CHAPTER VIII.

AURICULAR CONFESSION.

IN a book published in England, entitled, "A Catechism on the Church," by the Rev. C. S. Grueber, the following extraordinary sentences occur :

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'Q.-What do you mean by absolution?

"A. The pardon or forgiveness of sin."

"Q.-By what special ordinance of Christ are sins committed after baptism to be pardoned?"

"A.—By the sacrament of absolution.”

"Q.-Who is the minister of absolution?"

"A.—A priest.”

"Q.—Do you mean that a priest can really absolve? "A.-Yes."

“Q.--What must precede the absolution of the penitent?” "A.-Confession. Before absolution privately given,

confession must be made to a priest privately."

“Q.—In what case does the Church of England order her ministers to move' people to private, or, as it is called, auricular confession?"

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'A.—When they 'feel their conscience troubled with any weighty matter.'"

"Q.—What is 'weighty matter'?”

“A.—Mortal sin certainly is weighty; sins of omission or commission of any kind, that press upon the mind, are so, too; anything may be weighty that causes 'scruple or doubtfulness.'

“Q.—At what times in particular does the Church so order?"

“A.—In the time of sickness, and before coming to the Holy Communion."

Such is the unaltered language actually found in a work published by a clergyman of the Church of England for the instruction of the youth of the Church.*

Now, apart altogether from his unjustifiable use of the word "absolution," his arbitrary and uncalled for assigning of a troubled conscience as a cause for confession, and his utterly false statement that the Church orders people to auricular confession before coming to the Holy Communion, it is manifestly unjust to talk of auricular confession being permissible in the Church of England, or to plead the rubric in the service for the Visitation of the Sick as affording any shadow of countenance for its observance.

What is auricular confession?

Auricular confession, as practised in the Church of Rome, is an express, contrite, but secret self-accusation to a duly authorized priest of at least all grievous sins committed after baptism, or of all the mortal sins committed since the last confession when absolution was received, in order to the reception of sacramental absolution. It involves accordingly

three essentials:

(1) It is the complete confession of all one's sins of a grievous or mortal nature committed during one's life, if it is the first confession; or, if it is not, of all the mortal, not venial, sins committed since the last confession and absolution. This distinction between mortal and venial sins is a very important one in its bearing upon the doctrine of Roman confession. A mortal sin is one which "excludes a man altogether from the favour of God, because forbidden by Him under the penalty of eternal death." Every mortal sin ipso facto excommunicates a man, deprives him of God's

* The book is published by G. J. Palmer, London.

favour, and quenches the Spirit within him. A venial sin is one of a lighter kind, and can be forgiven at once on the mere act of repentance and faith. A mortal sin can only

(with such exceptions, for instance, as impossibility of access to a priest) be wiped out by confession and absolution. Auricular confession, therefore, is reserved for mortal sins alone, and without confession and absolution in ordinary cases, forgiveness is impossible. It is this fact, namely, that confession is required only of mortal sins, that renders the Roman doctrine so dangerous. On the one hand, it engenders in the penitent a diseased and morbid spiritual state, as he abjectly casts about in his mind for the terrible iniquity committed since the last confession, for nothing less than a mortal sin necessitates confession. On the other hand, it gives to an unscrupulous priest an opportunity to gratify a depraved imagination, by instituting an inquiry which will elucidate the committal of some deadly sin.

(2) It is the secret confession of one's sins into the ear of a priest. The act is to take place in private, between the soul and the priest.

(3) It is necessary and indispensable. It is indispensable to the reception of the sacrament of the eucharist, and it is positively enjoined, as one of the commandments of the Church, as necessary at least once a year. Take from it these two last characteristics, and the practice of confession will have lost its sting. If it is not secret, it will be deprived of its most odious feature. If it is not necessary, it has lost its power. The whole structure of Romanism would crum.ble without it, so wedded together are the doctrines of transubstantiation, priestly mediation, absolution and confession.

These are the elements, then, that make the practice of the confessional in the Church of Rome so abhorrent to all true lovers of God's truth. Confession in itself to a

brother Christian, especially to a man of God, duly authorized to be God's minister of comfort to troubled souls, is not only not repugnant to Holy Scripture, but is clearly enjoined therein. See St. James v. 15. It is the secrecy of the transaction, its connection with the dogma of mortal and venial sins, its necessity in order to priestly absolution and the reception of the eucharist, that makes it so entirely. abominable. It is not the simple confession of brotherman to brother-man, or of man to minister, but all that the Roman practice involves.

Holding in mind, then, the real meaning of auricular confession, let us consider this rubric in the Visitation of the Sick: "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter."

In the first place, it occurs in a service which is only used on rare occasions, namely, in cases of severe illness, as the whole service manifestly proves.

It is a service, in the next place, for this point is so important that it demands repetition, which need not be used at all. It is the only service in the Prayer Book which is not enjoined as necessary, the only service which the minister may use, or may not use, according to his discretion. See Canon 67. As a notorious matter of fact, while no minister of the Church of England dare use any form of service other than that authorized in the Prayer Book in administering the Communion, marrying, burying, or baptizing, he does, in the visitation of the sick, use his own discretion as to what portion of the Bible he shall read, or what prayers he shall use, and comfort and instruct them as he may think most needful and convenient.

Further. Even in this optional and rarely necessary service, this rubric, which refers to the matter of confession, is so fettered with limitations that it completely destroys the

essentiality of auricular confession. The confession is to be made "if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter." If he doesn't feel the same, he need not. "If he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter." If his is only an ordinary life, stained by no particularly heinous offence or act of criminality, the requirement of confession is not insisted on. "Here shall the sick person be moved." It is to be a suggestion only, not the exercise of an indispensable sacerdotal act. Nothing could be further from the necessary and indispensable auricular confession of Popery than this strictly limited suggestion to the minister to advise the sick man, under these peculiar circumstances exclusively, to remove from his mind the weight of unconfessed guilt. This very fact of the reception or non-reception of absolution, and the opening or not opening of the conscience in confession, is the thing that clearly demonstrates the Protestantism of the service. The idea of Rome allowing the onus of responsibility to be thrown on the sick person, permitting him to say whether he will confess, or whether he will not confess; if he confesses, how much he will confess; and most startling of all, leaving it to him to determine whether or not absolution shall be given; the idea of such a thing is too absurd for any sane man to contemplate for a moment. The Roman system would crumble like a house on sand were the supposition even permitted!

In fact, this very rubric, in what some imagine to be the most Romanistic service in the Prayer Book, carries in it the very root-principle of all Protestantism: the wresting of power from the priest, and deposing him from the position of an absolving priest, carrying in his power life and death, to that of a minister of God's grace, whose ministerial power "shall" be exercised just as the penitent desires or not, upon the minister's suggestion. Were this a Roman