CHAPTER XX.

TH

THE TRIBUNAL.

HIS chapter deals with a subject of so extreme a delicacy that, as an ex-Confessor of some eleven years' experience on the Missions, etc., I wish to pass from its consideration as soon as possible, but not until I have rendered the subject and myself some justice. I will do so when I have given my reasons for no longer believing the "Confession" to be a Sacrament, and the "great remedy," and in the majority of instances the "only means" whereby, man may again recover God's friendship which he has forfeited through wilful and grave disobedience to His commands.

Roman theology informs us that the Sacrament of Penance, otherwise called the "Confession," is that sacrament wherein the sins committed after baptism, or since the last confession, are forgiven upon the penitent's sincere statement and sorrowful acknowledgment of them, to a priest lawfully ordained and approved of by his Bishop for the purpose, said penitent accepting the penance imposed upon him by the confessor, and determined with the help of God never again to offend Him, and to avoid the occasions of his sin or sins for the future.

As in the case of the other doctrines which I had begun to doubt, so in this I followed out the same procedure, viz., the "searching of Scriptures," Tradi

tion and History. And as in the other doctrines, so in this, too, careful and conscientious research have compelled me to disown my belief in the form of Confession known as "Auricular," i.e., confession made to a priest, and as Rome has been practising it and enforcing IT FOR AGES AS OF DIVINĚ ORIGIN AND OF ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for sinful

man.

Delving into the heart of the question at once I thought, "Were confession such as we understand it to-day, so vitally necessary, what more natural expectation could a person conceive than that Christ, the Master, who came to 'save the lost sheep of the House of Israel,' would, Himself, have been the first and greatest Confessor, and that He would have enacted it of His Apostles, who were weak and sinful men.” Listen to St. Peter's humble request and acknowledgment, "Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man." But, no, Christ never sat in the Roman Confessional, never heard a penitent's detailed account of each and of all his sins, nor inflicted a Roman penance. "Go thy way, sin no more," He said to the poor woman, openly and above board, and in the hearing of all. She humbly carried her sin to her Saviour, unexpressed, not to Peter, nor to any of the Apostles, and was "forgiven much because she had loved much," by Christ, not by Peter, nor James, nor John, nor by any but by Christ. Even if Christ never heard a Roman Confession, yet deemed it so necessary, He would have instructed His Apostles in the minutest details of this most solemn Tribunal. We would very naturally expect Him to do so. But He did not do so. Neither into His words nor into His deeds could I insert the most remote intention on His part to inculcate "Auricular" Confession; not even by a deft, tortuous twist could I do so. I began, then, honestly, to

believe that such was the furthest off thought of His Divine Mind when dealing with men and women of His day.

It would have been so easy for Him to have pronounced His Will on the point and laid down the laws and the bye-laws whereby the "Confessional" would be preserved intact, all through the ages, as well from opposition from without as from neglect from within. He never would have left imperishable souls in such doubt. All would have been as clear as on the other points of the doctrines He laid down for His Apostles and Disciples. There would have been no reason for Him to have altered His procedure in this and been more obscure.

I could not help taking up this point; that if Christ had commissioned them "to hear confessions," administer the penance and absolve penitents from their sins, that as a matter of course the Apostles would have exulted exceedingly in this great engine devised by God for the salvation of mankind, that they would have proclaimed its use and power and benefits universally, and that they would have relied for success in the evangelistic work of the world as much upon the "Auricular" Confession as they certainly did upon the Commission "to preach and to baptise."

I considered that the terms of the Commission would be not only "go forth into the whole world, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," but He would have added something to this effect-"and hear them confess their sins in secret and alone, unto remission." I believe the Apostles never received such a commission. I hunted the records early and late for one solitary instance in the Apostolic Establishment of the Gospel; in the words or writings of Peter or Paul inculcating or

practising "Auricular" Confession. I saw that the Confession they taught and practised was that of direct appeal to God and Him alone. "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy Will be done in earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against

I turned time and again to the early Christian Church Records, and to the Teachers. Surely if such an institution as this were from Christ's lips and mind, they would show forth some references, let them be ever so remote or insignificant. But each time and again was disappointed. I turned over their works in vain, and delved, but they were silent as to the possession of this power by man to forgive sins, except in the case of the Son of Man, but then He also was the Son of God, was very God Himself.

These works succeeded in proving the contrary to me, viz., that “Auricular Confession" is not of Divine, but merely of human invention. It was forced home upon me that by no manner of logical arguing can Auricular Confession" be established upon these wellknown words of Christ, "whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them." It is neither specified nor implied here at least. I laboured long on the point of "implification" that perhaps here "Auricular" was justified. But Christ's clear, simple method of explaining away His figures when the people misunderstood Him, or of reiterating what He had already declared when He spoke literally and they understood Him figuratively, occurred to me. Not once even did He stop to explain away on this question of "forgiveness of sins" that He meant "auricular confession." He went straight on again, speaking literally to His people, reiterating, emphasising the great fact of His being the

Mediator, and His Father the Benefactor. "If you ask the Father anything in My Name, He will give it you," even the forgiveness of sins. What need, then, argued, for "auricular confession," with all its paraphernalia, and all that such paraphernalia stands for? I examined the incident of the "man sick with the palsy" more minutely than was my custom hitherto in the Halls. Christ said to him something unexpected by the onlookers-"Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven you." Now, neither they nor the man expected this. They expected a bodily cure, a miracle, and when our Lord had reproached them with their secret murmurings, for they said within themselves, "Only God can forgive sins; how can this man forgive sins?" He never rebuked them for their thought -"Only God can forgive sins," but He went on to prove that "This Man" of their thoughts was more than man, was the very God who alone can forgive sins. He said to him sick of the palsy, and to them all, "That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, I say to thee, 'Take up thy bed and walk,'" and the man arose and walked.

Here he proclaimed not only His humanity, but His Divinity also. And just as His mere humanity of itself would have failed to perform what is apparently the easier task of the two, viz., that of healing the bodily infirmity, so the mere humanity of itself would certainly have failed to effect a cure in the more sublime sphere, that of healing the spiritual infirmity of the soul by the forgiveness of sins. It consequently required the intervention of the Divinity in Christ not only to cure the infirmity of body, but especially to cure the infirmity of the soul. He did not dispute the forgiveness of sins, thereby proclaiming that He was undoubtedly God, and to Him alone as such belonged