ducements, and besides was greatly eased by the good construction which the charity of those times gave to such actions, wherein men's piety, and voluntary care to be reconciled to God, did purchase them much more love than their faults (the testimonies of common frailty) were able to procure disgrace, they made it not nice to use some one of the ministers of God, by whom the rest might take notice of their faults, prescribe them convenient remedies, and in the end, after public confession, all join in prayer unto God for them. The first beginner of this custom had the more followers by means of that special favour which always was with good consideration showed towards voluntary penitents above the rest. But as professors of Christian belief grew more in number, so they waxed worse: when kings and princes had submitted their dominions to the sceptre of Jesus Christ, by means whereof persecution ceasing, the church immediately became subject to those evils which peace and security bringeth forth: there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune, but every where schisms, discords, dissensions amongst men, conventicles of heretics, bent more vehemently against the sounder and better sort than very infidels and heathens themselves; faults not corrected in charity, but noted with delight, and kept for malice to use when the deadliest opportunities should be offered. Whereupon, forasmuch as public confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to

the safety of well-minded men, and in divers respects advantageous to the enemies of God's church, it seemed first unto some, and afterwards generally requisite, that voluntary penitents should surcease from open confession. Instead whereof, when once private and secret confession had taken place with the Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance till the Lateran Council had decreed that all men, once in a year at the least, should confess themselves to the priest. So that being a thing thus made general and necessary, the next degree of estimation whereinto it grew, was to be honoured and lifted up to the nature of a sacrament; that as Christ did institute baptism to give life, and the eucharist to nourish life, so penitence might be thought a sacrament to recover life, and confession a part of the sacrament.” *

Auricular confession of sin to a priest, considered and enjoined by the church of Rome as an essential part of the sacrament of penance, is attempted to be established from such passages of holy Scripture as the following:-" Confess your faults one to another." (James v. 16.) "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." (1 John i. 9.) In the latter passage, the confession of sin is not to man, but to God, who alone has power to forgive sin. In the former passage, the duty of faithful penitents towards each other, is enjoined; there is nothing in the words to

* Ecclesiastical Polity, book vi.

sanction auricular confession, as commanded by the church of Rome. The following remarks on this passage in the Homily of Repentance, contain the protest of the church of England against the doctrine of auricular confession :

"The true meaning of it ('confess your faults one to another,') is, that the faithful ought to acknowledge their offences, whereby some hatred, rancour, grudge, or malice, have arisen or grown among them one to another, that a brotherly reconciliation may be had, without the which nothing that we do can be acceptable unto God; as our Saviour Jesus Christ doth witness himself, saying,

When thou offerest thine offering at the altar, if thou rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thine offering, and go and be reconciled: and when thou art reconciled, come and offer thine offering.' (Matt. v. 23, 24.) It may also be thus taken, that we ought to confess our weakness and infirmities one to another, to the end that, knowing each other's frailness, we may the more earnestly pray together unto Almighty God, our heavenly Father, that he will vouchsafe to pardon us our infirmities, for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, and not to impute them unto us, when he shall render to every man according to his works. And whereas the adversaries go about to wrest this place, for to maintain their auricular confession withal, they are greatly deceived themselves, and do shamefully deceive others: for if this

text ought to be understood of auricular confession, then the priests are as much bound to confess themselves unto the lay people, as the lay people are bound to confess themselves unto them. And if to pray is to absolve, then the laity by this place, hath as great authority to absolve the priests, as the priests have to absolve the laity," &c.

Bishop Jewel, in his Treatise on the Sacraments, not only proves that the practice of auricular confession, as enjoined by the church of Rome, has no foundation in holy Scripture, but that it was unknown in the early and best ages of the Christian church. "That the priests," he says, "should hear the private confessions of the people, and listen to their whisperings; that every man should be bound to their auricular confession, it is no commandment or ordinance of God. It is devised and established by men, and was lately confirmed by Innocent the Third. The church of God, in the time of our elder fathers, was not tied to any such necessity.

Chrysostom says, I will thee not to confess thy sins to thy fellow-servant-(that is, to the priest)--confess them unto God that may heal them.' Again he saith, Examine thy sins in thy heart within thee-let this judgment be without witness-let God only see thee making thy confession.' And again, I say not to thee, that thou openly show forth thyself, nor that thou accuse thyself in the presence of others; but I will have

thee obey God, which saith, disclose thy ways unto the Lord.'

"Likewise St. Augustine- What have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions, as if they could heal all my wounds or diseases? They be a curious sort, in searching out the life of others, and slothful in correcting their own life.' St. Ambrose-The tear washeth away that of fence which shame would not suffer to confess in speech.'

"The church of God in Greece never received it. And Erasmus witnesseth, it was not used in the time of St. Jerome It appeareth, that in the time of St Jerome,' (which was four hundred years after Christ,) secret confession of sins was not yet ordained.' And Beatus Rheanus, a man of great reading, saith, Tertullian speaketh nothing of this secret confession of sins, and we read not anywhere that it was commanded in times past.' By these testimonies of Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, and by the observation of Erasmus and Rheanus, it may appear that this secret confession in the ear of the priest hath not been taken to be necessary, and that it is not of God's determinate appointment, but an ordinance of man."

The demoralizing tendency of auricular confession, as enjoined and practised by the church of Rome, it would be improper here particularly to The full and entire disclosure of all sins to the priest, insisted on, cannot but prove the source

state.