truth should thus believe and sanction, nay, publish such unscriptural ideas!

In p. 5 he says, "All these points are so many articles

of the Roman Catholic faith, articles which can never be called in question; and which, moreover, when they come into discussion, it must be remembered, are based upon unanswerable grounds.' But now they are 66 come into discussion," and Mr. Oakeley may be here he has a right to be here-and although he may not be amongst us this evening, yet I doubt not that some friend of his may bring him some note as to the manner in which his book is being handled. We may now, therefore, judge whether these are 66 unanswerable grounds" or not.

In p. 6, we come to Article II., "On the spiritual treasure of the church." This presents to me quite a new idea on this point. I am learning more of what Romanism really is from this book which has been recommended to me by Mr. Oakeley. He makes a marked distinction between "merits" and "satisfaction." He says, "Merits are proper to the person acquiring them, and are inalienable; they cannot be communicated to others." If so, what means the expression in "Butler's Catechism," which says, that Indulgences are drawn from "the merits of Christ, of the blessed Virgin Mary, and of all saints; and that "merits can thus be given from the saints to others?"

The use of the word "satisfaction," however, as transferred from saints to sinners, proves more clearly than ever that the Church of Rome practically destroys the only satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ, and places it in those human merits or satisfactions which they speak of as constituting "the treasury" of the Popes! The writer then speaks of the satisfaction of Christ being "infinite." They cannot deny this. They do, indeed, speak of the merits of Christ as infinite; but when we examine into the matter, we find that, practically, they depreciate these infinite merits of Christ, by pretending that they need addition. Surely that which has no end, cannot be added unto; and thus to add anything to Christ's merits is the same as to deny His infinite merit! He says (p. 6) Many saints have made more satisfaction than their sins required. The blessed Virgin was never stained with sin." The writer has no reason whatever to assert that

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the blessed Virgin Mary

St. Paul

was never stained with sin," because that is a point on which his Church has not yet decided, although they have had 1800 years of "thinkingtime." The most fearful contentions have existed in the Church of Rome on this subject between the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Popes, in their infallibility, have withheld any decision on this disputed subject. One greater than these Popes has already spoken, and decisively too, on this point, and that too to the Church of Rome. writes, in his Epistle to the Romans, that " ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," Rom. iii. 23. Again; the blessed Virgin Mary herself has said, “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour," Luke i. 47. A saviour is to save from sin; and one who had no sin could need no Saviour. God is sinless, and He therefore needed no Saviour. Christ is the sinless God, and He needed no Saviour; but was even thereby constituted the Saviour of sinners. All others "have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; and " as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," Rom. v. Death is the curse of sin, and the sad inheritance of This was the inheritance of the blessed Virgin also, as of all others who have sinned. The statement, then, is false, that "the blessed Virgin Mary was never stained with sin." This book then proceeds: "The great number of confessors and martyrs, of spotless virgins, of mortified anchorites, who have passed their whole lives in prayer and fasting, in weeping and sorrow, in disciplines, and in macerations of the flesh, have offered to God much more abundant satisfaction than they owed his Divine justice. This also is a superabundance of satisfaction." I offer but one remark on this, and place it side by side with the Word of God. As Christ Jesus says to his Apostlesthose very persons to whose over-merits, with others, Roman Catholics would now trust,-" When ye shall have done all these things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do," Luke xvii. 10.

12. man.

In page 7 it is stated, that "this is the treasure of the Church, or the fund from which the Church draws, when she grants Indulgences." I say if such a treasury

or coffer of accumulations be composed, as they say, of the merits of the saints, it must be a coffer both empty and void; because there exists no such thing as the merits of saints, or of any individual, except the merits of Christ, which are not in the Pope's custody, but are free and full, and in the possession of Christ alone, "He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth." Rev. iii. 7.

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Now it

The writer now speaks of this treasury, and asks the question "Does it really exist? " This is a fair question, and he proposes to answer it. "Luther," he says, and the heretics, who have swarmed from his pretended Reformation, have denied that the superabundant satisfaction of Christ and the saints does still exist." is false to say Luther denied the "satisfaction of Christ; he never denied any such thing; and I challenge Mr. Oakeley to prove this. But Luther did deny "the superabundant satisfaction of saints." This was his principal weapon, drawn from the Gospel quiver, whereby he shook the Pope's dominion, when throughout the cities of Germany he preached the grand fundamental doctrine of "justification by faith alone, and not by the deeds of the law."

This "spiritual treasury," to which this book refers as containing the "merits of Christ and the saints," the writer asserts "has been confided to the administration of the Church;" this is an assertion, however, which must be proved. Englishmen will not take assertions without proof; and even though it should exist, yet it is not confided to the Church of Rome. But when I turn to this book to see when and how it was thus confided to the Church, what inspired epistle does he quote? Not one! Does he adduce any such commission of Christ? Not that either! He coolly tells us that, "We are assured by Clement VI. [A.D. 1342] that Christ confided the infinite treasure amassed by him to St. Peter and his successors!" He adds, "The same Pope tells us, that to this abundant treasure the merits of the blessed Virgin and of all the elect is joined." Is this Scriptural? Was the fourteenth century a fit time for a Christian doctrine to make its first appearance? How came it to lie dormant for 1,400 years? We need no better argument in disproof of these false

doctrines than the assurance of Mr. Oakeley and his author, that not Christ nor yet his Apostles, but rather a Pope of the fourteenth century, first broached these doctrines to which we object.

In page 8 he says, "This doctrine is founded on" [we may now be coming to the point!] "is founded on the tenth article of the Apostles' Creed- the communion of saints."" Now, you hear this expression continually read in our Liturgy. The meaning of the word "Saint" is a "holy man;" by this term the apostle designates the respective members of the Christian churches to which he wrote; for instance, Eph. i. 1, Phil. i. 1, &c., &c. Again; St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xvi.) in reference to a "collection for the saints." What saints were these? It was not a collection for saints in heaven, but for persecuted and suffering saints on earth. The Churches were thus, and in other ways, to communicate the one with the other. Corinth was to contribute for Jerusalem, and Jerusalem for Colosse, and so forth; there was to be a communion, an intercourse, an intercommunication existing between the saints of the respective churches. This we acknowledge as a glorious article of our Apostolic Creed. "Communion" means "You speak with me, and I speak with you; "this is 66 communion." What communion, then, has the Roman Catholic with the saints above? He may say “I pray to them;" but though he speaks to them, yet have they ever spoken to him? If not, how can there be "communion?" "The communion of saints," here below, is only a type, a harbinger, an earnest of the communion we shall have in that glorious fellowship of the children of God above. There can, therefore, be no foundation for believing in any such communion" as that for which the Church of Rome contends. In order to constitute such communion, you should not only receive of their merits, but they in turn should receive of yours also. This, however, cannot be ; for they need not human merits; they, if in heaven, are there by grace, through the merits of Christ alone; and if Roman Catholics would but consult their own eternal interest, they would desire to reach heaven by no other merits, by no other means, than that appointed of God, and declared in His holy word.

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The Author then leaps, in page 9, to the following con

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clusion:-"It was with reason, therefore, that Leo X. condemned Luther's proposition, which denied the existence of this treasure.' Therefore," that is, because Clement VI., in the year 1342, said that it did exist, therefore Pope Leo X. acted towards Luther with reason and propriety! Is this a logical deduction?

proceeds, p. 9: "If" (they cannot argue this point without these "ifs") "If our doctrine on this point is not an absolute article of faith, it so approximates to one, that it cannot be doubted without great temerity, and even error." It is painful that, after eight pages of attempted proof, the conclusion should be, after all, “If our doctrine," &c. My Brethren, what certainty can any Roman Catholic possess regarding "Indulgences," involved, as the doctrine avowedly is, in doubt and uncertainty, as this accredited book attests? Why place us under ban and anathema for venturing to disown a doctrine as an article of faith, which, at best, and on their own evidence, may only approximate to one?

But we

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We next refer to Article III., "On the power of granting Indulgences." He says, "No one can deny that the power of applying the satisfaction of Christ, by means of the sacraments, exists in the Catholic Church. must examine whether she can apply this satisfaction independently of the Sacrament of Penance, by Indulgences." The assumed practice exists, but I think we may clearly see, from Mr. Oakeley's book, that the power does not exist! The first authority quoted is Tertullian, and a most extraordinary evidence is this; he quotes Tertullian as a heretic!" He "censured the facility with which canonical penances were lightened, and apostates, in the time of persecution, readmitted to the communion of the Church." Again; "The disciples of Valdo, called Vaudois, or the poor of Lyons, an ignorant sect of the twelfth century," (I think there will be found a resemblance between these "ignorant" people of the twelfth century and the enlightened ones of the nineteenth century!) "looked upon Indulgences as an invention of the priests to deceive the people." Well, besides these "ignorant" people of the twelfth century, he adds, "Wickliffe, the famous heresiarch, opposed Indulgences and the power of granting them." So he did, because he knew the Bible; and for that glorious