dressed his epistles? Why did God command the importunate friends of Job to ask the just man's prayers for them? Why did he appoint a priest to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin? And why did the apostles teach us to say, "I believe in the communion of saints." It was strange, said king James, to the Scotch bishops, to allow those honorable places in the churches, to unicorns, lions, and devils, (griffins) which were refused to prophets and apostles! "Let them not lead people by the nose," says Dr. Herbert Thorndike, Prebendary of Westminster, "to believe they can prove their supposition that the pope is anti-christ, and the papists idolaters, when they can not." Just Weights and Measures, p. 11. "It is a shame to charge men with what they are not guilty of, in order to make the breach wider, already too wide." Dr. Montague, Prot. bishop of Norwich, Inv. of Saints. p. 60.

Another proof of immorality is the distinction between material and formal sins! This is a just distinction. The civil law recognizes it. An injury done with malice aforethought, or formally, is very different, as to the guilt of the agent, from accidental and unintentional injury. A child, a maniac, a man in his sleep, or otherwise unconscious of what he does, and not the culpable cause of that want of consciousness, may inflict an injury, with impunity, for which liberty, and life should, under different circumstances, be very justly forfeited. My friend has brought up casuistry. The tendency of such punishments is salutary and if a severer penalty is inflicted for the murder of a priest, &c., it is to preserve the inviolability of religion, which watches over the rights of parents, to the fear and love of their children, and of the law, to the obedience and respect of those for whose preservation and wellbeing it was enacted. My learned friend traduced the clergy of the Catholic church and described the dangers of the confessional. As well might he denounce the medical profession. He read numerous extracts from publications of Smith, Slocum & Co's joint-stock concern, for the defamation of innocence. He may sit down, in the lowest places, with these worthy associates, if he will. I shall not molest them in their calculations of the "pieces of silver." "I will leave them alone in their glory."

The gentleman allows that auricular confession was the law of the church in the fifth century. This is generous, and he is contradicted in the concession, by some Protestants, who, for want of better knowledge, give the institution a later date. It remounts, however, farther up the chain of holy usages, viz. to the time of Christ, who gave such power to men as that expressed in the text, St. John, xx. 22, 23. This power was not to be exercised without a knowledge of the dis positions of the sinner, and this knowledge could only be obtained from his own confession. Leo I. did not, therefore, " open the floodgates of impiety by substituting private for public confession." The practice is of divine institution, and how horrid is it not, to speak thus of what all ages and nations of christianity, the Greek and the Latin churches and the sects of the east, have ever held as the work of Christ, taught by himself and every where preached by his apostles! Tertullian and Origen, who lived in the age next to the apostles, hold the following language: "If you withdraw from confession, think of hellfire, which confession extinguishes." "Look carefully about thee in choosing the person to whom you confess-confess to him your most secret sins." "It is necessary," says St. Basil, in the 4th century, "to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of the divine mysteries is

'I do

committed." “Let no one,” says St. Augustine, "say to himself: penance to God, in private.' Is it then in vain that Christ has said, whatsoever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven? Is it in vain that the keys have been given to the church ?" These texts abundantly prove that auricular confession was practised before the time of Leo I. in the fifth century, and consequently that Christ and his apostles must share the odium in which my opponent presumes to involve the Catholic church. He says the practice of the public confession of sin, before the whole congregation, was the last entrenchment against the rapid declension of morals in the fifth century. And yet with glaring inconsistency, after contending for the practice so vehemently, in almost the same breath, he tells us : "There is no ear but God's, to which our errors or our faults ought to be confessed, for that the secrets of all hearts are his." Can there be contradiction more palpable? And does not the Catholic practice save the sinner's honor, gently withdraw him from the downward path to ruin, admonish him of his ingratitude and restore him to religion and to society a better man, in all probability to sin no more? "Is there more condescension or mercy in a Roman priest," asks my opponent," than in God ?" Why, the blasphemous question might have been put to Christ by the leper, when the Savior ordered him" to go show himself to the priest." Matth. viii. 4. "Is there more condescension, or mercy, in a Jewish priest than

in God?"

My friend quotes St. James, "confess your sins to one another:" but he takes care to omit the antecedents and the consequents of the text. "Is any man sick among you. Let him bring in the priests 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." James v. 14. Is not obedience to the directions of the Holy Ghost, the calling in of the priests and availing himself of their ministry, the indispensable condition prescribed by God himself, in the scripture, for the cure of the corporal maladies, but, much more, of the SINS of the sick man? Could my friend have been more effectually refuted than he evidently is by a text of his own selection? [Time expired.]

From the beginning I have said, and I repeated it yesterday, that I would not state any fact which I could not sustain. I do not care how often I am put to the test. I have here three catechisms, in which the second commandment is omitted, and to keep up the number ten, they have made two out of the 10th. Here are two catechisms, published by the authority of the Roman Catholic church. The title of one, from the highest authority since the council of Trent, is as follows:

"The most Rev. Dr. James Butler's catechism: revised, enlarged, approved, and recommended by four Roman Catholic Archbishops of Ireland, as a general catechism for the kingdom. Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Mark x. 14. This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. John, xviii. 3. Twelfth edition: carefully corrected and improved, with amendments. Dublin: Printed by Richard Coyne, 4. Capel st. Bookseller and Printer to the R. C. College of St. Patrick and Maynooth, and publisher to the Catholic Bishops of Ireland. 1826." [See page 36.

Q. "Say the commandments of God.

A. 1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods. Exod. xx."

Are these the ten commandments of God, as all Roman Catholic children are taught !!

The single fact that the four archbishops of Ireland, and the Roman Catholic college of Maynooth should have impiously dared to strike one commandment from the ten, which God wrote on two tables with his own finger, and should have changed and divided the tenth into two, speaks volumes in proof of my allegata against the Romanist rule of faith. But we shall hear another witness-Title:

"The General Catechism revised, corrected and enlarged by the Right Reverend James Doyle D. D. Bp. &c. and prescribed by him to be taught throughout the diocese of Kildaire and Lerghlin. [Motto the same as in the other, stereotyped and printed at Dublin by the same printer, A. D. 1827.] See. p. 25. Q. Say the ten commandments of God.

A. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have any strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself neither an idol or any figure to adore it.

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. 9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods."

This merits the reprobation pronounced on the preceding.

Again here is an American catechism.-Yes, in this land of bibles has been published a catechism, in which the same liberty is taken. Its title is :

"An abridgement of the Christian doctrine, with proofs of scripture on points controverted, by way of question and answer: composed in 1649 by Rev. Henry Tuberville, D. D. of the English college of Douay Now approved and recommended for his diocese, by the right Rev. Benedict bishop of Boston. This is the way, walk ye in it." Isa. xxx. 21. New York; published by John Doyle; No. 12. Liberty street, stereotyped by A. Chandler. 1833." See p. 54.

"Q. What is the second commandment?

A. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

Is this the second commandment? It is not. That child is taught falsehood, which is taught thus to learn the decalogue. If the Roman bishops and archbishops in Ireland and America, in this our day can thus impose on all the youth in the Roman communion, and thus pervert and annul one of God's commandments, to make way for the worshiping of images, what shall we say of the morality of her rule of faith in this and other matters?

It is a poor apology for this expurgation of the decalogue, that it is not so done in the Douay bible: for when these catechisms were introduced, and even yet in most Catholic countries, not one layman in a thousand ever read that bible: the catechism intended for universal consumption contained all his knowledge of God's law. What myriads, then, through this fraud, must have lived and died in the belief that the second commandment was no part of God's law! It is clearly proved, that the pastors of the church have struck out one of God's ten wORDS; which not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality. They have also made a ninth commandment out of the tenth, and their ninth, in that independent position, be

comes identical with the seventh commandment, and makes God use a tautology in the only instrument in the universe that he wrote with his own hand! But why this annulling of the second commandment? Because it is a positive prohibition of the practice of bowing down to images, and doing them homage; a custom dearer to the Romish church than both the second and the seventh commandment! It is, however, gross idolatry. So far at least as the ignorant and uneducated part of the community is concerned; no spiritual, no highly cultivated mind needs such aids of worship-nay, they would, to such persons, be hindrances rather than aids of devotion. But the uneducated and sensual mass, which are in that community,-the vast majority, literally adore the image, and delight in the picture more than in the Creator. And, therefore, the abrogation of the second commandment, by the priests, is the positive introduction of idolatry. The Hebrew bible says and all versions of it in effect say, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The gentleman made as handsome and eloquent a defence of the practice of violating this solemn precept as could be well imagined. He referred us to the tabernacle and temple, of ancient time full of types-patterns of things in heaven, &c: but unfortunately for his logic, none were permitted to worship these patterns of ideas. They were but to portray the things to be revealed in the gospel age-a picture-book, to sketch the outlines of that redemption, which the Messiah wrought, and of the worship of the kingdom of heaven. They never presumed to worship them, they looked through these outward symbols, or signs of ideas, to the spiritual substance as we look through unfigurative language to the

sense.

The "brazen serpent," introduced by my opponent, had the authori ty of God, for its being made, and was a splendid type of him that destroyed the serpent, that old serpent the devil, who had bitten the human race. When men bitten, looked at it, they were healed: but when they began to worship it, it was destroyed. I say, it had the authority of God. But where is the same authority for carrying about the bones of a dead saint, or the hair of the Virgin Mary, or the feet of Balaam's ass? Where is the first word, in favor of worshiping or making an image of the cross, or of the Savior, or of any saint? or of venerating a grave, a relic, or a picture?

My opponent ingeniously asked, if the name of God were not a picture? Profound reasoning! The name of God a picture of the same class with the image of the cross and of the Virgin! But a mother says to her infant," my life!" and she may say to Lady Mary in the same style, "my life!" Ingenious! I would ask this Roman Catholic lady when she looks upon her child, and exclaims "my life," if she feels the same religious affections, the same pious emotions, as when she looks up to the Virgin Mary and exclaims, “my life?" Is not the gentleman rather playing the sophist, or sporting in jest, than gravely reasoning the subject? Certainly, he would not so teach his congregation in the absence of Protestants! This is as felicitous and as rhetorical as his allusions to the device and images on medals, or on gold and silver coin. There is, indeed, idolatry here! But there is no hypocrisy in the temple of mammon. Moreover, these worshipers adore not the image of money; but the money itself.

Next came the cherubim. What an association of ideas! What confusion in the mind that associates the cherubim in Solomon's temple, with the image on a dollar! Is the gentleman serious? Did the people see the cherubim, in the holiest of all? Aaron, the priest, only stood before those cherubim, as the type of our high priest, who offers his sacrifice in heaven: and Aaron stood there only once in a year. If he understood either the type or the anti-type, he could not adduce it either for the worship of an image or the offering of any sacrifice on earth: for, like Aaron in the holiest of all, Christ offers his sacrifice in heaven. Aaron presented the blood upon the propitiatory: but Christ entered once for all. As the bishop's high priest is not in heaven but at Rome; all the sacrifice which he can offer on earth is not worth a farthing for in the Christian and Jewish sense, no sacrifice on earth can avail any thing. Such were the types, and such, certainly, are the anti-types. Offerings for sin, now, are only made in heaven. The very allusion to Aaron, strikes a blow at the priesthood of the Roman Catholic church, as if God had not accepted in heaven, the sacrifice of his Son, and called for their assistance!!

But it is hinted that I should more fully prove the immorality of the Roman Catholic rule of faith. I have no lack of documents on this subject. The saint Ligori, by the help of saint Pius VII. has richly furnished us with indubitable authority. "The attorney general of the devil lives at Rome," says my opponent, "and prevents the beatification of all saints." How great, then, must have been the virtues of St. Ligori, who, in spite of the devil, was canonized by pope Pius VII?! See how equivocation is taught in this rule of faith and morality :

"To swear, says St. Ligori, "with equivocation, where there is a good rea son, and equivocation itself is lawful, is not wrong. And if a person swears without a good reason, it is not to be considered a perjury; since, in one sense of the word, and according to mental restriction, he swears what is true." gor. Lib. iii. N. 151. [Synopsis, 159. Dissimulation is variously taught.

Li

"It is lawful," continues Ligori, "for a Catholic, when he is passing through a country belonging to heretics, and is in danger of losing his life or property, to pretend that he is not a Catholic, and to eat meat on fast days." Id. Lib. ii. N. 15. [Synopsis, p. 216.

This new old rule of faith has made some new sins, which neither patriarchs nor Jews did ever commit; and here is one of that class which no American can ever commit:

"Is it a mortal sin," asks the saint, to steal a small piece of a sacred relic? Ans. "There is no doubt, but that, in the district of Rome, it is a mortal sin. But out of this district, if any one steal a small piece of a relic, it is probable that it is no mortal sin, provided the relic be not thereby disgraced, nor, its value lessened; unless it be some notable or rare relic, such for instance, as the Holy Cross, or the hair of the blessed Virgin Mary," &c. Id. ib. N. 532. [Synopsis,

p. 167.

There is a secret on the subject of infallibility, which the saint Ligori has begun to divulge. Custom, it would seem, since general councils are gone out of fashion, is from this time forth to be the standard of orthodoxy and infallibility; at least, in morals. Listen to the moral theology of the Romish church on this point:

"Custom," says the saint, "is defined the unwritten law. In order that custom should obtain the force and obligation of law, three things are required. 1st. That it be introduced not by any particular person, but by a community, or at least, by the majority of a community, which is capable of making laws, although, in fact, said community cannot make the laws. 2ndly. It is required