diarist are offered as a true propitiatory sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin, tlie application of wliich is determined by the intention of the officiating priests.
7. Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but in ^e worshi^^of the true God* by images. The second Command- ment of the Decalogue expressly forbids the bowing down to, or serving the likeness of anytliing in heaven above or in the earth beneath. In the Hebrew the words used are, mnrirrn and T^V, In the Septuagint tiie words are, ov TrpocrKui'^crets auroi?, owSe firj Xarpev- tras atirois. In the Vulgate it reads, " Non adorabis ea neque coles." j ; The precise thing, therefore, that is forbidden is that which the | / Churcii of Rome permits and enjoins, namely, the use of images in// religious worsiiip, prostration before them, and doing them rever-j/ ence. '
8. Another great error of the Church of Rome is the Avorship ,of saints and angels, and especially of the yjrginJVIary. It is not
merely that they are regarded as objects of reverence, but that the i service rendered them involves the ascription of divine attributes, /j They are assumed to be everywhere present, able to hear and an- / j swer prayer, to help and to save. They become the ground of / j confidence to the people, and the objects of their religious affections. ' They are to .them precisely what the gods of the heathen were to the Greeks and Romans.
Such are some of the errors taught by the Church of Rome, and they prove that that Church instead of being infallible, is so corrupt that it is the duty of the people of God to come out of it and to renounce its fellowship.
H. The Recognition of an Infallible Church incompatible with either Religious or Civil Liberty.
A church which claims to be infallible, ipso facto, claims to be the mistress of the world ; and those who admit its infallibility, thereby admit their entire subjection to its authority. It avails nothing to say that this infallibility is limited to matters of fiiith and morals, for under those heads is included the whole life of man, religious, moral, domestic, social, and political.
A church which claims the right to decide what is true in doctrine and obligatory in morals, and asserts the power to enforce submission to its decisions on the pain of eternal perdition, leaves no room for any other authority upon earth. In the presence of the authority of God, every other disappears.
With the claim to infallibility is inseparably connected the claim
150 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. V. — R. C. R. of Faith.
to pardon sin. The Church does not assume merely the right to declare the conditions on which sin will be forgiven at the bar of God, byt it asserts that it has the prerogative to grant, or to with- hold that forgiveness. " Ego te absolvo,'' is the formula the Church puts into the mouth of its priesthood. Those who receive that absolution are saved ; those whom the Cliurch refuses to ab- solve must bear the penalty of their offences.
An infallible church is thus the only institute of salvation. All within its pale are saved ; all without it perish. Those only are in the Church who believe what it teaches, who do what it commands, and are subject to its officers, and especially its head, the Roman pontiff. Any man, therefore, whom the Church ex- communicates is thereby shut out of the kingdom of heaven ; any nation placed under its ban is not only deprived of the consolations of religious services, but of the necessary means of salvation.
If the Church be infallible, its authority is no less absolute in the sj)here of social and political life. It is immoral to contract or to continue an unlawful marriage, to keep an unlawful oath, to enact unjust laws, to obey a sovereign hostile to the Church. The Church, thei-efore, has the right to dissolve marriages, to free men from the obligations of their oaths, and citizens from their alle- giance, to abrogate civil laws, and to depose sovereigns. These pre- rogatives have not only been claimed, but time and again exercised by the Church of Rome. They all of right belong to that Church, if it be infallible. As these claims are enforced by penalties in- volving the loss of the soul, they cannot be resisted by those who admit the Church to be infallible. It is obvious, therefore, that where this doctrine is held there can Ibe no liberty of opinion, no freedom of conscience, no civil or political freedom. As the recent ecumenical Council of the Vatican has decided that this infalli- bility is vested in the Pope, it is henceforth a matter of faith with Romanists, that the Roman pontiff is the absolute sovei'eign of the world. All men are bound, on the penalty of eternal death, to believe what he declares to be true, and to do whatever he decide* is obligatory