system. We do not wish to dwell upon its professors. We should be sorry to conclude that no Papists are Christians; but we do think that they are so in spite of the stumblingblocks and trammels of the system. We do not say that the system itself contains no Christian truth; but we shall have to allude to a cumbrous load of heresies, which buries and paralyses the faith once delivered to the saints, and presents a form of anti-Christian error and spiritual despotism, against which every lover of truth ought firmly to protest. We have no uncharitable feeling towards the members of the Romish Church: it is not to grieve them that we would show the dangerous labyrinth in which an assumed and despotic priesthood has involved them; the circumstances of the times demand that a warning voice should be uplifted, and that the members of our churches should be guarded against the encroachments of error. The time allotted for this service will compel a limited line of contrast to be drawn, and demand brevity in adverting to the various positions we lay down. In our statements of what Popery is, we shall confine ourselves to their authorized standards of doctrine and discipline,—the Decrees of Councils -Bulls of Popes-the authorized formularies 66 of devotion, as explained by some of their most eminent advocates. This test is peculiarly applicable to a Church claiming infallibility. Butler, in his book of the Roman Catholic Church, declares it a tenet of their creed, "that what their faith ever has been, such it was from the beginning, such it now is, and such it ever will be." Drs. Doyle and Murray, in their evidence before the House of Lords, declared, that the most approved and authentic summary of the Roman Catholic Church is found in the decrees of the Council of Trent, and in the profession of Pius IV." Dr. Milner also stated, that Pope Pius's creed is everywhere recited, and professed in the strict letter. We cannot, therefore, be charged with misrepresenting the system, while we confine ourselves to documents of this class; and our quotations from Scripture will be from the Douay Bible. The first point of contrast we would institute is in the RULE OF FAITH. Christianity furnishes an apostolic foundation for maintaining the purity of faith and morals. Popery has substituted a fallible, unauthorized, and uncertain rule of faith, which tends to progressive corruption. Christ is the author of our faith. On the Mount of Transfiguration he was proclaimed by his Father the sole Prophet and Lawgiver He selected twelve Apostles, to On com of mankind. whom he committed the truth. pleting his personal ministry, he said to them, "All things whatsoever I have heard of my Father I have made known to you.' In his sacrificial prayer, alluding to these chosen Apostles, he said, "The words which thou gavest me I have given to them, and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.' He commissioned these Apostles to be the authorized expounders of the divine will; pledged the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit to bring to their remembrance all things that he had said to them, and to teach them all saving truth; and the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, to attest the validity of their commission. The authority they received was absolute. Christ gave to them" the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" said to them, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven." § "When the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his Majesty, you also shall sit on twelve * John xv. 15. † John xvii. 8. § Matt. xviii. 18. seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."* After his resurrection he said to the Apostles, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." They were thus empowered to declare those truths by which the salvation of mankind should be regulated, the terms on which alone divine forgiveness and grace should be bestowed. It was with reference to this absolute apostolic authority that St. Paul declared, "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel;" and in his Epistle to the Galatians i. 9, 66 If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” Hence the church is represented as "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."§ "The twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem have in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb."|| To settle the canon of divine truth then was their exclusive prerogative. When endued with power from on * Matt. xix. 28. ↑ John xx. 21-23. Rom. ii. 16. § Eph. ii. 20. Rev. xxi. 14. high, they proclaimed this truth, appealing to their miraculous gifts, and their power to confer those gifts on others, as God's seal to the truth of their doctrines. They have left us these truths in writing, and thus afforded an incorruptible means of their preservation, that after their decease, as St. Peter says, we may have whereby we can keep a memory of these things.* The four Gospels contain the life and teachings of Christ; the Acts of the Apostles give the substance of their sermons, the truths by which persons were converted to the faith; and the Epistles contain expositions of the same truths, and of those taught to converted individuals. The Jewish Scriptures were authorized by both Christ and his Apostles, and were appealed to to establish doctrines. So that in the Old and New Testaments we have God's authorized word, the only foundation for faith and morals. We call it the only foundation, because there are no other writings by individuals bearing these divine credentials. The different churches planted by the Apostles carefully collected these writings together, and affixed to them their testimony to their authority; and these apostolic records were incessantly appealed to by the early Fathers as being the * 2 Pet. i. 15. |