was born about 344, and died in 407, comment on the words "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth," etc., etc.: " * * * this bond touches the very soul itself, and reaches even unto heaven; and what the priests shall do below, the same does God ratify above, and the Lord confirms the sentence of his servants."[49]

The great St. Jerome, born in 342, and after a life spent at Alexandria, at Rome as Secretary to Pope Damasus, in Syria, and finally in Bethlehem translating the Scripture, died in 420. He writes: "In the same way, therefore, that there (among the Jews) the priests make the leper clean or unclean, so also here (in the Church) does the bishop or priest bind and loose not those who are innocent or guilty, but, according to his office, after hearing the various kinds of sins, he knows who is to be bound and who loosed."[50]

And St. Augustine, born 354, who was converted by the preaching of St. Ambrose, mentioned above, who was later made Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa, and who died in 430, writes: "For this end are sins signified by these curtains, that they may be expressed by confession, and may, by the grace which is given to the Church, be abolished."[51]

This same Father says: "Let a man judge himself of his own will, whilst he has it in his power, and reform his manners, lest, when he shall have it no longer in his power, he be judged by the Lord against his will; and when he shall have passed upon himself the sentence of a most severe remedy, but still a remedy, let him come to the prelates by whom the keys are ministered to him in the Church, and as one now beginning to be a good son, let him receive the manner (or amount) of his satisfaction from those who are set over the sacraments."[52]

Writer after writer continues in the same strain, in this and the following century. The passages cited clearly indicate that confession and absolution are assumed to be the ordinary channel whereby sin is pardoned. Throughout they, as the Fathers of the preceding centuries, make the true dispenser of forgiveness, God in general, or, at other times, Jesus Christ, or again, the Holy Spirit; but they are equally explicit in declaring the earthly visible organ whereby the pardon is exercised to be, the Bishop, the Priest, the Ministers of the Church. These Christian writers constantly prove the Ministry of Reconciliation by reference to the passages concerning loosing and binding, in the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, and forgiving and retaining sin, in the twentieth chapter of St. John.

The authors we have cited, and in whose writings many other passages are to be found, are representatives during the first five centuries of the Church in North Africa, in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in Palestine, in Greece, in Italy, in Gaul, and in Spain. They are unanimous in upholding the power of absolution and the necessity of confession.

6. But a most unexpected witness is to be found in one of the great Protestant Communions. The English Government, under the Tudor dynasty, threw off its allegiance in things ecclesiastical to the Holy See. The sovereigns of England then claimed that spiritual authority heretofore exercised by the Pope. Henceforth, the Church was not in, but of England. It became a State Department, the archbishops and bishops receiving their appointment, care of souls, and jurisdiction, from the king, just as the judges, the officers of the army and navy, are commissioned to their circuits, their regiments, and their ships. The Crown is not only the fountain-head of all spiritual governing-power, but the Crown, aided later by its Council, became the final Court of Appeal in all disputes about doctrine.

The Established Communion, in its doctrinal code, the Thirty-nine Articles, which each clergyman declares he accepts ex animo, asserts that "Penance is not a sacrament of the Gospel." And in the Book of Homilies, which the said Articles commend as containing "good and wholesome doctrine," do we read: "We ought to acknowledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins but Jesus Christ. * * * It is most evident and plain that this auricular confession hath not the warrant of God's word. * * * I do not say but that, if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, or to some other godly learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God's word; but it is against the true Christian liberty that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance."[53] It is clear that both the Articles and the Book of Homilies deny the power of absolution and the necessity of confession as essential conditions, in the ordinary course of things, for the forgiveness of sin.

The Book of Common Prayer—the Liturgy of the Anglican Communion—in the office for visiting the sick, does urge the confession of the sick person, and gives the form of absolution to be used by the minister. It also bids the minister to exhort those approaching communion, who cannot quiet their conscience, to seek absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice. In the Book of Common Prayer used by the Episcopalians in the United States, these directions concerning confession and absolution are omitted.

The result of the teaching of the Articles was the complete destruction, in the mind of the people of England, during three centuries, of the need of confession and absolution. And, until some fifty years ago, it was unknown for Anglicans to go to confession. They lived and died without the faintest conception that such an ordinance was divinely instituted, or that it was necessary or even advisable. A change came, and certain of the clergy of the Established Communion began to teach the necessity of confession. This produced open revolt in their camp; the matter became so serious that the Convocation sitting in 1873 gave it consideration, and the Bishop of Salisbury boldly said: "Habitual confession is unholy, illegal, and full of mischief." The Bishop of Lichfield, in indignation, declared: "I would rather resign my office than hold it, if it was supposed that I was giving young men the right to practice habitual confession." The Archbishop of Canterbury said: "I am ready to revoke the license of any curate charged with hearing confessions." And the Bishop of Ely declared: "In no other communion would it be possible for a man to set himself up as the general confessor of a district, without any other authority than his own."

The assembled bishops, who of course represented the living teaching body of the Establishment, published a formal document, wherein they declare: "The Church of England, in the Twenty-fifth Article, affirms that penance is not to be