erefore, men and brethren, that through this man is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins" (Acts xiii. 38).

3. The third thing which is evident is that the Apostles were not alone
when Christ appeared and spoke, but that several of His other disciples,
even some women, were there.

If the Romanists, then, could prove that Christ established auricular
confession, and gave the power of absolution, by what He said in that
solemn hour, women as well as men--in fact, every believer in Christ--would
be authorized to hear confessions and give absolution. The Holy Ghost was
not promised or given only to the Apostles, but to every believer, as we
see in Acts i. 15, and ii. 1, 2, 3.

But the Gospel of Christ, as the history of the first ten centuries of
Christianity, is the witness that auricular confession and absolution are
nothing else but a sacrilegious as well as a most stupendous imposture.

What tremendous efforts the priests of Rome have made these last five
centuries, and are still making, to persuade their dupes that the Son of
God was making of them a privileged caste, a caste endowed with the Divine
and exclusive power of opening and shutting the gates of Heaven, when He
said, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven."

But our adorable Saviour, who perfectly foresaw those diabolical efforts on
the part of the priests of Rome, entirely upset every vestige of their
foundation by saying immediately, "Again I say unto you, That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be
done for them of my Father which is in Heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt.
xviii. 19, 20).

Would the priests of Rome attempt to make us believe that these words of
the 19th and 20th verses are addressed to them exclusively? They have not
yet dared to say it. They confess that these words are addressed to all His
disciples. But our Saviour positively says that the other words,
implicating the so-called power of the priests to hear the confession and
give the absolution, are addressed to the _very same persons_--"I say unto
you," &c., &c. The _you_ of the 19th and 20th verses is the same _you_ of
the 18th. The power of loosing and unloosing is, then, given to all--those
who would be offended and would forgive. Then, our Saviour had not in His
mind t