it is very evident that all things of this Nature ought to be appointed very plainly and expresly or else they can carry no obligation with them for seeing the whole Reason of their becoming matter of Law or Duty lies in the will of the Legislator if that be not plainly discovered they cannot be said to be instituted and so there can be no Obligation to observe them because where there is no Law there can be no Transgression and a Law is no Law in effect which is not sufficiently promulged Is it not therefore a very strange thing to tell us of an Institution by implication only and yet at the same time to tell us that the matter so pretended to be instituted is no less then absolutely necessary to the Salvation of Sinners 2. The second of these will easily be resolved by considering what we observed before from the Council of Trent viz. that this Sacrament of Penance consists of Matter and Form the Form is the Priests Absolution but the Matter or Materials of this Sacrament are Contrition Confession to a Priest and Satisfaction or Performance of the Penance enjoyn'd by him now it is evident that not only Auricular Confession of which we have spoken hitherto but also Contrition and Satisfaction are wholly omitted and past over in silence by the Evangelist in this passage of Scripture from whence they fetch their Sacrament of Penance and is it not a wonderfully strange thing that our Saviour should be supposed to institute a Sacrament without any Materials of it at all Surely therefore this must be either a very Spiritual Sacrament or none at all Let us guess at the probability of this in proportion to either of the other undoubted Sacraments Suppose our Saviour instead of that accurate form in which he instituted the Eucharist had only said I would have you my Disciples and all that shall believe on my Name to keep a Memorial of me when I am gone Or suppose he said only as he doth Joh. 6. 55. My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed would any one have concluded here that our Saviour in so saying had appointed Bread and Wine to be consecrated to be received in such a manner and in a word that he had without more ado instituted such a Sacrament as we usually celebrate No certainly and therefore we see our Saviour is the most express and particular therein that can be for he takes Bread blesses it breaks it gives it to them saying Take eat this is my body c. and after Supper he takes the Cup blesses it gives it to them saying Drink ye all of this for this is the New Testament in my Blood c. and then adds do this in remembrance of me Now who is there that observes this accuracy of our Saviour in the Eucharist can imagine that he should intend to institute a Sacrament of Penance and that as necessary to Salvation in the Opinion of the Romanists as the other only with this Form of words Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted c. and without the least mention of Confession Contrition or any other Material or necessary Part of Circumstance of it 3. But in the third and last place let us suppose that our Saviour had in the Text before us instituted Penance and had appointed particularly all those things which they call the Material parts of it as it is evident he hath not yet even then and upon that Supposition Penance would not have proved to be a Sacrament properly so called I confess according to a loose acceptation of the word Sacrament something may be said for it for so there are many things have had the name of Sacrament applied to them Tertullian somewhere calls Elisha's Ax the Sacrament of Wood and in his Book against Marcion he stiles the whole Christian Religion a Sacrament St. Austin in several places calls Bread Fish the Rock and the Mystery of Number Sacraments for he hath given us a general Rule in his Fifth Epistle viz. That all signs when they belong to divine things are called Sacraments And in consideration hereof it is acknowledged by Cassander that the Number of Sacraments was indefinite in the Church of Rome it self until the times of Peter Lombard But all this notwithstanding and properly speaking this Rite of Penance taking it altogether and even supposing whatsoever the Romanists can suppose to belong to it cannot be reputed a Sacrament according to the allowed definitions of a Sacrament delivered by their own Divines Some of them define a Sacrament thus Sacramentum est corporale elementum foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine repraesentans ex institutione significans ex Sanctificatione continens invisibilem gratiam And the Master of the Sentences himself describes it somewhat more briefly but to the same effect in these words Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma ejusdem gratiae imaginem gerens causa existens both which definitions are acknowledged and applauded by the Jesuite Becanus And the plain truth is a Sacrament cannot be better exprest in so few words then it is by St. Austin when he calls it verbum visibile a visible Word or Gospel For it pleased the Divine Wisdom and Goodness by this institution of Sacraments to condescend to our weakness and thereby to give us sensible Tokens or Pledges of what he had promised in his Written word to the intent that our dulness might be relieved and our Faith assisted forasmuch as herein our Eyes and other Senses as well as our Ears are made Witnesses of his gracious intentions Thus by Baptismal washing he gives us a sensible token and representation of our regeneration and the washing away of our sins by the Blood of Christ and by the participation of Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper we have a Token and Symbol of our Union with Christ our Friendship with God and Communion with each other But now it is manifest there is no such thing as this in their Sacrament of Penance as even Bellarmine himself confesses For they do not say or mean that the Absolution of the Priest is a Token or Emblem of God's forgiveness but that the Priest actually pardons in God's stead by Virtue of a Power delegated to him So that according to them here must be a Sacrament not only without any material parts instituted but also without any thing Figurative Symbolical or Significative which seems to be as expresly contrary to their own Doctrine in the aforesaid definitions as to the truth it self Nay further to evince the difference of this Rite of Penance from all other proper Sacraments it deserves observation that whereas in those other acknowledged Sacraments the Priest in God's Name delivers to us the Pledges and Symbols of Divine Grace Here in this of Penance we must bring all the material Parts and Pledges our selves and present them to God or to the
said under the former head doth very much depend upon this and that Discourse will be confirmed or impaired respectively to what shall be evidently made out in this second point Forasmuch as if on the one side it be made apparent that such a Rite hath been of constant use in the Christian Church it will afford a great presumption that it took its rise at first from Divine Institution notwithstanding all we have offered to the contrary So on the other side if the Evidence here answer not the Pretension and no sufficient footsteps of constant and universal practice appear Then will all that which we have hitherto discoursed be greatly strengthened and confirmed because it is by no means probable that if there had been a Divine Law in the case that such a thing would have been generally neglected by the Christian Church Now for the clearing of this though I am here only upon the defensive and so bound to no more then to examine the proofs which the Romanists bring for their pretensions yet I will deal ingenuously as seeking not to find Flaws but to discover the Truth and therefore give these instances as so many reasons for the Negative In the first place I crave leave to premise this If Auricular Confession were so great a Gospel mystery so wonderfully efficacious a method of saving Souls as to be typified in the Law as the Romanists teach as well as instituted in the Gospel and practised by the whole Church one might seem justly to wonder how it comes to pass that there should be no mention nor appearance of it in the whole course of our Saviours own Ministry he used to be an example as well as a Law-giver to the Church he washed his Disciples Feet before he enjoined them to wash one another he exemplified the other Sacraments before he prescribed his Apostles to administer them one would have thought such an Instance of his example had been more necessary in this business of Penance rather than any other if it had been but to make way for the Understanding of so obscure an Institution since especially one would have thought to find some Traces of this in the Ministry of our Saviour because he daily conversed with sinners he reproved them instructed them healed them pardoned them but never brought any of them to such a Confession as we are treating of viz. To a particular enumeration of their sins with the circumstances nor upon so doing formally absolved them His very Disciples some of which had been great sinners were admitted without it the Woman of Samaria was told by him all that ever she did but she was not brought on her knees to make her own Confession but most strange of all it is that the Woman taken in Adultery when he had made her accusers slink away was not privately brought to it it may be they will say there was no need of Confession to him who knew all before but yet it might have been necessary to bring these Sinners to be ashamed of themselves by that means to work Repentance and fit them for Pardon at least if this Method had been of such mighty use and wonderful necessity as is pretended 2. But to let pass that in the next place it is matter of wonder that nothing of this practice appears in the Ministry of the Apostles they went about preaching the Gospel calling Men to Repentance erecting and governing Churches but never set themselves down in a Confessors Chair for penitents secretly to tell them in their Ear the Story of their vicious Lives indeed we read Acts 19. 18. That some came in and shewed their deeds but first it was voluntary and in a fit of Holy Zeal for we cannot find that they were required to do it as of Sacramental Obligation besides the Confession was publick before the Church not clancular and whispered in secret it is true also that St. James chap. 5. 16. advises the Christians to confess their faults one to another which is made a mighty evidence in this Case but it is as true that this was spoken in an extraordinary Case as appears v. 14. in bodily sickness and distress of Conscience they are advised to lay open their condition in order to relief and succour by the more ardent and affectionate Prayers of those who should be made privy to it but it is not made a standing and universal rule for all Men to comply with whether they be sick or well in prosperity or adversity perplexed or quiet in their Consciences much less of Sacramental and Necessary Obligation as in the Roman Church 3. Let us go on in the next ages after the Apostles for about two hundred years we find not one word of this kind of Confession which we enquire for Indeed the writings of that time which are extant are not many but if this business had been of such consequence as is pretended it is strange that those Holy Men Ignatius Clemens and Justin Martyr should not have any mention of it Indeed Bellarmine brings us one instance within this Period and that is from Irenaeus who speaking of Certain Women who had been abused by Marcion the Heretick saith they afterwards came and Confessed all with shame and sorrow to the Church But what is this to the purpose We dispute not against publick Confession which is acknowledged to be truly Primitive and we wish it had been constantly maintained in after ages it is only the necessity of Clancular Confession that we are unsatisfied in and this passage speaks nothing at all to that Case 4. In Tertullians time which was also much about Two hundred Years after our Saviour we find great things said of Confession but it is of that which was publick and in the face of the Church not to a Priest in a Corner and this indeed was greatly incouraged and required by the Holy Men of those times as that which in the Case of open and scandalous sins freed the Church both from the guilt and from the reproach of them and in the Case of secret sins was a means by open shame to bring Men to Repentance and so to Pardon And the Confession was principally directed to God who was the person offended by the sin yet it was made before Men to raise a fervency in their Prayers as is noted before and to obtain their effectual intercession with God on behalf of the penitent This that Ancient writer makes manifest to be his Sense in his Book de Poenitentia in these words Plerumque vero jejuniis preces alere ingemiscere lachrymari mugire dies noctésque ad Dominum Deum tuum Presbyteris advolvi aris or rather charis dei adgeniculari omnibus fratribus legationes saae deprecationis injungere haec omnia ex homologesis ut poenitentiam commendet c. the penitent often joyns Fasting to his prayers weeps wails and moans night and day before God casts himself at the feet of the
would not discharge all their lives before tho not then neither without signs of Attrition and contrition too but these pretend to quite another thing namely to release men in foro Conscientiae and to give them a Pass-port to Heaven without Repentance which is a very strange thing to say no worse of it Or to instance one thing more what is the meaning of their practice of giving Absolution before the Penance is performed as is usual with them unless this be it that whether the Man make any Conscience at all how he lives hereafter yet he is pardoned as much as the Priest can do it for him and is not this a likely way of reformation I conclude therefore now upon the whole matter that Auricular Confession as it is used in the Church of Rome is only an Artifice of greatening the Priest and pleasing the People a trick of gratifying the undevout and impious as well as the Devout and Religious the latter it imposes upon by its outward appearance of Humility and Piety to the former it serves for a palliative Cure of the Gripes of Conscience which they are now and then troubled with in reality it tends to make sin easie and tolerable by the cheapness of its Pardon and in a word it is nothing but the Old Discipline of the Church in Dust and Ashes And therefore though the Church of England in her Liturgy piously wishes for the Restauration of the Ancient Discipline of the Church it can be no defect in her that she troubles not her self with this Rubbish FINIS A POST-SCRIPT AFter I had finished the foregoing Papers and most part of them had also past the Press I happened to have notice that there was a Book just then come over from France written by a Divine of the Sorbone which with great appearance of Learning maintained the just contrary to what I had asserted especially in the Historical part of this Question and pretended to prove from the most Ancient Monuments of the Holy Scriptures Fathers Popes and Councils that Auricular Confession had been the constant Doctrine and Universal and Uninterrupted usage of the Christian Church for near 1300 years from the Times of our Saviour to the Laterane Council So soon as I heard this I heartily wished that either the said Book had come out a little sooner or at least that my Papers had been yet in my hands to the intent that it might have been in my Power to have corrected what might be amiss or supplied what was defective in that short Discourse or indeed if occasion were to have wholly supprest it For as soon as I entered upon the said Book and found from no less a Man than the Author himself that he had diligently read over all that had been written on both sides of this controversy and that this work of his was the product of Eighteen years study and that in the prime of his years and most flourishing time of his parts that it was published upon the maturest deliberation on his part and with the greatest applause and approbation of the Faculty I thought I had reason to suspect whether a small Tract written in haste by a Man of no Name and full enough of other Business could be fit to be seen on the same Day with so elaborate a work But by that time I had read a little further I took Heart and permitted the Press to go on and now that I have gone over the whole I do here profess sincerely that in all that learned Discourse I scarcely found any thing which I had not foreseen and as I think in some measure prevented But certain I am nothing occurred that staggered my Judgment or which did not rather confirm me in what I had written for though I met with abundance of Citations and a great deal of Wit and Dexterity in the management of them yet I found none of them come home to the point for whereas they sometimes recommend and press Confession of Sin in general sometimes to the Church sometimes to the Priest or Bishop as well as to God Almighty Again sometimes they speak great things of the Dignity of the Priest-hood and the great Honour that Order hath in being wonderfully useful to the relief of Guilty or Afflicted Consciences other while they treat of the Power of the Keys and the Authority of the Church the danger of her Censures the Comfort of her Absolution and the severity of her Discipline c. but all these things are acknowledged by us without laborious proof as well as by our Adversaries That which we demand and expect therefore is where shall we find in any of the Ancient Fathers Auricular Confession said to be a Sacrament or any part of one Or where is the Universal necessity of it asserted Or that secret sins committed after Baptism are by no other means or upon no other terms pardoned with God then upon their being confessed to men In these things lies the hinge of our dispute and of these particulars one ought in Reason to expect the most direct and plain proof imaginable if the matter was of such Consequence of such Universal practice and notoriety as they pretend but nothing of all this appears in this Writer more than in those that have gone before him In contemplation of which I now adventure this little Tract into the World with somewhat more of Confidence then I should have done had it not been for this occasion But lest I should seem to be too partial in the Case or to give too slight an account of this Learned Man's performance the Reader who pleases shall be judge by a Specimen or two which I will here briefly represent to him The former of them shall be the very first argument or Testimony he produces for his Assertion which I the rather make my choice to give instance in because no Man can be said ingenuously to seek for faults to pick and choose for matter of exception that takes the first thing that comes to hand The business is this Chap. 2. Page 11. of his Book he cites the Council of Illiberis with a great deal of circumstance as the first Witness for his Cause and the Testimony is taken from the Seventy Sixth Canon the words are these Si quis Diaconum c. i. e. If any Man shall suffer himself to be ordained Deacon and shall afterwards be convicted to have formerly committed some Mortal or Capital Crime if the said Crime come to light by his own voluntary Confession he shall for the space of Three years be debarred the Holy Communion but in case his sin be discovered and made known to the Church by some other hand then he shall suffer Five years suspension and after that be admitted only to Lay Communion Now who would have ever thought this passage fit to be made choice of as the first proof of Auricular Confession or who can imagine it should be any proof at all much