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commission granted to the apostles, all combine to prove that her absolution is not judicial, but declarative. To this can any one object?

C. p. 89.

There are many evidences in the early writers, of the "Lord's Prayer" having been regarded and used as a form in the primitive Church. I select three, one from Jerome, one from Augustine, the last from Cyprian. "Sic docuit Christus, &c."-So Christ instructed his Apostles, that believing in the sacrifice of his body, they should dare daily to say "Our Father which art in Heaven, &c." Adv. Pelag. lib. III. c. 15.

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Omnis vel pene omnis ecclesia, &c."—"It is the custom of the whole, or nearly the whole Church, to hear recited prayers, which are made in the celebration of the Sacrament, before that which is upon the Lord's table begins to be blessed: prayers when it is blessed, and consecrated, and broken for distribution, which entire service, nearly all the Church concludes with the Lord's Prayer." Epis. 59. qu. 5.

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He who hath given us life hath taught us how to pray, with the same indulgence and benignity wherewith he hath conferred upon us numerous other benefits and mercies; and when we address the

Father in the language of the Son, and in the manner which the Son hath recommended, without all peradventure, the Father will hear us," De Orat. Dom. p. 137.

D. p. 105.

There is nothing unkind intended by this allusion. It is a matter of fact and history, that Arianism to a large extent infected the Presbyterian Church in Ulster. The proceedings of a late Synod, by which a separation (much to the honor of that Church) was effected between the heretical and orthodox congregations brought to light the startling amount of the evil, and proved that the pulpit of itself can never be regarded as a sure bulwark against the inroad of fatally erroneous opinions.

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This view, that we are warranted in retaining what is sound and unobjectionable in the Church of Rome, was held strongly by the Reformers. The following passage is from Zanchius, the intimate friend of Calvin. "We do not depart entirely and in all things, from the Roman Church, but in those things only in which she hath departed from

the ancient and pure Apostolic Church, and so hath departed from herself; nor do we leave her with any other mind than this, that if she, being corrected, will return to the original state of the Church, we also may return to her." De Eccles. Mil. Vol. 8. p. 540.

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SERMON IV.

A.—p. 125.

It appears from the Preface that this Catechism containing so many misstatements and drawn up in the very worst spirit, has not only been actively circulated by ministers of the Synod of Ulster, but recommended by them to their flocks in a manner still more emphatic. The publisher expresses trust that those ministers who have not yet recommended the Catechism from their Pulpits, or otherwise disseminated it among their hearers, may be induced to imitate their (those who have circulated it) example; and go and do likewise.”—Page 5.

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I am aware that it has been denied by some commentators, that the expression,

"Let all things

be done decently and in order," has any reference to rites and ceremonies. But it seems quite evident

that the "all things" refers to the matter treated of

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in the three last chapters of the Epistle, in which there is much concerning rites and ceremonies. The "in order" entirely respects discipline in the rites and ceremonies, since it has an especial regard to the ministrations in the congregation. Bloomfield's Recens. Syn. in loco.

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C.-p. 140.

See

The first of these offices as early as the second century, &c."-The Nicene Council speaks of metropolitan Bishops as having been settled by ancient custom long before; and Athanasius speaking of a Bishop of Alexandria, who lived above sixty years before that Council, 66 says, he also enjoyed this power, having the care of the Churches of Pentapolis and Lybia, where Sabellius breathed his heresy, and that he wrote letters of admonition to several Bishops, of those parts who began to be infected by his heresy." See Bingham's Antiquities. Book 2. c. 16.

D. p. 142.

"The early Church of Britain was pure and Scriptural."-It has always been the endeavour of the Church of Rome to make the world believe that

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