This Section teaches —

1st. That every man should make private confession of all his sins to God, and that God will certainly pardon him when his sorrow and his renunciation of his sins are sincere. This is all included in what has already been said as to the nature and effects of genuine repentance; and it is expressly declared in Scripture: " If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John i. 9.

2d. That when a Christian has personally injured a brother, or scandalized by his unchristian conduct the Church of Christ, he ought to be willing, by a public or a private confession, as the case may be, to declare his repentance to those that are offended, is also a dictate alike of natural reason and Scripture. If we have done wrong, we stand in the position of one maintaining a wrong until, by an expressed repentance and, where possible, redress of the wrong, we place ourselves on the side of the right. The wrong-doer is plainly in debt to the man he has injured to make every possible restitution to his feelings and interests, and the same principle holds true in relation to the general interests of the Christian community. The duty is expressly commanded in Scripture. Matt. v. 23, 24; James v. 16; Matt, xviii. 15-18.

3d. That it is the duty of the brethren or of the Church, when offended, to forgive the offending party and restore him fully to favour upon his repentance, is also a dictate of natural conscience and of Scripture. All lionourable men feel themselves bound to act upon this principle. The Christian is, in addition, brought under obligations to forgive others by his own infinite obligations to his Lord, who not only forgave us upon repentance, but died to redeem us while we were unrepentant. As to public scandals, the Church is bound to forgive them when the Lord has done so. As genuine repentance is the gift of Christ, its evident exercise is a certain indication that the person exercising it is forgiven by Christ and a Christian brother. liuke xvii. 3, 4; 2 Cor. ii. 7, 8; Matt. vi. 7.

The E-omish Church teaches that, as an element of penance and evidence of true repentance, the Christian must confess all his sins without reserve, in all their details and qualifying circumstances, to a priest having jurisdiction ; and that if any mortal sin is unconfessed it is not forgiven ; and if the omission is wilful, it is sacrilege, and greater guilt is incurred.* And they maintain that the priest absolves judicially, not merely declaratively, from all the penal consequences of the sins confessed, by the authority of Jesus Christ.

This is an obvious perversion of the scriptural command to confess. They bid us simply to confess our faults one to another. There is not a word said about confession to a priest in the Bible. The believer, on the contrary, has immediate access to Christ, and to God through Christ (1 Tim. ii. 5 ; John xiv. 6 ; v. 40 ; Matt. * Cat. B >m., Part ii., ch. v., Qs. 33, 34, 42.

xi. 28), and is commanded to confess his sins immediately to God. 1 John i. 9. No priestly function is ever ascribed to the Christian ministry in the New Testament. The power of absolute forgiveness of sin belongs to God alone (Matt. ix. 2-6), is incommunicable in its very nature, and has never been granted to any class of men as a matter of fact. The authority to bind or loose which Christ committed to his Church was understood by the apostles, as is evident from their practice, as simply conveying the power of declaring the conditions on which God pardons sin, and, in accordance with that declaration, of admitting or of excluding men from sealing ordinances.

1. In opposition to the Romanists, who make satisfaction one of the essential parts of repentance, and conceive that certain acts or penances, performed by an offender, constitute a compensation for his transgression, in consideration of which it is forgiven; and also in opposition to Socinians, who deny the atonement for sin by the death of Christ, and maintain that repentance is the only atonement required; our Confession asserts, that repentance is not to be rested in as any satisfaction for sin, or a cause of the pardon thereof. It has already been shown, that it must always be the duty of every sinner to repent; now, the discharge of a present duty can never atone for past crimes. Repentance is never supposed to be a legal ground for remitting the punishment due to crimes committed against a civil State. How unreasonable, then, to suppose that it can form a sufficient ground for the pardon of sin as committed against God ! Christ has fully satisfied the justice of God by the sacrifice of himself, and his blood alone cleanseth us from all sin. — 1 John i. 7. To us the pardon of sin is wholly gratuitous — " an act of God's free grace in Christ" — and, if it be of grace, then it is no more of works; and, therefore, not by repentance, as a satisfaction for sin.

2. True repentance and pardon are inseparably connected. Though no one is pardoned for his repentance, yet repentance is of such indispensable necessity, that an impenitent sinner cannot be a pardoned sinner. " They are connected in the economy of salvation, not as cause and effect, but to show the consistency of a gratuitous pardon with the interests of holiness. For any g.)ver.nment to acquit a criminal, and restore him to society without some evidence of a change of

disposition, would be little else than granting him a license to commit crimes with impunity. But if this would be unworthy of a human, how much more of the divine government ! God, for the vindication of the honour of the plan of mercy, has so connected pardon with repentance and confession — the expression of repentance — that they are the only certain evidences that we are in a pardoned state; while pardon and repentance are equally the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord."*