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

by James Galloway Cowan

To the first, I would simply answer, that they cannot really know much of spiritual life, if they suppose that he who would lead such a life can always get on without external help, and that they are little acquainted with God’s mysterious ways, if they do not know that He ever works by agents, in the religious and the moral, as well as in the physical world. For their enlightenment, let them inquire of the eminently spiritual, or the marvellously reformed, and they will assuredly find, that human helps and sympathies have formed many steps of the ladder by which these have climbed so high towards heaven.

The other objectors merit a longer answer, because the charge they make is a serious one; not only affecting individuals, but casting a blot upon the good fame of our Church itself, which unmistakeably teaches and recommends, in special cases, the use of human and clerical confessors.

My dear brethren, let me ask you to bear with me patiently. I have no party motives to serve, nor party prejudices to indulge; God is my witness I reluctantly speak to you on this subject. I am only induced to do so by the consideration that, when a religious question is agitated out of doors, it is the minister of God’s bounden duty to take it up in the pulpit, and exhibit it, as far as he can, in scriptural light, keeping aloof alike from prejudging approval, and from capricious and worldly condemnation of the thing maintained. “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth.” [75]

What, then, first, is the Romish use of confession? Every lay member of the Church of Rome is obliged, at stated times, to make a full and particular confession to a priest, of every sin, of every kind, that he or she can call to remembrance. No matter, that they are repented of and confessed to God; no matter, that the way of escape from them is plain; that they have been escaped from; out they must come, with all their preceding, accompanying, and following circumstances; without reserve of any kind. If but a thought of sin be kept back; if the priest but fancy that something is kept back; excommunication is pronounced, and the offender, or supposed offender, is cut off from all means of grace. [76] And the doctrine which guides this practice is, that no sin is ever forgiven by God, unless it has first been confessed to a priest; and that, even then, though its eternal punishment is remitted by their giving of absolution, works of penance must be performed on its account, or a longer or shorter period of suffering in purgatory will have to be endured.

Such is Rome’s course. I need scarcely tell you, that our Church, in condemning the “sacrament” of penance, and denying the existence of a purgatory, has swept away the only pretences on which such a prying, unscriptural, and most mischievous confessional could be maintained.

But, still, the Church of England has a doctrine and a practice of confession. In the exhortation to holy communion, it is enjoined, “If there be any of you, who by this means,” (self-examination) “cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and open his grief, that by the ministry of God’s holy word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.” And in the Order of the Visitation of the Sick it is directed: “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.” And let it not be said, that these are Romish elements in a “tesselated ritual.” The exhortation is a Protestant composition; and the words that make it imperative on us to move every sick person we visit to a special confession, if he needs it, were added at the last review of the Prayer-Book.

What, then, is the sum of Church teaching? Men are to confess their sins to God alone, with a view to pardon and religious homage. (In certain cases, they are advised to seek assurance of absolution from the clergy. I dwell not on this now, because I purpose, God willing, to give the subject full consideration on an early occasion. [77]) When they find this confession sufficient to procure spiritual peace and amendment of life, they need not, and ought not, to make known their faults to others. They are not to make their ministers partakers of the thoughts and secrets of their breasts; they are not to look to them for pardon; they are not to get rid of their responsibility to God, by accepting penance at man’s hand; they are not to seek direction from a priest, in the ordinary ways of life; they are not to submit themselves to close catechisings, and prying investigations. But they are, when in doubt, in difficulty, in overwhelming grief, in all circumstances of spiritual helplessness, so to reveal their lives and open their thoughts to a spiritual officer, that he may, out of the treasure of his knowledge and experience, and by virtue of his commission as a minister of holy things, direct, and comfort, and strengthen them, more really and effectually than he can in public sermons, from mere guessing at their condition. When the public ministry suffices for them, let them seek no more; when they need, likewise, private ministry, by all means let them demand it: the Church binds us to render what they ask.

This kind of confession has the hearty approval of spiritual men of all ages, and all shades of theological opinion. All our reformers urged it. Luther said he would rather lose a thousand worlds than suffer private confession to be thrust out of the Church. Calvin exhorted all who thought they would be benefitted by it, to use it readily, and showed them, by precise rules, how to do so. Puritans of old, so-called evangelical ministers of our day—presbyterians, anabaptists, wesleyans, independents, all maintain and practise it now, though sometimes under other names—“consultation,” “history of conversion,” “detailing of experiences.” Richard Baxter’s characteristic words, exhibiting the true spirit of Church teaching, and showing how nonconformists cling to it in this case, are specially worthy of full recital.

“I know,” he writes, “some will say, that it is near to Popish auricular confession, which I here persuade Christians to; and it is to bring Christians under the tyranny of the priests, and make them acquainted with all men’s secrets, and masters of their consciences. To the last, I say—to the railing devil of this age—no more, but the Lord rebuke thee. If any minister have wicked ends, let the God of heaven convert him, or root him out of His Church, and cast him among the weeds and briers. But is it not the known yoke of sensuality to cast reproaches upon the way and ordinances of God? Who knoweth not, that it is the very office of the ministry, to be teachers and guides to men in matters of salvation, and overseers over them. . . . I am confident, many a thousand souls do long strive against anger, lust, blasphemy, worldliness, and trouble of conscience, to little purpose, who, if they would but have taken God’s way, and sought out for help, and opened all their case to their minister, they might have been delivered in a good measure long ago. And for Popish confession, I detest it: we would not persuade men that there is a necessity of confessing every sin to a minister before it can be pardoned. Nor do we it in a perplexed formality only at one time of the year, nor in order to Popish pardons or satisfactions; but we would have men go for physic to their souls, as they do for their bodies, when they feel they have need. And let me advise all Christian congregations to practise this excellent duty more. See that you knock oftener at your pastor’s door, and ask his advice in all your pressing necessities. Do not let him sit quiet in his study for you: make him know by experience, that the tenth part of a minister’s labour is not in the pulpit.”

One more quotation: it will be heard with respect when I tell you it is from the Bishop of Lincoln’s sermons on repentance: “As ministers should be, by their profession, usually the best advisers in cases of conscience, and are, or ought to be, every penitent’s ready and sympathising friends, so to them the stricken or perplexed soul will often have recourse. And thus, there is a sense in which those dreaded words, ‘confession to the priest,’ (in one sense, justly dreaded, for the iniquity of ages is upon them) may express an edifying practice, and even at times a duty.” [80]