Those who have looked a little into their own hearts, and who have reflected on the subtle influences which have told on their characters, must feel that dealing with another soul is no light matter; that the chances of doing harm are many and great; and that special graces are needed by those who are called to so sacred an office. The need of training, too, is obvious; he who is to be the physician of the soul ought to be as well acquainted with moral theology as a physician should be with medical science. Among the clergy of the Church of England there is an absolute want of theological knowledge. It would be hard to mention an Anglican book on any subject connected with moral theology. Anglican clergymen, even where they have learnt to believe many of the dogmas of the Catholic faith, are, generally speaking, ignorant of the difference between mortal and venial sin. Hence results a spirit of severity on the part of the confessor which tends to produce scrupulosity and depression in the penitent. Converts have declared that the first time they heard Catholic teaching as to the nature of sin it seemed to them the most consoling doctrine possible.
It is true that of late years some Catholic manuals have been translated and “adapted” to the Anglican use. In the recent controversies regarding the Priest in Absolution some of the leading High-Church clergy have proclaimed their ignorance of the book, and have asserted that experience had taught them all that they could learn from its pages; but while they were gaining their experience what became of the poor souls who were the subjects of their study? In the Catholic Church a person cannot be said in any way to distinguish himself by going to confession; he does what has to be done if he would save his soul. Among Anglicans, although the practice is now pretty widely spread, the case is very different; the man or woman who goes to confession occupies a somewhat exceptional position, and is more or less considered as a support of the church, as one of those through whose influence that church is gradually to be reformed and restored.
It is hard to get at statistics as to the actual strength of the extreme High-Church party, and even among those who call themselves High Church there are many shades and differences of opinion; the amount of notice which it has attracted is due rather to the adoption of practices unknown in the Church of England, and to the earnestness and activity of its clergy, than to the great number of its adherents. If we were to count one-tenth part of the members of the Church of England as High Church we should probably be overshooting the mark; and of these it is by no means to be assumed that the greater number go to confession. Personal inquiry in at least one so-called centre of ritualism has led us to believe that it is the practice of a mere minority.
We believe that the practice of confession may be said to be pretty nearly universal in the case of the Anglican religious communities (which are about thirty in number). Many people living in the world are accustomed to go to confession weekly or fortnightly, and in some few London churches the practice is probably followed by the majority of the congregation; children are trained to it from their earliest years, and it is boldly proclaimed to be the “remedy for post-baptismal sin.”
As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. This, after all, is the great danger. It will never be known till the last day how many souls have been kept out of God’s church by the authority of their Protestant “directors.” A director finds that one of his penitents begins to think that the Catholic Church has claims worthy, at least, of being examined. At once active works of charity are proposed as a remedy; all reading of Catholic books, or intercourse with Catholic friends or relations, is forbidden; the director is not afraid to say that leaving the Church of England is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and furthermore will promise to answer at the last day for the soul that, in reliance on his dictum, suspends all search after truth and blindly obeys. The moment of grace is too often lost; the soul holds back and will not respond to God’s call. Too often those things which it had are taken from it, and the sad result is an utter loss of faith.
A Catholic’s interest in the working of the Anglican Church is solely in reference to the work of conversion. Those who in one sense are said to come nearest to the Catholic Church are often in reality the furthest off; for they believe Catholic doctrines not because they are proposed by a divine authority, but because they consider them reasonable, or find that they are in accordance with the testimony of antiquity. Their religion is as much a matter of private judgment as that of the Bible Christian; the difference lies in the fact that the ritualist exercises his private judgment over a more extended field than the other.
An Anglican who goes to confession must be an object of great anxiety to a Catholic friend. In such a case, at least where the practice has been voluntarily and earnestly adopted, we feel that God is calling that soul to his church; that he has awakened in it a sense of need, a craving for the grace and aid which, generally speaking, are only to be found in the sacraments. We can hardly doubt that, if that soul is true to grace, it will ere long be in the one true fold; but the position is one of peculiar difficulty, and the temptations which beset it are of no common kind. Minds of a weak order naturally yield to anything that bears the semblance of lawful authority; the conscientious fear to go against those whom they believe to be wiser and better than themselves; a peace of mind often follows the confession of an Anglican. Perhaps it is the natural result of having made an effort and got over what is supposed to be a painful duty; perhaps it is a grace given by God in consideration of an act of contrition. How is the poor soul to discern this peace from the effect of sacramental grace? So the very goodness of God is turned into a reason for delay and for resting satisfied.
Hitherto we have looked on the subject of confession in the Anglican communion chiefly from the side of the penitent; the case of the clergy who hear confessions is widely different and is beset with many difficulties. Generally speaking, the only question arising in the mind of the penitent would be: Can I get my sins forgiven by going to confession? Of course the reality of the absolution turns primarily on the validity of orders; strange to say, a vast number of the laity of the Church of England are contented to take the validity of the orders of their ministers as an unquestioned fact. The clergy naturally are most positive in the assertion that their orders are valid; as the nature and the necessity of jurisdiction are alike unknown to the ordinary Anglican mind, the matter seems pretty clear. The laity in the Anglican body are not in any very definite manner bound by the Prayer-book or by any of the authorized documents of that body; there is nothing anomalous in the idea of Anglican lay people, especially women, going to confession without even asking themselves whether the practice is in accordance with the mind of the communion to which they belong. Moreover, High-Church Anglicans are avowedly bent on improving their church; their church is not their guide or their mother, but rather an institution which has so far fulfilled its purpose but imperfectly, and which, by a judicious process of reformation, they hope to assimilate to an ideal existing in their own minds. Many conscientious Anglicans would therefore deem any objection founded on the evident want of encouragement of their views by their church as quite irrelevant. The Church of England does not forbid such and such a practice, they would say; we are convinced that it is in accordance with the teaching of antiquity, that it is useful, and therefore we encourage it.
The clergy, however, are bound not only to follow the voice of individual conscience, but to keep certain solemn promises by which they have voluntarily bound themselves. Even if a clergyman be fully convinced that he possesses the tremendous power of the keys, it does not necessarily follow that he should feel at liberty to exercise it at all times or in all places. We do not go at all into the question of Anglican orders, except to remark in passing that it seems strange that the majority of the clergy should give themselves so little trouble on the subject; they know that, to say the least, grave doubts as to their position are entertained by Christendom in general, and yet it is very seldom that any one of them takes the same trouble to investigate his orders that a reasonable man would take in regard to his title-deeds, if a doubt were thrown on them. We believe that the feeling which we once heard expressed by a clergyman said to be High Church is not very uncommon; being told by a friend that there were serious reasons for doubting Anglican orders, and consequently Anglican sacraments, he made no attempt to defend them, but simply remarked: “I don’t suppose that God would let us suffer for such a trifle.” To make the position of the Anglican clergy clear to our readers, we must begin by citing from “The Form and Manner of making Priests” the solemn words which a Protestant bishop, “laying his hands upon the head of every one that receiveth the order of priesthood,” pronounces over him:
“Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”