shrink from expressing my regret that the words, " receive the Holy Ghost," were adopted by the compilers of our Prayer-book. They do not trouble my conscience, but I consider them likely to offend the consciences of many, and I think it would have been wiser to throw them distinctly and unmistakably into the form of a prayer. It is a simple historical fact which ought not to be forgotten, that these words were never used, in the ordi- nation of ministers, for more than a thousand years after Christ ! (See Nicholls and Blakeney on the Common-Prayer.)
One practical lesson, at any rate, is very plain in this expres- sion. The first thing that is necessary, in order to make a man a true minister of the Gospel, is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Bishops and presbyters can lay hands on men, and make them clergymen. The Holy Ghost alone can make a " man of God," and a minister of God's Word. 23, — [ Whose soever sins ye remit, etc.] In this verse our Lord con- tinues and concludes the commission for the office of ministers, which He now gives to His Apostles after rising from the dead. His work as a public Teacher was now finished. The Apostles henceforth were to carry it on. — The words which form this com- mission are very peculiar, and demand close attention. The meaning of the words, I believe, may be paraphrased thus : " I confer on you the power of declaring and pronouncing authori- tatively whose sins are forgiven, and whose sins are not forgiven. I bestow on you the office of pronouncing who are pardoned, and who are not, just as the Jewish high priest pronounced who were clean, and who were unclean, in cases of leprosy." — I believe that nothing more than this authority to declare can be got out of the words, and I entirely repudiate and reject the strange notion maintained by some, that our Lord meant to depute to the Apostles, or any others, the power of absolutely pardoning or not pardoning, absolving or not absolving, any one's soul. My reasons for maintaining tliis view of the text are as follows :
(a) The power of forgiving sins, in Scripture, is always spoken of as the special prerogative of God. The Jews themselves ad- mitted this, when they said, " Who can forgive sins but God only?" (Mark ii. 7, Luke v. 21.) It is monstrous to suppose that our Lord meant to overthrow and alter this great principle when He commissioned His disciples.
(6) The language of the Old Testament Scripture shows con- clusively, that the Prophets were said to " DO " things, when they " DECLARED them about to be done." Thus Jeremiah's commission runs in these words, " I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." (Jer. i. 10.) This can only mean to declare the rooting out and pulling down, etc. — So also Ezekiel says, " I came to destroy the city " (Ezck. xliii. 3 ;) where the marginal reading is, " I came to prophesy the city should be destroyed." The Apostles were doubtless well acquainted with prophetical language, and I be-