، If you enter a Roman-catholic edifice for worship, at the hour when service is performing, what are the most prominent and imposing objects which present themselves to your view? An ALTAR, reared

for the presentation of a sacrifice; and a PRIEST, officiating before it arrayed in sacerdotal vestments. You hear the priest reciting the appointed lessons, in sonorous tones, and measured cadences at the altar;

you see the expression of his devout adoration in the frequent and varied inflections of his body towards it ; you inhale the fragrant incense from the smoking censer which he waves before it ;-and you behold him prepare and elevate with mysterious awe the sacrifice of the mass which is offered upon it. The existence of the altar and the sacrifice, the presence of the priest, and the performance of priestly rites, are essential to the service. Remove them, and the light and glory are departed ;-there is then no sanctuary, nor can there be any worship. Let an interdict be laid upon some unhappy country for a crime which has been committed against the church, and with the suspension of priestly rites there is a suspension of all intercourse with heaven ; and darkness, sorrow, and despair, brood over the land. If a gleam of hope is seen through any part of the night of terror, it comes with the presence of the priest to greet the eye of the expiring penitent; who, by an act of grace, blended with the righteous judgment of the church, is allowed to receive the last offices of religion, and thus with difficulty escapes the horrors of a remediless doom. In a country where heresy predominates, and an interdict would produce no general alarm, let an alien from the fold at the eleventh hour, and in the article of death, admit a priest to his presence and receive from his hands the rites of the church, and then, even his restoration is effected, and his salvation secured. In the sanctuary for worship, there may be a pulpit as well as an altar, but this is not essential to the service. The pulpit may be removed, and the service sustain no diminution of its efficacy or interest. The ministry of the word can never compete with the service of the altar. A priest may officiate at the altar, may perform all that is essential in the services of the church, who has never read, who has never seen, a copy of the word of God. His consecration has an authority, and the rites which he performs an efficacy altogether independent of the Scriptures, if not irrespective of them. So that while the people are made to depend entirely upon the priest, they trust, not to his scriptural knowledge, for with "the law and the testimony" he may have had no opportunity of becoming acquainted; not to his piety or personal merit, for there may possibly be defects even in his morality; but to his official authority, and ritual performances. There is no worship for the congregation but as he officiates at the altar ; -no available confession but to his ear ;- -no authoritative absolution but from his lips ;-no preparation for heaven, no passport to its joys, but as he performs the last offices, and with the extreme unction separates the spirit from the relations of mortality, and launches it upon its mysterious voyage for eternity:-no deliverance from the pains of purgatory, should the voyage prove adverse, and the haven of rest not be attained, but by virtue of the masses which he subsequently offers.

Now, unfounded, and irrational, though these rites and pretensions

appear to the mind of the Protestant, we must not wonder, that they are contemplated in a very different light, and with very different emotions by the Catholic;-that to his mind, the rites of his religion should be fascinating, soothing, and deeply impressive. They come to him hallowed by the palpable impress of a venerable antiquity, while he is taught to derive them from the highest and most sacred authority. They carry with them the influence produced by their very extensive observance in christendom; an observance, within what he is taught to consider the boundaries of the true church, universal. They are most skilfully adapted to the human constitution. They were successively introduced by those who well understood the weaknesses of our nature, the easiest way of access to our passions,-the most effectual mode of binding the soul in fetters. They ally themselves with all that is splendid, imposing, and exciting in architectural skill, -in the disposition of light and shade, colour and form,-in the harmony of sounds,-in the inspirations of genius, whether embodied in the breathing marble, or impressed upon the living canvass. They address the senses, and artfully appeal through them to the yielding and captivated mind. In their observance, the imagination is excited by the associations which are connected with the objects present to the eye; and when excited, is left to range amid all that is mysterious and profound. The breast heaves with powerful emotion, and the soul, subdued by the spell of a system which has held millions in its enchantments, complacently cherishes the persuasion, that this is devotion, and the only devotion which can be acceptable to the Most High.' pp. 3-7.

This is, fairly and strikingly portrayed, the Romish superstition. Mr. Stratten proceeds to shew, how the confidence of spiritual security which the system inspires, and the comparatively easy and tangible means by which that security is produced, contribute to the power which it exerts over the minds of its votaries. To every rational individual, the question, however, would seem naturally to suggest itself, Are these rites of Divine appointment, and is the Priest invested with this mysterious power and plenary authority? If the affirmative can be satisfactorily established, Mr. Stratten pledges himself directly to renounce his 'Protestant heresy.' But, like a true heretic of the Pauline school, he proceeds to the inquiry, What saith the scripture?

When we open the Old Testament, the priesthood, under its proper designation, and in some or other of its branches or engagements, lives and moves before us in almost every page; while one entire book, and a considerable portion of others, are occupied by the arrangement of its services. If, however, we open the New Testament, and search through it from beginning to end, we shall find, respecting the institution of an earthly priesthood for the Christian Church—not a word; the title of priest applied to designate any minister of the Christian religion-not once; reference to priestly rites as discharged

た

by one man for others not one. That the writers of the New Testament employ no Levitical terms in their numerous references to the office and work of the Christian ministry, will appear the more remarkable, when it is remembered, that they had themselves been educated in the bosom of the Jewish church, that their earliest religious associations were connected with the work of its priesthood,and, that on almost every other subject, Levitical analogies evidently presented themselves with spontaneous exuberance to their minds, and are most freely and beautifully recorded by their pens. It was only when writing upon that subject, in illustration of which, if modern ideas be correct, these analogies might have been employed with most propriety and effect, that they carefully abstain from their use ;-or rather, the current of their thoughts in reference to the Christian ministry flowed in channels so different from those which have been subsequently opened, that they never occurred in this connexion to their minds.'

pp. 16—18.

Mr. Stratten goes on to shew, that no priesthood is included in either the incipient or the complete and final Apostolic Commission; that no priesthood is required for the observance of the ritual institutions of the Christian Church; and that none was involved in the personal authority with which the Apostles were invested. The following remarks are highly deserving of attention. Mr. S. is shewing that the Apostolic and Sacerdotal offices are not merely distinct, but incompatible, in reference more especially to the pretended power of absolution claimed by the Romish Church.

* It should be remembered, that to the Jewish Priesthood was never intrusted the power of absolution ;-the word was never heard officially in the temple;-was never expressed to a penitential worshipper by a priest who there officiated, though he could, and did, by divine appointment, offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. The word was first sounded in Jewish ears, from the lips of him who came to introduce another dispensation of religion; when, in the exercise of his divine prerogative, he said to the man who was sick of the palsy, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee". So unusual and strange did this declaration appear to the scribes, whose occupation it was to write out copies of the law, and who must therefore have been familiar with its letter, that they said, "This man blasphemeth." "Who can forgive sins but God only?" He vindicated himself from the charge of blasphemy in the words which he employed, by the miracle of healing which he performed on the man whose sins he had forgiven. And we have shewn, that when he gave to his Apostles the power of retaining or remitting sins, he enabled them to prove that they really possessed it, in a very similar way; by binding or loosing supernatural diseases, in the case of those on whom the power was exercised.

The inconsistency which we refer to, lies here; that while the power of absolution is claimed in virtue of an assumed succession from the Apostles, its exercise is limited to those who possess the title and office of priest. According to the theory of succession, so soon as the

hands of a lineal representative of the Apostles have been laid upon the head of a candidate for holy orders, he is adopted into the ecclesiastical family;—the grace of an apostolic succession is devolved upon him; he has authority to discharge the apostolic work of teaching, baptizing, and conducting the devotions of the people; but then, he must not receive the confession of a penitent, and remove his fears by saying to him, “I absolve thee from all thy sins", until he can also consecrate the elements of the supper, or present the sacrifice of the altar, by becoming invested with the full orders of the priesthood. So that, he must not exercise a power which he professes to derive from the Apostles, until he has obtained an office which they never possessed, and with which it can be demonstrated, that the work of abso lution was never connected!

The unauthorized practice of absolution, and the inconsistency, if it is performed, of limiting it to the office of the priest, are only steps by which we approach a still more serious assumption, and what we cannot but consider a still more daring invasion of divine prerogative.

6

While the priest declares, that he has authority to say to a fellow sinner kneeling or prostrate before him, what it cannot be shown that the Apostles themselves ever ventured to affirm, and the power to say which there is good reason for believing was never meant to be included in the extraordinary commission which they received," I ab solve thee from all thy sins; "—the bishop, in conferring the orders of the priest, raises his mitre to the throne of the Saviour himself, and uses the very language which the divine Redeemer employed in conferring the plenitude of miraculous powers and apostolic functions. "Pontifex cum mitra sedens super faldistorium, ante medium altaris, imponit ambas manus super capita singulorum coram eo genuflectentium, dicens cuilibet :

"Accipe Spiritum Sanctum : quorum remiseris peccata, remittuntur eis; et quorum retinueris, retenta sunt.”

Whatever regret may be felt on its account, the fact cannot be concealed, that in this particular, there are Protestants who closely follow in Roman-catholic steps. The passage which we have quoted from the Roman Pontifical, is in substance included, in the form of ordination still observed in the English episcopal church: "Then the bishop, with the priests present, shall lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that receiveth the order of priesthood, the receivers humbly kneeling upon their knees, and the bishop saying; Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee, by the imposition of our hands: whose sins thou dost remit, they are remitted; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained: and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

6

At this point, the attitude of the English church is singular. With one hand she holds the skirt of the Roman matron, and claims affinity to her, an affinity, however, which the jealous matron, too severely dignified, refuses to acknowledge:—with the other hand, she uncourteously repels those, who might otherwise presume to imagine

that they bore some relation to her, and be disposed to cherish regard for her. The Roman-catholic priest may enter her communion, and engage in her ministrations, without confessing the inadequacy of the ordination which he had previously received, and seeking additional authority from her hand; the pastor, or presbyter, of any of the varied Protestant communions, cannot be so received. He must disown, as unauthorised, every part of his previous ministerial work, and repudiate as unlawful every other religious communion; must be free from the suspicion of having recently desecrated himself by being present in a conventicle during the period of worship; before he can be even invested with her diaconal orders, or be allowed to perform the humblest clerical service which her ritual prescribes.

How far the general interests of the Protestant cause, or the particular interests of the episcopal church, are affected by this unhappy combination of questionable claims with uncharitable implications, it is not the province of the writer to decide. It is sufficient, that in the prosecution of his argument, as in fairness and duty he was bound to do, he has stated the fact. Until the particulars included in the claims are identified with apostolic practice, are substantiated in their transmission by explicit apostolic authority, or are accompanied in their exercise with the miraculous works which formed the apostolic credentials we must continue to consider the claims as anti-christian in their character, and the uncharitableness which is associated with their assumption, as injurious rather to those by whom it is manifested, than to those towards whom it is directed. We must consider the authority conferred by the Redeemer, when He breathed on his disciples, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost", as strictly confined to the apostolic office; as untransmitted-as untransmissible by them to any other hands.' pp. 52-57.

We shall not pursue any further our analysis of the argument, as our readers will be sufficiently in possession of the design and tenor of the work, while the preceding extracts will shew the ability, sound judgement, and excellent spirit in which Mr. Stratten has conducted his illustration of a subject of some delicacy and momentous importance. We shall make room for one more extract, and take leave of the volume with strongly recommending it to the attention of all our Protestant and, (if we have any) our Roman Catholic readers.

The Jewish priests could not rear an altar wherever they chose, nor enkindle the incense as often as they pleased. God had confined them to one place for their service, to one altar for their burnt-offerings, to one altar for their incense, to one fire (the fire which He Himself had enkindled) in which to consume their sacrifices; to the time at which the incense was to be enkindled, and the manner in which it was to be presented. It was death to deviate from His appointment. Fire from His presence consumed the men who engaged in unauthorised rites, or enkindled the incense with any but sacred fire. How comes it to pass, that altars may now be as numerous as places of worship? that they may stand side by side under the same roof, reared to the Virgin, and

VOL. IV.-N.S.

3 D