tionem, non est fundatum in sacra scriptura, nec in antiquis sanctis christianis doctoribus." And the 8th; "Summa pœnitentia, optima pœnitentia nova vita.””

A few years after, a public instrument was made by the archbishop and bishops, giving extracts from many books about that time published "in the Englishe tongue, conteyning many detestable errours, and dampnable opynyons." Among them; from the Booke of the wicked Mammon, that " our prelats in synne say they have power." Here the term prelates is perhaps to be understood in its wider and not in those days very unusual sense, of parson or curate. Whether this be so or not, there follow these from 'Improbat con

66

And

The obedience of a chrysten man. fessionem auricularem. f. 83. Every man is a preest, and we nede noon other preest to be a meane." from The revelation of anticriste, “ Nombring of synnes maketh a man a more synner, ye a blasphemer of the name of God." Again; "The most spirituall man of all, if he confesse his synnes to a preest, synneth, for he shulde confesse against his will, for this sentence standeth firme and stable, he that doth a thing against his will, doth it not, and compellid service please not God." From the Exposition into the sevenith chapitre of the firste epistle to the Corinthians; "Thow owest nothinge to God but faith and confession; by confession, I meane not the whispering of synnes into the prests eare, ne yet the confes

34 Wilkins. tom. 3. p. 692.

sion of thy synnes to God, but with Saint Paule, if thow confesse with thy mowthe that Jesus is Christe, and beleve in thy hart that God hath raysed him from dethe, thow shalt be saved; in all other thinges he geveth the libertie after thyne own will, thou mayest do all thinges without all jeopardie of conscience." 35

Once more: in the year 1536, the clergy of the lower house of convocation brought to the upper house a formal complaint of dangerous opinions then taught. Among them, "3. Item, that priests have no more authority to minister sacraments than the laymen have. 26. Item, that confession auricular, absolution, and penance are neither necessary nor profitable in the church of God. 29. Item, that it is sufficient for a man or woman to make their confession to God alone. 32. Item, that it is sufficient that the sinner do say I know myself a sinner. 59. Item, that it is preached, because auricular confession hath brought forth innumerable vices, it is clearly to be taken

CHAPTER V.

HAVE now, it is to be hoped, proceeded so far in this investigation, as justly to be able to call upon the reader to consider what may be concluded from the extracts which he has examined.

Let me assure him, and that no less earnestly than honestly, that I believe those extracts to have been fairly made: I am not aware that any statement has been omitted which would bear upon and influence the decision to which, I suppose, we must come. Whilst I fear that upon the one hand it may seem that there has been a repetition of proof and an accumulation of evidence, yet on the other it could not but be necessary to produce the books which have been quoted, because they contain, undeniably, the received doctrine of the church of England from the 13th to the 16th centuries.

Nor do they merely contain it; for they are the sources to which we must go, if we would learn what that doctrine really and authoritatively was. If there is any dispute or doubt concerning it, in them and from them we must obtain witness of the fact.

By

their aid, moreover, we shall be preserved from consenting idly and hastily to assertions, by whomsoever made, which either by exaggeration would bring false and railing accusations, or, by pretending to explain the truth would in reality deny it.

I shall, therefore, now conclude, that in the year 1547, the doctrine of the church of England regarding Absolution was, that it is a sacrament instituted by our Blessed Lord; that power to administer it was given by Him to His apostles, and in them to all who should be their successors in the holy office of the priesthood; that none except priests can absolve; that in its effects, when duly received, it takes away all guilt of sins whether mortal or venial, (having been mercifully appointed as an especial and sure remedy against them,) and restores the penitent to a state of grace; that as baptism is "prima tabula," so absolution is "secunda tabula post naufragium;" and that as baptism avails to the washing away of original sin, so, after baptism, absolution cleanses from actual sin; that confession to a priest, by word of mouth, as an essential condition, must ordinarily precede absolution; that this confession must distinctly include all remembered deadly sins; that absolution is not to be denied to any one; and not only not denied, but that all persons, of sufficient age, are bound by the law of the Church to confess, in order to be absolved, three times or at least once every year; that the consequences of continued disobedience to this law, would be exclusion during life from participation in the

sacraments and other spiritual privileges of Christian membership, and after death, from burial in consecrated ground and with holy rites; that confession must, nevertheless, be voluntary, even as it must be complete and plain in detail; that the sacrament of the blessed eucharist is not to be received without previous confession and absolution, by any who are in their consciences guilty of mortal sin; that remittance of venial sins and of venial sins alone may be obtained by means of the general public confession and absolution before some of the daily offices, or the liturgy, in the same way as it may be obtained by other pious acts of faith or practice; and, lastly, that under certain rules, requisite to prevent evasion, all persons are at liberty to choose for themselves the priests to whom they will confess.

Nor is it to be forgotten that this doctrine was founded upon the promise and commission given by our Blessed Lord, as recorded by the evangelists, S. Matthew and S. John. "Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." And "When He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."

Such then being the doctrine of the church of England in that year, as to the nature, the essential parts, and the effects of priestly absolution, our next step