Receive (you say) the Holy Ghost. Whose sins THOU dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins THOU dost retain, they are retained; in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

These are the stupendous powers, my lords, with which your lordships invest, and send forth into the world, every priest you ordain. And, in consequence of these powers, in the visitation of the sick, upon the person's confessing, and desiring absolution, (nay, sometimes without it, as in the case of Charles II.*) the priest pronounces, as from the mouth of Almighty God, this solemn sentence of remission.

By the authority committed unto me, I absolve thee from ALL thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

His holiness, the Pope, who is, I apprehend, the first clergyman upon earth who claims to himself this power, and from and through whom all clergymen who assume it must acknowledge it to be derived; this holiness, I say, supposing him to be possessed of this power, most rightly demands homage of all secular potentates, and declares himself Prince of all the kings of the earth; and all potentates and people, who acknowledge this power, most rightly pay the cere mony of the stirrup and the slipper, and bow with veneration before their LORD GOD, the POPE +

But this power, my lords, which gives the Pope this pre-eminence over all princes, (and which gives it most justly if really possessed,) is the very same (my lords, I repeat it, is the very same) which your lordships declare yourselves to

In the case of Charles II. the absolution was given without any confession. See Bp. Burnet's observation on it in the Postscript.

This title he assumes, and it is publicly given him.

give to every priest you ordain. For, the power to forgive, or to retain, the sins of men is the very same as to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, either to open or shut its gates. If, therefore, your lordships, the bishops, do, as you most solemnly profess, give this transcendent power, you really constitute so many delegates and high commissions from heaven, and authorise them to dispense its pardons or its curses among men. And what reverence or revenue will any man, who loves his soul, think too great to be given to such characters as these!*

If this, my lords, be Christianity, is it any wonder that Christianity is ridiculed, is despised, is railed at and reviled with very little reserve? But is not this, my lords, the Christianity, (I appeal to your lordships impartial judgment and to that of the whole world,) is not this the Christianity which stands exhibited in the public forms and in the constant practice of your church?

May I be permitted to add, if, to a judgment of the greatest candour, there appears strong reason to presume that their lordships, the bishops of that church, know that they have no power from Almighty God to give the Holy Ghost at the very time that they are professing with great solemnity to give it; and that they have no authority from the sacred Trinity to invest the priests they ordain with ability to forgive or to retain the sins of men, at the very time that in so

This doctrine, if believed by the laity, ought to bring them at the priest's feet, as the ambassadors of Palermo at the feet of Pope Martin IV. repeating thrice these words, "Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy "upon us!"

"Profane beyond all profaneness, (says Dr. Clarke,) is the "doctrine of those who contend that the apostles them"selves, much less that any of their fallible successors, had a discretionary power of forgiving or retaining whose sins "they pleased." Dr. Samuet Clarke's Sermons, Vol. Vill. Sermon XVII.

solemn a manner, they are pretending to impart it to them; and, finally, that the priest, at the very time that, in the name of the holy Trinity, he is authoritatively absolving a man from the guilt of all bis sins, knows, in his own conscience, that he has no authority at all from God to absolve him from any one sin ;-if, to a judgment of the greatest candour, my lords, there appears reason thus to think, what idea must men form of the religion of such actions and such characters as these! What sentiments and reflections must naturally arise when they see their lordships stand forth in the presence of Almighty God, professing before his church to confer gifts, and to impart spiritual and transcendent powers, if they are conscious, at the very time, that the whole solemnity is mere parade, and that they have no ability at all to give them! What wonder if, in the indignation which such a sight must inspire, Christianity be abhorred by persons already not prejudiced in its favour, or at all kindly disposed to it, and treated as an arrant cheat, and its ministers as impostors, assuming mock-powers to terrify, to delude, and to enslave the souls of men?

But Christianity, God be praised, scripturechristianity, is quite free from this reproach. A power to forgive, or to retain sins, it gave only to the twelve apostles, the founders of the Christian church; and, to qualify them for this trust, they were actually inspired and filled with the Holy Ghost; they had the gift of discerning spirits, could miraculously smite incorrigible offenders with diseases or death, as they did Elmas the sorcerer, Ananias and Sapphira, and thus retained or bound their sins upon them: and they had power also miraculously to cast out devils, and to heal all manner of diseases, and thus forgave or released men from the penalty of their sins.

But as this power, since the apostolic age, is ceased (by all Protestants acknowledged to be ceased) from the church, and nothing but the miraculous operation of the holy Spirit can possibly impart it, or qualify a person for it, how strange beyond expression is it, that amidst the great piety and learning which its keenest adversaries must confess to subsist in the church, a pretension so extravagant, not to say profane, should still maintain a place!

What adds, my lords, exceedingly to the absurdity of this claim is, that this form of ordaining priests, receive the Holy Ghost,-whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven, &c.-was never used, never known, in the Christian church for the first thousand years; was never attempted to be introduced till the eleventh or twelfth century, which every one knows was a period of the deepest ecclesiastical darkness, stupidity, and oppression.

Morinus, a learned priest,* has published sixteen of the most ancient rituals, or forms of ordination, used in the church from the earliest ages of Christianity in which any such are found. In the several changes and additions under which these forms have successively past, is seen how the spirit of superstition gradually wrought;† every age adding some ridiculous rite, or some extravagant claim, to the inventions of the former, till it grew to the present enormous mass in the Roman pontifical.

De Ordin. Sacr. See a Vindication of the Ordination of the church of England, by Bishop Burnet. Printed 1688.

In the ordination of a bishop,the anointing the head and hands, and thumb with oil,-the laying the gospel on his head, -the gloves, the sandals,-the ring,---the staff,---the dalmatica, (a vestment like a cross)-the mitre-the enthronization, or seating him in his chair,-most of which are attended with respective collects or prayers.

In the ordination of a priest,-the blessing and consecration of his hands, the anointing them with oil, then anointing

But it is peculiarly worthy of attention, my lords, that in not one of the first fifteen rituals (from the fifth to the twelfth century) doth the form now used, receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins, &c. appear. It is the last only, the sixteenth, (which Morinus takes to be but about three hundred years old,) which assumes to itself this power. Yea, amidst the pride and intoxication of this corruptest state of the church, so much sense and modesty seem still to have remained, that this extravagant claim was not universally admitted; for, the learned priest observes, that, in two other pontificals of the same age, this form, receipe the Holy Ghost, &c. was not found.

And is this extravagant pretension, my lords, which the church of Rome, amidst all its pride and wontonness of superstition, from the fifth to the twelfth century, never presumed to make, now openly avowed and adopted by our church? This plant, which sprang up from the most corrupted state which even the papacy ever saw, is not only received into this enlightened, this reformed, this noble part of the Christian vineyard, but is here suffered to take root and to flourish! May God, in his mercy, awaken a spirit of integrity and of fortitude in all whom it may concern, and wipe off from the Christian name the deep scandal and reproach which it unrighteously suffers!

Is there no room, my lords, to apprehend the displeasure of Almighty God at the representing Christianity in so injurious a light? Were the men of Bethshemeth smitten with death for look

his head, then the sacred vestment given with a solemn benediction, then the sacred vessels, the patten with the hosties, and the chalice with the wine, are given with these words, receive thou power to offer sacrifice, &c.—Then the bishop makes a cross in his hands with oil and chrism,---then lays his hand on the priest's, and says, receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins, &c.