and the Church, as a whole, declared to be "holy and without spot or blemish."

3. The nominal kingdom of Christ, composed of good and bad, held by divines to be the Church, is not the Church in union with Christ.

4. In the Church is universal priesthood. In the nominal kingdom is a ministry, not forming a separate class, all Christians having a common brotherhood; the present distinction of clergy and laity being foreign to Christianity.

Having arrived at these several conclusions, we cannot do otherwise than cast overboard the claims of a separate class, styling themselves successors of the Apostles. The promises and gifts to the Apostles were either limited to the Apostles, or they received them as parts of a whole body, of which they were members, and to which body the gifts were generally given. There are no successors of Apostles, and if given only to Apostles, they have ceased to be gifts of the Church. But if the Apostles received them only in common with the faithful, and the promises apply to the faithful, then are they continued to the Church. On examination, we shall find they were given to the faithful— the Church at large.

Throughout the Gospel are many promises to the faithful, but in three instances only were the words used from which the Clergy Church claims her usurped power.

1. To Peter our Lord said, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 19).

2. The same declaration is made, saving the gift of the keys to Peter, in our Lord's discourse concerning His "little ones," when He instructs them how to behave under provocation. They are enjoined to use personal remonstrance, and if this be unsuccessful, to "take two or three witnesses," that in "the mouth of these every word may be established;" if this prove

unsuccessful, then, as a dernier resort, to "tell it unto the Church," and the promise is here made, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. xvii. 18).

3. The like declaration is again made after the resurrection of our Lord. He said unto the disciples, "Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John xx. 23).

Of all the memorable words of our Lord, none have been so abused as have these. They teach a doctrine for the comfort and the strength of the Church, and they have been made a handle for ecclesiastical exaction. Upon them has been built a system of horrible misrule. God intends them for nourishment, and the devil has turned them to poison. Upon them Satan built an ecclesiastical edifice, and called it the Church; and with them he engendered both priestly and political tyranny.

Our former inquiries have led us to discover that the Church is independent of a clerical order as a governing body; that any such body assuming to govern, is utterly foreign to Christianity, and the enemy of Christ's Church. If this be an established truth, what becomes of priestly absolution? the power claimed by priestcraft exclusively to bind and to loose? If there be no other than a spiritual priesthood, how comes it that a manordained priesthood claims a power to forgive sins? It has arisen from this, that the man-ordained priesthood has usurped a power granted to the spiritual priesthood, by being presented before the world as its representative. In this guise, ordained priests have claimed prerogatives which belong only to the true priesthood-Christ's faithful ones. The ordained priests clain to be priests unto God, and exclusively to administer in things spiritual. This separated body claims to act for the general

body of Christians. They will not perceive that a levitical mediating priesthood ceased when the Great High Priest Christ was made "a surety of a better testament." He, the perfect High Priest, after the order of Melchizedec, supplanted the former High Priest, after the house of Aaron. Our Great High Priest “needeth not daily, as those High Priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this He did once when He offered up Himself. For the law maketh High Priests which have infirmities; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore." St. Paul, in the 7th chapter to the Hebrews, from whence these words are taken, is representing the overthrow of the levitical priesthood, and he argues that "the priesthood being changed, there is made, of necessity, a change also of the law." And he goes on to show that the man Christ, the Priest after the order of Melchizedec, should not be called after the order of Aaron-" For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood." This is most conclusive reasoning, and shows that a levitical, ministering, sacrificial priesthood, is foreign to Christianity. No separated body raised up with pretensions of the kind belongs to Christian church government. The power "to bind and to loose" was not given to a separated class; it was given to all Christ's faithful ones, as we shall show.

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In my former publication, "The True Church," are a few remarks upon the subject of Absolution; and it is stated that the power "to bind and to loose" is safely left in the hands of God's faithful ones. It cannot be abused. It is based in the very nature of things. The spiritual union which subsists between Christ and His people preserves a necessity for cordial co-operation. To act in opposition to the divine Head, is to proclaim false credentials. To act in opposition to the Gospel, or God's Word, is to stamp the act as proceeding, not from a child of God, but from a child of Satan.

It is not intended now to enter upon the practical application of the doctrine of Absolution. Our object is to convey a right knowledge of the principles involved in the promises and gifts to the Church. The gifts and promises, though granted to a spiritual priesthood, are intended to be practical; and by-and-by, when we get a clear comprehension of the whole divine scheme, we will enter upon the practical application.

In the past, the promises of our Lord have been made to subserve almost unmitigated evil. It is true they have been employed to quiet sometimes a burdened conscience, but they have been chiefly worked as a machinery for raising sacerdotal power. Sacerdotalism is receiving successive blows, and will shortly be in the throes of death. The funeral dirge over the defunct body will not be mournful. A few short years, and all mankind will rejoice over the extinction of an usurped power, whose history is filled with the crimes of the spurious body. It is matter now of deep rejoicing, that mankind will be released from the heartsickening notions about Purgatory, the often fatal consequences to families to obtain Indulgences, the scandal and infamy of these things, the crimes resulting from, and the schemes connected with, the Confessional.

To arrive at a just conclusion with regard to the words of our Lord, we have to consider whether they were intended in their application to be limited to Apostles, or whether they were not intended for the whole Church?

Divines affirm they are limited to Apostles, and thus limited to the Clergy, who, they say, are descendants of, or are Apostles. With respect to descendants of Apostles, nothing more need be urged to show the utter fallacy of prelatical reasoning. We will now proceed to show that the promises and gifts of our Lord were not confined to Apostles, but are intended for all the members of His body-the Church.

The words of our Lord were used, as we have seen, on three separate occasions :-first, to Peter; secondly, in the discourse

concerning Christ's little ones; thirdly, to the disciples after the resurrection.

If the promises were intended to apply exclusively to the Apostles, we may expect to find some evidence of this in the discourse concerning Christ's little ones. To this discourse, then, we will give our attention. There is a beautiful harmony reigns throughout the Scriptures. There are antitheses, but no contradictions. Every part is subservient to the whole. When we think we discover discrepancies, it is that our vision is feeble; with increased light contradictions vanish. If Christ intended power to be given alone to the Apostles, the Gospel scheme will harmonise therewith.

It will be observed that the discourse opens with a question from the disciples, who came unto Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matt. xviii. 1.) The narrative of Matthew does not herein agree with that of Mark, nor of Luke. Mark and Luke agree in representing that "Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts"; and Mark writes that, when asked, "What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? they held their peace." In this seeming discrepancy the probability is that Matthew was not concerned in the dispute. He makes, therefore, no mention of it; but, believing the question asked, he so records. In a matter unimportant the Spirit of God interferes not. There is a purpose served by the dissimilitude of the narrative. It proves that there was no collusion, or comparing of notes, among the writers, and testimony to this is valuable. When I assert there are no contradictions, I mean as it regards fundamentals.

"The question,” as stated by Matthew, or "the thought of the hearts," as narrated by Mark and Luke, followed soon after the declaration to Peter. Most probably much conversation had arisen among the disciples as to the intent of the declaration. Our Lord took an early opportunity to correct any false tendency which the declaration may have. It had evidently begun in the