that "there remaineth No MORE sacrifice for "sins;" that he is the "ONE Mediator between "God and man!" And thus does it insult reason and burlesque religion!

REASON IV.

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.

These are extremely numerous, and they extend into all the parts and offices of visible religion. We can only mention a few of the principal heads. Such are the invention and authoritative establishment of a multitude of ecclesiastical offices, dignities, and powers, unknown in the New Testament, and converting the simple and beneficent religion of Christ into a most complicated and oppressive system of worldly policy; the disposal, and investiture of those offices and dignities;-the multiplying of degrees of relationship, within which it is held unlawful to contract marriage without a dispensation; -the canonization of dead persons, and the demanding for those who are thus raised to the rank of saints a veneration approaching at least to idolatry; the appointment of days to be kept

sacred, which Christ never appointed-ceremonies of worship altogether of human invention, many derived from heathenism, and often consummately ridiculous, such as holy water, salt, oil, and incense, the adoration of relics, which are generally contemptible impostures, the consecration of churches and church-yards, of bells, candles, and other utensils;-the benediction of clothes, crosiers, images, pictures, miserable rags, and other things used as charms;-and the injunction of obedience to the Laws of the Church, the mere inventions of men, as of equal authority with the moral laws of God.*

Not only is the enforcement of these laws a spreading of snares for men's consciences, and an effectual means of leading to a substitution of these debasing superstitions in the place of a practical holiness, but the very enactment of

* The following are held to be the principal of these laws: -1. To hear mass on Sundays and holidays, and to rest from servile work.-2. To fast during the season of Lent, on Ember-day and Vigils, and to abstain from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays.-3. To confess our sins, at least once a year.→→ 4. To receive the holy communion, at least once a year, and that about Easter.-5. To pay tythes.-6. Not to solemnize marriage on certain days of the year; nor to marry, unless by dispensation, within the prohibited degrees of kindred, the last of which is the 4th degree, or the grandchildren of first cousins.

them is a manifest and wicked usurpation of the rights and sovereignty of "the Blessed and Only "Potentate, the One Lawgiver, our Only Lord "and Master" in the affairs of conscience and religion. Yet this is not the whole. A prostrate obedience to these usurpations is produced and maintained by TERRIFYING the consciences of the wretched votaries of this superstition,with the threats of unavoidable and eternal DAMNATION.-Can any language do justice to the unprincipled fraud and impudence, the blaspheming impiety, of this vile delusion?-How clearly does it verify the awful character in our text, "opposing and exalting itself above every "one called God, or that is an institution of "worship!"*

REASON V.

The Roman Catholic system subverts the importance and utility of the HOLY SCRIPTURES.

"Search the scriptures;" said "the Blessed "Jesus:"-" What is written in the law? how "readest thou?-Ye err, not knowing the scrip

tures." Apostolic commendation is given to those who "searched the scriptures daily." In relation to one of his epistles, the apostle writes, "I charge you by the Lord, that this epistle be

* Σέβασμα.

"read to all the holy brethren;" he rejoices that Timothy "had known the holy scriptures from "his childhood," and he declares, "all scripture "is given by inspiration of God, and is profit"able for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, "for instruction in righteousness; that the man "of God may be perfect, throughly furnished "unto all good works."*

But this ungodly communion daringly opposes the will and command of God, and dams up the streams from the fountain of life. These are its dogmas with respect to the use of the scrip

tures:

1. That the written word of God, alone, as interpreted by every man's private judgment, is not plain and easy, fitted for all capacities; not universal, or containing ALL truth necessary to be known, in order to salvation; not certain, so that we could securely depend upon it:-and, therefore, that it has NOT ONE of the qualities necessary to constitute the rule of faith.†

2. That the unrestrained reading of the Bible, in the common language of any country, is by experience found to be productive of more harm than good; and that, therefore, no lay person

* Joh. v. 39.

Luke x. 26. Matt. xxii. 29. Acts xvii. 11.

1 Thess. v. 27. 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16.

These are the very expressions of Bishop Hay; Pious Christian, vol. i. p. 146-149.

Conc. Trid. Reg. iv. præmissa Ind. Libr. Prohib.

be permitted this favour except by license from a bishop or an inquisitor, granted on the recommendation of the parish priest or confessor, testifying that the party is "humble, discreet, and "devout, and in all hard, obscure, and disputable points, willing to refer all to the arbi"tration of the church, to the judgment of those "whom God hath appointed pastors and teachers;

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never presuming to contend, controul, teach, "or talk, of their own sense and fancy, in deep "questions of divinity, and high mysteries of "faith; but expecting the sense of these from "the lips of the priest."

Thus do these daring usurpers insult the word of the Most High, silence its voice, and make it of no avail! Thus do they say to the judgment, and conscience, and faith of men, "Bow down, "that we may go over !"—Justly are they drawn by the pencil of prophecy, as speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared "as with a hot iron !"

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3. That the Traditions of the church are of equal authority with the written word; being, in fact, no other than the dictates of Christ and his apostles, not committed to writing, but handed down by memory, speech, and custom, in an uninterrupted succession through all of the church.

ages

* Gother, p. 26.

† 1 Tim. iv. 2.