continent of air big enough to make a fire-ball, or the revolution of a minute's walk. These when they are alone, and do not actually and with effect minister to the wise counsels and firm progressions of a holy life, are as far from procuring pardon, as they are from a life of piety and holi ness. SECTION VIII. 100. XIV. IN the making confession of our sins, let us be most careful to do it so, as may most glorify God, and advance the reputation of his wisdom, his justice, and his mercy. For if we consider it, in all judicatories of the world, and in all the arts and violences of men which have been used to extort confessions, their purposes have been, that justice should be done, that the public wisdom and authority should not be dishonoured; that public criminals should not be defended or assisted by public pity, or the voice of the people sharpened against the public rods and axes, by supposing they have smitten the innocent. Confession of the crime prevents all these evils, and does well serve all these good ends. Gnosius hæc Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, So the heathens did suppose was done in the lower regions. 'The judge did examine and hear their crimes and crafts, and even there compelled them to confess,' that the eternal justice may be publicly acknowledged; for all the honour that we can do to the divine attributes, is publicly to confess them, and make others so to do; for so God is pleased to receive honour from us. Therefore, repentance being a return to God, a ceasing to dishonour him any more, and a restoring him, so far as we can, to the honour we deprived him of;—it ought to be done with as much humility and sorrow, with as clear glorifications of God and condemnations of ourselves, as we can. To which purpose, 101. XV. He that confesseth his sins, must do it with all sincerity and simplicity of spirit, not to serve ends, or to make religion the minister of design; but to destroy our i Æn. 6. 566. Heyne. sin, to shame and punish ourselves, to obtain pardon and institution; always telling our sad story just as it was in its acting, excepting where the manner of it, and its nature or circumstances, require a veil; and then the sin must not be concealed, nor yet so represented as to keep the first immodesty alive in him that acted it, or to become a new temptation in him that hears it. But this last caution is only of use in our confessions to the minister of holy things; for our confession to God, as it is to other purposes, so must be in other manners: but I have already given accounts of this. I only add, that, 102. XVI. All our confessions must be accusations of ourselves, and not of others. For if we confess to God, then to accuse another may spoil our own duty, but it can serve no end; for God already knows all that we can say to lessen, or to aggravate the sin: if we confess to men,-then to name another, or by any way to signify or reveal him, is a direct defamation; and unless the naming of the sin do, of itself, declare the assisting party, it is at no hand to be done, or to be inquired into: but if a man hath committed incest, and there is but one person in the world with whom he could commit it; in this case, the confessing his sin does accuse another; but then such a guide of souls is to be chosen, to whom that person is not known; but if, by this or some other expedient, the fame of others be not secured, it is best to confess that thing to God only; and so much of the sin as may aggravate it to an equal height with its own kind in special, may be communicated to him, of whom we ask comfort, and counsel, and institution. If to confess to a priest were a divine commandment, this caution would have in it some difficulty, and much variety; but since the practice is recommended to us wholly upon the stock of prudence, and great charity; the doing it ought not, in any sense, to be uncharitable to others. 103. XVII. He that hath injured his neighbour, must confess to him; and he that hath sinned against the church, must make amends and confess to the church, when she declares herself to be offended. For when a fact is done which cannot naturally be undone, the only duty that can remain, is to rescind it morally, and make it not to be any longer or any more. For as our conservation is a continual creation, so is the perpetuating of a sin a continuation of its being and actings; and therefore, to cease from it, is the death of the sin for the present and for the future; but to confess it, to hate it, to wish it had never been done, is all the possibility that is left to annihilate the act, which naturally can never be undone; and therefore to all persons that are injured, to confess the sin, must needs be a duty, because it is the first part of amends, and sometimes all that is left; but it is that which God and man require, before they are willing to pardon the offender. For until the erring man confesses, it does not appear who is innocent, and who is guilty, or whether the offended person have any thing to forgive. And this is the meaning of these preceptive words of St. James; " Confess your sins one to another;" that is, to the church who are scandalized, and who can forgive and pray for the repenting sinner; and confess to him that is injured, that you may do him right, that so you may cease to do wrong, that you may make your way for pardon, and offer amends. This only, and all of this, is the meaning of the precept. A távτα πιστὸν λέγειν τὰς ἑαυτοῦ ἁμαρτίας, καὶ ἀποτάττεσθαι, διὰ τοῦ ἑαυτὸν διαλέγχειν, τοῦ ἔτι μὴ ποιεῖν τὰ αὐτὰ, κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον· Λέγε συ τὰς ἁμαρτίας σου πρῶτος, ἵνα δικαιωθῇς· καὶ τὸ, Δίκαιος ἑαυτοῦ κατήγορος ἐν πρωτολογίᾳ, say the Greek commentaries Acts xix. 18. upon Every faithful man must declare or confess his sins, and must stand in separation, that he may be reproved, and that he may promise he will not do the same again, according to that which was said, Do thou first declare thy sins, that thou mayest be justified; (and again), A just man in the beginning of his speech is an accuser of himself." No man is a true penitent, if he refuses or neglects to confess his sins to God in all cases, or to his brother if he have injured him, or to the church if she be offended, or where she requires it; for wheresoever a man is bound to repent, there he is bound to confession; which is an acknowledgment of the injury, and the first instance and publication of repentance. In other cases, confession may be of great advantage; in these it is duty. 104. XVIII. Let no man think it a shame to confess his sin; or if he does, yet let not that shame deter him from it. There is indeed a shame in confession, because nakedness is k Jam. v. 16. discovered; but there is also a glory in it, because there is a cure too: there is repentance and amendment. This advice is like that, which is given to persons giving their lives in a good cause, requiring them not to be afraid; that is, not to suffer such a fear, as to be hindered from dying. For if they suffer a great natural fear, and yet, in despite of that fear, die constantly and patiently, that fear, as it increases their suffering, may also accidentally increase their glory, provided that the fear be not criminal in its cause, nor effective of any unworthy comportment. So is the shame in confession; a great mortification of the man, and highly punitive of the sin; and such that, unless it hinders the duty, is not to be directly reproved: but it must be taken care of, that it be a shame only for the sin, which by how much greater it is, by so much the more earnestly the man ought to fly to all the means of remedy and instruments of expiation: and then the greater the shame is, which the sinner suffers,-the more excellent is the repentance, which suffers so much for the extinction of his sin. But, at no hand, let the shame affright the duty; but let it be remembered, that this confession is but the memory of the shame, which began, when the sin was acted, and abode but as a handmaid of the guilt, and goes away with it: confession of sins opens them to man, but draws a veil before them, that God will the less behold them. And it is a material consideration, that, if a man be impatient of the shame here, when it is revealed but to one man, who is also, by all the ties of religion, and by common honesty, obliged to conceal them; or if he account it intolerable that a sin, public in the scandal and the infamy, should be made public by solemnity to punish and to extinguish it, the man will be no gainer by refusing to confess, when he shall remember, that sins unconfessed are most commonly unpardoned; and unpardoned sins will be made public before all angels, and all the wise and good men of the world, when their shame shall have nothing to make it tolerable. 105. XIX. When a penitent confesses his sin, the holy man that ministers to his repentance, and hears his confession, must not, without great cause, lessen the shame of the repenting man; he must directly encourage the duty, but not add confidence to the sinner. For whatsoever directly lessens the shame, lessens also the hatred of sin, and his future caution, and the reward of his repentance; and takes off that which was an excellent defensative against the sin. But with the shame, the minister of religion is to do as he is to do with the man's sorrow: so long as it is a good instrument of repentance, so long it is to be permitted and assisted, but when it becomes irregular, or disposed to evil events, it is to be taken off. And so must the shame of the penitent man, when there is danger, lest the man be swallowed up by too much sorrow and shame, or when it is perceived, that the shame alone is a hinderance to the duty. In these cases, if the penitent man can be persuaded, directly and by choice, forends of piety and religion, to suffer the shame,-then let his spirit be supported by other means; but if he cannot, let there be such a confidence wrought in him, which is derived from the circumstances of the person, or the universal calamity and iniquity of man, or the example of great sinners like himself, that have willingly undergone the yoke of the Lord, or from consideration of the divine mercies, or from the easiness and advantages of the duty; but let nothing be offered to lessen the hatred or the greatness of the sin; lest a temptation to sin hereafter be sowed in the furrows of the present repentance. 106. XX. He that confesseth his sins to the minister of religion, must be sure to express all the great lines of his folly and calamity; that is, all that by which he may make a competent judgment of the state of his soul. Now if the man be of a good life, and yet in his tendency to perfection, is willing to pass under the method and discipline of greater sinners, there is no advice to be given to him, but that he do not curiously tell those lesser irregularities, which vex his peace, rather than discompose his conscience but what is most remarkable in his infirmities, or the whole state, and the greatest marks and instances, and returns of them, he ought to signify; for else he can serve no prudent end in his confession. 107. But, secondly; if the man have committed a great sin, it is a high prudence, and an excellent instance of his repentance, that he confess it,-declaring the kind of it, if it be of that nature, that the spiritual man may conceal it. But if, upon any other account, he be bound to reveal every |