they can receive the sacrament. Nothing can show more clearly that the bishops who passed this canon could have had no idea of the modern doctrine, which is yet audaciously said to have existed from the apostolic day.

The same Council, in its thirty-first canon, furnishes another proof against the Roman claim, by requiring the bishops to decide upon the times of penitence, viz.:

"That the periods of penance may be prescribed to penitents at the discretion of the bishop, according to the difference of their sins."-(App., Note 135.)

This regulation agrees well with the discipline of public penitence, where the transgressors would always be a very small minority of each congregation. But it would be totally impossible for the bishop to dictate the times of individual penance upon the modern plan of Romanism, where the case of every man, woman, and child in the diocese would have to be considered.

The thirty-second canon of this council affords us another demonstration in these words, viz. :

"That the presbyter shall not reconcile the penitent without consulting the bishop, unless when the bishop is absent and necessity compels. And when the crime of any penitent is public and most notorious, so that the whole Church knows it, let him receive the imposition of hands before the chancel."(App., Note 136.)

The meaning of this is plain. By the first clause, if the bishop was absent, and necessity compelled (which could only be in the case of sickness), the priest might reconcile the penitent without consulting the bishop. The second clause, however, seems intended to guard against all private absolutions in - important and serious cases, where the sin was especially offensive and notorious, and where, for that rea

son, the feelings of the whole congregation were more than commonly engaged; for in such cases neither priest nor bishop was allowed to reconcile him in private, however great the necessity, and the act could only be performed by bringing the penitent publicly before the Church, thereby securing the knowledge and consent of the people. How perfect a contrast

does this present to the modern Roman practice, where the priest acts without consulting his bishop, under the bond of absolute secrecy, and the penitent never receives the imposition of hands at all to mark his reconciliation.

The fourth Council of Carthage, held by two hundred and fourteen bishops, A.D. 398, set forth several canons, which are equally inconsistent with the present Roman system, viz.:

CANON LXXIV.

"The priest shall enjoin the laws of penitence on every one who implores penitence, without respect of persons."—(App., Note 137.)

CANON LXXVI.

"He who asks for penitence in sickness. . . . . if he is thought to be immediately about to die, shall be reconciled by the imposition of hands, and the eucharist may be placed within his mouth. If he shall survive ..... let him be subjected to the established laws of penitence as long as the priest who gave him penitence shall approve.”—(App., Note 138.)

CANON LXXVIII.

"Penitents who receive the Viaticum of the Eucharist in sickness, if they survive, must not believe themselves absolved without the imposition of hands."—(App., Note 139.)

All these provisions of the primitive Church have been done away by the Church of Rome, notwithstanding her confident boast that she adheres, unchanged and unchangeable, to the ancient system. We shall see in due time how the lapse of five centu

ries introduced an express order to accommodate the laws of penitence to the rank of the individual, instead of administering them to all alike, "without respect of persons." And whereas the two hundred and fourteen bishops of the fourth Council of Carthage held that no one should be absolved without the imposition of hands, the Roman Church now allows no one to be absolved with it. But it is especially worthy of remark that this Council would not dispense with the laws of public penitence, even when the penitent had been absolved upon his supposed death-bed; since, if he recovered, he was obliged to go through the whole prescribed course under the priest's direction. This is conclusive to prove that so late as the close of the fourth century there was no allowance of private absolution, except in the single case of impending dissolution, which was a claim of extreme necessity. Instead of which, the Church of Rome enjoins private absolution in all cases, and practically uses no other.

I come now to the commencement of the fifth century, when the first Council of Toledo, held by nineteen bishops, in their second Canon, set forth a definition of the word Penitent, which clearly shows the meaning attached to it in the discipline of Christian antiquity.

"It was decreed, also, that no penitent may be admitted to Holy Orders, except only that, if necessity or utility should require it, he may be appointed among the door-keepers, or among the readers, but so that he may not read the Gospels or the Epistle. . . . And by this word Penitent we mean him who, after baptism, having performed public penitence in sackcloth, either for homicide or for various other very grievous crimes,shall have been reconciled to the divine altar."-(App., Note 140.)

This proves plainly the order of the matter at that time, in precise accordance with the testimony of the

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fathers. Private penitence, which was required of all men for their daily sins, was a duty to be performed to God; and here the rules of confession and reconciliation, laid down in reference to the Church and the priesthood, had no application whatever. But for the grosser sins, such as murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, &c., public penitence was enjoined and strictly enforced. The modern-Roman system entirely confounds these distinctions; on the one hand, compelling all without exception, however clear of gross sin, to confess secretly to the priest and receive his private absolution; while, on the other, the vilest criminal receives the same absolution, and his secret of guilt is kept, and he is admitted to the Eucharist; when the primitive Church would have separated him for years together from the communion of the faithful, and would not have restored him even then, unless he had publicly bewailed his sins in sackcloth and ashes, and the people, as well as the bishop and the priests, were satisfied that he had become thoroughly reformed.

But let us pass over the next four centuries, and see what evidence is afforded of a tendency to change and corruption in this important question of discipline. And here we come to the Council of Chalonssur-Saone, A.D. 813, where we meet with this distinct acknowledgment of degeneracy:

"The exercise of penitence, according to the ancient constitution of the Canons, has fallen into disuse in most places, and neither in excommunicating nor in reconciling is the order of the old practice preserved."-(App., Note 141.)

This is a truly important and conclusive acknowledgment, and applies to the whole question in controversy. For if there had been any thing like the present Romish system in the primitive Church, and

that had continued in purity and vigor, it would have been supposed to suffice then, as it is supposed to suffice now, and the Council could not have passed such a judgment against the change which had taken place, without some favorable notice of the private priestly confessional.

Instead of this, however, the same Council proceeds, in the sixty-first Canon, to pass a law which is manifestly aimed against the liberties taken by the clergy in their private intercourse with the nuns. is as follows, viz. :

It