confession, though neither would he refuse to hear it, especially should absolution be sought, which it is his duty to grant where manifestly it is sought humbly and heartily."

This passage seems to say that if a priest thinks the penitent fit for absolution, he would discourage his seeking it! We should have supposed that it was exactly the opposite class of persons whom we ought to hold back from the Confessional, if any. It was not the thoroughly contrite publicans and harlots to whom S. John the Baptist said, "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" The Confessional is not intended primarily for the instruction, but for the purification, of the conscience. Where there is ignorance, instruction is necessary as the preliminary of purification. Yet instruction must always be the more human part of the ordinance, whereas purification is entirely Divine, and man is in this part of the ordinance simply acting as executor. Now if S. John the Baptist welcomed the contrite as his true and proper penitents although he had not received from CHRIST the power to forgive sins, much more must they be the specially beloved children of the Christian Priest, those indeed the most beloved who have been brought to perfect contrition with the greatest difficulty from the greatest sins, yet still beloved because they feel the burden of sin to be really, and not in word only intolerable. He would not say they needed no help because they felt their burden to be intolerable. Surely not! It is when this feeling rises up with the deepest conviction that the still small voice of consolation is able to make its power known. It is now in the ordinary ministrations of the Christian Church as in the special prophetic missions of the earlier covenant.

Surely the priest will not discourage any from coming to confession because he "probably thinks" him to be sincere (Tepiépyaστaι de Tu probably) when sincerity is just the point to which all must be brought before he can exercise his Divine Office towards them,

We happened to be present at S. Mary's Church in Oxford when the Bishop of Carlisle was preaching the Radcliffe Sermon. One of the chief points to which he addressed himself was the formality with which persons are apt to use those solemn words in the Eucharistic Confession,-" the burden of them is intolerable." What is a person to do who feels this really in its full force? The Bishop said, "Come to JESUS," and so would we say too. The

further question is, how is he to come? The Bishop spoke of the need of realizing CHRIST's personal dealing with the individual soul. Would that men did more frequently realize this! If they realized this, it must lead them to some outward expression of the strong emotions of the heart. A burden clearly is not felt to be intolerable which is cast off the conscience by a momentary feeling or inappreciable act of faith, after which the sinner is at once to experience the joy of being accepted. The mere saying with a joyous confidence, The Blood of JESUS CHRIST cleanseth from all sin, does not express the consciousness of a burden which is intolerable. Penitence is not lost in faith, though kindled and sanctified and transfigured by faith. If we have a definite consciousness of a burden, we must come in some definite way to have it definitely removed. Its removal must be an act external to ourselves, or we cannot be satisfied. In order then for us to realize. our personal relationship to CHRIST, and our personal participation in the absolving merits of His Passion, He Who knows the wants of our hearts draws near to us in the person of His Priest, and we are invited to listen to the Priest as speaking to us in the person of CHRIST. We are sure that CHRIST would not have discouraged any from coming to Him because He saw that they sincerely felt the burden of their sins to be intolerable. It is these whom He invites "Come unto Me all ye that are heavy laden," and these only, for the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. The self-righteous may stand aloof, but those who have the deepest contrition will come with the deepest love. The priest who ministers in the name of CHRIST cannot choose but both invite and welcome all such as come to seek at his hands the grace of CHRIST.

A human ministry may be, must be, very unworthy to be the repository of the gifts of CHRIST. The Apostle felt this when he said, Who is sufficient for these things? The existence of a human ministry is however one of the phænomena of the Incarnation. If men accept a position as CHRIST's ministers, they must accept it with the full responsibility of representing CHRIST upon earth. If CHRIST uses them for the beginning of His message to individual souls, He will use them also for its completion. No one has a right to say, I am a minister of CHRIST to tell you to go to Him that sent me, unless He is prepared to say, He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me. The Apostolic Ministry was not ordained merely for the awakening of the unconverted or the instruction of the ignorant, but for the perfecting of the saints by the purification of conscience, and for binding up the broken-hearted by the gifts of the Comforter. The intenser is our struggle with sin, the intenser will be our consciousness that the burden thereof is intolerable. This conviction must drive us to something out of ourselves. Even though we

know and feel CHRIST's presence within ourselves, we must seek CHRIST as ministering to us from without if we have this conviction deeply rooted within.

A modern system has striven to meet this want by the experiences of a class-meeting-but as the meeting was of man's institution, it could impart the human comfort of sympathy alone, and not the Divine consolation which is in CHRIST. The burden of sin which man could not remove is taken away by the authoritative interposition of the HOLY GHOST Whom the FATHER has sent in the Name of CHRIST in the ministry of Absolution. Those who know the power of this ministry, know this need of it. As the HOLY GHOST has convinced them of sin defiling their own actions, so does He convince them of righteousness streaming forth in the fulness of reconciling power from Him Who though now no more seen, is yet gone to the FATHER as our abiding Advocate. They know full well that no imaginary differences of spiritual feeling can really make them more righteous than their neighbours, and so the more they have loved CHRIST in their secret hearts the more do they rejoice that He has given such power unto men that they may minister pardon as angels of GoD, yea even as CHRIST JESUS Himself.

In the earlier days of the Evangelical movement, although these gifts of the Ministry were not dogmatically realised, they were practically felt to a very considerable degree. A striking letter appeared in the Christian Observer last February. Two questions were there asked. The first was this: why is it that the reproach of the Cross seems to have been removed from the Evangelical party of the present day? The other had reference to the present subject. Why do not persons now-a-days, when a spirited and awakening sermon has been preached, go at once with burdened consciences into the vestry, to seek advice and consolation from the preacher? The answer to both questions is very plain. People do still come, of both sexes and of all ages and ranks, to unburden their consciences when GOD has touched their hearts. It may be remarked also that many persons feel themselves necessitated to come in this way when a sermon has been preached with no special mention of confession in it, merely through the spontaneous dictates of an awakened conscience.

The reproach of the Cross, and power of the preaching of the Cross, are to be found as the marks of a section of the English Church, which has taken up the spiritual position unhappily abandoned by the Evangelicals. The Evangelical party has well-nigh lost both the reproach and the power. We may be sure the two will go together. The power of the preaching of the Cross will be proportionate to the reproach and opposition of the world. When earnest men fought the battle of CHRIST against the world, burdened souls acknowledged them as the Ministers of CHRIST, and 3 B

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came to them for relief, and they gave relief to the best of their ability, although in the absence of a dogmatic preparation for the Ministry they perhaps scarcely realized their own authoritative position as speaking in CHRIST's Name. Now that the principles of spiritual life have become more known amongst us, they who are in earnest cannot but feel that what was done by those holy men in an irregular way, according to the pious suggestions of their own hearts, should be more systematically carried out if its operation is to be at all commensurate with the extension of spiritual religion through the masses. Those leaders of the religious movement of the last century, as they were pressing toward CHRIST, So were they also leading backward from the world to the ancient system of the discipline of the Church, and the relations between priest and people which had been established centuries before, although it had well-nigh died out for a time beneath the weight of corrupt practices which an evil age had brought around it. But the corruptions of the age cannot destroy the necessities of our eternal being. Every revival of spiritual life must witness a revived sense of CHRIST being present in His ministers to bid the contrite sinner go in peace, with a firm faith in the forgiveness of sins.

How remarkable (to take an example from one of the few bright, lingering lights of the Evangelical party which has just been extinguished upon earth in death,) how remarkable was the death of the late Bishop of Calcutta, as showing the need of this external ministry of authoritative pardon. Few men could have had a deeper personal faith in CHRIST, or a warmer love to Him. Yet when he came to die, he felt that to trust in these emotions of his heart, would be, after all, merely a subtle form of self-righteousness. His Chaplain repeated to him many comforting texts of Scripture. The Bishop humbly sighed, in the consciousness of his own shortcomings. He needed the consolation of authoritative absolution, which the unhappy prejudices of party feeling hindered both him from asking, and his chaplain from suggesting. Had those two devotedly pious men realized that the one who was inferior in office yet, being a Priest, had power to speak in CHRIST's Name, and by His authority to absolve from all sins the worthy Bishop whose high office and eminent piety made him in no way exempt from feeling the need of Absolution, how much greater would have been the Divine radiance gilding the death-bed of that holy man; although we may hope without doubting, that the Divine goodness compensated him in death for the absence of an ordinance whose value he had had no opportunity rightly to appreciate. Surely-for we would take this instance as exemplifying what is said in the two sermons,—a soul advanced as his was in personal holiness, should have been encouraged to unburden itself of its grief, not dissuaded from the blessings of CHRIST's authoritative pardon!

Here, then, we have supposed an instance of a sincere penitent

whom, according to Mr. Attwood's theory, an English Priest would rather discourage from making confession. We think no one can read the narrative of his death without feeling that Confession was just the thing needed to give solace to his dying hours, a solace which, be it remembered, is not a mere transitory blessing, ensuring the tranquillity of the external system, but is the inward operation of the HOLY GHOST, and therefore may perhaps be attended with special illuminations and spiritual gifts which for the lack of it could not be received. Let us now hear how Mr. Attwood proposes to deal with a penitent when he does receive him:

Suppose a case. A party sick in soul, or in soul and body too, solicitous to be reassured, and therefore as the preparatory step ready to unburden himself,-is it necessary for him to be cross-examined so minutely as to every particular of his former life, whether he can possibly recollect them [? it] or not; and lest he should omit any, to suggest to him ten thousand particulars of evil which never before occurred to his mind, and to be found mainly in the books of casuists? Is it not sufficient that his Confession in this respect [i. e. in respect of what never occurred to his mind?] be general-general of his infirmity, general of his sinfulness? Not the sins to which by his rank, profession, and temperament he was liable; inquiry should be closer. What, however he has to do [make?] and what his Confessor has to hear, is acknowledgment of known or open sins or habits of sin, flagrant breaches of commandments, and especially of such sin or sins as lie on his conscience or come repeatedly into his memory; his characteristic sin and sinful tendency; his ruling passion; his rooted propensity; his parent vice. This is the 'special' part of his confession; here is the trial, here the penitence, here the benefit, here the exoneration. Here, and this is the material and sensitive part of the business, it is not even necessary to question him, but simply to invite him to consider and recollect, and then to allow him time to do so. For this is the respect in which he has defied conscience, hated reproof, and refused knowledge, in proportion to which his spirit sustained injury to be by the present process removed or remedied. GOD is not hard on a man, except according to his understanding and opportunity; neither should be God's agent. Let him [who?] in this important particular [which ?] particularly reveal himself, of course without needless exposure of any partner of his guilt, and it suffices; opportunity is furnished to ascertain his penitence, already in good part intimated by his application. Let the appropriate course be prescribed to obviate the repetition of his sin, should he be still liable to it, and it not totally past, whether as not extirpated or merely metamorphosed [can a sin be "repeated" until it is "totally past?"] Let the general and necessary conditions of Christian Life be added. Let him assent to these, then the absolution may be vouchsafed. Confession need not be so intricate, nor ministry and people so dubious of God's willingness to grant remission, and therefore of the Church's right and power to certify and communicate it; tor if GOD puts into our mouths a prayer in which it is insinuated that to obtain forgiveness we have but to forgive others; and if CHRIST bade the disciples forgive unlimitedly, without claiming more than sin