company by company, with modesty and caution, approaching as to the body of the King.

Such is a sample of the method, by which, from the old Liturgies, Dr. Trevern and Mr. Husenbeth would demonstrate, to the hoped for entire satisfaction of the English Laity, the primitive adoration of the consecrated elements.

IV. For this disgraceful exposure, the Bishop of Strasbourg has no one to thank save himself. In the first instance, I might so far comply with Mr. Massingberd's wishes, as to remain politely silent, when I could not honestly commend. But, when my unexampled and (I fear I must confess) even culpable taciturnity produced no better return than the insolent exultation of a fancied triumph over supposed conscious weakness: no person can fairly expect, that, through a romantic and (as I now perceive) altogether fruitless wish to conciliate, I should any longer preserve my originally merciful and somewhat chivalrous silence. Truly, I have small pleasure in the distasteful task of publicly exhibiting the dishonesty of an uncandid and unscrupulous antagonist: but, by the extraordinary folly of Dr Trevern, freedom of choice has not been left to me. He has recklessly courted exposure and he has now abundantly received it.

NUMBER II.

AURICULAR CONFESSION.

AURICULAR Confession to a Priest, the Church of England allows, and in some cases recommends: the Church of Rome not only allows and recommends it; but also,

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as a matter of strict religious obligation, imposes and enforces it.

I. Such being the case, it is the business of Dr. Trevern to shew, not merely The primitive EXISTENCE of sacerdotal auricular Confession, but also The primitive ENFORCEMENT of a periodical auricular Confession, through the medium of which, every mortal sin, even though by reason of its having been secretly committed occasioning no public scandal, and even though committed solely against what we Protestants arrange as the tenth commandment of the Decalogue, is required to be fully stated to a Priest, under the aspect of imperative religious obligation, and with the associated doctrine that any voluntary concealment is nothing less than absolute sacrilege. See Concil. Trident. sess. xiv. c. 5. can. i-xv. and Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 139.

Accordingly, in his zeal to convict the Anglican Church of error, the Bishop of Strasbourg undertakes to perform this arduous task, partly from Scripture, and partly from the evidence of Primitive Antiquity. Discuss. Amic. Lettr. xi. vol. ii. p. 138-203.

1. To discover in Scripture any explicit command either of Christ or of his Apostles, that we should periodically make to a Priest a distinct and particular confession of all our remembered mortal sins under the pain of incurring the guilt of sacrilege by deliberate and voluntary concealment, was obviously a matter altogether impossible. The Bishop, therefore, does not attempt it. Yet, what cannot be proved explicitly, may, he thinks, be proved inductively.

But

The power of the keys, or the right of absolution and retention, he argues, has been given by Christ to his Apostles and their lawfully constituted successors. this power cannot be effectively exercised, without Auricular Confession as practised in the Church of Rome:

because, unless the Priest be made intimately acquainted with the misdeeds of his penitent, he cannot know the actual internal disposition of his soul; and, unless he knows the actual internal disposition of his soul, he cannot tell whether he be a fit subject to receive absolution. Therefore, by a necessary consequence from Holy Scripture, periodical Auricular Confession of our sins to a Priest is imposed upon us as a duty of strict religious obligation.

(1.) With respect to this syllogism, I might well observe, that the doctrine of absolution by a Priest, as now taught in the Latin Church, agrees but very ill with the doctrine maintained by Antiquity.

Nemo se fallat, says the venerable Cyprian even in the middle of the third century; nemo se decipiat. Solus Dominus misereri potest. Veniam peccatis, quæ in ipsum commissa sunt, solus potest ille largiri, qui peccata nostra portavit, qui pro nobis doluit, quem Deus tradidit pro peccatis nostris. Homo Deo esse non potest major: nec remittere aut donare indulgentia sua servus potest, quod in Dominum delicto graviore commissum est: ne adhuc lapso et hoc accedat ad crimen, si nesciat esse prædictum; Maledictus homo, qui spem habet in homine. Dominus orandus est, Dominus nostra satisfactione placandus est; qui negantem negare se dixit, qui omne judicium de Patre solus accepit. Cyprian. de Laps. Oper. vol. i. p. 129.

(2.) Let this, however pass: and, purely for the sake of argument, conceding the propriety of the roman doctrine of positive absolution, rather than enforcing the more seemly doctrine of conditionally declarative absolution, on the part of the Priesthood; let us, even thus, see, how Dr. Trevern's syllogism will support itself.

Now his syllogism undeniably rests altogether upon the position: that A Priest can form no accurate judg

ment of the actual internal disposition of his penitent in regard to sincerity or hypocrisy, unless that penitent shall minutely specify to him, in full circumstantiality, all the recollected sins against the decalogue which he has ever committed:

On this position, the syllogism avowedly depends: and, although the same position is confidently laid down by the Council of Trent, its gross and hopeless absurdity is so enormous, that a mere statement of it is amply sufficient for its full exposure. See Concil. Trident. sess. xiv. c. 5. p. 148, 149.

2. If, however, the ENFORCEMENT of Auricular Confession as practised in the modern Church of Rome cannot be proved from Scripture; Dr. Trevern is at any rate confident, that the primitive Church of Christ is his decided ally.

The true limits of legitimate testimony, as I have already observed, cannot, at the very utmost, be extended beyond the period of the three first centuries. In saying this, I mean not to allow, that Dr. Trevern can prove his point from the practice even of a much later period, and I might well insist upon the speedy abrogation of the novelty of private confession on the part of the Greek Church about the end of the fourth century by reason of its soon experienced grievously immoral consequences : but I simply wish to intimate, that our legitimate inquiries must, on the principles of historic evidence, be confined within those most sufficiently ample boundaries. See Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 19. Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. c. 16.

From the three first centuries, then, Dr. Trevern adduces, in evidence, Clement of Rome, Irenèus, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian.

In pursuance of his own references, I have followed him to all those writers: and the result has been precisely

such, as, from his ordinary loose style of pretended demonstration, might well have been anticipated.

NOT ONE of his alleged witnesses says a single syllable, in regard to the primitive ecclesiastical enforcement of a periodically private and particular confession to a Priest, under the aspect that such a confession is of strict religious obligation and necessity.

(1.) His first witness is the Roman Clement: and his management of that author is perfectly characteristic.

In the passage cited from Clement, he commences his operations with interpolating the word ALL: and then he deliberately argues from his own interpolation; as if Clement had intimated, that we are bound to confess all our sins to a Priest. Yet Clement himself merely says: that We ought to repent of our sins here, because there will be no room for confession and repentance hereafter. Of the duty of universal private confession to a Priest, he absolutely gives not so much as a hint.

Εως ἐσμὲν ἐν τούτῳ τῷ κόσμῳ, ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἃ ἐπράξαμεν πονηρὰ, μετανοήσωμεν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, ἵνα σωθῶμεν ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, ἕως ἔχωμεν καιρὸν μετανοίας. Μετὰ γὰρ τὸ ἐξελθεῖν ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου, οὐκέτι δυνάμεθα ἐκεῖ ἐξομολογήσασθαι ἢ μετανοεῖν ἔτι Clem. Rom. Epist. ad Corinth. ii. § 8.

(2.) His second witness is Irenèus: and, for evidence, he refers us to two several passages in the Work of that Father against Heresies.

The first of these two passages gives us an account of a worthless gnosticising impostor named Marcus, who induced many silly women to join his party, and who then most infamously abused his influence over them: and it finally states (the matter, I suppose, which constitutes Dr. Trevern's facile demonstration), that some of these women, on their repentance, made a full confession