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have contradicted him on the spot, only for the sake of order, and expecting to be called upon before the conclusion of the meeting.

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When I first begun to read the scriptures, the parish priest where I then lived was informed of it, and he called me to an accouut about it; and when I had acknowledged it, he threatened me most severely with the strictest penitential punishment, saying: "Did you not know that the church forbids the laity to read the scriptures, after having so often heard me declare it from the altar ?" I answered, "Yes, sir, I have often heard you do so; but I thought there could be no harm in reading them." He then wanted me to make a promise to God and him, that I would never open the Bible again. My reply was: Sir, this I cannot do with safety, as the Bible may be lying shut on a desk or table, and if I should open it not knowing what book it might be, then my promise would be broken." "Well, but," says he, "would not you know it by the squares in it?" (I suppose the reverend gantleman meant the columns.) 'But, sir," said I, "how could I see them until I should first open the book?" He was very much displeased with me for my disobedience, but hoped to reclaim me again, as he thought; for he warned me to come very soon to confession to him. I was much afraid of him, as I was then young and tender, and not altogether convinced of all the errors of the

church to which I at that time belonged; yet I was more afraid of God, and the loss of my own soul, than of anything else; and this, with divine aid and repeated reading of the scriptures, endowed me with fortitude to submit to all privations and persecutions, which were not a few. I am ready and willing at any time to answer any inquiry that may be made respecting the truth of what is here stated; and I think Mr. M'Donald can find no apology here by saying they do not do so in England, after advocating the existence of union in their church; for if such a union exists as he endeavoured to prove does exist, then we must think their church should be the same all over the world. If so, then he has either violated that union, by differing from the priests in Ireland, or spoken contrary to his own conscience, knowledge, and the established rules of his church of union, by denying the restrictions of the laity to read the scriptures. If the Pope pretends to be wiser than our Lord by endeavouring to disannul his commandment, in allowing none to read the sacred volume but the clergy, he ought not to be regarded, because it is the duty and privilege of all to read the scriptures, as appears from the words of truth, to which we have already referred. All cannot receive holy orders; therefore, some must either disobey Christ or the Pope; because poverty is a prevalent difficulty amongst the lower classes of people, and is a barrier

to education, the preliminary and essential qualification for ordination: therefore, they may abide by their lot, for they shall never read the scriptures; and whether poverty or riches prevail, woe unto the female sex, for they are entirely excluded from all hopes of ever being ordained; therefore they must never open the Bible, on pain of becoming heretics! But what does God say to his professed pastors in reference to this subject? "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God." Hos. iv. 6. But what an unspeakable blessing it is that the Romish clergy cannot keep the Bible from all! for the Lord has raised up a Wickliff, a Luther, and many others, who, with Christian zeal and undaunted fortitude, have plucked the sacred volume out of the jaws of the devouring dragon; and now the Moors and Hottentots are tasting its delicious fruit, and the children of Indians and Ethiopians are learning to lisp the sacred name of Jesus, by its happy influence: and we trust soon to see the arrival of that auspicious day, "When all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

INFALIBILITY CONSIDERED.

INFALIBILITY is another astonishing privilege claimed by the Church of Rome, which she tells us was first given by Christ to his apostles, and afterwards handed down to her by succession. But as this pretended succession has been already proved to be false, by incontrovertible argument, it shews at once, that the Church of Rome is entirely cut off from every claim of infallibility from that quarter, which breaks the rotten cable of her false anchor, and leaves her to be tossed amongst the floating islands of uncertainty and disappointment. For that man is a fallible creature nothing is more certain, even in his primeval innocence, when all bis powers, both mental and corporeal, were unreservedly engaged in the service of his Creator, and when he had more knowledge and wisdom than all the pcpes of Rome together, and was pure, upright, holy, and happy,even then he was not infallible, else he could not have fallen; and if Adam was not infallible in his first estate, can any one of his posterity be so in their fallen condition? Nay, the voice of heaven cries, that "All flesh is as grass." Isa. xi. 6. "That foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”— Prov. xxii. 15; and that "The heart of a man is

deceitful above all things and desperately wicked;" so mischievous and fickle that the question is asked, "who can know it?" Jer. xvii. 9. If this be the character which heaven gives of man, where can we find human infallibility? For St. Peter himself, who is falsely said by the Church of Rome to have been the first Pope or Bishop of Rome was not infallible; for when he came to Antioch, St. Paul withstood him to the face, "Because he was to be blamed.” Gal. ii. 11. Here then we see that Peter departed from the guidance of the Spirit, which proves that he was not infallible. But some may be ready to sneer at this argument, and say, that they "Do not believe infallibility to rest in the Pope by himself, nor in any of the members of the councils by themselves; but when the council are assembled, and the Pope at their head, then they are infallible." But this is a mere fallacy, and contributes nothing to the establishment of such doctrine; because if the Pope and the council are not infallible when seperate from each other, then meeting together can no more make them infallible than the meeting together of a hundred blind men can restore them all to sight; If they were all blind when separate from each other, a sound pair of eyes could not be found amongst them when assembled together, for they would remain blind still, for all the good their convention could do them. And should a thousand illiterate men meet together

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