Before we can form an adequate conception of the mischievous influence of auricular confession, in crippling the human mind and enslaving the vulgar, it is necessary to examine the character assumed by the Romish priest who sits on his inquisitorial throne in the confession-box.

First. He partakes in the eyes of his dupes of the character of infallibility. The church,' they are taught, is infallible. He is her mouth-piece, and parish oracle; being one of that mystic body, which they are told, is infallible, when collected in priestly parliament. This naturally elevates him into a supernatural being in the opinion of the crowd; and gives him an awful importance in their debased minds.

Second. The validity of all sacraments depends upon his intntion!!! For example: though he went through all the usual genuflections and manipulations, and uttered every word of the prescribed form of consecration, at the mass, it is held that no consecration really takes place unless the priest INTENDED to consecrate. Again, no sinner, we are told, is absolved from sin, although the priest pronounces absolution, unless truly and absolutely he intended absolution!!*

Third. It is blasphemously taught that the priest can bring the Godhead visibly and bodily into any particular place by the word of his mouth: i. e., every popish priest can bring a piece of dough into any one's house, and then and there turn it into the very body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, to be seen by the family, capable of being touched, smelled, tasted, and handled.

Fourth. He is described in the children's catechism as 'a me'diator (mediator is the word) between God and the people.' Fifth. He says he can bind or loose on earth and it shall be bound or loosed in heaven.

Sixth. It is declared, as we have already hinted, that the priest fills the offices of judge, physician, father, counsellor, and teacher. Seventh. His name is rendered awful by connection with the name of Deity: the words of the Confiteor (the act of confession) run thus: I confess to Almighty God,' &c. [viz. saints and angels], and to you, O! holy father.' It is an obvious law of the human mind, that men ignorant and undisciplined are prone to regard with superstitious feeling objects associated with others that demand their homage. The two objects become compounded or inseparably connected together in the mind; and the ideas raised by the greater are transferred to the meaner.

i. e., I do forgive you' (with my lips), at the same time I do not forgive you' (in my heart). It is true I invoke the name of the Holy Ghost to witness the falsehood; but the church decrees that I have told no lie, and that my heart is free from deceit or craftiness.'

VOL. VII.

3 в

Let the reader now pause; and, connecting the extraordinary claims of the priesthood here noticed, with the nature of the jurisdiction exercised in the confessional, say whether auricular confession is not calculated to subjugate and prostrate the intellect? It is further to be recollected, that this confession is imposed upon members of the Church of Rome from the age of seven years, and upwards:

The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.'

And it is material to mention that the practice under review, by
enabling the Church of Rome to enforce the prohibition of certain
books from its members, in this way also operates most preju-
dicially against the growth of the mental powers. The Council of
Trent appointed a committee to prepare an index of prohibited
books; not however having finished their task, the business was re-
ferred to the pope. The index was accordingly published at Rome,
A.D. 1564, confirming the tyrannical regulations of the tenth
session of the council of Lateran, under Leo X.; and among
other decrees the following was issued by the holy see: Finally
'it is enjoined on all the faithful, that no one presume to keep
'or read any books contrary to these rules prohibited by this index.
But if any one keep or read any books composed by heretics,
or the writings of any author suspected of heresy or false doc-
trine, he shall instantly incur the sentence of excommunication;
and those who read or keep works interdicted on another ac-
'count, besides the mortal sin committed, shall be severely
punished at the will of the bishop.' This law is still enforced :
a permanent committee, styled the congregation of the index,'
still exists, and is especially charged with adding to the list.* It
is very true that the infallible' decrees of Rome cannot be
enforced to their full extent in England:-thanks to Protes-
tantism, papists enjoy some little relaxation; and we suppose the
curse is in some way suspended. But as it is the sworn duty of
the priest to enforce the decrees of the church, there cannot
remain a reasonable doubt that he does prevent those, to whom
he can safely dictate, from perusing books which he conceives
objectionable.

6

II. Auricular confession necessarily tends to corrupt the morals of society. We shall abstain from allusions which are calculated to excite feelings otherwise than delicate; and simply demand of fathers, brothers, and husbands, whether the honor and chastity of

The list contains the works of Luther, and all the reformers, of Erasmus, Grotius, Milton, Locke, Jeremy Taylor; and even Young's Night Thoughts!

their wives, sisters, and daughters would, considering the natural consequences of the practices described, be in their opinion always in safe custody in the hands of men, 'forbidden to marry, pampered in luxurious ease and abundance to voluptuousness, with 'secresy in one hand, and an amplest power of absolution in the 'other? Can they refuse to apply to it the words of Hamlet, as inappropriate?—

Oh! 'tis such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths; oh! such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words!'

If it be true, and no one in his senses can deny it, that every 'moment of time spent in meditations upon sin, increases the power of the dangerous object which has possessed our imagination,' who can doubt that the situation of the priest who listens to the details of intrigues and amours, and unveils the female bosom swelling with guilty passion, is not one dangerous to virtue? The true way to preserve purity of heart, is not to rush into temptation, but to avoid it. For this reason we are taught daily to pray not to be led into temptation. Arguing from general principles, it is impossible not to adopt the conclusion, that in the hands of bad or weak men, auricular confession cannot fail to be a fruitful source of demoralization. But this conclusion is strengthened by two facts of great importance in the present discussion.

There exist two classes of manuals in use among Roman Catholics, explaining the nature of the practice, and giving directions to the priest on one hand, and to the penitent on the other. Without laying undue weight upon the work of any particular individual so in use, we may state that from these manuals we learn, if not the particular questions put in confession, at least the general tendency of the examination instituted by the priest. It is therefore of the utmost consequence to examine these publications, and to see whether they exhibit the confessional in an amiable or odious light.

We freely admit that we cannot enter upon this subject without feelings of the strongest indignation. We might exhaust the

* William Howitt.

+ Haller.

most vehement denunciation-the bitterest taunts-the keenest sarcasms-the most scathing rebuke; and yet fail to convey a just notion of the turpitude of the directions to confessors,' contained in manuals which have come under our notice. We name in particular the manuals of Bailly and Dens. In those books, every crime that the human mind can conceive is described with the most frightful minuteness of detail. Every hypothetical sin is discussed in particulars so disgusting, that you are constrained to feel that the writers were imbued with every thing lewd and sensual. Every circumstance in the single or married state of woman is laid down and treated on with scholastic precision; the whole justifying the assumption, that the priests enforce to the uttermost the powers given them by the council of Trent, and torture from the bosoms of their unhappy female votaries, every thought or feeling that can excite or depress them.

Again; the examinations proposed in the books of devotion are also revolting. Children and women are asked, did you think thus? did you feel so and so? did you commit this or that sin? Combining all these considerations, is it too much to assume, that auricular confession is a withering pestilence, fatal, at the same time, to domestic peace, dignity of mind, and female purity?

III. The practice places a vast amount of property at the disposal of the priesthood. It enables the priesthood not only to pry into people's affairs, but to influence the mind of the will maker: A death-bed was a friar's harvest: there were suggested the foundation of chanteries, and the provision of masses and 'wax lights. The confessional was his exchequer: there hints were dropped that the convent needed a new window, or that it owed fortie pound for stones.' Was the good man of the house refractory? The friar had the art of leading the women captive, and reaching the family purse by means of the wife.' *

Many other facts might be added expository of the moral working of this iniquitous practice; but we must turn to its political relations.

Auricular confession, then, must be regarded as an institution dangerous to public liberty, and to the political prosperity of states. Without frightening the country with relations of the efforts of the Romish priesthood, in times past, to ride over all the monarchs of Europe, or with a history of the intrigues by which they convulsed nations, and placed daggers, for the accomplishment of their ends, into the hands of their Ravaillacs ;-we shall just put a case which will serve as an illustration. Suppose that Queen Victoria were to make a secret confession once a

* Blunt's History of the Reformation.

week to a Romish priest;-suppose that her husband, Prince Albert, were also to make a clean breast' of it to the confessor; -suppose that the Duchess of Kent, the Queen Dowager, the royal dukes, each of the ministers and officers of state, with the privy councillors, also made confession;-suppose that all the maids of honor were to whisper their thoughts into the ear of some Romish ecclesiastic;-suppose, in a word, that the members of Parliament, lords and commoners, that the judges and magistrates, the whole mass of electors and non-electors were to kneel to the confession-box;-suppose all this, and then candidly tell us whether the degradation, thraldom, and political downfall of England would not be secured?* The confessors are the servants of a foreigner. The vast majority of them are friars, sworn by a vow of perpetual obligation to unquestioning obedience; so that on the pain of perjury and sacrilege, and consequent degradation and final ruin, they cannot refuse to obey the orders of their ecclesiastical superiors! A spy in every body's house!! The spy of an Italian prince in the palace and the privy council!!! Papists in our days are wont to reply to this- We don't believe. that the pope has a right to absolve subjects from their allegiance: the confessor has no right to ask any questions, excepting those 'affecting our spiritual welfare.' Simple-minded people; the priest thinks a particular question calculated to promote the good of the church, and the good of the church affects the spiritual welfare' of all her members. He has not read Thomas Aquinas's logic for nothing; and will arrive at his own conclusion, by one road or other. Who is there so credulous as to suppose that a man on his knees in a box before a priest, dare refuse any thing that he is asked? He cannot go to heaven without absolution from the priest; the priest refuses it, and the poor wretch soon makes submission. The power of questioning is given to the confessor; and no law can regulate a power exercised in secret. Let councils and their apologists split hairs if they will; Father John or Friar Paul will catechise and cross-examine, and probe and spy according to the standard of right in his own mind. Whatever his interest, his whim, his ambition, his avarice, his lust suggests, he asks-and who presumes to refuse? To talk of a peasant, or indeed a papist in any class of life, arraigning his priest before a bishop, cardinals, or council, is pure folly. Where is the evidence to support his appeal?

'Auricular confession has been a national evil, a public calamity, a dark and threatening spirit or ill-tending demon, hovering over the length and breadth of the land. What made the king or the queen, the minister or the general, do this or that bad thing? The cursed counsel of the confessor!-poisoning the car, hardening the heart, and urging the hand to persecution, tyranny, and blood.'-John Rogers.