ART all that is promised upon our faith must be understood of a XXV. faith so qualified as the gospel represents it; and therefore that cannot be applied to this case, where an unlimited authority is so particularly expressed, that no condition seems to be implied in it. If any conditions are elsewhere laid upon us, in order to our salvation, then, according to their doctrine, we may say that of them which they say of contrition upon this occasion, that they are necessary when we cannot procure the priest's pardon; but that by it the want of them all may be supplied, and that the obligation to them all is superseded by it:* and if any conditions are to be understood as limits upon this power, why are not all the conditions of the gospel, faith, hope, and charity, contrition and new obedience, made necessary, in order to the lawful dispensing of it, as well as confession, attrition, and the doing the penance enjoined? Therefore since no condition is here named as a restraint upon this general power, that is pretended to be given to priests by those words of our Saviour, they must either be understood as simple and unconditional, or they must be limited to all the conditions that are expressed in the gospel; for there is not the colour of a reason to restrain them to some of them, and to leave out the rest: and thus we think we are fully justified by saying, that by these words our Saviour did indeed fully empower the apos

"The absolution of the priest is, according to Trent, of such importance and value, that it can, by some strange process, make attrition contrition, and save a man who has only imperfect repentance, in which there is no love of God. The Lord Jesus Christ says, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish:" Trent says, If ye have even attrition, (i. e. imperfect repentance, arising from base motives, such as fear of hell, &c.) ye shall surely be saved, if only ye can get the priest's absolution. You say, that contrition (perfect repentance) is indispensably necessary to give efficacy to the absolution. How can you assert this, when Trent lays down such soul-destroying doctrine as this, that attrition is sufficient, if the person can get the priest's absolution!!! This is such awful doctrine, that I shall give your own authorities, lest any should conclude that I misrepresent your system. The council of Trent speaks thus :-" Illam vero contritionem imperfectam, quæ attritio dicitur, quoniam vel ex turpitudinis peccati consideratione, vel ex gehennæ et pœnarum metu communiter concipitur, si voluntatem peccandi excludat, cum spe veniæ; declarat non solum non facere hominem hypocritam, et magis peccatorem, verum, etiam donum Dei esse, et Spiritus sancti impulsum, non adhuc quidem inhabitantis, sed tantum moventis, quo penitens adjutus, viam sibi ad justitiam parat. Et quamvis sine sacramento pœnitentiæ per se ad justificationem perducere peccatorem nequeat; tamen eum ad Dei gratiam in sacramento pœnitentiæ impetrandum disponit." Sessio xiv. cap. 4. You must now have another statement of this doctrine, from the "Abridgment of Christian Doctrine" revised by Dr. Doyle. (See the article on penance.) Q. What is attrition? A. It is imperfect contrition, arising from the consideration of the turpitude of sin, or fear of punishment; and if it contain a detestation of sin with the hope of pardon, it is so far from being itself wicked, that though alone it justify not, yet it prepares th way to justification, and disposes us, at least remotely, towards obtaining God's grace in the sacrament. Q. What, if a dying man be in mortal sin, and cannot have a priest? A. Then nothing but perfect contrition will suffice, it being impossible to be saved without the love of God." So that, according to this impious doctrine, the absolution of the priest supplies the place of the love of God, which is lacking in attrition!! Need I say, that the church of England has too much respect for the character of God, and his truth, not to protest loudly against such a system as this?' Page's Letters to a Romih Priest.-[ED.]

tles to publish his gospel to the world, and to declare the ART. terms of salvation, and of obtaining the pardon of sin, in XXV. which they were to be infallibly assisted, so that they could not err in discharging their commission; and the terms of the covenant of grace being thus settled by them, all who were to succeed them were also empowered to go on with the publication of this pardon and of those glad tidings to the world: so that whatsoever they declared in the name of God, conform to the tenor of that which the apostles were to settle, should be always made good. We do also acknowledge, that the pastors of the church have, in the way of censure and government, a ministerial authority to remit or to retain sins, as they are matters of scandal or offence; though that indeed does not seem to be the meaning of those words of our Saviour; and therefore we think that the power of pardoning and retaining is only declaratory, so that all the exercises of it are then only effectual, when the declarations of the pardon are made conform to the conditions of the gospel. This doctrine of ours, how much soever decried of late in the Roman church, as striking at the root of the priestly authority, yet has been maintained by some of their best authors, and some of the greatest of their schoolmen.

Thus we have seen upon what reason it is that we do not conclude from hence, that auricular confession is necessary; in which we think that we are fully confirmed by the practice of many of the ages of the Christian church, which did not understand these words as containing an obligation to secret confession. It is certain, that the practice and tradition of the church must be relied on here, if in any thing, since there was nothing that both clergy and laity were more concerned both to know and to deliver down faithfully, than this, on which the authority of the one, and the salvation of the other, depended so much. Such a point as this could never have been forgot or mistaken; many and clear rules must have been given about it. It is a thing to which human nature has so much repugnancy, that it must, in the first forming of churches, have been infused into them as absolutely necessary in order to pardon and salvation.

A church could not now be formed, according to the doctrine and practice of the church of Rome, without very full and particular instructions, both to priests and people, concerning confession and absolution. It is the most intricate part of their divinity, and that which the clergy must be the most ready at. In opposition to all this, let it be considered, that though there is a great deal said in the New Testament concerning sorrow for sin, repentance, and remission of sins, yet there is not a word said, nor a rule given, concerning confession to be made to a priest, and absolution to be given by him. There is indeed a passage in St. James's Epistle relat- James v. ing to confession; but it is to one another;' not restrained 16.

ART. to the priest; as the word rendered faults seems to signify XXV. those offences by which others are wronged; in which case

confession is a degree of reparation, and so is sometimes necessary: but whatever may be in this, it is certain, that the confession, which is there appointed to be made, is a thing that was to be mutual among Christians; and it is not commanded in order to absolution, but in order to the procuring the intercessions of other good men; and therefore it is added, and pray for one another.' By the words that follow, that ye may be healed,' joined with those that went before concerning the sick, it seems the direction given by St. James belongs principally to sick persons; and the conclusion of the whole period shews, that it relates only to the private prayers of good men for one another; the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much so that this place does not at all belong to auricular confession or absolution.

Nor do there any prints appear, before the apostacies that happened in the persecution of Decius, of the practice even of confessing such heinous sins as had been publicly committed. Then arose the famous contests with the Novatians, concerning the receiving the lapsed into the communion of the church again. It was concluded not to exclude them from the hopes of mercy, or of reconciliation; yet it was resolved not to do that till they had been kept at a distance for some time from the holy communion; at last they were admitted to make their confession, and so they were received to the communion of the church. This time was shortened, and many things were passed over, to such as shewed a deep and sincere repentance; and one of the characters of a true repentance, upon which they were always treated with a great distinction of favour, was, if they came and first accused themselves. This shewed that they were deeply affected with the sense of their sins, when they could not bear the load of them, but became their own accusers, and discovered their sins. There are several canons that make a difference in the degrees and time of the penance, between those who had accused themselves, and those against whom their sins were proved. A great deal of this strain occurs often in the writings of the fathers, which plainly shews that they did not look on the necessity of an enumeration of all their sins as commanded by God; otherwise it would have been enforced with considerations of another nature, than that of shortening their penance.

The first occasion that was given to the church to exercise this discipline, was from the frequent apostacies, into which many had lapsed during the persecutions; and when these went off, another sort of disorders began to break in upon the church, and to defile it. Great numbers followed the example of their princes, and became Christians; but a mixed multitude came among them, so that there were many scan

sione. Mo

dals amongst that body, which had been formerly remarkable ART. for the purity of their morals, and the strictness of their lives. XXV. It was the chief business of all those councils that met in the fourth and fifth centuries, to settle many rules concerning the degrees and time of penance, the censures both of the clergy and laity, the orders of the penitents and the methods of receiving them to the communion of the church. In some of Dallæus those councils they denied reconciliation after some sins, even de Confesto the last, though the general practice was to receive all at rinus de their death; but while they were in a good state of health, Poenitenthey kept them long in penance, in a public separation from tia. the common privileges of Christians, and chiefly from the holy sacrament, and under severe rules, and that for several years, more or fewer, according to the nature of their sins, and the characters of their repentance; of which a free and unextorted confession being one of the chief, this made many prevent that, and come in of their own accord to confess their sins, which was much encouraged and magnified.

Confession was at first made publicly; but the inconveniencies of that appearing, and particularly many of those sins being capital, instead of a public, there was a private confession practised. The bishops either attended upon these themselves, or they appointed a penitentiary priest to receive them all was in order to the executing the canons, and for keeping up the discipline of the church. Bishops were warranted by the council of Nice to excuse the severity of the canons, as the occasion should require. The penitents went through the penance imposed, which was done publicly; the separation and penance being visible, even when the sin was kept secret; and when the time of the penance was finished, they received the penitents by prayer and imposition of hands, into the communion of the church, and so they were received. This was all the absolution that was known during the first six centuries.

1. v. c. 19.

Penitents were enjoined to publish such of their secret sins, as the penitentiary priest did prescribe. This happened to give great scandal at Constantinople, when Nectarius was Socr. Hist. bishop there; for a woman being in a course of penance, confessed publicly that she had been guilty of adultery, committed with a deacon in the church. It seems, by the relation that the historian gives of this matter, that she went beyond the injunction given her; but whether the fault was in her, or in the penitentiary priest, this gave such offence, that Nectarius broke that custom. And Chrysostom, who came soon Thirteen after him to that see, speaks very fully against secret confes- passages sion, and advises Christians to confess only to God; yet the out of him practice of secret confession was kept up elsewhere. But it explained appears by a vast number of citations from the fathers, both by Daille in different ages, and in the different corners of the church, de Conf. that though they pressed confession much, and magnified the

cited and

I. iv. c. 25.

XXV.

ART. value of it highly, yet they never urged it as necessary to the pardon of sin, or as a sacrament; they only pressed it as a mean to complete the repentance, and to give the sinner an interest in the prayers of the church. This may be positively affirmed concerning all the quotations that are brought in this matter, to prove that auricular confession is necessary in order to the priest's pardon, and that it is founded on those words of Christ, Whose sins ye remit,' &c. that they prove quite the contrary; that the fathers had not that sense of it, but considered it, either as a mean to help the completing of repentance, or as a mean to maintain the purity of the Christian church, and the rigour of discipline.

In the fifth century a practice begun, which was no small step to the ruin of the order of the church. Penitents were suffered, instead of the public penance that had been formerly enjoined, to do it secretly in some monastery, or in any other private place, in the presence of a few good men, and that at the discretion of the bishop, or the confessor; at the end of which, absolution was given in secret. This was done to draw what professions of repentance they could from such persons who would not submit to settled rules: this temper was found neither to lose them quite, nor to let their sins pass without any censure. But in the seventh century, all public penance for secret sins was taken quite away. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, is reckoned the first of all the bishops of the western church that did quite take away all public penance for secret sins.

Another piece of the ancient severity was also slackened, for they had never allowed penance to men that had relapsed into any sin; though they did not cut them off from all hope of the mercy of God, yet they never gave a second absolution to the relapse. This the church of Rome has still kept up in one point, which is heresy; a relapse being delivered to the secular arm, without admitting him to penance. The ancients did indeed admit such to penance, but they never reconciled them. Yet in the decay of discipline, absolution came to be granted to the relapse, as well as to him that had sinned but

once.

About the end of the eighth century, the commutation of penance began; and, instead of the ancient severities, vocal prayers came to be all that was enjoined; so many Paters stood for so many days of fasting, and the rich were admitted to buy off their penance under the decenter name of giving alms. The getting many masses to be said, was thought a devotion by which God was so much honoured, that the commuting penance for masses was much practised. Pilgrimages and wars came on afterwards; and in the twelfth century, the trade was set up of selling indulgences. By this it appears, that confession came by several steps into the church; that in the first ages it was not heard of; that the apostacies in time