CHAPTER III.

Priestly Power and the Papal Supremacy opposed to the Priesthood and Divine Prerogatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.

STATEMENTS AND DECLARATIONS-Continued.

"It is shown with sufficient evidence, that the Pope (who, it is clear, was called God by the pious prince Constantine) cannot be bound or loosed by the secular power; and it is manifest that God cannot be judged by Man."-Canon Laws, Decret, Prima Pars., Dist. xcvi., cap. vii.

"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."-Mat. xxviii. 18.

"Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."-1 Cor. iii. 21-23. The Church of Rome does not openly contradict the above Scriptures, but she effectually supersedes them; she does not formally deny the priesthood and divine prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ, but she practically dispenses with them.

The supremacy of the Pope is assumed by every priest as asserted in the standards of the Church, and exercised over the people, especially in the Confessional. It appears from the first of the above quotations, that every priest is declared to be the vicegerent of God, and possessed of full authority to forgive sins. The Papal supremacy is the fruit of this priestly power, especially in the church that assumes to be unerring. The Romish Church claims the necessity of an external church unity. And when shall this representation be found but in the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the system? For the power arrogated by the Pope is not different in kind or higher in degree than that claimed by every priest, but only larger in extent. The priest in the Confessional exercises unlimited sway over the entire inner man of each of his victims, by seizing on the reins of the soul-its religious hopes and fears; and having thus gained the power to arrange their eternal affairs, finds no difficulty in managing their temporal concerns. Many an obscure priest thus succeeds in governing his parish with that absolute control with which the Pope aims at ruling in the church and the world. Infallibility finds its practical locality in every priest, and may be correctly described, a "sovereign of souls."

He who believes that sovereignty over the soul does not bring

with it sovereignty over the body and estate may be left to his simplicity. And every inferior priest is subject to the High Priest in the Vatican by a code of rules stricter than the strictest martial law. It follows that wherever Popery has room for development the Pope stands forth the supreme sovereign of the souls of men, and as the result of this supreme sovereign of their persons, of their property, and of their domestic and civil privileges.

THE POWER OF THE PRIEST.

The chief and only direct argument adduced in support of the assumed power of the Romish priest is founded on these words. of Scripture, "Whatever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven," Mat. xviii. 18. We dwell not on the preliminary and weighty objection, that the position to be proved, namely, that a mere man, even though he were the holiest and the best, possesses and exercises adelegated but absolute authority to forgive sins, involves sheer impiety, which cannot be proved, and needs no refutation. The inferences that Romanists draw from the above text cannot be allowed unless each of the following assertions be true: that the priests of the Papacy are their representatives, are in this passage addressed by our Lord; that the authority conferred upon the persons addressed is the plenary authority of God, who can alone pardon the guilty; and that the word rendered "whatsoever" refers to persons and not to things. Those three assertions seem to us to resemble so many impassible chasms, across any one of which the thread of human learning cannot stretch, nor the vigour of human genius bound. But across every one of them each Popish priest fearlessly leaps in his haste to the Confessional, spurning the restraints of literature, and straining until he destroys the integrity of his own understanding. As to the question, who the persons were whom our Lord addressed, it seems most reasonable to suppose they were the Twelve, and they alone, for they have had no successors in the Apostolic office. The power which, by these words, they received from our Lord was a commission to lay the foundations of the Christian Church; the expression, "to bind and to loose," being commonly used by the Jews as equivalent to these-to forbid and to allow. The meaning of the text is this: Whatever things the Apostles, under the inspiration of God, ordained

during their lifetime, or committed to writing for the use of posterity, are to be held obligatory on earth because they are held valid in heaven.

The authority, assumed by every father confessor, to forgive sins, is retained by the Almighty as his own incommunicable right. When our Lord said to the sick of the palsy, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee"-(Mat. ix. 2)—the Scribes said within themselves, "This man blasphemeth." Our Lord seems to allow this supposition valid if he had been a mere man : he immediately proceeds to correct their misconception, and vindicates the propriety of the language he had used by performing a miracle in his own name, thus demonstrating his possession of divine authority. The form of absolution used by every Romish priest is not "May God absolve thee!" or "May Christ absolve thee!" but "I absolve thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Of every individual, therefore, who uses these words within the vail of the Confessional, and fails to prove his right to use them by a miracle, not feigned but real, it may truly and sadly be said, "This man blasphemeth."

Every priestly confessor is an intruder between Christ and the sinner-an usurper of the seat of "our great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God." Christ is called a "great" high priest, not because he is the first among many, but because he has superseded the typical priesthood of the house of Aaron, and "is supreme in dignity and every excellence, singular, sole, and unrivalled, having no equal, or partner, or successor in office."(See Heb. vii. 24.) The priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect, real, and not symbolical (Heb. viii. 6), because it is possessed of all moral excellence (Heb. vii. 26), and because it is fully suited to secure the end for which it was ordained-the salvation of guilty men (Heb. iv. 15; v. 9; vii. 25, 28; viii. 6; ix. 14, 28; x. 9, 14). The priesthoodof heathenism is an ignorant and delusive substitute for the faultless priesthood of God's incarnate Son; while the priesthood of Rome occupies the ground of bold, continual, and uncompromising opposition. Our great High Priest having offered the sacrifice of himself, passed into the heavens (or, rather, through the heavens).

With an expiation and propitiation, not symbolical, but of infinite value in the eyes of the Holy One, Christ passed through all the visible glories of Creation, and took his seat at “the right hand of the Majesty on high." Seated on "the throne of grace," he invites our reverential, yet bold approach, and promises to bestow, not mediately, through the hands of others, but directly, to every suppliant the largest blessings.

His unceasing intercessions in the presence of Jehovah obviously implies "the continual presentation of his obedience and sacrifice as ever valid and efficacious for pardon and acceptance, the perfect holiness and eternal blessedness of all who are truly penitent, believing, and obedient."

In the "Garden of the Soul," an authority of the Church of Rome, are found the following directions for Confession :"Kneeling down at the side of your ghostly father, make the sign of the Cross, saying, 'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Virgin Mary, to the blessed Michal, the Archangel, to the blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you, father, that I have sinned exceedingly, in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grevious fault. After Confession, the penitent is directed to say, 'For these and all other of my sins, which I cannot, at this present, call to my remembrance, I am heartily sorry, propose amendment for the future, and most humbly ask pardon of God, and penance and absolution of you, my ghostly father.""*

Holy Scripture teaches the penitent a better way. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Christ” (Heb. x. 19), that is, we have direct access into the immediate presence of our God, without any medium but faith in Jesus' blood. "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.”—Psa. cxlv. 18. "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."1 Tim. ii. 5. Seated on His glorious throne, He has a present, perfect, and an unending sympathy with all His believing people,

*The Garden of the Soul, p. 190; Derby: Thomas Richardson.