are a disgrace, disavows any such sordid and impious practices. But of this more, when we come to treat of Indulgencies.

5. EXTREME UNCTION is a sacrament of a very singular nature, and is only administered to persons in imminent danger of immediate death: it is the office of religion applied to the soul. A well-known book, entitled "Grounds of the Catholic Faith," says that we have a full description of this sacrament in James v. 14, 15, where it is said, “Is any sick among you, let him call for the elders (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, and the Lord shali raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

It is evident, therefore, that extreme unction consists in prayer, and in anointing the body with oil. It is called extreme unction, because administered in the last extremity.

6. ORDERS. The Council of Trent is very severe upon those who say that orders, or holy ordination, to the office of priests, is not truly and properly a sacrament, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ. A dreadful añatbema is denounced upon all such, and against all those who say that the Holy Ghost is not given by holy ordination. That the writer of this may not fall under the fearful anathema, thus proclaimed, he will not here insert a line in contradiction of the church's authority on this point. Orders are a sacrament instituted by Christ, by which bishops, priests, &c. are consecrated to their respective functions, and receive grace to discharge them well; but, if this be true, it is certainly a sacrament of great value.

7. MATRIMONY, or Marriage, is also a sacrament conferring grace; and those who say to the contrary let them be an anathema, decrees the Council of Trent. But this is not all: "if any man says, a churchman in holy orders may marry, or contract marriage, and that, when it is contracted, it is good and valid, notwithstanding any ecclesiastical law to the contrary, or that any who have vowed continence may contract marriage, let him be an anathema." This is a hard sentence; but the church has sodecreed.

As to the form of marriage in the catholic church, it differs nothing materially from that performed in the church of England; it is performed either in private or in public, in the open church or in a private dwelling, as may suit the wishes or designs of those who are to receive the grace of this holy sacrament.

Such is a brief description of the seven sacraments of the Roman catholic church. We now proceed with Pope Pius's creed.

ARTICLE XVI

I embrace and receive every thing that hath been defined and declared by the holy council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification.

Exposition. Good works, says the council, do truly deserve eternal life; and whosoever holds the contrary is accursed.

That same council also declares, that all human kind have lost their holiness and righteousness by the sin of Adam, with the exception of the Virgin Mary, whom the catholics, believing the absolute deity of Jesus Christ, call the Mother of God.

The celebrated Bossuet, once Bishop of Mentz, says, in his Exposition of the Catholic Catechism, that eternal life ought to be proposed to the children of God, both as a grace mercifully promised, and as a reward faithfully bestowed on them for their good works and

merits.

The Council of Trent decrees, that the good works of a justified person are not the gifts of God; that they are not also the merits of the justified person; and that he, being justified by the good works performed by him, through the grace of God and merits of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is does truly merit increase of grace and eternal life.

"We

The catholic authorities do not appear to be very clear on this great doctrine of justification; for Bossuet, in another place, asserts, that the church professes her hope of salvation to be founded on Christ alone. openly declare," says he, " that we cannot be acceptable to God, but in and through Jesus Christ; nor do we apprehend how any other sense can be imputed to our belief, of which our daily petition to God for pardon

through his grace, in the name of Jesus Christ, may serve as a proof." Picart gives this quotation at greater length. It is worth remarking, that in these definitions of justification, nothing of consequence is said of faith, and the reformed churches say so much; but this was a very important feature of the Reformation.

ARTICLE XVII.

I do also profess, that in the mass there is offered unto God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead; and that, in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is a conversion made of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood; which conversion the whole catholic church call TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

Exposition. The famous and learned Cardinal Bellarmine argues on this point thus: "that the celebration of the Passover was an express figure of the Eucharist; but the Passover was a sacrifice, therefore the Eucharist must be so too." This syllogism, like all others of the same kind, is conclusive, provided there be nothing defective in the premises; but no matter: the cardinal reasons somewhat more rationally, when he says, " that if Christ be a priest for ever, the rite of sacrificing must continue for ever. "But," he adds, "there can be no sacrifice if we destroy that of the mass." Therefore, it is said, that the whole substance of the bread and wine, after consecration, is changed into the body and blood of Christ, without any alteration in the accidents, or outward forms. This sacrifice, say the catholics, was only ordained as a representation of that which was once accomplished on the cross; to perpetuate the memory of it for ever, and to apply unto us the salutary virtue of it for the absolut on of those sins which we daily commit.

The Catholic Christian Instructed, an acknowledged book among these christians, solves all the apparent difficulties with respect to this doctrine of transubstantiation; (such as how the outward forms of bread and wine may remain without the substance-how the whole body and blood of Christ can be contained in so small a space as

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