Popery," says Cecil," is the masterpiece of Satan ;" and auricular confession is the chef d'œuvre of the whole mystery of iniquity." The claims of the papal universal authority, even supported by the incomprehensible mysteries of transubstantiation, never could have exercised their boundless and irresistible influence, during nearly twelve centuries; had they not been enforced by their "Sacrament of Pe nance," as the Romanists denominate the most arbitrary and degrading bondage by which servile men ever were enthralled.

Although nine previous essays are devoted to the subject, yet it is requisite to condense a summary view of this stupendous invention to enchain the bodies and souls of men. The term penance is used in the most sophistical manner by the papal writers; and artfully draws away the unreflecting mind from the doctrine of evangelical repentance to this Romish delusive substitute. By the general definition of a sacrament, the Papist is taught, that it efficaciously confers the grace which it represents, by the mere act of performing the ceremony. Hence, the sinner is cajoled to believe, if he resorts to the priest, observes his rules, submits to his demands, and receives his absolution, that he has savingly repented of all his sins; and as the priest is in the stead of God, that his transgressions are entirely pardoned and obliterated from remembrance.

The Roman penance comprises, as essential ingredients, several mischievous particulars. In the "Corpus Juris Canonici, Gregorii XIII. Pont. Max. jussu editum ; &c. Lugduni, 1614. Cum licentia," are the following canons, in reference to this topic: from which the results in practice, of the "Sacrament of Penance," may accurately be ascertained.

Nemo unquam episcopum, &c. No person shall ever presume to accuse any prelate or other ecclesiastics before a secular judge." Page 544. This doctrine taught in the confessional necessarily induces the belief, that the priest is superior to every, earthly government; and therefore ought to be obeyed in preference to all conflicting authorities. "Sententia Pastoris, &c. The sentence of the pastor, whether just or unjust, must be reverenced." Page 557. Consequently the person who attends confession must obey the priest's decision, however contrary to reason, law, justice, morality, or the Christian religion.

"Per confessionem mulieris, cum qua peccavit, Sacerdos non sit condemnandus." Page 652. This rule at once shields the Roman priests and confessors from all ecclesiastical censures, and renders every female, at his will, a defenceless victim to his inordinate desires. This atrocious specimen of infallibility accounts for all the sensuality which has incessantly characterized the Roman hierarchy.

"Presbyter, qui revelat confessionem, &c. The priest who reveals the secrets of the confessional must be deposed, and condemned to ignominy all the days of his life." Can. Penitent. No. 31, page 1262. This canon cements all the other corruptions. Unless in very extraordinary cases, the scenes which are enacted in the seclusion of that apartment where the priest and his devotee are concealed, remain for ever unknown. There the Jesuit regicides plotted the death of monarchs, the convulsion of kingdoms, the Bartholomew massacre, the gunpowder plot, the Irish rebellion, the revocation of the edict of Nantz, the poisoning of Pope Ganganelli, and all the other complicated crimes

which have deluged the world with slaughter, rapine, and desolation, during nearly the last three hundred years.

From the above fundamental principles it follows, that the Roman penance includes the admitted irrevocable jurisdiction of the priest over the understanding, heart, and conscience of his votary-that all evidence which would criminate a priest for any nefarious wickedness is positively excluded-and that the procuring of testimony respecting treasons, rapes, murders, arson, robberies, and any other wickedness which are contrived in the inaccessible privacy of the confession room, in all common cases, is totally impossible.

The following extract from a recent discussion of the "principles and institutions" of Romanism, demands insertion for its force and truth. "Penance requires and imposes auricular confession to a priest. But where does the Saviour command his disciples systematically and regularly to confess all their sins; or in what part of the inspired canon do we find it mentioned as the exclusive prerogative of the Christian ministry, that to them alone the secret and confidential disclosure must be made? The practice of confession, as it obtains among the Romanists, in innumerable cases, has been the source of immense evil to the individuals making such confession, by the reaction of the details of sinful indulgence on their imagination and passions; to the confessor himself by the facts and circumstances which are disclosed; and to the general habits of thinking on this subject; by which, the official exercise of priestly functions in this way, has tranquilized the conscience on most unscriptural principles; and the minds of men have been set at rest, not because of the right application of Christian truth, but by the external administration of the rites and observances which the pretended sacrament of penance imposes. It is much easier to confess, and to make compensation, than to mortify an ambitious and sensual temper, to suppress the feelings of malevolence and resentment, or to abandon the habits of irregular and vicious indulgence. The political influence obtained by the knowledge of confessors in high and exalted stations, has often been employed for the most iniquitous purposes, and has rendered the possession of this power, a prerogative of dangerous operation to civil society.

"Penance directly leads to false and dangerous views respecting the method of obtaining the pardon of sin. Papists believe in the power of the priest to absolve them from sin, and consider indulgences as an allowance to live as they please for a certain period of time. They keep a debtor and creditor account with the Almighty, through the agency of their priests, who are conceived to be invested with a special commission to transact these affairs of profit and loss. If they sin, they have only to confess, and submit to some infliction of corporeal chastisement, or pecuniary compensation; or to procure indulgence, by their money; and the affair is so adjusted, that they may be enabled to go on in sin, until the next time of settling their accounts. Pope Pius VII., in 1813, granted a plenary indulgence applicable to the souls in purgatory, by way of suffrage, and this in form of a jubilee. And to those who attended mass eight times, and upon each occasion, repeated five paters, five aves, and a creed, and made a good confession; this assurance was made by that pontiff and his inferior

prelates: Were your sins as red as scarlet, by the grace of absolution, and application of this plenary indulgence, your souls shall become white as snow!

"Penance is founded on unscriptural views of ministerial power, and directly leads to priestly domination. What sight upon earth can be more absurdly ridiculous, than to hear a mortal, without one prerogative from heaven, say to his fellow- Receive thou the Holy Ghost; when he had never received the gift, and therefore could not possibly impart it. However, this gratuitous assumption is of wondrous use in maintaining priestly power, and of the greatest importance in extending clerical domination. It makes every priest virtually apostolic in his influence and claims. It invests him with the authority of an oracle. It lays prostrate at his feet the reason and consciences of his flock. His touch is healing. His voice silences the accusations of guilt; or inflicts the pangs of remorse. A mysterious efficacy attends his official discharge of the ritual. In baptism, he regenerates; in confirmation, he assures them of the grace of God; in the eucharist, he works a miracle; in penance, he remits their sins; and in extreme unction, he gives them a passport for heaven." Here neither learning, nor wisdom, nor piety is necessary; priestly authority is all in all; which the "complicated and numerous ceremonies of Romanism tend so powerfully to confirm!" Fletcher's Lectures, No. 5. page 172.

It is hence easily perceptible, that the system of popery in its principles and practices must inevitably be very pernicious in its operation upon mankind, in all their relations with civil society. In the prior discussions, the authentic and infallible dogmas of Romanism have been cited at large; it is therefore only requisite to apply them, and thus to delineate their influence upon men in their various consociations.

I. POPERY DESTROYS ALL THAT IS DIGNIFIED AND HONOURABLE IN THE HUMAN CHARACTER.

The Christian religion was mercifully revealed by "the Father of lights, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift," for this express purpose; to restore the divine image to man, "the image of him that created him," which had been lost by transgression; to rescue our race from darkness, impurity, and delusion; and to reinstate them in their pristine "knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness." Now it is the universally concurrent testimony of the popish annals during almost 1200 years, that ignorance, deceitfulness, and corruption, are inseparable from the dominions of "the Beast." The gracious Redeemer has given us an infallible canon of ceaseless and universal application, and which is not less easy than unexceptionable. Matt. vii. 15-20. Ye shall know that the false prophets, although in sheep's clothing, are ravening wolves by their fruits. "A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Such is the certain, heaven-denounced doom of popery, the Mystery, Babylon! Revelation xvii., xviii., xix, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

This test of principles, character, and actions, is of ineffable importance to American citizens. Our civic institutions and our religious liberties cannot coexist with the predominance of popery. Intelligence, sincerity, and sanctity, must sway, or the confederacy of freemen will

speedily disappear. But the pontifical despotism kills all of them, and substitutes for this exemplary proof of divine mercy, an animated, blind, deceitful, debauched, and therefore, a mischievous slave. This result is effected by the following process.

1. A Papist is completely ignorant of all correct knowledge. Our discussion adverts not to those acquisitions which are merely ornamental or literary; but to those attainments which influence the moral relations of man with his God, his judge, and with society. Some Papists have been erudite scholars; others have been sound casuists as far as they dared; and many of them have been upright in their intercourse with the world; but they have professed to be humble "worshippers of the Beast," and consequently, were learned, pure, and just, in despite of the unholy jurisdiction to which they professed nominally to submit. But even these examples are "few and far between;" for scarcely a single instance occurs during the seven centuries, which are emphatically called the "dark ages.' To denominate Berengarius, Claude, Wickliffe, Savaranola, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Chaucer, Dante, Petrarch, and a few others, Papists, would be nearly as great a perversion as to allege that the Waldenses and Albigenses were adherents of the Roman antichrist. And to cite as examples of popish erudition and morals, the Papists who have dwelt in Britain, Saxony or America, during the last two hundred years, is not one jot more relevant, than in speaking of all those "in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints," to fancy that Pope Gregory XVI. and his proverbially dissolute cardinals were intended by the Apostle Paul, when he wrote his famous epistle.

It is a fundamental principle of the papal system, that popular ignorance is essential to the prevalence of priestcraft. Hence, the Holy Scriptures are peremptorily forbidden to be perused and studied, and in their stead is imposed the priestly oracle; who is generally as ignorant of biblical truth, and of pure morality, as he is skilled in tortuous casuistry and practical vice. All the knowledge which an obedient Papist ever attains of morality, as long as he continues to dwell within the gloomy domains of Babylon the Great, is imbibed from the instructions of the confessor, or from the common "manuals," which usually teach more wickedness than can be found in any other volumes.

Profound ignorance of the sacred book, with a total disregard of all its spiritual import; and in reference to the second commandment, an entire erasure of its injunctions, are manifest proofs, that to inculcate evangelical truth and religious duty constitutes no part of Romish instruction. As the unavoidable consequence, the countless majority of the pontifical subjects are engulfed in the darkness which may be felt; attended by all the contamination which must unavoidably flow from hearts depraved, prone to evil, and without legitimate restraint.

The Papist is early taught that all his feelings, wishes, and illumination, must be directed by his priest-that his instructions alone are true and obligatory-that it is mortally sinful to know any thing which his confessor prohibits-that if he imbibes any novelties it is his immediate duty to appeal to the priest to ascertain whether they are admissible and in short to credit without hesitation all that his God the church prescribes; and to repudiate every thing which "the speaking VOL. II.-94

tribunal," the priest, declares to be contrary to the orders of the pope, and not conformable to the interests of "the Mother of Harlots." Now it follows, that men in this state of mental vassalage must be ignorant, even in the midst of every facility to acquire knowledge. But the Roman hierarchy also contrive every possible impediment to the use of those means by which information can be obtained. Not only is the word of God, and all religious books which correctly illustrate it, removed as far as practicable from the sight, and also from the acquaintance of the people; but that instruction which might qualify them to attain additional light is pertinaciously withheld; and "schools for all" are opposed with an energy and malevolence unexampled in the annals of mankind.

Thus a determination is resolutely developed, if possible, to perpetuate the darkness where it still hovers, and to extinguish even that small portion of light which now irradiates the Protestant portions of the world. In this respect the Jesuit colleges, seminaries, and convents, under the hypocritical pretext of educating youth in the higher departments of literature, are gradually restoring the spiritual blindness and the indescribable impurities and corruptions of the Gothic ages.

In addition to this fact, it must be noticed, that there is a Papal bull denouncing all those who read any books without the priest's dispensation; that the indexes, prohibitory and expurgatorius, directly forbid the perusal of the sacred volume, and of every other book which promulge the "pure and undefiled religion" of the Lord Jesus Christ; that there is a Papal congregation expressly appointed to examine and decide upon the character of all works which are issued from the press; and that no book is allowed which opposes the Roman craft, and explains the satanic policy, the debasing slavery, and the unparalleled turpitude of the papacy.

That which might be expected is therefore discoverable in all districts, and in various degrees, in every house, and in each individual, over whom popery reigns. They are ignorant of all good; and the converse of the proposition is not less true; they are proficients in all mischief. They have committed two evils; they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters; and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." Jeremiah ii. 12, 13.

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The following quotation was published in England, about 1680, and is supposed to have been written by Bishop Burnet. It constitutes a suitable addition to the principles inculcated by this essay; as it is believed, that the dreadful indictment will be fully proved. It is extracted from a small work, entitled, " Popish Principles and Practices Pernicious." Section VII.

"A Papist acting according to the principles of his religion, cannot be an honest man, a good neighbour, a true friend, or a faithful subject. This general proposition is evident from these four arguments.

"He who believeth it not only lawful, but necessary, to dissemble, lie, violate his vows, break his oaths, make light of his word and promises, swear and forswear, say or do any thing, when either his priest commands it, or the interests of the pope and the papal cause require it; and also he who is persuaded, that say or do what he will upon that account, there is one in the world, who by his own power, and many others, who by a power from that one, can dispense with