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In like manner, where the same Semeca holdeth it to be the better opinion, that confession was 85 ordained by a certain tradition of the universal Church, rather than by the authority of the new or old Testament," and inferreth thereupon, that it is necessary among the Latins, but "not among the Greeks, because that tradition did not spread to them;" Friar Manrique commandeth all that passage to be blotted out; but the Roman correctors clap this note upon the margin for an antidote: 87 Nay, confession was ordained by our Lord, and by God's law is necessary to all that fall into mortal sin after baptism, as well Greeks as Latins." And for this they quote only the 14th Session of the Council of Trent; where that opinion is accursed in us, which was held two or three hundred years ago by the men of their own religion, among whom 8 Michael of Bononia, who was prior general of the order of the Carmelites in the days of Pope Urban the Sixth, doth conclude strongly out of their own received grounds, "that confession is not necessary for the obtaining of the pardon of our sin." And Panormitan, the great canonist, professeth that the opinion of Semeca doth much please him, which referreth the original of confession to a general tradition of the Church; "because," saith he, "there is not any clear authority which sheweth that God or Christ did clearly ordain that confession should be made unto a priest." Yea, " 90 all the canonists, following their first interpreter, say that confession was brought in only by the law of the Church," and not by any divine precept, if we will believe Maldonat; who addeth notwithstanding, that "this

89

85 Melius dicitur eam institutam fuisse a quadam universalis ecclesiæ traditione, potius quam ex novi vel veteris Testamenti auctoritate. Gloss. de Pœnitent. init. Distinct. v. In Pænitentia.

86 Ergo necessaria est confessio in mortalibus apud nos, apud Græcos non, quia non emanavit apud illos traditio talis. Ibid.

87 Imo confessio est instituta a Domino, et est omnibus post baptismum lapsis in mortale peccatum, tam Græcis quam Latinis, jure divino necessaria. Rom. Correct. ibid. in marg.

88 Michael Angrianus in Psal. xxix.
39 Multum mihi placet illa opinio, quia

non est aliqua auctoritas aperta quæ innuat Deum seu Christum aperte instituisse confessionem fiendam sacerdoti. Panorm. in v. Decretal. de Pœnitent. et Remiss. cap. 12. Omnis utriusque, sect. 18.

90 Omnes juris pontificii periti, secuti primum suum interpretem, dicunt confessionem tantum esse introductam jure ecclesiastico. Maldon. Disp. de Sacrament. Tom. II. de Confess. Orig. cap. 2.

91 Sed tamen hæc opinio aut jam declarata est satis tanquam hæresis ab ecclesia, aut faceret ecclesia operæ pretium, si declararet esse hæresim. Id. ibid. de Præcepto Confess. cap. 3.

opinion is either already sufficiently declared by the Church to be heresy, or that the Church should do well if it did declare it to be heresy."

And we find indeed, that in the year of our Lord 1479, which was 34 years after the death of Panormitan, by a special commission directed from Pope Sixtus the Fourth unto Alfonsus Carillus, Archbishop of Toledo, one Petrus Oxomensis, Professor of Divinity in the University of Salamanca, was driven to abjure 92 this conclusion, which he had before delivered as agreeable to the common opinion of the doctors, "that confession of sins in particular was grounded upon some statute of the universal Church, and not upon divine right." And when learned men for all this would not take warning, but would needs be meddling again with that which the Popish Clergy could not endure should be touched, (as Johannes de Selva, among others, in the end of his treatise de Jurejurando, Erasmus in divers of his works, and Beatus Rhenanus in his argument upon Tertullian's book de Pœnitentia,) the Fathers of Trent, within 72 years after that, conspired together to stop all men's mouths with 93an anathema, that should deny sacramental confession to be of divine institution, or to be necessary unto salvation. And so we are come to an end of that point.

OF THE PRIEST'S POWER TO FORGIVE SINS.

FROM Confession we are now to proceed unto Absolution, which it were pity this man should receive before he made confession of the open wrong he hath here done, in charging us to deny" that priests have power to forgive sins." Whereas the very formal words which our Church requireth to be used in the ordination of a minister, are these: "Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." And therefore, if this

* Quod confessio de peccatis in specie fuerit ex aliquo statuto universalis ecclesiæ, non de jure divino. Congregat. Complutens. sub Alfonso Carillo, apud

Carranzam in summa Concil. sub Sixto

IV.

93 Concil. Trident. Sess. XIV. Can. 6 The Form of Ordering of Priests.

be all the matter, the Fathers and we shall agree well enough; howsoever this make-bate would fain put friends together by the ears, where there is no occasion at all of quarrel. For we acknowledge most willingly, that the principal part of the priest's ministry is exercised in the matter of "forgiveness of sins;" the question only is of the manner, how this part of their function is executed by them, and of the bounds and limits thereof, which the Pope and his clergy, for their own advantage, have enlarged beyond all measure of truth and reason.

That we may therefore give unto the priest the things that are the priest's, and to God the things that are God's, and not communicate unto any creature the power that properly belongeth to the Creator, who will not give his glory unto another; we must in the first place lay this down for a sure ground, that to forgive sins properly, directly, and absolutely, is a privilege only appertaining unto the Most High. I, saith he of himself, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah XLiii. 25. Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? saith the prophet Micah, vii. 18; which in effect is the same with that of the scribes, Mark ii. 7, and Luke v. 21: Who can forgive sins but God alone? And therefore, when David saith unto God, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, Psalm xxxii. 5, Gregory, surnamed the Great, the first Bishop of Rome of that name, thought this to be a sound paraphrase of his words, “ 3 Thou, who alone sparest, who alone forgivest sins. For who can forgive sins but God alone?" He did not imagine that he had committed any great error in subscribing thus simply unto that sentence of the scribes; and little dreamed that any petty doctors afterwards would arise in Rome or Rheims, who would tell us a fair tale, that "the faithless Jews thought as heretics now-a-days, that to forgive sins was so proper to God, that it could not be communicated unto man;" and that "true believers refer this to the increase

2 Esai. XLviii. 11.

3 Tu, qui solus parcis, qui solus peccata dimittis. Quis enim potest peccata dimittere, nisi solus Deus? Gregor. Exposit. 11. Psalmi Pœnitential.

3

Rhemists, Annot. in Matt. ix. 5.

Richard Hopkins, in the Memorial of a Christ. Life, p. 179. edit. ann. 1612.

of God's honour, which miscreant Jews and heretics do account blasphemy against God and injurious to his majesty." Whereas in truth the faithlessness of the Jews consisted in the application of this sentence against our Saviour Christ, whom they did not acknowledge to be God; as the senselessness of these Romanists in denying of the axiom itself.

But the world is come unto a good pass, when we must be accounted "heretics now-a-days," and consorted with "miscreant Jews," for holding the selfsame thing that the Fathers of the ancient Church delivered as a most certain truth, whensoever they had any occasion to treat of this part of the history of the Gospel. Old Irenæus telleth us, that our Saviour in this place, "forgiving sins did both cure the man, and manifestly discover who he was. For if none," saith he, "can forgive sins but God alone, and our Lord did forgive them, and cured men, it is manifest that he was the Word of God made the Son of man; and that as man he is touched with compassion of us, as God he hath mercy on us, and forgiveth us our debts which we do owe unto our Maker." Tertullian saith that "when the Jews, beholding only his humanity, and not being yet certain of his Deity, did deservedly reason that a man could not forgive sins, but God alone," he, by answering of them, that "the Son of man had authority to forgive sins,” would by this remission of sins have them call to mind, that he was "that only Son of man prophesied of in Daniel, who received power of judging, and thereby also of forgiving of sins." Dan. vii. 13, 14. St Hilary, commenting upon the ninth of Matthew, writeth thus: "It moveth the scribes

Peccata igitur remittens, hominem quidem curavit, semetipsum autem manifeste ostendit quis esset. Si enim nemo potest remittere peccata, nisi solus Deus, remittebat autem hæc Dominus, et curabat homines; manifestum est, quoniam ipse erat Verbum Dei Filius hominis factus,&c. et quomodo homo compassus est nobis, tanquam Deus misereatur nostri, et remittat nobis debita nostra, quæ factori nostro debemus Deo. Irenæus advers. Hæres. lib. v. cap. 17.

* Nam cum Judæi, solummodo hominem ejus intuentes, nec dum et Deum certi,

qua Dei quoque filium, merito retractarent, non posse hominem delicta dimittere, sed Deum solum, &c. Tertullian. lib. iv. advers. Marcion. cap. 10.

6 Illum scilicet solum filium hominis apud Danielis Prophetiam, consecutum judicandi potestatem, ac per eam utique et dimittendi delicta. Id. ibid.

9 Movet scribas, remissum ab homine peccatum; (hominem enim tantum in Jesu Christo contuebantur;) et remissum ab eo, quod lex laxare non poterat. Fides enim sola justificat. Deinde murmurationem eorum Dominus introspicit, dicit

that sin should be forgiven by a man; (for they beheld a man only in Jesus Christ;) and that to be forgiven by him, which the law could not release: for it is faith only that justifieth. Afterward the Lord looketh into their murmuring, and saith, that it is an easy thing for the Son, of man upon earth to forgive sins. For it is true, none can forgive sins but God alone: therefore he who remitteth is God, because none remitteth but God. God remaining in man, performed this cure upon man." St Jerome thus: 10 We read that God saith in the prophet, I am he that blotteth out thine iniquities. Consequently therefore the scribes, because they thought him to be a man, and did not understand the words of God, accuse him of blasphemy. But the Lord, seeing their thoughts, sheweth himself to be God, who is able to know the secrets of the heart; and holding his peace, after a sort speaketh: By the same majesty and power wherewith I behold your thoughts, I am able also to forgive sins unto men." Or, as Euthymius expresseth it in his commentaries upon the same place: "In truth, none can forgive sins but one, who beholdeth the thoughts of men." St Chrysostom likewise, in his sermons upon the same, sheweth that Christ here declared himself to be God, equal unto the Father; and that if he had not been equal unto the Father, he would have said, "Why do you attribute unto me an unfitting opinion? I am far from that power." To the same effect also writeth Christianus Druthmarus, Paschasius Radbertus, and Walafridus Strabus in the ordinary gloss upon the same place of St Matthew;

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que facile esse filio hominis in terra peccata dimittere. Verum enim, nemo potest dimittere peccata, nisi solus Deus : ergo qui remittit Deus est, quia nemo remittit nisi Deus. Deus in homine manens curationem homini præstabat. Hilar. in Matth. Canon. 8.

10 Legimus in propheta dicentem Deum, Ego sum qui deleo iniquitates tuas. Consequenter ergo scribæ, quia hominem putabant, et verba Dei non intelligebant, arguunt eum blasphemiæ. Sed Dominus videns cogitationes eorum, ostendit se Deum, qui possit cordis occulta cognoscere; et quodammodo tacens loquitur,

Eadem majestate et potentia, qua cogitationes vestras intueor, possum et hominibus peccata dimittere. Hieron. lib. i. Commentar. in Matt. ix.

11 Vere nullus potest remittere peccata, nisi unus, qui intuetur cogitationes hominum. Euthym. cap. 13. in Matt.

12 Εἰ μὴ ἴσος ἦν, ἐχρῆν εἰπεῖν, Τί μοι προσάπτετε μὴ προσήκουσαν ὑπόληψιν; πόῤῥω ταύτης ἐγὼ τῆς δυνάμεως. Chrysost. in Matt. ix. Homil. XXIX. Græc. xxx. Latin. Vide etiam Basilium, lib. v. contra Eunomium, p. 113. edit. GræcoLatin.

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