Q>z.s 
 
 ASTORAL LETTER 
 
 CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 OF HIS diocese;. 
 
 T, RIV. L. SILLIMAN IVES, D.D 
 
 3ISHOP OF NQBTH CABOLINA. 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 NFORD AND SWORDS, 137, BROADWAY. 
 
 1849. 
 
Library of 
 The University of North Carolina 
 
 COLLECTION OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 ENDOWED BY 
 
 JOHN SPRUNT HILL 
 
 of the Class of 1889 
 
 2.5£.~I^3p 
 
 0.2L 
 
<v 
 
 %S1 
 
 PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 OF HIS DIOCESE, 
 
 RT. REV. L. SILLIMAN IVES, D. D 
 
 BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 STANFORD AND SWORDS, 137, BROADWAY. 
 
 1849. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 The existence of great agitation and alarm in the Dioeese . . 7 
 
 II. 
 
 The alleged ground of this agitation . ,. t-. . .. .. 8 
 
 III. 
 
 The action of the late Convention . 11 
 
 I. The Convention does not determine what is to he believed, 
 
 but receives what is determined . . . . .11 
 II. The power to teach and enforce Christian doctrine and 
 discipline, resides not in the Convention, but with the 
 Clergy 15 
 
 III. Our Church recognizes and acts upon this principle . 15 
 
 IV. The Clergy, and not the Convention, responsible touching 
 
 doctrine, discipline, and worship 16 
 
 V. The Constitution of the Convention forbids its pronouncing 
 
 on such points 18 
 
 VI. Remedies against false teaching 19 
 
 IV. , 
 Actual state of the Diocese • . . . . . .22 
 
 I. Consideration of Doctrine 23 
 
 1. Testimony of the Diocese concerning Priestly inter- 
 
 1 vention in pardoning sins 26 
 
 £ 2. Nature of Repentance . . .31 
 
 3k 
 
 <t. 
 
IV- CONTENTS. 
 
 3. Contrition . . • .32 
 
 4. Confession ........ 33 
 
 5. Origin of Private Confession . . . . .35 
 
 6. Voluntary Private Confession in the Primitive Church 36 
 
 7. Church of England view of Confession . . .41 
 
 8. Satisfaction -43 
 
 9. Absolution . 47 
 
 10. The bearing of Absolution on Confession . . .51 
 
 II Consideration of Ceremonies and Practices . . .54 
 
 III. Consideration of Pastoral Exactness 58 
 
 IV. Society of the Holy Cross ; alledged surrender of previous 
 
 views 60 
 
 V. 
 
 Reasons for present course and conduct - - - .. .61 
 
PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND LAITY OF THE DIOCESE OF NORTH 
 CAROLINA. 
 
 Dear Brethren — You were doubtless surprised, 
 that I should so far seem to suspect your confidence 
 in my fidelity to our branch of the one Catholic 
 Church, as during the sitting of the late Convention 
 at Salisbury, to think it necessary to give you assur- 
 ances of such fidelity, in the form of a charge to the 
 clergy. I am aware, had you been duly represented,* 
 there would have been as little demand for such as- 
 surances, as there was ground for requiring them ; 
 and the only apology I can offer you for so humiliat- 
 ing an act, may be found in the desire, I have 
 always cherished, to shield you from harm at any 
 sacrifice of mere personal feeling or right. Besides 
 the circumstances under which I acted should not be 
 overlooked. I was confined to my bed by severe ill- 
 ness, not admitting of my writing or even thinking 
 intensely without danger to my life. While in this 
 helpless state, I heard incidentally of some intended 
 action in the convention in regard to my own views 
 and teaching. So extraordinary a proceeding I could 
 hardly credit. Still I felt it to be my duty to have 
 
 * Out of 48 parishes assessed in the diocese, you will see by the Jour- 
 nal, only 13 marked as having been represented in convention. 
 
A PASTORAL TETTER. 
 
 some communication with that body, and with this 
 view sent for two oi my presbyters, to whom, after 
 consultation, 1 consented to dictate the charge to 
 which I have alluded, authorizing them, however, to 
 present it to the clergy, only on the express condition, 
 "that no resolution should be passed in the Convention 
 implying its right, either directly or indirectly, to affirm 
 what you, as a diocese hold, in regard to doctrine, 
 discipline or worship; or what, in respect to these 
 points, the clergy are bound to teach." 
 
 As the circumstances under which I dictated this 
 charge lorbade all explanation at the time, I expressed 
 to my presbyters, my determination to address you, 
 on this subject, so soon as God should give me 
 strength to do it. Which determination was by no 
 means relaxed, on finding the condition I had imposed 
 wholly disregarded, and my act much misunderstood, 
 as a yielding of those principles, which I hold most 
 sacred, and a due carrying out of which, I believe to- 
 be essentially indentified with the welfare of the souls 
 committed to my trust. 
 
 Had I nothing, Dear Brethren, but my own inter- 
 est and honor to consult, I should here lay down 
 my pen, and yielding to the strong impulse of my 
 heart, offer humble and devout thanksgiving to God 
 for most undeserved blessings, for your great for- 
 bearance and exemplary kindness to me for nearly 
 twenty years of very imperfect and unworthy, though 
 well intentioned services. As a man I have nothing 
 to utter but thanks, and nothing to ask, but your 
 earnest prayers to God for the pardon of my many 
 sins, and for His grace and strength to bear me up 
 under the heavy burden of my duties and responsi- 
 bilities, that I may stand the severe trial of this day, 
 which is showing with an awful distinctness, " who 
 are His, and who is holy." But I bear to you an- 
 other relation. J have " the rule over you " by divine 
 commission, and must give account for your souls at 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 7 
 
 the day of judgment. I was, without my seeking, 
 made your Bishop. God empowered me, and exacted 
 of me a solemn vow, to " teach and exhort you, to 
 withstand gainsayers, and to use all diligence to banish 
 and drive away from the Church all erroneous and 
 strange doctrine." Therefore I now speak to you, 
 " in the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
 the Holy Ghost," and I entreat you for Christ's sake 
 and for your soul's sake to give heed to my words. 
 My motive (God knoweth,) is a humble desire to 
 glorify Him, and keep you in the way of truth, unto 
 eternal life. If, in what I have to say, I may seem 
 to touch unnecessarily upon some small things, it is 
 because of their relation to great ones ; or may seem 
 to reflect upon individuals, it is for the defence and 
 protection of the diocese. Great and essential princi- 
 ples are often involved, in what might otherwise ap- 
 pear, unimportant acts. 
 
 I. 
 
 Hence I must be allowed, in the first place, to 
 bring to your notice what I conceive to be the errors 
 of principle, in the first document on the page of the 
 Journal — the report on the state of the Church, 
 which introduces the subject of excitement in the dio- 
 cese. The words of the report are, " the committee 
 deplore the existence, among the members of the 
 Church, of great agitation and alarm, arising from 
 the impression, that doctrines have been preached 
 not in accordance with the Liturgy and Articles of 
 the Church," &c. Now, from the manner in which 
 this assertion is put forth, it is to be presumed, that 
 the committee meant to be understood as affirming 
 the existence generally in the diocese, of this " great 
 agitation and alarm." But upon what testimony, I 
 would ask, is this assertion made ? The only testi- 
 mony which the diocese in her canons allows, in 
 such a case, is " a written account of the state of 
 
8 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 each parish, given by its minister, in his parochial 
 report." The 5th canon says, " that it shall be the 
 duty of each minister to report annually to the 
 bishop " — among other things — " a written account 
 of the state of the parish. Which reports shall be, 
 by the bishop, communicated to the convention, and 
 read in their presence, in order to promote a general 
 knowledge of the state of the Church." These reports, 
 on the occasion referred to, were handed to the 
 bishop, and by him communicated to the convention. 
 And, according to our canon law, they contain all 
 the testimony in respect to the state of the Church, 
 in the diocese, or any portion of it, w T hich is either 
 legal or trustworthy. I call upon the Church, in the 
 diocese, and throughout the union, to examine these 
 parochial reports, and discover, if possible, any " ac- 
 count" or evidence, from the only persons allowed by 
 canon to testify — viz : the parochial clergy and the 
 bishop — of " great agitation and alarm," either in the 
 diocese, or any one parish in the diocese ! To say 
 that there is such " agitation and alarm," when the 
 parochial clergy, to a man, are silent on the subject, 
 is to say, that they have been culpably negligent in 
 a canonically prescribed and commanded duty. 
 
 II. 
 
 The next thing to be noticed, is the alleged 
 ground of this "agitation and alarm" — which, to 
 use the words of the report, consists " in the impres- 
 sion that doctrines have been preached not in ac- 
 cordance with the Liturgy and Articles of this 
 Church, and that ceremonies and practices have 
 been introduced, either unauthorized by the customs 
 of this Church, or in plain violation of its rubrics." 
 It is true, the committee decline either to affirm or 
 deny the existence of these things, on the ground 
 that "it is not their business" But if it be not their 
 business to inquire into the fact of their existence, 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 9 
 
 by what authority do they touch them at all ? And 
 more than this ; by what authority do they indi- 
 rectly define them and assert their existence in an 
 attempted exculpation of " the far greater part of the 
 clergy" and hence, in an implied charge of guilt 
 against the minority of the clergy, embracing the 
 Bishop of the Diocese ? For how can the commit- 
 ted know that the greater part of the clergy are en- 
 tirely opposed to certain things, except as they 
 define them, and hence give them existence ? I 
 agree with the committee, that it * was no business 
 of theirs" to determine, whether or not the matters 
 charged upon a portion of the clergy were founded 
 in fact. But I must be permitted to go further, and 
 affirm, that (if possible) it was still less their busi- 
 ness to pass an implied, but not, on that account, 
 the less oppressive censure upon that portion, with 
 the Bishop at their head. I say the Bishop — for it 
 is useless to reply that he was not named, since it is 
 notorious, that both in the Convention and the com- 
 mittee, he was named as the chief offender. And 
 now, brethren, consider the circumstances under 
 which this was done. The Church, at large, have 
 a right to suppose, that this was an extreme mea- 
 sure, resorted to after every canonical means had 
 failed; while the truth is, no canonical means had 
 been tried. No expostulation with the Bishop by 
 the clerical members of the standing committee, nor 
 by any other body of the clergy. No charges laid 
 before him against any priest or deacon, as teaching 
 heretical doctrine, or practicing forbidden things. 
 No complaint by any rector that he had been an- 
 noyed by the practices of any neighboring priest, 
 nor from any layman, against those of his pastor. No 
 word, save in one solitary instance of friendly coun- 
 sel on the subject, except as sought by the Bishop 
 himself, from any clergyman or layman in the dio- 
 cese. But, after a quiet and apparently profitable 
 
10 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 visitation throughout the low country, in which all 
 his sermons, which are now said to have produced 
 excitement, were preached, with the almost univer- 
 sally avowed approbation* of clergy and laity, the 
 Bishop finds himself virtually arraigned for his teach- 
 ing by a convention assembled in a remote part of 
 his diocese — called with no general knowledge of 
 the intention of a few alarmists, representing only 
 thirteen or fourteen parishes out of about fifty — 
 having in it only nine clergymen out of forty, and 
 six laymen out of the whole representation, who had 
 ever heard the sermons, f indirectly, but no less in- 
 juriously, referred to in the report of the commit- 
 tee. 
 
 Besides, if the teachings and practices of the 
 Bishop and those who may sympathize with him, 
 had been of the character implied in the report, 
 what evidence had the far greater part of the clergy J 
 given of their peculiar and exemplary fidelity ? The 
 false teaching or irregularity supposed, in order to 
 produce such " great agitation and alarm," must 
 have been both known to these clergymen, and very 
 dreadful in itself. Where is the evidence of their 
 manly and canonical resistance ? The conclusion, 
 
 * The rector of one of our largest parishes, and a member of the 
 committee, as I was about to leave, after having delivered my course 
 of sermons, ealled with members of his vestry, and said to me these 
 words — " Bishop, we had, before your visitation, heard much of your 
 popery ; but all I can say is, that I hope you will be able soon to re- 
 turn and give us as much more as you please of the same kind .'" To 
 which his vestry present seemed to yield a hearty assent. Many more 
 like conversations, if needful, I might relate, with only one, and that a 
 sufficiently notorious exception. 
 
 t I feel bound to state, that the lay delegates from all the old 
 parishes, who had heard the sermons, and were accustomed to repre- 
 sent the convention, were, except in two instances, utterly opposed to 
 the whole Salisbury proceeding. 
 
 X I do by no means intend here to sanction the idea, that the far 
 greater part of the clergy, are opposed to rny teaching. On the con- 
 trary, I doubt not, the " greater part" are now united with me. The 
 differences are merely nominal. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 11 
 
 in justice to them, is inevitable, that they believed 
 these things either to have no real existence, or to 
 corns within that class of views and practices, about 
 which clergymen may differ and still be faithful to 
 the Church. But to these things as existing in North 
 Carolina I shall recur in the sequel. 
 
 III. 
 
 I now come to the consideration of that, which, in 
 my humble judgment, may well excite "alarm" in 
 the breast of every true son of the Church, as stri- 
 king, in principle, at the very foundations of truth 
 and order, as hitherto held and acted upon by this 
 diocese — I mean the preamble of the resolution rela- 
 ting to the publication of the report on the state of 
 the Church and the Bishop's charge. 
 
 I. In regard to the matter of this preamble, I 
 shall say nothing ; — whatever may be its merits or 
 demerits, they are perfectly harmless. But of the 
 principle involved in it, viz : — the right of a conven- 
 tion to affirm what a diocese holds, or what the clergy 
 may, or may not teach, I am now called upon to 
 speak. 1 protested against this principle, at the time, 
 as strongly as my feeble state would allow ; and had 
 I been present in the convention, no such principle 
 would have been sanctioned, for no resolution invol- 
 ving it would have been put to that body. And I 
 am bound here to state, upon good authority, that, 
 as it was, the clergy who were silent, and many 
 who voted for the preamble, would have opposed its 
 passage, had they not been under a wrong impres- 
 sion as to my real views of it. Be this as it may, I 
 now renew my protest against the principle involved 
 in it, as utterly subversive of the fundamental faith 
 and polity of the Church. No convention, constitu- 
 ted as our conventions are, has a right to determine 
 what is, or should be, the faith, or practice under 
 the faith, of a diocese. That is determined by a 
 
12 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 power far above it ! What a Christian is to believe 
 and do comes from God, and is imposed by His au- 
 thority. So that every Christian, in every diocese 
 and nation, and throughout the universal Church, is 
 bound, eo nomine, to believe and do, if he would 
 save his soul, that which God hath enjoined. And 
 hence, all are bound to believe and do essentially 
 the same things, as they are all commanded to be of 
 "one heart and mind, and one mouth in glorifying 
 God and striving together for the faith of the Gospel/' 
 But, as from the character of the human mind, and 
 the effects of sin, Christians are not able to " keep 
 the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," by the 
 rule of individual judgment, God hath made His 
 Church — " His One Catholic and Apostolic Church," 
 " the pillar and ground of the Truth ;" made this 
 Church, in her character as universal, or, " one body 
 in Christ" — the interpreter and judge, for every indi- 
 vidual, and every diocese, and every integral portion 
 of His body. And hence the presence of Christ per- 
 sonally, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, is pro- 
 mised, through the apostles, to the universal Church, 
 or to His body as one — and to each portion and 
 member of that body, only as it continues in the 
 faith, and order, and sacraments, adjudged and de- 
 clared by the whole to have been received from 
 God.* It is true, we have power to depart from 
 thence, just as we have power to commit any 
 other sin. But we have no right, and if we would 
 attain eternal life, we must not do it. The principle 
 here laid down is the one upon which the English 
 Reformers placed themselves in justifying their re- 
 sistance to Rome.t They held to the absolute ne- 
 
 * " Amidst bo great perplexity of such various error," says Bishop 
 Ravenseroft, " it is extremely necessary lhat the line of prophetic and 
 apostolie interpretation be regulated by the standard of ecclesiastical 
 and catholic judgment.'" Vol. T. p. 173. 
 
 t " I affirm," says Bishop Ravenseroft, " and shall make it good, 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 13 
 
 cessity of yielding to the voice of the Church so 
 long as she gave her judgment in general councils, 
 which was, at least, up to the sixth century. And 
 they argaed the necessity of breaking away from the 
 usurpations of Rom3, on the grouad that Rome had 
 been guilty of an essential departure from the truth 
 of God, as fixed and enforced by the judgment of 
 the Catholic or universal Church. And when they 
 set forth the Book of Common Prayer, they justified 
 the act, on the ground that it was in accordance 
 with this same judgment. This is seen, not only in 
 the language of the royal commission, authorizing 
 the compilation of the Prayer Book, but also in the 
 words of its Preface. " Different forms and usages 
 may, without offence, be allowed, provided the sub- 
 stance of the faith be kept entire ; and what can- 
 not be clearly determined to belong to doctrine, may 
 be altered," &c. From which it is clear that the Re- 
 formers considered it necessary to keep the substance 
 of the faith entire, as settled by the universal 
 Church ; and hence, to allow of no alteration in 
 anything belonging to doctrine ; such alteration 
 having the nature of heresy. Any national Church, 
 therefore, which should presume to deny any ancient 
 Catholic creed, or leave out any article of such a 
 creed, would, ipso facto, cut itself off from the 
 body of Christ. It was on this principle that the 
 English bishops refused the Episcopacy to the Amer- 
 ican Church, till they had restored to the Apostle's 
 
 that this rule, either expre33ly in terms, or virtually in its principles, 
 was the actual basis of the Reformation, inasmuch as antiquity, uni- 
 versality, and consent, were the tests by which the Reformers, every- 
 where, were determined both as to corruptions and reforms." P. 357. 
 And ho doe? " make it good." See' how in his citations from Bishops 
 Ridley, Jewel, Overall, Hall, Beveridge. and Bull, with Drs. 
 Hammond, Mede, and others. P. 359 to 364. 
 
 See also the evidence of this, ably presented in a pamphlet of Dr.. 
 Hook's, on the subject ; and more feebly, in the sermon preached by 
 the author, at the consecration of the Assistant Bishop of Virginia, 
 *1 
 
14 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 Creed, the article on " the descent into hell," which 
 the Reviewers of the Prayer Book had left out ; and 
 further, till a solemn assurance was given to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, that, in omitting the Atha- 
 nasian Creed, and in the other omissions in our 
 Liturgy, no " essential departure was designed from 
 the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the English 
 Church." Hence, the Athanasian creed is virtually 
 as binding upon the American Church as upon the 
 English ; so that any member of that Church who 
 should deny the truth of that creed, or any article 
 of it, would, thereb}% become a heretic. On this 
 same principle, viz. : that the judgment of the One 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church, in regard to faith, 
 and order, and sacraments, is the ultimate standard 
 for all Christians, it is, that whatever, in the way 
 of doctrine, is set forth by any national Church for 
 the protection or illustration of truth, must be held 
 subservient to such judgment, and be understood 
 in consistency with it. # There is no middle way 
 between this and the merest private judgment, or 
 " the doing that, which is right in one's own eyes/' a 
 thing directly forbidden by Almighty God. 
 
 From this, it must be manifest to all, that a dio- 
 cese does not determine its own faith, but comes un- 
 der the necessity, by becoming a diocese, to believe 
 and do certain things already determined for it by 
 Almighty God, as authoritatively set forth by the 
 Universal Church, and conveyed to it by the national 
 Church, and that it has no power to alter, to modify, 
 or, in any way, to impair the force of the things thus 
 to be believed and done. 
 
 * Bishop Ravknscroft quotes the following from Chillingworth, 
 with approbation of it. Holy Scripture " is not a judge of controver- 
 sies, but a rule to judge them by :" and that not an absolutely perfect 
 j-ule ; but as perfect as a written rule can be. which must always 
 »eed something else, which is evidently true, or evidently credible, to 
 give illustration to it ; and that in this case is universal tradition. So 
 
 THAT UNIVERSAL TRADITION IS THE RULE TO JUDGE ALL CONTROVERSIES 
 
 by." P. 374. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER . 15 
 
 II. It is true, there is a power in a diocese to ex- 
 plain and enforce these things — to show the ground 
 upon which they stand — the channel of divine au- 
 thority by which they are handed down to us, and 
 made binding upon us, — to bring them out from the 
 obscurity of private and sectarian novelty, into the 
 clear light of primitive authority, that their divine 
 beauty may be seen, their reality acknowledged, and 
 their saving benefits felt. 
 
 And this power, in a diocese, is entrusted solely 
 to that sacred instrumentality to whom God hath 
 committed the ministry cf reconciliation. "He 
 gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
 evangelists, and some pastors and teachers ; for the 
 perfecting of the saints, for the work of the min- 
 istry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till 
 we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
 unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ. That henceforth we be no more children, 
 tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind 
 of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craf- 
 tiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive ; but 
 speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him 
 in all things which is the head, even Christ. " Here 
 then, in words directly from God, which the Church 
 has ever applied to the holy ministry, that ministry 
 is set forth as the sole teacher, edifier, external bond 
 of union, and shield of defence, of the faithful in 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 III. In submission to this divine arrangement, our 
 branch of the Catholic Church, hath, after affirming 
 that, from Holy Scriptures and ancient authors, it is 
 evident unto all that the holy ministry, since the days 
 of the apostles, has consisted of three orders, bishops, 
 priests, and deacons — declared, that " to the intent 
 that those orders may be continued, and reverently 
 used and esteemed in this Church, no man shall be ac- 
 
16 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 counted or taken to be a lawful bishop, priest or dea- 
 con in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the 
 said functions * except he be called, tried, examined, 
 and hath had Episcopal consecration or ordination." 
 Now what can more effectually than do these words, 
 restrict to this holy ministry, all teaching, admonish- 
 ing, edifying, and spiritual judgment and oversight ? 
 Hence, in pursuance of this principle, all who are 
 admitted to any function in this ministry are placed 
 under the most solemn vows, according to their re- 
 spective orders, to conform, in their teaching and 
 ruling, to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the 
 Church. While no person, not admitted to this min- 
 istry, is placed under any vow, whatever, touching 
 these things. Besides, the Church, in her national 
 and diocesan Conventions, has generally guarded 
 this principle, by not allowing any layman to act, in 
 any case, except in a subordinate way, where any 
 question of doctrine, discipline, and worship, or any 
 question implying spiritual oversight, such as relates 
 to " the state ot the Church," is likely to arise. 
 Hence, in all standing committees, the clerical mem- 
 bers alone are allowed to counsel with the bishop, in 
 determining the theological qualifications of candi- 
 dates for holy orders, or in reference to other spiritual 
 matters, while the clergy only are authorized to act 
 in cases of discipline and in committees " on the state 
 of the Church." 
 
 IV. More than all this, the clergy alone are made 
 
 * Bishop Hobart, in the following words, gives a summary of these 
 " functions." " The apostles and their successors, therefore, were com- 
 missioned to promulgate the terms of salvation, to teach and enforce its 
 doctrines and duties. They were also cammissioned to intercede for and 
 bless the people, and to present, in the Holy Eucharist, the commemo- 
 rative sacrifice of the death of Christ. They were further commissioned 
 to govern the Church, to admit into and to exclude from its commu- 
 nion, to enact its laws, and to administer its discipline. And this 
 authority would be transmitted to the Church, alway, even to the end 
 of the world."— Com. to Altar, p. 195. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 17 
 
 responsible for any departure from the doctrine, dis- 
 cipline, and worship of the Church. Sad as may be 
 the truth, it nevertheless is the truth, that we have no 
 law that can justify us in placing laymen under dis- 
 cipline for heresy. They may be, and I know are, 
 in a large majority of cases, constrained by the power 
 of conscience. But there is no other power, in cases 
 of false doctrine or heresy, that we can call into ex- 
 ercise to control or rebuke them. They may be 
 Socinians, Universalists, or any thing else you can 
 name, if, in a moral sense, they be not open and no- 
 notorious evil doers, or have not done any wrong to 
 their neighbor by word or deed — -there is no canoni- 
 cal right, except we go beyond the canon law of the 
 American Church, to which some desire to restrict 
 us, even to repel them from the Holy Communion, 
 In this view of the matter, (and it is the true view,) 
 we may see, if we will, that the only security to the 
 clergy, yea, to the doctrine, discipline and worship 
 of the Church, is found in her wise provision, which 
 precludes the judgment of the laity from all ques- 
 tions involving these things ; a provision, flowing 
 from her safe maxim, that she gives no authority 
 where she exacts no responsibility. 
 
 As, therefore, in regard to a Diocesan Conven- 
 tion, as a Convention, the Church prescribes no duty, 
 takes no pledge of fidelity, and exacts no responsi- 
 bility, touching her doctrine, discipline and worship, 
 but has done all this in respect to her clergy, no 
 such convention can, without an unauthorized as- 
 sumption of power and a dangerous invasion of 
 clerical rights and functions, presume to say, what 
 is held by any diocese, or what its clergy may or 
 may not teach* 
 
 * Bishop Ravenscroft cites the following from Bishop Overall, as 
 in principle true. In a letter to Grotius, the Bishop, in regard to a 
 book of the former, questions the correctness of certain passages " which 
 seemed to give to lay-powers a definite judgment in matters of faith ; 
 
18 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 V. There is another aspect in which I am con- 
 strained to exhibit this important point. What con- 
 stitutes a Diocese ? Without doubt, baptized lay- 
 men, deacons and priests, with a bishop placed over 
 them, and made accountable for them to the Church 
 here, and to the Sovereign Judge hereafter. What 
 constitutes, or may constitute, a Convention ? Not 
 only communicants, but also laymen unbaptized and 
 non-communicants ; in other words, persons who 
 neglect or defer the fulfilment of their baptismal 
 vows, with others who, though faithful members of 
 Christ, are not responsible, so far as any provision 
 of our Canons is concerned, to any one for what 
 they believe and say in respect to doctrine, disci- 
 pline, or worship. These, together with deacons 
 and priests, without a Bishop, often make up a con- 
 vention, and did make up the two last conventions 
 of this diocese. And this body — (I mean no disre- 
 spect to them in their true capacity as men and cler- 
 gymen) — this body is to define and set forth the belief 
 of a diocese ! To publish their authoritative judg- 
 ment (I blush to be forced to say it, in North Caro- 
 lina) of what the Bishop and his clergy are to teach, 
 and the people of the diocese must receive ! And sup- 
 pose they should attempt to do it, what would their 
 judgment be worth, to any bishop, priest or deacon, 
 who has to give an account to God, by whose com- 
 mission he acts ; or to any layman, who, in submis- 
 sion to the command of God, would " obey them 
 that have the rule over him," and thus save his 
 soul ? 
 
 to deny the true power and jurisdiction of pastors of the Church, and 
 to rank Episcopacy among unnecessary things. For our divines," 
 says he, " hold that the right of definite judgment in matters of faith 
 is to be given to Synods of Bishops, and other learned ministers of the 
 Church, chosen and convened for this purpose, according to the usage 
 of the ancient Church ; who shall determine from Holy Scripture, ex- 
 plained by the consent of the ancient Church — not by the private spirit 
 of heretics." 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 19 
 
 VI. But suppose the Bishop, or any of his clergy, 
 teach false doctrine, or enforce unauthorized terms 
 of communion, what is the remedy ? 
 
 In answering this question, I am compelled to 
 touch upon that which I would most gladly have 
 avoided, my own authority as Bishop. But the time 
 has come which calls upon me to sacrifice all 
 feelings of mere delicacy, and to raise my voice, 
 though I may stand alone in my diocese, or in the 
 American Church, against what I regard as an inva- 
 sion of the powers entrusted to me, and to me alone, 
 by Almighty God, for the spiritual government of this 
 portion of His kingdom. 
 
 In self-defence, I am obliged to say I did not covet 
 these powers, I did not seek them ; that in fact they 
 were forced upon me against my will ; that I was 
 taken from a quiet and happy sphere of duty, to which 
 my heart fondly clung, and constrained by the providen- 
 tial circumstances * of my election to enter upon 
 the arduous and awfully responsible duties of my 
 present office. The Protestant Episcopal Church 
 in the United States, acting by commission from 
 Almighty God through her Bishops placed me 
 over this diocese, and made me alone f responsible to 
 the Church at large for its "doctrine, discipline and 
 worship." To inspire me with vigilance and prompt 
 me to vigorous action, she imposed upon me the most 
 
 * I was unanimously elected without any previous intimation of the 
 intention of the diocese, after repeated unsuccessful trials to induce 
 others to accept. 
 
 t" A Bishop" says Hooker " is a minister of God, unto whom, with 
 permanent continuance, there is given not only power of administering 
 the word and Sacraments, but also a further power to ordain ecclesias- 
 tical persons, and a power of chief ty in government over presbyters as 
 well as laymen, a power to be by way of jurisdiction, a Pastor even to 
 Pastors themselves So that this office, consisteth in those things 
 which are common to other Pastors, as in ministering the word and Sa- 
 craments ; but those thing3 incident to his office, which do properly 
 make a Bishop, cannot be common unto him with other pastors." Vol. ii. 
 page 137. 
 
20 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 stringent vows of fidelity : vows which bind me to 
 answer to God and the Church, not only for myself, 
 but for every Priest, Deacon, and baptised person 
 within my jurisdiction. Such vows, as bind no other 
 being in the diocese ; and exact of me an accounta- 
 bility to which no other being is made subject. Be- 
 sides this, to enable me to fulfil my trust, she has en- 
 dowed m3, under God, as she hath endowed no other 
 man or body of msn in this diocese, with a special 
 gift of the Holy Ghost for my office and work of over- 
 seer, and hath admonished me, to remember to stir 
 up this gift, or " the grace of God given me by the im- 
 positon of hands," reminding me, that God hath not 
 thus given me the spirit of fear ; but of power and 
 love and soberness* Whatever man, therefore, or 
 body of men, take upon themselves the power of dic- 
 tation, or control, or under any form, the chief direc- 
 tion, in regard to the doctrine, discipline and wor- 
 ship of this diocese, or of any part of this diocese, 
 are guilty of arrogating powers, committed solely to 
 my hands, assuming a trust, for which I alone am 
 made responsible, and resisting the authority of Christ, 
 and the functions of the Holy Ghost with which I 
 only am invested. 
 
 They do more than this, if they be clergymen — 
 they violate their own solemn vows of fidelity and 
 submission. Each and every priest and deacon, in 
 the diocese, is put into his office by the bishop, makes 
 his promise of fidelity to " the doctrines, discipline, 
 and worship " of the Church, to the bishop ; vows 
 obedience directly, and under the most awful cir- 
 cumstances, to the bishop ; and is made amenable to 
 him, and to him alone,f for failure in duty, " error 
 in religion, or for viciousness in life." If any com- 
 plaint is to be made, it must be made to the bishop — 
 
 * See the Office for the Consecration of a Bishop, 
 t Read the Office of Institution. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 21 
 
 if any admonition be given, or punishment inflicted, 
 it must be by the bishop. And all this is not left to 
 be inferred, from the inherent powers of the bishop, 
 but is fixed by the written law of the National Church. 
 
 We are here put in possession of the remedy, 
 which the people have against unlawful teaching or 
 practices of priests and deacons, and which they 
 have against one another. If any communicant feels 
 aggrieved under the discipline of the priest ; or, if any 
 vestryman shall be scandalised by his teaching or prac- 
 tices — or if any deacon shall have cause of offence 
 against any priest, or any priest be offended with his 
 brother, the way of redress is open by the law ; — the 
 appeal is to the bishop. And here let me remind you, 
 brethren, that any other mode of reaching these evils, 
 or attempting their cure, must be schismatical in its 
 character, and utterly subversive of law and order 
 in the Church. 
 
 And now we come to the final remedy, viz : that 
 against the false teaching and unauthorized and op- 
 pressive discipline of a bishop. Aside from that con- 
 fidential and friendly intercourse which should always 
 subsist between a bishop and the clergy and laity of 
 his diocese, (the influence of which may always be 
 great and salutary,) there is recognized, by the spirit 
 and laws of the Church, a right on the part of his 
 priests to counsel with him, and if need be, expostu- 
 late with him, in reference to any matter relating to 
 the soundness of the faith, or welfare of the diocese. 
 And, finally, if, after this,, he shall openly violate the 
 laws of the Church, or teach heretical doctrines ; or 
 shall refuse to subject to godly discipline, those of his 
 clergy who so do ; then a convention of his diocese 
 may present him for trial, to his peers — the bishops of 
 the Church. But any attempt on the part of any one 
 or number of his clergy to thwart his views, or em- 
 barass his official labors, by combinations among 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 themselves,* or with the laity; or to intimidate and 
 coerce him, by exciting against him the popular mind 
 — lending a willing ear to exaggerated statements, 
 and giving publicity to confidential, desultory, and 
 unguarded conversations — and by aiding and abet- 
 ting unauthorized, oppressive, and irresponsible con- 
 ventional acts, is, if there be any virtue in princi- 
 ples, or force in vows, a direct violation of those 
 ties of fellowship and sacred promises of obedience, 
 with which every priest and every deacon, binds his 
 conscience and his soul, at his ordination ; — while it 
 virtually annihilates the Episcopal office, exposes that 
 of the priesthood to contempt, and infuses into the 
 whole body of Christ, the elements of disorder, feeble- 
 bleness, and death. 
 
 Brethren, " I would not be negligent to put you 
 in remembrance of these things, which are most 
 surely believed among you ; and to endeavor, more- 
 over, that ye may be able, after my departure, to 
 have them always in remembrance. For we have 
 not followed cunningly devised fables." 
 
 IV. 
 
 At this point of my letter, dear brethren, 1 am 
 forced back, however unwillingly, to a considera- 
 tion of the actual state of the diocese. I do not claim 
 
 * In reference to this point, see an able pamphlet o r the late Bishop 
 Hobart, addressed to a clerical association in his diocese, just before his 
 death, and received with almost universal applause throughout the 
 Church. Mark, also, the following from the Apostolic Canons : " Let 
 not the presbyters or deacons do auy thing without the sanction of 
 the bishop— for he it is, who is entrusted with the people of the Lord, 
 and of whom will be required the account of their souls"— Canon 39. 
 
 Observe the warning from Chalcedon " The crime of conspiracy," 
 says the 18th canon of that General Council, " or banding together, is 
 utterly forbidden even by the civil laws; much more then, ought such a 
 thing to be forbidden in the Church of God. If, therefore, any of the cler- 
 gy should be discovered either conspiring or banding together, or forming 
 any evil designs against the bishop or their fellow clergy, let them be 
 altogether deposed from their proper rank." 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 23 
 
 an insight (this would be most hazardous in our day 
 of sudden and marvellous changes) into the hearts 
 of my people. But if I may be allowed to draw any 
 conclusion from outward indications, — to " judge of 
 the tree by its fruits," — I should venture to affirm, 
 that a greater increase of real earnestness and humi- 
 lity has followed the last year's ministrations of the 
 Church here, than those of any former like period 
 in my Episcopate. 
 
 Of one thing I may speak confidently, viz. : — that 
 the Church, in its accession of communicants, 
 has made, during the past year, unusual progress 
 among thoughtful and earnest dissenters. 
 
 But this beam of light which God hath sent down 
 to cheer our hard labors, is sought to be inter- 
 cepted by the clouds of human passion. The charge 
 upon a portion of our self-denying ministry is, that 
 through carelesness or wantonness, or some other 
 cause, "doctrines have been preached not in accor- 
 dance with the Liturgy and Articles of the Church, and 
 that ceremonies and practices have been introduced 
 either unauthorized by the customs of this Church, 
 or in plain violation of its rubrics." This is a 
 solemn charge, and requires from your Bishop a 
 solemn answer. He has had it for nearly a month 
 before his mind, — he has made all the inquiry con- 
 cerning it which his circumstances would admit, and 
 now, in view of that account to God for which the 
 present state of his health warns him to make 
 speedy preparation, he can affirm, that he knows 
 not of a single fact in this diocese upon which this 
 charge, or what is the same, insinuation, can find 
 any reasonable basis. 
 
 I. What " doctrine has been preached not in ac- 
 cordance with the Liturgy and Articles of the 
 Church ?" I have cast my thoughts back over the 
 last year, and endeavored to recall to mind the ob- 
 jections of any of my clergy or laity to any sermon 
 
24 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 preached* in this diocese, by any priest or deacon 
 of the same, and the result of my recollection is : 
 that one has been objected to, as preached against 
 baptismal regeneration, — one, against the true andpro- 
 per resurrection of the body, as taught in the Apostle's 
 creed, — one, against priestly absolution, and one, in 
 favor of the Nestorian heresy. But as the charge in the 
 report of the committee is, doubtless, designed to point 
 in a totally different direction, I must consider my own 
 teaching as alone referred to. For that, I stand 
 ready to answer to the One Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church, as represented by our branch of it. All I 
 have taught is now before the public, — Seven Ser- 
 mons on the Obedience of Faith, and a Pastoral Let- 
 ter on the Priestly Office, exhibiting the whole 
 amount of my teaching during the last year. In re- 
 gard to the first, there has been no time for the 
 Church to give her verdict ; but in respect to the 
 last-named production, I here adduce the judgment 
 of a brother Bishop, than whom a sounder and abler 
 theologian, or a truer son of the Church, cannot be 
 named. In the Charleston Gospel Messenger, for 
 June last, is the following notice of my Pastoral 
 Letter on the Priestly Office : — " Absolution is an 
 outward sign of the blessing of forgiveness ; and 
 also a means whereby we receive grace, and a pledge 
 to assure us of grace. And yet it is not a sacra- 
 ment, as one branch of the Church defines a sacra- 
 ment, because it was not ordained by Christ Himself! 
 It is an ordinance full of instruction. It manifests 
 the peculiar authority of the priesthood, — the valua- 
 ble trust committed to it, — the comfort which, God 
 hath so ordered it, is to be sought and obtained gen- 
 erally, (for we now refer not to exceptions, not to in- 
 
 * Some expressions in a little manual at Valle Cruris were ob- 
 jected to; but as they were promptly altered by the Bishop, they 
 cannot be considered as embraced in the charge of the Report. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 25 
 
 dividual cases, and intend not to deny that the Al- 
 mighty can dispense with His own regulations) 
 through the intervention of the priesthood. This 
 deep doctrine of Holy Scriptures, taught by the 
 Church, overlooked, if not repudiated, by the sects, 
 is ably vindicated by the Pastoral Letter before us. 
 But not this great truth only ; the title is a complete 
 index to this profound production. The nature of 
 the Christian priesthood, — all about it, — its divine 
 authority, — its momentous functions, — the obliga- 
 tions of the laity in relation to it, — are treated con- 
 cisely and comprehensively, and in a manner which 
 interests the understanding and the affections. Our 
 extracts will enrich our pages, and sufficiently invite 
 attention to a Pastoral intended, of course, for the 
 Bishop's own diocese, (for he never undertakes to 
 counsel, and direct, and exercise, semi-authority in 
 other dioceses,) but which the members of the 
 Church, American, Anglican, and Scottish, and In- 
 dian, &c, cannot read without advantage, although 
 they may not assent to all its details/' Page 92. 
 In this day of cowardly shrinking from the Truth, 
 under that "fear of man which bringeth a snare," I 
 thank my brother for so bold and comforting, though 
 too flattering a defence. Particularly, as on this 
 doctrine of Priestly Absolution, the great battle of 
 Christ's authority in the Church is to be fought. For, 
 in reference to this, is it to be determined, whether the 
 sacramental system of the gospel, or its antagonist, 
 Lutheranism, is to prevail with us. This is the doc- 
 trine, — the necessity of Priestly Absolution, where it 
 may be had, to cancel or remit all sin after baptism, 
 which destroys the life of God in the soul, and sepa- 
 rates it from the grace of the covenant, — which, it is 
 said, has called up around your Bishop, so many 
 pale faces, and fainting hearts. But it is the one 
 on which he stands without fear, and will stand, by 
 the help of God, so long as he is allowed to have 
 
26 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 part in the apostleship, and struggle on for Christ. 
 Whether the doctrine be according to our Liturgy, 
 let the Church Catholic judge. Indeed, the Church 
 in this diocese has already spoken concerning it. 
 
 1. The lamented Bishop Ravenscroft, although, in 
 his teaching, he was compelled to begin somewhat 
 nearer the alphabet of the Faith, has nevertheless 
 given us, in language not easily misunderstood, all 
 the elements of this important, truth. 
 
 " It appears from Scripture," says the Bishop, 
 using the words of Mr. Law, " that all Sacerdotal 
 power is derived from the Holy Ghost." Then after 
 showing how it is so derived, he concludes : " From 
 this it is manifest that the Priesthood, is a grace 
 of the Holy Ghost." Vol. I. p. 284. Again. " As 
 my Father sent me, even so send I you. I appoint 
 unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed un- 
 to me." " Hence it is clear," here the Bishop uses 
 his own words : " First, that whatever the authority 
 of Christ, in the Gospel dispensation was, with refer- 
 ence to the Church, of the same extent was that of 
 His Apostles. Secondly, as the Church and minis- 
 try, in this dispensation, were intended for perpetuity, 
 therefore this authority must also continue and run 
 parallel with it, through all generations." P. 134. 
 On this ground he says in another place: " The mi- 
 nistry in the Church is a substitution for the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in person." P. 273. Further on, he 
 gives a history of this. " It was to the eleven and 
 to them only, that He said, as my Father sent me 
 even so send I you. His passion being acomplished, 
 the purchase of redemption completed, and a king- 
 dom conquered from sin and death, then it was, that 
 He conferred on the eleven and their successors to the 
 end of the world, authority to plant and govern this 
 Church. / appoint unto you a kingdom as my Fa- 
 ther hath appointed unto me. All power is given unto 
 me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore, Sf-c. It 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 27 
 
 ! was when His resurection had demonstrated His tri- 
 umph over death and hell, that rle transferred His 
 divine commission to His eleven Apostles; that 
 He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted 
 unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are 
 retained. And it was when His glorious ascension 
 had established His supreme dominion over a redeem- 
 ed world, that He poured out upon them the Holy- 
 Ghost, to qualify them for their work, to certify to the 
 world that they were messengers of heaven, and the 
 depositories of all lawful authority in the kingdom of 
 His dear Son." P. 455. "We consider/' he says, the 
 grace and mercy of the Gospel as matters of strict 
 covenant stipulation, as bound up with the authority 
 to dispense them, as inseparable from that authority, 
 and only by virtue of that authority, (with rever- 
 ence be it spoken,) pledging the glorious source of 
 all mercy and grace to his creatures." P. 253. " The 
 grace and mercy of the Gospel, bound up with the 
 authority to dispense them, and inseparable from that 
 authority !" What more have I said ? What more 
 could I have said, in regard to the necessity of look- 
 ing to Christ through the priesthood — (" the priest- 
 hood being a substitution for the Lord Jesus Christ 
 in person ; ) for the grace and mercy of the Gospel — 
 absolution from sin, and strength to resist it ? But 
 again — "What is the Gospel but a message of grace 
 to rebels and enemies to Almighty God, offering 
 them pardon and reconciliation on certain pre- 
 scribed conditions ? What is the Church, but the 
 heaven-appointed, visible, and accessible depositary 
 and dispenser of this grace through her commissioned 
 officers ? And what are the officers of the Church 
 called in Scripture ? Ministers, Stewards of Mys- 
 teries, &c. Are not these, then, agents for a speci- 
 fied purpose, and their work an agency ? Stand 
 they not in the gap, as it were, between Heaven 
 
28 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 and Hell, on this sin-ruined, death-stricken world, 
 sent from God to win souls to Christ, and pluck 
 sinners from everlasting burnings ?" &c. P. 247. And 
 again, speaking of the ends of the ministry towards 
 the children of God, he says — " The first is, the com- 
 munication of the Gospel to mankind, in order to 
 recover them from the ruin and misery of sin, and 
 from eternal death as its wages. The second is, to 
 transact the conditions of this recovery, receiving the 
 submission of penitent sinners, and by administering 
 to such the divinely instituted pledges of pardon, 
 and adoption into the family of God. The third \s, to 
 watch over the household of faith, to provide for their 
 instruction in righteousness, and to exercise the dis- 
 cipline of Christ. Who are bound to submit them- 
 selves to discipline, where no lawful authority to 
 inflict censure is professed ? Above all, who will be 
 found to regard the discipline of Christ, unless upon 
 the firm persuasion, amounting to fixed faith, that to 
 be justly cut off from the peace and privileges of the 
 visible Church upon earth, is a virtual exclusion of 
 such person from the Church of the first born, which 
 are written in heaven ? P. 454. Still further. " He 
 gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some pas- 
 tors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
 the ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ, till 
 we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the know- 
 ledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Here 
 then, my brethren, we have the appointment, and 
 purpose of the ministry fully declared to us — and all 
 depending on this root of unity, the authority of 
 Christ." P. 552. A page further on, the Bishop 
 continues — " We can try the spirits whether they 
 are of God by the open and verifiable standard — the 
 descent from those Apostles to whom he committed 
 the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven — whom He em- 
 powered to bind and loose — whom he empowered to 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 29 
 
 commit to faithful men, after them, the same pre- 
 cious deposit, even unto the end of the world ; and 
 whom He fully authorized for all these glorious and 
 gracious purposes in that plenary commission — As 
 my Father sent me, even so send I you — As my Father 
 appointed unto me a kingdom, so I appoint unto you a 
 kingdom." Once more — " Anointed as He was in a 
 peculiar manner, to preach the Gospel to the poor — to 
 heal the broken-hearted — to preach deliverance to the 
 captives, and recovering of sight to the blind — to set at 
 liberty them that are bruised — to preach the acceptable 
 year of the Lord — so to His ministry in all ages is 
 this holy trust committed. As my Father sent, &c; 
 and He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost — whosesoever sins ye remit, they are re- 
 mitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, 
 they are retained, and lo I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world. Sacred deposit — aw- 
 ful trust — blessed promise ? But we have this 
 treasure in earthen vessels. Brethren, prav for us." 
 P. 625. 
 
 " Alas ! what blind delusion has seized upon men, 
 that in what concerns their immortal souls, they are 
 carelessly satisfied with a security on which they 
 would not risk their estates, and are filled with rage, 
 perhaps, at the friendly hand which would point out 
 their error. But be it so, whether they will hear, or 
 whether they will forbear, the whole counsel of God 
 must be declared." P. 555. 
 
 Had this noble prelate been making the defence 
 of his most unworthy successor, he could not have 
 spoken more to the purpose than in these extracts — 
 although he speaks incidentally, not having made 
 priestly absolution the immediate subject of either of 
 the discourses which have been cited. 
 
 Another voice in my diocese, clear and strong, 
 comes to my aid on this important subject. It pro- 
 ceeds from a sermon styled " Sacradotal Absolution/' 
 2 
 
30 A PASTORAL LETTEK. 
 
 preached by the Rev. W. A. Curtis, before the North 
 Carolina Convention of 1843, and received with 
 unanimous and urgent importunity on the part of the 
 clergy for its publication. I regret that my limits 
 will not allow me to give it entire. May I not hope, 
 however, that at least my brethren of the clergy will 
 once more have recourse to its sound and godly, and 
 much needed instructions. The text is John xx. 23. 
 " Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto 
 them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- 
 tained." I can adduce only the concluding point. 
 " The judicial absolution of the minister, or the power 
 of executing Church discipline, must, also, seriously 
 affect his subject in his relation to, and favor with 
 God. For as union with Christ is ordinarily effected 
 through means instituted in the Church, and as with- 
 out union with Him none can hope for salvation, 
 they who are excluded for their offences from a par- 
 ticipation in those mystical pledges of the divine life, 
 are severed from the body of Christ, and cut off from 
 those channels of quickening grace, through which 
 salvation is ordinarily conveyed to mankind. And 
 as God has constituted His ministry through the 
 agents or instruments of this mystical union by the 
 Church, He will certainly ratify and confirm their just 
 judgment upon those who are admitted or excluded. 
 If they who are in the pale of the kingdom are in a state 
 of salvation, and they who are out of it are in a state 
 of condemnation, the action of those who have 
 power to open and shut its doors, cannot be looked 
 upon as of no effect in their final destiny, or their 
 present spiritual relation and condition." 
 
 Is not, let me ask the candid, earnest Christian, 
 (the Christian who is more anxious to follow the truth 
 and save his soul, than to sustain & party) is not the 
 principle here so clearly, and, if there be any cer- 
 tainty in God's word, truly stated, as applicable to 
 the absolution of those, who, by the grievousness of 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 31 
 
 their secret sins, cut themselves off from communion 
 with Christ, as it is to the absolution of such as, by 
 their open and discovered offences, have been cut 
 off by Christ's representative ? The severance of 
 the bond of union with Christ is as real in the one 
 case as in the other, " Whoso abideth in Him sin- 
 neth not." "If we say we have fellowship with Him 
 and walk in darkness we lie, and do not the truth." 
 And the Church says, if we come to the Holy Com- 
 munion with grievous sin upon us, we " only increase 
 our condemnation." He therefore who is under the 
 power of such sin, however secret, is as effectually 
 barred from all communion with Christ, as he whose 
 sin, by having been found out, is visited upon his 
 head in visible exclusion from the grace of the cov- 
 enant.* The case of the latter is only more fearful 
 in its placing the offender in a more hopeless state, 
 under a sentence which makes it more difficult for 
 him to return — under an authoritative curse. Upon 
 true repentance, however, in either case, union with 
 Christ may be restored. But can it in either be re- 
 stored without priestly intervention and absolution ? 
 Surely not, if, as the sermon states, and states scrip- 
 turally, God has constituted His ministry the agents 
 or instruments of this mystical union. 
 
 2. But it is said — the Church, in the Exhortation 
 to the Holy Communion, supposes that the grievous 
 sinner may safely come upon mere repentance. " Re- 
 pent ye of your sins, or else come not, &c." The error 
 here lies, I think, in understanding "repentance" in 
 a restricted, popular sense; and not in the sense of 
 
 * That the primitive Church regarded certain sins, as of themselves 
 excommunicating the sinner, is not doubtful. " A person," says Mr. 
 Blackmore, in his Antiquities, " was legally convicted in three ways : 1. 
 By his own confession. 2. By the evidence of unexceptionable witnesses. 
 3. By such notoriety of the fact as made a man liable to excommuni- 
 cation ipso facto, without any further process, there being no need of a 
 formal sentence, for they stood excommunicated ipso facto"—' Vol. i. 
 p. 307. 
 
32 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 the Church. " Now in a penitent's or convert's 
 duty,'' says Hooker, "there are included, first, the 
 aversion of the will from sin ; secondly, the submis- 
 sion of ourselves to God, by supplication and prayer ; 
 thirdly, the purpose of a new life, testified with present 
 works of amendment : which three things do very 
 well seem to be comprised in one definition, by them 
 which handle repentance, as a virtue that hateth, 
 bewaileth, and showeth a purpose to amend sin. We 
 offend God in thought, word, and deed. To the first 
 of which three, they make Contrition, to the second 
 Confession, and to the last our works of Satisfaction, 
 answerable. 
 
 3. " Contrition doth not here import those sudden 
 pangs and convulsions of the mind which cause 
 sometimes the most forsaken of God to retract their 
 own doings ; it is no natural passion or anguish, which 
 riseth in us against our wills, but a deliberate aver- 
 sion of the will of man from sin ; which being always 
 accompanied with grief, and grief oftentimes partly 
 with tears, partly with other external signs, it hath 
 been thought, that in these things contrition doth 
 chiefly consist." " Forasmuch as we cannot hate sin 
 in ourselves without heaviness and grief, that there 
 should be in us a thing of such hateful quality, the 
 will averted from sin must needs make the affection 
 suitable ; yea, great reason why it should so do ; for 
 sith the will by conceiving sin hath deprived the 
 soul of life ; and of life there is no recovery without re- 
 pentance — the death of sin; repentance not able to kill 
 sin but by withdrawing the will from it ; the will un- 
 possible to be withdrawn, unless it concur with a con- 
 trary affection to that which accompanied it before 
 in evil : is it not clear, that as an inordinate delight 
 did first begin sin, so repentance must begin with a 
 just sorrow, a sorrow of heart, and such a sorrow as 
 rendeth the heart, neither a feigned nor a slight sor- 
 row ; not feigned, lest it increase sin ; nor slight, lest 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 33 
 
 the pleasures of sin overmatch it." "Of the first 
 among these duties, contrition, — let this suffice." 
 
 4. " Although the virtue of repentance,* do require 
 that her other two parts, confession and satisfaction, 
 should here follow, yet seeing they belong as well to 
 the discipline as to the virtue of repentance, and 
 only differ for that in the one they are performed 
 to man, in the other to God alone ; I had rather 
 distinguish in joint handling, than handle them 
 apart/' 
 
 Hooker proceeds to give his judgment "on the 
 discipline of repentance as instituted by Christ, prac- 
 tised by the Fathers, converted by the schoolmen 
 into a Sacrament ; and of confession ; that which be- 
 longeth to the virtue of repentance, that which was 
 used among the Jews, that which the Papacy ima- 
 gineth a Sacrament, and that which ancient discip- 
 line practiced." I shall here give only that which 
 has respect to the point in hand, — to the discipline of 
 repentance, embracing confession and satisfaction, 
 as instituted by Christ and received and practiced 
 by the " One Catholic and Apostolic Church," to the 
 judgment of which we are bound by our principles 
 implicitly to defer. 
 
 " Our Lord and Saviour," says Hooker, " in the 
 16th of St. Matthew's Gospel, giveth His Apostles 
 regiment in general over God's Church. For they 
 that have the keys of the kingdom of heaven are 
 thereby signified to be stewards of the house of God, 
 under whom they guide, command, judge and correct 
 His family. The souls of men are God's treasure, com- 
 mitted to the trust and fidelity of such as must render 
 a strict account for the very least which is under their 
 custody. God hath not invested them with the power 
 to make a revenue thereof, but to use it for the good 
 of them whom Jesus Christ hath most dearly bought. 
 
 * The author had in the previous section distinguished repentance into 
 these two parts, the virtue and the discipline of repentance. 
 
34 . A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 "And because their office herein consisteth of 
 sundry functions, some belonging to doctrine, some 
 to discipline, all contained in the name of the keys ; 
 they have for matters of discipline, as well litigious 
 as criminal, their courts and consistories erect- 
 ed by the heavenly authority of His most sacred 
 voice who hath said, Die Ecclesice, Tell the Church : 
 against rebellious and contumacious persons which 
 refuse to obey their sentence, armed they are with 
 power to eject such out of the Church, to deprive 
 them of the honours, rights, and privileges of Christian 
 men, to make them as heathen and publicans, with 
 whom society was hateful. 
 
 " Furthermore, lest their acts should be slenderly 
 accounted of or had in contempt, whether they admit 
 to the fellowship of saints or seclude from it, whether 
 they bind offenders or set them at liberty, whether 
 they remit or retain sins, whatsoever is done by way 
 of orderly and lawful proceeding, the Lord Himself 
 hath promised to ratify. This is that grand, original 
 warrant, by force whereof the guides and prelates in 
 God's Chuxch,first His Apostles, and afterwards others 
 following them successively, did both use and uphold 
 that discipline, the end whereof is to heal men's con- 
 sciences, to cure their sins, to reclaim offenders 
 from iniquity, and to make them by repentance 
 just." 
 
 "Neither hath it of ancient time for any other 
 respect been accustomed to bind by ecclesiastical 
 censures, to retain so bound till tokens of manifest 
 repentance appeared, and upon apparent repentance 
 to release, saving only because this was received as 
 a most expedient method for the cure of sin. 
 
 " The course of discipline in former ages reformed 
 open transgressors by putting them to offices of open 
 penitence : especially confession, whereby they de- 
 clared their own crimes, in the hearing of the whole 
 Church, and were not from the time of their first 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 35 
 
 convention capable of the holy mysteries of Christ, till 
 they had solemnly discharged this duty. 
 
 5. " Offenders in secret, knowing themselves alto- 
 gether unworthy to he admitted to the Lord's table, as 
 the others which were withheld, being also persuaded, 
 if the Church did direct them in their offices of pen- 
 itency, and assist them with public prayer, they should 
 more easily obtain that they sought, than by trusting 
 wholly to their own endeavors ; finally, having no 
 impediment to stay them from it but bashfulness, 
 which countervailed not the former inducements, 
 and besides, was greatly eased by the good construc- 
 tion which the charity of those times gave to such 
 actions, wherein men's piety and voluntary care to 
 be reconciled to God, did purchase them much more 
 love, than their faults (the testimonies of common 
 frailty) were able to procure disgrace ; they made it 
 not nice to use some one of the ministers of God, by 
 whom the rest might take notice of their faults, pre- 
 scribe them convenient remedies, and in the end, 
 after public confession, all join in prayer unto God 
 for them. 
 
 " The first beginning of this custom had the 
 more followers, by means of that special favor which 
 always was, with good consideration, showed towards 
 voluntary penitents above the rest. But as profes- 
 sors of Christian belief grew more in number, so 
 they waxed worse, when kings and princes had sub- 
 mitted their dominions unto the sceptre of Jesus 
 Christ, by means whereof persecution ceasing, the 
 Church immediately became subject to those evils, 
 which peace and security bring forth ; there was 
 not now that love which before kept all things in 
 tune, but everywhere schisms, discords, dissensions 
 amongst men, conventicles of heretics, bent more 
 vehemently against the sounder and better sort than 
 very infidels and heathens themselves ; faults not 
 corrected in charity, but noted with delight, and 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 kept for malice to use when deadliest opportunities 
 should be offered. Whereupon, forasmuch as public 
 confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to the 
 safety of well-minded men, and in divers respects 
 advantageous to the enemies of God's Church, it 
 seemed first unto some, and afterwards generally, re- 
 quisite, that voluntary penitents should surcease from 
 open confession. Instead whereof, when once pri- 
 vate and secret confession had taken place with the 
 Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance till the 
 Lateran Council," a. d. 1215. Vol. ii. pp. 244-247. 
 7. Hooker, after arguing that the Romish Church 
 departed from the primitive Church in erecting auri- 
 cular confession into a sacrament, and making it ne- 
 cessary unto all men to eternal salvation, proceeds : — 
 "Were the Fathers then, without use of private 
 confession as long as public was in use ? / affirm no 
 such thing. The first and ancientest that mentioneth 
 this confession is Origen,* by whom it may seem that 
 
 * Wheatley on the Common Prayer, set forth by the House of 
 Bishops, lias the following on the rubric, in the Order for the Visitation 
 of the Sick. " The sick person is to be further moved to make special 
 confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any 
 matters; i. e. I suppose, if he has committed any sin for which the cen- 
 sures of the Church ought to be inflicted ; (better as put by Bishop 
 Sparrow — " It would be considered whether every deadly sin, be not a 
 weighty matter ;") or else he is perplexed concerning the nature or some 
 nice circumstances of his crime. It was upon the former of these cases, 
 that private confession seems at first to have been appointed ; for, in the 
 early ages of the Church, when the public humiliation of scandalous of- 
 fenders was observed to be attended with some great advantages, many 
 persons of zeal would not only rank themselves in the class of public 
 penitents for sins done in secret, but would even solemnly confess before 
 the congregation the particular crime, for which they desired to make 
 satisfaction, by submitting to penance. Now, though it was fit that 
 what had been openly committed in the face of the world, should be 
 openly retracted, that so the scandal might be removed : yet, it might 
 often happen, that in the ease of secret sins, it would be better that the 
 particulars should be kept concealed. For this reason a penitentiary or 
 confessor was early appointed in every diocese, to whom persons in 
 doubt should resort, and consult with him, what, on the one hand, might 
 be fit for publication, and what, on the other, would better be kept se- 
 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 37 
 
 men, being loth to present rashly themselves and 
 their faults unto the view of the whole Church, thought 
 it best, first to unfold their minds to some special 
 man of the clergy, which might either help them him- 
 self, or refer them to a higher court, if need were. 
 ' Be, therefore, circumspect,' saith Origen, ' in mak- 
 ing choice of the party to whom thou meanest to con- 
 fess thy sin ; know thy physician before thou use him ; 
 if he find thy malady such as needeth to be made 
 public, that others may be the better by it, and thy- 
 self sooner helpt, his counsel must be obeyed and fol- 
 lowed/ 
 
 " That which moveth sinners," continues Hooker, 
 " thus voluntarily to detect themselves, both inprivate 
 and public, was fear to receive with other christian 
 men the mysteries of heavenly grace, till God's ap- 
 pointed stewards and ministers did judge them worthy. 
 It is in this respect, that St. Ambrose findeth fault 
 with certain men which sought imposition of pen- 
 ance, and were not willing to wait their time, but 
 would presently be admitted communicants. ' Such 
 people/ saith he, 'do seek by so rash and preposter- 
 ous desires, rather to bring the priest into bonds 
 than to loose themselves/ In this respect it is, 
 
 eret. So that, though public penance was still generally assigned for 
 grievous offences that were privately committed ; yet the persons that 
 confessed did not always make a public declaration of the fact for which 
 they appeared in the rank of penitents. This is the best conjecture 
 we are able to make concerning the rise of the penitentiary's office ; 
 though we have some footsteps of private und secret confessions before 
 we read of any stated confessor. For Origen, who liv#d at the begin- 
 ning of the third century, speaks of private confessions as the received 
 usage of his time, and only advises the choice of a person that was fit 
 to be trusted. And St. Cyprian, that lived much about the same time, 
 commends the zeal of those who laid open even their thoughts and in- 
 tentions of offering sacrifices to idols (though they had not yet proceed- 
 ed to the fact,) with grief and sincerity, before the priest. And much 
 the same advice is given by others, who mention private confession as 
 a general and Well known practice, and only caution the penitents to 
 choose such persona to consult with, as will be careful and tender of 
 their reputation and safety." — P. 427. 
 2* 
 
38 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 that St. Augustine hath likewise said, 'when the 
 wound of sin is so wide, and the disease so far 
 gone, that the medicinable body and blood of our 
 Lord may not be touched, men are, by the bishop's 
 authority, to sequester themselves from the altar, till 
 such times as they have repented, and be after re- 
 conciled by the same authority/" 
 
 " Furthermore," says Hooker, "because the know- 
 ledge how to handle our own sores is no common and 
 vulgar art, but we either carry towards ourselves, for 
 the most part, an over soft and gentle hand, fearful of 
 touching too near the quick, or else endeavoring not to 
 be partial, we fall into timorous scrupulosities, and 
 sometimes into those extreme discomforts of mind, 
 from which we do hardly ever lift up our heads again ; 
 men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret 
 faults, and to crave imposition of penance from them 
 whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in his Church to 
 he spiritual and ghostly physicians, the guides and pas- 
 tors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only 
 consist in general persuasions unto newness of life, 
 but also in the private particular cure of diseased 
 minds. 
 
 " However the Novatianists presume to plead 
 against the Church, saith Salvianus, that every 
 man ought to be his own penitentiary, and that it is 
 apart of our duty to exercise, but not of the Church's, 
 authority to impose or prescribe repentance ;" " the 
 truth is otherwise," saith Hooker; "the best and 
 strongest of us may Deed, in such cases, direction.* 
 What doth the Church, in giving penance, but show 
 the remedies which sin requireth ? or what do we, 
 in receiving the same, but fulfil her precepts ? What 
 else but sue unto God with tears and fasts, that his 
 merciful ears may be opened ? St. Augustine's ex- 
 
 * Here Hooker would perhaps remind us of the fact, presented in 
 his memoirs, that lie not only aeted as a confe&sor himself, brat con- 
 stantly resorted to one for spiritual directions. 
 
 T 
 
 - 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 39 
 
 hortation is directly to the same purpose : ' Let every 
 man while he hath time, judge himself, and change his 
 life of his own accord, and when this is resolved 
 upon, let him, from the disposers of the Holy Sacra- 
 ments, learn in what manner he is to pacify God's 
 displeasure." 
 
 Having given another reason why men of the 
 Primitive Church were forward and willing, upon 
 their knees, to confess whatever they had commit- 
 ted against God, he concludes with a passage from 
 Gregory of Nyssa — "Make the priest as a father, 
 partaker of thy affliction and grief. Be bold to im- 
 part unto him the things that are most secret ; he 
 will have care both of thy safety and of thy credit/' 
 Vol. ii. pp. 259—261. 
 
 Let such persons as deny that private volun- 
 tary confession and penitence were general in the 
 primitive Church, note the following passage, in 
 which Hooker settles this question. " As for noto- 
 rious, wicked persons, whose crimes were known, 
 to convert, judge, or punish them, was the office of 
 the Ecclesiastical Consistory ; Penitentiaries had 
 their institution to another end. Now, unless we 
 imagine that the ancient time knew no other repent- 
 ance than public, or that they had little occasion to 
 speak of any other repentance, or else in speaking 
 thereof, they used some other name, and not the 
 name of repentance, whereby to express private 
 penitency ; how standeth it with reason, that where- 
 soever they write of penitents, it should be thought 
 they meant only public penitents ? The truth is, 
 they handled all three kinds, but private voluntary 
 much oftener, as being of far more general use ; 
 whereas public was but incident unto few, and not 
 oftener than once incident unto any. Howbeit, be- 
 cause they do not distinguish one kind of penitency 
 from another by difference of names, our safest way 
 for construction is, to follow circumstance of matter, 
 which in this narration will not yield itself applicable 
 
40 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 only unto public penance, do what they can who thus 
 expound it. 
 
 " They boldly and confidently affirm, that no man 
 being compellable to confess publicly any sin before 
 Novatian's time, the end of instituting % peniten- 
 tiaries afterwards in the Church was, that by them 
 men might be constrained to public confession. Is 
 there any record in the world which doth testify 
 this to be true ? There is that testifieth to the plain 
 contrary. For Sozomen, declaring purposely the 
 cause of their institution, saith — ' That whereas men 
 openly craving pardon at God's hands, (for public con- 
 fession, the last act of penitency, was always made in 
 the form of a contrite prayer unto God,) it could not be 
 avoided that they must withal confess what their of- 
 fences were ; this, in the opinion of their prelates, seem- 
 ed from the first beginning (as we may probably think) 
 to be somewhat burdensome' ; " not burdensome, I 
 think," says Hooker, " to notorious offenders ; for 
 what more just than in such sort to discipline them ? 
 but burdensome, that men whose crimes were un- 
 known, should blaze their own faults, as it were on 
 a stage, acquainting all the people with whatsoever 
 they had done amiss. And therefore, to remedy, 
 this inconvenience, they laid the charge upon one only 
 Priest, chosen out of such as were of best conversa- 
 tion, a silent and discreet man, to whom, they which 
 had offended, might resort and lay open their lives. 
 He, according to the quality of every one's trans- 
 gressions, appointed what they should do or suffer, 
 and left them to execute it upon themselves. Can 
 we wish a more direct and evident testimony, that 
 the office here spoken of was to save voluntary peni- 
 tents from the burden of public confession, and not to 
 constrain notorious offenders thereunto ?" p. 268, &c. 
 
 This is sufficient to show that Hooker not only 
 admitted, but defended the practice of voluntary pri- 
 vate confession, in the purest and most catholic days 
 of the primitive Church. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 41 
 
 7. " The Church of England," says Wheatly, on 
 Common Prayer, p. 428, " at the Reformation, in the 
 particular now before us, freed it from all the en- 
 croachments with which the Church of Rome had 
 embarrassed it, and reduced confession to its primi- 
 tive plan. She neither calls it a sacrament, nor re- 
 quires it to be used as universally necessary; but 
 because it is requisite that no man should come to the 
 Holy Communion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, 
 and with a quiet conscience ; she therefore advises, 
 that if there be any who is not able to quiet his own 
 conscience, but requireth further comfort or counsel, he 
 should come to his own, or some other discreet and 
 learned minister of God's word, and open his griefs 
 that by the ministry of God's Holy Word, he may receive 
 the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel 
 and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoid- 
 ing all scruples and doubtfulness. Here we see there 
 is nothing arbitrarily prescribed, but every one is 
 left to his own discretion. All that was absolutely 
 enjoined, was only a mutual forbearance and peace* 
 for the security of which, a clause was added in the 
 First Book of King Edward, requiring such as shall 
 be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended 
 with them that do use to their further satisfying, the 
 auricular and secret confession to a priest. Nor those, 
 also, who think needful and convenient, for the quiet* 
 ness of their own conscience, particularly to open their 
 sins to the priest, to be offended with them that are sat- 
 isfied with their humble confessions to God, and the 
 general confession to the Church. But in all things 
 to follow and keep the rule of charity ; and every man 
 to be satisfied with his own conscience, not judging 
 other mens' minds or consciences ; whereas he hath 
 no warrant of God's word to the same. What could 
 have been added more judiciously than this to tem- 
 per, on the one hand, the rigors of those who were 
 too apt, at that time, to insist upon confession as 
 
4£ A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 absolutely necessary to salvation ; and to prevent, on 
 the other hand, a carelessness in those who, being 
 prejudiced against the abuse* were apt, indiscrimi- 
 nately, to reject the thing, as at no time needful or useful 
 to a penitent ! So that we may still, I presume, wish 
 very consistently with the determination of our 
 Church, that our people would apply themselves, 
 oftener than they do, to the spiritual physicians, 
 even in time of their health : since it is much to be 
 
 FEARED THAT THEY ARE WOUNDED OFTENER THAN 
 THEY COMPLAIN, AND YET THROUGH AVERSION TO DIS- 
 CLOSING THEIR SORE, SUFFER IT TO GANGRENE, FOR 
 WANT OF THEIR HELP WHO SHOULD WORK THE CURE. 
 
 " But present ease is not the only benefit the 
 penitent may expect from the confessor's aid ; he 
 will be better assisted in the regulation of his life ; 
 and when his last conflict shall make its approach, 
 the holy man being no stranger to the state of his 
 soul, will be better prepared to guide and conduct 
 it through all difficulties that may oppose. Though 
 our Church leaves it, in a manner, to any one's dis- 
 cretion, in the time of health, whether they will be 
 satisfied with a general confession to God and the 
 Church ; yet when they are sick, she thinks it proper 
 that they be moved to make a special confession of 
 their sins to the priest, if they feel their consciences 
 troubled with any weighty matter. For how will he 
 be able to satisfy their doubts, if he be not let into the 
 particulars of their case ?-\ Or with what assurance 
 can he absolve them, or admit them to the peace 
 
 * " How far," says Wheatly, " this (auricular confession) came 
 afterwards to be abused, is too well known to need any proof: but no 
 argument sure can be drawn, that because a practice has been abused, 
 it should therefore cease to be used. The abuses of it should be reform- 
 ed, bui not. the practice of it discontinue d." P. 428 on B. C. P. 
 « .j f How can the priest do this — solve their doubts — any more effect- 
 ually, without knowing " the particulars of their case," . when they 
 are in health, than when they are sick ? 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER; 43 
 
 and communion of the Church, before he is apprised 
 how far they have deserved its censure and bonds ? 
 If, therefore, they are desirous of the following con- 
 solations/' (their absolution) " which the Church hath 
 provided for their quiet and ease, it is fit they should 
 first declare and make known what burden it is, from 
 which they want to be freed." P. 430. 
 
 Thus far have I exhibited from Hooker and 
 Wheatly what, after careful examination, seemed to 
 me to be the true history of auricular or private con- 
 fession, as held and practiced by the primitive 
 Church, and as held and intended to be practiced by 
 our own. But as I have considered confession thus 
 far as inseparable from absolution, I shall defer any 
 further remarks on the former till I return to the lat- 
 ter, which I propose to do, after citing something 
 more from Hooker on the third part of repentance, 
 viz., satisfaction. 
 
 8. " There resteth now only satisfaction to be con^ 
 sidered, a point which the Fathers do often touch. 
 And it is happy for the Church of God, that we have 
 the writings of the Fathers to show what their 
 meaning was. The name of Satisfaction, as the 
 ancient Fathers meant it, containeth whatever a 
 penitent should do, in the humbling himself unto 
 God, and testifying by deeds of contrition the same 
 which confession in words pretendeth." He proceeds 
 to illustrate this view by citations from the Fathers, 
 The following he adduces from St. Cyprian : " We 
 feel," says that Father, "the bitter smart of his rod 
 and scourge, because there is in us neither care to 
 please Him with our good deeds, nor to satisfy Him 
 for our evil." Again, " let the eyes which have 
 looked on idols sponge out their unlawful acts with 
 those sorrowful tears, which have power to satisfy 
 God." He gives the following from St. Augustine : 
 " Three things there are in perfect penitency, com- 
 punction, confession, and satisfaction ; that as we 
 
44 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 three ways offend God, viz., in heart, word and deed, 
 so by three duties we may satisfy God." 
 
 " Satisfaction as a part," continues Hooker, 
 " comprehendeth only that which the Baptist meant 
 by works worthy of repentance ; and if we speak of 
 the whole work of repentance itself, we may, in the 
 phrase of antiquity, term it very well satisfaction. 
 
 " Satisfaction is a work which justice requireth 
 to be done for contentment of persons injured ; nei- 
 ther is it a sufficient satisfaction unless it fully equal 
 the injury for which we satisfy. Seeing then that 
 sin against God, eternal and infinite, must needs be 
 an infinite wrong ; justice in regard thereof doth ne* 
 cessarily exact an infinite recompense, or else inflict 
 upon the offender infinite punishment. Now, be* 
 cause God was thus to be satisfied, and man not 
 able to make satisfaction in such sort, His unspeaka- 
 ble love and inclination to save mankind, ordained 
 in our behalf a Mediator, to do that which had been 
 to any other impossible. Wherefore, all sin is re- 
 mitted in the only faith of Christ's passion, and no 
 man without belief thereof justified. For inasmuch as 
 God will have the benefit of Christ's satisfaction 
 both thankfully acknowledged and duly esteemed of 
 all such as enjoy the same, He therefore imparteth 
 so high a treasure to no man whose faith hath not 
 made him willing by repentance to do even that, 
 which of itself, how unavailable soever, yet being 
 required and accepted with God, we are in Christ 
 made thereby capable and fit vessels to receive the 
 fruit of His satisfaction : yea, we so far please and 
 content God, that because when we have offended He 
 looketh but for repentance at our hands, our repen- 
 tance and the works thereof are therefore termed 
 satisfactory." P. 281. 
 
 " Repentance is a name which noteth the habit and 
 operation of a certain grace or virtue in us ; satis- 
 faction the effect which it hath either with God or man. 
 
SA PASTORAL LETTER. 45 
 
 And it is not in this respect said amiss, that satis- 
 faction importeth acceptation, reconciliation, and 
 amity, because that, though satisfaction on the one 
 part made, and allowed on the other, they which be- 
 fore did reject are now content to receive, they to 
 be born again which were lost, and they to love 
 unto whom just cause of hatred was given. It is 
 therefore true, that our Lord Jesus Christ, by one 
 most precious and propitiatory sacrifice, which was 
 His body, a gift of infinite worth, offered for the sins 
 of the whole world, hath thereby once reconciled us 
 to God, purchased his general free pardon, and 
 turned away divine indignation from mankind. But 
 we are not for that cause to think any office of peni- 
 tence either needless or fruitless on our own behalf; 
 for then would not God have required any such du- 
 ties at our hands. Christ doth remain everlast- 
 ingly a gracious intercessor, even for every particu- 
 lar penitent. Let this assure us, that God, how 
 highly soever displeased and incensed with our sins, 
 is, notwithstanding, for His sake, by our tears paci-* 
 fied, taking that for satisfaction which is done by us, 
 because Christ hath, by His satisfaction, made it ac- 
 ceptable. For, as He is the High Priest of our Sal- 
 vation, so He hath made us priests likewise under 
 Him, to the end we might offer unto God praise and 
 thankfulness while we continue in the way of life, 
 and when we sin, the satisfaction and propitiatory 
 sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart." P. 282. 
 
 " Amongst the works of satisfaction, the most res- 
 pected have been always these three : Prayers, Fasts, 
 and Alms-deeds. By prayer we lift up our souls to 
 Him from whom sin and iniquity hath withdrawn 
 them ; by fasting we reduce the body from thraldom 
 under vain delights, and make it serviceable for 
 parts of virtuous conversation ; by alms we dedicate to 
 charity those worldly goods and possessions which un- 
 righteousness doth neither get nor bestow well. The 
 
46 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 first a token of piety intended towards God ; the se- 
 cond a pledge of moderation and sobriety in the 
 carriage of our own persons ; the last a testimony 
 of our meaning to do good unto all men. In which 
 three, the apostle, by way of abridgment, compre- 
 hendeth whatever may appertain to sanctimony, 
 holiness, and good life : as contrariwise the very 
 mass of general corruption throughout the world, 
 what is it but only forgetfulness of God, carnal plea- 
 sure, and immoderate desire after worldly things ; 
 profaneness, licentiousness, covetousness. 
 
 " All offices of repentance have these two pro- 
 perties : there is in performance of them painfulness, 
 and in their nature a contrariety to sin. The one 
 consideration causeth them, both in Holy Scripture 
 and elsewhere, to be termed judgments, or revenges 
 taken voluntarily upon ourselves, and to be further- 
 more preservatives from future evils; inasmuch as 
 we commonly use to keep with the greater care that 
 which with pain we have recovered. And they are 
 in the other respect contrary to sin committed ; con- 
 trition contrary to the pleasure ; confession to the 
 error, which is a mother of sin ; and to the deeds 
 of sin, the works of satisfaction contrary ; therefore 
 they all are the more effectual to cure the evil habit 
 thereof. Hereunto it was that St. Cyprian referred 
 his earnest and vehement exhortations, ' That they 
 which had fallen should be instant in prayer, reject 
 bodily ornaments when once they had stripped them- 
 selves of Christ's attire ; abhor all food after Satan's 
 morsels tasted ; follow works of righteousness which 
 work away sin ; and be plentiful in almsdeeds, 
 wherewith souls are delivered from death.' Not, as 
 if God did, according to corrupt judges, take so much 
 money to abate so much in the punishment of male- 
 factors. ' These duties,' saith Salvianus, ' must be 
 offered not in confidence to redeem or buy out sin, 
 but as tokens of meek submission ; neither are they 
 

 A PASTORAL LETTER. 47 
 
 with God accepted, because of their value, but for 
 the affection's sake, which doth thereby show itself." 
 P. 287. 
 
 Hooker proceeds to show that satisfaction demands, 
 when sins have been forgiven against men, full resti- 
 tution, to the extent of our power ; and that it fur- 
 thermore demands, when the Church, in the exercise 
 of her lawful authority, imposes upon grievous sin- 
 ners any penance, a strict compliance with it, in 
 order to be restored to God's favor. As upon these 
 points, however, I have no need to enlarge, I will 
 conclude this discussion of repentance in its three 
 parts : — contrition, confession, and satisfaction, with 
 the remark, that when the Church in her Exhortation, 
 calls upon men to ■" repent or not come to the Holy 
 Communion," she means repentance to be understood 
 in this extended sense : confession being considered 
 either as made publicly in the Church, or as made 
 privately to God through the priesthood. Hence, I 
 infer, that she did not intend in this Exhortation, to 
 encourage the idea, that the sinner who, by the 
 grievousness of his sin, had separated himself from 
 communion with Christ, might, nevertheless, by the 
 mere " virtue of repentance," without priestly abso- 
 lution, be restored to his fellowship. In this infer- 
 ence, too, I shall be strengthened by the considera- 
 tion, that the Church admits no one to the blessed sa- 
 crament without confession and absolution. 
 
 9. Now, the forms of absolution in the Church 
 from the beginning have been various, but her inten- 
 tion has been one, viz. : to convey pardon from God 
 through the Priest, to the truly penitent. In regard 
 to our own form in the daily service, the following is 
 pertinent and sound : — " That form of absolution," 
 says Mr. Curtis, " is entitled a Declaration of Ab- 
 solution ; and from hence, some have inferred that 
 the absolution was not actual. But the term decla- 
 ration has reference merely to the formal act, and 
 
48 A PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 by no means excludes its effect. The authorative 
 publication of pardon from a sovereign is formally 
 a declarative act, and as such may be called a decla- 
 ration of pardon ; but the terms of the instrument, 
 and the authority to promulgate, render it effectual 
 to all the purposes therein specified. When it is 
 said, "Almighty God hath given power and com- 
 mandment to His ministers to declare and pronounce 
 to His people, being penitent, the absolution and re- 
 mission of their sins," we can hardly suppose that 
 such language is used to usher in an act merely for- 
 mal, inefficient and powerless. Where an authorized 
 agent is commissioned to declare and pronounce 
 anything, it would be a solemn farce if all the effects 
 enunciated did not actually follow. The effect, may, 
 indeed, be limited by the presence of conditions, but 
 this does not detract from an authoritative assurance 
 and actual collation of benefits to all who have com- 
 plied with them. The meaning which some would 
 derive from our form is the same as if it read — a 
 declaration of the terms of absolution. But, if the 
 title actually read thus, it would not be a true enun- 
 ciation of the act, for the form evidently contains 
 more than that. The terms (repentance) are, indeed, 
 enunciated ; but only as the condition upon which 
 an actual absolution may be pronounced. What 
 is that power which is said to be given by Al- 
 mighty God to His ministers ? Is it a power merely 
 to say, that God pardons the sins of the penitent? 
 This is a natural power possessed by all who have 
 the faculty of speech and know the revelations of 
 the Gospel, (certainly by deacons who are authorized 
 to preach, but forbidden to pronounce this absolu- 
 tion,) and would hardly demand the solemn enun- 
 ciation contained in the form of absolution. So 
 far from this being its import, it is expressly stated, 
 that the minister does by divine authority, both 
 declare and pronounce absolution and remission, tyc, 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 49 
 
 declares and pronounces the sins of the penitent ac- 
 tually absolved and remitted. Finally, in the En- 
 glish Liturgy, it is not entitled 'a Declaration of 
 Absolution ;' but • The Absolution, or Remission of 
 sins ;' which fully shows the meaning intended by 
 the form/' P. 29. 
 
 Besides, the form in the English book, in " the 
 Order for the Visitation of the Sick," shows, conclu- 
 sively, what the mind of our branch of the Church is 
 on the effect of priestly absolution. The form is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to 
 his Church to absolve all sinners, who truly repent 
 and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee 
 thine offences ; and by his authority committed to me, 
 I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Now what can show more strongly than this, that 
 the Church believes, and hence that we as her faithful 
 children believe, that the priests, when they pro- 
 nounce these words over the truly penitent, do con- 
 vey really and directly God's pardon to their con- 
 sciences, for all their sins and offences committed 
 against him ? I know an attempt has been made by 
 some, and among them, no less a ritualist than Dr. 
 Wheatly, to limit this absolution to Church censures. 
 But surely nothing short of the most inveterate and 
 blinding attachment to theory could have led to such 
 an interpretation. For when we examine the rubrics, 
 and observe that all sick persons visited are to be 
 moved to "a special confession of their sins," and 
 hence all, " if they heartily desire it," must be ab- 
 solved by the priest in this form ; and when we con- 
 sider too, that this is the form prescribed in the Book 
 of Edward VI, to be used for all penitents, (well or 
 sick,) privately confessing their sins unto the priest ; 
 we cannot doubt, that in the mind of the reformed 
 Church in England the priest, in pronouncing abso- 
 
50 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 lution to " all those who with hearty repentance and 
 true faith, turn unto God," does, as Christ's represen- 
 tative or instrument, (acting by His power and au- 
 thority,) actually convey His pardon to their souls. 
 This then being the Church's mind, it matters little 
 whether her " ministers are to be understood as pray- 
 ing or preaching, judging or declaring " — seeing their 
 instrumentality is employed by the Most High in be- 
 stowing on penitent believers the gift of pardon. 
 
 Although I have chosen to rely, mainly, in estab- 
 lishing this point, upon the Church herself, to call her 
 up to testify to her own gifts ; yet it is right to sum- 
 mon her faithful sons, "who have finished their 
 course in faith," to add their witness ; but I have 
 space only for a mere allusion, and I will make it in 
 the language of the ablest Church periodical of our 
 day. " Cosin, Sparrow, Overal, Comber, and all our 
 great canonists, have ever declared with one voice, 
 that in her absolutions the Church acts with a real 
 power, truly dispensing to the faithful and penitent 
 that gift of pardon, of which it has pleased her Father 
 above to appoint her to be the channel. And this," 
 continues the same writer, " becomes still more clear, 
 if from the consideration of individual expressions, 
 we mount to the general principles of her office towards 
 men. For the Church is the revealed line of God's 
 action on that work of re-creation in which it has 
 pleased him to labor. She is the appointed channel, 
 the living law, through which the Mediator, who was 
 once visible among men, is spiritually present. Her 
 ordinances, therefore, are all replete with life; her 
 voice is the utterance of God's oracles, and her chil- 
 dren are bound by true reason to the Most High. 
 When he took our nature in the Virgin's womb, there 
 commenced that mysterious work, of which every 
 sacrament, and every declaration of God's forgive- 
 ness, is a consequence. In this work he is the sole 
 original agent. He delegates to no man an indepen- 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 51 
 
 dent authority. He himself cleanses, feeds, forgives, 
 accepts the sinner. His ministers cannot exclude 
 their chief, or occupy any separate position." When 
 they absolve, they act in his place, pronounce by his 
 authority, and impart his grace. # 
 
 10. While, therefore, private confession is not re- 
 garded by our branch of the One Catholic Church, 
 " as generally necessary to salvation," and hence, as 
 in the primitive Church, is left to the voluntary action 
 of individuals under contrition, moving them thereto ; 
 yet as priestly absolution from all deadly sin, after 
 baptism, is regarded necessary, it becomes a ques- 
 tion for each one to determine, how far the effects of 
 such absolution may or may not depend upon this 
 kind of confession. What the Church has not enjoined 
 as necessary, may become so, however, by the moral 
 state of individuals. What is not imposed as a condi- 
 tion, may be, in certain cases, required as a means. 
 Confirmation is not imposed as a necessary condition 
 of salvation ; and yet sinful men may be in a state, 
 requiring the grace of confirmation to ensure their 
 perseverance in the life of faith. Absolution not on- 
 ly confers grace, but exacts conditions, and implies, 
 more or less, priestly judgment. The conditions are 
 comprised in the single term, repentance ; one part 
 of which, however, as we ha've seen, is confession. 
 To ensure the effect of absolution, this confession (1) 
 must embrace sin that separates the soul from com- 
 munion with Christ. St. Chrysostom, as quoted with 
 approbation, by Hooker, says, " To call ourselves sin- 
 ners availeth nothing, except as we lay our faults in 
 the balance and take the weight of them one by 
 one." (2.) Again, our confession must have in it 
 both the number and right conception of sins, in or- 
 der to bring the soul into a state of remission. " A 
 general persuasion," continues Chrysostom in the 
 
 * See note at the end of this Letter. 
 
52 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 same place, "that thou art a sinner, will neither so 
 humble nor bridle thy soul, as if the catalogue of thy 
 sins examined severally be continually kept in mind. 
 This shall make thee lowly in thine own eyes. This 
 shall preserve thy feet from falling, and sharpen thy 
 desire towards all good things. The mind, I know, 
 doth hardly admit such unpleasant remembrances, but 
 we must force it thereunto. It is safer now to be bit- 
 ten with the memory, than hereafter with the torment 
 of sin." 
 
 Now take the great body of those baptized in in- 
 fancy, who have grown up unmindful of their vows 
 and in a state of rebellion against God and His grace ; 
 will they be likely, in any general confession, to hum- 
 ble themselves to an admission even of the real hein- 
 ousness of their guilt ? And, if they are sufficiently hum- 
 bled to do it, have long habits of deadly sin brought 
 no blindness upon their hearts — no insensibility into 
 their consciences, which must incapacitate them to 
 judge of the nature, and hence of the number of their 
 sins ? Would they be able, under such circumstances, 
 to " take their weight, one by one — examine the cata- 
 logue of their sins severally ?" But this must be done. 
 Tertullian affirms, that "confession doth as much 
 abate the weight of men's offences as concealment 
 doth make them heavier" This concealment may 
 arise from both the depravity and blindness of our 
 minds, which we cannot well manage ourselves. 
 There is another class of persons, who are in great 
 danger from a morbid state of mind, of over estimat- 
 ing their offences, and missing their true character. 
 How are such persons to be aided by a general con- 
 fession merely ? 
 
 Further, absolution looks to the cure of sin, 
 as well as its remission. Hooker remarks, in a pas- 
 sage already cited, (3.) " The power to remit and 
 retain sins" was given to the "guides and prelates 
 of God's Church," to uphold that discipline, " the 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 53 
 
 end whereof is to heal mens* consciences, to cure 
 their sins, to reclaim offenders, and to make them 
 by repentance just." Again, he says, " The know- 
 ledge how to handle our sores is no vulgar and common 
 act,'' and the reason he gives is, that we are prone 
 to be partial and over tender with ourselves, and be- 
 sides, that we often fall into 'timorous scrupulosi- 
 ties/ and so into extreme discomforts of mind;" 
 hence that earnest men in the primitive Church 
 thought it " the safest way to disclose their secret 
 faults, and crave imposition of penance from them 
 whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in His Church 
 to be spiritual and ghostly physicians, the, guides and 
 pastors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only 
 consist in general persuasions unto amendment of 
 life, but also in the private, particular cure of dis- 
 eased souls." But how can this benefit be secured 
 in the present state of confession ? How can the 
 physician prescribe in wisdom and honesty, without 
 knowing the disease ? Bishop Ravenscroft, in dis- 
 cussing the relative duties of pastor and people, en- 
 joins upon the latter, "that they make their pastor," 
 I use his words, " acquainted with their spiritual 
 condition," and bitterly laments that in our system, 
 there is such a want of inclination and opportunity 
 for this. 
 
 (4.) One more thing connects itself with absolu- 
 tion, which seems to require that confession be some- 
 thing more than what it is at present with us. It is 
 that in absolution alone, we can be restored to that 
 communion with Christ in His Church, from which 
 our grievous sins had separated us. "With us," 
 says Hooker, "the ministers of God's most holy 
 word and sacraments all are put in trust with the cus- 
 tody and dispensation of those mysteries, (the body 
 and blood of Christ,) wherein our communion is and 
 hath been ever accounted the highest grace that 
 men on earth are admitted into." But how, I would 
 3 
 
54 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 ask, according to our present practice, with our dis- 
 cipline lost, our confession only general — " the care- 
 lessness of which," says Hooker, "doth commonly 
 extinguish all remorse of mens' particular, enormous 
 crimes" — how, I ask, under such discouragements, 
 are we to keep grievous sinners among our people, 
 from gathering a false peace from our public abso- 
 lution, and going thence to the holy altar, to eat and 
 drink damnation to themselves ?" Suppose, as Hooker 
 advises, we give them " very fearful admonition, 
 what woes are perpendicularly hanging over the heads 
 of such as dare adventure to put forth their un- 
 worthy hands to those admirable mysteries of life, 
 which have been by rare examples proved conduits 
 of irremediable death to impenitent receivers ;" will this 
 prevent " the carelessness of general confession from 
 extinguishing, as it commonly doth, mens' remorse for 
 their particular" sins ; and enable us to give a good 
 " account of their souls" in the day of judgment ? 
 
 Here are my reasons, dear brethren, for what I have 
 said and written on the subject of confession and ab- 
 solution. Less I could not have said and been faith- 
 ful to you ; less, and saved my own soul. When you 
 can succeed in making me careless for your salva- 
 tion, or in taking away my responsibility as your 
 chief shepherd, or in reducing me to that common 
 snare and slavery, " the fear of man," or in inspiring 
 me with that recklessness of divine truth and eter- 
 nal safety, which moves so many to barter heaven 
 for earth, then, and not till then, may you expect my 
 silence and my inaction on these momentous sub- 
 jects ! But as a diocese you do not desire this ! As 
 a diocese, you wish to deprive no one of the liberty 
 with which Christ and the Church hath made us 
 free ! As a diocese, you wish to know the truth, and 
 save your souls ! 
 
 II. But, it is said, or insinuated, we care not which, 
 "ceremcn'es and practices have been introduced 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 55 
 
 either unauthorized by the customs of this Church, 
 or in plain violation of its rubrics." " Unauthorized 
 by the custom of this Church!" Of what Church, 
 I would ask? Of the Church in North Carolina ? 
 Which of the congregations shall we take as a stand- 
 ard ? Of which Church in the United States ? 
 To which of the dioceses shall we look for guidance ? 
 Or of the mother country ? Upon what period of 
 her history may we fix, as exhibiting the settled and 
 authoritative customs of our branch of the One Ca- 
 tholic Church ? No one, not even my peer, has a 
 right to condemn my " ceremonies" as unauthorized 
 by Church "customs," without being required to 
 point out these customs, and to prove their authority 
 over my standard. In a time of fear and of passion- 
 ate excitement, it is easy to vociferate, and insinuate 
 general charges for effect ; but not so easy, to be 
 reasonable, and to keep in one's proper place. "Ce- 
 remonies and practices" have been " introduced," I 
 know, wholly " unauthorized" by the " customs of 
 this Church" as established by the English reform- 
 ers. When custom was in keeping with doctrine, 
 sense was brought to the aid of Faith, and made 
 subservient to it. Then Church-buildings were 
 viewed as offerings to God, and their costliness and 
 magnificence were limited only by the means of the 
 founders ; then the Christian temple was made to 
 symbolize the Christian Creed ; the visible to give 
 more vivid reality and impressiveness to the invisi- 
 ble ; then an awful sense of Christ's presence in 
 the blessed Sacrament was indicated by the promi- 
 nence and adornments of the chancel, and especially 
 the holy altar. Then it was manifest that the min- 
 ister offered prayer to God, and not to the people, by 
 kneeling towards the place where the incarnate God 
 had taken up His special abode. Then humility and 
 reverence in the people were apparent, in not turn- 
 ing their back upon the Priest, when he pronouced 
 
56 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 over them absolution or blessing. Then their sense 
 of propriety prevailed in moving them to make all 
 ascription of praise to, and all professions of belief 
 in the holy Trinity, with their faces to the altar. 
 Then adherence to primitive Catholic Truth, was 
 made manifest in their not virtually denying " the 
 communion of saints," in failing to remember in their 
 prayers and oblations, " the faithful departed."* Then 
 the Priesthood was looked upon and reverenced as 
 from God, and was distinguished from secular persons 
 by a peculiar enjoined dress, and from one another 
 in the sanctuary of God, by vestments suited to their 
 several orders, and ministerial or priestly acts. Then 
 in short, everything that met the eye in the Church, 
 or in the individuals that severally worshipped there 
 in their ranks, spoke of the majesty and incomprehen- 
 sible mercy of God in Christ, and of deep reverence 
 and self abasement and grateful love in God's people ! 
 And instead of fears lest he should give too much 
 expression by ceremonial, to the several acts of God's 
 condescending goodness, each worshipper seemed to 
 deplore his ability to do only so little, and so unwor- 
 thily, to unveil to all eyes the bright features of in- 
 carnate divinity and love ! I acknowledge, dear 
 brethren, and I do it with great sorrow of heart, that 
 a great change in these respects has come over the 
 face of God's people ; that " ceremonies and prac^ 
 tices " have been introduced in our degenerate age, 
 "unauthorized by the customs of this Church :" this 
 Church as it came forth from the furnace of trial 
 with a humble heart, and holy life ; a life adorned 
 with the divine fruits of true repentance, faith, and 
 charity ; and a heart filled with the light of God's 
 word, and honest in its submission and devotion to 
 God's Church, as " the pillar and ground of the 
 
 * In the Prayer Book of Edward VI., prayers for the faithful dead 
 are to be found. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 57 
 
 truth," not professing to be guided by her Catho- 
 lic judgment, when, in reality, it was following self- 
 will. Yes, under the silent workings of that leaven of 
 Lutheranism and Puritanism, infused into the ritual 
 of the English Church, by foreign influence, crowd- 
 ing out her primitive catholicity to make room for 
 modern inventions, fearful changes have taken place, 
 not only in our ceremonial, but in our views, ge- 
 nerating a low estimate of the Sacraments and 
 Priesthood, and tending to an utter prostration of 
 the external system of the Church, and an utter ex- 
 tinction of its true, original spirit ; while an anta- 
 gonistic system is becoming insensibly and gradually 
 substituted and relied upon in her place. The main 
 causes of this, I shall state in the conclusion of my 
 letter ; and only allude to it here, as a reason in my 
 own mind, for an earnest endeavour, gradually to 
 restore the " ceremonies and practices" of the Church 
 in North Carolina to something like uniformity in 
 themselves, and like agreement with the doctrines it 
 professes, and the " customs" it. is bound, by every 
 principle and obligation of duty, to follow. 
 
 In this endeavor, however, your Bishop has 
 carefully distinguished between comparatively un- 
 important things, and those which are identified with 
 truth, — that have always been deemed essential to 
 give distinctness and expression to the doctrines, 
 sacraments and worship of the Church. And he 
 here returns thanks to God for even some little 
 success. 
 
 Churches are beginning to assume a more Church- 
 like appearance — to be more in keeping with their 
 divine and holy purpose. The altar of God is here 
 and there drawn out of its obscurity, and the pulpit 
 become a little more simple and retiring. The re- 
 verence of both clergy and people is manifestly in- 
 creasing; the number of surplices is becoming 
 greater ; altars are less frequently made the resting 
 
58 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 place for clerical arms and elbows. " The irrever- 
 ent practice," to use the language of Bishop Hobart, 
 " of receiving the consecrated bread with the glove 
 on the hand" is decreasing, while a greater number 
 receive agreeably to his recommendation, "in the 
 palm of the right hand crossed over the left, and 
 then lifted to the mouth."* Fewer backs are turned 
 towards the priest at absolution and benediction. 
 The voices are not quite so loud within the walls 
 of the sanctuary, — neither the covered heads quite 
 so numerous, while the rush to escape from Church 
 is not quite so deafening. Fewer congregations 
 regard their ministers as mere " hirelings," and insist 
 upon bidding for their services yearly, as they do for 
 their field-laborers. 
 
 There may have been some two or three other 
 changes which have escaped my recollection, in the 
 irregularities, not "customs" of this diocese, since 
 my coming into the Episcopate. But not one in- 
 stance, so far as I know, of the introduction, of 
 what are usually styled " novelties," — no unusual 
 bowings, or crossings, or lighting of candles on the 
 altar in the day time ; and yet, " great agitation 
 and alarm" about these things ! 
 
 III. And now for "the plain violation of rubrics." 
 And here I confess the insinuation of the commit- 
 tee, might, with perfect safety, have taken the form 
 of a direct charge. As after mature reflection, I 
 hesitate not to affirm, that no clergyman in this dio- 
 cese is free from such a charge, and none less than 
 the members of the committee themselves. What 
 clergymen '• often admonishes the people that they 
 defer not the baptism of their children longer than 
 the first or second Sunday after their birth ?" And 
 
 * See Companion for Altar, note to p. 243. 
 
 t I thank God only one parish in the diocese adheres to this degrad- 
 ing practice. 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 59 
 
 further " warns them that without great Gause, they 
 procure not their children to be baptized at home ?" 
 What clergyman " on coming to the font, fills it, or 
 has it filled, with pure water ?" or "pours water upon 
 the infant" at baptism ? What clergyman having 
 baptized a child in private, afterwards " certifies the 
 same" in the form of the prayer book, before the con- 
 gregation ? What clergyman, in the examination 
 of candidates for adult baptism, "exhorts them by 
 prayer and fasting to prepare themselves for the re- 
 ceiving of the Holy Communion?" What priest, 
 " when the Bishop gives knowledge for children to 
 be brought unto him for their confirmation, brings 
 or sends in writing with his hand subscribed there- 
 unto, the names of all such persons within his par- 
 ish as he shall think fit to be presented to the Bishop 
 to be confirmed ?" What priest, after the gospel, 
 "declares unto the people what holy days or fasting 
 days are to be observed in the week following ?" 
 What priest, " causes the alms of the people to be 
 received in a decent basin, and to be reverently 
 brought to him, and humbly presents and places it 
 on the holy table ?" What priest, after the offertory, 
 "places upon the table so much bread and wine as 
 he shall think sufficient ?" What priest takes care 
 that the remaining consecrated bread and wine is 
 u reverently eaten and drunk immediately after the bles- 
 sing ?" What priest, " to the intent, that his people 
 may be always in readiness to dfe, whenever it shall 
 please Almighty God to call them, diligently from 
 time to time (and especially in the time of pestilence 
 or other infectious disease) exhorts his parishioners 
 to the often receiving the Holy Communion of the 
 body and blood of our Saviour Christ ?" What 
 priest, in visiting the sick, " admonishes the sick 
 person to make his will, and to declare his debts ?" 
 and "does not omit earnestly to move such sick 
 persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor ?" 
 
bl) A PASTORAL LETTES. 
 
 What clergyman observes himself, and causes his 
 people to observe, " the forty days of Lent, — the Em- 
 ber Days, at the four seasons, — the three Rogation 
 Days, — and all Fridays of the year, on which the 
 Church requires such a measure of abstinence 
 as is more especially suited to extraordinary 
 acts and exercises of devotion ?" When each 
 member of the committee, and each clergyman in 
 the diocese, can declare before God, that in none of 
 these respects he has failed to come up to the letter 
 or spirit of the rubrical law of the Church, then, 
 and not till then, may he consistently " be very in- 
 tolerant of such as violate the rubrics*" He must 
 not violate them to answer his own ends, and then 
 complain of others for following his example. The 
 truth is, that while your Bishop would discourage 
 every wilful and needless violation of the rubrics, he 
 would, at the same time, express his conviction that 
 the Church intended them rather as general direc- 
 tions than as inflexible laws, — to be strictly followed 
 however, where circumstances will admit of it ; but 
 to be departed from, where, in the candid and filial 
 judgment of the priest, her great leading purposes 
 demand it, as they sometimes unquestionably do. 
 While, however, I say that all my clergy, more or 
 less, violate the rubrics, I am bound to add my be- 
 lief that no one either does, or has done it, needlessly, 
 or with a view to depart from the faith or worship of 
 the Church. 
 
 IV. The last cause of excitement suggested by 
 the committee, viz : that which relates to the soci- 
 ety of the Holy Cross, will be adverted to in the con- 
 clusion. 
 
 But it is said ; " The Bishop surely gave up in his 
 charge some of his previous views and teachings." Here 
 is the mistake, and a mistake which is doing great in 
 injustice to me and injury to my diocese. Your Bishop 
 is ever ready to yield anything for peace, which is not 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 61 
 
 identified with essential truth. But to admit that he 
 had yielded in this case, would be to admit that he 
 had been unfaithful, where his conscience testifies 
 before God to his strict fidelity ; would be to say, 
 that he had given up that which he never held. He 
 did, however, being sick, what he never would have 
 done, being well ; he allowed himself to treat, as if 
 lawful, an unlawful, though implied, censure ; and 
 an invasion of his just rights from which the merest 
 respect for his office should have shielded him. But 
 he turns to his diocese, and thanks God that he can 
 turn to them with the utmost confidence of support, 
 though not perhaps of entire agreement with him- 
 self, and say to them, Brethren, your Bishop has not 
 retreated one step ! — has not and will not (for any 
 consideration this side the grave) yield one word or 
 syllable of what he has really taught. For he be- 
 lieves it identified with his own and your salvation, 
 as he believes it bound upon his conscience by solemn 
 oath at his consecration. 
 
 V. 
 
 Permit me, Brethren, to go back a little in our 
 history, as a branch of the One Catholic Church, and 
 trace out very briefly some of the causes which have 
 led me to my present convictions and course. 
 
 All national Church reforms are conducted under 
 strong feelings, and undue bias. The mind of 
 the nation is impelled by some great and engrossing 
 idea, which, for the time, sinks every thing else be- 
 low its proper level, and thus leads to an exaggera- 
 tion of error and an overstatement of antagonistic 
 truth. So that much of what is done under national 
 excitement to meet a practicular exigency, though 
 comparatively harmless at I he time, often tends, in an- 
 other age, and under other influences, to the opposite 
 and equally dangerous extreme from that which was 
 originally sought to be shunned. The reformation 
 3* 
 
62 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 in England, however loudly called for, by the cor- 
 ruptions of the time, was not wholly exempt from 
 the evils to which I have adverted. The political, 
 and indeed personal questions w T hich obtruded them- 
 selves into the ecclesiastical struggle with Rome, so 
 averted and warped the mind of the nation, as, in 
 the settlement of religious truth, to allow of a decid- 
 ed infusion of leaven from a foreign source into the 
 Anglican formularies of doctrine. Coming from a 
 system in Germany at variance in most of its essen- 
 tial features with the Sacramental system of the 
 English ritual,. it was soon found to breed jealousy 
 and strife. Its working was aided too by the pre- 
 sence of those eminent Lutheran or Calvinistic di- 
 vines that found their way at an early period of the 
 Reformation, into the Universities and Theological 
 chairs of England. The struggle between these anta- 
 gonist principles — the Lutheran and Sacramental, 
 soon resulted in demands for change in the Book of 
 Common Prayer. One change had hardly been yield- 
 ed when another was called for, demonstrating the 
 growing conformity to the Lutheran or Puritan mind. 
 Thus the once harmonious system gathered by our An- 
 glican forefathers, with so much toil and suffering 
 from the Creeds and Liturgies of truly Catholic anti- 
 quity, was gradually deprived of its oneness and 
 strength, and greatly diluted in some of its essential 
 truth. One feature after another disappeared in the 
 various attempts to adapt it to what was really 
 " another Gospel." 
 
 Among these, the doctrine of " sacredotal absolu- 
 tion," was cast into the shade, when its true and pro- 
 per form was removed from general use, into " the 
 Order for the Visitation of the Sick." Besides the re- 
 sult of such alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, 
 under foreign pressure, another principle, hardly less 
 prejudicial to the truth, was at work, engendered in 
 England herself, from " the union of Church and 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 63 
 
 State." The effect of it was to lower, in the estima- 
 tion of the people, the Church from its true character, 
 as the mystical body of Christ, to, at least, a semi- 
 political establishment. So that in less than two cen- 
 turies, if we may believe the testimony of Charles 
 Leslie and his faithful kindred in the faith, the real 
 nature of the sacraments was lost sight of, in the vir- 
 tual erasement from the national mind, of that grand 
 article in the creed — " The One Catholic and Apos- 
 tolic Church." And what made the case still more 
 sad and discouraging, was the fact, that the great 
 body of such as held to the sacraments at all, stripped 
 them of their vitality, presenting merely " the out- 
 ward, visible sign," with no " inward, spiritual grace." 
 The effect was to turn those that were really "hunger- 
 ing and thirsting after righteousness," away from the 
 rich gifts of heavenly grace in the Church, to those 
 systems which gave to their uninstructed minds, 
 fairer promise of spiritual life and nourishment. No 
 wonder, that the altars of our Church were deserted 
 for the earnest, though unauthorized teachings of dis- 
 sent, while the Church itself, was borne still far- 
 ther and farther, from the spirit, and language, and 
 doctrine of primitive antiquity, as embodied in the 
 Liturgy of the Anglican Reformers. 
 
 In this country, with the same antagonistic power 
 to contend with, as a Church, in the absence of all 
 immediate Episcopal supervision, with a still greater 
 proclivity to dissent ; and this evil greatly aggra- 
 vated by the circumstances in which we were left by 
 the revolution, it is certainly no matter of surprise, 
 that the same result, as in the mother country, and 
 even to a more alarming degree, should have been 
 realized. If you demand evidence, you have it in the 
 conflicts of Seabury and White, and a few other 
 faithful men, with the spirit of heresy, as developed 
 in the first general Convention ; developed in efforts 
 to destroy the fundamental faith, and cut off our in- 
 
64 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 fant Church from the favor of God, and the fellow- 
 ship of the "faithful." If you demand evidence, 
 you have it in the history of Hobart, the history of 
 one unceasing struggle against the disparagement of 
 the sacraments, and the invasion of the just powers 
 and rights of the priesthood, both within and without 
 our communion. If you demand evidence, return to 
 the stern conflicts of your own Ravenscroft. Listen 
 to his earnest expostulations, and warnings, and en- 
 treaties on the first great truth he unfolded to you 
 after his consecration — " The One Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church!" Open your eyes, and ears, and 
 hearts to the affecting appeal he made to you, almost 
 from his grave — " Pardon me, my brethren, if I seem 
 to you to anticipate an ideal danger. I am, indeed, 
 no prophet, to draw from futurity its hidden results ; 
 but, as your watchman in chief, and charged with 
 all the interests of the Church, I have to keep an eye 
 upon remote as well as immediate consequences, and 
 to give the warning from the quarter whence danger 
 threatens. 
 
 "Our danger, at the present time, seems to me to 
 arise from a decline in the spirit and power of religion, 
 from loose and erroneous views of the prescribed and 
 covenanted character of revealed religion — from con- 
 sequent indifference to our distinctive principles — and 
 from an over-conformity with the spirit of the world, 
 which, if not arrested, must soon and certainly pro- 
 duce that moral death which precedes the removal of 
 our light from the candlestick. Against this danger, 
 what is to be the resort, my brethren ? Anxiously 
 have I cast about for the most effectual remedy, and 
 my judgment can find that no where, under God, but 
 in a ' return to first principles.' These, through his 
 blessing, may yet revive us to the power of godli- 
 ness, and sustain us against the opposition of our ene- 
 mies. Yea, turn those enemies into friends and fa- 
 vorers of our righteous cause, through the power of 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 65 
 
 truth plainly announced, and faith feebly exhibited 
 in practice. 
 
 " Pardon me, also, if I seem to any to have 
 spoken more forcibly than the occasion called for. 
 Alas ! my brethren, that the desire to conciliate 
 where experience demonstrates that concession only 
 increases demand, should have so prevailed as to 
 enervate and neutralize the truth by the qualified jand 
 doubting terms in which it is expressed ! But a more 
 powerful motive than the fear or the praise of men 
 constrains me. This may be my last address to 
 convention of this diocese, — of which frequently re- 
 curring disease gives serious notice. I, therefore, 
 have to speak as a dying man to those for whom he 
 has to give account, recalling them as Christians 
 and Churchmen to those pure principles of primitive 
 truth and order, which alone give to the religion of the 
 Gospel its practical importance as the prescribed in- 
 stitution of the wisdom of God for the salvation 
 of sinners, — which alone give to the visible Church, 
 ministry and sacraments, any definite purpose in the 
 economy of grace — which alone give to the faith of 
 the Gospel its covenanted character, and to the hope of 
 eternal life, through the merits of the divine Saviour, 
 the support of divine assurance." Vol. 1, p. 466. 
 
 It was just after the death of this true and good 
 Bishop, that the Anglican Church was aroused from 
 her deep slumber, and called up to a consideration 
 of her office and gifts by the stirring voice of a few 
 holy men at the University of Oxford and its neigh- 
 borhood. The simplicity, earnestness, faithfulness, 
 humility, and adaptedness to the yearnings of many 
 minds, of the Oxford Tracts, gave them ready access 
 to almost every fireside and heart in England, and 
 soon made them welcome messengers of love and 
 hope to our shores. Embodying those first princi- 
 ples of sound and primitive theology which had been 
 taught more distinctly among us than in our mother 
 
66 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 Church, carrying them out to their just consequences 
 and entering more into details, these and kindred 
 writings showed us our gifts, our vows, our duties, 
 our dangers, our rewards, and the rugged way of self- 
 denying holiness which leads to them. They set 
 before us in yet clearer and more attractive light, 
 our holy mother — the One Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church — claiming our love and submission, and of- 
 fering her sacramental gifts — her safe guidance — her 
 divine assurance of eternal life to the faithful in 
 Christ Jesus. The effect was great — such as might 
 have been looked for in an age when sinners, inqui- 
 ring what they must do to be saved, had been sent 
 back for an answer to their own burdened and trem- 
 bling hearts. " The members of Christ" felt with new 
 force that, instead of being left to grope their lonely 
 way through the mazes of sense and reason, they had 
 already " come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of 
 the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an 
 innumerable company of angels, to the general as- 
 sembly and Church of the first-born, whose names 
 are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, 
 and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to 
 Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the 
 blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than 
 the blood of Abel." The change promised fair for 
 the cause of holiness and truth. But, as was to have 
 been expected with ardent and honest-hearted young 
 men, errors of judgment were committed, and a check 
 was given to the rising truth. The most violent op- 
 position was awakened — every advantage was 
 taken of misjudgment — calumny was employed — 
 combinations formed — the powers in high places 
 invoked — and every available influence was bi ought 
 to bear against the authors and advocates 
 of this fresh Revival of the Church-mind to true 
 Church-principles. It is not wonderful that some 
 faint-hearted men, under such discouragement, should 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 67 
 
 have weakly abandoned their position, and deserted 
 their Church. But it is wonderful, that from this, 
 any sound minded Churchman would have argued 
 that the position must be necessarily false and unfi- 
 lial; since the very effort had been to show the 
 earnest and longing heart, that in our branch of the 
 Church were all the gifts and capacities for holiness, 
 and for an assurance of salvation, that were origin- 
 ally entrusted to the Church of the living God. But 
 such was the effect of the lamented desertions to 
 Rome. A panic was produced, and " Puseyism," as 
 " the sacramental system" was styled, by way of re- 
 proach, was charged with an essential alliance with 
 " Romanism." 
 
 A sad fruit of this reaction in the public mind, 
 was to bring undeserved suspicion upon such as con- 
 tinued firm to their principles, who felt bound in 
 conscience to hold to the truth of God, no matter 
 what might be the changes in their fellow-men. This 
 suspicion was increased, however, by the impru- 
 dences, and often follies, of young persons, and in 
 some cases of young clergymen, who, though sincere 
 and filial, yet being too much without spiritual coun- 
 sel and guidance, became selfwilled. This, through, 
 what always seemed to me, the misjudgment of their 
 superiors, was often visited with harshness, or at 
 least, not with that " charity which suffereth long and 
 is kind." Examinations became unusually severe, 
 and sometimes inquisitorial in their character. This 
 produced discouragement, and occasionally, what it 
 should not have done, an undutiful spirit towards the 
 Church. In this state of things, a number of young 
 clergymen, knowing the views of your Bishop, came 
 to him, when in New- York at the General Conven- 
 tion of 1847, for sympathy and counsel. Wishing to 
 devote themselves, soul and body, to Christ, agreea- 
 ble to the " Evangelical Counsels," they offered me 
 their services, and begged to be allowed to act under 
 
6S A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 my Episcopal guidance, so soon as arrangements 
 could be made for their transfer to my diocese. No 
 definite answer was given, but an appointment made 
 for conference with them on a future day, and an op- 
 portunity was thus given for consultation with some 
 of my brethren. My young friends met me as agreed 
 upon, to the number of five or six. To prevent all 
 misapprehension, my first address to them was sub- 
 stantially as follows : " Young gentlemen, if you 
 come to me as faithful sons of our branch of the 
 Church, asking my spiritual counsel and guidance, I 
 will receive you, and do all in my power to encourage 
 and strengthen your catholic views and desires, so 
 far as they are in agreement with our Liturgy, fairly 
 interpreted by the Creeds and Councils of the primi- 
 tive Church. But, if you have any views beyond our 
 Church, and hope to be countenanced in them by 
 me, I must, at once, undeceive you, by declining 
 any further interview." They all declared their 
 fidelity to our branch of the Church, and 1 consented 
 to receive them. Just previously to this, a Society 
 had been formed at Valle Crucis, called " the Holy 
 Cross," the objects and duties of which were as fol- 
 lows ; I copy literally from the original document : 
 
 " The objects of the Society shall be the promotion 
 of personal holiness, of the Sacramental system of the 
 Church, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, 
 and of Catholic Unity." 
 
 " The Society" was to " consist of three orders." 
 
 " 1st. Perpetual members, who must be unmar- 
 ried men. 
 
 2d. Other persons living in the institution. 
 
 3d. Persons not residing at Valle Crucis." 
 
 The general duties were common, and were 
 named as follows ; I give every word. 
 " Duties of the Orders. 
 
 It shall be the duties of all the orders to cultivate 
 in themselves a spirit of deep humility, and charity, 
 by calmness and patience under reproaches and suf- 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 69 
 
 ferings ; by cheerful submission to the Church in her 
 appointed fasts, and daily public and private prayers ; 
 and by constant acts of self denial and almsgiving ; 
 also to inculcate upon the minds of all within their 
 influence, the sacramental system of the Church, par- 
 ticularly Baptismal Regeneration, the Real Presence 
 of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and Sacerdotal 
 Absolution ; and also to promote the unity of the 
 One Catholic and Apostolic Church, by excluding 
 sectarian prejudices from their minds, and avoiding 
 sectarian language in their conversation,* and by 
 uniting in a common prayer, that God may speedily 
 bring together in one mind and one heart the scat- 
 tered members of Christ's Body." 
 
 After reading this summary, as the basis of their 
 duty, I enjoined upon them the necessity, in order to 
 peace of mind and efficiency in action, of abstaining 
 from all books whose teaching was not in agreement 
 and sympathy with our Church. 
 
 I appeal to my Diocese, and ask whether this fur- 
 nishes evidence of the charge, now in busy circula- 
 tion, of a concealed purpose on my part of bringing 
 any foreign system or influence upon the diocese, 
 either through the society above named, or by means 
 of the religious community at Valle Crucis ? 
 
 If there be any teaching or influence in this 
 community other than decidedly and triumphantly 
 favorable to the interests#of the Church I have not 
 the penetration to detect it. Hearing that a little 
 
 * It is said the Bishop never speaks or writes against the Roman- 
 ists. Answer. (1.) There are enough who do it, without him. (2.) It 
 does no good to our own Church. ('3.; They who speak against others 
 are very likely to speak falsely. (4.) It is against that prayer for catho- 
 lic unity which we are taught to make every time we join in our Ser- 
 vice. (5.) However great may be their errors, Romanists belong to 
 the body of Christ, and hence to the same family with us. And it is 
 neither lawful to speak against the members of Christ's body, nor in 
 good taste to speak against members of our own family. 
 
70 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 manual had been taken to the low-country contain- 
 ing objectionable matter, I at once examined into 
 the cause, and found that there had been no designed 
 violations of our standards, nor disobedience to my 
 directions, but that the expressions, which, upon 
 looking over the manual a year ago, I had ordered 
 to be stricken out, were, in this particular instance, 
 left in, owing to the absence of the boy who had 
 copy of the manual in question at the time, and his 
 forgetfulness after his return. The circumstance, 
 however, led me, at once, to a minute examination 
 into the books of instruction, and manuscript lec- 
 tures employed in teaching. I find, from unbiassed 
 sources, that no text book has been used by a candi- 
 date for orders other than the list set forth by the 
 House of Bishops ; and that nothing has been taught 
 beyond the true and proper system of the Church. 
 
 It will be recollected that for years I have 
 sought to induce you, Brethren, as a diocese, to 
 take the responsibility of this institution, and par- 
 ticularly, that I did this by a public proposal at the 
 convention in Newbern, 1847. My efforts, however, 
 were vain ; and I was left alone to stagger under 
 burdens, which, but for the affectionate confidence 
 and timely assistance of a few personal friends, 
 would have crushed me to the earth. And now, 
 that, by strict retrenchment and economy, I have 
 reached the point, by GojJ's good providence, of ul- 
 timate relief, and, through the unusual, and really 
 surprising (if you measure them by this age) self-sa- 
 crifices of two or three young clergymen, have been 
 able to give to the institution something like stabi- 
 lity and efficiency, I cannot see upon what princi- 
 ple of Christ this excellent and much needed cha- 
 rity is sought to be arrested at this moment of its 
 success, by unfounded and exaggerated charges. 
 Thank God, it cannot be arrested ; His wisdom 
 will frustrate the devices of the adversary, and 
 His power defend the treasures of the poor ! 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 71 
 
 I have adverted to these things in this place, 
 not to shield myself from charges or surmises of 
 false doctrine, (these I am prepared to answer at 
 the proper tribunal) but to rebuke the unmanly 
 and unworthy suspicion of an attempt covertly to 
 bring upon my diocese an influence unfriendly to 
 the Church. 
 
 Before dismissing this point, however, allow me 
 to put to you one serious question. Who, among 
 the young clergymen that for the last two years 
 have joined our little band, has officiously intruded 
 into the general concerns of the diocese, or done 
 ought but work hard, and faithfully, and successfully, 
 in our most discouraging fields of labor ? 
 
 But I have detained you long, dear brethren, and 
 must hasten to the conclusion of my letter. When 
 the re-action against the Oxford Tracts took place, 
 I narrowly and anxiously watched the effect upon 
 my own diocese ; which, as I thought, had, in the 
 main, sympathized with their doctrinal views, sim- 
 ply because these views were considered a faithful 
 and earnest exhibition of the true doctrines of the 
 Church. It was matter of grief to me, therefore, 
 to find some minds of high order, that had seemed 
 strongly impressed, not only with the truth, but es- 
 sential importance of these doctrines, gradually 
 yielding under popular pressure, to the idea of their 
 danger, and ready to acquiesce in the justice of re- 
 garding those as disturbers of the peace of the 
 Church who continued to advocate them. As your 
 Bishop felt himself bound in conscience to do this, 
 he, of course, fell, more or less, with those who 
 thought with him, under this oppressive censure. 
 How far he has been justly liable to it, he leaves it 
 with the Church to judge. Now, what was his 
 course ? Convinced as he was, and is, that, under 
 an element of Lutheranism early infused into our 
 system, a principle has been perpetually at work 
 
72 A PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 directly adverse to its true, sacramental character, 
 he might, surely, as a faithful son of the Church, 
 have sought to arouse her to such changes, as should, 
 in his judgment, tend to arrest the evil and help us 
 back to the ground on which the English Reformers 
 originally stood. But from this he abstained from 
 motives of prudence, and a desire to give no coun- 
 tenance to that spirit of change which seems bent 
 on depriving us of the last vestige of the sacraments, 
 or of sacerdotal functions. But further, believing 
 as he did and does, that the senses were designed by 
 Almighty God as handmaids to the faith, and that 
 the ordinary arrangements of the churches in his 
 diocese tended to beget irreverence and strengthen 
 error, he might well have insisted upon such changes 
 as, in his view, the truth and honor of God de- 
 manded. But he abstained from all, save an encou- 
 raging word, as proper occasion offered, lest opposi- 
 tion should be awakened to that which seemed to be 
 commending itself by its own manifest propriety. 
 
 What then has brought your Bishop under the 
 reproach of needlessly disturbing his diocese ? 
 Listen to his words of truth and soberness. He 
 may have misjudged ; (for who does not sometimes 
 err ?) but he claims to have acted with a good con- 
 science both towards God and man. 
 
 In casting his eye about, to discover, if possible, 
 the cause of this declension in manly zeal for the 
 faith, he perceived, or thought he perceived, a pro- 
 portionate declension in the spirit and power of god- 
 liness. Many who had seemed to be quickened to a 
 more earnest self-discipline, and aroused to efforts for 
 higher spiritual life, were found to have gradually re- 
 lapsed to their former state ; and to be more anxious 
 for ease and favor among men, than to gain, through 
 "much tribulation, the eternal rest which remaineth 
 for the people of God." The discovery brought great 
 sorrow and searchings of heart. Your bishop felt that 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 73 
 
 he had done his work too slightly — that he had en- 
 couraged peace, where, perhaps, there was no peace ; 
 that he had been satisfied with too low a standard of 
 holiness for himself and his people ; that there must 
 be a fatal want in the soul, where there was so little 
 love and courage for the truth. And, after most 
 prayerful inquiry, he believed that want to consist 
 mainly in an inadequate perception of the nature and 
 value of the sacraments, and hence of the necessity of a 
 deep and more earnest and self-humbling preparation, 
 especially for coming to the Holy Communion of the 
 body and blood of Christ ; he believed that from this 
 want many, under the blinding and stupefying power 
 of habits of wilful deadly sin, might be accustomed, 
 with his ministerial sanction, to come to the Lord's 
 Supper only to eat and drink damnation to themselves. 
 The thought was appalling — it was prompting — it fur- 
 nished, (as your bishop hopes for mercy at last,) the 
 only motive in the preparation and publication of his 
 seven sermons, on "the obedience of faith," and his 
 Pastoral on " the priestly office." In doing which he 
 boldly avers, that he has gone beyond no doctrine of 
 the Church — sought to introduce no new practice — 
 to infringe no man's liberty — to impose no additional 
 term of communion ; but simply to bring to notice 
 means of repentance provided, but out of use — to 
 take the mask from post-baptismal sin — to arouse the 
 burdened conscience and point it for relief to the 
 source which Christ has ordained, and our Church 
 has sanctioned and recommended. Whether he de- 
 serves for his effort (poor indeed and unworthy of the 
 awful crisis,) the rebuke he has received, God and 
 the Church will judge ! Whatever may be the ver- 
 dict he will be satisfied. If in the pride of his heart 
 he has sought the praise of men, he deserves to be 
 humbled ! But he has the satisfaction of feeling that, 
 if through the mercy of God, a few humble, earnest 
 souls shall have been by his most undeserving instru- 
 
74 A PASTORAL LETTER, 
 
 mentality, plucked from the snare of the devil, the 
 reward will be far richer, than a consciousness that 
 his work was welcomed by empty and unthinking 
 popular applause. 
 
 I know, it is said, that the bishop is reaping the 
 reward of having gone against the protestant feelings 
 and views of the diocese. His answer is, that he 
 has gone, in his efforts, for truth and against sin, and 
 that while he maintains that our branch of the Church 
 has within her the elements of all necessary truth, 
 he cannot shut his eyes to the fact, that she has in 
 her that too which through the power of self-will, 
 restrains the truth, often gives the reins to ungodli- 
 ness and wrong. But while he feels this, and does 
 what he can to correct it, he has never been guilty 
 of wanton inflictions, captious criticism, or illiberal 
 judgment. He appeals with confidence to his clergy, 
 to defend him from charges of this kind, and with 
 equal confidence to the laity, to shield him from sus- 
 picions of officious intermeddling in secular matters, 
 or attempted unfairness in the inculcation of religi- 
 ous duty. 
 
 I am aware that there may be excitement as the 
 consequence of my course ; but I feel that " fever " is 
 safer than "paralysis," and certainly better than 
 "death." While I admit, however, that my efforts 
 have called up opposition, I am bound to express my 
 conviction, that a fear for " Protestanism " has had 
 little to do in the movement. In our age deep world- 
 liness, political ambition, overgrown pride, jealousy 
 of restraint, fear of authority, and reckless licentious- 
 ness, have conspired with sectarian bitterness, to 
 shut out the oneness of truth — the inflexibility of 
 principle, the fixedness of God's law; and to make 
 every thing, in heaven and earth, subject to the way- 
 wardness of the human mind — the caprice of circum- 
 stances — the demand of popular favor. What wonder 
 then, when man is convicted of sin — is called to humil- 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 75 
 
 ity — to submission — called to admit the sovereignty 
 of an incarnate God — to admit the only way of 
 salvation in His Church — to admit the authority of 
 His priesthood — the necessity of His sacraments — 
 the urgency of His discipline — the inflexibility of 
 His laws — to admit that " without holiness " no one 
 can have part in His eternal fellowship; that when 
 he is called to this his heart should rebel, in this age 
 of rebellion, and be aroused against the Messenger 
 of heaven — " the rightful steward of the mysteries of 
 God !" But what then ? Is the minister of heaven, 
 to withhold his message, because it is distasteful to 
 the children of this world ? What is this, but to coun- 
 sel faith to be silent, when her testimony is most 
 needed ? To halt in her onward progress, when her 
 firm and steady step alone can disarm resistance, 
 and give triumph to the uplifted cross ? To be cow- 
 ardly and sparing of herself at the very moment, 
 when the honor of Christ, and the eternal safety of 
 man, demand the highest courage and energy and 
 self-sacrifice. And what is to be gained ? We, as 
 individuals, may acquire the title of liberal, concili- 
 ating and prudent ! But what do we gain for hea- 
 ven ? What for our Master, and His Church on 
 earth ? Where has she made advance by waiting 
 for the world to welcome her ? Did the apostles and 
 martyrs and confessors make achievements by wait- 
 ing for the favor of the world ? Go back a step, and 
 inquire what were the signs accompanying the birth 
 of the Christian faith ? Did its saintly forerunner 
 consort with the great, and court the world ? — wait- 
 ing upon its smiles, and attending upon its will, in 
 his solemn call to repentance ! Did he remain silent 
 in the wilderness of Jordan, till the power of pride 
 and lust, and covetousness, and ambition, and op- 
 pression, and all ungodliness in high places had given 
 way, and made it safe for him to utter his stern re- 
 bukes, and expose hypocrisy? Did the divine, the 
 
76 A PASTORAL LETTER* 
 
 blessed founder of the faith, delay His glorious work, 
 till mankind dismissed their hatred to holiness, and 
 consented to withhold from Him the hand of vio- 
 lence, and the instruments of cruelty and death ? 
 And shall we, who bear in our foreheads the sign of 
 His crucifixion, shrink from the fellowship of His 
 sufferings ? 
 
 Brethren of the clergy, once bound to me, as 
 " with one heart and one mind ;" once striving to- 
 gether with me hand in hand for " the faith once de- 
 livered to the saints ;" will ye not hear my voice, 
 and stand firm with me once more against the enemy 
 of truth, of God and righteousness, in this evil day ? 
 All signs admonish us that it is the last day. 
 The struggle will soon be over ; let us not faint nor 
 be discouraged, but be willing to take to ourselves 
 the whole armour of God ! Power is committed unto 
 us for the Salvation of men, — " mysteries, manifold 
 gifts," are entrusted to us. Let us stir up the gift 
 that is in us, and magnify our office. Listen, once 
 more, to that captain of our host who has passed out 
 of the shadow of this world — -the lion-hearted Ra- 
 venscroft ! " The unity of the Church ; its distinctive 
 character, its religious purposes, the authority of its 
 ministry, — these," says he, "are the points about which 
 a most lamentable ignorance prevails, and most un- 
 founded opinions are becoming established, not only 
 among Episcopalians, but at large. To permit this 
 ignorance to be undisturbed is to be false to our or- 
 dination vows — false to our acknowledged princi- 
 ples, and false to the souls committed to our care. 
 If these principles are woven into the very frame- 
 work of our polity — impregnable in their truth — es- 
 sential to the great work we have in hand, let us not 
 appear ashamed of them, or weakly afraid of the con- 
 sequences, and thus become parties to that miserable 
 delusion which weakens us as a body, and strengthens 
 the ranks of our adversaries, and I will fearlessly say, 
 
A PASTORAL LETTER. 77 
 
 Weakens the cause of true religion, by tacitly owning one 
 division after another, till the great master-principle 
 of the Church of God, its unity, is merged in the 
 mass of Christian names and swallowed up by the 
 indifference and infidelity thus fostered. In coming 
 to this duty, however, my reverend brethren, it is 
 my part to warn you to set your faces like a flint 
 against the misrepresentations and reproaches of 
 pretended friends, real enemies, who will be sure to 
 combine against you, aud throw every obstacle in 
 your way. But eternity alone can furnish the re- 
 ward or inflict the punishment which await the faith- 
 ful or unfaithful stewards of the mysteries of God. 
 You watch for souls, and for souls you must give an 
 account — not with the loss or gain of worldly honors, 
 dignities, or emoluments, but with your own souls I 
 There is no alternative — no escape from this con- 
 dition on which you hold and exercise your holy of- 
 fice." 
 
 Ever your faithful friend 
 
 And servant in Christ, 
 
 L. SILLIMAN IVES. 
 
 Valle Crucis, Aug. 8, 1849, 
 
" Who is not a heretic. 
 
 "He who hath willingly subscribed to the 
 Word of God, attested in the everlasting 
 Scriptures — to all the primitive creeds — to 
 
 the four general councils to the common 
 
 judgment of the fathers for six hundred years 
 after Christ- — (which we of our Reformation re- 
 ligiously profess to do) — this . man may possibly 
 
 ERR IN TRIFLES, BUT HE CANNOT 
 
 BE A HERETIC. 
 
 Bp. Hall 
 
 by 
 
 Bishop Ravenscroft. 
 
 Fn regard to the substance of my Charge to the 
 Clergy at the last Convention, I desire distinctly to 
 avow my adherence to it, as my belief, always and. 
 still. 
 
NOTE, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING IS IN ANSWER TO A POPULAR OBJECTION TO ABSOLUTION. 
 
 If it be urged, that the minister cannot know the heart of man ; 
 and should he, therefore, grant absolution to one who deceived him by 
 false representations of his faith and repentance, it would be of no 
 avail at the tribunal of heaven ; it may be very true, yet it will not de- 
 tract from the comfort and value of absolution to those who are sincere. 
 A patient may deceive his physician by a false enunciation of symp- 
 toms, and his life be the forfeit, but this is no proof of the physician's 
 general ignorance of his art, nor any evidence that his services are not 
 generally effective of their purpose. All the ordinances of Christianity 
 are administered without certain knowledge of their effect in any indi- 
 vidual case ; yet this is deemed no reason for withholding them from all, 
 or of prononncing them altogether useless. They are, by the appoint- 
 ment of God, conditionally effective, and so are conditionally adminis- 
 tered. In like manner is the power and agency of the ministry in- 
 tended to be positively efficient. Such is the rule. And although a 
 justa nd merciful God will never sanction an unrighteous act of his min- 
 isters ; still, the general rule, whereby he ratifies their faithful agency 
 according to his promise, is not thereby annulled. Any objection, there- 
 fore, brought against ministerial power in the various forms of absolu- 
 tion, from the possibility of its unjust or erroneous exercise, and that in 
 such a case, God will reverse the judgment of his servants, will be of 
 equal weight against any ministerial function whatever, whose authority 
 is derived from my text and its parallel passages. 
 
 If they be interpreted to mean no- more than simple admission into 
 the Chureh and excommunication therefrom, or only the mildest form 
 of censure ; yet, in all these, particularly in admission to the Holy Com- 
 munion, there is liability to error in the minister, because he cannot 
 scan the hearts of others. Yet there still remains the promise connected 
 with this ministerial function, whatever it might be, that what is done 
 by the ministry on earth, shall be ratified in heaven. The same diffi- 
 culty, if it be a difficulty, will attend every mode of interpreting these 
 passages, which supposes that they contain any authority for ministe- 
 rial action." — Rev. M, A. Curtis' Sir. on Sacramental Absolut, p. 23^ 
 
HOB ART PRESSV 
 
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