An enquiry into the doctrine of the Church of England upon absolution

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An enquiry into the doctrin

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Chapter I

Y object, in the present publication, is to enquire into and ascertain so much of the doctrine of the Church of England upon Absolution, as may be gathered from, or is mixed up with, the forms of Absolution contained in the Common Prayer Book.

Absolution is a doctrine so great, that the consideration of any branch of it must involve consequences of no little importance to every Christian : an importance not to be estimated, when we have to argue points with which practice is concerned. Then the discussion can be no longer regarded by any one who is sincerely anxious to work out his salvation, as merely one among many questions debated in the schools ; but he must acknowledge, in his own conscience, that he is himself deeply and personally interested in the truth, whatever that may at last be shewn to be.

As we proceed, it will probably happen that I shall advance arguments which some will desire to dispute, and that I shall assert positions from which they will be eager to dissent. Many causes, which it is not now necessary for me to enter into in detail, will conduce to this : and let me earnestly request the reader, to weigh dispassionately all that may be said, and, before he decides against the truth or the correctness of the conclusions at which we shall finally arrive, carefully to l-ecollect whether he is or is not influenced by previous habits of thought and prejudice ; by a too great and long-established reliance upon authorities whose judgment he may not so accurately have examined, as he has hastily adopted ; or, by a desire to consent to something which may look like an easier explanation of what he must own to be very difficult and obscure : easier, not in the mode by which it seeks to remove the difficulty, but in the results to which it leads, and in the claims which it makes upon the active practice of those who accept it.

Nor in this place is it out of the way for me to observe, that the easiness, so understood, of explanations of chief doctrines of the Holy Gospel, is in itself — I would not say a mark of error, but, — at least a note of warning, and an intelligible call upon us to hesitate and doubt. If our earthly pilgrimage towards heaven were over roads always plain, smooth, and pleasant ; if it was quite certain that having wandered from the right path, we could regain it without labour and pain and sorrow; nay, more than this, if there were no words in the discourses of our Divine Redeemer telling us of our taking up His Cross ; of hating one's own kindred for His sake ; of making foes of one's own household ; of losing life itself ; then we might perhaps he borne out in thus explaining all the duties which, being His disciples, we are bound to perform : but we should make His burthen so light, and His yoke so easy, that neither the one nor the other would be any longer a reality, but a shadow.

And if what has just been said be true, as undoubtedly it is, of the Christian life of those who, in purity and constant faith, have their lives-long laboured to walk worthy of their high calling, how much more must it be true in regard to others who by wilful and continued sin have stained, over and over again, their baptismal robes, and fallen from grace. Who can think that he speaks the language of the Gospel, when to such as these he proposes, and proposes only, brief and easy remedies ; and passports opening even, as it were, upon the first demand, the door of reconciliation?

It is a source of comfort to me, about to enter upon such an enquiry as I have proposed, to remember that these pages will not in any popular manner set before our people generally, arguments and proofs and decisions ; on the contrary, from the very nature of those arguments, and from numerous quotations being given in the language of the original writers, this work will chiefly be read by the clergy, whose proper office it is first to form their own judgement, and then to teach men over whom they are placed in the Lord.

I do not suppose that there is any Christian truth which, so long as it is disputed, we ought to withdraw (if I may say so) from common observation and the strife of vulgar tongues more heedfully than the doctrine of absolution. For, where there is not only no foundation already laid of learning, but also the positive existence of prejudice and of an ignorant apprehension of hateful and most false consequences, we must be prepared to hear from many to whom we speak, the open expression of profane opinions and sentiments : so profane, that the very persons by whom such sentiments are avowed, would often be the first to shrink from and to abhor them, if the}- had been either better taught, or more prudently dealt with.

Absolution, as commonly understood, is that Divine Ordinance or Sacrament, in which, and by means of which, men may obtain remission of sins which they have committed after Baptism.

And, here, before we go further, let me distinctly say that I do not propose to enter at all into any proof of the doctrine that sin after baptism may be remitted without the application of absolution : in other words ; that absolution, as a means of grace, is not necessary to our salvation. No one, I presume, would assert that the church of England since the middle of the sixteenth century declares, as for a period before that time she did declare, that all her members shall be obliged to receive absolution. This, even if her own authoritative documents could admit or suggest doubt, has been made manifest enough by almost

The Doctriite of Absolution. 5

innumerable writers, commonly referred to : and it would now be for me a mere waste of labour to repeat their arguments. My object is to shew, what some (at least) have too much forgotten in the eagerness of controversy ; namely, that whilst, upon the one hand, the church of England, following the example of the primitive Church and relying upon Holy Scripture, does not believe absolution to be of necessity to salvation, and to this belief I most entirely and unequivocally consent ; yet that, upon the other hand, where duly sought for and duly administered, she still holds that absolution conveys the same graces and spiritual blessings as of old, from generation to generation, up to the days of the apostles.

Nor do I intend to include any discussion about public offences, and public penance and absolution. These would open up not only a long, but an utterly distinct, class of subjects. Such an enquiry would be concerned with the mode in which the violated external discipline of the Church might be properly vindicated, how the scandal might be fitly removed, and how the offender, having been justly punished, might be restored to communion. But we have now to consider in what manner the church of England teaches us, that secret sins, known it may be only to oneself, may be remitted in the sight of God, and the sinner again placed in a state of justification.

Nor, once more, shall I argue at all whether sacerdotal absolution, as that term is used in our Church, does or does not convey the Divine grace and pardon.

I am justly warranted in taking this for granted. My debate is not with those who reject and disbelieve the grace of absolution ; with those who make light of, and explain away the awful commission of our Blessed Lord, " Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained ; " with those (in a word) who will not admit the doctrine of sacramental grace at all ; but with those who know and teach that " Absolution is a power which the Church has ever thankfully acknowledged to have been given to her by her Divine Head, and which no particular Church can ever surrender, without cutting itself from the Catholic Church of Christ, and therein from Christ himself."

But, on the contrary, men who, unhappily, belong to societies like many communities of foreign protestants, or, for example, the presbyterian kirk of Scotland, which have separated themselves from the Catholic Church, may, very consistently and intelligibly too, consider absolution to be nothing more than a declaration of the Infinite mercy of the Almighty towards all truly repentant sinners ; or, nothing more than a serviceable branch of the outward discipline of congregations, by which notorious offenders, who have been expelled, might be again admitted ; or, a still higher though perhaps a more confused idea, that it is nothing more than a remission of sins in the sacrament of baptism. I say this is intelligible enough, when alleged by those to whom I am now referring. Nay, if such societies claimed to have, oven if thev stoutlv insisted upon the necessity of, the grace of absolution in its real sense and meaning, they would only be deceiving their own selves, and talking about what they cannot, out of the Church, by possibility possess. Absolution of sin by the mouth of the ministers of God, even like the blessed sacrament of the eucharist, can be obtained only from those who have received both power and commission to bestow it. It is a fearful truth, that so many thousands and tens of thousands of baptized persons live on from the font to the grave, — I do not say without the reception of absolution, for this they do not desire or believe in, but — without more than the mere fiction and pretence of eating and drinking the Body and the Blood of our adorable Redeemer, the partaking of Which is " generally necessary to salvation."

The method which I shall pursue will be, first to lay before the reader the opinions of those writers upon our Book of Common Prayer, who are commonly regarded as ritualists, and to whom the clergy of the English church usually refer in order either to decide doubts, or to explain difficulties. The reason why these writers have been so almost universally appealed to, as decisive, to the exclusion of earlier authorities who have investigated the like subjects, may be traced to various causes : chief!}", because the earlier books being dear as well as scarce, have not been purchased by many who, nevertheless, have perhaps spent money on less worthy objects, and who have been therefore contented to rely upon second-hand information, without

8 The Doctri?7e of Absolution.

taking the pains to enquire for themselves at better sources. Or, again, because of the ignorant and long-established and, until late years, wide-spread conception of the origin of our Book of Common Prayer; namely, that it was " written " or " compiled " at the reformation, when all things were made new ; and therefore that we need do no more than adopt some interpretation, out of the several authors since that time, which best suits our own notions about the matter in dispute. This last theory, if any fancy so visionary and untrue may be called a theory, at once and altogether deprives the Church herself, whose Book and Eitual it is, of voice and authority. In fact, loudly as people may choose to boast about the learning and acuteness of Sparrow, or Wheatley, or Comber, or Shepherd ; or to cry, " I am of this one," and " I of that;" yet, after all, it is a mode of talking which resolves itself into a simple assertion of each man's individual and personal judgement.

I would wish not to be understood as undervaluing the labours of those writers whom I am about to quote, or as desiring not to recommend, as being useful, any reference to their works. Very far from it : I have often been myself much indebted to several of them. And regarding points upon which there is little or no difference amongst us ; or, which have been so distinctly settled by the Church as to leave no room for variety of opinion ; or, once more, as to the true interpretation which we are to give to doubtful and seemingly contradictory rubrics ; the clergy, equally with the laity, will do well to avail themselves always of their researches. But I would protest against the overrating any one among them : and against the placing one or two, or all together if it should be so, in the place which is alone due to the church of England herself.

To produce extracts from these writers will probably seem to some tedious and unnecessary : but I do not see how otherwise we can correctly estimate the present difficulty of the question which we are about to consider, or the value, in regard to it, of their different opinions. So different, it may be added, that they have at least involved in clouds much that would have remained plain and clear enough, if a more legitimate mode of interpretation had never been departed from.

io The Doctrine of Absolution.

Chapter II

ET us first take the notes of bishop Overall, and of bishop Cosin, as they are printed in the additions to the folio edition of Nicholls on the common prayer. Upon the confession and absolution before morning prayer bishop Cosin says; " In which confession, we remember our daily offences in general; and there is no means so powerful to obtain pardon for them, as the daily prayers of the Church to that purpose. So that the course which our Church here prescribeth, for the pardon of our daily offences, being put in practice, what can be more just, more due than to declare that forgiveness and absolution, which those that are (as they pretend to be) penitent for those sins, do obtain ? What more comfortable, than to hear the news of it from his mouth, by whom the Church ministereth these offices ? what more seasonable, than to do this before we come to give God His solemn praise and honour in our publick service, that we may be assured He accepts of the same at our hands." The bishop makes a remark upon our superiority over " other reformed churches" in this respect, and continues : " The solemn beginning of our service with confession and absolution, serves" [let me call the reader's attention to this, not to convey remission of those sins which are confessed, but] " to put the people in mind, that all which follows is the solemn service of Almighty God, preparing them to that attention of mind, and devotion of spirit, which they owe to it, and which is requisite to make it acceptable." 1

I need only observe here, that I believe bishop Cosin stands alone in his reference of the confession and absolution to the whole course of the prayers about to follow, and which are, he tells us, the most powerful means we have to obtain pardon for our offences. Whether they be so or not, I shall not enquire ; perhaps I have mistaken the author's meaning, and the whole passage is decidedly obscure. But this is, at any rate, evident and sufficient for my present purpose : namely, that bishop Cosin's view of the matter is, that the absolution is a declaration of that forgiveness of sins which the truly penitent person obtains, in some way or other, from God.2

Upon the exhortation in the liturgy, that whosoever is unquiet in his conscience should go to some priest and receive the benefit of absolution, bishop Overall

1 Additional Notes, p. 18. MS. collections ascribed to bishop 9 In the same collection, there Andrewes. " Because [the miis the following note soon after, nister] speaks [the absolution] p. 19. which does not amount to authoritative, in the Name of any thing, on either side of the Christ and His Church, he must questiou. This note is from some not kneel, but stand up."

12 The Doctri7ie of Absolution.

declares ; " Confession of sins must necessarily be made to them, to whom the dispensation of the mysteries of God is committed. For so they which in former times repented among the saints, are read to have done. It is written in the gospel, that they confessed their sins to John Baptist. In the Acts they all confessed their sins unto the apostles, of whom they were baptized." The meaning of this I take to be, not that particular confession of sins is necessary in itself and always, but necessary in order to that special absolution which persons are exhorted to seek for, that they may not come in scruple and doubt and unquiet to the holy sacrament.3

In the next page the same writer says ; " It is most expedient that this [the Exhortation] be read, to induce the people, that they bethink themselves of the sovereign benefit of absolution, by their penitent confession."

Upon the form in the visitation of the sick, bishop Overall further says : " The church of England howsoever it holdeth not confession and absolution sacramental, that is made unto and received from a priest, to be so absolutely necessary, as that without it there can be no remission of sins ; yet by this place it is manifest, what she teacheth concerning the virtue and force of this sacred action. The confession is commanded to be special, the absolution is the same that the ancient Church, and the present church of Rome, useth ; what would they have more ? . . . . Our if he feels his conscience troubled, is no more than is si inveniat peccata ; for if he be not troubled with sin, what needs either confession or absolution? Venial sins, that separate not from the grace of God, need not so much to trouble a man's conscience. If he hath committed any mortal sin, then we require confession of it to a priest ; who may give him, upon his true contrition and repentance, the benefit of absolution ; which takes effect according to his disposition that is absolved .... The truth is, that in the priest's absolution there is the true power and virtue of forgiveness, which will most certainly take effect, nisi ponitur obex, as in baptism."4

I shall next take bishop Sparrow: and extract, from his explanation of " the Absolution,, in the daily prayers, so much as will shew us his judgement upon the question before us. In that part of his book, the Rationale, he also considers (very naturally) the other two forms which the church of England orders, and the several occasions of them.

" This absolution [the first] is an act of authority,5 by virtue of a ' power and commandment of God to

4 Ibid. p. 62. stand : but, as a fact, the rubric,

5 I pass by some preceding re- if it desired anything, desired the marks about the omission in the minister to kneel. But the writer's then rubric to stand. Bishop argument (and when in any case Sparrow wrote originally upon this is so, it is in various degrees the Book of 1G04: in which no suspicious,) required such an assuch order was given. The bishop scrtion.

asserts that the minister ought to

His ministers.' And as we read .S'. John 20. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted. And if our confession be serious and hearty, this absolution is effectual, as if God did pronounce it from heaven." The proof of this immediately follows : and I feel confident that, where we might have expected to hear the authority of the church of England appealed to, most persons will be startled at that which is produced. " So sayes " the bishop continues " the Confession of Saxony and Bohemia ; and so saj es the Augustan Confession, and which is more, so sayes S. Chrysost. in his fifth horn, upon Esay .... The same says S. Greg. Horn. 26. upon the Gospels . . . . S. Augustine and Cyprian, and generally antiquity sayes the same ; so does our Church in many places, particularly in the form of absolution for the sick : but above all, holy Scripture is clear, S. John 20. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them."6

Such is the argument on which bishop Sparrow grounds his assertion that if the general confession be sincere, then the absolution which follows is " effectual." When persons produce evidence which is not what they would have us to suppose, we are generally warranted in deciding against, at least in doubting, the correctness of the conclusions which they draw. There can be no one who will not think it very curious that the absolution in the morning and evening prayer is pronounced to be " effectual," because our Church

Rationale, p. 17. Edit. 1668.

has a form of absolution in her order for visiting the sick.

But we will pause a moment. These so-called proofs, (let their relative value be what they may, whether the judgements of holy fathers of the Catholic Church, or of Confessions of foreign protestants,) are to be taken as convincing evidence that when the priest in the daily office of the English church pronounces the Absolution, then that the truly penitent sinner is, at that very time, actually absolved. Now, in the first place, obscure as the Saxon, the Bohemian, and the Augsburg confessions of faith are upon this point of absolution, yet one thing at least is certain, that not one of them refers at all to public general confession and absolution, but, distinctly, to private absolution.7 Let it be understood that if they really

7 I shall not point out how inadequate and obscure in detail these confessions are, in their articles " de pwnitentia," but it is right that the reader should see so much of them as relates to confession and absolution, in order that he may judge for himself.

I presume these to be the places referred to by bishop Sparrow.

" Itidem docent, ut poenitentes sacerdotem accedant, peccataque sua Deo ipsi coram illo confiteantur, tametsi non praecipimus neque exigimus enumerationem peccatorum, consilium autem modumquc vitandi peccati, et per claves ecclesiffi absolutionem ab ipso petant, ut remissionem peccatorum, per hujusmodi ministerium, sic a Christo institutum, consequantur.

Item docentur homines, ut absolutionem magni faciant, credantque indubitate fieri, quod per claves promittitur, cum vox Christi sit, et mandato ejus expressa, Johannis vigesimo : Accipite Spiritual Sanctum, cui remiseritis peccata, etc. Sciantque clavium usu ac ministerio, Christique autoritate verborum, sibi omnia peccata condonari.'' Confessio Bohcemica. Art. v.

" Cum hac fide in terroribus illis erigimur, consequimur certo remissionem peccatorum, sicut sudid say what bishop Sparrow has pretended, nevertheless, in enquiring into the doctrine of the church of England we must at once and utterly repudiate and oppose their authority. I cannot allow that upon any single point whatever, let it be weighty or let it be light, the confessions and symbols, and formularies and books of prayer, put forth by foreign protestant communities, are to be listened to for a single instant, when cited to determine the true meaning of the Catholic church of England. Too long, unhappily for us all, too long have those documents by many been otherwise regarded : and we are, ( God grant it may be only for a time) involved in almost inextricapra ostendimus. Et hanc fidem concipiunt animi ex evangelio ; item ex absolutions quae evangelium annunciat et applicat perterrefactis conscientiis. Ideoque docent nostri retinendam esse in ecclesiis privatam absolutionem, et ejus dignitatem, et potestatem clavium veris et amplissimis laudibus omant, quod videlicet potestas clavium administret evangelium, non solum in genere omnibus, sed etiam privatim singulis, sicut Christus inquit, Lucratus eris Jratrem, etc. Et quod voci illi evangelii, quod ministerio ecclesise nobis in absolutione administratur, credendum sit, tanquam voci de coelo sonanti."

Confessio Augustana. 1540.

" De confessione privata facienda pastoribus, adfinnamus ritum privatae absolutionis in ecclesia retinendum esse ; et constanter retinemus, propter multas graves causas. Sed simul docemus, non prcecipiendam esse, nec postulandum enumerationem delictorum in illo privato colloquio : quia nec divinitus mandata est ilia delictorum recitatio, nec possibilis est : et adducit pias mentes in dubitationem, et fidem languefacit. Magis vero hoc taxamus, quod nusquam adversarii in doctrina de poenitentia vel conversione, mentioncm faciant fidei justificantis, de qua supra dictum est : qua sola vere accipitur remissio peccatorum, et cor in sensu iraj Dei erigitur, et liberatur ex doloribus inferorum." Confessio Sa.vonica. cap. xvj.

The Doctrine of Absolution. iy

ble difficulties, into which we need never have been plunged, if we had been content to abide by and to follow the clear and steady guidance of our Church herself. But I pass on from this.

If the confessions cited by bishop Sparrow do not prove his point, how can we expect the fathers would ? Still, let us hear them. " Heaven " says S. Chrysostom " waits and expects the priest's sentence here on earth ; the Lord follows the servant, and what the servant rightly binds or looses here on earth, that the Lord confirms in heaven." And S. Gregory : " The apostles (and in them all priests) were made God's vicegerents here on earth in His Name and stead to retain or remit sins." Particular places are not given from S. Cyprian or S. Augustine ; and I am quite content to leave without further remark the above two quotations.

Bishop Sparrow, a page or two after, proceeds : " There be three several forms of absolution in the Service .... All these several forms, in sense and virtue are the same." If the writer were here merely speaking of the difference in the forms, as being the one declaratory, or another precatory, or a third authoritative, (and in such a way I suppose from the argument which accompanies it, that his opinion is to be understood) then another and a very different question is concerned. But, following so shortly upon his previous statements, and with nothing introduced by which we might comprehend that he is proceeding to a new subject, we are naturally induced to interpret c this as a further proof of what had been already advanced : namely, that the three forms are, as a fact in their use by our church, the same in effect and virtue. For, he concludes : " So then in which form soever of tnese the absolution be pronounced, it is in substance the same ; an act of authority by virtue of Christ's commission, effectual to remission of sins in the penitent."8

There is yet one other passage, which ought to be included here. Whether, according to the commonly received notion of bishop Sparrow's meaning, it is reconcileable with what has gone before, is not for me to enquire : but it bears upon and supports the extract already given from the notes of bishop Overall. " Here shall the sick person make a special confession, if lie feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. It would be considered, whether every deadly sin be not a weighty matter."9

It will be observed, that I have all along been allowing that bishop Sparrow's judgement is certainly agreeable to that of persons who believe that the forms of absolution in the daily prayers and in the liturgy, after the general confessions, do effectually convey remission of mortal sin. His argument is confused, and it may, after all, not be so certain as at first sight it seems. But however this may be, if it be not easy to understand the author of the Rationale in this part of his work, if it be still less easy to reconcile his state*

8 Rationale, p. 22—25.

9 Ibid. p. 331. Visit, of the sick.

merits in different places of the same book, I must altogether leave to others the attempt to reconcile this exposition, if it must be so understood, with his famous sermon preached before the university of Cambridge in 1637.10

In that sermon Sparrow says that confession is, of necessity, to be made to God : to which all men consent. "And," he goes on, " no pardon to be hoped for, unless we confess to Him at least. But there is another confessor, that should not be neglected. He that would be sure of pardon," — it may seem strange if I Italicize words, so let the reader mark them for himself, " He that would be sure of pardon, let him seek out a priest) and make his humble confession to him ; for God, Who alone hath the prime and original right of forgiving sins, hath delegated the priests His judges here on earth, and given them the power of absolution ; so that they can, in His Name, forgive the sins of those, that humbly confess unto them." He supports this declaration by some extracts from the fathers, which, on this occasion (whether valuable or not) are at any rate to the point in hand, namely, the power in the priesthood to forgive sins. And he continues. " But to put all out of doubt, let us search the Scriptures ; look into the xxth of St. John, v. 23rd. Whosesoever sins ye remit, etc. Here is plainly a power of remitting sins

granted to the priest, by our blessed Saviour It

is not the power of preaching, or baptizing, which is