Confession and the "Confessional"

“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins.’ — Acts 10: 43. “Confess your faults one to another.’’ — James 5: 16.

THE first text teaches three things: 1. That there is such a thing as remission of sins; blessed fact for those whose hearts and lives are guilt-burdened! 2. That this remission comes to us through the merit of Christ. “Through his name.” 3, That we obtain this remission by faith. ‘Whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins.”’

The second text teaches the duty of mutual confession. It makes no distinction. The people are no more bound by it to confess to the priest than the priest is bound to confess to the people. And yet, this is the one passage on which Romanists base their practice of auricular confession. They make it mean that the people should confess to the priest, while they excuse the priest from confessing to the people. The fact that it takes such a misinterpretation to support the “Confessional” clearly shows that such an institution is nowhere recognized in the Scriptures. We should confess our sins to God, and expect forgiveness without priestly absolution. David said: “I acknowledge my sins urto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,’and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” (Pa. 82: 5.)

Again: ‘ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” (Ps. 51: 4.)

Confession to God insures forgiveness. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” (1 John 1: 9.) But such confession should be made directly to God, not through a third party. When the prodigal son returned, he went straight to his father with full confession. The Romanist plan would have made him look up one of the servants on the plantation, and confess to him, Jn the Lord’s prayer God is addressed: ‘Our Father who art in heaven ... Forgive us our trespasses.’’ Which, being interpreted in the light of the “Confessional,’ would mean, “Father, who sits in a little box with a hole in its side, forgive my trespasses.”” The publican in the temple did not bother about seeking a priest, but prayed directly to him who is always near enough to hear, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

The priest does not claim to pronounce the sins of a penitent forgiven after confession, but really, as God, to forgive sins. Hear the words of the Council of Trent, the Bible of the Papacy: * Whosoever shall affirm that the priest’s sacramental absolution is not a judicial act, but only a ministry to pronounce and declare the sins of the party confessing forgiven, let him be accursed.” For the Pope to claim that he is God upon earth is blasphemy indeed, but here is multiplied blasphemy. Thousands of priests, some of them bad men, take their seats in the temple of God, each of them claiming that he is as God. And, what is worse, a bad character does not affect this claim. Here is the law: ‘‘ Whosoever shall affirm that priests living in mortal sin have not the power of binding and loosing; or that priests are not the only ministers of absolution, let him be accursed.”

All this authority is drawn from a passage in Matt. 16: 19, which does not mention confession, and which we have already shown does not put Pope, much less priest, in the place of God.

The Bible makes no distinction between sins; the ‘‘ Confessional,” on the other hand, divides sins into “mortal” and “venial.” And it is difficult to determine just what sins are venial, and what mortal, ‘“Mortal sin,” says the ‘“‘ Catechism,” “is a grievous offence against the law of God.” “This sin is called mortal, because it deprives us of spiritual life which is sanctifying grace, and brings everlasting death and damnation on the soul.” “To make a sin mortal, three things are necessary — a grievous matter, sufficient reflection and full consent of the will.” Just what a “grievous matter is” the priest must determine; and, so far as we can ascertain, such sins as attending Protestant meetings and reading the Bible without the consent of the priest are counted a more grievous matter than the breaking of some of the Ten Commandments. “Venial sin,” continues the Catechism, “is a slight offence against the law of God in matters of less importance, or in matiers of great importance; it is an offence committed without sufficient reflection, or full consent of the will.” These definitions give the priest wide margin in imposing penances, for it is left with him to attach to each sin its guilt and penalty. At one time a price was set upon each sin, so that the penitent, by the payment of a certain sum, might have an “indulgence.” ‘The officers of the Roman chancery,” says Mr. John Dowling, ‘‘ published a book containing the exact sum to be paid for any particular sin. A deacon guilty of murder was absolved for twenty crowns. A bishop or abbot might assassinate for three hundred livres. An ecclesiastic might violate his vows of chastity, even with the most aggravating circumstances, for the third part of thatsum. To these and similar items it is added: “Take notice particularly that such graces and dispensations are not granted to the poor, for, not having wherewith to pay, they cannot be comforted.’”’ And abundant proof exists that indulgences are to-day sold to the faithful in the United States. And, however strong the protest that such an “indulgence” does not give permission to commit sin, its practical workings have that effect. It goes without saying that this miserable traffic in the sins of the people has no Scripture warrant, and of the distinction between sins, which is the basis of the traffic, the Bible knows absolutely nothing. ‘‘ Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,-he is guilty of all.” (James 2: 10.) “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” (Gal. 3: 10.) “The soul that sinneth it shall die;” and we fear that this esteeming some sins lightly has been the death of many a soul.

Confession of sins to God makes men better. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and TO CLEANSE US FROM ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.” (1 John 1:9.) We have reason to believe, on the other hand, that the Confessional makes priest and people worse. The following extract from Dowling’s “History of Romanism” is a dark picture, but none too dark, if converted nuns and priests by the score are to be believed: ‘The horrible disorders, seductions, adulteries and abominations of every kind that have sprung from this practice of auricular confession, especially in Spain and other popish countries, are familiar to all acquainted with the history of Popery for the six centuries that have transpired since the fourth council of Lateran. The details of individual facts on this subject are hardly fit to meet the public eye, though multitudes of them might easily be cited, derived not merely from the testimony of Protestants, but from the admission of Papists themselves, and from numerous, though ineffectual, laws that have been passed to restrain the practice of priestly solicitation of females at the confession. Nor can this be matter of surprise. The evil is inherent in the system. Let any person of common sense examine the list of subjects and the questions for the examination of conscience in any popish book of devotion, but more especially [if he understands Latin] the directions to young priests in Dens’ and other standard works for the study of popish theology; then let him remember that the subjects of these beastly inquiriés are often young, beautiful and interesting females (who are taught to believe that the priest is as God unto them), and that the questioners are men, often young and vigorous, burning with the fires of passion, in some instances almost wrought up to phrensy by a vow of celibacy which they would be glad to shake off, and then he will cease to wonder that the Confessional has so often been turned into a school of licentiousness, seduction and adultery.

“In 1560 a buil was issued by Pope Pius IV., directing the Inquisition to inquire into the prevalence of this crime, which begins as follows: ‘ Whereas certain ecclesiastics, in the kingdoms of Spain and in the cities and dioceses thereof, having the cure of souls, or exercising such cure for others, or otherwise deputed to hear the confessions of penitents, have broken out into such heinous acts of iniquity as to abuse the sacrament of penance in the very act of hearing the confessions, not fearing to injure the same sacrament, and him who instituted it, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by enticing and provoking, or trying to entice and provoke females to lewd actions at the very time when they wete making their confessions, etc., etc.’”

“pon the publication of this bull in Spain, the Inquisition issued an edict, requiring all females who had been thus abtised by the priests at the Confessional, and all who were privy to such acts to give information within thirty days to the holy tribunal; and very heavy censures were attached to those who should neglect or despise this injunction. When this edict was first published, such a number of females went to the palace of the Inquisition in the single city of Seville, to reveal the conduct of their infamous confessors, that twenty notaries and as many inquisitors were appointed to minute down their several informations against them; but, these being found insufficient to receive the depositions of so — many witnesses, and the Inquisition being thus overwhelmed, as it were, with the pressure of such affairs, thirty days more were allowed for taking the accusations; and this lapse of time also proving inadequate, a similar period was granted, not only for a third, but a fourth time. ... But the multitude of depositions and the odium which the discovery threw on auricular confession and the popish priesthood, caused the Inquisition to quash the prosecutions and to consign the depositions to oblivion.” Such is the tendency of the “Confessional” to-day.

Thinking upon the bad will make men bad. Paul says: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure.... if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. 4: 8.) In the Confessional the priest is compelled to sit and listen hour after hour to things which defile. No wondera young priest in Brooklyn, as he testified after his conversion, always hastened from the confessional to the place of sin. It debauches the priesthood, and gives them every opportunity to debauch others. Not a few men have left the priesthood, because they felt that they could not remain longer in it and have self-respect. They are to be pitied, as Father Chiniquy says, rather than abused. The system isto be blamed. The Confessional is not only unscriptural and immoral in its tendencies; it is decidedly un-American. It is used as a battering ram against our system of public schools, which the Papacy has decreed shall be destroyed. The priests have the power to refuse absolution and to impose the severest penances upon those who will not take their children from the public schools, and put them in parochial schools. Itisa little inquisition in our midst. With one in the family who goes to the Confessional no family secret is safe. With one in the cabinet who goes to the Confessional no State secret is safe.

Let us all confess our sins to God, and expect full forgiveness through the merit of Jesus Christ, and these dangers will be avoided.