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 AUKICULAE CONFESSION: 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 PARISH CHURCH OF LEEDS, 
 
 OCTOBER 39th, 1848, 
 WITH A 
 
 PREFACE, APPENDIX, AND COPIOUS NOTES, 
 
 BY 
 
 WAITER FARQUHAE HOOK, D.D., 
 
 VICAR OF LEEDS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 F. & J. RIVINGTON; 
 
 PARKER, OXFORD; J. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE; 
 
 T. HARRISON, LEEDS. 
 
 Vrice One ShiUivii.
 
 AURICULAR CONFESSION: 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PKEACHED IN THE 
 
 PARISH CHURCH OF LEEDS, 
 
 OCTOBER .29th, 1848, 
 
 WITH A 
 
 PEEFACE, APPENDIX, AND COPIOUS NOTES, 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D., 
 
 VICAR OF LEEDS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 F. & J. RIVINGTON; 
 
 PARKER, OXFORD ; J. «& J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 
 T. HARRISON, LEEDS,
 
 TO 
 
 THE REV. EDWARD JACKSON, M. A., 
 
 Clerk in Orders of the Parish of Leeds, 
 And Incumbent of St. James's. 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 This publication I dedicate to you, because 
 it relates to a subject upon which we have had 
 many conversations, and upon which, as upon all 
 other points of doctrine and practice, our opinions 
 entirely coincide. 
 
 It will be denied by none, that the cultivation of 
 friendly and confidential intercourse between a 
 pastor and the members of his flock, is most desir- 
 able ; and to you many persons, in all classes of 
 society, are accustomed to resort for spiritual advice. 
 In addressing you, therefore, I cannot be supposed 
 to entertain a wish to interfere with a practice, 
 which, not only the Church of England, but every 
 denomination of Christians would, under certain 
 circumstances, and with certain restrictions, main- 
 tain and encourage. It is rather from an anxiety 
 that discredit should not be thrown upon what 
 must be to many a means of comfort, that I protest 
 against the error of those who confound what the
 
 4 
 
 Church permits and recommends, in exceptional 
 cases, with the auricular confession of the Eomish 
 Church ; who invest confession with a sacramental 
 character, and who desire to he regarded not merely 
 as the spiritual friends of those who consult them, 
 but as judges sitting in the tribunal. 
 
 In the following sermon, I have asserted plainly, 
 on scriptural grounds, and according to the teach- 
 ing of the Primitive Church, that confession to 
 God is the only confession necessary, while con- 
 fession to man is the exception to the rule. 
 
 I have confirmed my statements, not by refer- 
 ence to the works of hostile theologians of Eome, 
 but by extracts from the writings of those celebrated 
 English divines, who, in a former age, assumed the 
 highest tone in all matters relating to the Church, 
 whose Catholicism is as indisputable as their Pro- 
 testantism, and whose names are revered by all who 
 venerate the blessed principles of the EngHsh Ee- 
 formation. 
 
 They who have forsaken these burning and shin- 
 ing lights, and are seeking illumination from the 
 dark lanterns of Eomish theology ; who, instead of 
 resorting to the pure and healthy pastures of old 
 English devotion, have recourse for comfort to the 
 "Paradise of the Soul," and other exciting and 
 unwholesome works of Eomish Methodism ; who, 
 despising the manly faith, distinguishable alike 
 from creduHty and scepticism, for which the giants 
 of our theological literature have been eminent, 
 
 UfUC, 
 
 \
 
 delight or affect to grovel in the absurd superstition 
 of Popish legends ;* these persons must expect to 
 find their most determined opponents among the 
 faithful servants of the Church of England, who 
 were prepared to listen to them, and to share in the 
 persecution they endured, when they came before 
 the pubHc with a Catena of EngUsh divines ; but 
 who will at once reject them, if they seek to poison 
 the pure fountain of Church of England theology, 
 by an inundation from the muddy waters of the 
 Tiber. 
 
 Under this impression, I vdW now advert to cer- 
 tain particulars in which there has grown up a 
 manifest antagonism between the teaching of the 
 ancient divines, and that of some modern theolo- 
 gians of note, name, and influence among us; 
 whose pride it once was to tread in the steps of 
 our great theological -^Titers of the 17th century. 
 
 I. In the controversies with Kome the old 
 English divines took the liberal line against the 
 Puritans, who, in the spirit of the Papacy, damned 
 all that were not of their own way of thinking ; and 
 they maintained that a man, though a Papist, 
 
 * "A religion, that hatli made wicked men, saints; and saints, 
 gods. Even by the confession of Papists, lewd and undeserving 
 
 men have leaped into their calendar And, once sainted, tbey 
 
 have the honour of altars, temples, invocations; and, some of 
 tliem, in a style fit only for their Maker. I know not, whether 
 tliat blessed Virgin receive more indignity from her enemies, 
 that deny her ; or these her flatterers, that deify her.'' — Bisbup 
 Hall. — Sarious Dissuasive from Popery.
 
 might be saved. " I doubted not," said the judicious 
 Hooker,* " but that God was merciful to thou- 
 sands of our fathers, which lived in Popish super- 
 stition : for they sinned ignorantly. But ice hare 
 the light of the truth." Upon which Archbishop 
 Whitgift remarks : " Not Papists but our fathers. 
 Not they all, but many of them. Not living and 
 dying Papists, but living in Popish superstitions. 
 Not simply might, but might by the mercy of God, 
 be saved. Ignorance did not excuse the fault to 
 make it no fault ; but the less their fault was with 
 respect to ignorance, the more hope we have, that 
 God was mercifal to them." 
 
 What wisdom is there here ! These great divines 
 did not deny the possibihty of salvation to a Papist, 
 In spite of his Eomanism a man may rest on the 
 rock of ages and be saved : we should say the same 
 of a Muggletonian. But we add, " We have the 
 light of the truth." They are saved, not on account 
 of their darkness, but in spite of it. 
 
 But in the controversy, as at present managed, 
 the very reverse is the course which is taken by 
 many who at one time were accounted High 
 Churchmen, though no longer deserving that title, 
 if by a High Churchman is meant one who adheres 
 to the principles of the English Eeformation, and 
 the teaching of our formularies. 
 
 We find it now made a matter of hesitating 
 apology for the Church of England, that she has 
 
 * Walton's Life.
 
 passed a censure on the Roman system of multiply- 
 ing mediators, beside the One Mediator between 
 God and man ; our differences with Rome are said 
 to turn on matters of fact and detail, rather than 
 on principles; and instead of thankfully acknow- 
 ledging that, through Divine Providence blessing 
 our Reformation, '' we have the Hght of the truth" 
 restored, it is intimated that our light is but dim 
 twilight at best, enough to help us to grope our 
 way, but far from enabling us to walk in joy and 
 liberty. Well may we say, 
 
 Kon tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis 
 Tempus eget. 
 
 I am sorry to see this line of defence adopted 
 by one who is dear to the Church of England as 
 the author of the Christian Year, and who is dear 
 to me personally by many recollections, and an 
 acquaintance of no short standing. The defence of 
 the Church of England which he has set up in 
 the preface to his sermons, if it persuades a few to 
 tolerate the Church of England, while their hearts 
 are in Rome, is calculated to unsettle many more. 
 It almost removes the ground fi'om beneath us. 
 
 It is with no mincing phrases that the Church 
 of Rome attacks us, and it is not by soft words 
 that we must repel our assailants. Hickes, the 
 non-juror, was as high a Churchman as can be 
 produced, and he did not think it necessary to 
 prove his Churchmanship by bandying comph-
 
 ments with Papists. "Whereas/' said he, ''you 
 assert that either your religion or ours is a dam- 
 nable heresy, you may take as much of damnable 
 heresy to yourselves as you deserve. But as for 
 us, I challenge you to shew any one damnable 
 or dangerous heresy, or heretical doctrine, that we 
 profess. Nay, I challenge you to shew any one 
 dangerous, positive, or negative doctrine, that the 
 Church of England holds, or that she doth not 
 hold all things needful to salvation. But if false 
 and dangerous, or absurd and impossible, nay per- 
 nicious and impious doctrines, contrary to Scrip- 
 ture expounded by Catholic tradition, derogatory 
 to the honour of Jesus Christ and the Christian 
 religion, and destructive of the rights and liberties 
 of the Catholic Church, be damnable heresies, then 
 your religion, by which I mean the Popery of it, 
 is a multiform damnable heresy, as we doubt not, 
 but a truly free and general council, could such a 
 one be had, would soon determine ; and to such a 
 council we are ready to appeal." 
 
 II. This brings me secondly to remark, that our 
 good old Church of England divines did not shrink 
 from calUng things by their right names. " Popish 
 superstitions, and gross and grievous abominations," 
 were terms applied by Hooker to the doctrines and 
 practices of the Church of Eome, which are spoken 
 of by Barrow as "impious errors, scandalous 
 practices, and superstitious rites." Archbishop 
 Laud, who, for his zeal against Popery, is as
 
 unpopular witli the Komanizers as he is with the 
 Presbyterianizers, asserts that " the Church of 
 Home errs grossly, dangerously, damnably," and 
 remarks, that all Protestants, including those of the 
 Church of England, " unanimously agree that 
 there is great peril of damnation for any man to 
 live or die in the Koman persuasion." Even Thorn- 
 dike wonders that "any Christian can trust his 
 soul to such a Church," and says, " I do not allow 
 salvation to any that shall change," from the 
 Church of England to the Church of Kome. 
 
 It may be said that softer language becomes a 
 more refined age. Be it so. But let me ask, is 
 softer language used by the Komanizer to those 
 who are in error on the Puritan side ? I cannot 
 discover in either extreme much improvement in 
 this respect. We do indeed find the Presbyterian- 
 izing journals very moderate and very cautious in 
 their language towards Protestant dissent : but 
 how is it when they have to deal with a poor High 
 Churchman ? And not one whit better is it on 
 the side of the Romanizing journals : very gentle 
 are they in their dealings with llomish dissenters, 
 but for the Protestant Dissenters and the benighted 
 individuals who remain in the via media which 
 they have forsaken, we look in vain for the very 
 delicate expressions which become the refinement 
 of modern polemics. 
 
 Until this soft language is used towards all 
 parties, we may suspect that a Presbytcrianizer has
 
 10 
 
 a leaning towards Protestant, and a Romanizer 
 towards Eomish dissent, and that the soft language 
 is to be traced, not to moderation, but to the ex- 
 istence of an affection towards those who are with- 
 out the pale on the one side or on the other. 
 
 III. The third very marked point of difference 
 between our old divines and some of our modern 
 theologians, is to be seen in the contempt expressed 
 by the latter, and the admiration of the former, for 
 the work of our Reformation. How beautifully is 
 it described by Bishop Bull : '' The Church of 
 England in her Reformation affected no unneces- 
 sary change or innovation. Indeed, she made no 
 change or innovation, but of those things that were 
 themselves manifest changes or innovations, yea, 
 somewhat worse ; such as ... . image -worship, the 
 worship and invocation of saints and angels, the dry 
 communion, the senseless and unreasonable service 
 of God in an unknown tongue, enjoined the people, 
 and not understood by them. Wherein, as I have 
 akeady shewn, every man's reason and conscience 
 will tell him, that the change is made for the better. 
 She hath also shaken off, (and it was high time so 
 to do, seeing that St. Augustine so long ago com- 
 plained of it) that intolerable yoke of ceremonies, 
 many of which were perfectly insignificant and 
 ridiculous, some directly sinful, and their number 
 in the whole so great, as to require that intention 
 of mind, which ought to be employed about more
 
 11 
 
 weighty and important matters ; yet retaining still 
 (to shew that she was not over nice and scrupulous) 
 some few ceremonies, that had on them the stamp 
 of venerable antiquity, or otherwise recommended 
 themselves by their decency and fitness. In a 
 word, the authors of our Reformation dealt with 
 our Church as they did with our temples or mate- 
 rial churches. They did not pull them down and 
 raise new structures in their places, no, nor so 
 much as new consecrate the old ones ; but only 
 removed the objects and occasions of idolatrous 
 worship, (at least out of the more open and con- 
 spicuous places,) and took away some little super- 
 stitious trinkets, in other things leaving them as 
 they found them, and freely and without scruple 
 making use of them." 
 
 I need not multiply quotations on a subject upon 
 which they might be multiplied ad injinitum. 
 
 With respect to the present discourse, circum- 
 stances, as you are aware, have occurred, which 
 render it necessary for me to speak. Had it been 
 otherwise, I should have patiently waited for that 
 futurity of good, which I am sanguine enough 
 to expect, in spite of present follies and existing 
 evils. 
 
 It is impossible for a movement to take place, 
 even when it is in itself good, without being 
 attended with incidental evil, but we generally 
 find, after faults have been amended or forgiven. 
 and follies forgotten, a residuum of benefit.
 
 1^ 
 
 It was a movement for good, when we asserted 
 the Catholicism of the Church of England, and 
 refused to see her accounted as merely a Protestant 
 sect. But the effect of a movement which, pro- 
 perly directed is strong against Eome, has been 
 marred by the conduct of those who, in their abhor- 
 rence of Puritanism, have confounded Catholicism 
 with Popeiy, and have thought it necessary to de- 
 nounce what is one of the glories of the Church of 
 England, — her Protestantism. Protestant she is 
 as opposed to Popery : Catholic, as opposed to 
 Puritanism. We must deeply regret these Koman- 
 izing symptoms and tendencies. But still this 
 benefit has resulted, that the distinctive points of 
 our Catholicism, and our claims to be a Catholic 
 Church, have become very generally perceived and 
 acknowledged. 
 
 It was a movement for good, when our attention 
 was forcibly directed to the duty of fasting. But 
 abuse attended it, when asceticism was regarded 
 as almost identical with Christianity, and we were 
 threatened with monasteries by those who, in direct 
 opposition to Scripture,* were zealous for the 
 celibacy of the clergj\ This fanaticism has, to a 
 great extent, passed away, owing to the marriage 
 of some of the most enthusiastic maintainers of 
 the celibacy ; many of whom have been compelled 
 to say with Benedict: "When I said I would die 
 
 * On Scriptural grounds tlie difficulty is to prove that the 
 clergy ought not to marry, not that they may many.
 
 13 
 
 a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were 
 married." In their happy homes, the parsonages 
 of England, and in their children, brought up in 
 the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they be- 
 hold what is more pleasing to God than a house 
 full of monks or a family of nuns. But still there 
 has been a beneficial result : fasting, though not 
 accepted as a means of grace, is generally acknow- 
 ledged as an exercise important for keeping the 
 body under, and as a means of humiliation : and 
 the fast days of the Church are observed, wliile, 
 what is more important, all religious persons have 
 come to the conclusion that self-denial for the 
 good of others is a Christian duty. 
 
 It was a movement for good, when the study of 
 ecclesiastical architecture received an impulse at 
 Cambridge, and the importance of ceremonial 
 observances was asserted. But when the study of 
 architecture led young men to an admiration of me- 
 dieval practices and doctrines ; when the Breviary 
 and Missal were consulted and admired ; when, as 
 Presbyterianizers take the meeting-house, Koman- 
 izers took the mass-house for a model ; when the 
 decent ceremonies of the Reformed Church were 
 despised, and theatrical mummeries, un-English, 
 unreal, and ridiculous, were adopted by young men 
 pleased to obtain notoriety at an easy rate, there 
 was an attendant evil much to be deplored. Never- 
 theless, good has resulted : old churches are re- 
 paired and restored, and new ones built in better 
 
 B
 
 14 
 
 style than heretofore ; while a neglect of the decen- 
 cies of our ceremonial is almost sure to give 
 offence. 
 
 A few years ago we heard much discourse of the 
 dreadful nature of sin after haptism, and it was 
 difficult to distinguish the tenets of some of the 
 younger clergy upon this subject from the Novatian 
 heresy. Nothing was further from the intention, 
 we may be sure, of the learned divine who, by 
 some statements not sufficiently guarded, and by 
 taking, as he too frequently does, a one-sided view 
 of the question, fii'st introduced this topic of modem 
 controversy : but such was the case. The in- 
 cautious statements propounded are now nearly 
 forgotten ; and this good has resulted, that serious 
 men are more deeply impressed by a sense of the 
 exceeding sinfulness of sin, of their deep responsi- 
 bility as Christians, and of the necessity of sincere 
 repentance. 
 
 Under such a state of things, difficulties will be 
 suggested, and doubts arise, not only to morbid 
 minds, and in scrupulous consciences, but to per- 
 sons of tender and affectionate dispositions ; and a 
 desire has been expressed by many persons for 
 more of spiritual guidance and disciplinary direc- 
 tion, than has hitherto existed practically in the 
 Church of England. 
 
 How far it is desirable to encourage this habit 
 of mind, and in what way tliis demand is to be 
 met, may admit of dispute But there ought to
 
 15 
 
 be no dispute among members and ministers of 
 the Church of England, on the subject of the 
 Romish confessional. Any approximation to that 
 system should be regarded with disgust and abhor- 
 rence. 
 
 If I relied upon my own judgment upon the 
 subject, I should have an hesitation in giving 
 utterance to an opinion so decided. But it is to 
 the notes rather than to my sermon that I invite 
 attention, and it will be found that the opinion of 
 those of our divines who have directed their atten- 
 tion to this subject, is, that Auricular Confession, 
 in the technical sense of the word, is neither scrip- 
 tural, primitive, nor expedient. It is rejected by 
 the Primitive Church, the Greek Church, and the 
 Reformed Church of England. It is retained by 
 the Church of Rome, wliich is in itself an objec- 
 tion, since it is retained by that corrupt communion 
 exclusively. 
 
 We must oppose the Presbyterianizers, who 
 would rationalize the Church of England : we must 
 oppose equally the Romanizers, by whom an at- 
 tempt is made to re-introduce among us the evil 
 practices of the middle ages; and you, I am sure, 
 will subscribe with me to the following sentence 
 from Hickes : " that the Church of England, as 
 it now stands without any further reformation, is 
 apostolical in doctrine, worship, and government ; 
 and would have been esteemed by the faithful, in 
 all ages from the time of the apostles, a pure and
 
 16 
 
 sound member of the Catholic Church. I heartily 
 thank Almighty God, by Whose good providence I 
 have been bred up in her communion, and called 
 to the great honour of being one of her priests ; 
 aud I beseech Him of His infinite goodness, to 
 give all her clergy and people grace to live up 
 to her principles of piety, loyalty, justice, charity, 
 purity, temperance, and sobriety. I am sure it 
 must be ours, and not her fault, if we be not the 
 best Christians, the best subjects, and the best 
 friends and best neighbours in the world." 
 
 I remain, my dear friend, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 W. F. HOOK 
 
 Vicarage, Leeds, 
 30th Oct., 1848.
 
 SERMON. 
 
 I. John, i. 9. 
 
 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
 us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
 
 So much that is unsound in theory, incorrect in 
 statement, and dangerous in a practical point of 
 view ; so much that is contrary to the principles of 
 the Church of England, and that is plainly unscrip- 
 tural, has been urged, of late, on the subject of con- 
 fession ; the lust of power and of meddling in some, 
 and want of discernment and neglect of enquiry 
 in those who confound medieval coriTiptions with 
 primitive truth, have led to such confusion of ideas 
 upon the subject, that it becomes my duty as a faithful 
 pastor, to lay before you the doctrine of the Church of 
 England, which is also the doctrine of the Primitive 
 Church, which, moreover, is the doctrine of Holy 
 Scripture, upon a practice which at one time demoral- 
 ized the Christian world, obliterated the doctrine of 
 Justification by Faith, and rendered necessary a 
 reformation of the Church, such as restored us in this, 
 as in other respects, to our Christian liberty. 
 
 B 'i
 
 18 
 
 It is said, and said too by some who appear to 
 consider such doctrines consistent with the rule and 
 practice of the Church of England, that Confession is 
 a means of grace. 
 
 If it be so, it is of course our duty, as ministers of 
 the Church of England, to press the observance of it 
 upon the members of our several congregations. Sin- 
 ners as you all are, "we must urge upon you the observ- 
 ance of all the means of grace, and bid you prepare 
 your hearts to receive the same. 
 
 But does the Church of England command confes- 
 sion of sins to a priest ? Where is the injunction to 
 be found ? It is, as every one who is acquainted with 
 our Prayer Book and our Formularies, is well aware, 
 commanded no where. 
 
 Mark, then, the obvious and immediate conclusion: 
 the Church of England does not consider confession 
 to a priest as a means of grace. If it were a means 
 of grace, it would be generally necessary to the salva- 
 tion of sinners, and upon all sinners the Church of 
 England would enjoin it. By not enjoining it upon 
 any one, the Church of England asserts her Protest- 
 antism, and declares that she differs from the Church 
 of Rome,* as in other respects, so also in this. She 
 does not regard confession to a priest as a means of 
 grace. 
 
 And what saith Holy Scripture ? Search the Scrip- 
 tures from one end to the other ; from Moses to 
 Malachi, and from Matthew to the Apocalypse, and 
 not one word in all the Bible will you find about 
 
 *■ Note A, Appendix.
 
 19 
 
 confession to a priest. If confession to a priest were 
 necessary ; if, that is to say, it were a means of grace, 
 surely we should find some express, some unequivocal 
 injunction for the observance of it. But not only is 
 it not enjoined ; it is not even suggested. 
 
 The Church of Rome does not, in her Tridentine 
 Council, refer us to a single passage of Scripture as 
 containing an injunction upon the subject. She 
 merely quotes the 23rd verse of the 20th chapter of 
 St. John, and, assuming the very point in debate, 
 asserts that the duties of the confessional form an 
 essential part of the sacerdotal office ; and this, their 
 gratuitous inference, our Reformers rejected, because it 
 is not authorized or confirmed by the practice of the 
 Primitive Church. 
 
 This is our mode, the mode of our Reformation, 
 of using tradition, and of deferring to the practice 
 and teaching of the Primitive Church. The Roman- 
 ists add tradition to Scripture ; they take as their 
 rule of faith — Scripture and tradition. Our rule of 
 faith is the Bible only : but if there is a dispute 
 as to what the meaning of the Bible is, then we 
 take into consideration the meaning attached to the 
 Scriptural revelation, by those to whom the Apostles 
 preached, and by the Churches established by them.* 
 " If what appears but probably to be taught in Scrip- 
 ture," says Dr. Waterland, one of our greatest divines, 
 " itself appears to have been certainly taught in the 
 primitive and Catholic Church; such probability, so 
 
 * See the author's Sermon on Tradition in his Five Sermons 
 preached before the University of Oxford, and Note B, Appendix.
 
 20 
 
 confirmed and strengthened, carries with it the force 
 of demonstration."- 
 
 Now all the world knows that Auricular Confession 
 was not enjoined in the Eoman Church until the year 
 1215, and that it has never been enjoined in the 
 Greek Church. It was established in the 13th cen- 
 tury, being a medieval, not a primitive doctrine. As 
 being neither primitive nor scriptural, it was rejected 
 by us at our Reformation ; and it was re-established 
 and re-enforced as one of the permanent corruptions of 
 Romanism, in the Romish Council of Trent. f 
 
 That confession of sins to God only is sufficient, is 
 a truth asserted at least twenty times by St. Chiysos- 
 tom; and is a truth maintained universally by the 
 Fathers of the fifth century,]; as may be seen, by a 
 reference to our great divines, Taylor, Bramhall, 
 Usher, Bingham, and a host of others; who, while 
 they gloried in the title of Catholic, would not repudi- 
 ate the designation of Protestant.jl 
 
 But while Scripture, the Primitive Church, and the 
 Church of England, all distinguished from the Medie- 
 val and Romish Church, declare with one voice that 
 confession to God only is sufficient, yet what saith the 
 Church of England? In the " Warning for the Cele- 
 bration of the Holy Communion," the Curate is 
 directed to say to those of whose souls he has the 
 cure : " 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; therefore 
 
 * Preface to Sermons at the Lady Moyer's Lecture, 
 t Note C. \ Note D. |j Note E.
 
 21 
 
 if there he any of you, who by this means,'' namely, self- 
 examination and self-denial, " cannot quiet his own 
 conscience therein, but requireth further comfort or 
 counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet 
 and learned minister of God's Word, and open his 
 grief; that by the ministiy of God's holy Word he 
 may receive the benefit of absolution, together with 
 ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his con- 
 science, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." 
 In the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, this rubric 
 occurs : " Here shall the sick person be moved to make 
 a special Confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience 
 troubled with any weighty matter. After which Con- 
 fession, the Priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and 
 heartily desire it) after this sort."-" 
 
 Now here, observe, is a permission, not an injunc- 
 tion, and the cases referred to are exceptional cases. 
 The rule in the Church of England is to confess our 
 sins to God only ; to examine ourselves, and to be our 
 own spiritual directors. It is a portion of our respon- 
 sibility, and such responsibility we cannot in ordinary 
 cases shift upon another. The exception is with res- 
 pect to those who cannot in this way, according to the 
 general rules, obtain a sufficient trust in God's mercy, 
 and a quiet conscience. If you cannot do this, then 
 select some minister of God's holy word, not of neces- 
 sity the parish priest, but some one in whose spiritual 
 wisdom and experience you can confide, and open to 
 him your grief. And so with respect to the sick : //' 
 a man feels his conscience troubled with any weighty 
 matter; if he cannot, by an exercise of his own mind. 
 
 * Note F.
 
 22 
 
 obtain that confidence in the divine mercy, which is a 
 constituent of true faith; then, in that exceptional 
 case, you may move him to confession.^ 
 
 It is not by confession, but by faith, that we are 
 justified : but the faith which justifies, is the faith of a 
 penitent man, and the question will occur, Am I 
 sufficiently penitent to be justified by my faith ? It is 
 a doubt upon this point, when it arises, that sends us 
 to seek advice from another ; and that other, of course, 
 cannot give us the advice we need, unless we unbur- 
 then to him our conscience, and open our grief. The 
 Church of England, therefore, permits, and in some 
 cases advises, confession to a minister of the gospel ; 
 but mark the distinction ; she never enjoins it as a 
 means of grace, she only sanctions it as a means of 
 consolation, with a special indulgence to the sick. 
 
 We go to the sick bed ; we see a man wretched ; 
 unable to find comfort for himseK, or to receive conso- 
 lation from us; — it is clear that his conscience is 
 troubled with some weighty matter. How can we 
 console him ? How advise him, unless we know what 
 is the cause of his affliction and grief ? We urge him, 
 therefore, to make a special confession of his sins. 
 
 He confesses ; if he were well, we should, after 
 advising him how to test the sincerity of his repent- 
 ance, direct him to go to Church, and hear God's 
 pardon pronounced upon him, in common with others ; 
 to receive absolution in and with the congregation. 
 
 But the sick man is unable to do this ; he is peni- 
 tent ; he believes that Jesus died for his sins ; he 
 
 * Note G.
 
 23 
 
 earnestly desires to have the fact of his forgiveness 
 authoritatively declared, and to his humble and hearty 
 desire the Church condescends. 
 
 As a means of consolation, confession to man is 
 recommended or permitted, in some shape or other, 
 by every Christian community. And it is as a means of 
 consolation, that the advice is given in the 16th verse 
 of the 5th chapter of St. James ;* the only passage in 
 Scripture, I believe, that contains a direction to us to 
 confess our sins to any other than God Himself. St. 
 James is speaking to the afflicted and to the sick; 
 and he exhorts men under those circumstances, to 
 seek consolation through mutual prayer ; and in order 
 that the prayer may be mutual, he advises them to 
 confess to one another their faults. There are persons 
 whose consciences are not only tender, but scrupulous, 
 full of scruples ; there are others, who feel that they 
 cannot bear the weight of sin by which they are 
 oppressed, unless they have the advice of a friend; 
 others again there are, who desire sympathy, or who 
 are pei'plexed as to the proper course to be pursued in 
 overcoming the evils which are within them, or in 
 resisting temptations from without : all such persons 
 are, not commanded, but recommended, to open their 
 griefs, and tell their sorrows to some friend, in whose 
 wisdom, experience, and piety, they can confide ; not 
 commanded, as if confession were a means of grace, 
 but recommended, because such confession may be to 
 them a means of comfort. And these their griefs they 
 may open to one another, not of necessity, observe, to 
 
 • Note H.
 
 34 
 
 a priest, but to any friend. Let the child seek such 
 a friend in his parent ; the wife in her husband, and 
 the husband in his wife. In this way let friend take 
 sweet counsel with friend, as they walk together in the 
 House of the Lord. 
 
 The minister of the Gospel is only recommended, 
 because such exceptional cases are likely to come fre- 
 quently before him, and he therefore is most likely to 
 be best qualified to act as an adviser when difficulties 
 occur. If confession were a means of grace, we should 
 be directed to have recourse to the minister of the 
 parish, because in the administration of the means of 
 grace, the efficacy depends not upon personal charac- 
 ter, but upon the divine commission. But when we 
 seek, not grace, but comfort and advice, we seek for a 
 minister, who by his learning and discretion, is com- 
 petent to afford us the intellectual assistance we re- 
 quire. Nor is it difficult in men of age and experience 
 to find the qualifications needed. A minister of the 
 Church of England is not obliged to master all the 
 minute and sometimes disgusting details through 
 which a confessor of the Church of Rome is obliged to 
 wade, in order to be qualified for his office.- In the 
 sacrament of penance, as they style it, the Romanists 
 are commanded to unlock their hearts to the priest, 
 and persons of all ages and both sexes, standing be- 
 fore him in their moral nudity, are required to submit, 
 not only to general questions as to a state of sin and 
 repentance, but to the most minute and searching 
 questions as to their inmost thoughts ; a system this, 
 
 * Note I.
 
 25 
 
 which renders the confessor's office iit for no man, 
 and especially unfit for the young; a system which 
 has given rise to hypocrisy in some, and to a reliance 
 upon their works in others ; a system which is of bene- 
 fit to a few only of those who have recourse to it, and 
 is often, as Piomanist writers themselves admit, a 
 pollution to the confessor. 
 
 Very different is it when confession is only resorted 
 to as a means of comfort or counsel. As every one is 
 at liberty to confess or not, so in making his confes- 
 sion, every one is at liberty to decide as to what he 
 will confess and what withhold. And he, of whom we 
 seek the comfort or the counsel, is only required to 
 seek information as to the facts which bear upon the 
 point, upon which his opinion or advice is sought. If 
 we withhold from him any facts which relate to the 
 case, we are guilty, not of sin, but of folly ; of folly, 
 similar to that of a man, who in consulting a phj'^si- 
 cian or a lawyer, keeps back from their knowledge a 
 portion of the truth. And what is required in him we 
 consult is, skill in searching out the various artifices 
 of self-deception : a skill, in which those soon become 
 proficients who have had any spiritual experience 
 themselves, and whose hearts are honest. 
 
 But while we say this, be it alw^ays remembered, 
 that any kind of confession to man is an exception, 
 not the rule.- " If we confess our sins," not to the 
 priest, but to God, " He is faithful and just to forgive 
 us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
 Here, and elsewhere in Scripture, we find that to the 
 
 * Note K.
 
 26 
 
 confession which the penitent sinner makes to God 
 alone, the promise of forgiveness is annexed; "which," 
 saith Archbishop Usher, " no priest upon earth hath 
 power to make void, upon pretence that himself or 
 some of his fellows were not first particularly ac- 
 quainted with the business."* 
 
 To confess our sins to God, and to accustom our- 
 selves to this duty is absolutely necessary, if we would 
 really know what sinners we are. Until we are accus- 
 tomed to self-examination, until we scrutinize our 
 motives as well as our actions, our principles as well 
 as our conduct, we are apt to be self-complacent, to 
 think that we are not worse than our neighbours, and 
 to imagine that all will be well with us in the end. 
 And what is the consequence ? there is no clear per- 
 ception of our need of a" Redeemer, a Saviour, a Divine 
 Intercessor, at the throne of grace : there is no cling- 
 ing to Christ by faith, no appropriation of His righte- 
 ousness, no application of His merits : Christ is not 
 to us all that He must be to those who feel and know 
 that except in Him we are all but as dead men. 
 
 We should accustom ourselves to examine our con- 
 duct minutely, and in detail, and then, regarding 
 God as a Personal God, to Him, as to a Person, 
 confess our sins, one by one, as we discover them, ask- 
 ing forgiveness. It is not sufficient to be conscious of 
 our sins. No, we should soon deceive ourselves if we 
 were content with the consciousness of sin. "A gen- 
 eral persuasion that thou art a sinner, will neither so 
 humble, nor bridle thy soul, as the catalogue of 
 
 * Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, p. 70.
 
 27 
 
 thy sins examined severally, and continually kept in 
 mind."^ Just so is it with respect to mental prayer ; 
 the prayer made by the mind, when not a word is 
 spoken, is known unto God, the Searcher of hearts, 
 and is by Him heard and accepted : nevertheless, He 
 requires more than this, — even vocal prayer. He 
 would have us give utterance in words to what we 
 desire ; for if we did not accustom ourselves to speak 
 in our prayer, our prayers would soon cease to be 
 particular, and become little more than a form of 
 meditation. So likewise, consciousness of sin will 
 not suffice to make us truly penitent ; we shall fmd it 
 expedient to confess with our lips ; to speak of our 
 sins, and to proclaim, as it were in the presence of 
 angels, our misery and our shame. Then it is, my 
 brethren, that we become duly and truly sensible of 
 the impossibility of our being saved by our works ; 
 then it is, that with the strong hand of faith we grasp 
 the Saviour, Who only can rescue us from that bottom- 
 less pit, towards which the weight of our sin is pres- 
 sing us. 
 
 No one who is accustomed to consult his Bible, can 
 doubt for one moment that this is a duty ; that confes- 
 sion is, like prayer and meditation, incumbent upon 
 every one who names the name of Christ, and would 
 realize the blessings of the Christian covenant. We 
 detect sin, after self-examination, in our best actions ; 
 we confess it, we lament it, we plead the merits of 
 Jesus, our Saviour ; He intercedes for us. He pardons 
 us, He sends His Spirit to guard us against falling 
 
 * Jeremy Taylor.
 
 28 
 
 into the sins we have repented of; and we rejoice to 
 hear His minister declare that those are absolved who 
 truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel ; 
 and we hear him speaking the word of God. We 
 overcome in this way one sin or evil propensity, not at 
 once, but by a long course of such spiritual discipline ; 
 and still we have recourse to self-examination, and we 
 discover something further that is evil in us ; we con- 
 fess it, we again plead, and by faith apply to our souls 
 the merits of our Saviour ; we seek fresh supplies of 
 grace, through the ordinances of the sanctuary, and 
 the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper : and so we ad- 
 vance, continually putting away evil, and continually 
 receiving grace, until ripe for eternity, we are trans- 
 planted to the heaven opened to us by our Redeemer s 
 blood. 
 
 I have described what has been experienced by 
 those who are spiritual among us, and I have stated 
 the course which they have pursued and are pursuing. 
 
 And now I conclude, with pointing out in one sen- 
 tence, the difference between ourselves and the Church 
 of Eome. The Church of Rome regards confession to 
 man as a means of grace ; this we deny ; at the same 
 time we regard it as a means of comfort to weak minds 
 and scrupulous consciences, and to persons in difficul- 
 ties or in doubt. The Church of Rome makes it the 
 iiile — we, the exception. The Church of Eome com- 
 mands it ; the Church of England pennits it. The 
 Church of England, in accordance with Scripture and 
 the Primitive Church, and the Greek Church, asserts 
 that confession to God alone is sufficient, — is the rule 
 — is the course which ought to be pursued in all but
 
 29 
 
 exceptional cases ; and in this respect, to the Church 
 of England, to the primitive Church, to the Greek 
 Church, and to the written and infallible word of the 
 living God, the Church of Rome stands opposed. =i^ 
 
 * Note L. 
 c a
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 N^OTE A. 
 
 The 6th canon of the council of Trent, on what that 
 council styles the "most holy sacrament of repentance," 
 stands thus : " If any shall deny, that sacramental confession 
 was instituted and is necessary for salvation by divine right, 
 or shall say that the custom of confessing secretly to the priest 
 alone, which the Catholic Church has always observed from 
 the beginning, and continues to observe, is foreign to the 
 institution and command of Christ, and is of human inven- 
 tion ; let him be accursed." 
 
 " Here sacramental confession is affirmed to be of divine 
 institution, and auricular confession likewise, and he is 
 accursed who shall deny it. This is bravely said ; yet the 
 Fathers might have recollected that in the Latin Church 
 as late as 813, it was matter of dispute whether there 
 was need to confess to a priest at all, as appears from 
 the thirty-third canon of the Council of Cabaillon, which 
 is as follows : " Quidam Deo solummodo confiteri debere 
 dicunt peccata, quidam vero sacerdotibus confitenda esse 
 percensent : quod utnimque non sine magno fructu intra 
 sanctam fit Ecclesiam. Ita dumtaxat ut et Deo, qui remissor 
 est peccatorum, confiteamur peccata nostra, et cum David 
 dicamus. Delictum meum cognitum tibi feci, &c. et secun- 
 dum institutionem Apostoli, confiteamur alterutmm peccata 
 nostra, et oremus pro invicem ut salvemur. Confessio itaque 
 quae Deo fit, purgat peccata, ea vero quae sacerdoti fit, 
 docet qualiter ipsa purgentur peccata," &c. — Cone. vii. 1279. 
 Was Leo the Third asleep, that he could suffer such heresy 
 to be broached and not denounced ? But all the world 
 knows, that till 1215, no decree of Pope or council can be
 
 31 
 
 adduced enjoining the necessary observance of such a custom. 
 Then at the council of Lateran, Innocent III. commanded it. 
 As the Latin Church aflords no sanction to the assertion of 
 the Tridentine fathers, so is it in vain to look for it among 
 the Greeks, for there, as Socrates, Hist. Eccles. v. 19, and 
 Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. vii. 16, inform us, the whole confes- 
 sional was abolished by Xectarius, the Archbishop of Con- 
 stantinople, in the 4th century, by reason of an indecency 
 which was committed on a female penitent, when pursuing 
 her penance ; which, surely, he would not have ventured to 
 have done had he deemed it a divine institution. Sozomen, 
 in his account of the confessional, says, that the public con- 
 fession in the presence of all the people, which formerly 
 obtained, having been found grievous (jioprLKov wg €Ik6<;, a 
 well-bred, silent, and prudent presbyter was set in charge of 
 it ; thus plainly denoting the change from public to auricular 
 confessions." — PercevaVs Romish Schism. 
 
 To this I would add that, according to Sozomen, this sys- 
 tem of private confession was not yet introduced at Rome, 
 when it had been used for some time at Constantinople : for 
 he says that in the West, and Rome especially, the penitents 
 had no other practice than that of mourning in public classes. 
 
 Note B. 
 
 "When we speak of Tradition, or the Fathers, being authori- 
 ties in the interpretation of Scripture, we do not mean to say 
 that any person may, after studying the Fathers, and placing 
 his own private interpretation upon them, assert that the 
 opinion he so forms is a doctrine of the Church of England. 
 AVe only assert the principles of our Reformation. It is 
 asked, why we should defer to our Prayer Book and Formula- 
 ies ? are they infallible ? We answer, No ! but the proba- 
 bility is that they are right ; a probability, amounting to a 
 moral certainty on all important points, because of the prin- 
 ciple upon which our Reforruers acted. The Romanists, at the
 
 council of Trent, took for their guidance the Christian princi- 
 ple developed, and, as we see from Scripture, corrupted, in the 
 medieval Church. TVe, on the contrary, took for our guid- 
 ance at our Reformation, the Bible interpreted by the doctrine 
 and practice of the Primitive Church : hence our Prayer 
 Book and our Formularies. The Prayer Book, the Articles, 
 and the Formularies, were reformed or compiled by men who 
 adopted this principle ; and a private divine, even if he 
 thinks that on some minor points a mistake has been made, 
 ought, in modesty, to presume that he is more likely to 
 have been mistaken, than that many acting on the same 
 principle, were in error. In this respect, as in the intei'pre- 
 tation of Scripture, he thinks that he is probably the erro- 
 neous party, if his private judgment differs from the judg- 
 ment of many who were at least as able and as learned as 
 himself. A man more versed in Patristics could hardly be 
 found than Archbishop Bramhall, yet he says : " I submit 
 myself to the representative Church, that is, a free general 
 Council, or so general as can be procured ; and until then, to 
 the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a 
 national English synod : to the determination of all which, 
 and each of them respectively, according to the distinct 
 degrees of their authority, I yield a conformity and com- 
 pliance, or at the least, and to the lowest of them, an acquies- 
 cence." — BramhalVs Worlcs, ii. p. 22. 
 
 If there were a divine of that age more learned than 
 Bramhall in what relates to primitive Christianity, it was 
 Bishop Bull, and what says Bishop Bull in the Exanien 
 Censurce .? " Whatever I may have written, either in this or 
 other books, most humbly and most willingly do I submit it 
 to the judgment of our holy mother the English Church ; her 
 to whom I have hitherto devoted myself in all filial obedi- 
 ence, and to whom, while I live, by God's help, I will devote 
 myself." — Examen Censurce, — Anglo-Catholic Library, p. 5. 
 
 On the like principle acted the judicious Hooker : — " We
 
 33 
 
 make not our childish appeals, sometimes from our own to 
 foreign Churches, sometimes from both unto Churches an- 
 cienter than both are, in eff'ect always from all others to our 
 own selves ; but, as becometh them that follow with all 
 humility the ways of peace, we honour, reverence, and obey, 
 in the very next degree unto God, the voice of the Church 
 of God wherein we live. They, whose wits are too glorious 
 to fall to so low an ebb, they which have risen and swoln so 
 high that the walls of ordinary rivers are unable to keep 
 them in, they whose wanton contentions in the cause whereof 
 we have spoken, do make all where they go a sea, even 
 they, at their highest float, are constrained both to see and 
 grant, that what their fancy will not yield to like, their 
 judgment cannot with reason condemn." — Hooker, book v. 
 sec. 71. 
 
 The following words of Bishop Stillingfleet may be read with 
 advantage at the present time : — " I cannot see why the autho- 
 rity of some very few persons, though of great learning, should 
 bear sway against the constant opinion of our Church ever 
 since the Reformation ; since our Church is not now to be 
 formed according to the singular fancies of some few (though 
 learned men,) much less to be modelled by the caprichios of 
 superstitious fanatics, who prefer some odd opinions and ways 
 of their own before the received doctrine and practice of the 
 Church they live in. Such as these, we rather pity their 
 weakness than regard their censures ; and are only sorry 
 when our adversaries make such properties of them, as by 
 their means to beget in some a disallcction to our Church. 
 Which I am so far from, (whatever malice and peevishness 
 may suggest to the contrary,) that, upon the greatest inquiry 
 I can make, I esteem it the best Church of the Christian 
 world ; and think my time very well employed (whatever 
 thanks I meet with for it) in defending its cause, and pre- 
 serving persons in the communion of it." — Preface to Dis- 
 course on Idolatry, — Works, vol. v.
 
 34 
 
 When we read tliese passages from the great divines of the 
 Church of England, divines, vs^hose Patristics and Patrology 
 would put to shame the most learned of our modern theolo- 
 gians, it excites a just indignation to hear juvenile clerics, 
 who, in conscious ignorance, not very long ago, trembled 
 under the mild scrutiny of a bishop's chaplain, traducing, 
 defaming, and sneering at the Church of England, whose 
 divines are scarcely known to them by name, while they 
 think to shew their skill or their liberality by contending 
 that the abominations of Rome, are less abominable than 
 Hooker, and Barrow, and Usher, and all English divines, 
 who lived before the present age, supposed them to be. 
 
 Note C. 
 
 In this note I shall present the reader with copious extracts 
 from some of our great divines. I do so, because, while all 
 parties admit their authority, their* works are little studied ; 
 the Presbyterianizers in our Church consulting the works 
 of non-conformist theologians, and the Romanizing extreme 
 studying Romisli writers, and works of Romish devotion. 
 The learned Archbishop Usher, the friend of Laud, whose 
 Answer to the Jesuit is itself unanswerable, is the author 
 I shall quote first. 
 
 " T^ie diverse sentences of the doctors touching this ques- 
 tion, whether external confession were necessary or not, are 
 at large laid down by Gratian ; who in the end leaveth the 
 matter in suspense, and concludeth in this manner : ' Upon 
 what authorities, or upon what strength of reasons both these 
 opinions are grounded, I have briefly laid open. But whether 
 of them we should rather cleave to, is reserved to the judg- 
 ment of the reader. For both of them have for their favour- 
 ers both wise and religious men.' And so tlie matter rested 
 undetermined 1150 years after Christ ; howsoever the Roman
 
 35 
 
 correctors of Gratian do tell us, that now the case is altered, 
 and that ' it is most certain, and must be held for most cer- 
 tain, that the sacramental confession of mortal sins is neces- 
 sary, used in that manner, and at such time, as in the council 
 of Trent after other councils it is appointed.' But the first 
 council wherein we find any thing determined touching this 
 necessity, is that of Lateran under Innocent the Third, 
 wherein we heard that transubstantiation was established : 
 for there it was ordained, tliat ' Omnis utriusque sexus 
 Jidelis, every faithful one of either sex, being come to years 
 of discretion, should by himself alone, once in the year at 
 least, faithfully confess his sins unto his own priest ; and 
 endeavour according to his strength to fulfil the penance 
 enjoined unto him, receiving reverently at least at Easter the 
 sacrament of the Eucharist : otherwise, that both being alive 
 he should be kept from entering into the Church, and being 
 dead should want Christian burial.' Since which determina- 
 tion Thomas Aquinas, in his exposition of the text of the 
 fourth book of the Sentences, distinct. 17, holdeth the denial 
 of the necessity of confession unto salvation to be heresy ; 
 which before that time, saith Bonaventure, in his Disputations 
 upon the same fourth book, was not heretical ; forasmuch as 
 many Catholic doctors did hold contrary opinions therein, 
 as appeareth by Gratian. 
 
 " But Medina will not admit by any means, that it should 
 be accounted ' strictly heresy ;' but would have it said, that 
 ' it savours of heresy.' And for this decree of confession to 
 be made once in the year, he saith, that it ' doth not declare 
 nor interpret any divine right of the thing, but rather ap- 
 pointeth the time of confessing.' Durand thinketh that it 
 may be said, that this statute containeth ' an holy and whole- 
 some exhortation of making confession, and then adjoineth a 
 precept of the receiving of the Eucharist, backed with a 
 penalty ;' or if both of them be precepts, that ' the penalty 
 respecteth only the precept of communicating (of the trans-
 
 gression whereof knowledge may be taken,) and not the 
 precept of confession ;' of the transgression whereof the 
 Church can take no certain notice, and therefore can appoint 
 no certain penalty for it. But howsoever, this we are sure of, 
 that the canonists afterwards held no absolute necessity of 
 obedience to be required therein, as unto a sacramental insti- 
 tution ordained by Christ for obtaining remission of sins ; 
 but a canonical obedience only, as unto an useful constitution 
 of the Church. And therefore, where Gratian in his first 
 distinction de Pcenitentia had, in the 34th chapter and the 
 three next following, propounded the allegations which made 
 for them, who held that men might obtain pardon for their 
 sins without any oral confession of them, and then proceeded 
 to the authorities which might seem to make for the contrary 
 opinion ; Johannes Semeca,* at the beginning of that part, 
 upon those words of Gratian, Alii e contrario testantur, 
 putteth to this gloss : 'From this place until the section, 
 His auctoritatibus, he allegeth for the other part, that sin is 
 not forgiven unto such as are of years without confession of 
 the mouth ; which yet is false,' saith he. But this free deal- 
 ing of his did so displease friar Manrique, who, by command 
 of Pius Quintus, set out a censure upon the glosses of the 
 Canon Law, that he gave direction these words, ' which yet 
 is false,' should be clean blotted out. "Which direction of 
 his, notwithstanding, the Roman correctors under Gregory 
 XIII. did not follow ; but letting the words still stand, give 
 them a check only with this marginal annotation : ' Xay it is 
 most true, that without confession, in desire at least, the sin 
 is not forgiven.' 
 
 '•' In like manner, where the same Semeca holdeth it to be 
 the better opinion, that confession was ' ordained by a cer- 
 tain tradition of the universal Church, rather than by the 
 authority of the new or old Testament,' and inferreth there- 
 
 * Johannes Semeca flourished about Uie year 1260. He was an honest 
 German, who opposf.d the exactions of Pope Clement IV.
 
 37 
 
 upon, that it is ' necessary among the Latins, but not among 
 the Greeks, because that tradition did not spread to them ;' 
 friar ^lanrique commandeth all that passage to be blotted 
 out ; but the Roman correctors clap this note upon the mar- 
 gin for an antidote : ' Xay, confession was ordained by our 
 Lord, and by God's law is necessary to all that fall into mor- 
 tal sin after baptism, as well Greeks as Latins.' And for this 
 they quote only the 14th session of the council of Trent ; 
 where that opinion is accursed in us, which was held two or 
 three hundred years ago by the men of their own religion, 
 among whom Michael of Bononia,* who was prior general of 
 the order of the Carmelites in the days of pope Urban the 
 Sixth, doth conclude strongly out of their own received 
 grounds, ' that confession is not necessary for the obtaining 
 of the pardon of our sin ;' and Panormitan, the great can- 
 onist, prolesseth that the opinion of Semeca doth much please 
 him, which referreth the original of confession to a general 
 tradition of the Church ; ' because,' saith he, ' there is not 
 any clear authority which sheweth that God or Christ did 
 clearly ordain that confession should be made unto a priest.' 
 Yea, ' all the canonists, following their first interpreter, say 
 that confession was brought in only by the law of the Church,' 
 and not by any divine precept, if we will believe Maldonat ; 
 who addeth notwithstanding, that 'this opinion is either 
 already sufficiently declared by the Church to be heresy, or 
 that the Church should do well if it, did declare it to be 
 heresy.' 
 
 " And we find indeed, that in the year of our Lord 1479, 
 which was thirty-four years after the death of Panormitan, 
 by a special commission directed from pope Sixtus the Fourth 
 unto Alfonsus Carillus, Archbishop of Toledo,t one Petrus 
 
 • Michael of Bononia, in the age of Urban VI., must have flourished 
 about the year 1380. 
 
 + Alfonsus Carillus, Archbishop of Toledo, presided there from a. d. 1446 
 to 1483. His character may be seen in Prescott's History of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella. 
 
 D
 
 SB 
 
 Oxomensis, professor of divinity in the university of Sala- 
 manca, was driven to abj ure this conclusion, which he had 
 before delivered as agreeable to the common opinion of the 
 doctors, ' that confession of sins in particular was grounded 
 upon some statute of the universal Church, and not upon 
 divine right.' And when learned men for all this would not 
 ^ake warning, but would needs be meddling again with that 
 which the popish clergy could not endure should be touched, 
 (as Johannes de Selva, among others, in the end of his trea- 
 tise cle Jurejurando, Erasmus in divers of his works, and 
 Beatus Rhenanus in his argument upon Tertullian's book 
 de Pcenitentia,) the fathers of Trent, within seventy-two 
 years after that, conspired together to stop all men's mouths 
 with an anathema, that should deny sacramental confession 
 to be of divine institution, or to be necessary unto salvation. 
 And so we are come to an end of that point." — A^aswer to a 
 Jesuit, p. 95. 
 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor, whose Dissuasive from Popery ought 
 to be deeply studied, shall speak next. 
 
 " That confession to a priest, is a doctrine taught as neces- 
 sary in the Church of Rome, is without all question ; and 
 yet that it is but the commandment of men, I shall, I hope, 
 clearly enough evince ; and if I do, I suppose the charge 
 laid against the Church of Rome, which is the same Christ 
 laid against the Pharisees, will be fully made good, as to this 
 instance ; for this is one of the sorts of that crime, to say, 
 ' Dixit Dominus, Dominus autem non dixit ;' to pretend a 
 rite to be of divine institution when it is not so, but ' huma- 
 num inventum,' ' a device of man's brain.' — The other (which 
 is, still supposing an institution to be human and positive, 
 yet to urge it with the same severe religion, as they do a 
 divine commandment) I shall consider in other instances. 
 For the present the inquiry is concerning auricular confes- 
 sion, and its pretended necessity. The first decree concerning 
 it, was in the Lateran council ; in which ' every person of 
 
 f^
 
 39 
 
 years of discretion is commanded to confess all his sins to 
 his own priest, at least once in the year ; or to another 
 priest, with the leare of his own ; otherwise while he is 
 living, he must he driven from entrance into the Church ; 
 and when he is dead, he must have no Christian hurial.' — 
 This is very severe ; but yet here is no damnation to them 
 that neglect it ; and the duty is not pretended to be by 
 divine commandment : and therefore, lest that severity 
 might seem too much to be laid upon human law, they made 
 it up in the new forge at Trent ; and there it was decreed 
 that, *To confess all and every mortal sin, which, after 
 diligent inquiry, we remember, and every evil thought or 
 desire, and the circumstances that change the nature of 
 the sin, is necessary for the remission of sins, and of divine 
 institution ; and he that denies this, is to be anathema.' 
 
 " Whether to confess to a priest be an advisable discipline, 
 and a good instance, instrument, and ministry of repentance, 
 and may serve many good ends in the Church, and to the 
 souls of needing persons, — is no part of the question. We 
 find, that, in the Acts of the Apostles, divers converted per- 
 sons came to St. Paul, either publicly or privately, ' and 
 confessed their deeds ;' and burnt their books of exorcism, 
 that is, did what became severe and hearty penitents, who 
 needed counsel and comfort, and that their repentance should 
 be conducted by wise guides. And when St. James exhorts 
 all Christians 'to confess their sins to one another,' cer- 
 tainly it is more agreeable to all spiritual ends, that this be 
 done rather to the curate of souls, than to the ordinary bre- 
 thren. The Church of England is no way engaged against 
 it, but advises it, and practises it. The Calvinist churches 
 do not practise it mucli, because they know not well how to 
 divest it from its evil appendages, which are put to it by the 
 customs of the world, and to which it is too much exposed 
 by the interests, weaknesses, and partialities of men. But 
 they commending it, shew they would use it willingly, if they
 
 40 
 
 could order it unto edification. ' Interim quin sistant se 
 pastori oves, quoties sacram coenam participare volunt, aded 
 non reclamo, ut maxime velim hoc ubique observari.' — And 
 for the Lutheran Churches, that it is their practice, we 
 may see it in Chemnitius, who was one of greatest fame 
 amongst them ; and he is noted to this purpose by Bellar- 
 mine ; only they all consent, that it is not necessary nor of 
 divine institution ; and being but of man's invention, it 
 ought not to pass into a doctrine ; and, as the apostles said 
 in the matter of circumcision, ' a burden ought not to be 
 put upon the necks of the disciples :' and that, ' in lege 
 gratiae, longe difficillimum' too, as Major observes truly, by 
 far greater than any burden in the law of grace, the time of 
 the Gospel. Let it be commanded to all, to whom it is need- 
 ful or profitable ; but let it be free, as to the conscience 
 precisely, and bound but by the cords of a man, and as other 
 ecclesiastical laws are, which are capable of exceptions, re- 
 strictions, cautions, dispensations, rescindings, and abolitions, 
 by the same authority, or upon greater reasons. 
 
 " The question then is, whether to confess all our greater 
 sins to a priest, all that upon strict inquiry we can remember, 
 be necessary to salvation 1 This the Church of Eome now 
 affirms ; and this the Church of England and all Protestant 
 Churches deny ; and complain sadly, that the commandments 
 of men are changed into the doctrines of God, by a Pharisaical 
 empire, and superstition." — Dissuasive from Pojpery. 
 
 Archbishop Bramhall, than whom a higher Church of Eng- 
 land man, a more enlightened opposer of Popery, and a more 
 constant supporter at the same time of the Protestant element 
 in our Church, could not be found, writes as follows : — 
 
 " What are those corruptions then, which we have ' pared 
 away' from the Romish shrift ? First, that they have 
 tricked it up in the robes of a Sacrament, obtruding it upon 
 the world as absolutely necessary to salvation, and that by 
 divine institution ; contrary to their own schools. Gratian
 
 41 
 
 concludes it with, ' Lectoris judicio reservatur.^ — ' It is 
 referred to the judgment of the reader ;' and cites Theodore, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury for his opinion. The Glosser 
 refers the original to an universal tradition ; to vvhose opin- 
 ion Scotus inclines. Bonaventure saith, that it was ' insinu- 
 ated by Christ, instituted by the Apostles, and promulged 
 by St. James.' Panormitan makes the original of it human ; 
 with whom side Petrus Oxomensis, Erasmus, Rhenanus. 
 And Lyranus, — that in times past it was not so rigidly ob- 
 served. Secondly, that they have restrained it to a particular 
 and plenary enumeration of all sins. ' AVho can tell how oft 
 he oflendeth ; cleanse Thou me, Lord, from my secret 
 faults.' But without this, say they, the priest cannot give 
 true judgment. No? Why? Christ said not, 'what sins 
 ye remit,' but ' whose sins ;' giving this caution to the Pres- 
 byters, to attend more to the contrition and capacity of 
 their confitents, than to the number and nature of their sins. 
 Thirdly, they make it to be meritorious at the hands of God, 
 and satisfactory for sins, not by way of complacence only, 
 but even in justice. Thus in the doctrinal part. 
 
 " In the practice there are corruptions also, which deserve 
 to be • pared away ;' though this author cannot see to dis- 
 tinguish between the body and the botches, between the 
 institution and the corruptions. As, that they do tirst ab- 
 solve a man from his sins, and then bid him to make satis- 
 faction ; contrary to the practice of the ancient Church. 
 Then, that it hath been used as a picklock to open the 
 secrets of states and princes. Most certain it is, that many 
 have, and too many daily do, convert it to their own advan- 
 tage." — BramhaWs Works, Anglo-Catholic Library, Vol. v. 
 p. 222. 
 
 I would refer also to the whole of Bishop's Bull's Sermon 
 on the Necessity of Works of Righteousness, wherein he not 
 only exposes " the trade of auricular confession," but refutes 
 the Romish doctrine of attrition, which is so closely connected 
 
 2 D
 
 42 
 
 with it, proving it to be in his own words, " a doctrine so 
 dangerous, so damnable, that it seems itself sufficient to 
 unchristian and unchurch any society of men that shall teach 
 and maintain it." "Indeed," says Bishop Bull, "there is 
 no society of Christians in the world, where antinomianism 
 and libertinism more reign, than among the Papists, into 
 whose very faith they are interwoven, and men are taught 
 them by the definitions of their Church It is no wonder so 
 many vicious persons, especially when they come to die, turn 
 Papists, and no visitants are so welcome to them as the 
 Eoman confessors. They find them very easy and comfortable 
 doctors for men in their desperate case, and admire their 
 rare invention, who have found out a shorter way to heaven, 
 and a readier one to escape hell and damnation, than the 
 Scriptures ever discovered, or their former ministers of the 
 Church of England, following the guidance of the Scriptures, 
 durst warrant to them. And what broken plank, yea what 
 flag or reed will not a drowning man lay hold on ? how 
 pleasant a thing is that which they call the bosom of the 
 Roman Church ! how willingly do those forlorn wretches 
 cast themselves into it ! where they are promised, and in 
 their own deluded imaginations enjoy, that rest and security, 
 which they could not any where else, no not in the word and 
 promises of God, find. But alas ! when they thus say Peace, 
 peace, unto themselves, behold, sudden destruction cometh 
 upon them, and within a minute after they are launched out 
 into eternity, a sad and dreadful experience convinceth them 
 what a sorry refuge they fled to. 
 
 " It is evident, that the Church of Rome, in teaching this 
 vile doctrine, aims only at her own interest and advantage, 
 and hath no regard at all to the honour of God and the 
 good of souls. It is absolutely necessary, she saith, for a 
 sinner to make an auricular confession to, and be absolved 
 by, a priest, though God hath no where said so : but it 
 IS not necessary for him to be contrite, or to repent af
 
 4S 
 
 his sins out of the love of God, though God Himself in 
 His own vrord hath an hundred times said it is. That is 
 necessary for the honour and gain of the priest. The 
 trade of auricular confession must by any means be kept 
 up, because from thence they reap no small gain ; and 
 besides by it they govern, not only the silly common peo- 
 ple, but great men, and kings and princes, by becoming 
 masters of their secrets. But is not the doctrine of true con- 
 trition as necessary for the honour of God ? Yes : but the 
 promoting of God's glory in the salvation of souls is the least 
 of their design or business. Indeed it were easy to shew how 
 the whole frame of the religion and doctrine of the Church of 
 Rome, as it is distinguished from that Christianity which we 
 hold in common with them, is evidently designed and con- 
 trived to serve the interest and profit of them that rule 
 that Church, by the disservices, yea and ruin, of those souls 
 that are under their government." — BulVs Works, Oxford 
 Edition, Vol. i. p. 12. 
 
 Let it be remembered, that the authors here quoted, are 
 men whom the Presbyterianizers in our Church brand as 
 semi-papists, and their words will perhaps come with greater 
 weight to those who, by a just abhorrence of the Presby- 
 terianizing extreme in the Church of England, are inclined 
 to think v;ith too great partiality of the Romanizers. 
 
 The necessity of confessio oris, (that it is necessary to 
 confess our sins, not only to God, but also to the priest,) was 
 asserted by Thomas Aquinas, in Supplementii^, Part. Quest. 
 8, Art. 1. Peter Lombard expressed himself more indefi- 
 nitely on this point ; Sent, iv., Dist. 17, Litt. B. The Eccle- 
 siastical Institution of auricular confession was established 
 by the fourth council of the Lateran, under Pope Innocent 
 III. This is the plain history of the doctrine, which is 
 thus seen to be medieval and Romish, not scriptural and 
 primitive.
 
 44 
 
 I may add that there are, in the Public Library, at Ge- 
 neva, several volumes of manuscript written in the Vaudois 
 patois, and illustrating the doctrine of those persecuted 
 people who met with such hard measures from the Papal 
 party in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. The fol- 
 lowing extract is taken from the volume numbered in the 
 Library, 208, p. 78 ; and is remarkable as furnishing a tes- 
 timony to the opposition, which the decree of the Fourth 
 Lateran Council encountered at the period of its promul- 
 gation. The MS. is apparently of the early part of the four- 
 teenth century ; and was copied by a friend who took some 
 pains to decipher it : — 
 
 " De la Pexanza. 
 
 '• De la oual Penanza nos 
 tenem por fe e confessem 
 purament de cor, qu'ella es 
 besognuol a lome cagi por 
 sfaczar lo pecca. 
 
 " A la qual se dev continua- 
 ment amonestar, e amones- 
 tem, qu li pecca se confessen 
 segond la forma de la prim- 
 tiva gleisa, e requerir consells 
 en las besognas a preyres pru- 
 dent e savi de si. La forma e 
 obligacion introducta novella- 
 ment d'Ynocent terz, la qual 
 solon husar comunament li 
 preyr simoniach, se dev squivar 
 e fugir d'li fidel : mas li reme- 
 dis profectivole a dever consel- 
 }iar a li pentent, como son lo 
 dejun, I'oracio, I'almona, e las 
 
 "Of Penance. 
 
 " Concerning which Penance 
 we hold for faith, and confess 
 with sincerity of heart, that it 
 is necessary for every man 
 thus to put away his sin. 
 
 " On which, men ought con- 
 tinually to be admonished, and 
 we do admonish, that their 
 sins should be confessed ac- 
 cording to the form of the 
 primitive Church, and that 
 they should require counsels in 
 cases of need from priests of 
 prudent character and known 
 to them. The form and or 
 dinance lately introduced by 
 Innocent III., which the simo- 
 niacal priests commonly use, 
 ought to be shunned and a- 
 voided by the faithful : but
 
 45 
 
 autras obras de satisfacion, nos 
 confessem ess util e profecti- 
 vole. 
 
 the remedies which may be 
 profitably recommended to 
 penitents, such as fasting, 
 prayer, alms-deeds, and other 
 works of satisfaction, we con- 
 fess to be useful and pro- 
 fitable. 
 
 "Auricular Confession made 
 all alone to the priest, — and 
 the form and usage of absolu- 
 tion, and the [injunction] of 
 penance in number, in weight, 
 and in measure, according to 
 the will of the confessor, as is 
 the mode used by the simo- 
 niacal priests, and the ordin- 
 ance of Innocent III., is not 
 
 of the substance, nor of 
 
 [the nature] of true penance." 
 
 Here it may be remarked that the writer speaks of the 
 obligation of every Christian to auricular confession as an 
 ordinance of Pope Innocent III., not a decree of the council 
 assembled by him. AVhich agrees with the account of this 
 council given by Alatthew Paris ; who says that the several 
 canons were read before the council by the pope's authority, 
 that some of the Churchmen then present were satisfied 
 with them, others thought them burdensome ; but he men- 
 tions no voting of the council on the question. 
 
 " La Confessio auricular fac- 
 ta tout solament al preyre . . . 
 e la forma e husauza d'l'abso- 
 
 lucio, el d'la penanza en 
 
 numbre en pes e en mesura, 
 segond la volunta del con- 
 fessor, costa lo modo husa dli 
 preyre simoniach, e Tobliga- 
 cion d' Ynocent terz, no es . . . . 
 de substancia, ne de — a la 
 vera penanza." 
 
 Note D. 
 
 Quotations from St. Chrysostom may be seen in my Sermon 
 on the Visitation of the Sick, in which this subject is alluded 
 to. Other quotations may be seen in Bingham, who ob-
 
 46 
 
 serves : — " Chrjsostom is not the only person that maintains 
 this assertion. St. Basil says the same thing before him : 
 'I do not make confession with my lips, to appear to the 
 world ; but inwardly in my heart, where no eye sees ; I 
 declare my groanings unto Thee alone. Who seest in secret, 
 I roar within myself : for I need not many words to make 
 confession : the groanings of my heart are sufficient for 
 confession, and the lamentations which are sent up to Thee, 
 my God, from the bottom of my soul.' In like manner, 
 St. Hilary makes confession necessary to be made to God 
 only ; for commenting on the fifty-second Psalm, he tells us 
 David teaches us that confession is necessary to be made to 
 none but God, Who hath made the olive fruitful with the hope 
 of mercy for ever and ever. And St. Ambrose as plainly says, 
 that tears poured out before God are sufficient to obtain 
 pardon of sin, without confession made to man. His words 
 are. ' Tears wash away sin, which men are ashamed to confess 
 with their voice. Weeping provides at once both for pardon 
 and bashfulness : tears speak out faults without horror ; 
 tears confess our crimes without any offence to modesty or 
 shamefacedness.' So again, speaking of St. Peter's tears, he 
 says, ' I find not what Peter said, but I find that he wept ; 
 I read of his tears, but I read not of liis satisfaction ;' mean- 
 ing, that verbal confession was not simply necessaiy to 
 obtain pardon. And in this sense, St. Austin, expounding 
 those words of the Psalmist, 'I said I will pronounce or 
 declare my own wickedness against myself unto the Lord, 
 and so Thou forgavest the iniquity of my heart,' says, he 
 had not yet pronounced it, but only promised that he would 
 pronounce it, and yet God forgave him. He had not yet 
 pronounced it, but only in his heart ; his confession was not 
 yet come to his mouth, yet God heard the voice of his heart : 
 his voice was not yet in his mouth, but the ear of God was 
 in his heart ; which implies, that God accepts and pardons 
 the penitent and contrite heart, even before any form'^'
 
 47 
 
 declaration is made by Tocal confession either to God or man, 
 lu another place, he speaks of confession as no ways necessary 
 to be made to man. What have I to do with men, that they 
 should hear my confessions, as though they could heal all 
 my diseases 1 He also frequently tells us, with all the rest of 
 the ancient writers, that a great many of those which the 
 Romanists now call mortal sins, were daily pardoned upon no 
 other confession but the fervent and devout use of the Lord's 
 prayer, ' Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that 
 trespass against us.' Which evidently shews, that he did 
 not believe Auricular Confession necessary for expiating all 
 manner of mortal sins. Maximus Taurinensis delivers his 
 opinion almost in the same words as St. Ambrose does : 
 ' Tears wash away sin, which the voice is ashamed to confess. 
 Therefore tears provide at once both for men's modesty and 
 salvation ; ^:hey neither make men blush in their petitions, 
 nor disappoint them of pardon in asking.' He adds, ' That 
 tears are a sort of silent prayers ; they ask not pardon in 
 words, and yet deserve it, (that is, in his style, 2^>'ocure it) 
 they declare not the cause, and yet obtain mercy. K^ay the 
 prayers of tears are many times of more advantage, than 
 those of words ; because words often prove deceitful in 
 prayer, but tears never deceive. For words sometimes declare 
 but half the business ; but tears always express the whole 
 afiection.' Prosper, who was St. Austin's scholar, follows his 
 doctrine : for speaking of private sins committed by the 
 clergy, he says, 'They shall more easily appease God, who 
 being not convicted by human judgment, do of their own 
 accord acknowledge their offence ; who either do discover it 
 by their own confessions, or else, others not knowing what 
 they are in secret, do voluntarily inflict the censure of excom- 
 munication upon themselves ; and being separated (not in 
 mind, but in office) from the altar, to which they did min- 
 ister, do lament their life as dead ; assuring themselves, that 
 God being reconciled unto them by the fruits of effectual
 
 48 
 
 repentance, tliey shall not only receive what they have lost, 
 but also being made citizens of that city which is above, they 
 shall come to everlasting joys.' Cassian also assures us, that 
 this was the doctrine of the Egyptian fathers. For he says, 
 Pinuphius, the Egyptian abbot gave this advice to the monks 
 that were under him : ' Who is it that cannot humbly say, 
 I made my sin known unto Thee, and my iniquity have I 
 not hid 1 that by this confession he may confidently adjoin 
 that which follows : And so Thou forgavest the impiety of 
 my heart. But if shamefacedness so draw thee back, that 
 thou blushest to reveal them before men ; cease not by 
 continual supplication to confess them unto Him from Whom 
 they cannot be hid, and to say, I know my iniquity, and my 
 sin is against me alway : to Thee only have I sinned, and 
 done evil before Thee, Whose custom is both to cure without 
 publishing our shame, and to pardon sins without accusing 
 or upbraiding.' These are plain testimonies, evidently shew- 
 ing, that the ancients did not believe the necessity of Auri- 
 cular Confession, or urge it as a thing absolutely necessary 
 to absolution and salvation." — Bingham, Booh xviii., Chap. 
 iii. Sec. 2. 
 
 After making some other observations, Bingham sums up 
 the points of difierence between the Primitive Church and 
 the modem Church of Rome, on this question, as they are 
 arranged in a treatise of Daille's, under no fewer than 
 thirty heads. 1. He argues from the practice of all 
 other Churches in the world beside the Roman. The 
 doctrine of the necessity of Auricular Confession is taught 
 "by no other denomination of Christians, not the Ethiopians 
 nor the Indians of St. Thomas, nor the Babylonians or 
 Chaldeans, nor the Armenians, nor the Jacobites, nor the 
 Greeks, in the manner of the Romans. 2. He shews, that 
 whereas the priests in the Roman Church are nicely in- 
 structed in the business of Auricular Confession, and teach 
 and minister it daily to the people, as the noblest act of their
 
 49 
 
 office ; there is nothing of all this to be found in the genuine 
 writings of the ancient Christians. 3. Whereas Auricular 
 Confession is continually mentioned by the Eoman writers 
 among the religious acts of all sorts of men, clergy, monks, 
 laity, princes, private men, noblemen, plebeians, men, women, 
 &c., there is nothing of this among the ancient Cliristians. 
 4. In the ancient Church, Christians were bound by no law, 
 as now they are in the Roman, to confess their sins to a 
 priest, before they came to the Lord's table to receive the 
 Eucharist ; which he demonstrates by eight reasons, and the 
 testimony of Chrysostom, Pelagius, Austin, Dorotheus, the 
 council of Chalon and Hincmar. 5. In the Roman Church it 
 is usual for every one to make his Auricular Confession at the 
 point of death ; of which there are no footsteps among the 
 ancients. 6. The Romish writers are very full of Auricular 
 Confession in describing any of the sicknesses, or calamities, 
 or wars, or shipwrecks, or journeys, or other hazardous under- 
 takings of their people : but there was no such practice 
 among the ancients. 7. The ancients in describing the per- 
 secutions of the Church, or the conflicts and trials and last 
 agonies of their confessors and martyrs, never mention Auri- 
 cular Confession, which yet abounds every where in the 
 Romish writers, when they make any such relations of the 
 lives or deaths of their martyrs. 8. The ancients had no 
 solemn times appointed for Auricular Confession, as Easter, 
 Christmas, Lent, the greater festivals, and the Friday and 
 Saturday fasts, which are now every where spoken of in the 
 Romish writers, as solemn times of confession. 9. The 
 ancients say nothing of minicles done in or by confession, 
 which the Romanists continually boasted of. 10. The 
 ancient Pagans never objected Auricular Confession to the 
 primitive Christians, as the modern Pagans do to those of 
 the Roman communion. 11. The ancient Church know 
 nothing of heretics opposing Auricular Confession, because 
 there was no such thing enjoined ; but since it was appointed 
 E
 
 60 
 
 by the council of Lateran, anno 1215, many have been con- 
 demned as heretics for opposing it. 12. The primitive 
 bishops often declare, that they were ignorant of the sins 
 of their people ; particularly this is said by Chrysostom, 
 Austin, Innocent and Leo, Bishops of Rome : which is an 
 argument, that they were not revealed to them by sacra- 
 mental confession. 13. The first man that instituted any 
 private confession was St. Anthony, who appointed his monks 
 to write down their thoughts, and communicate them one 
 to another : but this was nothing to sacerdotal confession ; 
 for these monks were only laymen. 14. The ancient writers 
 have none of those intricate questions and disputations 
 about Auricular Confession, which so much stuff the books 
 of the modem casuists in the Church of Rome. 15. The 
 Fathers never interpret those passages of Scripture, which 
 the Romanists produce for Auricular Confession, in their 
 sense, but most of them to a contrary meaning. 16. The 
 Fathers, in those books which they wrote professedly of 
 repentance, never urge Auricular Confession as a necessary 
 part of repentance. 17. The Fathers acknowledge only 
 three sorts of repentance ; the ante-baptismal, for all manner 
 of sins ; the quotidian or daily repentance, for lesser sins 
 of daily incursion ; and the public penance of lapsers, falling 
 into more heinous sins ; but Auricular Confession appertains 
 to none of these. 18. Gregory Xyssen says expressly, there 
 were some sins, such as covetousness, which the Fathers 
 before him endeavoured to cure, not by any canonical pun- 
 ishments, but only by the public exhortations of the word 
 and doctrine : which will not consist with the doctrine of 
 Auricular Confession. 19. Kectarius wholly abrogated the 
 office of the penitentiary priest ; which argues that there 
 
 was no necessity of Auricular Confession : 20. His 
 
 next argument is dra^vn from those passages of Chrysostom, 
 Hilary, BasO, Ambrose, Maximus, Taurinensis, and St. 
 Austin, asserting, that remission of sins may be ob-
 
 51 
 
 rained of God by contrition only, without any oral confession. 
 21. The Fathers allow salvation to be attainable even by those 
 relapsers, who fell again into sin after their first public 
 penance, though they had no liberty either to make con- 
 fession or receive absolution. His 22nd, 23rd, and 24th 
 arguments are drawn from the testimonies of Cassian, and 
 Julianus Pomerius or Prosper, and Laurentius Xovariensis. 
 
 25. To these, he adds two considerable testimonies of Bede. 
 
 26. And the concessions of Erasmus, Beatus Rhenanus, 
 and Rigaltius, who freely own that the Romish Auricular 
 Confession was not in use in the Primitive Church. He 
 shews that there was a change made of the ancient discipline 
 in the ninth age, when private penance enjoined by the priest 
 began to be pretty frequent and common. 28. And yet this 
 dift'ered vastly in many particulars from the confession estab- 
 lished afterwards in the council of Lateran. For still it was 
 believed that confession made to God was sufficient to salva- 
 tion. 29. In the following ages also Goffridus Vindocinensis, 
 Peter Lombard, and Gratian, say there were many who still 
 held, that confession to God alone was sufficient without con- 
 fessing to the priest. And Gratian particularly, having cited 
 the authorities on both sides of the question, leaves it to the 
 judgment of the reader to take which he pleases : because each 
 opinion had wise and religious men to authorize and defend 
 it. Which argues, that in Gratian's time, the question about 
 the necessity of Auricular Confession was not so determined 
 as it was afterwards in the council of Lateran, and the coun- 
 cil of Trent. This is also acknowledged by Aquinas, Bona- 
 venture, and Antonine, who say, that in the time of Gratian 
 and Lombard the question about the necessity of such con- 
 fession was only problematical, and what might safely be dis- 
 puted both ways, and that it was no heresy to deny it : but 
 after the determination of the Church made under Innocent 
 III. in the Lateran council, it was to be reputed heresy for 
 any man to assert, that it was sufficient to confess a man's
 
 52 
 
 sins to God, without making confession to a priest also. 
 30. Thus the doctrine of Auricular Confession was established 
 in the thirteenth century, and not before : and even after 
 that there wanted not witnesses, such as Wicklifi" and Huss, 
 and Semeca, and Michael of Bononia, and Petrus Oxoniensis, 
 to bear testimony against its novelty, to the time of the 
 Heformation. This is the short account of those thirty argu- 
 ments, which the learned Air. Daille uses to shew the novelty 
 of the Romish doctrine concerning Auricular Confession, 
 which the curious reader, who desires to see them more fully 
 deduced and confirmed, may consult in our author's elaborate 
 work, for his farther satisfaction." — Bingham, look xviii., 
 chap, iii., sec. 4. 
 
 Note E. 
 
 The word Protestant is antagonistic to the word Popish. 
 It was a crafty device to make it stand opposed to the word 
 Catholic. The following observations are from the Quarterly 
 Review, vol. Ixix, and have been generally attributed to Mr. 
 Sewell. 
 
 " Though the Bible had been abused by the licentiousness 
 of private interpretation, they never omitted the opportunity 
 of magnifying it, in its true interpretation, as ' the only in- 
 fallible rule of faith ;' as ' containing all the principles of 
 faith and points of salvation,' as needing no associate, no 
 addition of any authority as equally infallible, nor more 
 perspicuous than itself to supply Avhat it wants.' Though 
 the service of the Church was threatened to be stripped of 
 all decency and order, they speak soberly and cautiously 
 of ceremonies. Though Episcopacy was made a badge of 
 Antichrist, they do not reduce all religion to a matter of 
 Church discipline. Though the doctrine of faith had been 
 perverted to the wildest excesses, there is no mention in 
 them of justification by works, or of works at all, without
 
 53 
 
 immediate and solemn reference to the faith which alone 
 can sanctify them. These points, and many others of their 
 doctrinal teaching, might be advantageously examined. For 
 much of this caution and comprehensiveness of view they 
 were undoubtedly indebted to the proximity of Popery 
 and to their thorough acquaintance with its nature, and 
 dread of its poison. Yet apparently they had more to fear 
 from Puritanism than from Popery ; and if we in this day 
 might be reluctant to retain the name of Protestant, from 
 the fear of being confounded with sectarians, much more 
 might they. And yet, Catholic as they were both in lan- 
 guage and in spirit, they use it boldly and prominently. 
 As the believing Jews, when other Jews refused to believe, 
 were compelled to distinguish themselves as Christians ; 
 and as the Christian Church, when heretics also called 
 themselves Christians, was compelled to add the name of 
 Catholic ; so Catholic Christians, when one great branch 
 of the Church, retaining the same title, is spreading the 
 grossest eiTors, must distinguish themselves as Protestants. 
 They are Protestant, as the 'Latin or West Church' (so 
 Field has proved,) 'wherein the Pope tyrannised before 
 Luther's time, was and continued a true Protestant Church, 
 condemning those profane and superstitious abuses which 
 we have removed ; and groaning under that tyranny, the 
 yoke whereof we have now cast off.' They are Protestants, 
 as the Church Catholic itself is Protestant against the 
 sins and follies of heathenism ; as every Christian in every 
 age and every country is appointed by God himself to be a 
 witness and protester against evil. If, indeed, the acts we 
 rebuke are no sins, then to protest is a crime. If they 
 are sins, yet sins of the past, now buried and forgotten, 
 to rake them up unnecessarily may well be condemned. If 
 we judge them by our own private judgment, wo intrude 
 on the rights of our superiors, and so we sin. And if they be 
 distant and weak, and no danger exists of infection, we may 
 
 E 2
 
 54 
 
 well spare ourselves and others tlie pain of declaring against 
 them. But whether the deeds of Popery be sins or not 
 — whether they be dead and buried, or alive and in full 
 vigour — whether our Church has spoken on them, and we 
 are bound to speak with her voice — whether in the silence 
 and debility of the Church Catholic she was not bound to 
 speak, when no other voice could speak' so strongly — and 
 whether there is not danger from Popery now in the very 
 heart of the country ; danger, which calls on us all to rouse 
 the weak and the strong together to vigilance against their 
 greatest enemy — unhappily need not be asked. We are 
 not, and dare not be, Protestants, in the sense which some 
 few may wrongly affix to the word, as discarding all guides 
 to truth but our own self-will : in this sense Protestantism 
 is worse than folly : it may be worse than Popery ; but 
 as remonstrating and warning all around us against the 
 corruptions of Popery, we cannot cease to be Protestants, 
 without ceasing to do our duty as Christians. It is our 
 glory and our happiness to be Christians — our safeguard 
 and consolation to be Catholics — our sad and melancholy 
 duty, a duty which we never can abandon till Rome has 
 ceased to work among us, to be Protestants. 
 
 " ' My Lords,' said Laud, ' I am as innocent in this business 
 of religion, as free from all practice, or so much as thought 
 of practice, for any alteration to Popery, or any way blemish- 
 ing the true Protestant religion established in the Church 
 of England, as I was when my mother first bare me into the 
 world. 
 
 " ' If I had blemished the true Protestant religion' — ' The 
 number of those persons whom, by God's blessing upon my 
 labours, 1 have settled in the true Protestant religion estab- 
 lished in the Church of England' — ' I pray God, His truth (the 
 true Protestant religion here established) sink not' — ' God 
 of His mercy preserve the true Protestant religion amongst 
 
 US'—
 
 55 
 
 * This was the common language of Laud, the martyr of 
 tlie Puritans. 
 
 " So Bramhall, while rightly denying that ' Protestancy is 
 of the essence of the Church,' any more than the weeding 
 of a garden is the essence of the garden, does not scruple 
 throughout the whole of the same treatise to use the word 
 as the right denomination of men, whom he describes in the 
 same place as ^ endeavouring to conform themselves in all 
 things to the pattern of the Primitive Church,' as ' ready to 
 shed their blood for the least particle of saving truth.' 
 
 " So Hammond, speaking of those who preached resistance 
 to the lawful magistrate : — 
 
 " ' Such as these, if they must be called Protestants, are yet 
 in this somewhat more than that title ever imported, I may 
 say, perfect Jesuits in their principles.' — ' This doctrine [of 
 non-resistance] purely Protestant,' — the contrary of which, 
 *by God's providence, hath formerly been timeously restrained, 
 and not broken out to the defaming of our Protestant pro- 
 fession.' 
 
 " So Nicholson : — 
 'The laws are now silent, and any man may be now any- 
 thing, so he be not an old Protestant of the Church of 
 England.' 
 
 " So Sanderson is not afraid to say — ■ 
 * When we have Wrangled ourselves as long as our wits and 
 strength will serve us, the honest, downright, sober English 
 Protestant will be found in the end the man in the safest 
 way, and by the surest line.' 
 
 " Nor is he ashamed to avow his 
 'zeal for the safety and honour of my dear mother, the 
 Church of England, which hath nourished me up to become 
 a Christian and a Protestant (that is to say, a ^jwre pute 
 Christian, without any other addition or epithet.) 
 
 " ' Protestants,' says Laud, ' did not get that name by 
 protesting against the Church of Rome, but by prot<)sting
 
 56 
 
 (and that when nothing else would sei'Tc) against her 
 errors and superstitions. Do you but remove them from 
 the Church of Rome, and our protestation is ended, and 
 the- separation too. Nor is protestation itseh" such an un- 
 heard-of thing in the very heart of religion. JFor the sacra- 
 ments, both of the Old and New Testament, are called by 
 your own school ' visible signs protesting the faith.' Now, 
 if the sacraments be protestantia, signs protesting, why 
 may not men also, and without all offence, be called Protest- 
 ants, since by receiving the true sacraments, and by refusing 
 them which are corrupted, they do but protest the sincerity 
 of their faith against that doctrinal corruption which hath 
 invaded the great sacrament of the Eucharist and other 
 parts of religion 1 especially since they are ' men which 
 must protest their faith by visible signs and sacraments.' 
 
 " ' They are the Protestants,' says Stillingfleet, ' who stand 
 for the ancient and undefiled doctrine of the Catholic Church 
 against the novel and corrupt tenets of the Roman Church. 
 And such kind of protestation no true Christian, who mea- 
 sures his being Catholic by better grounds than communion 
 with the Church of Rome, will ever have cause to be ashamed 
 of.' 
 
 "So Hickes, though fully alive to the 'wicked, absurd, 
 and unchristian doctrines, which atheistical, heretical, and 
 other seducing teachers taught in his day, under the name of 
 Protestants,' does not therefore repudiate the name, but de- 
 clares that ' the Protestant religion of the Church of England 
 is but another name for primitive Christianity, and a Protest- 
 ant for a primitive Christian, who protests against all the 
 corruptions of the Gospel by Popery.' 
 
 " We may not indeed distinguish ourselves solely as Pro- 
 testants, or without express declarations of Catholic prin- 
 ciples, especially where the name is likely to confound us 
 with sects, and doctrines, which a Catholic Christian repudi- 
 ates. The word has been used too carelessly, and a false
 
 57 
 
 meaning popularly given to it, which must be condemned 
 and corrected. But as yet, while no other badge exists to 
 mark to the world, and especially to the poor and the 
 weak, the duty of guarding against Popery, instead of dally- 
 ing with its temptations, and palliating its corruptions, 
 we cannot prescribe it. It is a sign — a little sign, but 
 one most looked to — by which a large number of Christian 
 minds witliin the Church, in a time of natural alarm and 
 jealousy, test our attachment to the Church, and our repudi- 
 ation of errors which they have been taught — and taught 
 most rightly — to regard with dread. For their sakes we 
 are bound to be sparing of our own liberty, and tender of 
 their consciences. If a French army is closely besieging a 
 town in which we live, we have no right to dress ourselves 
 up as French soldiers and walk about the streets, or to 
 refuse to give our English pass-word, though by this refusal 
 we may alarm none but women and children. We have 
 no right to alarm any one. He who really desires the 
 restoration of Christian unity will desire, most of all, to 
 recall to the fold of the Church her own sheep. If he 
 dreads to offend Papists by the word Popery, he will dread 
 to oft'end Puritans by rejecting the word Protestant. If 
 he fears that it will confound him with dissenters, he must 
 fear alike lest the word Catholic should confound him with 
 Popery — unless, indeed, he be wholly insensible to the evils 
 of Popery, while keenly alive to the evils of Puritanism — 
 unless the presence of Church government in the one is 
 to cloak over all errors of doctrine, while the neglect of it 
 in the other is to blot out all truth of doctrine — unless 
 Popery in his sight be only holy, and Puritanism only 
 sinful — unless he close his eyes to all the wickedness which 
 the one has essentially produced, and to all the goodness 
 "with which the other has been accompanied — such as ear- 
 nestness, energy, personal piety, study of the Scripture, 
 prayer, self-denial, charity, zeal for what it believes to be
 
 58 
 
 truth, jealousy of all fliat seems to trench on the supremacy 
 of God, or to substitute the creature for the Creator." — 
 
 Note F. 
 
 "Be it therefore known unto him, (the Jesuit) that no 
 kind of Confession, either public or private, is disallowed 
 by us, that is any way requisite for the due execution of 
 that ancient power of the keys which Christ bestowed upon 
 his Church. The thing which we reject is that new picklock 
 of sacramental confession, obtruded upon men's consciences, 
 as a matter necessary to salvation, by the canons of the 
 late conventicle of Trent, where those good Fathers put 
 their curse upon every one that either shall 'deny that 
 sacramental confession was ordained by divine right, and 
 is by the same right necessary to salvation ;' or shall ' affirm 
 that in the sacrament of penance it is not by the ordinance 
 of God necessary, for the obtaining of the remission of sins, 
 to confess all and every one of those mortal sins, the memory 
 whereof by due and diligent premeditation may be had, 
 even such as are hidden, and be against the two last com- 
 mandments of the decalogue, together with the circumstances 
 which change the kind of the sin ; but that this confession 
 is only profitable to instruct and comfort the penitent, and 
 was anciently observed only for the imposing of canonical 
 satisfaction.' This doctrine, I say, we cannot but reject, 
 as being repugnant to that which we have learned both 
 from the Scriptures and from the Fathers. 
 
 "For in the Scriptures we find, that the confession 
 which the penitent sinner maketh to God alone, hath the 
 promise of forgiveness annexed unto it, which no priest 
 upon earth hath power to make void upon pretence that 
 himself or some of his fellows were not first particularly 
 acquainted with the business : / acknowledged my sin unto
 
 59 
 
 Thee, mid mine iniquity have I not hid ; I said, I will 
 confess my transgressions unto the Lord ; and Thou for- 
 gavest the iniquity of my sin. And lest we should think 
 that this was some peculiar privilege vouchsafed to the 
 man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God 
 of Jacob, the same sioeet j^sahnist of Israel doth presently 
 enlarge his note, and inferreth this general conclusion there- 
 upon : For this shall every one that is godly pray utUo 
 Thee in a time when Thou mayest he found. King Solomon, 
 in his prayer for the people at the dedication of the tem- 
 ple, treadeth just in his father's step. If they turn, saith 
 he, and pray unto Thee in the land of their cajitivity, 
 saying. We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have 
 dealt wickedly ; if they return to TJiee inth all their heart, 
 and vjith all their soul, &c., forgive Thy iieople which liace 
 sinned against Thee all their transgressions wherein they 
 have transgressed agaiiist Thee. And the poor publican, 
 putting up his supplication in the temple accordingly, God 
 he merciful to me a sinner, went back to his house justified, 
 without making confession to any other ghostly father, but 
 only the Father of spirits ; of "NMiom St. John giveth us 
 this assurance, that if we confess our si'ns. He is faithful 
 and just to forgive us our sviis, and to cleanse us from all 
 unrighteousness. "Which promise, that it appertained to 
 such as did confess their sins unto God, the ancient Fathers 
 were so well assured of, that they cast in a manner all 
 upon this confession, and left little or nothing to that 
 which was made unto man. 'Nay, they do not only leave 
 it free for men to confess or not confess their sins unto 
 others, which is the most that we could have ; but some of 
 them also seem, in words at least, to advise men not to do 
 it at all, which is more than we seek for. 
 
 '' St. Chrysostom, of all others, is most copious in this 
 argument, some of whose passages to tliis purpose I will 
 kere lay down : ' It is not necessary,' saith he, ' that thou
 
 60 
 
 shouldest confess in the presence of witnesses : let the 
 enquiry of thy offences be made in thy thought ; let this 
 judgment be without a witness ; let God only see thee 
 confessing.' 'Therefore I intreat and beseech and pray 
 you, that you would continually make your confession to 
 God. For I do not bring thee into the theatre of thy 
 fellow-servants, neither do I constrain thee to discover thy 
 sins unto men : unclasp thy conscience before God, and 
 shew thy wounds unto Him, and of Him ask a medicine. 
 Shew them to Him that will not reproach, but heal thee. 
 For although thou hold thy peace. He knoweth all.' • Let 
 us not call ourselves sinners only, but let us recount our 
 sins, and repeat every one of them in special. I do not 
 say unto thee. Bring thyself upon the stage, nor, Accuse 
 thyself unto others ; but I counsel thee to obey the pro- 
 phet, saying, Reveal thy way unto the Lord. Confess them 
 before God, confess thy sins before the Judge, praying, 
 if not with thy tongue, yet at least with thy memory ; 
 and so look to obtain mercy.' 'But thou art ashamed to 
 say that thou hast sinned. Confess thy faults then daily 
 in thy prayer. For do I say. Confess them to thy fellow- 
 servant, who may reproach thee therewith ? Confess them 
 to God, Who healeth them. For, although thou confess 
 them not at all, God is not ignorant of them.' 'Where- 
 fore then, tell me, art thou ashamed and blushest to confess 
 thy sins ? For dost thou discover them to a man, that 
 he may reproach thee ? Dost thou confess them to thy 
 fellow-servant, that he may bring thee upon the stage ? 
 To Him Who is thy Lord, Who hath care of thee. Who is 
 kind. Who is thy Physician, thou shewest thy wound. 
 ' I constrain thee not, saith God, to go into the midst of 
 the theatre, and to make many witnesses of the matter. 
 Confess thy sins to !Me alone in private, that I may heal 
 thy sore, and free thee from grief.' ' And this is not 
 only wonderful, that He forgivcth us our sins, but that He
 
 61 
 
 neither discovereth them, nor maketh them open and mani- 
 fest, nor constraineth us to come forth in public, and 
 disclose our misdemeanours ; but commandeth us to give 
 an account thereof unto Him alone, and unto Him to make 
 confession of them.' 
 
 "Neither doth St. Chrysostom here walk alone. That 
 saying of St. Augustine is to the same effect : * What have 
 I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions, 
 as though they should heal all my diseases V And that 
 collection of St. Hilary upon the two last verses of the 
 52nd Psalm, that David there teacheth us 'to confess to 
 no other,' but unto the Lord, 'Who hath made the olive 
 fruitful with the mercy of hope (or, the hope of mercy) 
 for ever and ever.' And that advice of Pinuphius, the 
 Egyptian abbot, which I find also inserted among the 
 canons, collected for the use of the Church of England, 
 in the time of the Saxons, under the title. Be PoenitetUia 
 soli Deo confitenda : ' Who is it that cannot humbly say, 
 1 made my sin hnovm unto Th^e, and mine iniquity 
 have I not hid, that by this confession he may confidently 
 adjoin that which folio weth : And Thou forgavest the 
 impiety of my heart ? But if shamefacedness do so draw 
 thee back that thou blushest to reveal them before men, 
 cease not by continual supplication to confess them unto 
 Him from Whom they cannot be hid, and to say, / hioio 
 mine iniquity, and my sin is against me alioay ; to Thee 
 only hive I simied, and done evil before Thee, Whose 
 custom is, both to cure without the publishing of any 
 shame, and to forgive sins without upbraiding.' St. Augus- 
 tine, Cassiodore, and Gregory, make a further observation 
 upon that place of the 32nd Psalm : / said, 1 loill confess 
 my transgressions unto the Lord ; and TJiou forgavest 
 the iniquity of my sin; that God, upon the only promise 
 and purpose of making this confession, did forgive the sin. 
 ' Mark,' saith Gregory, * how great the swiftness is of this 
 
 F
 
 e^ 
 
 Tital indulgence, how great the commendation is of God's 
 mercy, that pardon should accompany the very desire of 
 him that is about to confess, before that repentance do 
 come to affict him ; and remission should come to the 
 heart, before that confession did break forth by the voice.' 
 So St. Basil, upon those other words of the Psalmist, / have 
 roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart, (Psalm 
 xxxviii. 8,) maketh this paraphrase : ' I do not confess 
 with my lips, that I may manifest myself unto many ; but 
 inwardly in my very heart, shutting mine eyes, to Thee 
 alone Who seest the things that are in secret, do I shew 
 my groans, roaring within myself. For the groans of my 
 heart sufficed for a confession, and the lamentations sent 
 to Thee my God from the depth of my soul.' 
 
 "And as St. Basil maketh the groans of the heart to be 
 a sufficient confession, so doth St. Ambrose the tears of 
 the penitent. ' Tears,' saith he, ' do wash the ,sin, which 
 the voice is ashamed to confess. Weeping doth provide 
 both for pardon and for shamefacedness : tears do speak 
 our fault without horror ; tears do confess our crime without 
 offence of our shamefacedness.' Prom whence he that 
 glosseth upon Gratian, who hath inserted these words of 
 St. Ambrose into his collection of the Decrees, doth infer, 
 that ' if for shame a man will not confess, tears alone do 
 blot out his sin.' Maximus Taurinensis folio weth St. Am- 
 brose herein, almost verbatim, ' The tear,' saith he, 'washeth 
 the sin, which the voice is ashamed to confess. Tears 
 therefore do equally provide both for our shamefacedness 
 and for our health : they neither blush in asking, and they 
 obtain in requesting.' Lastly, Prosper, speaking of sins 
 committed by such as are in the ministry, writeth thus : 
 * They shall more easily appease God, who being not con- 
 victed by human judgment, do of their own accord acknow- 
 ledge their oflfence ; who either do discover it by their own 
 confessions, or, others not knowing what they are in secret,
 
 63 
 
 do themselves give sentence of voluntary excommunication 
 upon themselves ; and being separated (not in mind, but in 
 office) from the altar to which they did minister, do lament 
 their life as dead, assuring themselves, that God being re- 
 conciled unto them by the fruits of effectual repentance, they 
 shall not only receive what they have lost, but also, being 
 made citizens of that city which is above, they shall come to 
 everlasting joys.' By this it appeareth, that the ancient 
 Fathers did not think that the remission of sins was so tied 
 unto external confession, that a man might not look for sal- 
 vation from God, if he concealed his faults from man ; but 
 that inward contrition, and confession made to God alone, 
 were sufficient in this case. Otherwise, neither they nor 
 we do debar men from opening their grievances unto the 
 physicians of their souls, either for their better information 
 in the true state of their disease, or for the quieting of 
 their troubled consciences, or for receiving further direction 
 from them out of God's word, both for the recovery of their 
 present sickness, and for the prevention of the like danger 
 in time to come. 
 
 " ' If I shall sin, although it be in any small offence, and 
 my thought do consume me, and accuse me, saying, Why 
 hast thou sinned 1 what shall I do V said a brother once 
 to abbot Arsenius. The old man answered, ' Whatsoever 
 hour a man shall fall into a fault, and shall say from his 
 heart. Lord God, I have sinned, grant me pardon, that 
 consumption of thought or heaviness shall cease forthwith.' 
 And it was as good a remedy as could be prescribed for a 
 green wound, to take it in hand presently, to present it 
 to the view of our heavenly Physician, to prevent Satan 
 by taking his office, as it were, out of his hand, and accusing 
 ourselves first, that we may be justified. But when it is 
 not taken in time, but suffered to fester and rankle, the 
 cure will not now prove to be so easy ; it being found 
 true by often experience, that the wounded conscience
 
 u 
 
 will still pinch grievously, notwithstanding the confession 
 made unto God in secret. At such a time as this then 
 where the sinner can find no ease at home, what should 
 he do but use the best means he can to find it abroad ? 
 Is there no halm in Gilead ? is there no 'physician there ? 
 Ifo doubt but God hath provided both the one and the 
 other for recovering of the health of the daughter of His 
 people ; and St. James hath herein given us this direction : 
 Confess your favlts one to another^ and pray one for ano- 
 ther, that ye oruiy he healed. According to which prescrip- 
 tion, Gregory Nyssen, towards the end of his sermon of 
 repentance, useth this exhortation to the sinner : ' Be 
 sensible of the disease wherewith thou art taken, afflict 
 thyself as much as thou canst. Seek also the mourning 
 of thy entirely afiected brethren to help thee unto liberty. 
 Shew me thy bitter and abundant tears, that I may also 
 mingle mine therewith. Take likewise the priest for a 
 partner of thine affliction, as thy Father. For who is it that 
 so falsely obtaineth the name of a father, or hath so adaman- 
 tine a soul, that he will not condole with his son's lamenting ? 
 Shew unto him without blushing the things that were kept 
 close ; discover the secrets of thy soul, as shewing thy hidden 
 disease unto thy physician. He will have care both of thy 
 credit and of thy cure.' 
 
 " It was no part of his meaning to advise us that we should 
 open ourselves in this manner unto every hedge-priest ; as if 
 there were a virtue generally annexed to the order, that upon 
 confession made, and absolution received from any of that 
 rank, all should be straight made up ; but he would have us 
 communicate our case both to such Christian brethren, and 
 to such a ghostly father, as had skill in physic of this kind, 
 and out of a fellow-feeling of our grief would apply themselves 
 to our recovery. Therefore, saith Origen, ' look about thee 
 diligently unto whom thou oughtest to confess thy sin. Try 
 first the physician, unto whom thou oughtest to declare
 
 05 
 
 the cause of thy malady, who knoweth to be weak with 
 him that is weak, to weep with him that weepeth, who 
 understandeth the discipline of condoling and compassion- 
 ating ; that so at length, if he shall say any thing, who hath 
 first shewed himself to be both a skilful physician and a 
 merciful, or if he shall give any counsel, thou may est do 
 and follow it.' For, as St. Basil well noteth, ' the very same 
 course is to be held in the confession of sins, which is in 
 the opening of the diseases of the body. As men therefore 
 do not discover the diseases of their body to all, nor to every 
 sort of people, but to those that are skilful in the cure 
 thereof ; even so ought the confession of our sins to be made 
 unto such as are able to cure them, according to that which 
 is written, Ye that are strong hear the infirmities of the 
 weak, that is, take them away by your diligence.' He re- 
 quireth care and diligence in performance of the cure : being 
 ignorant, good man, of that new compendious method of 
 liealing, invented by our Roman Paracelsians, whereby a man 
 ' in confession of attrite is made contrite by virtue of the 
 keys ;' that the sinner need put his ghostly father to no fur- 
 ther trouble than this. Speak the word only, and I shall be 
 healed. And this is that sacramental confession devised of 
 late by the priests of Rome ; which they notwithstanding 
 would fain father upon St. Peter, from whom the Church 
 of Rome, as they would have us believe, received this in- 
 struction : ' that if envy, or infidelity, or any other evil did 
 secretly creep into any man's heart, he who had care of his 
 own soul should not be ashamed to confess those things unto 
 him who had the oversight over him ; that by God's word 
 and wholesome counsel he might be cured by him.' And so 
 indeed we read in the apocryphal Epistle of Clement, pre- 
 tended to be written to St. James, the brother of our Lord ; 
 where in the several editions of Crab, Sichardus, Venradius, 
 Surius, Nicholinus, and Binius, we find this note also laid 
 down in the margin : Nota de confessions sacranientali, 
 
 f2
 
 66 
 
 ' Mark this of sacramental confession.' But their own Mal- 
 donat would have taught them that this note was not worth 
 the marking : forasmuch as the proper end of sacramental 
 confession is the obtaining of remission of sins by "virtue of 
 the keys of the Church ; whereas the end of the confession 
 here said to be commended by St. Peter, was the obtaining 
 of counsel out of God's word for the remedy of sins. Which 
 kind of medicinal confession we well approve of, and acknow- 
 ledge to have been ordinarily prescribed by the ancient 
 Fathers for the cure of secret sins." — Archbishop) Usher's 
 Answer to a Jesuit, p. 75. 
 
 Archbishop Usher is supposed by some to have been a 
 Presbyterianizer, but this is hardly consistent with his being 
 a friend of Archbishop Laud. 
 
 In vol. XV. of his works, published by Dr. Elrington, there is 
 a letter (cxc.) to the ]Most Rev. "William Laud, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, in which, 1. he excuses himself for not having 
 sooner congratulated him on his promotion to Canterbury j 
 which he there does with all the warmth of a sincere friend 
 and admirer. ' I may truly say thus much for myself,' writes 
 Usher, ' that since the time I received the letter you wrote 
 me the day before you began your journey into Scotland, no 
 day hath passed hitherto wherein I have not made particular 
 mention of you in my prayers unto Almighty God, Who both 
 graciously heard my request, and granted therein as much as 
 my heart could desire.' 
 
 But further, the high opinion which he entertained of 
 Archbishop Laud, induced him to exert all the interest he 
 possessed, to secure his appointment to the Chancellor- 
 ship of the University of Dublin. The following are the 
 words of Usher to Laud, in the same letter : ' By the death 
 of yonr predecessor, our university of Dublin was left to 
 seek a new chancellor, whom I advised to pitch upon no- 
 other but yourself ; which they did with all readiness and 
 alacrity. If your Grace will deign to receive that poor
 
 67 
 
 society under the shadow of your wings, you shall put 3 
 further tie of observance, not upon that only, but upon me 
 also, who had my whole breeding there.' This letter not 
 being so quickly responded to as Usher had expected, he 
 wrote a second letter to Laud, urging upon him the necessity 
 of taking this high office upon him. 
 
 During Usher's residence in Wales, a book was published 
 under his name, by Mr. Downham, entitled 'A Body of 
 Divinity ; or the Sum and Substance of the Christian Eeli- 
 gion.' Of this Body many editions have been published, and 
 on the credit of its contents, a character has been made 
 for, and fixed upon Archbishop Usher, most singularly at 
 variance with his true one. Although the book was dis- 
 owned by him and declared ' to be in divers places deponant 
 from his judgment,' and ' could not by any means be owned 
 by him ;' yet edition after edition of this work has been pub- 
 lished by those who were aware of the primate's disavowal 
 and disapproval of the work : and every advocate of Supra- 
 lapsarian doctrines, quotes in his support, the opinions of 
 Archbishop Usher, as put forth in this ' his Body of Di- 
 vinity ' ! The letter to the editor disavowing the work is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Sir, — You may be pleased to take notice that the Cate- 
 chism you write of is nmie of miTie : but transcribed out of 
 Air. Cart Wright's catechism, and Mr. Crooks and some other 
 English divines, but drawn together in one method as a kind 
 of common-place book, where other men's judgments and 
 reasons are strongly laid down, though not approved in all 
 places by the collector : besides that, the collection (such as 
 it is) being lent abroad to divers, in scattered sheets, hath 
 for a great part of it, miscarried ; the one half of it (I sup- 
 pose) well-nigh, being no way to be recovered, so that so 
 imperfect a thing, copied verhatim oxtt of others, and in 
 divers places dissonant from my own judgment, may not by 
 any means be oicned by me. But if it shall seem good to
 
 68 
 
 any industrious person to cut oflf what is weak and super- 
 fluous therein, and supply the wants thereof, and cast it 
 into a new mould of his own framing, I shall be very well 
 content that he make what use he pleaseth of any of the 
 materials therein, and set out the whole in his own name ; 
 and this is the resolution of 
 
 '• Your most assured loving friend, 
 " May 13th, 1645. "Ja. Arm^cha^'us." 
 
 As some persons have expressed their disappointment that 
 Dr. Elrington has not published "the Body of Divinity" 
 among the works of the Archbishop, that learned divine 
 remarks : " Had the authorship been a matter of doubtful 
 evidence, there might be a plausible ground for that com- 
 plaint, but there can be none for not publishing among the 
 works of Archbishop Usher what Archbishop Usher declared 
 was not his." 
 
 The Calvinistic and Supralapsarian character which has so 
 long and so gratuitously been given to Archbishop Usher, 
 (built on the supposition that this work was his,) vanishes 
 as untrue, made for him, and assigned to him for party pur- 
 poses. 
 
 This digressive vindication of an eminent divine will be 
 pardoned by all who know the intrinsic value of Usher's 
 writings. At the same time it will be observed that the 
 importance of the citations from his Answer to the Jesuit, 
 consists in the many quotations he has produced from the 
 Fathers, and in the reference to historical facts, which his 
 unquestioned learning enabled him to make. 
 
 Note G. 
 
 It is added, " Then, if he humbly and heartily desire it,^' 
 but only then, " the priest shall absolve him." 
 
 "As for the ministerial sentence of private absolution,"
 
 69 
 
 says Hooker, " it can be no more than a declaration wliat 
 God hath done ; it hath but the force of the prophet Nathan's 
 absolution, God hath taken away thy sin : than which con- 
 struction, especially of words judicial, there is not any thing 
 more vulgar. For example, the publicans are said in the 
 Gospel to have justified God ; the Jews in Malachi to have 
 blessed proud men, which sin and prosper ; not that the one 
 did make God righteous, or the other the wicked happy ; but 
 to bless, to justify, and to absolve, are as commonly used 
 for words of judgment, or declaration, as of true and real 
 efficacy ; yea, even by the opinion of the blaster of Sentences. 
 It may be soundly affirmed and thought that God alone doth 
 remit and retain sins, although He have given power to the 
 Church to do both ; but He one way, and the Church another. 
 He only by Himself forgiveth sin. Who cleanseth the soul from 
 inward blemish, and looseth the debt of eternal death. So 
 great a privilege He hath not given unto His priests, who not- 
 withstanding arc authorized to loose and bind, that is to say, 
 declare who are bound, and who are loosed. For albeit a man 
 be already cleared before God, yet he is not in the Church of 
 God so taken, but by the virtue of the priest's sentence ; who 
 likewise may be said to bind by imposing satisfaction, and to 
 loose by admitting to the holy communion. 
 
 "Saint Hierom also, whom the master of the sentences 
 allegeth for more countenance of his own opinion, doth no 
 less plainly and directly affirm ; That as the priests of the 
 law could only discern, and neither cause nor remove lepro- 
 sies ; so the ministers of the gospel, when they retain or remit 
 sin, do but in the one judge hov) long we continue guilty, and 
 in the other declare wh^n we are clear or free. For there is 
 nothing more apparent, than that the discipline of repent- 
 ance, both public and private was ordained as an outward 
 means to bring men to the virtue of inward conversion : 
 so that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected, 
 absolution ensuing (which could not make) served only
 
 70 
 
 to declare men innocent." — Hooker, hooJc vi., on the Also- 
 
 lution of Penite7its. 
 
 There is indeed a difference to "be marked between the 
 notion of absolution in the Church of Rome and that 
 entertained by the Church of England. In the Church 
 of Rome, absolution is regarded as a judicial act ; but by 
 the Church of England it is held to be declaratory only. 
 " Absolution, the Papists say, declareth indeed, but this 
 is not all, for it likewise maketh innocent ; which addition 
 being an untruth proved, our truth granted hath, I hope, 
 sufficiency without it, and consequently our opinion therein 
 neither to be challenged as untrue, nor as unsufficient." — 
 Hooker^ hook vi. p. 95. 
 
 Absolution is, in truth, nothing more than a verbal and 
 authoritative application to individual persons of the great 
 doctrine of Justification by Faith. 
 
 We are sinners. Because of our sins we are justly afraid 
 to participate in the sacred ordinances of the Church, to 
 receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, or in any way 
 to draw near to the throne of glory and of grace. But we, 
 though sinners, believe in Jesus Christ ; our faith is counted 
 for righteousness ; and, being thus justified sinners, we do, 
 as being in Christ, what out of Christ we should not dare 
 to do, we join with angels and archangels, and all the host 
 of heaven, in oflfering our sacrifice of prayer and praise. 
 
 How beautifully is this carried out at the commencement 
 of our morning and evening service ; an addition to the 
 Prayer Book made by the reformers. We first confess our 
 sins to God : and as much as say, we are unworthy to take 
 part in this service : then the ambassador of the King of 
 kings rises in his place, and in pronouncing the Absolution, 
 says in efiect : " Ye are, as ye have confessed, sinners, and, 
 as such, unfit to approach God : nevertheless, if ye truly 
 repent, and unfeignedly believe the Holy Gospel, I have 
 authority to pronounce you to be in a state of justification,
 
 71 
 
 and as Christian men, men to whom faith is imputed for 
 righteousness, you may unite with the holy ones of God, 
 in this sacred and pleasant exercise." 
 
 The same meaning is to be attached to the confession and 
 absolution in the office for the holy communion ; the abso- 
 lution being the form by which this fundamental truth 
 is brought to bear upon our souls. 
 
 AVhen the Church, at the Reformation, restored us to our 
 Christian liberty, and no longer required us to make a special 
 confession of sins to the priest, she directed the absolution to 
 be pronounced every day upon those who desire to receive it. 
 She permits it also to be pronounced upon the sick, because 
 they cannot attend the public administration of the ordin- 
 ance. Will any one say, if this be so, if it is our contrition 
 which is accepted by God for the sake of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the absolution is a work of supererogation 1 Let 
 us see. Suppose you had been a traitor to your country, 
 and that you were dwelling in a foreign land ; suppose 
 also, that you had repented of your sin and that proof of 
 your repentance had been conveyed to your sovereign ; 
 suppose, moreover, that from the general expressions used 
 by your injured sovereign, you felt sure that he would 
 receive you again into favour : would you not, nevertheless, 
 feel it satisfactory, before returning to your country, to have 
 some formal writ made out and duly signed by the ambassa- 
 dor of your sovereign residing in the strange country in 
 which you had taken up your abode ? However certain you 
 might feel of the favour of your sovereign, still you would 
 think it expedient to have your pardon, signed and sealed 
 with the customary forms : you would not feel grateful to 
 the ambassador, your gratitude would flow entirely to the 
 sovereign his master ; the act of the ambassador would be 
 merely ministerial, but of his ministerial services you would 
 avail yourself. If the ambassador were to refuse to act, he 
 would be punished, and his evil deed would not damage you
 
 7:2 
 
 but you would feel, if he were prepared to act, that your 
 reception by your sovereign would not be what you would 
 desire it to be, were you to despise the regulations he has 
 made ; and you would seek from his ambassador a certificate, 
 or such documents as might be legally necessary. 
 
 I shall conclude this note with another quotation from the 
 judicious Hooker. 
 
 " It standeth with us in the Church of England, as touch- 
 ing public confession, thus : 
 
 "First, seeing day by day we in our Church begin our 
 public prayers to Almighty God with public acknowledgment 
 of our sins, in which confession every man, prostrate as it 
 were before His glorious ^Majesty, crieth against himself, and 
 the minister with one sentence pronoun ceth universally aU 
 clear whose acknowledgment so made hath proceeded from a 
 true penitent mind ; what reason is there every man should 
 not, under the general terms of confession, represent to him- 
 self his own particulars whatsoever, and adjoining thereunto 
 that affection which a contrite spirit worketh, embrace to as 
 full effect the words of divine grace, as if the same were 
 severally and particularly uttered with addition of prayers, 
 imposition of hands, or all the ceremonies and solemnities 
 that might be used for the strengthening of men's affiance in 
 God's peculiar mercy towards them ? Such complements are 
 helps to support our weakness, and not causes that serve to 
 procure or produce His gifts, as David speaketh. The differ- 
 ence of general and particular forms in confession and abso- 
 lution is not so material that any man's safety or ghostly good 
 should depend upon it. And for private confession and abso- 
 lution it standeth thus with us : 
 
 " The minister's power to absolve is publicly taught and 
 professed, the Church not denied to have authority either of 
 abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that power ; 
 upon the people no such necessity imposed of opening their 
 transgression unto men, as if remission of sins otherwise
 
 73 
 
 were impossible ; neither any such opinion had of the thing 
 itself, as though it were unlawful or unprofitable, save only 
 for these inconveniences which the world hath by experience 
 observed in it heretofore. And in regard thereof, the Church 
 of England hath hitherto thought it the safer way to refer 
 men's hidden crimes unto God and themselves only ; howbeit, 
 not without special caution for the admonition of such as 
 come to the holy sacrament, and for the comfort of such as 
 are ready to depart the world. First, because there are but 
 few that consider how much that part of divine service, which 
 consists in partaking the holy eucharist, doth import their 
 souls ; what they lose by neglect thereof, and what by devout 
 practice they might attain unto : therefore, lest carelessness 
 of general confession should, as commonly it doth, extinguish 
 all remorse of men's particular enormous crimes, our custom 
 (whensoever men present themselves at the Lord's table) is, 
 solemnly to give themselves fearful admonition, what woes 
 are perpendicularly hanging over the heads of such as dare 
 adventure to put forth their unworthy hands to those admira- 
 ble mysteries of life, which have by rare examples been 
 proved conduits of irremediable death to impenitent receivers ; 
 whom therefore, as we repel being known, so being not known 
 we cannot but terrify. Yet, with us, the ministers of God's 
 most holy word and sacraments, being all put in trust with 
 the custody and dispensation of those mysteries wherein our 
 communion is, and hath been ever, accounted the highest 
 grace that men on earth are admitted unto, have therefore 
 all equally the same power to withold that sacred mystical 
 food from notorious evil-livers, from such as have any way 
 wronged their neighbours, and from parties between whom 
 there doth open hatred and malice appear, till the first sort 
 have reformed their wicked lives, the second recompensed 
 them unto whom they were injurious, and the last conde- 
 scended unto some course of Christian reconciliation, where- 
 upon their mutual accord may ensue. In which cases, for 
 
 G
 
 74 
 
 the first branch of wicked life, and the last, which is open 
 enmity, there can arise no great difficulty about the exercise 
 of his power : in the second, concerning wrongs, they may, 
 if men shall presume to define or measure injuries according 
 to their own conceits, be depraved oftentimes as well by error 
 as partiality, and that no less to the minister himself, than 
 in another of the people under him. 
 
 " The knowledge therefore which he taketh of wrongs must 
 rise, as it doth in the other two, not from his own opinion or 
 conscience, but from the evidence of the fact which is com- 
 mitted ; yea, from such evidence as neither doth admit denial 
 nor defence. For if the offender, having either colour of law 
 to uphold, or any other pretence to excuse his own unchari- 
 table and wrongful dealings, shall wilfully stand in defence 
 thereof, it serveth as bar to the power of this kind. Because 
 (as it is observed by men of very good judgment in these 
 affairs) although in this sort our separating of them be 
 not to strike them with the mortal wounci of excommuni- 
 cation, but to stay them rather from running desperately 
 headlong into their own harm ; yet it is not in us to sever 
 from the holy communion but such as are either found 
 culpable by their own confession, or have been convicted 
 in fsome public,? secular, or ecclesiastical court. For, who 
 is he that dares take upon him to be any man's both 
 accuser and judge 1 Evil persons are not rashly, and, as 
 we list, to be thrust from communion with the Church, 
 insomuch that if we cannot proceed against them by any 
 orderly course of judgment, they rather are to be suffered 
 for the time than molested. Many there are reclaimed, as 
 Peter ; many, as Judas, known well enough, and yet toler- 
 ated ; many which must remain undescried till the day of 
 His appearance, by Whom the secret corners of darkness 
 shall be brought into open light. 
 
 "Leaving therefore unto His judgment them whom we 
 cannot^ stay from casting their owii souls into so great
 
 76 
 
 hazard, we have, in the other part of penitential jurisdiction 
 in our power and authority to release sin, joy on all sides, 
 without trouble or molestation unto any. And, if to give 
 be a thing more blessed than to receive, are we not infinitely 
 happier in being authorized to bestow the treasure of God, 
 than when necessity doth constrain to withdraw the same ? 
 " They which, during life and health, are never destitute 
 of ways to delude repentance, do notwithstanding oftentimes, 
 when their last hour draweth on, both feel that sting which 
 before lay dead in them, and also thirst after such helps 
 as have been always, till then, unsavoury. St. Ambrose's 
 words touching late repentance are somewhat hard : 'If 
 a man be penitent and receive absolution (which cannot in 
 that case be denied him) even at the very point of death, 
 and so depart, I dare not affirm he goeth out of the world 
 well ; I will counsel no man to trust to this, because I am 
 loath to deceive any man, seeing I know not what to think 
 of it. Shall I judge such a one a cast-away? Neither 
 will I avouch him safe. All I am able to say is, let his 
 estate be left to the will and pleasure of Almighty God. 
 Wilt thou be therefore delivered of all doubt ? Repent 
 while yet thou art healthy and strong. If thou defer it 
 till time give no longer possibility of sinning, thou canst 
 not be thought to have left sin, but rather sin to have 
 forsaken thee.' Such admonitions may in their time and 
 place be necessary, but in no wise prejudicial to the gen- 
 erality of God's heavenly promise, Whe')isoever a sinner doth 
 repent from the bottom of his heart, I will put out all his 
 iniquity. And of this, although it hath pleased God not 
 to leave to the world any multitude of examples, lest the 
 careless should too far presume, yet one He hath given, 
 and that most memorable, to withhold from despair in the 
 mercies of God, at what instant soever man's unfeigned 
 conversion be wrought. Yea, because, to countervail the 
 fault of delay, there are in the latest repentance oftentimes
 
 76 
 
 the surest tokens of sincere dealing ; therefore upon especial 
 confession made to the minister of God, he presently absolv- 
 eth in this case the sick party from all sins by that authority 
 which Jesus Christ hath committed unto him, knowing 
 that God respecteth not so much what time is spent, as 
 what truth is shewed in repentance. 
 
 " In sum, when the offence doth stand only between 
 God and man's conscience, the counsel is good which St. 
 Chrysostom giveth : ' I wish thee not to bewray thyself 
 publicly, nor to accuse thyself before others. I wish thee 
 to obey the prophet, who saith. Disclose thy way unto the 
 Lord, confess thy sins before Him ; tell thy sins to Him, that 
 He may blot them out. If thou be abashed to tell unto any 
 other wherein thou hast offended, rehearse them every day 
 between thee and thy soul. I wish thee not to confess them 
 to thy fellow-servant, who may upbraid thee with them ; 
 tell them to God, Who will cure them ; there is no need for 
 thee in the presence of witnesses to acknowledge them ; let 
 God alone see thee at thy confession. I pray and beseech 
 you, that you would, more often than you do, confess to God 
 eternal, and reckoning up your trespasses, desire His pardon. 
 I carry you not into a theatre or open court of many of your 
 fellow-servants, I seek not to detect your crimes before men ; 
 disclose your conscience before God, unfold yourselves to Him, 
 lay forth your wounds before Him the best Physician that 
 is, and desire of Him salve for them.' If liereupon it follow, 
 as it did with David, ' I thought, I will confess against my- 
 self my wickedness unto Thee, Lord, and Thou forgavest 
 me the plague of my sin :' we have our desire, and there 
 remaineth only thankfulness accompanied with perpetuity 
 of care to avoid that, which being not avoided, we know we 
 cannot remedy without new perplexity and grief. Contrari- 
 wise, if peace with God do not follow the pains we have 
 taken in seeking after it, if we continue disquieted and not 
 delivered from anguish, mis-rusting whether that we do be
 
 77 
 
 sufficient ; it argueth that our sore doth exceed the power 
 of our own skill, and that the wisdom of the pastor must 
 bind up those parts, which being bruised are not able to be 
 recured of themselves." — Hooker, Booh vi. 
 
 Note H. 
 
 "Now concerning St. James's exhortation," says Hooker, 
 " whether the former branch be considered, which saith, ' h 
 any man sick among you ? let him call u])on the ancients 
 of the Church, and let them make their "prayers for him f 
 or the latter, which stirreth up all Christian men unto 
 mutual acknowledgment of faults amongst themselves, ' Lay 
 open your minch, make your confessions one to another;'' 
 is it not plain, that the one hath relation to that gift of heal- 
 ing, which our Saviour promised His Church, saying, ' TTiey 
 shall lay their hands on the sick, and the sick shall recover 
 liealth ;' relation to that gift of healing, whereby the Apostle 
 imposed his hands on the father of Publius, and made him 
 miraculously a sound man ; relation finally to that gift 
 of healing, which so long continued in practice after the 
 Apostles' time ? that whereas the Novatianists denied the 
 power of the Church of God in curing sin after baptism, 
 St. Ambrose asked them again, ' Why it might not as well 
 prevail with God for spiritual, as for corporal and bodily 
 health ; yea wherefore (saith he) do ye yourselves lay hands 
 on the diseased, and believe it to be ^ work of benediction or 
 prayer, if haply the sick person be restored to his former 
 safety ? And of the other member which toucheth mutual 
 confession, do not some of themselves, as namely Cajetan, 
 deny that any other confession is meant, than only that 
 which seeketh either association of prayers, or reconciliation, 
 
 g2
 
 IS 
 
 or pardon of wrongs ? Is it not confessed by the greatest 
 part of their own retinue, that we cannot certainly afBrm 
 sacramental confession to have been meant or spoken of in 
 this place ? Howbeit, Bellarmine, delighted to run a course 
 by himself where colourable shifts of wit will but make the 
 way passable, standeth as formally for this place, and not less 
 for that in St. John, than for this ; St. John saith, ' If v:e 
 confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us oilt 
 sins, and to cleayise us from all unrighteousness; doth St. 
 John say. If we confess to the priest, God is righteous to 
 forgive, and if not, that our sins are unpardonable ? 'So, but 
 the titles of GodijuM and righteous do import that He pardon- 
 eth sin only for His promise sake ; ^ And there is not (they 
 say) any promise of forgiveness upon confession made to God 
 without the priest' ; not any promise, but with this condition, 
 and yet this condition no where expressed. 
 
 " Is it not strange, that the Scripture, speaking so much 
 of repentance and of the several duties which appertain 
 thereunto^ should ever mean, and no where mention that one 
 condition, without which all the rest is utterly of none effect ; 
 or wiU they say, because our Saviour hath said to His minis- 
 ters, ' Whose sins ye retain, d'c' and because they can remit 
 no more than what the offenders have confessed, that there- 
 fore, by the virtue of His promise, it standeth with the 
 righteousness of God to take away no man's sins until by 
 Auricular Confession they be opened unto the priest. 
 
 " They are men that would seem to honour antiquity, and 
 none more to depend upon the reverend judgment thereof. 
 I dare boldly affirm, that for many hundred years after Christ 
 the Fathers held no such opinion ; they did not gather by 
 our Saviour's words any such necessity of seeking the priest's 
 absolution from sin by secret and (as they now term it) sacra- 
 mental confession. Public confession they thought necessary 
 by way of discipline, not private confession as in the nature 
 of a sacrament, nece^ssary."' — Hooker, Book vi.
 
 79 
 
 Note I. 
 
 Without attaching any undue importance to painful in- 
 stances on record, the details of which cannot be alluded to 
 ■without offence, and have been dwelt upon by some contro- 
 versialists with too little regard to moral propriety, I will 
 content myself with only a single quotation from a presbyter 
 of the Church of Rome, on this subject. The author is 
 Juan de Avila, one of the most eminent spiritual teachers 
 of the Church of Spain, whose " Spiritual Epistles" were 
 translated and published in English, " Permissu Superionim, 
 in 8vo., 1G32." He is giving the advice of his experience to 
 a young preacher. 
 
 " Let me also advise you not to give yourself too much to 
 hearing the confessions of women, especially young women : 
 for it is a perilous business, if a man has not some special 
 gift of God, which may make him insensible to temptation. 
 Turn your attention more to the profit of the men ; for if 
 you once begin to look after female penitents, you will have 
 little leisure to devote to any thing else ; so apt are they 
 to waste time in matters of little moment or benefit. And 
 I would have your principal object be to preach ; for you 
 will do much, if you do this well ; and as to confessing, 
 neither altogether take up the practice, nor altogether leave 
 it unregarded." — Treatise i., Lett. 38. 
 
 This sensible advice is from a man, who was in his own 
 country another Francis de Sales, or Borromco. The words 
 appear fully to justify the practice of the Church of England ; 
 and they are the more striking as coming from one who was 
 himself obliged to suit his doctrine to the council of Trent. 
 
 For the same reason I will give the following quotation 
 from the late Rev. David O'Croly, who for upwards of 
 twenty years performed the duties of a confessor in the 
 Church of Rome, and whose statements, with reference to 
 to the confessional, are therefore entitled to great respect.
 
 80 
 
 " A priest in the chair of confession is the most arbitrary 
 of judges. He acts witliout check or controul. — His admon- 
 itions, his commands, his decisions, his casuistry, are not the 
 necessary result of fixed principles, or acknowledged maxims, 
 but of his own particular qualities or dispositions — of his 
 caprice, of his ignorance, of his prejudices, of his perversity, 
 of his profligacy. Yet confession, under all these forbidding 
 circumstances, is announced, is trumpeted as a necessary 
 means of salvation — a secunda post naufragiuni tabula, ' a 
 second plank after shipwreck ;' and the favour of heaven, 
 the grace of God, the justification of the sinner, is res- 
 tricted, as an adjunct, to human precariousness and pro- 
 fanation ! 
 
 " But how is this machinery of confession made to work 1 
 how is it brought into action 1 — In the country the poor 
 people practise confession, for the most part, through dread 
 of public exposure. And how do they practise it ? — how do 
 they prepare for it ? When they hear of the priest's arrival 
 at the station-house, they quit their labour in the field or in 
 the barn, hurry to the confessor, make a compendious recital 
 of some sins they are in the constant habit of committing, 
 and confessing, make some sort of a promise of amendment, 
 as a matter of routine, receive absolution, hear the mass 
 recited in Latin, take the blessed sacrament, pay the confes- 
 sion dues or battle with the priest, return to their labour 
 with an obligation of repeating a number of rosaries within 
 a given time, and think no more of the transaction. In the 
 cities and large towns, confession is very generally neglected, 
 except at the point of death. 
 
 " Does confession improve the morals 1 It is said that a bad 
 confession or a confession not clothed with the necessary condi- 
 tions, not accompanied by a change of disposition and a firm 
 purpose of amendment, super-induces the guilt of sacrilege, 
 and adds immeasurably to the guilt of the pretended peni-
 
 81 
 
 tent. Must not this take place in most instances, from the 
 mode in which confession is practised : and if so, what im- 
 provement in public morals can result from it ? But this 
 is only a theoretical argument. Let the question be decided 
 by general facts. Are those who practise confession better 
 conducted or less immoral than those who do not 1 — Are they 
 better husbands, better fathers, better subjects, better citi- 
 zens — less given to turbulence, to sedition, to lying, to in- 
 justice ? Have the Roman Catholics the advantage of the 
 Reformers in this respect ? — Compare nations together. Con- 
 fession is universally practised in Spain and Portugal. It 
 is not practised in England or Scotland. Is the state of 
 morality, public and private, among the Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese higher in the scale of virtue than among Englishmen 
 and Scotchmen ? "WTiat was the state of morals throughout 
 Christendom in the times of old when the benefits or evils of 
 this practice were universally felt 1 History will not give a 
 very creditable answer to the question. "Will any one ven- 
 ture to say that the Irish Roman Catholics, who go to confes- 
 sion at stations twice a year or once a year, as they would to 
 a fair or pattern, are superior in virtue and good manners, to 
 their Protestant fellow countrjmien, who learn their Chris- 
 tian duties from the sacred Scriptures ? Or that the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, and Italians, are superior as 
 men and as Christians, to the people of England, or Scot- 
 land, or Holland, or the Protestant States of Germany ? 
 Or that the Roman Catholics, taken collectively and indi- 
 vidually, do not lose considerably by the comparison 1 And 
 if so, is it right that malevolent, profligate priests — and 
 many there are of this revolting description — should be 
 enabled with impunity to lay snares for innocence, and to 
 break into the sanctuary of private life, and make it a 
 matter of conscience vnth. weak-minded servants and la- 
 bourers to ruin the interests of a good master and em- 
 ployer ? "
 
 I shall conclude this note with the following sensible 
 remarks from a clergyman of the Church of England, who, 
 although no Romanizer, has always ranked as a high Church- 
 man. 
 
 " The extent to which the confessors have thought it right 
 to carry their examinations on subjects concerning which 
 the Apostle recommends that they be not once named among 
 Christians, and which may be seen either in Den's Theology, 
 or Burchard's decrees, c. 19. Paris, 1549, affords a melancholy, 
 painful, and sickening subject for contemplation ; especially, 
 when it is considered that they were Christian Clergy who 
 did this, and that it was done in aid, as they supposed, of the 
 Christian religion. The fearful effects of these examinations 
 upon the priests themselves, I will do no more than allude 
 to ] he who may think it necessary to satisfy himself upon 
 the point, may consult the cases contemplated and provided 
 for (among others,) by Cardinal Cajetan, in his Opuscula, 
 Lugd. 1562, p. 114. In the Bull of Pius IV., Contra solid- 
 tantes in confessione, dated Ap. 16, 1561. (Bullarium Magn. 
 Luxemb. 1727. ii. p. 48,) and in a similar one of Gregory XV., 
 dated Aug. 30, 1622. (Gregor. XV. Constit. Rom. 1622. p. 114.) 
 there is laid open another fearful scene of danger to female 
 confitents from wicked priests, ' mulieres penitentes ad actus 
 inhonestos dum earum audiunt confessiones alliciendo et 
 provocando.' Against which flagrant dangers, and the pre- 
 paratory steps of sapping and undermining the mental 
 modesty of a young person by examinations of particular 
 Kinds, it is vain to think that the feeble bulls of the bishops 
 of Rome can afford any security. These observations apply 
 to the system of the Roman Church, peculiar to itself, of 
 compelling the disclosure of the most minute details of the 
 most secret thoughts and actions. As to encouraging persons 
 whose minds are hirthened with the remembrance of fearful 
 sins, to ease themselves of the burthen by revealing it to one 
 at whose hands they may seek guidance and consolation and
 
 83 
 
 prayer, it is a totally distinct question, and nothing but 
 wilful art will attempt to confound them. On this point I 
 see no reason to withdraw a regret which I have before ex- 
 pressed as to its disuse in the Church of England ; for I 
 cannot but believe that, were it more frequently had recourse 
 to, many a mind would depart the world at peace with itself 
 and with God, which now sinks to the grave under a bond of 
 doubt and fear, through want of confidence to make use of 
 ghostly remedies." — PercevaVs Romish Schisriij p. 378. 
 
 IS'OTE K. 
 
 " Concerning confession as it is a special act of repentance; 
 the first thing that is to be said of it, is, that it is due only to 
 God ; for He is the Person injured ; sin is the prevarication of 
 His laws ; He is our Judge, and He only can pardon, as He 
 only can punish eternally. ' Non tibi dico, ut tua peccata, 
 tanquam in pompam, in publicum profcras, neque ut te 
 accuses, sed ut pareas Prophetai dicenti, llevela Domino viam 
 tuam. Apud Deum ea contitere, apud Judicem confitere 
 peccata tua, orans si non lingua, saltem memoria, et ita roga 
 ut tui misereatur.' ' I do not enjoin thee to betray thyself to 
 the public ear, bringing thy sins as into a theatre, but obey 
 the Prophet, saying. Reveal thy way unto the Lord. Con- 
 fess to God, confess to thy Judge ; praying if not with thy 
 tongue, yet at least with thy mind, and pray so that thou 
 mayest be heard :' so St. Crysostom. — And upon those words 
 of St. Paul, ' Let a man examine himself,' he saith, ' ^N'on 
 revelavit ulcus, non in commune theatrum accusationem pro- 
 duxit," &c. ' He did not reveal his ulcer, he did not bring 
 his accusation into the common theatre ; he made none 
 Avitncss of his sins, but in his conscience, none standing by, 
 God only excepted. Who sees all things.' — And again, upon 
 that of the psalm ; ' My sin is always against me ;' — ' If thou 
 art ashamed to speak it to any one, say them daily in thy
 
 84 
 
 mind : I do not say, that thou confess them to thy fellow- 
 servant who may u})braid thee ; say them to God A/xaprvpov 
 iaTO) TO SiKaoTi^pLov, 0£os opoiTiii /xwos i^o/xoXoyovfJievov. 
 *Let this judicatory be ■svithout assessors or witnesses, let God 
 alone see thy confession,' — ' Quod si, verecundiii retrahente, 
 revelare ea coram hominibus erubescis, illi, quern latere nou 
 possunt, confiteri ca jugi sup])licatione non desinas, ac dicere, 
 Iniquitatem meam agnosco, &c., qui et absque ullius vcre- 
 cundia^ publicatione curare, et sine impro})erio peccata donare 
 consuevit ; ' so Cassian in the imitation of St. Ambrose : ' If 
 bashfulness call thee back, and thou art ashamed to reveal 
 them before men, cease not, by a continual supplication, to 
 confess them to Ilim from Whom they cannot be concealed ; 
 Wlio, without any })ressing upon our modesty, is wont to cure, 
 and without upbraiding, to forgive us our sins.' And the 
 fathers of the council of Cabaillon advanced this duty by 
 divers sentences of Scripture ; — ' Ita duntaxat ut et Deo, 
 qui remissor est peccatorum, confiteamur peccata nostra, 
 et cum David dicamus, Delictum meum cognitum tibi feci, 
 et injustitiam meam non abscondi : Dixi, conlitebor iujus- 
 titias meas Domino, et Tu remisisti impietatem pcccati mei,' 
 &c. *God is the pardoner of sins, and therefore let us 
 confess to Him, and say with Da^dd : I have made my sin 
 known unto Thee, and mine unrighteousness have I not 
 hid ; I said, I will confess mine iniquity unto the Lord, 
 and Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.' But this 
 thing is pressed most earnestly by Laurentius K'ovarriensis, 
 who because he was a father of the fifth age, his words are 
 of more use, by being a testimony that the ecclesiastical 
 repentance, which we find to be now pressed by some as 
 simply necessary, was not the doctrine of those times. ' From 
 that day in which thou goest out of the font, thou becomest 
 to thyself a continual font, and a daily remission. There 
 is no absolute necessity of the priest's right hand ; from 
 thenceforward God hath appointed thee to be thy own judge,
 
 85 
 
 thy own arbiter, and hath given thee knowledge whereby 
 of thyself thou mayest discern good and evil ; and because 
 while thou remainest in the body, thou canst not be free 
 from sin, God hath, after baptism, placed thy remedy within 
 thyself ; he hath placed pardon within thy own choice, 
 so that thou art not, in the day of thy necessity, indispen- 
 sably tied to seek a priest ; but thou thyself, as if thou wert 
 a most skilful doctor and master, mayest amend thy error 
 within thee, and Avash away thy sin by repentance. The 
 fountain is never dry, the water is within thee ; absolution 
 is in thy choice, sanctification is in thy diligence, pardon 
 is within the dew of thine own tears. Do not thou there- 
 fore look either for John or Jordan ; be thou thy own 
 baptist, viz., in the baptism of repentance. Thou art defiled 
 after thou art washed, thy bowels are defiled, thy soul is 
 polluted ; plunge thyself in the waters of repentance, cleanse 
 thyself by abundance of tears, let compunction be plentifully 
 in thy bowels, — and the Lord Himself shall baptize thee 
 with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and shall heap the fruits 
 of repentance, and lay them up like wheat ; but the chaff 
 of thy sins He shall burn with unquenchable fire.' ]\Iany 
 testimonies out of antiquity to the same purpose, are to be 
 seen ready collected by Gratian, under the title ' De Poen- 
 itentia.' — Bishop Jeremy Taylor on Ecclesiastical Penance, 
 Edit. Ileher, ix., 243. 
 
 The following quotation should be pondered seriously by 
 the young clergy who are urging the necessity of Auricular 
 Confession. They are the words of one of our soundest 
 churchmen : — 
 
 " Since there is no necessity declared in scripture of con- 
 fessing all our sins to a priest, no mention of sacramental pe- 
 nance, or confession, it must needs seem strange that a 
 doctrine, of which there is no commandment in scripture, no 
 direction for the manner of doing so difiicult a work, no office 
 or officer described to any such purpose ; that a doctrine, I 
 
 H
 
 86 
 
 say, of which in the fountain of salvation there is no spring, 
 should yet become, in process of time, to be the condition of 
 salvation : and yet for preaching, praying, baptizing, com- 
 municating, we have precept upon precept, and line upon 
 line : we have in Scripture three epistles written to two 
 bishops, in which the episcopal office is abundantly de- 
 scribed ; and excellent canons established : and the parts 
 of their duty enumerated : and yet no care taken about the 
 office of 'father confessor.' Indeed we find a pious exhor- 
 tation to all spiritual persons, that 'if any man be over- 
 taken in a fault, they should restore such a one in the spirit 
 of meekness ;' ' restore him,' that is, to the public peace and 
 communion of the church, fxom which by his delinquency 
 he fell ; and restore him also, by the word of His proper 
 ministry, to the favour of God ; by exhortations to him, by 
 reproving of him, by praying for him : and besides this, we 
 have some little limits more, which the Church of Rome, 
 if they please, may make good use of in this question ; such 
 as are, 'that they who sin, should be rebuked before all 
 men, that others also may fear ;' which indeed is a good 
 warranty for public discipline, but veiy little for private 
 confession. And St. Paul charges Timothy, that he should 
 ' lay hands suddenly on no man,' that he be not partaker of 
 other men's sins ; which is a good caution against the 
 Roman way of absolving them that confess, as soon as they 
 have confessed, before they have made their satisfactions. 
 The same Apostle speaks also of 'some that creep into 
 houses, and lead captive silly women ;' I should have 
 thought, he had intended it against such, as then abused 
 Auricular Confession ; it being so like what they do now ; 
 but that St. Paul knew nothing of these lately-introduced 
 practices : and lastly, he commands every one that is to 
 receive the holy communion, ' to examine himself, and so 
 let him eat :' he forgot, it seems, to enjoin them to go to 
 confession to be examined : which certainly he could never
 
 87 
 
 have dune more opportunely than liere ; and, if it liad 
 been necessary, he could never have omitted it more inde- 
 cently. But it seems, the first Christians were admitted 
 upon other terms by the apostles, than they are at this day 
 by the Roman clergy. And indeed it were infinitely strange, 
 that since, in the Old Testament, remission of sins was 
 given to every one, that confessed to God, and turned from 
 his evil way, that, in the New Testament, to which liberty 
 is a special privilege, and the imposed yoke of Christ infin- 
 itely more easy than the burden of the law ; and repentance 
 is the very formality of the Gospel-covenant ; and yet, that 
 pardon of our sins shall not be given to us Christians on so 
 easy terms as it was to the Jews ; but an intolerable new 
 burden shall be made a new condition of obtaining pardon. 
 And this will appear yet the more strange ; when we con- 
 sider, that all the sermons of the prophets concerning 
 repentance, were not derivations from Moses's law, but 
 homilies evangelical, and went before to prepare the way 
 of the Lord ; and John Baptist was last of them ; and that, 
 in this matter, the sermons of the prophets were but the 
 Gospel antedated ; and, in this afiair, there was no change 
 but to the better and to a clearer manifestation of the divine 
 mercy, and the sweet yoke of Christ ; the disciples of Christ 
 preached the same doctrine of repentance that the Baptist 
 did, and the Baptist the same that the prophets did, and 
 there was no difference ; Christ was the same in all, and 
 He that commanded his disciples to fast to God alone in 
 private, intended that all the parts of repentance transacted 
 between God and our consciences, should be as sufiicient as 
 that one of fasting, and that other of prayer : and it is said 
 so in all ; ' for, if we confess our sins, lie is faithful and just 
 to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighte- 
 ousness.' It is God alone that can cleanse our hearts, and 
 lie that cleanses us. He alone does forgive us ; and this is 
 I'T^on our confession to Him : His justice and faithfulness
 
 88 
 
 are at stake for it ; and therefore it supposes a promise : 
 whicli we often find upon our confessions made to God, but 
 it was never promised upon confession made to the priest. 
 
 " If we consider whether this thing be reasonable, to im- 
 pose such a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which upon 
 their fathers was not put in the Old Testament, nor ever 
 commanded in the iNew ; we shall find, that, although many- 
 good things might be consequent to the religious and free 
 and prudent use of confession ; yet, by changing into a doc- 
 trine of God, that which, at most, is a commandment of 
 man, it will not, by all the contingent good, make recom- 
 pense for all the intolerable evils it introduces. And here, 
 first, I consider, that many times things seem profitable to us, 
 and may minister to good ends ; but God judges them use- 
 less and dangerous : for He judges not as we judge. The 
 worshipping of angels, and the abstaining from meats, which 
 some false apostles introduced, looked well, and pretended 
 to humility, and mortification of the body ; but the Apostle 
 approved them not . and of the same mind were the succeed- 
 ing ages of the Church ; who condemned the dry diet, and 
 the ascetic fasts of Montanus, though they were pretended 
 only for discipline ; but when they came to be imposed, they 
 grew intolerable. Certainly, men lived better lives, when, 
 by the discipline of the Church, sinners were brought to 
 public stations and penance, than now they do by all the 
 advantages, real or pretended, from Auricular Confession ; 
 and yet the Church thought fit to lay it aside, and nothing 
 is left but the shadow of it. 
 
 " This whole topic can only be a prudential consideration, 
 and can no way infer a divine institution ; for though it was 
 as convenient before Christ, as since, and might have as now, 
 had the same effect upon the public or private good, then, as 
 now ; yet God was not pleased to appoint it in almost forty 
 ages ; and we say. He hath not done it yet. However, let it 
 be considered, that there being some things, which, St. Paul
 
 89 
 
 says, are not to be ' so much as named' amongst Christians ; it 
 must needs look indecently, that all men and all women should 
 come and make the priest's ears a conmion sewer to empty all 
 their hlthiness ; and that which a modest man would hlusli 
 to hear, he must be used to, and it is the greatest part of his 
 employment to attend to. True it is, that the physcian must 
 see and handle the impurest ulcers ; but it is, because the 
 cure does not depend upon the patient, but upon the physi- 
 cian, who, by general advertisement, cannot cure the patient, 
 unless he had a universal medicine, which the priest hath : 
 the medicine of repentance, which can indifferently cure all 
 sins, whether the priest know them or no. And therefore, all 
 this filthy communication is therefore intolerable, because it 
 is not necessary : and it not only pollutes the priest's ears, 
 but his tongue too ; for, lest any circumstance, or any sin, be 
 concealed, he thinks himself obliged to interrogate, and pro- 
 ceed to particular questions in the basest things. Such as 
 that which is to be seen in Burchard, and such which are 
 too largely described in Sanchez ; which thing does not only 
 deturpate all honest and modest conversation, but it teaches 
 men to understand more sins than ever they (it may be) 
 knew of." — Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive frora Popery, vol. 
 xi. 2J. 30. 
 
 Note L. 
 
 These statements have been fully proved before, but ex 
 alundanti, two other quotations shall be given, the first 
 from the judicious Hooker, the second from Archbishop 
 Usher. 
 
 " They bind all men upon pain of everlasting condemnation 
 and death to make confessions to their ghostly fathers of 
 every great oflfence they know, and can remember, that they 
 have committed against God. Ilath Christ in His gospel so 
 delivered the doctrine of repentance unto the world ? Did 
 His apostles so preach it to nations ? Have the fatliers so 
 believed, or so taught ? Surely Novatian was not so merci-
 
 90 
 
 less of depriving the Church of power to absolve some certain 
 offenders, as they in imposing upon all a necessity thus to 
 confess. Kovatian would not deny that God might remit that 
 which the Church could not, whereas in the Papacy it is 
 maintained, that what we conceal from men, God Himself 
 should never pardon. By which oversight, as they have here 
 surcharged the world with multitude, but much abated the 
 weight of confessions, so the careless manner of their absolu- 
 tion hath made discipline, for the most part, amongst them, 
 a bare formality ; yea, rather a means of emboldening unto 
 vicious and wicked life, than either any help to prevent fu- 
 ture, or medicine to remedy present evils in the soul of man. 
 The fathers were slow and always fearful to absolve any before 
 very manifest tokens given of a true penitent, and contrite 
 spirit. It was not their custom to remit sin first, and then to 
 impose works of satisfaction, as the fashion of Rome is now ; 
 insomuch that this their preposterous course, and misordered 
 practices hath bred also in them an error concerning the end 
 and purpose of these works. For against the guiltiness of sin 
 and the danger of everlasting condemnation thereby incurred, 
 confession and absolution succeeding the same, are, as they 
 take it, a remedy sufiicient ; and therefore what their peni- 
 tentiaiies do think good to enjoin further, whether it be a 
 number of Ave-!Maries daily to be scored up, a journey of 
 pilgrimage to be undertaken, some few dishes of ordinary diet 
 to be exchanged, ofierings to be made at the shrines of saints, 
 or a little to be scraped off from men's superfluities for relief 
 of poor people, all is in lieu or exchange with God, Whose 
 justice, notwithstanding our pardon, yet oweth us still some 
 temporal punishment, either in this life or in the life to come, 
 except we quit it ourselves here with works of the former 
 kind, and continued till the balance of God's most strict 
 severity shall find tlie pains we have taken equivalent with 
 the plagues which we should endure, or else the mercy of 
 the Pope relieve us. And at this postern-gate cometh in 
 the whole mart of Papal indulgences so infinitely strew^'rl
 
 n 
 
 that the pardon of sin, which heretofore was obtained hardly 
 and by much suit, is with them become now almost impos- 
 sible to be escaped." — Hooker', book vi., on the Absolution of 
 Penitents. 
 
 " We find," says Archbishop Usher, "that Lawrence, Bishop 
 of Novaria, in his Homily de Poenitentia, doth resolutely 
 determine, that for obtaining remission of sins a man needeth 
 not to resort unto any priest, but that his own internal 
 repentance is sufficient for that matter. ' God,' saith He, 
 ' after baptism hath appointed thy remedy within thyself, he 
 hath put remission in thine own power, that thou needest not 
 seek a priest when thy necessity requii'eth ; but thou thy- 
 self now, as a skilful and plain master, mayest amend thine 
 error within thyself, and wash away thy sin by repentance.' 
 ' He hath given unto thee,' saith another, somewhat to the 
 same purpose, 'the power of binding and loosing. Thou hast 
 bound thyself with the chain of the love of wealth : loose 
 thyself with the injunction of the love of poverty. Thou 
 hast bound thyself with the iurious desire of pleasures ; loose 
 thyself with temperance. Thou hast bound thyself with the 
 misbelief of Eunomius ; loose thyself with the religious em- 
 bracing of the right faith.' 
 
 "And that we may see how variable men's judgments were 
 touching the matter of confession in the ages following, Bede 
 would have us 'confess our daily and light sins one unto 
 another, but open the uncleanness of the greater leprosy to 
 the priest.' Alcuinus, not long after him, would have us 
 ' confess all the sins that we could remember.' Others were 
 of another mind. For some (as it appcareth by the writings 
 of the same Alcuinus, and of Haymo) would not confess their 
 sins to the priest ; but ' said it was sufficient for them that 
 they did confess their sins to God alone ;' provided always 
 that they ceased from those sins for the time to come. Others 
 confessed their sins unto the priests, but ' not fully ; as may 
 be seen in the council of Ca vail Ion, held in the days of Charles 
 the Great ; where, though the Fathers think that this had
 
 92 
 
 * need to be amended ;' yet they freely acknowledge that it 
 remained still a question, whether men should only confess to 
 God, or to the priests also : and they themselves put this 
 difference betwixt both those confessions, that the one did 
 properly serve for the cure, the other for direction in what 
 sort of repentance, and so the cure, should be performed. 
 Their words are these : ' Some say that they ought to confess 
 their sins only unto God, and some think that they are to be 
 confessed unto the priests : both of which, not without great 
 fruit, is practised within the holy Church. Namely thus, that 
 Tve both confess our sins unto God, Who is the forgiver of 
 sins, (saying with David ; ' / acknowledge my sin unto Thee^ 
 and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess 
 agahist myself my transgressions unto the Lord: and Thou 
 forgavest the iniquity of my sin :) and, according to the 
 institution of the Apostle, confess our sins one to another, 
 and pray one for another, that we may be healed. The con- 
 fession therefore which is made unto God, purgeth sins : but 
 that which is made unto the priest, teacheth in what sort 
 those sins should be purged. For God, the Author and be- 
 stower of salvation and health, giveth the same sometime 
 by the invisible administration of His power, — sometime by 
 the operation of physicians." — Answer to a Jesuit, page 91, 
 printed at the Pitt Press, Cambridge, mdcccxxxv. 
 
 The reader, in these Notes, has been presented with the 
 testimony of the Fathers, and the opinion of those learned 
 divines of the Church of England who have written upon 
 the subject of Auricular Confession. No modern theologian 
 approaches the latter either in Patrology or in Biblical 
 Exegesis. We have, then, I repeat it, the authority of the 
 Primitive Church and of the reformed Church of England, 
 for saying that confession to man, though it may be a means 
 of comfort to some, is necessary to no one, and that it is not 
 to be numbered among the means of grace. 
 
 T. HARRISON, PRINTER, 55, BRIGGATE, LEEDS.
 
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