that a presbyter might do this, as well as baptize or offer at ART. the altar. But pope Nicholas, with the confidence that was XXV. often assumed by that see upon as bad grounds, did affirm, In Decr. that this had never been allowed of. And upon this many of Con. Flothe Latins did, in the progress of their disputes with the rent. Greeks, say, that they had no confirmation. This has been more enlarged on, than was necessary by the designed shortness of this work, because all those of the Roman communion among us have now no confirmation, unless a bishop happens to come amongst them. And therefore it is now a common doctrine among them, that though confirmation is a sacrament, yet it is not necessary. About this there were fierce disputes among them about sixty years ago, whether it was necessary for them to have a bishop here to confirm, according to the ancient custom, or not. The Jesuits, who had no mind to be under any authority but their own, opposed it; for the bishop being by pope Eugenius declared to be the ordinary minister of it, from thence it was inferred, that a bishop was not simply necessary. This was much censured by some of the Gallican church. If confirmation were considered only as an ecclesiastical rite, we could not dispute the power of the church about it; but we cannot allow that a sacrament should be thus within the power of the church; or that a new function of consecrating oil, without applying it, distinct from confirmation, and yet necessary to the very essence of it, could have been set up by the power of the church; for if sacraments are federal conveyances of grace, they must be continued according to their first institution, the grace of God being only tied to the actions with which it is promised. We go next to the second of the sacraments here rejected, which is Penance, that is reckoned the fourth in order among them. Penance, or penitence, is formed from the Latin translation of a Greek word that signifies a change or renovation of mind; which Christ has made a necessary condition of the new covenant. It consists in several acts; by all which, when joined together, and producing this real change, we become true penitents, and have a right to the remission of sins, which is in the New Testament often joined with repentance, and is its certain consequent. The first act of this repentance is, confession to God, before whom we must humble ourselves, and confess our sins to him; upon which we believe that he is 1 John i. 9. faithful,' and true to his promises, and 'just to forgive us our sins; and if we have wronged others, or have given public offence to the body, or church to which we belong, we ought to confess our faults to them likewise; and as a mean to quiet James v. men's consciences, to direct them to complete their repentance, and to make them more humble and ashamed of their sins, we advise them to use secret confession to their priest, 16. ART. or to any other minister of God's word; leaving this matter XXV. wholly to their discretion.* When these acts of sorrow have had their due effect, in reforming the natures and lives of sinners, then their sins are forgiven them in order to which, we do teach them to pray much, to give alms according to their capacity, and to fast as often as their health and circumstances will admit of; and most indispensably to restore or repair, as they find they have sinned against others. And as we teach them thus to look back on what is past, with a deep and hearty sorrow, and a profound shame, so we charge them to look chiefly forward, not thinking that any acts with relation to what is past can, as it were, by an account or compensation, free us from the guilt of our former sins, unless we amend our lives and change our tempers for the future; the great design of repentance being to make us like God, pure and holy as he is. Upon such a repentance sincerely begun and honestly pursued, we do in general, as the heralds of God's mercy, and the ministers of his gospel, pronounce to our people daily, the offers that are made us of mercy and pardon by Christ Jesus. This we do in our daily service, and in a more peculiar manner before we She The church of England commands confession to be made only to God. allows or recommends to the sick a confession of those things that afflict their minds, to their ministers, in order to obtain advice or consolation.—Is this the doctrine you 'are sworn to teach? Far from it. Must I then, besides exposing your sophistry, correct your ignorance of your own doctrines, by stating them from your (pretended) infallible councils? The TRENT DOCTRINE is, that by the bare receiving of the sacraments grace is conferred. (See council of Trent, sessio vii. canon viii.) Confession you make part of one of your new sacraments, viz. of the sacrament of penance, as you call it, perverting the scripture where the word is repentance, and not penance, although you also translate the word repentance as we do, when it suits your purpose. (See Acts v. 31, Rhemish Testament.) You make confession, which only consists of words, the matter of your new sacrament!" Sunt autem quasi materia hujus sacramenti ipsius pænitentis actus, nempe contritio, confessio et satisfactio." (Council of Trent, sessio xiv. cap. 3.) Confession, according to TRENT, is part of the sacrament of penance, by which grace is conferred "ex opere operato." You have then not only recommended confession to the minister or priest, but commanded, under pain of being accursed, secret or auricular confession to be made at stated times-not to Gon, as we say, but unto the priest-not in order to obtain advice, as we say, but in order to obtain grace and absolution!! The question then is, not whether it be adviseable to make confession to the minister of those things that afflict our minds, in order to obtain advice, but whether to confess all our greater sins, and all that upon strict inquiry we remember, not to God, as we admit, but to a priest, be necessary to salvation. You assert that it is necessary to salvation; this the church of England denies; and protests against your unscriptural domination over the consciences and souls of men. The council of Trent (sessio xiv. can. 6, 7, 8.) decrees, "that to confess all and every mortal sin, which after diligent inquiry we remember, and every evil thought or desire, and the circumstances that change the nature of the sin," is necessary to salvation, and of divine institution, and whosoever denies this, is to be accursed! And that all is to be done according to the constitution of the great council of Lateran. The order of which council was, that all persons of years of discretion should confess their sins once at least every year to their own priest, or with his leave to another priest; otherwise, when living, they were to be driven from entrance into the church, and when dead, they were to have no Christian burial. Now how do you support this unscriptural tyranny over the consciences and souls of men? When, and where, was such a system as this of Trent and Lateran instituted by CHRIST, or commanded, or practised, by the Apostles? Puge's Letters to a Romish Priest.—[ED.] go to the holy communion. We do also, as we are a body that ART. them, and then we, as the officers of the church, authorized The matter that is assigned in the church of Rome, are the acts of the penitent; his confession by his mouth to the priest, the contrition of his heart, and the satisfaction of his work, in doing the enjoined penance. The aggregate of all these is the matter; and the form, are the words, Ego te absolvo. Now besides what we have to say from every one of these particulars, the matter of a sacrament must be some visible sign applied to him that receives it. It is therefore a very absurd thing to imagine that a man's own thoughts, words, or actions, can be the matter of a sacrament: how can this be sanctified or applied to him? It will be a thing no less absurd to make the form of a sacrament to be a practice not much elder than Innoc.3. in four hundred years; since no ritual can be produced, nor author cited, for this form, for above a thousand years after 22. Christ; all the ancient forms of receiving penitents having Con. Trid. been by a blessing in the form of a prayer, or a declaration; but none of them in these positive words, I absolve thee. We think this want of matter, and this new invented form, being without any institution in scripture, and different from so long a practice of the whole church, are such reasons, that we are fully justified in denying penance to be a sacrament. But because the doctrine of repentance is a point of the highest importance, there arise several things here that ought to be very carefully examined. 4 Later. Can. 21, Sess. 14. c. 5. Matt.ii. 6. As to confession, we find in the scriptures, that such as desired St. John's baptism came 'confessing their sins;' but that was previous to baptism. We find also that scandalous persons were to be openly rebuked before all,' and so to be 1 Tim. v. put to shame; in which, no doubt, there was a confession, 20. and a publication of the sin; but that was a matter of the discipline and order of the church: which made it necessary to 'note such persons as walked disorderly, and to have no 2 Thess.iii. fellowship with them,' sometimes not so much as to eat with 14. them, who being Christians, and such as were called brothers, 11. 1 Cor. v. XXV. John xx. 23. ART. were a reproach to their profession. But besides the power given to the apostles of binding and loosing, which, as was said on another head, belonged to other matters; we find that when our Saviour breathed on his apostles, and gave them the Holy Ghost, he with that told them, that 'whose soever sins they remitted, they were remitted; and whose soever sins they retained, they were retained. Since a power of remitting or retaining sin was thus given to them, they infer, that it seems reasonable, that, in order to their dispensing it with à due caution, the knowledge of all sins ought to be laid open to them. Acts v. 3, 9. Acts viii. 23. Some have thought that this was a personal thing given to the apostles with that miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost; with which such a discerning of spirits was communicated to them, that they could discern the sincerity or hypocrisy of those that came before them. By this St. Peter discovered the sin of Ananias and Sapphira; and he also saw that Simon of Samaria was in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity: so they conclude that this was a part of that extraordinary and miraculous authority which was given to the apostles, and to them only. But others, who distinguish between the full extent of this power, and the ministerial authority that is still to be continued in the church, do believe that these words may in a lower and more limited sense belong to the successors of the apostles; but they argue very strongly, that if these words are to be understood in their full extent as they lie, a priest has by them an absolute and unlimited power in this matter, not restrained to conditions or rules; so that if he does pardon or retain sins, whether in that he does right or wrong, the sins must be pardoned or retained accordingly: he may indeed sin in using it wrong, for which he must answer to God; but he seems, by the literal meaning of these words, to be clothed with such a plenipotentiary authority, that his act must be valid, though he may be punished for employing it amiss.* 66 The Trent doctrine of absolution is-Si quis dixerit, absolutionem sacramentalem sacerdotis non esse actum judicialem, sed nudum ministerium pronuntiandi et declarandi remissa esse peccata confitenti, modo tantum credat se esse absolutum ; aut sacerdos non serio, sed joco absolvat; aut dixerit non requiri confessionem pœnitentis, ut sacerdos eum absolvere possit; anathema sit!!! Sessio xiv. canon ix. The absolution of the church of England is simply declaratory. The words, as you will find them in the daily form of prayer, are, Almighty God the Father of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live; and hath given power and commandment to his ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. HE pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel." But because the minister pronounces it thus in the visitation of the sick-" Our LORD JESUS CHRIST, who hath left power to his church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the FATHER, and of the Son, and of the HOLY GHOST"-you would, I suppose, wisely conclude, that when the reformers reached this part of the prayer book, they forgot what they had said in the commencement, and here claim a power which there is vested only in God. Or that An ambassador that has full powers, though limited by ART. secret instructions, does bind him that so empowered him by XXV. every act that he does pursuant to his powers, how much soever it may go beyond his instructions; for how obnoxious soever that may render him to his master, it does not at all lessen the authority of what he has done, nor the obligation that arises out of it. So these words of Christ's, if applied to all priests, must belong to them in their full extent; and if so, the salvation or the damnation of mankind is put absolutely in the priest's power. Nor can it be answered, that the conditions of the pardon of sin that are expressed in the other parts of the gospel, are here to be understood, though they are not expressed; as we are said to be saved if we believe, which does not imply that a single act of believing the gospel without any thing else, puts us in a state of salvation. In opposition to this, we answer, that the gospel having so described faith to us, as the root of all other graces and virtues, as that which produces them, and which is known by them, by saying "by his authority committed unto me, I absolve" &c. &c.; it necessarily follows that they contradict what they had said before, "that power and commandment is given unto the minister, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent," &c. &c. But a few words will explain this, and may discover to you, that in the language of scripture a thing is said to be done by a person, when his doing it only consists in his declaring and pronouncing it-See Jeremiah i. 9, 10."And the LORD said unto me, Behold I have put my words in thy mouth. See I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant." Now we must all grant that Jeremiah had power over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, &c. &c.; for God gave it to him. We must likewise grant that Jeremiah exercised this power, and did throw down and destroy kingdoms: otherwise God's purpose in raising him up would have failed. The point then is, how, and in what way, did Jeremiah exercise this power, and throw down and destroy the kingdoms? There are but two ways. 1st-By being actively engaged in the battle in the day of the falling of these kingdoms, and by his own act and deed destroying them; or, 2dly-By his declaring and pronouncing their downfall by the authority committed to him, and by proclaiming the word of destruction. That he pulled down and destroyed the kingdoms in the first way, you must maintain: or contradict the council of Trent. That he did it in the second way we maintain, and say, just so hath CHRIST given power to his ministers to remit sin; but this power is only to be exercised by their declaring and pronouncing the absolution and remission of their sins to "all that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel." And the minister, pronouncing and declaring this absolution, may be said to absolve, in the same way that Jeremiah, declaring and pronouncing the downfall of nations and kingdoms, may be said, and is said, to have pulled down, rooted out, and destroyed them. 'Another portion of scripture, to which I refer, is that which concerns the cleansing of the leper; which is exactly parallel, as the leper typified the sinner defiled with sin. In Leviticus xiii. 3, 6, &c. " And the priest shall look upon him, and shall PRONOUNCE him unclean;" and again, "And the priest shall PRONOUNCE him clean." Here then we see, that the priest had only the power of declaring and pronouncing, and not the power of killing or curing, of making clean or unclean: and yet in the 14th chap. 11th verse, the thing is said to be done by the priest :"And the priest that MAKETH him clean," &c. &c. This is plain, and proves, that in the language of scripture a thing is said to be done by a person, when his doing it only consists in his declaring and pronouncing it. Apply this now, and you shall discover that we may use the words "I absolve," and yet maintain that the absolution is only declaratory, without agreeing with the impious doctrine of the council of Trent, or 66 annihilating the book of Common Prayer." Page's Letters to a Romish Priest.-[ED.] |