XXV. great a point as this, in which human nature is under fo fatal a A R T. bias, will always bring with it a much greater corruption in practice. This will indeed make many run to the Sacrament, and raise its value; but it will rife upon the ruins of true piety and holiness. There are few men that can go long on in very great fins, without feeling great remorfes; thefe are to them. rather a burthen that they cannot shake off, than a virtue. Scrrow lying long upon their thoughts may be the beginning of a happy change, and fo prove a great bleffing to them; all which is deftroyed by this doctrine: for if under fuch uneafy thoughts they go to confeffion, and are attrite, the Sacrament is valid, and they are juftified: then the uneafiness goes off, and is turned into joy, without their being any thing the better by it. They return to their fins with a new calm and fecurity, because they are taught that their fins are pardoned, and that all scores are cleared. Therefore we conclude, that this doctrine. wounds religion in its vitals; and we are confirmed in all this by what appears in practice, and what the best writers that have lived in that communion have faid of the abuses that follow on the methods in which this Sacrament is managed among them, which do arife mainly out of this part of their doctrine concerning attrition. All that they teach concerning those acts of attrition, or even contrition, is alfo liable to great abufe in practice: for, as a man may bring forth thofe acts in words, and not be the better for them; fo he may force himself to think them, which is nothing but the framing an inward difcourse within himself, upon them; and yet thele not arifing genuinely from a new nature, or a change of temper, fuch acts can be of no value in the fight of God: yet the whole practice of their Church runs upon these acts, as if a man's going through them and making himself think them, could be of great value in the fight of God. The third branch of the matter of this Sacrament is the Satisfaction, or the doing the penance; which, by the constant practice of the Church for above twelve centuries, was to be performed, before abfolution could be given; except in extraordinary cafes, fuch as death, or martyrdom: but in these latter ages, in which the neceffity of confeffion is carried higher, the obligation to fatisfaction or the doing of penance is let fall lower. A diftinction is invented, by which confeffion and contrition, attrition at leaft, are made effential parts of the Sacrament, without which there is no Sacrament; as foul and body are effential to the being of a man: and satisfaction is confidered only as an integral part; fuch as an eye or a limb in a man, which is neceflary to the order of it, but not to its being. If fatisfaction is confidered as that which destroys the habits of fin, and introduces the habits of virtue: if it is pur XXV. ART. gative and medicinal, and changes a man's principles and na ture, then it ought to be reckoned the principal and leaft difpenfable thing of all repentance. For our confeffing past fins, and forrowing for them, is only enjoined us as a mean to reform and purify our nature. If we imagine that our acts of repentance are a discounting with God, by fo many pious thoughts which are to be fet against so many bad ones, this will introduce a fort of a mechanical religion; which will both corrupt our ideas of God, and of the nature of good and evil. The true and generous notion of religion, is, that it is a fyftem of many truths, which are of fuch efficacy, that if we receive them into our minds, and are governed by them, they will rectify our thoughts, and purify our natures; and by making us like God here, they will put us in a fure way to enjoy him eternally hereafter. Sorrow for paft fins, and all reflections upon them, are enjoined us as means to make the fenfe of them go fo deep in our minds, as to free us from all thofe bad habits that fin leaves in us, and from thofe ill inclinations that are in our nature. If we therefore set up a forrowing for fin as a merchandize with God, by fo many acts of one kind to take off the acts of another, here the true defign of our forrow is turned into a trafficking, by which how much foever Priests may gain, or the value of Sacraments may feem to rife, religion will certainly lofe in its main defign; which is the planting a new nature in us, and the making us become like God. Confeffion and contrition are previous acts, that lead to this reformation, which, as they teach, is wrought by the fatisfaction; therefore we must needs condemn that doctrine which makes it lefs neceffary and more dispensable than the other. In the cafe of death we confefs all the rights of the Church with relation to a man's fcandals, and his obligations to make publick penance, may and ought to be then forgiven him: but we think it one of the most fatal errors that can creep into any Church, to encourage men to rely on a death-bed repentance. The nature of man leans fo much this way, it is neceffary to bend the point as ftrong as may be to the other hand. that The promises of the Gofpel run all upon the condition of repentance; which imports a renovation of the inner man and a purity of life: fo that no repentance can be esteemed true, but as we perceive that it has purified our hearts, and changed our course of life. What God may do with death-bed penitents, in the infinite extent and abfoluteness of his mercy, becomes not us to define: but we are fure he has given no promises to fuch perfons in his Gofpel; and fince the function of Clergymen is the difpenfing of that, we cannot go beyond the XXV. limits fet us in it: fo there is no reason to make this part of re- ART. pentance less neceffary or obligatory than the other, but very much to the contrary. Another exception that we have to the allowed practice of that Church, is the giving abfolution before the fatisfaction is made; upon its being enjoined, and accepted by the penitent. This is fo contrary to all ancient rules, that it were a needlefs labour to go to prove it; the thing being confeffed by all: and yet the practice is so totally changed among them, that fuch as have blamed it, and have attempted to revive the ancient method, have been cenfured as guilty of an innovation, favouring of herefy: because they condemn fo general a practice, that it would render the infallibility of the Church very doubtful, if it should be pretended to have erred in fo univerfal a practice. Hafty abfolutions, contrary both to the whole defign of the Gofpel, and to the conftant practice of the Church, for at leaft twelve centuries, are now the avowed methods of that Church; to which in a great measure all that corruption of morals that is among them, owes its rife and continuance: for who can be supposed to set himself against those inclinations to fin, that are deeply rooted in his nature, and are powerfully recommended by the pleasure and gain that arifes out of vicious practices, if the way to pardon is caft fo wide open, that a man may fin as long and as fecurely as he will, and yet all at once, upon a few acts that he makes himself go through, he may get into a state of grace, and be pardoned and juftified. The power that is left to the Prieft to appoint the penance, is a truft of a high nature, which yet is known to be univerfally ill applied; fo that abfolution is generally prostituted among them. The true penance enjoined by the Gospel is the forfaking of fin, and the doing acts of virtue. Fafting, prayers and alms-giving are acts that are very proper means to raise us to this temper. If fafting is joined with prayer, and if prayer arifes out of an inward devotion of mind, and is ferious and fervent, then we know that it has great efficacy; as being one of the chief acts of our religious fervice of God, to which the greatest promises are made, and upon which the best bleffings do defcend upon us. Alms-giving is alfo a main part of charity: which, when done from a right principle of loving God and our neighbour, is of great value in his fight. But if fafting is only an exercife of the body, and of abftaining fo long, and from fuch things, this may perhaps trouble and pain the body; but bodily exercife profiteth nothing; fo not to mention the mockery of fafting, when it is only a delay of eating, after which all liberties are taken, or an abftinence which is made up with other delicious and inflaming nutritives, thefe are of no A a 2 value, AR T. value, being only inventions to deceive men, and to expofe XXV. religion to mockery. But even fevere and afflicting fafting, if done only as a pun fhment, which when it is over, the penance is believed to be completed, gives fuch a low idea of God and religion, that from thence men are led to think very flightly of fin, when they know at what price they can carry it off. Such a continuance in fafting in order to prayer, a humbles and deprettes nature, and raises the mind, is a great means to reform the world; but fafting as a prefcribed talk to expiate our fins, is a fcorn put upon religion. Prayer, when it arifes from a ferious heart that is earnest in it, and when it becomes habitual, is certainly a most effectual means to reform the world, and to fetch down Divine affiftances. But to appoint fo many vocal prayers to be gone through as a task; and then to tell the world, that the running through thefe, with few or no inward acts accompanying them, is contrition or attrition, this is more like a defign to root out all the impreffions of religion, and all fenfe of that repentance which the Gospel requires, than to promote it. This may be a tak fit to accuftom children to; but it is contrary to the true genius of religion, to teach men, inftead of that reafonable fervice that we ought to offer up to God, to give him only the labour of the lips, which is the facrifice of fools. Prayers gone through as a task can be of no value, and can find no Cor. xiii. acceptation in the fight of God. And as St. Paul faid, that if he gave all his goods to the poor, and had not charity, he was nothing: fo the greatest profufion of alms giving, when done in a mercenary way, to buy off and to purchase a pardon, is the turning of God's houfe from being a house of prayer, to be a den of thieves. I, 2. Upon all thefe reafons we except to the whole doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome, as to the fatisfaction made by doing penance. And in the laft place we except to the form of abfolution in thefe words, I abfolve thee. We of this Church, who use it only to fuch as are thought to be near death, cannot be meant to understand any thing by it, but the full peace and pardon of the Church: for if we meant a pardon with relation to God, we ought to use it upon many other occafions. The pardon that we give in the name of God is only declaratory of his pardon, or fupplicatory in a prayer to him for pardon. In this we have the whole practice of the Church till the twelfth century univerfally of our fide. All the Fathers, all the ancient Liturgies, all that have writ upon the offices, and the firft Schoolmen are fo exprefs in this matter, that the thing in fact cannot be denied. Morinus has published so many of their old rituals, that he has put an end to all doubting about XXV. it. In the twelfth century fome few began to use the words, ART. I abfolve thee: yet, to foften this expreffion, that seemed new and bold, fome tempered it with thefe words, in fo far as it is granted to my frailty; and others with those words, as far as the accufation comes from thee, and as the pardon is in me. Yet this form was but little practifed: fo that William, Bifhcp of Paris, speaks of the form of abfolution as given only in a prayer, and not as given in these words, I abfolve thee. He lived in the beginning of the fourteenth century; fo that this practice, though begun in other places before that time, yet was not known long after in fo publick a city as Paris. But fome Schoolmen began to defend it, as implying only a declaration of the pardon pronounced by the Prieft: and this having an air of more authority, and being once juftified by learned men, did fo univerfally prevail, that in little more than fixty years time, it became the univerfal practice of the whole Latin Church. So fure a thing is tradition, and fo impoffible to be changed as they pretend, when within the compass of one age, the new form, I abfolve thee, was not fo much as generally known, and before the end of it the old form of doing it in a prayer with impofition of hands, was quite worn out. The idea that arifes naturally out of these words, is, that the Priest pardons fins; and fince that is fubject to fuch abuses, and has let in fo much corruption upon that Church, we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a Sacrament, but likewife to affirm, that they have corrupted this great and important doctrine of repentance, in all the parts and branches of it: nor is the matter mended with that prayer that follows the abfolution. The paffion of our Lord Jefus Chrift, the merits of the Rituale Robleffed Virgin and all the Saints, and all the good that thou haft fr. pœni done, and the evil that thou haft fuffered, be to thee for the remiffion of fins, the increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life. The third Sacrament rejected by this Article, is Orders; which is reckoned the fixth by the Church of Rome. We affirm, that Chrift appointed a fucceffion of Paftors in different ranks, to be continued in his Church for the work of the Gofpel, and the care of fouls; and that, as the Apoftles fettled the Churches, they appointed different orders of Bilhops, Priests, and Deacons and we believe, that all who are dedicated to ferve in these miniftries, after they are examined and judged worthy of them, ought to be feparated to them by the impofition of hands and by prayer. Thefe were the only rites that we find practifed by the Apoftles. For many ages the Church of God ufed no other; therefore we acknowledge that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ought to be bleffed and dedicated to the holy miniftry by impofition of hands and prayer; and that then they A a 3 are manum de ten. |