The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-28
DISCUSSES
 WORDS OF CHRIST About the Power to Forgive and
 Retain Sins AS TO THE INTERFERE PATTON Quincy Ewing Presents Interesting Views on We'll Known Text--says Professionalism Is Living Monu-
 ment to Higher Criticism.
AS TO THE INTERFERE PATTON

the Episcopal Church of the Advent, tho rector, the Rev. Quincy Ewing, delivered the following sermon:
 Then said Jesus unto them, again, Peace be unto you; as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. w'hosoever sins ye remit. they are remltted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.-John 20. a and 23.
 MT. Ewing said:
 We find these words recorded in tho gospel of St. John as having been spoken by Jesus to Ills apostles when He first appeared to them after His resurrection. The state ment is as positive and emphatic as any other to be found in the entire New Test ament. What are we to make of 1t, what are we to understand Christ to have meant when He said to just eleven men. ''Whosoever sins ye forgive. they are for given and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained?'
 Did He mean to confer upon those men and their official successors power to for give or retain the sins of all the other | thousands of people in the world with whom they might come fin contact? He certainly did, and we are compelled to admit that He did, if the statement in St. Johns gospel is really His, and we are under obligation as good Christians and good Protestants to accept, literally in- terpreted, every clear sentence in the Bible. We can not here save ourselves from what may prove an unwelcome con clusion by making the statement meta ic it It is plain, matter-of-fact prose sen- tence: "Whosoever sins ye forgive. they arc forgiven; whosoever sins ye retain they are retained" None of us can frame one palmer more matter-of-fact.
 Now what are we going 10 do with it?- we good Protestants who haven't any Pope; who are shocked by the methods of the higher criticism: who claim to ac- cept without question everything we read in the Bible, and are quick to protest that the giving up. or explaining away any part of 1t, is equivalent to giving up or explaining away any part of it. Is equiva- lent to giving up or explaining away all Of it? What are we going to say when the Roman Catholic priest quotes to us this verse from St Johns gospel as his
 
 ting or retaining your sins and mine? IIo tells us that, historically. he is a sue cessor of the apostles; and we can not fairly dispute his claim He tells us. fur ther, that they conferred upon their sue cessors their official prerogatives; and that we do not deny. Among their official pre- negatives he reminds us, according to the 2Srd verse of the 20th chapter of John, and the 18th verse of the 18th chapter of Mat thew. was the right to forgive and retain sins; and. therefore, he concludes, he would not be true to his apostolic office if he didn't exercise that right We can not fault the logic of such conclusion; so. if we are honest. if we really mean what we say, when we claim to accept everything clearly taught in the scrip lures. what follows? Why, that we ought all to go to the Roman confessional to get our sins forgiven. or else, convinced that our Protestant pastors are possessed of apostolic prerogatives, we ought to go to them and insist upon their for giving our sins.
 It will not do for one moment to att tempt to meet the difficulty by suggesting that, while Christ really conferred upon the apostles authority to remit and retain sins, He did not intend for that authority to pass over to their successors for 1t might then be just as plausibly suggested that He did not intend the authority to preach the gospel or to baptize, to be conferred upon their successors by the twelve apostles. According to the state ment of the text. as 1t stands In it's ob- vious, plain-meanng, the Roman Catholic priest is as clearly entitled to authority to forgive and retain human sins as any | Protestant pastor to baptize celebrate the Lords supper, or perform any other | Christian rite.
 Protestant Theology.
 The fact of the matter is, our Protest ant theology Is utterly astray and utter ly intellectual. as often as it undertakes fs...-