against the repeated efforts of Popery to assimilaté her own tenets or drawing any invidious comparisons between them and those of the Reformed Church; a Church which, to say the very least of it, holds the doctrine of auricular confession as decidedly hostile to Scripture, and most subversive of morality. Christ, undoubtedly, used the expressions quoted from John and Matthew-expressions in themselves clear and explicit; and which, we think, none but men who deemed their temporal interests of more importance than their spiritual welfare could have misinterpreted; but we do not see quite so clearly as the Pope and Dr. Challoner, that by these words the most distant allusion is made to a Pope; and, it so happened, that there was not a Christian at Rome at the time Christ spoke them. The Scriptures do not tell us that either of the Apostles was a Bishop of Rome, nor that Peter was ever there, as was Paul; but assuming that he had been there, and that he had appointed a successor, &c. &c., by the same rule that the Pope claims a right of granting or selling pardons, every Christian may, in the name of Christ, (Mark xvi. v. 18.) "take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." These expressions were used by our Saviour at the same time as those above:-Yet who, save Prince Hohenlohe alone, has appeared publicly to the world, as a miracleworker in the present age, and even his Highness has evinced a most judicious shrewdness in chiefly confining his operations to the nervous ladies within the walls of some cloister, who, we apprehend, very naturally exerted themselves, in aid of the pious endeavours of the Prince, to effect their own recovery ? No Christian can doubt the miraculous powers conferred upon the Apostles, nor of their power of conferring them upon others:-Yet, who but ignorant or bigoted Papists, if we may assume there are such, believe that this power still 90 exists? And is it for erring mortals, such as we are, to inquire when the Almighty thought fit no longer to place such power in the creatures of his hand? We have already said, when the Reformation took place no alterations were made for the sake of novelty. In the year 1548, our most learned Bishops reduced the principles and forms of the Protestant religion as nearly as possible to the primitive standard of the first and purest ages of Christianity; and to which end they carefully inspected the Missals, Breviaries, Rituals, Pontificals, Graduals, Psalters, Antiphonals, and all other service books, then in use*. The criticism of envious malignity cannot impugn our Liturgy; and why are we to be told by Popery that by the Rubric alluded to we acquiesce in her The Protestant doctrines, which we decidedly reject? clergyman does not seek to obtain a confession of a sick penitent as a necessary means of his (the penitent's) salvation; on the contrary, he tells the sinner truly to repent, and implore the pardon of his God, who can alone judge of his sincerity. But if "any weighty matter" still hang upon his conscience-some guilty secret perhaps, by the disclosure of which the minister may prevent crime, or render some act of justice, &c.-should not such a secret be divulged? A Protestant minister is not bound to conceal confessions of intended murder, treason, &c. &c., so communicated by a dying penitent; and although the Protestant clergyman, by virtue of the promise of Christ to his Church, absolves the sinner if he truly repent, yet he does not assume a power which Christ did not leave to it :-he does not say, however contrite a heart may be offered up to Almighty God, it shall not be accepted by DIVINE MERCY, unless he himself be applied to, and first pass his own opinion of what portion of worldly annoyance he may think proper to inflict See Downes' Appendix to the Lives of the Compilers of the Liturgy, p. 150, ut supra; London, 1722. in the way of penance. The Protestant clergyman does not affect a power of sending souls to heaven or hell, as they may purchase his indulgence, or deny his authority; in short, let any Popish priest who would insinuate to his followers that the Protestant minister teaches such doctrines as we have denied, make the statement plainly, and he will ⚫ soon be called upon for his proofs. We deny that Christ ever made Popery a judge in "the court of conscience," and defy her to prove that there is the least allusion to her future existence made by Christ or his Apostles, throughout the whole of the Scriptures, otherwise than as the "Antichrist" of the Revelations, if she choose so to apply it to herself. The Court of Inquisition is the court wherein the most clear explanations are given of the power of "binding and loosing," as it has been exerted by Popery. Why has not Pius IV. shown us his scriptural authorities for these establishments? He was himself their patron and supporter; and his piety in publishing his Bull against those, who, in the most disgusting and horrible manner, abused the "sacramental confession," might have been more eloquently expatiated upon by his admirers, had he not, after creating irremedial misery in hundreds of families, with the most condescending love for the "pastors of his Church" condemned their vices-to repose in eternal oblivion. Pope Pius IV. could have told us by what means "Those who solicit women, or boys, to dishonourable actions in the sacramental confession are subject to this tribunal (the Inquisition.) Pope Pius IV. published a bull against them; and when the bull was first brought into Spain, all persons were commanded by a public edict, solemnly published throughout the archbishopric of Seville, that whosoever knew or had heard of any monks or clergymen who had abused the sacrament of confession to these crimes, or had in any manner acted in this vile manner at confession with their wives or daughters, they should discover them within thirty days to the Holy Tribunal; and very grievous censures were annexed to such as should neglect or contemn it. When the decree was published, so large a number of women went to the palace of the Inquisitors in the city of Seville only, to make their discoveries of these most wicked confessors, that twenty Secretaries, with as many Inquisitors, were not sufficient to take the depositions of the witnesses! The lords Inquisitors being thus overwhelmed with the multitude of affairs, assigned another thirty days for the witnesses; and when this was not suffi cient they were forced to appoint the same number a third and a fourth time! For, as to women of reputation, and others of higher condition, every time was not pro his agents obtained more than even "a full knowledge of the cause they sought to elucidate; and that when the disgrace of his Church became too public to pass without some public notice of it, the policy of the sacrifices made, was to torture the culprit by the most savage acts of barbarism; but these sort of criminals were never openly punished, unless their own indifference to the publicity of their enormities obliged their superiors to take notice of themt. But let us suppose that, at the present time, in a Roman Catholic country subject to the British Government, a Popish divine to be "overtaken" (such is the term we have heard applied to the case in question) with the spirit' (of whisky), and on whose head the bump of amativeness is conspicuously prominent-(we have known several such)— let us, we say or rather let our readers, but imagine the dreadful consequences of this man's judgment as to the sins of his fair penitents-we will speak of the instructions to young priests, presently. Many English people are accustomed to visit Rome; and such may judge of the correctness of the account given of the Roman dames by the Cavalier de per for them to apply to the Inquisitors. On the one hand, their couscience forced them to a discovery through a superstitious fear of the censures and excommunication; and, on the other hand, their regard to their husbands whom they were afraid to offend, by giving them very ill suspicion of their chastity, kept them at home; and therefore veiling their faces after the Spanish custom, they went to the lords Inquisitors, when, and as privately as, they could. Very few, however, with all their prudence and craft, could escape the diligent observation of their husbands at the time of discovery, and hereby possessed their minds with the deepest jealousy. However, after so many had been informed against before the Inquisitors, that Holy Tribunal, contrary to all men's expectations, put a stop to the affair, and commanded all those crimes, which were proved by legal evidence, to be buried in eternal oblivion." Dr. Chandler's Hist. of Pers., p. 190. *See Proceedings of the Trib. of the Inquis., where innocent persons are persuaded to acknowledge themselves guilty under a promise of pardon, and whose confessions thus extorted, are made the pretext for condemning them to the torture. +"The Venetians ordered one of them (the confessors) to be burned alive, by command of the Pope. He had been father confessor to some nuns in the dominions of Venice, and had got twelve of them with child; amongst whom the abbess and two others had children in one year. As he was confessing them, he agreed with them about the place, manner, and time of lying with them. All were filled with admiration and astonishment, taking the man for a perfect saint, he had so great a show of sanctity in his very face."-Epist. ad Belgas, Cent. I. Ep. 66. p. 345, and Ep. 63. p. 316,-Referred to by Dr. Chandler, Hist. of Pers., p. 191.* < Angelis, who says, (European Review, No. 6. 1826) “A blind superstition retains the lower class in an absolute dependence on the clergy, who have, unfortunately, but too much interest in relaxing its morals. It is impossible for 600,000 men devoted to celibacy to insinuate themselves into the privacy of families without causing in them confusion and scandal."-After describing the immorality of the female part of the community of Italy, he says, "We are authorized to load them (the priests) with this reproach, when we see that where they have no power the people are much better brought up; and this difference cannot be ascribed to any other cause, since Rome and Naples, where there is the least morality, are not in a more deplorable political situation than Lombardy and Tuscany.". And so much for the morality of the Pope's judges in his "court of conscience," whose judgments, according to the Cavalier, must be, among their fair penitents, most unconscionable. It is next said, (Matt. xvi. 19,) "Nor would our Lord have given to his Church the power of retaining sins, much less the keys of the kingdom of heaven, if such sins as exclude men from the kingdom of heaven might be remitted independently of the keys of the Church." Now, that such enormous crimes "as exclude men from the kingdom of heaven" can be put away by every, or by any, "miserable sinner," ordained by a Popish Bishop, who, having, for the most part, lived many years longer in a sinful world, is, in all probability, a still greater sinner himself than the sinner he ordains-that such an absurdity should have ever held an influence over any but the most puerile of minds would appear astonishing, were not the Scriptures denied to those who have been thus taught to believe; and, on the other hand, deeply-instilled prejudices cherished by the learned. The chapter of Matthew, referred to above, we have already noticed, (page 36,) wherein Peter is reproved: these few lines, upon which the whole super |