the advantages of the biblical criticism of former ages, ought to be better fitted to display the treasury of truth.

Few of

We are asked how it is that we receive the canonical Scriptures on their evidence, and yet deny the authority of their writings. There is an essential difference between receiving the evidence of a witness to the authenticity of a will, and admitting the authority of that witness, irrespectively of the will, to interfere with the disposition of the property. We are

thankful for their evidence of the fact that such books were written by such inspired persons, and were received by the churches as inspired records; but they do not claim to be infallible teachers, nor can we elevate them to that position. And the system that binds a people not to understand the Scriptures in any other way than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, hoodwinks them, and forbids their forming any judgment of them at all. How can a member of the Romish Church tell the sense she puts upon them? She has given no infallible Commentary? The one printed and circulated is not binding; it has been altered in successive editions; notes are omitted that were originally published. A learned author, in allusion to this subject, says, " In addition to the Scriptures, take the Apocrypha, Tradition, Acts and Decisions of the Church, embracing 8 folio volumes of Popes' Bulls, 10 folio volumes of

Decretals, 31 folio volumes of Acts of Council, 51 folio volumes of Doings and Sayings of Saints; add to these at least 35 volumes of the Greek and Latin Fathers; to these 135 folio volumes, add the chaos of unwritten traditions, which have floated down from the Apostles' time, and then add the exposition of every fallible Priest and Bishop ;—and what a sea of uncertainty you are launched upon!" What Romanist under such circumstances can have any definite rule of faith? He is taught to believe by proxy. By what authority is the word of God thus bound to traditionary record, and not allowed to move without a living interpreter? The Apostle's address to the Thessalonians is adduced: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions you have learned, whether by word or our epistle; SO also in Gal. i. 9,-" As we said before, so now I say again, If any one preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema." This only proves that the Apostles' personal teaching was as binding as their epistles: he does not allude to a gospel brought by a successor as the binding one. We have no other proof of the gospel thus preached than their writings afford. Not a

* 2 Thess. ii. 14.

single sentiment can be authorized as delivered by them which their writings do not contain; and hence we are bound to abide by their records. It is urged that several books of the Old Testament are lost, and some of the Epistles; if so, the Church's infallibility as a keeper of holy writ is demolished. But the sacred books have been in other than human hands. There is no proof that a single book is lost the mere allusion to other books is no proof of their being canonical. The Apostle alludes to and quotes from heathen poets, but that does not rank their writings with the Scriptures. The Epistle " to Laodicea" might be rendered from Laodicea: it was customary to send copies of the epistle round to the different churches, so that there is no evidence that a scrap of inspired truth has been lost. If a loss had been sustained, we have no means of supplying it: traditions of men would not supply the place of the word of God. The Apostle's address to Timothy,—" Hold fast the form of sound words,"" the things which thou has heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also," is adduced. These passages show who are the only lawfully qualified successors of the Apostles,-faithful men, possessing a knowledge of