“THE CONSENT OF THE FATHERS.”

            “In order to restrain presumptuous dispositions, the holy synod of Trent decrees, that no one relying on his own wisdom, shall presume in matters of faith and customs that pertain to the support of Christian doctrine, to distort the sacred scriptures to his own opinion, interpret them contrary to that sense which the Holy Mother Church has held and holds, whose it is to judge in respect to the true import and exposition of the sacred word, or contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers, even although interpretations of that kind should never be made public. Let whoever does otherwise be reported by the usual officers and punished according to the laws.”—The spirit exhibited in this decree is not peculiar to the Tridentines, but is common to all protestant sects as well. It is now as rampant among our friends over the left shoulder, the Bethanians, as among any we have knowledge of. Could they have succeeded in restraining our “presumptuous disposition” as they regard it, many now happily emancipated would still be labouring under the delusion that “Sacred History” was the very Ancient Gospel itself. We did not ask the “consent of the fathers,” nor seek to construe the word according to the sense put upon it by the Fostering Mother, at Bethany, therefore we were reported and punished to the best of her ability. But all has failed thus far. We editorially exist, and the Gospel of the Kingdom in our hands cares as little for the decrees and oppositions of said mother, the fathers, and their hapless progeny, as for their Holy Tridentine Grandmother of world-wide celebrity herself.

EDITOR.