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grace. Grace now "abounds and reigns." and you shall receive." And to the possessors of that grace, let me say, let me say, cherish and cultivate the heavenly gift. "Be established in grace" and "grow in grace." Having the spirit dwelling within you, the source of life and sanctification, exhibit, in all their loveliness "the fruits of the Spirit," and thus teach the world that the grace which it derides, is a powerful reality, the only means of attaining the character of a good man on earth, as well as of a saint in heaven.

SERMON VI.

OF WORKS OF SUPEREROGATION.

LUKE, xvii. 10.

"When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants-we have done that which was our duty to do."

We have already said that the religious system of the Romanist is a system of self-righteousness, congenial to the natural pride of the human heart, but wholly opposed to the truth of the Gospel. We are certain that in making this assertion we do "not bear false witness against our neighbour." It is said indeed, that we mistake and misrepresent the case that good works are not considered meritorious on their own account, but for Christ's sake, and that every true Catholic looks to Christ just as much as we do for His soul's salvation. That every member of the Church of Rome seeks salvation by works, is an affirmation we could not make either in charity or truth. Shocking as it may be

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to the mind of a rigid Romanist, and inconsistent as it may justly appear to you, my Protestant Brethren, it is possible for men to belong to her communion, and yet in heart to dissent from her doctrines. We know that in the middle ages, in the midnight of superstition, there were those within her pale, who, enlightened to apprehend the truth,

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worshipped God in the spirit, and rejoiced in Christ Jesus, and placed no confidence in the flesh;" and we doubt not, that even now, involved in trammels which bind them to a system altogether corrupt, there are those who "looking unto Jesus," belong to the body of the faithful; and to whom God says, "Come out of her, my people, that ye partake not of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." But although we make this concession, and do so most gladly, in favour of individual members of the Church of Rome, we cannot allow it to be said, without contradiction, that that Church looks for salvation only to Christ. For indeed she does not. She mentions His name. She speaks with seeming reverence of His merit. But in her decrees she sets aside His righteousness and establishes her own. She has other means of pardon for the guilty than His "precious blood:" and such entire reliance does she place on the works of man, that, she offers them, and not the obedience of Christ, as the price of Heaven. You would think it impossible for the proudest creature to carry his idea of human merit beyond this. If a man can be so arrogantly presumptuous as to think of saving himself by his own obedience to the commands of

God, surely his arrogancy must stop there. But the Church of Rome is not of that opinion. It is their doctrine that a man may not only do enough for his own salvation; but that he may do more than is necessary to save his own soul. They think it possible for him to go beyond the required commandments of God, and to do voluntarily what is not required; and as they argue that to "keep the commandments" is meritorious, procuring Heaven for him who does it, it is held as a necessary consequence, that an excess of work brings with it an excess of merit and this being more than sufficient to purchase for ourselves the diadem of glory, there is a surplus, available for the benefit of others, which being given to others, as the Church may see fit, has the power of satisfying for their sins, and working out their salvation. The doctrine is thus stated by St. Thomas Aquinas, a pillar of the Romish Church. "There actually exists," he says, "an immense treasure of merit, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints have performed, beyond what is necessary for their own salvation; and which are therefore applicable to the benefit of others: the guardian and dispenser of this precious treasure is the Roman Pontiff, and, of consequence, he is empowered to assign to such as he thinks proper, a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes." They teach us in their Catechisms, now used in their schools, that the punishment here spoken of is the temporal punishment

which remains due after the guilt of sin has been remitted by the sacrament of penance, and which must be suffered, either in this world or in the next. If not fully suffered here, it must be continued in purgatory. But by application to the Church the punishment may be avoided. For, upon certain considerations, the deficiency of satisfaction, which the sinner owes to the justice of God, may be supplied by a sufficient portion of the superabundant merit of Christ and saints now in glory; and this will both prevent men going into purgatory, and when there will take them out of it. The grant of this merit is called an indulgence. Pope Leo X. thus explains the doctrine, "the Roman Church, whom other Churches are bound to follow as their mother, hath taught, that the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter in regard to the keys, and the vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, possessing the power of the keys, by which power all hindrances are removed out of the way of the faithful-that is to say, the guilt of actual sins, by the sacrament of penance, and the temporal punishment due for those sins, according to the Divine justice, by ecclesiastical indulgence, may, for reasonable causes, by his apostolic authority, grant indulgences, out of the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints, to the faithful who are united to Christ by charity, as well for the living as for the dead; and that in thus dispensing the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ and of the saints, he either confers the indulgence by the method of absolution, or transfers it by the method of suffrage. Wherefore all persons,