What does David say? "I confess my sins unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (Psalm xxxii, 5.)
What does the Apostle John say? "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from sin;
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (i. John i, 6-9.)
This is the language of the prophets and apostles. This is the language of the Old and the New Testament. It is to God and Him alone that the sinner is requested to confess his sins. It is from God and Him alone that he can expect his pardon.
The apostle Paul writes fifteen epistles, in which he speaks of all the duties imposed upon human conscience by the laws of God and the prescriptions of the Gospel of Christ. A thousand times he speaks to sinners and tells them how they may be reconciled to God. But does he say a word about auricular confession? No, not one!
The apostles Peter, John, Jude address six letters to the different churches—in which they state with the greatest detail what the different classes of Christians have to do. But again, not a single word comes from them about auricular confession.
St. James says, "confess your faults one to another." But this is so evidently the repetition of what the Saviour had said about the way of reconciliation between those who had offended one another, and it is so far from the dogma of a secret confession to the priest, that the most zealous supporters of auricular confession have not dared to mention that text in favour of their modern invention.
But if we look in vain in the Old and New Testament for a word in favour of auricular confession as a dogma, will it be possible to find that dogma in the records of the first thousand years of Christianity? No! for the more one studies the records of the Christian church during the first ten centuries, the more he will be convinced that auricular confession is a miserable imposture, of the darkest days of the world and the church.