&c.--this must determine the point.
What they are themselves,--not what they would persuade Protestants is
their essentials or Faith,--this is the main thing.
P. 164.
I answer, under correction of better judgments, they have the ministry
of reconciliation by the communion which is given at their Ordination,
being the same which our Saviour left in his Church:--'whose sins ye
remit, they are remitted, whose sins ye retain, they are retained'.
Could Bishop Bedell believe that the mere will of a priest could have
any effect on the everlasting weal or woe of a Christian! Even to the
immediate disciples and Apostles could the text (if indeed it have
reference to sins in our sense at all,) mean more than this,--Whenever
you discover, by the spirit of knowledge which I will send unto you,
repentance and faith, you shall declare remission of sins; and the sins
shall be remitted;-and where the contrary exists, your declaration of
exclusion from bliss shall be fulfilled? Did Christ say, that true
repentance and actual faith would not save a soul, unless the priest's
verbal remission was superadded?
'In fine.'
If it were in my power I would have this book printed in a convenient
form, and distributed through every house, at least, through every
village and parish throughout the kingdom. A volume of thought and of
moral feelings, the offspring of thought, crowd upon me, as I review the
different parts of this admirable man's life and creed.
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