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from the church: so that the very state of things, as they then stood, giveth great shew of probability to his speech, who hath affirmed, "That them only which held the Son consubstantial with the Father, and Novatianists, which joined with them in the same opinion, had no penitentiaries in their churches, the rest retained them." By this it appeareth, therefore, how Baronius, finding the relation plain, that Nectarius did abolish even those private secret confessions which the people had been before accustomed to make to him that was penitentiary, laboureth what he may to discredit the authors of the report, and leave it imprinted in men's minds, that whereas Nectarius did but abrogate public confession, Novatianists have maliciously forged the abolition of private; as if the odds between these two were so great in the balance of their judgment, which equally hated or contemned both, or, as if it were not more clear than light, that the first alteration which established penitentiaries, took away the burden of public confession in that kind of penitents; and, therefore, the second must either abrogate private, or nothing.

Cardinal Bellarmine, therefore, finding that against the writers of the history it is but vain to stand upon so doubtful terms and exceptions, endeavoureth mightily to prove, even by their report, no other confession taken away than public, which penitentiaries used in private to impose upon public offenders: "For why? It is (saith he) very certain, that the name of penitents in the fathers' writings signifieth only public penitents; certain, that to hear the confessions of the rest was more than one could possibly have done; certain, that Sozomen, to shew how the Latin church retained in his time what the Greek had clean cast off, declareth the whole order of public penitency used in the church of Rome, but of private he maketh no mention." And, in these considerations, Bellarmine will have it the meaning both of Socrates and Sozomen, that the former episcopal constitution, which first did erect penitentiaries, could not concern any other offenders than such as publicly had sinned after baptism; that only they were prohibited to come to the holy communion, except they did first in secret confess all their sins to be penitentiary, by his appointment openly acknowledge their open crimes, and do public penance for them; that whereas, before Novatian's uprising, no man was constrainable to confess publicly any sin, this canon enforced public offenders

thereunto, till such time as Nectarius thought good to extinguish the practice thereof.

Let us examine, therefore, these subtle and fine conjectures, whether they be able to hold the touch. "It seemeth good (saith Socrates) to put down the office of these priests which had charge of penitency; what charge that was, the kinds of penitency then usual must make manifest."a There is often speech in the father's writings, in their books frequent mention of penitency, exercised within the chambers of our heart, and seen of God, and not communicated to any other, the whole charge of which penitency is imposed of God, and doth rest upon the sinner himself. But if penitents in secret, being guilty of crimes whereby they knew they had made themselves unfit guests for the table of our Lord, did seek direction for their better performance of that which should set them clear, it was in this case the penitentiary's office to take their confessions, to advise them the best way he could for their souls' good, to admonish them, to counsel them, but not to lay upon them more than private penance. As for notorious wicked persons, whose crimes were known, to convict, judge, and punish them was the office of the ecclesiastical consistory; penitentiaries had their institution to another end. But unless we imagine, that the ancient time knew no other repentance than public, or that they had little occasion to speak of any other repentance, or else that in speaking thereof they used continually some other name, and not the name of repentance, whereby to express private penitency, how standeth it with reason, that whensoever they write of penitents, it should be thought they meant only public penitents? The truth is, they handle all three kinds, but private and voluntary repentance much oftener, as being of far more general use; whereas public was but incident unto few, and not oftener than once incident unto any. Howbeit, because they do not distinguish one kind of penitency from another, by difference of names, our safest way for construction is to follow circumstance of matter, which in this narration will not yield itself applicable only unto public penance, do what they can that would so expound it.

They boldly and confidently affirm, that no man being compellable to confess publicly any sin before Novatian's time, the end of instituting penitentiaries afterwards in the church • Τοὺς ὑπὸ τῆς μετανοίας περιελεῖν πρεσβυτέρους.

Fab. De-
cret. Ep. 2.
tom. i.
Conc. p.
358.

was, that by them men might be constrained unto public confession. Is there any record in the world which doth testify this to be true? There is that testifieth the plain contrary: for Sozomen, declaring purposely the cause of their institution, saith, "That whereas men openly craving pardon at God's hands (for public confession, the last act of penitency was always made in the form of a contrite prayer unto God), it could not be avoided, but they must withal confess what their offences were." This, in the opinion of their prelate, seemed from the first beginning (as we may probably think) to be somewhat burdensome; that men, whose crimes were unknown, should blaze their own faults, as it were on the stage acquainting all the people with whatsoever they had done amiss. And, therefore, to remedy this inconvenience, they laid the charge upon one only priest, chosen out of such as were of best conversation, a silent and a discreet man, to whom they which had offended might resort, and lay open their lives. He, according to the quality of every one's transgressions, appointed what they should do or suffer, and left them to execute it upon themselves. Can we wish a more direct and evident testimony, that the office here spoken of, was to ease voluntary penitents from the burden of public confessions, and not to constrain notorious offenders thereunto? That such offenders were not compellable to open confessions till Novatian's time, that is to say, till after the days of persecution under Decius, the emperor, they, of all men, should not so peremptorily avouch; with whom, if Fabian, bishop of Rome, who suffered martyrdom in the first year of Decius, be of any authority and credit, it must enforce them to reverse their sentence; his words are so plain and clear against them. "For such as commit those crimes, whereof the apostle hath said, They that do them shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven, must (saith he) be forced unto amendment, because they slip down into hell, if ecclesiastical authority stay them not." Their conceit of impossibility, that one man should suffice to take the general charge of penitency in such a church as Constantinople, hath risen from a mere erroneous supposal, that the ancient manner of private confession was like the shrift at this day usual in the church of Rome, which tieth all men at one certain time to make confession; whereas confession was then neither looked for, till men did offer it, nor offered for the most part by any other than such as

were guilty of heinous transgressions, nor to them any time appointed for that purpose. Finally, the drift which Sozomen had in relating the discipline of Rome, and the form of public penitency there retained even till his time, is not to signify that only public confession was abrogated by Nectarius, but that the west or Latin church held still one and the same order from the very beginning, and had not, as the Greek, first cut off public voluntary confession by ordaining and then private by removing penitentiaries. Wherefore, to conclude, it standeth, I hope, very plain and clear, first against the one cardinal, that Nectarius did truly abrogate confession in such sort as the ecclesiastical history hath reported; and, secondly, as clear against them both, that it was not public confession only which Nectarius did abolish.

The paradox in maintenance whereof Hessels wrote purposely a book touching this argument, to shew that Nectarius did but put the penitentiary from his office, and not take away the office itself, is repugnant to the whole advice which Eudæmon gave, of leaving the people from that time forwards to their own consciences; repugnant to the conference between Socrates and Eudæmon, wherein complaint is made of some inconvenience which the want of office would breed ; finally, repugnant to that which the history declareth concerning other churches, which did as Nectarius had done before them, not in deposing the same man (for that was impossible), but in removing the same office out of their churches, which Nectarius had banished from his. For which cause, Bellarmine doth well reject the opinion of Hessels, howsoever it please Pamelius to admire it as a wonderful happy invention. But in sum, they are all gravelled, no one of them able to go smoothly away, and to satisfy either others or himself with his own conceit concerning Nectarius.

Only in this they are stiff, that auricular confession Nectarius did not abrogate, lest if so much should be acknowledged, it might enforce them to grant that the Greek church at that time held not confession, as the Latin now doth, to be the part of a sacrament instituted by our Saviour Jesus Christ, which therefore the church till the world's end hath no power to alter. Yet seeing that as long as public volun

• Nec est quod sibi blandiantur illi de facto Nectarii, cum id potius secretorum peccatorum confessionem comprobet, et non aliud quam presbyterum pœnitentialem illo officio suo moverit; uti amplissime deducit D. Johannes Hasselus Paniel. in Cypr. lib. de annot. 98. et in lib. Tertul. de pen. annot. i.

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tary confession of private crimes did continue in either church (as in the one it remaineth not much above two hundred years, in the other about four hundred), the only acts of such repentance were; first, the offender's intimation of those crimes to some one presbyter, for which imposition of penance was sought; secondly, the undertaking of penance imposed by the bishop; thirdly, after the same performed and ended, open confession to God in the hearing of the whole church; whereupon, fourthly, ensued the prayer of the church; fifthly, then the bishop's imposition of hands; and so, sixthly, the party's reconciliation or restitution to his former right in the holy sacrament; I would gladly know of them which make only private confession a part of their sacrament of penance, how it could be so in those times. For where the sacrament of penance is ministered, they hold that confession to be sacramental which he receiveth who must absolve; whereas during the fore-rehearsed manner of penance, it can no where be shewed, that the priest to whom secret information was given did reconcile or absolve any; for how could he, when public confession was to go before reconciliation, and reconciliation likewise in public thereupon to ensue? So that if they did account any confession sacramental, it was surely public, which is now abolished in the church of Rome; and as for that which the church of Rome doth so esteem, the ancients neither had it in such estimation, nor thought it to be of so absolute necessity for the taking away of sin; but (for any thing that I could ever observe out of them) although not only in crimes open and notorious, which made men unworthy and incapable of holy mysteries, their discipline required, first public penance, and then granted that which St. Jerome mentioneth, saying, "The priest layeth his hand upon the penitent, and by invocation entreateth that the Holy Ghost may return to him again; and so after having enjoined solemnly all the people to pray for him reconcileth to the altar him who was delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord." - Although I say not only in such offences being famously known to the world, but also, if the same were committed secretly, it was the customs of those times both that private intimation should be given and public con

a Sacerdos imponit manum subjecto, reditum Spiritus Sancti invocat, atque ita eum, qui traditus fuerat Satanæ in interitum carnis, ut Spiritus salvus fieret, indicta in populum oratione, altari reconciliat. Hier. advers. Lucif. Ambr. de pœn. 1. 2. c. 10.

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