Sin may be external, visible, or internal and invisible. The sinner's conscience may be burdened with internal sins, such as hatred; or with external sins, such as theft, blasphemy, or with both. Whatever state his conscience be in, the Apostles here receive the power to forgive him, or the privilege to retain his sins. Of course this power must be judiciously exercised, for in its results it must accord with the fiat of Eternal Justice, in other words, because the judgment of man (the Apostles) must agree with the judgment of God. Can it be said that the power given to the Apostles does not contemplate the case where the sinner may present himself burdened with internal sins only? No, the text makes no distinction. The word "sins is altogether generic, and there is no reason why it should not be taken in the widest possible signification. The Apostles, beyond all controversy, are given here the wonderful authority to forgive and retain sins of any kind and species, in such a way that their pronouncement upon them must be ratified in heaven, and consequently their investigation of the state of the sinner's conscience and dispositions must be most searching and judicious. Now what is requisite with a view to a judicious exercise of the rite of forgiveness? What externation of the sinner's disposition is necessary, in order that the sentence pronounced upon earth may be worthy to be ratified in heaven? 1st. Let us suppose that a sinner presents himself for pardon, whose life is not marked by any public or scandalous crime. Are his general acknowledgment of sin and his overt protestation of sorrow sufficient? No, for a deep state of mental depravity is reconcilable with such acts. The wish for pardon may inspire them, it may be their sole influencing cause; and any one can see that a wish for pardon may co-exist with a wilful pursuit of criminal objects and a guilty attachment to unlawful pleasures. If all that were required in this case, as a foundation of the apostolic judgment, was the desire of forgiveness, manifested by the general signs aforesaid, the ratification in heaven of the sentence pronounced upon earth would not be the universal rule, but perhaps the exception, or at most the

casual result. Something more is necessary, then, in the case of internal sins, than a general acknowledgment of guilt, or a protestation of sorrow and amendment.

Let external sins be added-what will be sufficient? 2nd, Let the supposition be that the sinner, who presents himself for pardon, is internally and externally a sinnerhis mind defiled by criminal views and desires, and his conduct or conversation scandalous, how must he make himself known in order that his aptness or inaptness for forgiveness may be judiciously determined, and his forgiveness or non-forgiveness infallibly pronounced? Will an external change of life be sufficient? No! for it can only evidence his repentance for external sins; and consistently with it his internal sinful habits may still be fondly cherished. In the third supposition that may be made-when the criminality of the sinner is limited to external sin, such a change of life may be a rational proof of amendment, and a solid foundation for a judicious sentence; but when internal sins exist protestation of sorrow is no proof of sorrow, confession of guilt is no proof of amendment, and outward reformation is no convincing argument of the cleansing and purification of the interior man; therefore, I think, it comes to this, the Apostles are to judge the sinner-to acquit him, and condemn him, according to his dispositions. They must be acquainted with his dispositions in order to acquit him or condemn him judiciously. But a general acquaintance with his dispositions, such as they might derive from his acknowledgment of guilt or protestation of sorrow, or external change of life would not be sufficient, because his sentence must not be simply judicious, but just, efficacious, and almost infallible with regard to his external and internal sins. "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." No! a perfect knowledge of the state of his conscience, a scrutation, an examination of all that he does, says, and thinks-a many-sided picture of his whole moral being must be placed before them before they can pronounce the unerring decree, therefore I conclude that the words of

Christ, "Whose sins you shall, &c.," which confer a privilege on the apostolic judge, impose an obligation on the culprit; on the judge the authority to pronounce a just sentence, on the culprit the duty to manifest unfeignedly the state of his conscience. It is not, as in a court of criminal justice, where the prisoner is accused specifically of the charges against him; in the court of conscience the sinner must accuse himself specifically. He must accuse himself sincerely, and, therefore, as a matter of moral obligation, he must accuse himself fully; for all his sins are to be forgiven or retained together. He must manifest, and he must be conscientiously bound to manifest, the whole state of his interior in respect to sin and repentance for it, otherwise the apostolic judges must act upon insufficient evidence, and their sentence must be in many cases materially unjust and effectively futile, instead of being always, as it is said to be, efficacious in the remission or retention of sin, and in accordance with the infallible judgments of the Divinity.

Confession of sins by the penitent appears to be the necessary result of the judicial power of forgiveness, as it was conferred upon the Apostles by the Redeemer; confession not general but particular, not partial but integral, not public, but from the nature of the case private in many of its details. To this confession it may be that there is reference in the last chapter of the Epistle of St. James-" Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray for one another that you may be saved." 1

There is an

We have discovered another Sacrament. outward rite or ceremony in it, consisting of the selfaccusation of the penitent, and the absolution pronounced by the priest, and an internal effect, namely, the purification of the conscience of the penitent and the forgiveness of his sins. The ministers of this Sacrament were the disciples referred to in the twentieth chapter of St. John,

1 James vi. 16.

viz., the twelve apostles-the πρεσβύτεροι and επίσκοποι οι the Church.

§ 6. Extreme Unction.-The last rite in which the dying Christian, be he convert or otherwise, participated in the apostolic times, was a ceremony, external like those to which we have referred, consisting of prayer and anointing with oil. Its effect was invisible, viz., the remission of sin, if sin existed in the soul of the dying Christian. The ministers of this rite were the peoẞUTEρo of the Church. All these affirmations are put forward by St. . James, in a passage that is so clear as to require neither argument nor elucidation.. I will content myself with citing the words of the Apostles-" Is any one sick among you? Let him bring in the priests (poßurepovs) of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." I will only add that it is little less than absurd to argue that St. James advises here a sanitary ordinance for the restoration of the health of the body, for he attributes to it the remission of sin. It is equally unfounded to suppose that the Apostle is introducing a religious rite of his own devising: for unless the divine power interposed, human authority could never attach the effects here enumerated to an external ceremony.

1

If it be objected that the remission of sin is attributed in this text to the "prayer of faith" and not to the sacramental rite, an easy answer is found in the text itself. 1st. The "prayer of faith" is evidently the Sacramental prayer said over the sick man by the "priests.” "And they shall pray over him." 2nd. It is the temporal cure of the sick man that is attributed to the prayer of faith." And the " prayer of faith shall save the sick man," while the remission of sin is the result of the entire economy, "And if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him."

1 James v. 14, 15.

§ 7.-Holy Orders.-The Sacrament of Holy Orders consisted in an external ceremony-" the imposition of hands," the invisible effect of which was a grace or gift, permanently abiding in the soul. As it has been already shown to be a Sacrament, at considerable length, it will be sufficient here to indicate its ministers. They were first the Apostles. Barnabas was ordained by them: Paul ordained Timothy: Paul and Barnabas ordained priests in the churches of Asia Minor. Secondly, they were the bishops. Titus, certainly a bishop, received authority from St. Paul to ordain priests in the churches of Crete; and Timothy, as is evident from the epistles addressed to him, ordained εισкожоι and πρεσburɛроι in the churches subject to him.

§ 8. Matrimony.-It is difficult to suppose that the Redeemer, or the Apostles as his delegates, made no regulation affecting the rite of marriage. We can scarcely bring ourselves to believe, even with the silence of the Scripture on the subject, that this solemn act, on which the temporal always, and frequently the eternal, happiness of man depends, was left to the disposal of Rabbinical doctors, or Roman lawyers, or customs diverse and changeable. The civil law, no doubt, or general or local usage, might invest the marriage contract with just and reasonable conditions. The validity of marriage, even among Christians, might have been made to depend on the observance of legal forms. Yet, as the contract is so different from others in its general bearings, and so much superior to them in the obligations it imposes and the effects it produces, we might reasonably expect that Christianity would throw more solemnity about it than the barter of a wheat-field or the purchase of an estate. This conviction is strengthened by various circumstances. 1st. Sacramental rites had been instituted for the critical periods of human life,-baptism for admission among the faithful,-confirmation for the commencement of the Christian's campaign with the powers of darkness,— orders for his admission to the ministry,-extreme unction for his departure from this world. Marriage is a critical