over, these are St. Augustine's words: 'What have I to do with men that they should hear my confession, as though they were able to heal all my diseases? A curious sort of men to know another man's life, and slothful to correct or amend their own. Why do they seek to hear of me what I am, which will not hear of thee what they are? And how can they tell, when they hear by me of myself whether I tell the truth or not, since no mortal man knoweth what is in man, but the spirit of man which is in him?' Augustine would not have written thus if auricular confession had been used in his time. Being, therefore, not led with the conscience thereof, let us, with fear and trembling, and with a true contrite heart, use that kind of confession that God doth command in His Word; and then, doubtless, as He is faithful and righteous, He will forgive us our sins, and make us clean from all wickedness. I do not say but that, if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, or to some other godly learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God's Word; but it is against the true Christian liberty that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance."-Homilies, S. P. C. K. ed., p. 575, et seq.

Of course, it must be remembered that the Homilies, though generally containing sound doctrine, are not to be considered as possessed of verbal authority, or as being in every sentence and particular statement doctrinally infallible. They are not. As far as some specific statements go, they are erroneous; and as far as their binding authority goes, they are subsidiary to the Articles. On the whole, they voice the sentiments of the Reformers and the teaching of the Church, and, as discourses, were admirably adapted to the times for which they were drawn up, by their forcible

exhibition of plain truths; they show forth, too, most authoritatively, the mind of the Church of England with regard to the more serious errors of the Church of Rome; and though not claiming particular infallibility for each utterance on the subject, they yet most strikingly declare that auricular confession in the Church of England is utterly inadmissible.* In the time of blindness and ignorance, it was in place. But now, by God's grace, we have been delivered from these things.

To sum up: The practice of auricular confession has no warrant in the Church of England. It is opposed at once to the Articles, the Homilies, the Canons, and the Rubrics of the Prayer Book. Those who plead that the rubric in the service for the Visitation of the Sick is a justification for the practice, are condemned by the rubric itself. Auricular confession is necessary, secret, and entire. This rubric enjoins a confession which is partial and peculiar, not entire ;. in a house, and not in the confessional box; before others, and not of necessity secretly; optional, not indispensable; in very, very rare cases, not for all. The Church of Rome makes auricular confession part of one of the sacraments necessary to salvation; exacts it as indispensable to the reception of the eucharist; excommunicates those who yearly neglect it; imposes with it, by the priest's dictation, penance for satisfaction to God; enforces secrecy from confessor and confessed; demands an entire confession of every mortal sin of hidden thoughts and foul imaginings; orders the priest, by suggestive questionings, to unfold the penitent's carnal desires; begins this confessional work with children. not yet in their teens; teaches flatly that sins are forgiven by the priestly act; requires the penitent to subject his whole soul to the will and dictation of the priest; demands that painful and laborious works of satisfaction be performed at his word; teaches that the penitent may satisfy Divine justice thus for

* See Bp. Jewel's Works, II., p. 1133.

his own sins; in short, makes the people in conscience, will, and thought, in matters spiritual and matters moral, the helpless bond-slaves of the priesthood, and the priesthood the dispensers of salvation. In direct antagonism to this, the Church of England, Article 25, denies that penance (which includes auricular confession) is a sacrament; not only does not exact auricular confession as a necessary pre-requisite to the eucharist, but never exacts it at all; does not excommunicate those who neglect it; requires no works of penance for satisfaction; does not demand, as Rome does, entire secrecy from confessor and confessed, and only in the case of voluntary confession is that confidence required, on the minister's part, which is reasonable and just; says nothing whatever of "mortal" sins; insists upon no revelation of sinful thoughts; authorizes no inquisitor-like search on the part of the minister, especially between a clergyman and the female members of the Church, for thoughts connected with immodesty and licentiousness; has absolutely no provision whatever for the bringing of children to confession; teaches that sins are not pardoned by the priestly act of absolution, without the hearty repentance and true faith of the penitent; never ascribes infallibility to mortal man, nor teaches slavish submission of soul to priest; and instead of teaching that satisfaction-works can be performed by one Christian for another, repudiates the doctrine as arrogancy and impiety (Articles 10, 13, and 14); teaching, in fine, as Latimer puts it, as for satisfaction or absolution for our sins, there is none but in Christ; we cannot make amend for our sins but only by believing in Him which suffered for us; and herein standeth our absolution or remission of our sins, namely, when we believe in Him, and look to be saved through His death."*

66

* I am indebted for most of these contrasts to an able work on the history of the confessional by Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont.

In short, the confessional and Romish auricular confession are things blotted out by the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, and condemned by her absolutely. No one, save those specified in the Rubric and Communion Service, can be asked to confess; and if they do, the Church makes no provision whatever for the manner of their confession, or the method of absolution, save the application to the burdened conscience of the precious promises of God's Word. Therefore, it may, with all confidence, be declared, that the introduction of the teaching and practice of auricular confession into the Church of England is not only "fraught with peril to its existence as an establishment, and subversive of the principles of morality, social order, and civil and religious liberty," but also, in the very highest and truest sense, "alien to the doctrine, the principles, and the order of the Church."

CHAPTER IX.

THE ORDINAL,

ONE service still remains to be considered, the form and manner of ordering of priests, commonly known as

the Ordination Service.

It is a service that most conspicuously attests the remarkable work of the Reformation, and illustrates the completeness of the victory achieved over the formalism and false doctrine of Rome. In no service was there such a perfect rebound from the vain ceremonial and dangerous doctrine of the Romish Service, and so thorough a return to the scriptural simplicity of the Apostolic Church; the Ordination Service being the only service of any importance in which no change of any importance was made in 1552 from the first reformed Ordinal of 155c.

The Ordination Service proper begins with the presentation of the candidates to the bishop, by whom a solemn exhortation is delivered, and a series of heart-searching queries addressed, to which suitable answers are given. After this, the congregation engage three times in prayer; once silently, once audibly, and once through the voice of the bishop. Then the bishop, with the priests (or presbyters) present, lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that receives the order of priesthood, the Church thus carrying out, with literal exactness, the apostolic practice in ordination, the conjunction of the hands of the presbytery with that of the bishop, the representative of the higher order, in the manual imposition. A comparison of the fourteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the first epistle to Timothy, "the gift that is in thee, given by prophecy,