Jesus is the Christ, which thou hast firmly professed, will I build my church.

"Even Pope Gregory I. adopts this interpretation: Continue in the true faith, and firmly fix your life on the rock of the church, that is, on the confession of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles.' And this sense, says Dr. Isaac Barrow, was embraced by the Popes, Felix III. in the 5th century, and Nicolas I. and John VIII. in the 9th." p. 12.

The infallibility of the Romish church is disproved by her internal contentions and contradictory decisions.

"Popes and councils have often disagreed with each other and with themselves, altering and rescinding their decrees and decisions. During what Roman Catholics themselves call the great schism, there were two, and at one time three, rival popes, cursing and excommunicating each other and their respective adherents, each claiming infallibility, and filling Europe with the misery of their contentions. On many points of doctrine and practice, most violent dissensions have raged in the Church of Rome; and have been accompanied with no small measure of persecution. Obvious examples occur in the intestine feuds of the Franciscans, in the disputes of that order with the Dominicans, in the quarrels of the scholastic parties, and in the celebrated controversy in the seventeenth century between the Jesuits and the Jansenists on predestination and grace. In these disputes, different popes have taken opposite sides, and the same pope has changed his side." p. 16, 17.

"We deny the lawfulness of the office of Pope itself;" for Christ declares all his ministers to be brethren, and requires them to acknowledge no one for their Master, or universal Bishop, but himself. He is always with his church himself, and has appointed no Vicar, no person to appear on earth in his office. Dr. Smith proves the unlawfulness of Popery from the infallible church herself; for her mouth and Head, Pope Gregory the first, and "the Great," himself says, (Lib. vi. Epis. 30,) “I confidently affirm, that whosoever calls himself Universal Priest, or desires to be so called, is the forerunner of Antichrist:" and (Lib. iv. Ep. 38.) "What wilt thou answer to Christ, the Head of the universal church, at the scrutiny of the last judgment;-thou, who, by the style

From 1378 to 1417.

of Universal, art endeavouring to subject all his members to thee?" p. 51.

We protest against the Romish religion, because its tenets are calculated "to weaken and destroy the very ESSENTIAL principles of personal religion." The Papacy was as infallible in granting indulgences, and in commissioning Friar John Tetzel to dispose of them by wholesale and retail, as in any thing else. There could be no error, according to the opinion of a sound Catholic, in fixing the prices of sins to be committed with impunity; so that they must consider the Holy God as approving of the "Taxa Cameræ Apostolicæ, (Rate Book of the Apostolical Chamber,) printed at Paris, in 1500; Cologne, 1523; Lyons, 1549; and Venice, 1584. A scale of prices of absolution for parricide and other murders, incest and the most horrid crimes is stated, running on an average at from 2s. to 5s. of English money.”

Mr. Lochman has given an extract from the sale au thorized for the regulation of Tetzel in his nefarious traffick.

"An indulgence for poligamy, 6 ducats; for common murder, 7; for the murder of a father, mother, brother or sister, 11; for witchcraft and sorcery, 2; for perjury, 9; for churchrobbery, 9; for sodomy 12. A ducat is about $2.07."

If our American Catholics confess that there was any thing of error or guilt in all this business, they give up the infallibility of their church.

The Romish Church "denies salvation, in the absence of mere external and ritual observances;" affirms "that the sacraments confer grace (ex opere operato) from the mere performance of their respective acts;""refuses the right of individual examination and private judgment, in the concerns of religion;"—forces celibacy on her clergy, and patronizes it among her nuns;—and still maintains the detestable and accursed Inquisition. One of "the most learned, able, and generally approved champions of the papal religion," has said, "If the Pope should err, and command vices and prohibit virtues, the Church would be bound to believe that vices are good, and virtues wicked; otherwise it would sin against con

science." Bellarmin. de Controv. Fidei, tom. I. p. 315, ed. Colon. 1615.

Again, we protest against the Romish Church, because she "requires belief in absurd, unscriptural, and pernicious DOCTRINES;" such as the following, that sacramental bread and wine are changed into the very body and blood of Christ; that the very same propitiatory sacrifice which was offered on the cross in Judea, is offer ed in every celebration of the Mass; that Christ is not the only one Mediator between God and man, but that we should invoke saints; that we should worship God by pictures and images;

"That the atonement of Jesus Christ was offered with a principal, if not sole, respect to mortal sins; but that the guilt of venial transgressions is washed away by prayers and tears, human satisfactions and mortifying penances, in this life; or by the dreadful torments of purgatory in the world to come. "That the application of the blessings of the atonement, remission of sins, justification, regenerating and sanctifying grace, and final admission to the heavenly state,-is by Jesus Christ committed to the pastors of the church, to be dealt out by them to the faithful according to the rules and methods which this church prescribes." p. 32, 33.

We protest moreover, because "the Roman Catholic Church ENACTS LAWS and ordinances of discipline and worship, by its own avowed authority; and denounces the penalty of everlasting damnation on those who refuse to submit to its paramount demands;" in doing. which it assumes the exclusive prerogatives of Almighty God.

In addition to all this, the Romanists subvert "the importance and utility of the Holy Scriptures;" by teaching that the written word is insufficient, that the unrestrained reading of it by the common people is injurious, and "that the Traditions of the church are of equal authority with the written word."

We might speak of the tyranny and persecutions of the Romish church in the old world; but in America, so far as we know, they have neither practised nor experienced those evils.

Could a reformation take place in this country which would wean our Romish professors from their worship

of images, invocations of the Virgin Mary, and other saints, confidence in ghostly absolutions for sins confessed to the ear of a priest, adherence to idle traditions, idolatrous regard for the Mass, devotion to the Pope, and other errors and absurdities, which we have specified, all America might celebrate a new Jubilee. Before this event takes place, the reformed churches must be more thoroughly reformed. It is one evidence that the Lutherans are in the road to improvement, (on which we congratulate our brethren,) that the German Pastors have, at length, begun to write and print in the English language, for the benefit of the rising generation.

ARTICLE XI.-1. An Essay on the Inability of Sinners. From the Evangelical Guardian and Review, &c. By a Presbyterian. New York, 1818. pp. 24. 8vo.

2. The Plea of Inability considered. Lecture Xth of A Series of Lectures, delivered in Park Street Church, Boston, on Sabbath Evening, by Edward D, Griffin, D. D. &c. Second edition. Boston, 1813.

THE tenth Lecture in the Series by Dr. Griffin, is the hinge upon which almost every peculiarity expressed in the other eleven lectures may be said to hang and turn. Rectify the Doctor's mind upon this subject, and one other, the doctrine of atonement, and he would very soon, from the native energy of his mind, become an ardent and able defender of the thorough system of faith once delivered to the saints.

As a friend of Jesus, he must rejoice in the truth, so far as he has learned it; but could he have clear views of those great truths which seem to his eyes to be covered with thick darkness, he would rejoice more abundantly. He loves metaphysics too, and it is a pity he should not have a more extended acquaintance with mental philosophy. Moreover, let the Bostonians say what they please to the contrary; while we admit that he was not calculated to do much good in Boston, we affirm that there is abundant reason to believe Dr. Griffin a very good man.

We hope, therefore, he will attentively examine the

Essay, by a Presbyterian, which is now before us, and he will find that it is a complete refutation of his own false theory, about the natural ability of unrenewed sin. ners to convert themselves, and keep all the divine commandments in a blameless manner. The Essayist names not, indeed, Dr. Griffin, but he quotes the very language of this tenth Lecture, repeatedly.

Dr. Griffin teaches, as many New England divines have done before him, that in his native estate every natural man has full natural ability, without any divine assistance, to repent, love God, come to Christ, and be perfectly obedient; while at the same time he is destitute of moral ability to do any one morally good thing. The possession of this natural ability he thinks, renders the sinner inexcusable before God; and it is for not using this natural ability, he says, that God in righteousness damns him. At the same time, he admits, that no one of Adam's race even did, or ever will, from his own inherent, natural ability, turn to God, and live a life of holiness.

"The Plea," says Dr. Griffin, that sinners cannot change their own hearts, cannot love and submit to God,“ is false. p. 246. It is not true that God requires of sinners more than they are able to perform. It is not true that they cannot love and submit to him. They have ample power.-But the ability which is ascribed to them ought to be distinctly explained. It is a natural ability, in distinction from a moral. By moral I mean that which bears relation to praise or blame. Whatever impediment is blameable, is a moral difficulty; every other is natural. If sin exist any where it must be in the heart.-And your heart is you yourself.-Sinners have as much power to change their hearts as they have to alter at once any of their worldly or social dispositions.-Sinners have as much power to love God, as they have to exercise feelings opposite to any of their worldly or social dispositions.-Sinners have the same power to obey God, as they have to yield, in the common affairs of life, to anv motive which at present, through the boldness of their disposition, does not control them.---And does God lay upon his creatures eternal punishment for not doing what is utterly impossible? Is this the God whom angels love and adore? Nero was a lamb to this!---While you say you cannot, you never can.--.---You will probably say that we contradict ourselves, and preach that you can and that you cannot.--