la révérence et avec la crainte DUE AU corps du Roi. Trevern's Discuss. Anuc. vol. i. p. 407.

On this passage, thus expressed, Mr. Husenbeth, while he reviles me with all his might, as a dishonest shuffler and a wretched glosser and a captious fury and a suppresser of truth and an insinuater of falsehood, simply because I cannot, like himself, discover in the old Liturgies what verily is no where to be found in them, comments in form and manner following.

Observe the words, APPROACH TO IT. To what? Evidently the sacramental species. Therefore the sacramental species were to be adored with the fear and reverence DUE TO the body of the King of heaven and earth. Husenbeth's Reply to Supplem. p. 273.

Mr. Husenbeth's ill-advised commentary invites our attention to yet another specimen of Dr. Trevern's inveterate habit of interpolation.

The words, DUE TO, through the medium of which an enjoined fear and reverence, evidently meant to be exhibited as an act of religious adoration, are grammatically referred to the body of the King, occur no where in the original: they are purely the gratuitous addition of the Bishop of Strasbourg; an addition, moreover, which disturbs and dislocates the construction of the entire sentence.

Here, then, I apprehend, we have a critical case of surpassing curiosity.

First, a Latin Bishop, deliberately and advisedly, both in French and in English, in two different Works written at two different times, interpolates the words DUE TO, and completely distorts the construction of a whole sentence and, next, a Latin Priest, with equal deliberateness and advisedness, brings forward, in professed evidence to an alleged fact, not the genuine words of the old Liturgy in their true construction, but the spurious

words of his superior's interpolation in an utterly false construction of the original passage.

Really, there seems to be no end of the strange liberties, which the sacerdotal gentlemen of Rome apparently deem themselves privileged to take with the ancient ecclesiastical writings. The Greek of the Liturgy says not a single syllable about the fear and reverence DUE TO the body of the King: nor does it give the slightest hint of any adoration being paid to the consecrated elements. It mentions, indeed, modesty and caution: but these terms, under the aspect of words indicating adoration (as Dr. Trevern and Mr. Husenbeth, mistranslating the original, would, for their own purposes, have us understand them), it refers not grammatically to the body of the King. On the contrary, it simply inculcates a modest and cautious reception of Christ's body and blood by each communicant: who himself, after the use of silent mental prayer, is charged, in his regular course of succession, to approach as to the body of the King almighty and eternal.

For the entire satisfaction of the honest enquirer, I subjoin the original of the passage, whence our two painful divines have learned, as they assure us on the word of a Bishop and a Priest, such very extraordinary particulars.

Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα γινέσθω ἡ θυσία, ἑστῶτος παντὸς τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ προσευχομένου ἡσύχως· καὶ, ὅταν ἀνενεχθῇ, μεταλαμβανέτω ἑκάστη τάξις καθ' ἑαυτὴν τοῦ κυριακοῦ σώματος καὶ τοῦ τιμίου αἵματος, ἐν τάξει, μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ εὐλαβείας, ὡς βασιλέως προσερχόμενοι σώματι. Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 57.

But, after these things, let the sacrifice be performed, the whole people standing and praying silently: and, when it shall have been offered, let each company by itself partake of the Lord's body and honourable blood,

company by company, with modesty and caution, approaching as to the body of the King.

Such is a sample of the method, by which, from the old Liturgies, Dr. Trevern and Mr. Husenbeth would demonstrate, to the hoped for entire satisfaction of the English Laity, the primitive adoration of the consecrated elements.

IV. For this disgraceful exposure, the Bishop of Strasbourg has no one to thank save himself. In the first instance, I might so far comply with Mr. Massingberd's wishes, as to remain politely silent, when I could not honestly commend. But, when my unexampled and (I fear I must confess) even culpable taciturnity produced no better return than the insolent exultation of a fancied triumph over supposed conscious weakness: no person can fairly expect, that, through a romantic and (as I now perceive) altogether fruitless wish to conciliate, I should any longer preserve my originally merciful and somewhat chivalrous silence. Truly, I have small pleasure in the distasteful task of publicly exhibiting the dishonesty of an uncandid and unscrupulous antagonist: but, by the extraordinary folly of Dr Trevern, freedom of choice has not been left to me. He has recklessly courted exposure and he has now abundantly received it.

NUMBER II.

AURICULAR CONFESSION.

AURICULAR Confession to a Priest, the Church of England allows, and in some cases recommends: the Church of Rome not only allows and recommends it; but also,

M m

as a matter of strict religious obligation, imposes and enforces it.

I. Such being the case, it is the business of Dr. Trevern to shew, not merely The primitive EXISTENCE of sacerdotal auricular Confession, but also The primitive ENFORCEMENT of a periodical auricular Confession, through the medium of which, every mortal sin, even though by reason of its having been secretly committed occasioning no public scandal, and even though committed solely against what we Protestants arrange as the tenth commandment of the Decalogue, is required to be fully stated to a Priest, under the aspect of imperative religious obligation, and with the associated doctrine that any voluntary concealment is nothing less than absolute sacrilege. See Concil. Trident. sess. xiv. c. 5. can. i.-xv. and Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 139.

Accordingly, in his zeal to convict the Anglican Church of error, the Bishop of Strasbourg undertakes to perform this arduous task, partly from Scripture, and partly from the evidence of Primitive Antiquity. Discuss. Amic. Lettr. xi. vol. ii. p. 138-203.

1. To discover in Scripture any explicit command either of Christ or of his Apostles, that we should periodically make to a Priest a distinct and particular confession of all our remembered mortal sins under the pain of incurring the guilt of sacrilege by deliberate and voluntary concealment, was obviously a matter altogether impossible. The Bishop, therefore, does not attempt it. Yet, what cannot be proved explicitly, may, he thinks, be proved inductively.

The power of the keys, or the right of absolution and retention, he argues, has been given by Christ to his Apostles and their lawfully constituted successors. But this power cannot be effectively exercised, without Auricular Confession as practised in the Church of Rome:

because, unless the Priest be made intimately acquainted with the misdeeds of his penitent, he cannot know the actual internal disposition of his soul; and, unless he knows the actual internal disposition of his soul, he cannot tell whether he be a fit subject to receive absolution. Therefore, by a necessary consequence from Holy Scripture, periodical Auricular Confession of our sins to a Priest is imposed upon us as a duty of strict religious obligation.

(1.) With respect to this syllogism, I might well observe, that the doctrine of absolution by a Priest, as now taught in the Latin Church, agrees but very ill with the doctrine maintained by Antiquity.

Nemo se fallat, says the venerable Cyprian even in the middle of the third century; nemo se decipiat. Solus Dominus misereri potest. Veniam peccatis, quæ in ipsum commissa sunt, solus potest ille largiri, qui peccata nostra portavit, qui pro nobis doluit, quem Deus tradidit pro peccatis nostris. Homo Deo esse non potest major: nec remittere aut donare indulgentia sua servus potest, quod in Dominum delicto graviore commissum est: ne adhuc lapso et hoc accedat ad crimen, si nesciat esse prædictum; Maledictus homo, qui spem habet in homine. Dominus orandus est, Dominus nostra satisfactione placandus est; qui negantem negare se dixit, qui omne judicium de Patre solus accepit. Cyprian. de Laps. Oper. vol. i. p. 129.

(2.) Let this, however pass: and, purely for the sake of argument, conceding the propriety of the roman doctrine of positive absolution, rather than enforcing the more seemly doctrine of conditionally declarative absolution, on the part of the Priesthood; let us, even thus, see, how Dr. Trevern's syllogism will support itself.

Now his syllogism undeniably rests altogether upon the position: that A Priest can form no accurate judg