member of that kingdom. Is not this to "strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel ?"

PAGE 265, CHAPTER 8.

This is a remarkable chapter. The repeated expressions of reference to our blessed Lord, "in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction when we perform worthy fruits of repentance, which from them have power, by Him are offered to the Father, and through Him are accepted of the Father," plainly show how keenly alive the Tridentine Fathers were to the danger of men considering their own penances as irrespective of our Lord's death and mediation, against which error they thus endeavour to guard. But the other error of making God, or God's ministers in His behalf, through vengeance of past sins, and not merely for the correction of the offence, insist upon penal satisfactions from those who, with true repentance, and with faith in Christ, have forsaken their sins, as though the vicarial punishment inflicted upon the Son of God were not sufficient to satisfy the divine vengeance, is left, and must needs be left, untouched. But how great injury this does to the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice of our Lord, and how great injury also to the character of our heavenly Father, there need no arguments to prove. The passages cited by the publishers of the

Tridentine decrees, Genesis iii. 2 Sam. xii. Numbers xii. and xx. being all taken from the old dispensation, cannot be pressed, because the analogy of God's dealings before and after the sufferings of our Lord, will not altogether hold: besides, they all relate to cases of open sin, in which, for the edification of others, temporal punishment was inflicted, from which no argument whatever can be adduced in behalf of vindictive penalties for secret sins, which have been repented of, confessed, and forsaken, with faith in Christ. It would seem from the expressions in line 8, p. 267, compared with line 7, p. 269, that they consider the practice of the virtues most opposed to the sins committed, among the vindictive penalties for sin. A strange and most unhappy light in which

to regard what the Scriptures would have us consider our highest privileges and our choicest happiness. That the practice of the Church of Rome is in accordance with this is placed beyond all doubt, when it is known that the repeating a certain number of prayers is often enjoined as a penance or punishment for sin.

OF EXTREME UNCTION.

PAGE 272, CHAPTER 1.

Here it is said that the institution of extreme unction by our Lord is implied by Mark vi. 13, where it is said of the Apostles, that "they anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." But, by-and-bye, Session 22, ch. 1, we are told that the Christian priesthood was not instituted until our Lord's last supper. Either then, extreme unction is no sacrament, or they who are no priests can administer a sacrament; for the Apostles were not priests, according to the Church of Rome, at the time spoken of by St. Mark. But further, a sacrament is a visible form of invisible grace; but the passage in St. Mark speaks only of healing the body; and therefore Cajetan, as cited by Catharinus, rejects this text as inapplicable to this sacrament; and Suarez (in Part. iii. disp. 39. sect. 1. n. 5), says, that when the Apostles are said to anoint the sick and heal them, (Mark vi. 13) this was not said in reference to the sacrament of unction, because their cures had not of themselves an immediate respect to the soul." Nor will this pretended sacrament derive more assistance from the passage in St. James, in which they say that the institution by our Lord is proclaimed and declared by that Apostle, at least, if Cardinal Cajetan is any authority, who is thus cited by Catharinus in his Annotationes, Paris, 1535, p. 191. de Sacramento Unctionis Extremæ. "Sed et quod scribit B. Jacobus, 'Infirmatur quis in vobis?' &c. pariter negat reverendissimus ad hoc sacramentum pertinere, ita scribens, nec ex verbis, nec ex effectu, verba hæc loquuntur de sacramentali unctione extremæ unctionis, sed magis de unctione quam instituit Dominus

Jesus exercendum in ægrotis. Textus enim non dicit, Infirmatur quis ad mortem? sed absolute, Infirmatur quis?" &c. But that this rite, which they now call a sacrament, was originally applied chiefly to the healing of the body, is manifest from the prayers which accompanied it. "Cura quæsumus, Redemptor noster, gratia Spiritus Sancti languores istius infirmi," and so the directions, "in loco ubi plus dolor imminet, amplius perungatur." Let the patient have most oil applied in the part where the pain is greatest. (Sacr. Gregor. by Menard, Paris, 1542, p. 252.) From all which we come to the conclusion that the allegations of the Council of Trent on this matter must be pronounced "not proven." Which, if it were a mere opinion, would be of no great consequence. But when their assertion is supported by anathema, and every communicant in their Church bound to believe it as necessary to salvation, it serves to show the cruelty of this Roman mother both to her own children, and to them whom she reckons strangers. It is in vain that the Roman writers attempt to strengthen their cause by appeals to the Greek mysteries. The Greek mysteries and the Latin sacraments are not synonymous. And as concerns this of unction, which, (as its epithet "extreme," which the Romans have added, implies) is designed for persons in articulo mortis, or in exitu vitæ, as we have it in the third chapter; this derives as little countenance from the Greek Church as it does from St. James. For in the Greek Church, the service of anointing is used to persons in any illness; and is used by them solely for recovery from sickness, as the following prayer at the application of the oil, clearly shows. "O holy Father, the physician of our souls and bodies, who didst send thine only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, to heal all diseases, and to deliver us from death, heal this thy servant M. from the bodily infirmity under which he now labours, and raise him up by the grace of Christ." King's Greek Church. London, 1772, p. 321. It will be found also in Goar, Rituale Græc. Paris, 1647, p. 417. As to the expediency, or otherwise, of retaining the rite in the visitation of the sick, this is nothing to the present purpose. Let it

be as expedient as it may, which I am not denying, this in nowise proves it to be a sacrament. To this two things are wanting: 1. The grace, 2. the institution by Christ. On the former point we have spoken: as to the latter, when we find Bishop Doyle in answer to the question, "When did Christ institute it?" obliged to answer, "The time is uncertain; some think it was instituted at his last supper; other that it was done betwixt his resurrection and ascension," (either of which expositions is at variance with the Trent reference to Mark vi.) we may well leave the matter without further comment.

CANONS ON THE SACRAMENT OF REPENTANCE.

PAGE 279, CANON 3.

The Church of Rome here denounces anathema upon all who shall interpret John xx. 22, otherwise than of the sacrament of repentance. But Cyprian in his Epistle to Jubajanus concerning the invalidity of heretical baptism, expounds the text of baptism, for after citing it, he adds, "Unde intelligimus non nisi in Ecclesia præpositis, et in Evangelica lege ac dominica ordinatione fundatis, licere baptizare, et remissam peccatorum dare." Wirceburg, 1782, vol. i. p. 235.

PAGE 279, CANON 4.

Here we find, that although, as was seen above, chapter 4, contrition with the wish for this sacrament, will avail for reconciliation without the rite itself; contrition with the rite, will not avail, unless it be followed with satisfaction, i. e. acts of penitential punishment. Ambrose's observation is apt here: "Lacrymas Petri lego, non lego satisfactionem," in Luc. xxii. 63. For this would-be sacrament has this peculiarity, that its grace does not accompany it, but depends upon something to be done afterwards by the penitent, who is thus made his own administrator. For he who applies the grace of a sacrament to a man, which is here said to be withheld till the works of penance are performed, must needs be the minister of the sacrament.

PAGE 281, CANON 6.

Here sacramental confession is affirmed to be of divine institution, and auricular confession likewise, and he is accursed who shall deny it. This is bravely said; yet the Fathers might have recollected that in the Latin Church as late as 813, it was matter of dispute whether there was need to confess to a priest at all, as appears from the thirty-third canon of the Council of Cabaillon, which is as follows: "Quidam Deo solummodo confiteri debere dicunt peccata, quidam vero sacerdotibus confitenda esse percensent: quod utrumque non sine magno fructu intra sanctam fit Ecclesiam. Ita dumtaxat ut et Deo, qui remissor est peccatorum, confiteamur peccata nostra, et cum David dicamus, Delictum meum cognitum tibi feci, &c. et secundum institutionem Apostoli, confiteamur alterutrum peccata nostra, et oremus pro invicem ut salvemur. Confessio itaque quæ Deo fit, purgat peccata, ea vero quæ sacerdoti fit, docet qualiter ipsa purgentur peccata," &c.-Conc. vii. 1279. Was Leo the Third asleep, that he could suffer such heresy to be broached and not denounced? But all the world knows, that till 1215, no decree of Pope or council can be adduced enjoining the necessary observance of such a custom. Then at the Council of Lateran, Innocent III. commanded it. As the Latin Church affords no sanction to the assertion of the Tridentine Fathers, so is it in vain to look for it among the Greeks, for there, as Socrates, Hist. Eccles. v. 19, and Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. vii. 16, inform us, the whole confessional was abolished by Nectarius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, in the 4th century, by reason of an indecency which was committed on a female penitent, when pursuing her penance; which, sure, he would not have ventured to have done had he deemed it a divine institution. Sozomen, in his account of the confessional, says, that the public confession in the presence of all the people, which formerly obtained, having been found grievous poprikov ç tikos, a well-bred, silent, and prudent presbyter was set in charge of it; thus plainly denoting the change from public to auricular confessions. It was this

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