"Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained."

I SHALL this day endeavour to explain to you, in the simplest manner, the doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding confession, or the forgiveness of sins, and the grounds whereupon she maintains this practice to be an institution of our Lord. It would, however, be necessarily unjust to the subject to enter into it alone, and detached from all those other important institutions, which are considered an essential part of the remedy established by Christ for the forgiveness of sins. It will, therefore, be necessary for me to enter, perhaps at some length, into other considerations connected with this subject, and endeavour rather to lay before you the entire form and substance of that sacrament, which the Catholic Church maintains, and believes, to be one of the most valuable institutions left by our Saviour to the ministration of his Church-that is to say, the sacrament of Penance, of which, indeed, confession is to be considered but a part.

Nothing, I own, is more common than to separate our belief from our practice; and then, placing the latter before the consideration of mankind, as something which stands on independant grounds, and has no connexion with the former, to represent it as necessarily a human invention, devoid of authority in the word of God. In order to remove any impression that may have been made of this nature, it will be proper that I show you this institution as really prescribed in the Church of Christ, in connexion with other and still more important doctrines. I shall, therefore, endeavour to go through all parts of this sacramení, comparing the institution believed by us to have been left by our Saviour, and preserved in the Church of God, with the method supposed by other religions to have been instituted, and to be in operation there, for the attainment of the same objects.

I have again and again inculcated, that in the works of God, or in all those institutions left by him to mankind, there must be always found a certain consistency or harmony of parts,so that whatever has been demonstrated regarding one portion of the system which he left on earth, must be allowed to be of considerable weight towards influencing our belief, at least as to the probability of other similar institutions having been provided. For example, with regard to the present case, all are agreed, that among the most important objects of our Saviour's coming among mankind,-I may say, indeed, the most important of all, was that of rescuing fallen man from sin. We must, consequently, suppose that he did not leave his work imperfect; and, while we all concur in common belief, that the work of redemption was quite perfect and complete, so far as the giving a full equivalent to the divine justice, we all must likewise agree, that a means was provided by him whereby this full and general redemption was, in some way or other, to be applied to each individual case. No one can, for a moment, suppose, that because Christ died for our sins, we are rescued from all co-operation on our parts; that, without a single act, I do not say external, but at least of our minds, we shall have the full benefit of that redemption; that nothing was demanded from us, whereby that general redemption, which would have cancelled the sins of ten thousand worlds, was to be accepted by God, in our particular case. Consequently, so far we all admit that redemption was perfected by Christ's death; and so, likewise, must all agree that some instrument or other, whether of outward act or inward movement, was necessary for the purpose of making that redemption applicable to our

selves.

But if we look into the institutions of Christ, we shall see,