ecomes them to learn what they themselves are, before they
judge how little their brethren are what they ought to be. It becomes
them to ascertain their own superiority over the Apostles, before they
claim an authority with which no Apostle ever believed himself to be
invested; and which, if he had so imagined, he would have prayed for
permission to resign. Far less perilous, far less burdensome would be a
commission from on high to guide the seasons, to dispense showers and
sunshine, and regulate the produce of the fields, than to control the
spiritual movements, and administer the fertilizing influences under
which the fruits of holiness are to spring up unto everlasting life.

That any such commission was ever given, is as true in the one case as
in the other; and the belief of any individual that to himself it was
ever confided, is a proof of unsoundness in heart or brain. To any man
it is honor enough, as it was to Paul and Apollos, to plant and to
water. To God alone it belongs to give and to measure the increase.

We therefore disapprove of the practice of confession as adopted by
Catholics, for one reason among many, that it infringes liberty of
conscience, by making man practically accountable to man, and
countenancing an assumption of that power to judge and punish which
belongs to God alone. The punishments of canonical penances are, it is
true, of human institution; but they are awarded to spiritual guilt, of
which no one has a right to take cognizance but God. We therefore deny
the right of any man to impose penances, or, in consequence, to issue
indulgences; and we hold that wherever such a right is claimed, the
prerogative of God is invaded and the cause of his Gospel injured.

Christian liberty secures to every man the right, not only of reading
the sacred records for himself, but of interpreting them for himself; of
ascertaining by his own unbiased judgment what they teach, and of
holding the opinions thus formed without being accountable to any man or
to any body of men. In advocating the free perusal of the Scriptures and
the formation of individual opinions from them, we shall be careful to
avoid any bias from the popular and false impression, that the faithful
pastors of the Catholic Church would prohibit their flocks from reading
the Bible: and we shall enter on no discussion respecting the
comparative fidelity of Catholic and Protestant English translations of
the Scriptures. On the latter point,