Christ. It is not to this transaction we are to look in order to discover him performing the peculiar functions of the Priest's office. Like all the patriarchs-such, for instance, as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c.-he offered bloody sacrifices, which the heads of families and tribes were accustomed to do before the appointment of the Aaronic Priesthood. Melchizedek, then, was strictly a Priest-"a Priest on his throne;" and as such a most eminent type of Immanuel.

You will also, perhaps, attempt to set aside my argument by simply denying the fact on which I build it. You will assert that the ministers of the Gospel are frequently styled Priests, and appeal to the Rhemish Testament for proof. If so, I must repeat again the assertion, that the proper Greek word for Priest (pɛuç) is never applied to a Christian minister; although I am aware that the English translation of it is found several times in that Testament; but in these cases it is employed as the rendering of "elder" (πρEOCUTEρоs). The Greek word just men(πρεσβύτερος). tioned occurs sixty-five times in the New Testament, and is for the most part translated " ancient" in your Bible; while in six places of its occurrence, they call it "Priest." These places are the following:-Acts xiv. 23 and xv. 2; 1 Tim. v. 17. 19; Titus i. 5; James v. 14.

NO PRIEST BUT CHRIST.

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I do not know whether you are aware of the fact, that the English versions of the Bible in your Church have been made not from the Greek and Hebrew originals, but from the Vulgate; and are thus the translations of a translation. But it is curious to remark that the translators

have often departed from their copy, and especially in the six places above referred to. To justify the translation of the Rhemish Testament, the Latin word sacerdos (the proper rendering of puv), a Priest, should have been found in all the passages above mentioned. But it does not occur in any of them. I could not discover a single passage (and I believe nobody can do it) in your standard Latin Bible in which sacerdos, a Priest, is applied to a New Testament minister. Not one! It gives "presbyterus" and "senior" for the Greek πρeoCurepos, elder; but restricts sacerdos to its proper signification, a sacrificing Priest, never applying it to any of the ambassadors or ministers of Christ under the present 'Dispensation. It does, however, apply it to Jesus Christ, who is our great and only Priest. Again I repeat the assertion, and I challenge all the scholars in Ireland to contradict it, that there is under the Christian Economy, NO PRIEST BUT JESUS CHRIST!

If you ask me, why the Rhemish translators

did not keep to their copy in these particulars, I am afraid the true answer cannot be given without impeaching the motives of these reverend gentlemen. They wished to stand by their order. They professed to offer daily a true, proper, and expiatory sacrifice; and, therefore, they must be, in the strict sense, Priests; but as the word was not found connected with the ministerial office in the Sacred Record, not even in their own version of it-a version of which a canonised saint was the author, which a general Council sanctioned, and of which two successive Popes were the editors-they were determined to insert it at all hazards! But surely these guides might have been safely followed. Why, then, were they not followed? There was,

seems, a reason.

it

The Jesuits of Bourdeaux published a French New Testament in 1686, full of gross interpolations. For instance: Acts xiii. 2, "Now as they offered unto the Lord the sacrifice of the Mass."

When Monsieur Vernon was asked why he had thus wrested the passage from its proper meaning, he replied, "Because I have been often asked by the Calvinists what Scripture affirmed that the Apostles said Mass."

If texts are to be coined in this manner, no

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EFFECTS OF DISCUSSION.

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man can be at a loss for Scriptural arguments! It is distressing to remark that the grave and reverend Fathers of the Council of Trent were actuated by similar considerations in compiling their canons. It was not so much a question

what God had taught, and the primitive church believed, as what would most pointedly condemn the doctrines of Luther. Yet it is to this " pressure from without," my dear Friend, that you are indebted for a Roman Catholic Bible in English

a fact confessed by the Rhemish translators themselves. Innumerable and most important are the advantages that have thus indirectly resulted from religious discussion. Truth must be a gainer by free inquiry; but popular ignorance is like the Dead Sea-a curse broods over it, and its pestiferous exhalations diffuse a moral desolalation around.

It appears evidently, then, that there is nothing in Scripture to countenance the Mass. Our blessed Lord offered no expiatory sacrifice at the Last Supper. There cannot be remission of sins without the shedding of blood; and, therefore, the Mass cannot be an atoning sacrifice. Jesus was offered but once. Were he still to be offered according to your creed, then must he still, according to St. Paul, be subject to suffering; the idea of offering or immolation apart

from suffering, being a palpable absurdity. It has also been demonstrated, even on the authority of the Latin Vulgate, that there is no Priest: under the New Testament but JESUS CHRIST.

"Now, of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: we have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens."-" For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."- Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, JESUS, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession."

The question of the Priesthood is discussed at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews; see particularly chapters 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10. In the whole of the Apostle's reasoning on this subject, there is not a hint about the supreme pontiff at Rome, or about the inferior tribes of the sacerdotal order.

Closely connected with the Priesthood is the question of Atonement, or the ground of the sinner's justification before God, and to this your attention will be directed in my next letter.