The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-06 00:00:00

THE CONFESSIONAL.

The protest of the people of England, clerical and
lay, against auricular confession is complete. No
pretence of Romanism, or of the Itomanising party in
the Church, is more insolent or more unfounded than
that which attributes the prevalence of the right of
private judgment in the English Church to the
example of the popular nature of the English consti-
tution, and assumes, therefore, that it is the creature
of secularity and a portion of the Eastern heresy.
It was the Reformation which made the revolution.
But for the first, the second would never have been
heard of, and the miracle performed upon Mary of
Modena at St. Winifred's Well, in Wales, would
have been solemnly believed and quietly acquiesced
in, and we should have had no liberation to com-
memorate, and no liberty to enjoy. The freedom
of discussion in the Church of England has been
chiefly the result of a desire to understand, joined
to a determination to reverence, the Scriptures, not
widely nor idly dealt with, but only in so far as the
intention of the Deity should be capable of being
inferred from those Scriptures, in a serious desire to
ascertain what was the rule and the intention. In
this freedom there is no latitudinarianism, and
no attempt to abridge thought on one side or to ex-
cite profanity on the other. It is, in fact, the just
medium to which the Reformers desired to attain,
and while it does not trammel the human will, it
does not fail to declare the rules by which that will
must be guided and the sanctions to which it must
submit.

The philosophical reader of such annals as dis-
play the mental history of this country will see the
national mind strongly divided, and that generally
in to two particular categories, those who believe too
little, and those who believe too much. This division
arises from an unfounded arrogance in the one and a
native weakness in the other. Of the first we reap the
fruit of infidelity, and of the second disturbances
created by the Church of Rome and her adherents
in the general polity of the state. How very far
thi▪ s Church has fallen in the opinion of Englishmen,
and of all natives of reformed countries, is chiefly
visible in the case of the Confessional. In many of
its other false doctrines the Church of Rome has
had the good fortune to adopt subjects on which
the profane vulgar are not much learned, and there- ,
fore its doctrines on such matters are not likely
to meet with much public and general dispute.
But the question of the Confessional touches the
very root of all organised society, and at this,
as far as this country is concerned, the chief
indignation of the people is levelled. While
those who thought it right to adhere to some ex-
treme display in worship were content to avail
themselves of that display alone, perhaps it would
be scarcely right or just that we should suppose
them to be acting in any. ill-faith, or working
against the interests of religion of the. Church, and
thus d
thus we did not deal so harshly with that parti-
cular kind of affectation which was not inappro-
priately called church millinery. But the Confes-
sional, properly so called, takes a wider range than
the mere question of what is or what is not the
actual boundary of priestly power, and there
could not be a greater proof of how correct is the
feeling of the people, and how deeply seated are the
doctrines of Protestant Christianity, than the uni-
versal repudiation which the doctrine of auricular
confession has received from the sincere men in
England. At the same time, and with the fullest
sense o f the dangers, and indeed of the great sin,
of auricular confession, our own desire would be tA;
see the question dealt with by the authorised tri•
bunals of the Church ; and deeply as we admire our
" order," we think that in such a matter (except as
to publishing the opinions of those of the clergy
.who choose to adopt such a medium), the post of
honour of the press is without doubt a private sta-
tion. We have not the least fear that the Popish
vanity of auricular confession has, to any serious
extent, invaded the Church. Both the clergy and the
people are too trustworthy to lead us to dread such
a result. When public meetings on the subject have
be en held, we deny that such—at all times painful
di▪
splays—have been provoked by the conduct, even
the occasional conduct, of any considerable number
• the clergy. The persons guilty of outraging the
i
Protestant feeling of the country have, as is the
case in all pursuits, been persons generally of little
mark as to usefulness in the Church, and perhaps
of leas in their career as scholars, Those who have