Personal influence is, no doubt, an instrument of much good; but when it alone or principally governs the relations of confessor and penitent, serious dangers may be imminent. Most of those who go to confession in the Episcopal Church are led to this step by reason of their confidence in the individual to whom they go, and through the attraction of his piety or zeal. They would hardly go to any one else, and if he were to die or be removed, they would be left without a director. It is not so much the priest to whom they unburden their conscience, as the favorite preacher whose good qualities have made strong impressions upon them. This is not a healthy state of things, and leads to sentimentality, which is often mistaken for piety. In the Catholic Church, the habit of confession is as universal as prayer, and the priestly character overshadows the individual. Among Protestants the contrary is notoriously true, and this difficulty in the way of the Protestant confessor can hardly be removed until he shall have brought about in his communion the state of feeling which is second nature to Catholics. This he can never do. He may lead individuals to the church; he cannot convert the whole body with which he is identified.
With the best intentions in the world, he does not and cannot understand the seal of secrecy which for ever closes the lips of the priest. He is disposed as a man of honor not to betray confidence, but experience teaches us that very few human secrets have been kept. He has not been taught the sacred nature of his obligation, nor the various ways by which he may expose his penitent, and as he has assumed an office to which his church did not call him, he stands or falls in human strength. No motive higher than that of honor binds him, and complicated as he is with the world, and generally with matrimonial relations, he really does not know how to act. The Catholic priest not only is bound by the fear of terrible sin, but is also aided by the system which surrounds him, in which he is trained and by that supernatural power which we know upholds the seven sacraments. He is not an individual resting upon his unaided powers, but the creature of his church, the agent and representative of a vast power which girdles the Christian world. Years of study and discipline have taught him the nature of his obligations, while he himself is as much bound to confess his sins as to hear the burden of other consciences. What an anomaly, for a man who never confesses his own faults, to undertake to listen to the accusations of others! If they need the confessional, much more does he need it. Is it not Pharisaical to bind burdens upon others, which we touch not with one of our fingers?
Let men say what they will, we believe, and from experience we know, that God upholds the confessor in his difficult task; that he gives him superhuman wisdom; that within the tribunal of penance a divine shield is over him to protect him against the weakness of humanity, that he may walk unharmed where otherwise angels would fear to tread. Here we pity the poor and isolated Ritualist, going forth upon a dangerous sea, in a frail bark, with no trust but the strength of his own arm. Cast out by his own church, and refusing communion with the great Catholic heart, how long will he stand the fury of the storm?
Finally, how shall he direct his penitents, and by what system form their spiritual character? Moral theology is an extensive and subtle science. The infallible church has given clear decisions upon all essential points of fact and morals, and her doctors, by years of patient labor and centuries of experience, have matured the colossal system which has such mighty influence over the religious heart. But what is all this to the Protestant confessor? He cannot avail himself of this without confessing the authority of the church; and if he begins with such a confession, where must he conscientiously guide his penitents? If he deny this authority, and by his own fallible wisdom choose the principles of his morality, in what respect is his opinion worth more than that of the humblest layman? Can there be a more pitiable spectacle, than that of a Protestant minister with St. Liguori as his guide in leading the souls of others? His spiritual life is surely made up of contradictions which must vex and perplex his conscience if he be an honest man. And will he not unavoidably make grievous mistakes, in the use of tools without experience, in the details of a work for which he has had no preparation?
Moreover, there are often decisions which have to be made, and in these he must either be a despot, or he must make equivocal answers. If a Catholic accuses himself of unbelief or doubt, the reply is easy; for God's revelation is, according to our faith, in and through an unerring church. If the Protestant falls into a like danger, how shall he find direction, since for him there is no infallible church? Must he not go on his weary way of investigation, and is not, by his principles, doubt his normal state? If a Catholic doubts the truth of any decision of his church, he commits a sin against his own creed; but since the Episcopal communion openly disclaims infallibility, how shall the Episcopalian confessor tell his penitent not to doubt his church which herself tells him he ought to doubt her? Then it comes to this, that he will either make him no reply, or rule him with a rod of iron, and bind him by his inflexible ipse dixit. What has been the result, in more cases than one, of this arbitrary despotism in the hands of individuals who neither by their own church, nor by any other, have the right to direct souls? Loss of the moral sense, failure to discern the first inspirations of faith, and, sometimes, insanity. We draw from the testimony of facts. It is bad enough to be under a civil despot, but it is worse to be under a religious autocrat. Then in the choice of penances we have heard of most frightful mistakes, where the good of the penitent was in no way consulted, but the vindication of the absolutism of the confessor. Think of a penance to blood for one lie, or for the great error of attending Mass in a Catholic Church. Think of penances which cover months and burden years with the chains of obligatory prayers and exercises. But all this is really nothing compared to the morbid and unhealthy religious life which they engender, in which slavish fear of God is the principal ingredient, where sighs and solemn faces, instead of cheerfulness and natural joyousness, are the exhibitions of their piety. To us, (and we have had occasion to know the interior of more than one,) they seem to be perpetually toiling up a steep ascent under the weight of heavy burdens from which it would be wrong to expect relief. Forced to confess their sins as if doing some stealthy action, they kill in their souls the bright light and, elasticity of spirit which the great Creator gave them. God is not a tyrant, but a merciful and beneficent father, whose smiles of love are ever around his children, and his priesthood are agents in the work of love to bring into even the erring heart the sunlight of a father's truth and mercy. The confessor is no minister of justice, but like his Master, the good Samaritan to bind up the wounds of the broken heart, to preach deliverance to the captive, and joy to the mourner.
In what we have said, we make no accusations against the good intentions of these Protestant confessors, for whom we especially pray. We believe that they mean well, and that they hope to sanctify their people by borrowing fruit from the garden of the church, and transplanting it where it cannot and will not grow. And as their only friends—for in their own communion they have few friends—we warn them of the risk they run, and of the dangers to which they expose their penitents. It is a fearful responsibility for them, for which they must answer alone, and in which no church will shield them. Some will, through their incapacity, lose their hold upon all religion, and either live without hope or die without consolation. Others will shut their eyes to the plainest deductions of reason, and having eyes, will see not, having ears, will hear not. Many through divine grace, and the honest heart which pursues principles to their legitimate results, will find their way to that one faith where all things are in harmony, where the aspirations of the soul are met with a full answer, and the needs of the heart are filled from God's own fulness. O children of men! how foolish it is to enter upon the province of God, and by human hands to make a religion, when the all-merciful Father, who alone knoweth our frame, has made one for us, which in its completeness answereth to every want of our being.