declare, that their sentence, pronounced on earth, should be ratified in heaven. Until, therefore, unanswerable proof be brought from scripture, that the apostles either claimed or exercised such an absolving power, we may confidently repeat our assertion, that the authority to remit the future penalties of sin was never granted by God to

man.

But that we may fully understand the nature and extent of those ordinary powers which the apostles received and transmitted to their successors in the ministry, it may be useful to examine the subject more in detail.

As the reward of St. Peter's enlightened faith and prompt confession, our Lord vouchsafed to honour him with two signal promises: first, that on him, as on a rock, he would build his church; secondly, that he would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; with an assurance, that whatsoever he should bind on earth should be bound in heaven, and whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven. The first of these promises was (12) personal, and peculiar to St. Peter; and was accomplished when that prince of the apostles was divinely chosen to lay the first foundation of the church at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost; and was afterwards selected, by especial revelation, to lay the first foundation of the Gentile church in the person of Cornelius. The second promise, which he had in common with the other apostles, was fulfilled in the two commissions which our Lord gave

them (13) at different times after his resurrection. These commissions, distinct in their design and scope, are by no means to be confounded: a point the more necessary to be observed, because a similar distinction is maintained in the ordination of our priests. By their first commission to remit and to retain sins, the apostles were invested with general powers to preside over the Christian church; by the second, the whole extent of their commission as "ambassadors for Christ," was unfolded: they were especially directed to preach and to baptize, to declare the whole scheme of the Christian dispensation, and to announce to all mankind, in the Redeemer's name, the remission of their sins upon repentance. In one only respect their ordination was distinguish ́ed from all that either preceded or followed it. For that spiritual gift, which the Jewish presbyters received at their ordination, was transmitted in continued succession from the great sanhedrin, on whom the Holy Spirit at first descended, under Moses, in the wilderness; and none were held to be rightly ordained, except they received their order through this unbroken line of succession. But our Lord conveyed the same spiritual gift to his apostles by an act of sovereign, divine authority; assuring them, that with the same fulness of power with which the Father had sent him, he sent them forth to the

c. Numbers xi. 25.

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work of their ministry: and by the significant action of breathing on them, when he bade them receive the Holy Ghost, he gave them a sensible token, that their authority to act as rulers and teachers of the church proceeded directly from himself. Thus, as Hooker justly observes, "the Holy Ghost, which our Saviour in his first or"dinations gave, doth no less concur with spiri"tual vocations throughout all ages, than the Spirit which God derived from Moses to them "that assisted him in his government, did de"scend from them to their successors in the like "authority and place." Ecclesiastical Polity, book

v. sect. 77.

This mode of imparting spiritual authority could not, it is evident, be imitated without impiety. The apostles therefore, in this as in other respects, observed the practice of the synagogue, and ordained their fellow-labourers and successors in the ministry by imposition of hands. To this form of apostolical ordination (14) the catholic church has invariably adhered. Thus, in the Church of England, the general powers which belong to the sacerdotal order, are first given with imposition of hands, and in the words of our Saviour, "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office " and work of a priest in the church of God"whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, "and whose sins thou dost retain they are re"tained:" and then-as it forms so important a branch of the ministerial office-a distinct au

thority is subsequently given

to preach the "word of God, and to administer the holy sa"craments."

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II. But if we openly renounce, as pernicious. and unscriptural, the claim to a plenary absolving power, there remains to be discussed a second question of no little difficulty. On what grounds, it may be asked, did our reformers retain, in the private office for the visitation of the sick, the full and authoritative absolution of the church of Rome?" Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left 66 power to his church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: and by his "authority committed to me, I absolve thee from "all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of "the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." These words, obvious as their sense appears, undoubtedly admit of two interpretations. But the question with which we are at present concerned, is not, in what sense they may possibly be understood now; but in what sense they actually were understood by the generality of Christians at the period of the Reformation. To discover the reasons which probably induced the fathers of our reformed church to admit into this private office a form of absolution so apparently irreconcileable with the truth, we must therefore take into consideration the inveterate opinions on the subject of priestly absolution, which, at that era, were universally maintained: and then, if I mistake not, we shall be able not merely to vindicate

their conduct in this behalf, but to shew, that they were guided by the purest spirit of enlightened Christian charity.

Whilst the church continued under the government of the apostles, its public censures, which seem to have been inflicted only in cases of the highest necessity, (15) were charitably revoked as soon as the offender exhibited tokens of a sincere repentance. But, instead of this prudent lenity, a discipline so severe and intolerable was subsequently introduced, that it defeated the very purpose for which it was instituted. For when the Christian religion acquired the protection of the Roman emperors, persons of all ranks and characters, not from sincere conviction, but from mere secular motives, hastened to enrol themselves under the banners of the cross. The ensuing corruption of manners brought a scandal on the Christian name, which the rulers of the church endeavoured to repress by the infliction of the most rigorous public penances. But it soon appeared that a discipline, which might perhaps have been enforced when the members of the church were comparatively few, and those united by the bands of mutual charity, had now lost its efficacy. Some were too powerful to dread; others were too heedless to regard it; and none were willing to submit themselves to such public humiliation. (16) Private penitentiaries were, therefore, established in the eastern church; but these also, being found liable to great abuse, were in no long time abolished, and