66 so that this knowledge is in him as if it was not in him. Can one imagine any thing more charitable and more gentle ? Nevertheless, the corruption of man is such that he finds this a hard law, and it is one of the principal reasons which have made a great part of Europe revolt against the church *." You have heard the great thinker of modern times; let us now attend to the philosophy of the middle ages. "Silence respecting sin," says the Master of the Sentences, "arises from pride of heart. For a man wishes not to confess his sin in order that he may not be reputed externally such as he exhibits himself in the sight of God, which desire springs from the fountain of pride. For it is pride in a sinner to wish to be esteemed just, and it is hypocrisy to palliate or deny our sin like our first parents, or like Cain to bury it in silence. Now where there is pride and hypocrisy there can be no humility, and without humility there is no forgiveness. Therefore, where there is silence respecting sin there can be no hope of pardon. Here then," he continues, we see how detestable is the silence of sin, and how necessary is confession, which is the evidence of a conscience fearing God; for he who fears the judgment of God does not blush to confess. Perfect fear dissolves all shame. The confession of sin has shame, and that shame is a heavy punishment: and for this reason we are commanded to confess, that we may suffer shame, for this is part of the divine judgment +." Thus the words of St. John, beginning with "if we confess our sins," were not understood as implying merely, "If we say that we are sinners generally with all the world," but as teaching the necessity of suffering the shame and humiliation of confessing one's personal particular sins; nor was there found any one formerly to maintain that this could be an immoral shame which would injure rather than repair the soul's purity. That extreme horror on finding that one has been suspected of crime, which Tieck's hero evinces in his conversation with Balthasar, only proved in fact an unilluminated heart: moreover, this overstrained and false honour reveals its own weakness, for by its very indignation it evinces its conviction that the fall was possible. It is • Pensees, I. Partie, Art. V. + Lib. IV. Distinct. 18, 19. ‡ 1 Joan. I. 9. worthy of remark, that while the church inflicted penance on all who ever made mention of expiated sins,—for among the penitential canons of the rule of St. Columban, we read, "He who relates a sin already expiated shall fast on bread and water for a day *,"—the very men who denounced the act of humility that she imposed as injurious, made no scruple not only as we before observed, in resting in self-contemplation, but also in confessing the sins of their past life; or rather exulted in being able to recall the remembrance of them, disclosing them in detail with effrontery: their own retrospective narration differing from the confession which they renounced and stigmatised, only in the circumstance that their's was made in defiance of the law of God, in hardened impenitence insensible to shame. "O fearful thought!" cries S. John Climachus, "there are moments of delirium in the career of sin, when man fears not God, esteems as nothing the memory of eternal punishment, execrates prayer, looks at the relics of the dead as if they were senseless stones t." True, indeed; but what is it to reflect that in consequence of a new instruction, widely imparted and legally established in some places, this is the case with men now, not during moments of delirium, for which they might repent and make amends, but throughout their whole lives, which pass in an uninterrupted career of self-esteem and congratulation? To the fundamental objection of the moderns, the best mode of reply would be simply to relate in the clear and precise language of the middle ages, what was the Catholic doctrine. Taking, then, Hugo of St. Victor for their representative, let us hear what he says respecting sacerdotal absolution. "Solus Deus peccata dimittit; yet authorities have that power by which priests forgive sins, and that by which God forgives them. But priests are said to forgive sins, because they administer the sacraments in which, and by which, sins are by the divine authority, forgiven †." When it was said that the form of absolution which had been in use thirty years before was deprecatory, and that William of Auxerre, William of Paris, and cardinal Hugo thought that this was the only ancient form, S. Tho Bibliothe. M. Patrum, Tom. XII. 2. + Grad. XV. Hugo de S. Vict. de Ecclesiaticis Officiis, Lib. I. cap. 25. mas Aquinas replied, that "he did not know whether this were true or not; but in any case no authority of antiquity could do prejudice to the words of our Lord, Whatever you shall bind on earth." " Thus instead of being tempted to enter with them upon subtle, antiquarian investigations, he embraced the spirit of antiquity. It is clear, however, from the Roman council under pope Zacharia, that the form of the sacrament of confession was then similar to what it is at present*. Strictly judicial is the sacerdotal office, so that with accurate precision has the church retained the name of Basilica, which signified that upper part of the forum, where justice was administered to the people+. The world, which instigates men to acts of injustice, is apt to suggest afterwards that the assurance of divine forgiveness is ungrounded and prejudicial. The modern philosopher holds language in regard to him who has been loosed by sacerdotal absolution, which might remind one of the fearful strife which Buonconte describes to Dante. "Me God's angel took, Whilst he of hell exclaim'd: 'O thou from heav'n! For one poor tear t."" But the wisdom of the ages of faith does not yield to such a cry as this. And in fact, there was no error which struck more at the root of Catholic manners, than the despair which led to it. Every man who hath rebellious proved to the law of heaven's justice, might say, like Exton, after murdering Richard the Second, "For now the devil that told me I did well, Says, that this deed is chronicled in hell." Such accusation is heard in the hearts of all who are conscious of guilt, without knowing how to escape from it. In this mental torment steeped, there is what Novalis remarks, in the greatest physical pain, a paralysis of susceptibility, than which no disposition is more easily embraced. Man then stands as a destructive power. * Mabil. Præfat. in III. Sæcul. Benedict, §. 6. Alone, unconnected with the rest of the world, he feels himself almighty, and has for principle the hatred of men and of God. Weary at length of sitting like the sullen Achilles, rotov äxdos ápoúpnst, a state equally obnoxious both to nature and grace,-bent on destruction, and yet undetermined what object to select, stung with sudden wrath, he turns his fury inward on himself, and joins the wretched band, whom, now more than ever numerous are found; for without descending to the regions of the dead, we can daily behold what Dante witnesseth, that "The damned to o'erpass the river are not loth; For so heaven's justice goads them on, that fear Thus he makes that dismal choice to which the heathens devoted their enemies, as in the Virgilian line, "Di meliora piis, erroremque hostibus illum §." How many men in our age resemble that eternal wanderer whose sorrows have been described in the legendary songs of every people, and whom a modern author has found so apt a subject for the wild poesy in which his genius takes delight. Ah, could the internal language of conscience, maintaining a continued conversation with these wretched victims, be heard by others, how often would be repeated the fearful dialogue between Ahasuerus and the fabled angel. "I feel a poison on my lips which I drink at every breath. Will it be as bitter tomorrow? More bitter to-morrow than yesterday, in the evening than the morning; more bitter at the bottom of thy flask than at the brim; more bitter in thy lodging than on thy journey, on thy journey than on thy departure; more bitter in the star than in the tempest; more bitter than in the star and the tempest, on the lips and in the eyes of thy host. Where goest thou? To my house. Thy gate is shut, thou shalt never pass it more. I have not yet taken my sandals, nor my belt, nor my cloak. Thou hast no need of them. Thou shalt have for coat of mail thy tissue of sorrows, and for cloak, the wind, the snow, and the rain of an eternal cloud. I know not the road. Thou shalt follow the track of the cranes across * Schriften. II. 299. + II. XVIII. 104. the sky; thou shalt walk on thorns. The gates of the city shall say to thee farther; and the river, by the banks of which thou wouldst sit down, shall say farther, farther, to the sea, and the sea shall say to thee, farther, farther. Art thou not the eternal wanderer who shall have neither sleep nor rest, who shall never see the temple of his vow till the dead shall show thee the way to the last judgment in the valley of Josaphat?" These writers fable not. This echo, this voice of the mountain, this tradition of the sentence of Golgotha, depart, depart, farther on, farther on, pursues every soul of man that doeth evil; vainly does the sinner seek to shake from his head this black crown of cares. He turns to every man but to him by whom he could be delivered, and asks, "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; He can describe the evil well, though he disdains to apply to Him who could remove it; disdains, I say, for remark here that it was not with the medicinal lore of the church, as with the remedies of subtle investigators of nature, the secret of which was limited to a few. For the soul's health, the most obscure and ignorant knew or might have known where to apply in time of need, as the chamois-hunter in Manfred, where he says to that dark wanderer, "Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin, Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet— Do you ask where are they found? Enter any of our churches, and there you will find them, like their divine Master on the mountain, seated waiting for you. Truly the view of a confessional, which excites the derision of the modern sophists, is enough to bring before the mind's eye of the faithful, Christ and the beatitude of heaven. He taught them seated on the mountain, to show, as St. * Manfred, Act II. |