Plain Sermons, Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street

by James Galloway Cowan

To obtain pardon, then, for past sins, it is necessary (in accordance with God’s law) to confess them. To know ourselves, our difficulties, failures, trials from within and without; to shame ourselves out of sin, and to guide and encourage us to victory over it, it is expedient (and God has mercifully required it) that we should tell out before Him, ever and anon, all that we can rake up against ourselves; and not present even that as a total, but beg Him to add to it the secret things, in which we offend without knowing it. “Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O, cleanse Thou me from my secret faults.”

Alas! my brethren, how high is the standard! How far do many of us fall short of it! Where, among the frequenters of the temple, are the abashed, and humbled, and contrite penitents, proclaiming their sinfulness, and imploring pardon: “God be merciful to me a sinner”? Where, among professed Christians, are the imitators of David, communing with, searching out their spirit in the night season, rising early, to tell out with sighs and pangs each sin that they can discover; each renewal of it; each thought of it? But an hour since, we all joined, or professed to join, in words of general confession. Who felt and abashed themselves as sinners? Who really confessed any sin to God? Presently, some of us will take part in a more solemn form, and draw nearer still to a present God, seeking most intimate communion with Him. What sins are we going to confess, and pray to be relieved from? How much of self-abasement and contrition shall we take with us to the foot of the altar? No further back than yesterday each one of us sinned in thought, in word, or in deed; perhaps, in all three, How many of us brought those sins to remembrance, last night or this morning, by self-examination, and confessed them, and with contrition sought pardon of them? Which of us has done this, and is wont to do it, whenever wrong has been done, or right omitted? Remember, there is no forgiveness, there is no favour with God, nor hope of heaven without it. There is no knowledge of self, no perception of danger from without, no spiritual progress. He that covereth his sin shall not and cannot prosper. He walketh independently, ungratefully, rebelliously—in his own way; and the end of that way is death.

My brethren, think of these things; think of your imperative duty, and your sovereign interest; and let close self-examination, honest, heartfelt, contrite confession, be your frequent and diligent exercise. Every morning settle what you have to do and avoid; every evening consider what you have done and omitted, and lay the account religiously before God. Daily dress and undress your souls. Cleanse yourselves of what is amiss by confession and repentance. Prepare yourselves for future success, by the examination of past failures. You cannot approach God: He will not approach you (but for judgment), unless you have thus purified yourselves, and put off the things that defile holy ground.

Thus much by way of reminder and entreaty respecting confession to God, general and particular. But the question is asked in these days, and being asked should not be left unanswered, whether, in any case, and if so, in what, confession should also be made to any other than God?—whether it is ever needful, or expedient, to uncover our sins, and make known our spiritual burthens to our fellow man?

Now, any mindful reader of the Bible must be ready at once to answer that, on Divine authority, it is sometimes necessary, and often expedient. When we have injured another, by word or deed; when we have defrauded him, misled him, maligned him; provoked him to anger or displeasure, or only in some secret way harmed him; we must, as a foremost duty, go and acknowledge our fault, and obtain his forgiveness, or at least leave nothing undone to obtain it. The rash striker, the undutiful child, the dishonest tradesman, the unfaithful servant, the seducer into any sin, the scandalmonger, the slanderer, the base supplanter, the peacebreaker, may not atone for their offences, may not have remission from God, but by the consent, or at least after the sought consent, of the person offended against (which, of course, implies previous acknowledgment and confession of the offence). “If thou bring thy gift to the altar,”—i.e., if thou approachest God in any way, to serve Him, or to seek His blessing—“and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar,”—stop at the threshold of God’s presence—“and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” [71] And if the offence has been a public one, to the scandal, or detriment, or provocation of a community, the confession, too, must be public; so that St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, commands that such an offender should be publicly censured, and put away from among them; and implies, that he is not to be considered restored to the privileges of a Christian, until the community, satisfied that he is penitent, shall pronounce his forgiveness, and confirm their love towards him.

In obedience to this Scripture rule, the ministers of our Church are ordered to admit no notorious evil liver, nor any that has done wrong to his neighbour in word or deed, to holy communion; until, if he be an open offender, he has openly declared himself to have truly repented (in some such form as that of the Commination Service); or, if he be a private injurer, until he has recompensed the parties to whom he has done wrong. This discipline is not indeed enforced (as it should be) by man. Sinners and saints mingle together in the Lord’s house, and alike partake outwardly of the tokens of spiritual approval and blessing: but, assuredly, God, who is true, maintains jealously what man neglects; and refuses with displeasure the offerings of the violators and despisers of His law. Ay, and moreover places a firm and impassable barrier of excommunication between Him and them, which shall not be removed till the appointed reconciliation with man has been made. In such cases, then, confession to man, to the injured or offended, is necessary by the ordinance of God.

In many other cases it is expedient, we might even say enjoined, since inspired precepts recommend it. When, for instance, the burthened conscience needs the sympathy, the advice, the prayers of others to lighten it. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” [72a] Or when, again, the present consequences of a past sin can only be removed by the active assistance of others, as when Achan was bidden by Joshua—“My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” [72b] In this latter case, God had signified that Achan was the offender who had provoked His wrath against Israel; and Joshua, the ruler of Israel, rightly demanded what was the offence, that he might know how to do away with it.

Whenever, then, you feel spiritual perplexity, heaviness of soul which you cannot relieve, faintness of heart, need of consolation or help in prayer, you may and should make known your circumstances to some pious and wise Christian or Christians, able and willing to advise, to succour, to intercede for you. And whenever you cannot undo the consequences of your sin without the active assistance of others, you are bound to take to you partners in the work, and to communicate freely to them what you have done, and wish undone.

It is not easy for me to say—your own feelings will guide you best in such a matter—what confessor you should choose. In some cases a parent would be the most fitting, or a bosom friend; in others, a stranger, or slight acquaintance; in some cases, again, a person of your own age and circumstances; in others, a senior, or a superior. But if these fail to serve and relieve you, then, in all cases, should you avail yourselves of the ordinance of God, and choose out your spiritual guide from among those whom He has specially appointed to teach, and to console, and to intercede. First, be sure that you cannot help yourselves, because God has imposed upon you an individual responsibility, and entrusted to you powers of soul and mind which you may not neglect to exercise. Then, if you fail, go, call to yourselves that aid which seems best in itself, and can be secured with least violence to your natural feelings, and least injury to your social character and position. If that does not avail, then betake yourselves to the ministers of religion, in the hope, nay, with the assurance, that even if their learning, their habitual examination of human nature’s wants and failings, their experience and interest in soul-work, should, after all, leave them insufficient guides and helpers, still God, to Whom in the person of His representatives you have thus come, will not let you depart without a blessing, but will send down from heaven itself His light, and comfort, and effectual strength.

One of two objections to this teaching may present itself to some of those who hear me. Some of you, my brethren, may be ready to assert, that human aid is not wanted in such circumstances; and others, that to seek it of the clergy is to draw near to the error and corrupt superstition of the Romanists.