I 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 Purchased, 1918, 
 
 4UUJiL£j'rAC'i.s 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 VERY REV. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 THE DEAN OF EXETER, 
 
 
 ON A 
 
 SERMON PREACHED BY HIM IN THE CATHEDRAL AT EXETER ON 
 SUNDAY, NOV. 7th, 1852, AND SINCE PUBLISHED. 
 
 By henry, lord BISHOP OF EXETER. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 1852. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PniNTED DY ’.V, CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFOKD STREET. 
 
(Copy.) 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, November 18, 1852. 
 
 My dear Mr. Dean, 
 
 In passing through Exeter this day I have received from the 
 Sub-Dean a copy of a Sermon preached by you on the Sunday 
 before last, and since published with the heading “ Auricular Con- 
 fession,” together with a very kind communication of your feelings 
 towards myself. Be assured that I estimate that communication as 
 I ought, and that I return the assurance of similar feelings towards 
 yourself with equal cordiality. 
 
 I have not had time to read your Sermon with the attention 
 which is due to the subject of it — to the time at which it was deli- 
 vered and published — and to the high place of its highly-gifted 
 author. 
 
 But the very first sentence of it has made me feel it my duty to 
 regard the Sermon not merely as the able statement of the opinions 
 of an able writer on a very important doctrine, but also as a public 
 attestation from the Dean of my own Cathedral, the head of a body 
 whose great privilege and duty it is to advise their Bishop, to the 
 existence of a very grave practical departure from evangelical 
 principles among my clergy — no less than the assertion of and 
 the acting upon the claim “ that sacerdotal absolution is necessary 
 to the salvation of every baptized person, and that auricular con- 
 fession is the divinely appointed means of obtaining that abso- 
 lution.” 
 
 You say that ‘Uhere is really no ground in Scripture for this 
 doctrine ;” 
 
 ‘‘ That it leads in practice to the grossest abuses, and that our 
 Keformed Church does not sanction it.” 
 
 B 2 
 
C 4 ) 
 
 In all this I should fully concur if I did not think your statement 
 on the whole below the truth ; for I hold, not only that the doctrine 
 is not grounded on a true and sound interpretation of Scripture 
 (which is what I apprehend you mean when you say, There is 
 really no ground in Scripture for this doctrine,” for you yourself 
 adduce passages of Scripture on which, however erroneously, the 
 doctrine is grounded), — but also, that it more than “ leads in prac- 
 tice to the grossest abuses;” for it is in itself a very gross abuse of 
 the truth delivered in Scripture, perhaps the very grossest abuse 
 ever ascribed to the Church of Rome. 
 
 And, lastly, that “ our Reformed Cliurch ” not only “ does not 
 sanction it,” but is, by very plain implication, manifestly opposed to it. 
 
 Thus fully concurring with you in your judgment on this very 
 important particular, I request you to inform me what clergymen of 
 this diocese are the apish imitators of Rome,” and what are “ their 
 proceedings in this direction which have lately caused no small stir, 
 especially in this diocese.” 
 
 I shall thankfully receive and promptly act upon the information 
 when you shall have given it. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Mr. Dean, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 H. EXETER. 
 
 Very Rev. the Dean of Exeter. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 (Copy.) 
 
 T Deanery, Exeter, November 19, 1852. 
 
 My DEAii Lord, . ■> 
 
 I am highly gratified by tlie cordial expressions of personal 
 regard in the letter which your Lordship had the kindness to address 
 to me in your way through Exeter yesterday ; and still more am I 
 gratified by the full and clear declaration of your opinions on the 
 Romish doctrine of auricular confession. On that point, however, 
 I never entertained the slightest doubt ; for long before I had the 
 honour of your Lordship’s acquaintance I had carefully read your 
 Letters to the late Mr. C. Butler, and still recur to them with undi- 
 minished admiration. Your Lordship will, I trust, permit me, 
 whenever a fit occasion may present itself, to declare my certain 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 knowledge that, on all the subjects discussed in those letters, your 
 judgment remains wholly unaltered. 
 
 With respect to the last, and perhaps the most important point in 
 your Lordship’s letter, I feel that, if I had charged any of the 
 clergy of this diocese with openly maintaining the Romish doctrine 
 of auricular confession, your Lordship would have a perfect right 
 to require of me to inform you who those clergy are. But I have 
 not brought forward such a charge, though I really think that some 
 of Mr. Prynne’s proceedings in this direction — as, for example, the 
 penance which he imposed (I presume after confession) on one of 
 Miss Sellon’s young ladies — afford a very strong ground of pre- 
 sumption that he is prepared to carry to their full extent some of 
 the very worst practices of the Romish confessional. That there 
 are persons in the Church who maintain the Romish doctrine, or 
 at least a doctrine which the laity cannot distinguish from it, and 
 that the attempts which are made to defend and to revive the prac- 
 tice of auricular confession, have made a great stir, especially in this 
 diocese, is unhappily matter of general notoriety. I most heartily 
 wish that it were not so. It is also unhappily certain that some, 
 more especially of the younger clergy, are alarming the minds of 
 the people by an apish imitation of certain practices which are not 
 prescribed by our Rubrics, and are regarded as Romish — such as 
 bowings, genuflections, and intonings — and that they are offending 
 the better part of their congregations by persisting in using them. 
 
 Now it is very true that such things as these are in themselves 
 matter of indifference ; but I am confident that your Lordship will 
 agree with me in thinking that they cease to be so when they give 
 offence even to the weaker brethren. 
 
 Believe me, with great respect, 
 
 My dear Lord, 
 
 Your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 THOS. H. LOWE. 
 
 The Pwt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Exeter. 
 
. i.' 
 
 
 ijr 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/confessionabsoluOOhenr 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 A LETTER, 
 
 cj-C. ^C. 
 
 My dear Mr. Dean, Bkhopstowe, November 24, 1852. 
 
 Since I have returned to this place, I have had time to 
 read your Sermon on “ Auricular Confession,” with more at- 
 tention than I could give to it in my passage through Exeter. 
 I have also had the benefit of learning from your letter of the 
 19th inst, what was the purpose for which your Sermon was 
 written, and who were the parties against whom it was directed. 
 I need not say, that that letter has given me very great grati- 
 fication ; but I must add, that it has also given me no less 
 surprise. In it, you say “ that if you had charged any of the 
 clergy of this Diocese, with openly maintaining the Romish 
 doctrine of auricular confession, I should have a perfect right 
 to require you to inform me who the Clergy were ; but you 
 have not brought forward such a charge.” Now, from this, I 
 am bound, in justice to the candour and ingenuousness of your 
 own character, to conclude, that you were equally far from in- 
 tending to say of any among them that they secretly maintain 
 the same doctrine, thus adding hypocrisy to unfaithfulness. 
 For I am quite sure, that you would have felt it no less your 
 duty both to avow this charge, and also to state the names of 
 the clergymen against whom it was directed. But you had no 
 such meaning — and I am equally rejoiced, I repeat, and sur- 
 prised, to hear it. My surprise will, perhaps, be deemed 
 not utterly unreasonable, when I cite the opening sentences 
 of your sermon — 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye re- 
 mit,” &c. 
 
 “ This is one of the principal texts, on the authority of which 
 the Church of Rome maintains, that sacerdotal absolution is 
 necessary to the salvation of every baptized person, who has 
 fallen into mortal sin, and that auricular confession is the 
 divinely appointed means of obtaining that absolution. The 
 same doctrine is now maintained by some persons in our Church, 
 who openly claim this power for themselves, and are endeavour- 
 ing to revive among us, the practice of auricular confession ; 
 and as their proceedings in this direction have lately caused na 
 small stir, especially in this Diocese, I shall endeavour on this 
 occasion to show,” &c. &c. 
 
 All this I have now the satisfaction of knowing, on the 
 best authority, that of the preacher himself, was not intended 
 to charge any of the Clergy of this Diocese with maintaining 
 the doctrine which is here denounced. 
 
 Again, when I read presently afterwards, “ In the first place, 
 we must inquire what it is that the Church of Rome, and its 
 apish imitators, mean by auricular confession” — I am in- 
 formed that the persons thus discourteously characterised, are 
 not called “apish imitators” of Rome, by reason of any of 
 their sayings or doings in reference to “ auricular confession,” 
 though that subject only is mentioned in the sermon — but be- 
 cause of other matters which are not prescribed by our Rubrics, 
 and are regarded as Romish, such as “ bowings, genuflections,, 
 and intonings.” 
 
 I gladly accept the explanation, and pause not to examine 
 how far it accords with the ordinary use of language, especially 
 with what might be expected from one who is commonly sa 
 lucid a writer as yourself. 
 
 It is enough for me, that I am thus released from the duty 
 of exercising the painful right of requiring you to state who 
 those persons are in our Church, of whom you thus assert, that 
 they “ maintain the doctrine that sacerdotal absolution is ne- 
 
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 cessary to the salvation of every baptized sinner, and that auri- 
 cular confession is the divinely appointed means of obtaining 
 that absolution/" They belong not to this Diocese — with 
 this, as Bishop of Exeter, I am quite satisfied. But though I 
 have no special right to make this requirement, as Bishop of 
 this Diocese, for the guilty parties do not belong to it — yet, as 
 Bishop in the Church of England, bound by the duty of my 
 high office to guard, above all other things, the sacred deposit 
 of the faith, especially in a particular of so great practical im- 
 portance, as you thus publicly denounce, I may be permitted 
 to urge upon you the duty of bringing to the knowledge of 
 those who can legally deal with the case, the names of the 
 offenders, and the proofs of their guilt : for I do not believe 
 there is a single bishop amongst us, who would hesitate to 
 take the most stringent and effectual means to free his Diocese, 
 and the Church at large, from apostasy so foul and odious. 
 
 Having said this, I should here stop, if I were not constrained 
 by regard to the character of the doctrine set forth in so high 
 a place as the pulpit of my own Cathedral, and by the Dean 
 of that Cathedral himself, to point out more than one import- 
 ant particular, in which your Sermon seems to me very likely 
 to mislead the people, especially in their estimate of the priestly 
 office. For, if there be, in the present day, some who are in- 
 clined to take too high a view of the powers inherent in that 
 office, yet you will, I am sure, be not backward in admitting, 
 that this is not the common and prevailing error ; that for one 
 who exaggerates those powers above their due measure, there 
 are hundreds, who depreciate them far below the standard, 
 which you, and I, and every sound Churchman, must recognise 
 in the word of God. 
 
 Now, in your Sermon before me, I lament to see, that you 
 address yourself solely to an attack on a phantom of priestly 
 assumption amongst us (such only can I deem it, till you ad- 
 duce proofs of its real existence), and leave absolutely unnoticed 
 the true measure of the authority and power of Christ"s mi- 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 nisters. What makes this omission of yours the more extraor- 
 dinary, and I must add, the more to be lamented, is the one 
 broad fact, that the very text on which you preached — was 
 actually the awful address of our Lord Himself to His Apostles, 
 conferring on them, and their successors, the highest and most 
 momentous of all their powers. Preaching on this text, I say, 
 in the Cathedral of Exeter, a city which has of late been made 
 the very focus of anti-Church agitation, its Dean had no voice 
 except for denouncing imaginary excesses of ministerial pre- 
 sumption, and for venting sarcasms, such as are, to say the 
 least, not commonly heard from any pulpit out of a conventicle. 
 
 I deplore this — but I dwell not on it — for it may be thought 
 merely a matter of taste and discretion. I would rather go at 
 once to a consideration of the passages to which I object on 
 higher grounds. 
 
 And here I must, in the outset, express my regret that 
 your v/hole discourse, with a trifling exception which I am 
 about to notice, was directed to an exposure of the unsound- 
 ness of the doctrine of Rome respecting confession and absolu- 
 tion — a very legitimate subject of discussion, I admit ; but one 
 which at all times, and especially at the present, requires to be 
 accompanied with a statement of the true doctrine on this 
 point, as it has been always maintained in the Catholic Church, 
 and most expressly in our own branch of it. You do, indeed, 
 say something in the conclusion of your sermon, which excited 
 in me, as I was reading it, a hope that you were about to give 
 us such a statement. For, after saying “ It is chiefly the inor- 
 dinate love of spiritual power — that prompts the advocates of 
 this abominable system [can any minister of our own Church 
 be indeed in the number ?] “ in their attempts to bring us back 
 to the practice of auricular confession"" [as before described by 
 you] : — And after enforcing a particular, whicb all faithful 
 members of our Church must agree in holding as a main 
 article of the Catholic faith, namely, “ that through Him, our 
 Great High Priest in Heaven, and not through the mediation 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 of any priest on earth, we have access vith confidence to the 
 Father You thus proceed : — “ If, indeed, the mind of any 
 Christian should be so burdened with the consciousness of his 
 past offences, as to make him lose sight of this blessed truth, 
 and to fill him with the alarming apprehension, that his iniqui- 
 ties are too great to be pardoned, and that his sinful life has 
 closed the gates of mercy against him — and such an appre- 
 hension sufficiently proves, that the root of faith still remains 
 in him — then it is the office of Christ's faithful ministers to 
 intreat him to open his grief, and in Christ’s name, and by 
 His authority, to declare to him" — what? We know our 
 Church’s teaching, namely, that after confession of the peni- 
 tent, “ Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he 
 may turn from his wickedness and live ; and hath given power 
 and commandment " (the words imply a very special and pecu- 
 liar power, as well as commandment) to His^ ministers to 
 declare and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the absolu- 
 tion and remission of their sins; He pardoneth and absolveth" 
 (at the very moment when His minister so empowered, and 
 commanded, pronounces the blessed word) “all them that 
 truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel." Our 
 Church, therefore, says that all such sincere and faithful peni- 
 tents may have the comfort of knowing, that God's pardon of 
 their sins has been actually given to them ; that they receive it 
 when they receive the solemn assurance of it from God’s own 
 Minister empowered and commanded to pronounce “ the word 
 of reconciliation" over them. Such, I say, is the teaching of 
 our Church — and to that teaching you, I doubt not, adhere — 
 for to it you have again and again, on some of the most solemn 
 occasions of your life, repeatedly declared your unfeigned 
 assent and consent," — yet such, I grieve to observe, is not the 
 teaching of your Sermon. — On the contrary, you there (seem, 
 at least, to) exercise some astuteness in devising a form of 
 words, which shall escape from saying so much as this ; — for 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 all that you ascribe to the office of Christas faithful minis- 
 ters/" is, in Christ"s name, and by His authority — to do what 
 your virger is competent to do — “ to declare to the penitent 
 (what few who call themselves Christians can need to be in- 
 formed) ‘‘ that the riches of God"s mercies in Christ are inex- 
 haustible ; that if we confess our sins, and turn to Him, as the 
 repentant prodigal returned to his father. He will forgive us 
 our sins, for the sake of His blessed Son, by virtue of whose 
 all-sufficient mediation and atonement, all his past offences will 
 be no more had in remembrance against him.” “ Thus to 
 make known the grace of God is, I repeat, within the com- 
 petence of every Christian — though not, indeed, to do it with 
 equal authority. But the occasion required you to say openly 
 and plainly what is the special duty and commission of the 
 Christian minister ; and I must again frankly avow, that I lament 
 your seemingly studied purpose to forbear from saying this. 
 
 You do, indeed, cite a prophecy of Isaiah Ixi. 1, read by 
 our Lord in the synagogue at Nazareth, when He first preached 
 to His countrymen there. But this prophecy, I need not re- 
 mind you, was addressed to the Jews during their captivity, 
 and was understood to have had its fulfilment in their deliver- 
 ance from that captivity. Whether any among them expected 
 that it would have a further fulfilment in the greater deliverance 
 from the greater captivity to sin and Satan — we know not. Be 
 this as it may, that they, to whom our Lord read this prophecy, 
 did not understand Him, as thereby claiming to be the Messiah, 
 and that He did not intend that they should so consider Him, 
 is clear from the whole history of His ministry. Long after 
 this His discourse to the Nazarenes, neither they, nor any 
 other of the Jews, though they had seen His mighty works, and 
 had heard His preaching, had any notion that He was the 
 Messiah. For, we read that, two or three years later, when 
 our Lord asked His disciples, Luke ix. 18-21, “ Whom say the 
 people that I am ? they, answering, said, John the Baptist ; but 
 some say, Elias ; and others say, That one of the old prophets is 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 risen again. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am ? 
 Peter, answering said, The Christ of God. And He straitly 
 charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing : 
 saying. The Son of Man must suffer many things,” &c. In other 
 words, it was necessary for the accomplishment of the great 
 object of His mission that the Jews should, as yet, be ignorant 
 that He was the Christ. Therefore, when our Lord read this 
 prophecy in the synagogue at Nazareth, it is manifest that 
 He designed it not as a sufficient description of the Mes- 
 siah’s office, still less of the way in which it would be dis- 
 charged. It did indeed shadow out that office, and was ad- 
 mirably calculated to excite, in those who were duly disposed, 
 an interest in a promise of some great spiritual end to be 
 effected by Him of whom it was written — perhaps some of them 
 might think by Him who now read it to them, of whom they 
 asked each other, “ Wondering at the gracious words which 
 proceeded out of His mouth — Is not this Joseph’s son?” Yet 
 this dark speech, thus accommodated by our Lord to the utter 
 ignorance of those who heard Him for the first time, and who 
 understood so very little of the matter to which it related, is set 
 forth by you, in this our day, in the cathedral church of the 
 metropolitan city of this diocese, not only as an adequate de- 
 scription of “ the especial office of the Messiah,” — but also “ of 
 the same office now committed to His ministers on earths 
 
 Pardon me, my dear Mr. Dean, if, in behalf of the citizens 
 of Exeter, I protest against such an estimate, whether of their 
 understanding, or of the measure of their Christian knowledge. 
 There may be some among them, and, as I perceive in the 
 title-page of your Sermon that it was published “ by request,” 
 it is plain that there rnust be some among them, who are satis- 
 fied by your statement : but in the name of the congregation in 
 general who worship in our Cathedral I protest — I had almost 
 said indignantly protest — against your contemptuous judgment 
 of their proficiency in the learning which becometh Christians. 
 Perhaps I am the more alive to the injustice which you seem 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 thus to do the laity, because I remember well the very 
 different terms in which you, some years ago, thought proper 
 to address the clergy, speaking from the very same pulpit. 
 
 In 1839, at the Visitation of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry 
 of Exeter, you preached a sermon which also was published 
 “ by request ” — the I'equest of the Archdeacon and clergy — 
 and in which I read a very sound, wholesome, and edifying 
 statement of the commission of the clergy. It begins thus : — > 
 
 “ Not to dwell on collateral points, or points of minor im- 
 portance, let us consider the great happiness which we enjoy in 
 the assurance that the promise of Christ is fulfilled to His 
 Church, and that He is always present with His ministers to 
 bless their ministrations to His people.” 
 
 Now, is the receiving the secret, the auricular (for the words 
 are in this instance of the same import) confession of the sins 
 of the dying penitent, or of one who is withheld from the 
 Lord’s table by fear of his unfitness to present himself — is the 
 receiving of such confession one of the ministrations of Christ’s 
 ministers ? Our Church says that it is ; you, as a high officer 
 in that Church, have again and again declared that you un- 
 feignedly believe it so to be. You must then, on your own 
 principle, joyfully and thankfully acknowledge that Christ is 
 with His minister in receiving such confession, and in pro- 
 nouncing thereupon the Church’s solemn form of absolu- 
 tion : — ' 
 
 “ Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His 
 Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in 
 Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences ; and, by 
 His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy 
 sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost. Amen.” 
 
 This I am sure you will admit — you have often admitted — 
 is one of the ministrations, in the due performance of which 
 Christ hath promised to be with] His ministers always, even 
 unto the end of the world. Why then do you say in the 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 Sermon which is before me, that “ it is through Him, our great 
 High Priest in Heaven, and not through the mediation of any 
 priest on earthy we have access with confidence to the Father ” ? 
 Why do you say that “ for the ministers of Christ to place 
 themselves in His stead ” is “ to deny that Christ is our only 
 Judge and Mediator ” ? Do we contradict this great truth 
 when we, in the language of our Church, say that Christ 
 having left in His Church the power to absolve sinners, we, by 
 His authority committed to us, do absolve in His name? 
 “ No"^ — you will answer — “I do not mean to dispute, much 
 less to deny, the power of the minister to absolve in Christ’s 
 name every faithful penitent who needs the comfort of this 
 absolution, and duly applies to him for it. I only object to 
 any clergyman’s telling his people that they cannot have the 
 pardon of their sins unless they have absolution from some 
 priest.” But if this be what you mean, and all that you mean, 
 why do you not say so much ? Why is it that in the whole 
 compass of your argument, set forth at a time when you must 
 know that there is the wildest, the most ignorant, the most 
 presumptuous, the most schismatical clamour from the vulgar 
 of all ranks, against all priestly absolution, whether of the 
 Church of England or of the Cliurch of Rome, why is it that 
 you say not one single word in favour of the former — do not 
 attempt to mark the distinction which separates truth from 
 falsehood, the doctrine of your own Church from that which 
 for three centuries it has ever faithfully renounced — but 
 pour forth all your eloquence, and open all the vials of your 
 righteous wrath, against a tenet which you tell me in your 
 letter you do not believe that any one minister of Christ in this 
 diocese really holds, though a senseless Babel of ultra-Pro- 
 testants professes to believe — and some of the number perhaps 
 really believe — is held and practised by many amongst us ? I 
 will not do you the injustice of supposing you capable of barter- 
 ing your truth as a man, your conscience as a Christian, your 
 faithfulness as a minister of the gospel of peace, for the 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 miserable cheers of a mob, whom you would despise, if Chris- 
 tian love did not rather call on you to pity them. 
 
 But if this he not, what, it might be asked, is your motive ? 
 I know not — I seek not to know. That it is such as is satis- 
 factory to your own mind, I cannot doubt — God grant it be 
 such as approves itself in the sight of Him who knows, what we 
 too often are lamentably blind to, the secret motives of all our 
 words and all our actions ! 
 
 But I recur to your recent Sermon. We have seen that in 
 it you reprobate, as most presumptuous, that “ the ministers of 
 Christ should place themselves in Christ’s stead.” 
 
 Permit me to ask, when you administer the sacrament of 
 baptism, do you baptize in your own name or in the name of 
 Him, who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost ? Do you, in short, 
 then act of yourself or in Christas stead ? You have declared in 
 your Sermon of 1839, your “ Concio ad Clerum,” that such is 
 our office and ministry : “ it is through us that Christ himself re- 
 ceives in baptism the children of the faithful, dedicates them to 
 God, regenerates them by His Spirit, and makes them sons of 
 God and heirs of everlasting life — hy us they are catechised and 
 trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord — hy us, 
 acting in the name of Christ, and in His stead ” — (Why, here 
 is the very phrase itself!) — “they are fully instructed in the 
 nature of the vows and promises which their sponsors made for 
 them — hy us they are made partakers of that most holy sacra- 
 ment wherein our sinful bodies are made clean by Christ’s 
 body, and our souls are washed through His most precious 
 blood.” I will not pursue your true, and faithful, and eloquent 
 enumeration of the particulars of our Christian ministry. Let 
 me only avail myself of the words in which you speak of 
 our present subject. “ It is we who are commissioned to bear 
 the blessed message of peace and reconciliation to God to the 
 failing Christian in the hour of sickness ; and hy us the j)ardon 
 of sin is conveyed from Christ to those who truly repent.” 
 ^^ow, I again ask, is this done of our own authority ? Do we 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 in these things act of ourselves, or from and for Christ ? If, in 
 teaching a little child, ‘‘ we act ” as you tell us (and I quarrel 
 not with the phrase), “ in Christ's stead, do we less act in that 
 high character — a character too high for sinful man to dare to 
 assume, except under the express commission of our Lord — 
 when by us, as you say, ‘‘ the pardon of sin is conveyed from 
 Christ ” — or, as St. Paul says in the case of the Corinthian 
 penitent — “ To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also ; for 
 if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes 
 forgave I it in the person of Christ.’’ Nay, even this is not all. 
 St. Paul, not only by plain implication, but also in express 
 terms, says that the ministers of Christ do, in their ministry 
 — what you denounce as “ arrogant,” “ abominable,” and I know 
 not what besides — “ place themselves” — [rather are placed by 
 Christ Himself] — “ in His stead.” For thus writes the Apostle 
 to the Corinthians, 2 Cor. v. 20 : “ Now, then, we are ambas- 
 sadors for Christ [instead of Christ (such, I am sure, you will 
 admit is the force of virlq Xokttou)], as though God did beseech 
 you hy us, we pray you in Chrisds stead, Be ye reconciled to 
 God.” And this occurs immediately after he had said, “ God 
 hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given 
 to us the ministry of reconciliation : To wit, that God was in 
 Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us the word of 
 reconciliation." 
 
 Now this, I must contend, and in so saying I do not think 
 that in your cooler hour I shall have you for my opponent, is 
 neither more nor less than an assertion of the power which is 
 conferred on the Christian ministry in your text. 
 
 But here I am reminded of a very grave offence against the 
 laws of reasoning (I am sure it was really nothing worse, for 
 you are incapable of wilful misstatement) which occurs in the 
 passage which I last cited from you. In it you say, “ Through 
 Him our great High Priest in heaven, and not through the 
 
 c 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 mediation of any priest on earth, we have access with confidence 
 to the Father.” Very true : hut the matter before us concerns 
 not mediation, but ministry. When we exercise the power 
 which was conferred by Christ on the Apostles and their suc- 
 cessors in the text, we act as ministers, not as mediators — for- 
 giving ministerially those whom Christ forgives absolutely, 
 using us as His ministers, as dispensers of the gifts of His 
 grace, by the means which He has appointed and empowered 
 us to use. In other words, ‘‘ Let a man so account of us as of 
 the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” 
 We never dare to call or think ourselves mediators to the 
 Father in any other sense than through the mediation of Jesus 
 Christ. In His prevailing name we do indeed pray the Father 
 — we are mediators to Him in this sense, if you will — to bless 
 and confirm that absolution which we then pronounce on those 
 who “ draw near with faith, and make their humble confession to 
 Almighty God ” before they “ take the Holy Sacrament of the 
 Lord’s Supper to their comfort.” 
 
 Whether, even in the Church of Rome, there have been any 
 who have claimed to he mediators in any other sense, I do not 
 pretend to know. If there have, there is no term of indignant 
 execration in which I am not willing to join you in reprobating 
 such unchristian presumption. But, in the passage before us, 
 you charge the faithful adherents of our Church with it. You 
 deal, in short, with ministry, as if it were mediation — thus vio- 
 lating, as I said, the laws of logic, and presenting a very gross 
 instance of the sophism “ ignoratio elenchi,” as we were used to 
 call it at college — in common parlance, shifting the question. 
 
 I have already remarked that your sermon is almost wholly 
 employed in exposing a particular doctrine of Rome, which has 
 really no advocates whatever amongst ourselves. Now, as this 
 was your object, I must be permitted to express my regret 
 that your exposure of the false teaching of Rome, on this great 
 particular, has been left by you so very imperfect. More than 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 one point of much practical moment — among them the most 
 corrupting, the most soul-destroying of all — is left absolutely 
 unnoticed. 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches, and the Council of Trent 
 confirms the dogma with an anathema, that the effect of sacra- 
 mental absolution is, to render true contrition on the part of the 
 penitent unnecessary in order to his receiving remission of sin. 
 True contrition implies a love of God, and hatred of sin itself ; 
 and so the theology of Rome admits : but then it adds, that a 
 very inferior species of contrition, called attrition, will do, if it 
 be joined with the absolution of the priest. The dread of future 
 punishment, in other words, the fear of the devil, instead of the 
 love of God, if there be no purpose of sinning again — as that 
 fear is an impulse of the Holy Spirit, though admitted to be 
 very imperfect in itself — is yet made by sacramental absolution 
 sufficient for — I will not say the penitent’s, but the sinner’s — 
 justification. Now, this monstrous tenet of Rome is left abso- 
 lutely unnoticed by you. Yet the practical results of it are most 
 appalling — as has been witnessed in the absolution, on the bed 
 of death, of such sinners as Voltaire, and other open scoffers at 
 the very name of Christ. That its effects are not more gene- 
 rally fatal must be ascribed to the mercy of Him who overrules 
 the wickedness and folly of man, suffering not “ the mystery of 
 iniquity” always to work its full effect. In the Catholic truths, 
 which remain to Rome amid the mass of Tridentine errors, 
 there is enough, by the grace of God, to save a large proportion 
 (let us hope) of those who hold them from some of the worst of 
 what might seem their natural consequences. While we rejoice 
 in making this acknowledgment, let us, at the same time, blush 
 and tremble, in saying also how few there are among ourselves 
 who live as becomes the professors of a purer creed. Above all, 
 let us remember that a bigoted, furious, generally ignorant, 
 and always unchristian hostility, whether to the persons or the 
 systems of other Christians, is a practical heresy, more full of 
 
 c 2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 danger to our spiritual state than the grossest aberration from 
 the truth which we can prove against the worst of them. 
 
 But I turn to another particular, immediately connected with 
 your subject, to which also, while you are commenting on the 
 errors of the Church of Rome respecting confession and abso- 
 lution, I am surprised that you did [not advert — I mean its 
 doctrine respecting penances. 
 
 In your explanatory letter of 19th November, you mention a 
 supposed imposition of a penance by Mr. Prynne, on which you 
 comment (how justly, much more how charitably, I stop not to 
 inquire). It is enough for my purpose to remark, which I do 
 with an apology for taking the liberty of saying it, that you are 
 here chargeable with a degree of inadvertence, which, in one 
 less learned than yourself, might reasonably be ascribed to 
 ignorance. Penances, according to the Church of Rome, are 
 works of satisfaction to the justice of God, imposed by the priest, 
 in lieu of suffering the pains, not of hell (from these the sinner 
 is relieved by absolution), but of Purgatory, which would else 
 remain to be endured, after the final salvation of the party has 
 been secured by the sacrament. Penances, in short, are, in 
 the Roman system, essentially connected with Purgatory. To 
 say, therefore, of any Christian minister, as you say of Mr. Prynne 
 in your letter of the 19 th, “that the penance which he imposed, 
 you presume after confession, affords a very strong ground of 
 presumption that he is prepared to carry to their full extent 
 some of the very worst practices of the Romish Confessional f 
 — is in effect to say, that Mr. Prynne believes, and is ready 
 to teach and act upon the belief, that the Romish doctrine of 
 Purgatory is true — notwithstanding he has repeatedly and 
 solemnly declared, as the very condition of his admission to 
 holy orders and to the cure of souls amongst us, that that doc- 
 trine is “a fond thing vainly invented, grounded upon no 
 warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word 
 of God.” 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Such is, in effect, your charge against Mr. Prynne. Can 
 you have been in earnest in making it ? I think not. — But, if 
 not, why did you write thus of him ? Is it possible that you 
 could permit yourself to catch at a popular clamour, for the 
 mere purpose of justifying what, without some such pretence, 
 you felt it impossible to justify, — the line of argument followed 
 by you in your sermon ? 
 
 Respecting Mr. Prynne, let me speak my sentiments fully 
 and openly. That he is a most zealous, devoted, single-minded 
 labourer in the Lord’s vineyard, I am quite sure. That he has, 
 with the blessing of God, laboured, in the main, successfully, 
 I have very strong reason to believe. With a stipend not ex- 
 ceeding that of a curate, out of which he has to pay the rent of 
 his house, and known to be otherwise in the most straitened 
 circumstances, he has not sought to increase his means of sup- 
 porting a wife and children by receiving pupils, or having 
 recourse to any other legitimate occupation ; but he has given 
 all his time, all his faculties of mind and body, to his holy 
 calling. Divine service is celebrated in his church every morn- 
 ing and evening — the holy Communion daily ; and this daily 
 service, especially on holidays, is very numerously attended, — 
 better, I am told, in comparison, than that of Sundays. What 
 may be the feelings towards him among the higher classes of 
 his own people, I know not ; but 1 have no reason to believe 
 that they are other than favourable : one thing I can confidently 
 state, that, although during the late excitement I expressly in- 
 vited complaints against him from his parishioners, if they had 
 any thing to complain of, not one complaint from any one of 
 them reached me — nay, I am assured, that among the numerous 
 requisitionists of the recent public meeting, there was not the 
 name of a single member of his congregation. This, consider- 
 ing the occasion of that meeting, is most unaccountable, if his 
 doctrines and practices are such as have been supposed. But, 
 be the feelings towards him of other classes what they may, 
 “ Among the resident poor he certainly is beloved, and deserves 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 to be; for though his manners are not prepossessing, he is 
 really sterling, and acts, I am convinced, from the highest prin- 
 ciples of Christian duty.” Such is the testimony given to me, 
 of him, by one who has no connection with Mr. Prynne, no 
 reason, no prejudice, to predispose him in his favour, no induce- 
 ment to speak, or write of him at all, but that one strong in- 
 ducement to an honourable, a Christian man, a sense of the 
 gross injustice with which he has been assailed. 
 
 Against such a man, persecuted as he has been, while I 
 shall be always ready to receive and to attend to any com- 
 plaints purporting to be supported by sufficient evidence, 
 never will I follow a multitude lightly to speak evil. He may 
 be — probably he is — indiscreet. When I held the recent 
 inquiry at Plymouth I expected — and I avowed that I ex- 
 pected — great indiscretion to be proved against him. But on 
 that occasion nothing, in my judgment, was proved by evidence 
 worthy of any regard ; and therefore I felt it my duty to 
 declare this judgment, at whatever hazard of clamour and 
 misrepresentation. 
 
 Having said thus much of Mr. Prynne, the only individual 
 to whose proceedings you refer, I will now address myself to 
 the specific matter which you allege against him — “ the 
 penance” which it has been said was “imposed” by him on a 
 young lady after confession. The story, I believe, is, that he 
 required her to make a cross with her tongue on the bare 
 floor ; and it rests on the following evidence : — A clergyman 
 of Cambridgeshire, in whose parish, I believe, the young lady’s 
 family reside, stated that she, being an inmate of Miss Sellon’s 
 establishment at Plymouth, had, while resident there, gone to 
 Mr. Prynne, who received her confession — and, having received 
 it, “ imposed the penance ” (such is your phrase) which I have 
 recited. This, he says, he was told by the young lady herself. 
 The publication of the statement caused, as was to be expected, 
 a very strong feeling of public odium against Mr. Prynne. 
 He addressed the members of his congregation on this matter, 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 and told them that, “ although he had not the slightest recol- 
 lection of ever having given Miss such a penance, yet, if 
 
 she has really stated that she distinctly remembers that he did, 
 he should be willing to admit that it might have been so, as 
 he would far rather think that he had given it than that she* 
 had really stated what was untrue.” He added that ‘‘ he wrote 
 to the young lady herself, desiring her to say whether she dis- 
 tinctly remembered the fact to have been as was stated — that 
 to this letter he received no answer — and therefore that he does 
 not believe it was allowed to reach her.” 
 
 Such is the evidence. Upon it, I am confident that if you 
 had given due consideration to it, and had not at once taken 
 up the general clamour, you would not have dealt with the 
 case as you have done. A man of honour and candour, like 
 yourself, would have said, that it would be the height of injus- 
 tice to believe a hearsay statement, not only in spite of such a 
 contradiction as was given to it by Mr. Prynne, but also in 
 spite of the silence of the party, when appealed to in the very 
 frank and generous manner here stated. If there be any truth 
 in the story (and I admit it seems strange that Mr. Prynne 
 was unable to give from his own memory a peremptory con- 
 tradiction of it), I think we have a probable solution in the fact 
 that some ''great authorities on confession — Bishop Andre wes, 
 if I forget not, is of the number — recommend, as a good 
 discipline of the penitent, that he should punish the member 
 that has been the instrument of offence ; and as in this lady's 
 case the tongue was the peccant member, she may have her- 
 self proposed the penance, and Mr. Prynne may have given his 
 sanction to it. For he tells us of his own experience — what 
 a priori is very likely — that persons, after receiving absolution, 
 “ in the enthusiasm of their gratitude and love, often seek to 
 have burthens laid upon them, which a prudent guide will 
 rather check.” Cranmer almost redeemed, in popular repute, 
 the ignominy of his fivefold or sixfold recantation, by thrusting 
 first into the flames the “ unworthy hand ” (as he termed it) 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 wilich had written the document of his shame. Miss may 
 
 have felt similar indignation against her tongue, and may have 
 rejoiced to exercise this somewhat lighter vengeance against it. 
 After all, if Mr. Prynne did indeed of his own mere motion 
 impose such a penance, I think that he merits very much of 
 the censure which he has received ; but till this is proved on 
 better evidence than has yet been adduced, I cannot, as an 
 honest man, join in treating him as guilty. 
 
 I return to your statement respecting penance : and on this 
 matter you must bear with me when I say, that if the story 
 against Mr. Prynne were true to the very letter, there is 
 nothing in it which justifies any one in professing to see Popery 
 in it ; for I repeat, Romish penances are imposed by the priest 
 in the tribunal of confession on unwilling subjects, as satis- 
 factions to the justice of God, which must else be satisfied by 
 the pains of purgatory ; whereas penances recommended (never, 
 I believe, imposed) by clergymen who receive confession among 
 ourselves are of a wholly different kind — they are proposed to 
 willing parties, accepted or declined at pleasure, not as penal- 
 ties for the past, but as helps against evil habits for the future 
 — remedies of some besetting sin — instruments, in short, of 
 spiritual discipline. They are like the rule of a Temperance 
 Society, but without the pledge. 
 
 Persons may differ as to the expediency of such a practice ; 
 and, for myself, I hesitate not to say that, in my judgment, the 
 hahit of going to confession, without some special reason, is 
 likely to produce very grave mischief in many cases — to impair 
 the healthy tone of a Christian conscience, just as constant and 
 unnecessary recourse to medicine weakens the constitution of 
 the body. But this is a matter which the Church leaves open 
 to the discretion of its members, both lay and clerical ; and I 
 disclaim the right of interfering with it, beyond saying, as I 
 again say, to my clergy, that I disapprove it. After all, how- 
 ever, the clergy have in truth much less liberty in the matter 
 than the laity. They may discourage (as I think our Church 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 plainly discourages), but I do not think they can refuse, the 
 habitual application to them to receive confession ; and those 
 who discourage it in earnest will rarely be much troubled. 
 Speaking generally, however, I believe that there is very little 
 danger that in this country, and in these times, there will be 
 any excessive tendency to seek the benefit of absolution. 
 There is much more danger of its not being sought, even 
 when, with God’s blessing, it would be most useful. To use 
 an old illustration, the man who in these days warns his neigh- 
 bour against the usurpations of priestly power in England, must 
 be one who would, with equal wisdom, have cried “ Fire ! 
 Fire !” at the Deluge. 
 
 It is for this reason that I am astonished, more even than I 
 am grieved, to find an intelligent and able man, like yourself, 
 not only acting the alarmist on the side which least needs your 
 aid ; but also striving most elaborately to reduce the tone of our 
 Church’s teaching below the level of the lowest Puritanism. 
 
 And this brings me once more to your Sermon. After 
 fighting Cardinal Bellarmine in a tone of triumph, which 
 (pardon my saying so) seems to me much better suited to the 
 cause for which you contend, than to the prowess which you 
 display, you return to your text, and expound it in the follow- 
 ing most astounding terms : — “ ‘ Receive ye the Holy Ghost : 
 whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and 
 whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.’ By the gift of 
 the Holy Ghost and of the power of remitting and retaining 
 sins, it is simply meant, that He gave them His divine autho- 
 rity to act as presbyters and rulers of Flis church ; and in this 
 sense the Apostles, being Jews, must have understood it. For 
 w'e read in the 11th chapter of Numbers, that the Spirit of 
 God rested on the seventy presbyters, who received their com- 
 mission under Moses in the wilderness.” 
 
 Whether these seventy were in any, and in what respect 
 typical of the Christian ministry, I stop not to inquire. True, 
 the Spirit of God rested upon them ; but while there is “ the 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 same Spirit/' there are ‘‘ diversities of gifts while there is 
 the same Lord,” there are ‘‘ differences of administrations." 
 “ But the manifestation of the Spirit given to every man to 
 profit withal,” is conferred according to the exigency of the 
 particular office to which every man is severally called. To 
 say, therefore, that because the seventy received of the Spirit 
 which Moses received, for the purpose of assisting him in 
 ruling the rebellious multitude of Jews in the wilderness, 
 therefore the Apostles, being Jews, must have understood their 
 commission, as simply giving them authority to act as presby- 
 ters and rulers in His Church, is to bring down the Church to 
 a level with the synagogue. To do you justice, you scruple 
 not to follow out this your principle — and to the astonishment 
 of your Bishop, and, I venture to hope, of the great body of his 
 clergy, you give the result in these remarkable words. “ In 
 thus laying the foundation of His Church, which wasjramec? 
 on the model of the Jewish synagogud^ (this seems to give 
 something more than equality to the synagogue — it is, to make 
 it not the type, but the antitype), our Lord gave to His 
 Apostles the same ordinary powers in spiritual things, as those 
 which the Jewish presbyters possessed f 
 
 I have read these last words again and again, in the earnest 
 hope and endeavour to find some construction, which would 
 make them consistent with any other, than the most unsound, I 
 had almost said heretical, meaning. I have failed — and I would 
 gladly receive from you such an explanation of them, as would 
 prove, that the failure is caused by my own want of perspicacity, 
 not by the real import of the passage which I have cited. I 
 wish, too, that there was in the accompanying matter sufficient 
 indication of the general orthodoxy of your statements on this 
 particular, to justify a belief, that this one sentence fell from 
 you in the hurry of composition. But, unhappily, all before, 
 and after, is in full accordance with the fearful declaration 
 which we have just read. You follow it up by saying, “ And, 
 as it never was pretended that the Jewish presbyters, by their 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 authority to bind and to loose” (an authority not stated in 
 those terms in Scripture), “were enabled to absolve men from 
 the future penalties of sin ” (was it ever said of them, that 
 what they bound and loosed on earthy should be bound and 
 loosed in Heaven ?), “ there was no danger that the Apostles 
 should imagine, that as presbyters of the Christian Church, 
 they were invested with such an unheard of power f 
 
 Before I proceed, I must say one word in reference to this 
 last phrase. Did you ever happen to hear of the Lord’s having 
 sent the prophet Nathan to David, after the completion of his 
 complicated sins of adultery and murder ? Of the prophet’s 
 bringing home to his conscience a full sense of the enormity of 
 his guilt ? Of the heart-stricken king’s instant submission to 
 the word of God spoken by His authorised minister — “ I have 
 sinned against the Lord,” — and of the gladdening assurance of 
 the Man of God, “ The Lord also hath put away thy sin ; thou 
 shalt not die ?” Now, was this simply an absolution from the 
 penalty of the temporal death awarded by the Law of Moses ? 
 or did it extend to forgiveness of David’s sin even at the tri- 
 bunal of God ? — I again ask, did you ever hear of all this ? if 
 you did, will you persist in saying, that to ascribe to the 
 Apostles, and their successors, authority “ to absolve men from 
 the future penalties of sin, is to invest them with an unheard of 
 power ?” Oh ! but Nathan was a specially inspired prophet. 
 Very true : so was John the Baptist — of whom our Lord Him- 
 self said, that he was a “ Prophet, yea, and more than a Pro- 
 phet — that among them that are born of women there had 
 not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, 
 [He adds], he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is 
 greater than he.” Matt. xi. 9-11. How, greater? we dare not 
 say in personal holiness — or in the degree of glory assigned to 
 the least of Christ’s faithful ministers in the kingdom of heaven ; 
 but greater in the commission which we are permitted to bear. 
 Would that the words with which our Lord concludes were less 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 peculiarly appropriate to the present occasion — “ He that hath 
 ears to hear, let him hear !” 
 
 And here let me remind you (is it possible that you can need 
 to be reminded ?) of the manner in which the apostolic com- 
 mission was conferred — compared with which nothing equally 
 awful is recorded in the sacred volume. 
 
 It was on the very day of the Resurrection — at evening 
 “when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assem- 
 bled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus [unstopped by the closed 
 doors] and stood in the midst, and saith unto them. Peace be 
 unto you — as My Father hath sent Mc^ even so send I you — 
 and when He had said this. He breathed on them, and said, Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Ghost. — Whosesoever sins ye remit,” &c. 
 
 Surely, the solemn particular, not cited by you “ As My 
 Father hath sent Me, even so send I you,” and the awful 
 action and word which followed, “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” 
 ought to have opened your eyes to the wildness of your dream, 
 that the mission of the Apostles was of no higher order than 
 that of the seventy. Now, whatever was the mission of the 
 Apostles, it was, we see, the same as that of our Lord Himself. 
 Consequently, if you are right in affirming that the mission of 
 the seventy elders of the Jews was the same with that of the 
 Apostles, it was also the same as that of our Lord. Will you 
 abide by this, the necessary corollary of your own conclusion ? 
 
 And here it is necessary that I should say something of the 
 mission of our Lord Himself in respect to the forgiveness of 
 sins, which mission He gave to the apostles, and in them to us, 
 their successors. Now, hov/ was it, that the Father sent the 
 Son ? It was, as He was the Son of Man, the title, I need not 
 say, which especially belonged to Christ, as the incarnate Son 
 of God. It was as man (although the God-man) that our Lord 
 was sent by the Father — and received a delegated power from 
 the Godhead — especially a power of forgiving sins, which 
 belongs to God only. “ For who can forgive sins but God 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 alone?” That He did receive this delegated power, He 
 declared Himself, .and wrought a miracle to prove the truth of 
 His declaration. — “ But that ye may know, that the Son of 
 Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the 
 sick of the palsy) Arise, take up thy bed and walk,” Matt. ix. 6. 
 Now the word here rendered power, I need not tell you, means 
 in the original a derived, a delegated power, E^ova-lav. Accord- 
 ingly, when our risen Lord afterwards met the eleven, as He 
 had appointed, on the mountain in Galilee, He said, “ All 
 power, E^ouala, is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. 
 Go ye therefore and disciple all nations.” He makes the 
 mission of the apostles to be the consequence of His own, and 
 He further says, that this mission, thus a consequence of His 
 own, was to last as long as the world shall last. “ And, lo I 
 am with you always, even unto the end of the world :” — Thus 
 making our mission, as being the continued mission of the 
 apostles, to be also the consequence of our Lord^s. 
 
 Now, we have seen that a main part of our Lord’s mission 
 relates to the forgiveness of sins. AVhen, therefore. He declared, 
 “ that as the Father hath sent Him, even so He sends ” the 
 apostles, He gave to the apostles His own delegated power of 
 forgiving sins. And when He breathed on them, and said “ Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Ghost” He gave to them, from Himself, that 
 same Spirit, by whom the power of forgiveness of sins was in 
 Himself. And thereupon, having thus conferred upon them 
 the power, He in express terms promised to be with them in 
 the exercise of it, inasmuch as it is His own power continued 
 in them, and through them in their successors, “ even unto the 
 end of the world.” “ Whosesover sins ye remit, they are 
 remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are 
 retained they are remitted and retained by Me, not you, by 
 Me using you as My ministers, who are to exercise My power, 
 not your own, and exercise it in My name. 
 
 This, which is the plain, direct, grammatical construction of the 
 passage, sufficiently disposes of the argumentum ad invidiam, 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 which is so commonly used against the notion that the Christian 
 minister claims to forgive or to retain sins. It is not he, that 
 forgives or retains, hut Christ ; he only has authority to speak 
 the words of Christ ; if therefore he speaks not Christ’s words, 
 pronounces not according to Christ’s judgment, he speaks what 
 is naught — and what he is guilty before God for speaking, in 
 such measure of guilt, as his erring speech has been caused by 
 presumption or by negligence, in delivering it as the sentence 
 of Christ. 
 
 If you ask, what then is the use of going to a priest for abso- 
 lution ? I answer, that where a man sufficiently “ examines his 
 life and conversation by the rule of God’s commandments, and 
 wherein he perceives himself to have offended, there bewails 
 his own sinfulness, and confesses himself to Almighty God,” 
 if he thereupon can “quiet his own conscience” — can satisfy 
 himself by a faithful search into God’s laws and Christ’s pro- 
 mises, that he has attained to true Christian repentance and 
 lively faith — I, for one, should advise him not to have recourse 
 to a priest, beyond joining in the general confession of the con- 
 gregation of Christ, for that pardon, which already he, on just 
 grounds, is sure has been spoken to him in Christ’s written word, 
 and has been brought home to his heart by Christ’s Holy Spirit. 
 
 But “ if by these means he cannot quiet his own conscience, 
 but requireth further comfort or counsel,” let him go to his own 
 minister, or, if he has not confidence in that person’s sufficient 
 learning in God’s word, or discretion in applying it, let him use 
 the liberty which our church gives, and advises him to use — let 
 him choose his own spiritual counsellor — let him choose some 
 other minister of God’s word, whom he believes to be both learned 
 and discreet — let him open his grief to him, that he may receive 
 the benefit of Christ’s absolution by that ministry of God’s Holy 
 word, which the minister is authorized and empowered by Christ 
 Himself, with the gift of the Holy Spirit for that express pur- 
 pose, to pronounce. Now, in such a communication between 
 the penitent and the priest, I can believe, that there will be 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 often not much of confession — that is, of special confession of 
 sins — for very often the penitent’s mind is disturbed, not so 
 much by doubtfulness about his sins, as by doubtfulness about 
 his repentance and consequent firmness of faith, and reliance on 
 God’s mercy through Christ. In such cases, a truly discreet 
 and learned minister of God’s word ” would address himself to 
 his penitent’s real want, and endeavour to bring him, by the 
 grace of God, to true Christian repentance, which includes 
 the love of Christ, as the saviour of every true penitent in 
 particular^ thus abstaining altogether from receiving any special 
 communication concerning his sins. 
 
 But when I say this, let me not be supposed to shrink from 
 asserting the expediency and duty of a perplexed Christian’s 
 unbosoming himself, whenever it is necessary — detailing his 
 sins — to his minister, freely and fully, if the quieting of his 
 conscience require it. There are many occasions of action, 
 past and future, in which a man will be unable to satisfy him- 
 self whether what he has done, or is about to do, is sinful or 
 not. He has examined himself,” we will suppose, “ by the 
 rule of God’s commandments but the true and full spirit of 
 every one of those commandments extends, we know from the 
 word of our Lord Himself, much further than their letter. 
 
 Here, then, is a very wide field of doubt and perplexity — 
 less, I believe, in respect to that commandment, which is 
 usually spoken of, as if it were the only, or the favourite, 
 matter of the confessional — the seventh — than any other ; for 
 most of the offences against it are too certain, to admit of any 
 doubt whatever in the mind of an ordinarily informed Christian. 
 But with respect to almost all the others, especially of the 
 second table, many a conscientious, and not over-scrupulous 
 mind, fearful that partiality to self has betrayed him into a 
 false estimate of his own conduct, would find it a great comfort 
 to consult honestly with some minister of God’s word, in whose 
 knowledge of that word, and ability to apply it faithfully and 
 discreetly to his particular case, he has well-founded confidence. 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 I heartily wish there were more amongst us, than I fear there 
 are, in whom such confidence could be placed. In the days of 
 Bishops Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor, they were, I doubt 
 not, numerous ; and I, for one, deplore the grievous deficiency 
 of special education for the ministerial office in these days, 
 which makes so many amongst us utterly unable to give that 
 spiritual comfort and counsel, which the laity have a right to 
 seek at our mouths, and to expect us to be competent to give. 
 
 For, after all, the power of forgiving and retaining sins left 
 by our Lord to His Church, or rather exercised by Himself in 
 His Church through His ministers, is one, in which, properly 
 understood, the people are far more interested than the Minis- 
 ters themselves. Yet we commonly hear it assailed as mere 
 priest-craft, a remnant of Popery a Popish figment,” is, I 
 believe, the stock description of it in platform oratory), which 
 our Reformers suffered to remain in condescension to the pre- 
 judices of the people, contrary to their own better judgment. 
 How truly this is said may be seen on reference to the delibe- 
 rate teaching of the Reformers in the Homily “ of Common 
 Prayer and Sacraments,” where it is expressly said that “ abso- 
 lution hath the promise of forgiveness of sins — yet, by the express 
 word of the New Testament, it hath not this promise annexed 
 and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands, and 
 therefore (because it has not a divinely instituted visible sign, 
 though it ‘ hath the promise of forgiveness of sin’) Absolution 
 is no such sacrament, as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are.” 
 
 The same teaching of the Homily disposes also of what you 
 say of our Lord’s having given to the Apostles only ‘‘ the same 
 ordinary powers in spiritual things which the Jewish presby- 
 ters possessed,” and which you enumerate in these terms — “ to 
 declare what was lawful or unlawful ; as teachers of the people 
 to exhort and rebuke with all authority ; or as judges in spi- 
 ritual matters, if need were, to inflict or to remove ecclesiastical 
 censures but as in no way “ enabled to absolve men from 
 the future penalties of sin.” 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 That the “ Jewish Presbyters,” if they had in any sense au- 
 thority to bind and loose, were not “ enabled to absolve men 
 from the future penalties of sin,” I accept from you as an 
 unquestionable truth ; for to them it was never promised, as 
 was before said, that “ what they bound on earth, should be 
 bound, or loosed, in Heaven.” But, because this was promised 
 to the Apostles, and in them to their successors — therefore I 
 hold your assertion, that “ Our Lord gave to them only the 
 same ordinary powers in spiritual things, as those which the 
 Jewish Presbyters possessed” — to be a most unscriptural and 
 most flagrant error. 
 
 That “ to inflict or remove ecclesiastical censures in the 
 Church of Christ ” — to pronounce excommunication, or to ab- 
 solve therefrom on due repentance — in other words, that the 
 spiritual discipline of which several examples are related in 
 the Epistles of St. Paul — a discipline which long continued to 
 he practised in the early Church — and the loss of which in our 
 own we annually deplore — had its effect in “ inflicting or re- 
 moving the future penalties of sin” — I most firmly believe, 
 because I believe that our Lord’s words, recorded in your text, 
 cannot be reasonably construed to impart less than this. 
 
 But I dwell not on this matter of ecclesiastical censures ; for 
 it is not that with which we are immediately, or at least prin- 
 cipally, concerned. The matter really in question is, the doc- 
 trine of our Church respecting Absolution, as it is carried out 
 in one of its highest and most formal acts — the conferring of 
 Holy Orders. For our Church ordains Priests (to whom, as 
 such, it gives no “ power to inflict or to remove Ecclesiastical 
 Censures”), by giving to them our Lord’s commission in the 
 words of your text, “ Receive the Holy Ghost for the office 
 and work of a Priest in the Church of God . . . AVhose sins 
 thou dost forgive they are forgiven,” &c. And, if we could 
 douht the meaning of the Church in thus applying our Lord’s 
 commission to Friests, it would be made plain beyond the 
 
 D 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 possibility of cavil, by looking at the manner in which the 
 Priest is authorised and required to exercise his power of 
 ‘‘ Order/' in the various duties and offices which the Church 
 has assigned to him. First, having said that “ Almighty God 
 hath given power and commandment to His ministers to declare 
 and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution 
 and Remission of their sins,” he proceeds “ to declare and pro- 
 nounce,” that God then “ pardoneth and absolveth all them that 
 truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel again, 
 the priest, before he administers the Holy Communion, invokes 
 God's pardon of those who have acknowledged and bewailed 
 their manifold sins before Him : again, the priest gives or 
 refuses Absolution to those who open their grief to him in 
 secret, making special confession of the sins which trouble them, 
 in order to their obtaining the benefit of Absolution at his 
 hands — whether in preparation for the Holy Communion, or at 
 his visitation of them being sick : in the latter case, the priest, 
 having invoked the pardon of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
 left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent 
 and believe in Him, says, ‘‘ By His authority committed to 
 me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost lastly, the 
 priest exercises the same power when he gives, or refuses, the 
 Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in both of which, 
 duly administered, and rightly received. Absolution of sins is 
 undoubtedly conferred. 
 
 Sucb, according to the plain teaching of our Church, is the 
 commission of Priests ; such the power given to them — the ob- 
 ject of that power is, I repeat, sins. To deny, therefore, as 
 you deny, that this commission confers a power “to absolve 
 men from the future penalties of sin” — and to say, as you say, 
 that it only constitutes “judges in spiritual matters, if need be, 
 to inflict or to remove Ecclesiastical censures , is simply to con- 
 tradict your Church, speaking not only in its Flomily, but in 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, of which you 
 have again and again solemnly declared your unfeigned assent 
 and consent to all and everything contained therein.” 
 
 It cannot be pleasant to me to bring such a matter to the 
 grave consideration of one whom I respect, as I do you. But 
 you have left me no choice ; I must thus plainly tell you what 
 you are doing, unless I am content to connive at your mis- 
 leading the people in an article of great practical importance. 
 
 I gladly turn to something else. 
 
 Besides being Popish, this doctrine is charged not only by 
 you, but by others, who, from their station, might he expected 
 to know better, as “ unscriptural.” With what truth this is 
 said, may have sufficiently appeared from our Lord’s words, 
 already cited, which convey the ministerial commission. 
 
 But on this point it may be w^ell to remind those who so 
 speak and write, that at the Conference at the Savoy, where, in 
 1661, under a Royal Commission, many of the leading non- 
 conformists were associated with an equal number of bishops 
 selected by the Crown to “ advise upon and review the Book of 
 Common Prayer, comparing the same with the most ancient 
 Liturgies which have been used in the Church, in the primitive 
 and purest times . . . and, if occasion be, to make such reasonable 
 and necessary alterations, corrections, and amendments therein, 
 as should be agreed upon to be needful or expedient for the giving 
 satisfaction unto tender consciences,” &c. &c. — in this Confer- 
 ence, I say, one of the exceptions taken by the non-conformists 
 was against (not the required Confession, that was not then 
 objected to, but) the form of Absolution in the visitation of the 
 sick, desiring “ That it be declarative and conditional, as ‘ I 
 pronounce thee absolved ’ instead of ^ I absolve thee,’ ‘ if thou 
 doest truly repent and believe.’ ” The answer of the Bishops is, 
 ‘‘ The form of Absolution in the Liturgy is more ar/reeahle to 
 the Scriptures than that which they desire, it being said in St. 
 John XX. ‘ Whose sins you remit, they are remitted,’ not. Whose 
 
 D 2 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 sins you pronounce remitted ; and the condition needs not to be 
 expressed, being always necessarily understood/" 
 
 In further reference to this particular — the scriptural cha- 
 racter of our form of Absolution — I may refer to an earlier 
 authority — an authority which is thejmore worthy of attention, 
 because it completely disposes of the unwarrantable assertion 
 to which I have already referred, that our Church retained this 
 part of our Office in condescension to the prejudices of the 
 people, and in contradiction to the better judgment of our 
 reformers themselves. 
 
 We all know, that before the setting forth of the Second 
 Book of Common Prayer of King Edward VI., Cranmer and 
 his colleagues sought the counsel of two distinguished Pro- 
 testant divines from Germany, Bucer and Peter Martyr^ who 
 were made by him Professors of Divinity in the two Univer- 
 sities of Oxford and Cambridge. Bucer has left us a volume 
 entitled “ Scripta Anglica^^ being chiefly composed of tracts 
 written by him while he was in England. The most|important 
 of these tracts is his “ Censura ” on the First Book of Edward 
 VI., containing his animadversions on its various parts — in 
 which animadversions his friend, Peter Martyr^ declared his 
 warm concurrence. Now, on the Office of the Visitation of the 
 Sick, containing the form of absolution — “ Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all 
 sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great 
 mercy forgive thee thine offences ; and by His authority com- 
 mitted to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen” — 
 upon this Office, I say, Bucer s remark is, “ This whole Office 
 is composed in the strictest possible conformity to the rule 
 of divine Scripture ” — “ Haec tota caeremonia scripta est ad 
 divinarum Scripturarum regulam quam convenientissime, eo solo 
 excepto quod est annexum de unctione segrotorum ” (p. 489) — 
 a matter with which we have here nothing to do. 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 So much for the unscriptural character of Anglican absolu- 
 tion, of which we so often hear — and of its being retained, only 
 as a concession to the lingering prejudices of a people, just 
 emerging from the darkness of Papal superstition. 
 
 The real truth is, that there has always been an uniform 
 tone of doctrine of the highest authorities, public and private, 
 of our own Church, on this great particular. And even the 
 Sister Church of Ireland, under the influence of the two greatest 
 divines who ever filled the Primate-See of Armagh, Archbishop 
 Usher (whom no one will accuse of taking too high views of the 
 powers of the Christian ministry), and Archbishop Bramhall 
 (at that time Bishop of Derry), asserted the same principle in a 
 form the most authoritative. In the Convocation of 1634, the 
 body of Canons of the Irish Church was framed. The nine- 
 teenth of those Canons contains what follows : — “ The minister 
 of every parish shall, the afternoon before the said administra- 
 tion"' [of the Lord’s Supper] “give warning by the tolling of 
 the bell, or otherwise, to the intent, that if any have any scruple 
 of conscience, or desire the special ministry of reconciliation, 
 he may afford it to those that need it. And to this end, the 
 people are often to be exhorted to enter into a special examina- 
 tion of the state of their own souls ; and finding themselves 
 either extremely dull, or much troubled in mind, they do resort 
 to God’s ministers to receive from them, as well advice and 
 counsel for the quickening of their dead hearts, and the sub- 
 duing of those corruptions whereunto they have been subject ; 
 as the benefit of absolution likewise for the quieting of their con- 
 science by the power of the keys, which Christ hath committed to 
 His ministers for that purposed (The Church of Ireland, 
 therefore, does not assent to your claim for St. Peter, that the 
 keys were committed exclusively to him ; but this by the way.) 
 
 A more full adhesion to the doctrine of our own Prayer 
 Book on this subject, it would not be easy to devise ; I will 
 only remark upon it, that this Irish Canon does, in truth, go 
 much further, than any direction of our Church, in the way of 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 command to the people “finding themselves either extremely 
 dull, or much troubled in mind,” to have recourse to their own 
 minister, thus making it a matter of ordinary parochial work, 
 without allowing to them that power which they would have 
 with us of choosing their minister in making confession and 
 receiving absolution. 
 
 I have thus stated what I believe to be the doctrine of the 
 Church of England on this matter, and I wish my clergy to 
 accept it as an addition to the remarks which I addressed to 
 them in the year 1848, in a republication of the ninth of my 
 “ Letters to Mr. Charles Butler, on his book of the Roman 
 Catholic Church.” That I still adhere, and have never ceased 
 to adhere to the sentiments therein set forth, I thank you 
 heartily for bearing testimony in terms so handsome. 
 
 And here, my dear Sir, I conclude. There are other parts 
 of your Sermon, which might perhaps he a little tempting to 
 one desirous to find fault. I know, however, that you are, in 
 the main, not only a well-meaning, but an able minister of God's 
 word. And if I think, as I have been compelled to say I 
 think, that you have, in the present instance — perhaps hastily — 
 been misled into some un- Catholic and perilous statements, I 
 doubt not, that it is only a generous impulse, to which you have 
 yielded. Above all, I rejoice to know, that you are quite 
 competent to redeem your error, as I now earnestly entreat 
 you to redeem it — by some work more worthy of your talents, 
 your attainments, and your real principles, than is the Sermon 
 on which it has been my painful duty thus to comment. 
 
 I am, ray dear Mr. Dean, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 H. Exeter. 
 
 Very Rev. the Dean of Exeter. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 The Bishop of Exeter to the Rev. G. R. Prynne. 
 
 Dear Sir, Bishopstowe, October 4, 1852. 
 
 When I acknowledged the receipt from you of the West of 
 England Conservative of last week, containing a copy of your 
 “ case,” appended to a report of the recent inquiry, I told you that 
 I had been unable to give it more than a cursory reading — on which 
 reading I added that I was pleased with it. I have now read it 
 again, and with more attention. 
 
 On this second reading, while I do not withdraw my approbation 
 of it in general, I find one passage, on which I think it necessary to 
 remark. It occurs in the second paragraph of the second column 
 in the last page, where you deal with Mr. Nantes’s objection to 
 your assertion, that the Church of England does not discourage the 
 general habit of confession.’* 
 
 You say, It is surely for him to show that the Church of Eng- 
 land does discourage this practice by some authoritative statement 
 in some of her authorised documents.” 
 
 This would, doubtless, avail you in answer to the charge, if it 
 were made a part of a criminal proceeding against you. But in dis- 
 cussing it on the broad grounds of propriety, the answer seems to 
 me by no means satisfactory. Our Church, so far as I recollect, 
 nowhere says anything expressly, which recognises such a practice, 
 whether to encourage or to discourage it. But on the other hand, in 
 the exhortation to be used in giving warning of communion, it 
 assumes that persons in general may be expected to satisfy them- 
 selves of the sincerity and fullness of their repentance, by ‘‘ examin- 
 ing their lives and conversation by the rule of God’s command- 
 ments” — and it is only “ if there be any who cannot, bg this mea7is, 
 quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further counsel and 
 advice,” that the Church recommends special confession to a priest. 
 In short, the Church earnestly impresses on the party the duty of 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 doing all that he can himself in the way of self-examination, self- 
 judgment, self-correction, in order to attain unto ‘‘ repentance not 
 to be repented of” — and it is only when he has himself done all 
 that he can towards quieting his own conscience in vain, that he is 
 instructed to have recourse to private confession and private absolu- 
 tion. In my opinion, this is virtually to discourage the general 
 habit ; for, sucli general habit would seem to show, either that the 
 party adopting it did never honestly and earnestly strive to do all 
 that he can for himself — or that, having once received private abso- 
 lution, he is so unstable, so light-minded, so utterly incapable of all 
 self-control, that, after such absolution, he is continually relapsing 
 into sin — and sin of such malignity, that he cannot of himself attain 
 (by the ordinary grace of Grod]|. to due repentance. Surely we must 
 believe that sucli cases, if there be any such, are very rare. 
 
 I say therefore, now, as I have more than once publicly said 
 before, as well as privately told my candidates for holy orders, that 
 the Church of England appears to me to “ discourage confession as 
 a general habit.” 
 
 You state (at the end of your next paragraph but one) — “ I have 
 invited our people to have recourse to this ministration of our Lord’s 
 most merciful authority, whenever the spiritual necessities of any of 
 tliem shall need it, i?i accordance vjith the advice contained in your 
 Lordship s pastoral letter of last yearJ'^ 
 
 When you thus referred, very correctly, to my advice, as your 
 authority in one particular, I must express my regret that you did 
 not, at the same time, give equal weight to the authority of that 
 same pastoral letter, in the very passage from which you were quot- 
 ing, where it ‘‘ condemned the habit of going to confession as a part 
 of the ordinary discipline of a Christian life.” I even stated in the 
 same place, that I had warned a clergyman, who had himself in- 
 cited a party to have recourse to confession before him, not being 
 within either of the two cases, where it is prescribed in the Book of 
 Common Prayer — I had, I say, warned this clergyman to abstain 
 from a course which seems ill-accordant with the teaching and mind 
 of our Church. In conclusion, I there said, Let me add, that I 
 presume not to interfere with the conscience of any who (to use the 
 words of our first reformed Liturgy) think needful, or convenient, 
 for the quieting of their consciences, particularly to open their sins 
 to the priest at any time. What I deprecate is, that this should be 
 made a regular ohservance’^sWW more that a7iy priest should advise 
 it as suchr 
 
 If you have kept within the plain meaning of this my counsel, 
 you have a right to claim the authority of your Bishop for what you 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 have done — if you have exceeded it, you have not only exceeded, but 
 have run counter to it. 
 
 I shall send a copy of this letter to Mr. Nantes, giving to him, 
 as I give to you, full permission to use it in any way which he may 
 think fit, 
 
 I am, Rev. Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 H. EXETER. 
 
 Ecv. G. R. Prynnc. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 The Rev. G. E. Prynne to the Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 My Lord, St. Peter's, Plymouth, October 6, 1852. 
 
 I beg to acknowledge your Lordship’s letter of the 4tli 
 instant. I believe I may safely say there has been nothing in my 
 practice respecting private confession which is opposed to the 
 opinions expressed in your Lordship’s letter. I conceived my 
 answer to Mr. Nantes was a sufficient one to give to a person bring- 
 ing a charge against me. If Mr. Nantes objected to any statement 
 made by me, he was bound to show grounds of that objection beyond 
 his own private opinion, and it seemed to me that no grounds short 
 of an authoritative statement in the authorised documents of the 
 Church herself would have been sufficient for this purpose. I went 
 on to say, “I can find no such declaration of her mind ; all I can 
 find serves to show me that she leaves her children entirely at 
 liberty to use the means of grace whenever their spiritual necessi- 
 ties require it. There is no prohibition, or shadow of a prohibition, 
 that I know of, to prevent their doing so.” And again, at the end 
 of the paragraph, “ In short, my Lord, I have only meant to assert, 
 for the members of the Church of England, general and absolute 
 freedom of being allowed to unburden their minds to their ministers 
 whenever they desire it for their souls’ good. Such a freedom I do 
 believe to be most in accordance with her spirit.” In this passage, 
 my Lord, I intended to say that the Church of England does not 
 prohibit, or authoritatively exclude, the general habit of confession. 
 I expressly guarded myself by saying that I did not mean to assert 
 that the Church of England recommends confession ordinarily, but 
 was silent about it, and left it to the consciences of individuals. 
 
 E 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 And such has been my practice. I have not taught it as a duty. 
 I have not brought or trained persons to look on it as ‘‘ a regular 
 observance, or a part of the ordinary discipline of a Christian life 
 but, on the other hand, I am not aware of any statement of the 
 Church of England which would justify me, as one of her ministers, 
 in refusing to receive persons who desire, of their own accord, or, I 
 may add, by the advice of their parents or guardians, to come to 
 me regularly for this purpose. I repeat, my Lord, I have not 
 enforced or taught this practice as a part of my ordinary teaching, 
 but I have also not felt myself at liberty to reject those who did 
 think they found it useful as an habitual practice, and desired on 
 tliat account to use it as such. 
 
 I venture respectfully to put this case to your Lordship (which, 
 I may add, is not an imaginary one) : — Supposing a person to 
 come to me, at his own particular request, several times in the year 
 for confession, liave I any authority from the Church of England to 
 refuse to receive that person ? I will further suppose that I fully 
 press upon tiie person the necessity of private self-examination and 
 repentance, but that he still urges that he finds confession a great 
 help and means of grace, and presses on me my obligation to 
 receive him, is it your Lordship’s opinion that I should be 
 authorised by the Church of England (whatever my own private 
 opinions might be) to reject such a person ? 
 
 In submitting this case for your Lordship’s consideration, I 
 would humbly venture to remind your Lordship that there are 
 many persons in the Church of England who deeply value private 
 confession as a means of grace, and who use it regularly as such, 
 and that it would be a great shock to their minds to be deprived of 
 it. For my own part I would not dare to do so, unless I had some 
 most indisputable authority to bear me out in so doing. I would 
 also venture to suggest that the consciences of those who use private 
 confession, and are in the constant habit of that self-examination 
 which it involves, become more alive to the guilt of sin, and that, 
 even if they do not relapse at times into their old sins, they yet 
 look on other minor sins as of a serious nature. There are, my 
 Lord, persons who, from a constant habit of self-examination and 
 self-accusation, find that very frequently their conscience is bur- 
 dened with weighty matters, which bring them under the class 
 specified in the exhortation to communion. Does the Church of 
 England require of her ministers to refuse to this class of persons 
 (and it contains many of her most earnest and spiritual children) 
 what they esteem as so great a means of grace to their souls ? 
 
 With reference to your Lordship’s remarks on my quotation from 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 your Lordship’s pastoral letter of last year, I would humbly beg 
 to observe that, had I been quoting your Lordship’s sentiments as 
 bearing on the subject of private confession generally, I should 
 certainly have thought it my duty fully to have expressed those 
 sentiments, but I was only quoting in support of my argument of 
 the entire liberty which the Church of England gives her children, 
 to use this means of grace whenever their spiritual necessities 
 required it. On this point I trust I was not unfairly claiming your 
 Lordship’s support. 
 
 I have the honour to be 
 Your Lordship’s faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 G. R. PRYNNE. 
 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 The Bishop of Exeter to the Rev. G. R. Prynne. 
 
 Dear Sir, Bishopstowe, October 9, 1852. 
 
 As I do not think that the Church of England prohibits 
 your receiving to confession those who seek it as an habitual prac- 
 tice, I do not presume to prohibit your doing so. 
 
 The Church seems to me to discourage such a practice ; there- 
 fore I should endeavour to dissuade one who came to me in pur- 
 suance of the practice from persisting to desire it. If I had suffi- 
 cient reason to believe that he had not endeavoured honestly and 
 earnestly to quiet his own conscience by self-examination, and other 
 acts of repentance, I should not myself admit him. More than 
 this I must decline saying. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 H. EXETER. 
 
 Rev. G. R. Prynne. 
 
 LONDON : riUNrED BY AY. CLOAVBS AND 3QNS, STAMFORD STREFT. 
 
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