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when learned men for all this would not take warning, but would needs be meddling again, with that which the popish clergy could not endure should be touched, as Johannes de Selva, among others, in the end of his treatise De jurejurando, Erasmus in divers of his works, and Beatus Rhenanus in his argument upon Tertullian's book De pœnitentia: the fathers of Trent, within seventy-two years after that, conspired together to stop all men's mouths with an anathema", that should deny sacramental confession to be of divine institution, or to be necessary unto salvation. And so we are come to an end of that

point.

Conc. Trident. sess. 14. can. 6.

OF

THE PRIEST'S POWER

ΤΟ

FORGIVE SINS.

FROM Confession we are now to proceed unto absolution : which it were pity this man should receive, before he made confession of the open wrong he hath here done, in charging us to deny that priests have power to forgive sins; whereas the very formal words, which our Church requireth to be used in the ordination of a minister, are these: "Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." And therefore, if this be all the matter, the fathers and we shall agree well enough: howsoever this make-bait would fain put friends together by the ears, where there is no occasion at all of quarrel. For we acknowledge most willingly, that the principal part of the priest's ministry is exercised in the matter of forgiveness of sins: the question only is of the manner how this part of their function is executed by them, and of the bounds and limits thereof, which the pope and his clergy, for their own advantage, have enlarged beyond all measure of truth and reason.

That we may therefore give unto the priest the things that are the priest's, and to God the things that are God's; and not communicate unto any creature the power that properly belongeth to the Creator, who "will not give his glory unto another:" we must in the first place lay this down for a sure ground, that to forgive sins properly,

a The form of ordering of priests.

b Isai. chap. 48. ver. 11.

directly and absolutely, is a privilege only appertaining unto the Most High. "I," saith he of himself, 66 even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity?" saith the prophet Micah'; which in effect is the same with that of the Scribes, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" And therefore, when David saith unto God, "Thouf forgavest the iniquity of my sin;" Gregory, surnamed the Great, the first bishop of Rome of that name, thought this to be a sound paraphrase of his words; "Thou, who alone sparest, who alone forgivest sins. For who can forgive sins, but God alone?" He did not imagine that he had committed any great error in subscribing thus simply unto that sentence of the Scribes; and little dreamed, that any petty doctors afterwards would arise in Rome or Rhemes, who would tell us a fair tale that "the faithless Jews thought as heretics now-a-days, that to forgive sins was so proper to God, that it could not be communicated unto man;" and that "true believers refer this to the increase of God's honour, which miscreant Jews and heretics do account blasphemy against God, and injurious to his majesty:" whereas in truth the faithlessness of the Jews consisted in the application of this sentence against our Saviour Christ, whom they did not acknowledge to be God; as the senselessness of these Romanists, in denying of the axiom itself.

But the world is come unto a good pass, when we must be accounted heretics now-a-days, and consorted with miscreant Jews, for holding the self-same thing that the fathers of the ancient Church delivered as a most certain truth, whensoever they had any occasion to treat of this

c Isai. chap. 43. ver. 25.

d chap. 7. ver. 18.

e Mark, chap. 2. ver. 7. and Luke, chap. 5. ver. 21.

f Psalm 32. ver. 5.

Tu, qui solus parcis, qui solus peccata dimittis.

Quis enim potest peccata

dimittere, nisi solus Deus? Gregor. exposit. 2. Psalmi pœnitential.

h Rhemists, annot. in Matt. chap. 9. ver. 5.

i Rich. Hopkins, in the memorial of a christian life, pag. 179. edit. ann. 1612.

part of the history of the Gospel. Old Irenæus telleth us, that our Saviour in this place "forgiving sins, did both cure the man, and manifestly discover who he was. For if none (saith he) can forgive sins but God alone, and our Lord did forgive them, and cured men, it is manifest that he was the Word of God, made the Son of man and that, as man, he is touched with compasssion of us; as God, he hath mercy on us, and forgiveth us our debts which we do owe unto God our Maker." Tertullian saith, that, "when' the Jews, beholding only his humanity, and not being yet certain of his Deity, did deservedly reason that a man could not forgive sins, but God alone:" he by answering of them, that "the Son of man had authority to forgive sins," would by this remission of sins have them call to mind, that he was" that only Son of man prophesied of in Daniel", who received power of judging, and thereby also of forgiving sins." St. Hilary, commenting upon the ninth of Matthew, writeth thus: "It" moveth the Scribes, that sin should be forgiven by a man. they beheld a man only in Jesus Christ; and that to be forgiven by him, which the law could not release. For it is faith only that justifieth. Afterward the Lord looketh into their murmuring, and saith that it is an easy thing

For

Peccata igitur remittens, hominem quidem curavit, semetipsum autem manifeste ostendit quis esset. Si enim nemo potest remittere peccata, nisi solus Deus, remittebat autem hæc Dominus, et curabat homines; manifestum est quoniam ipse erat Verbum Dei, filius hominis factus, &c. ut quomodo homo compassus est nobis, tanquam Deus misereatur nostri, et remittat nobis debita nostra, quæ factori nostro debemus Deo. Iren. adv. hæres. lib. 5. cap. 17. pag. 314.

Nam cum Judæi solummodo hominem ejus intuentes, necdum et Deum certi, qua Dei quoque filium, merito retractarent, non posse hominem delicta dimittere, sed Deum solum, &c. Tertullian. lib. 4. adv. Marcion. cap. 10. pag. 421. millum scilicet solum filium hominis, apud Danielis prophetiam, consecutum judicandi potestatem, ac per eam utique et dimittendi delicta. Id. ibid. n chap. 7. ver. 13, 14.

• Movet scribas, remissum ab homine peccatum. Hominem enim tantum in Jesu Christo contuebantur; et remissum ab eo, quod lex laxare non poterat. Fides enim sola justificat. Deinde murmurationem eorum Dominus introspicit, dicitque, facile esse filio hominis in terra peccata dimittere. Verum enim, nemo potest dimittere peccata, nisi solus Deus: ergo, qui remittit Deus est, quia nemo remittit nisi Deus. Deus, in homine manens, curationem homini præstabat. Hilar. in Matt. cap. 8. op. pag. 646.

for the Son of man upon earth to forgive sins. For it is true, none can forgive sins but God alone: therefore he who remitteth is God, because none remitteth but God. God, remaining in man, performed this cure upon man." St. Hierome thus: "We read that God saith in the prophet; I am he that blotteth out thine iniquities. Consequently therefore the Scribes, because they thought him to be a man, and did not understand the words of God, accuse him of blasphemy. But the Lord, seeing their thoughts, sheweth himself to be God, who is able to know the secrets of the heart and holding his peace after a sort speaketh; By the same majesty and power, wherewith I behold your thoughts, I am able also to forgive sins unto men:" or, as Euthymius expresseth it in his commentaries upon the same place: "In truth, none can forgive sins but one, who beholdeth the thoughts of men." St. Chrysostom likewise, in his sermons upon the same, sheweth that Christ here declared himself to be God equal unto the Father: and that, if he had not been equal unto the Father, he would have said; "Why do you attribute unto me an unfitting opinion? I am far from that power." To the same effect also writeth Christianus Druthmarus, Paschasius Radbertus, and Walafridus Strabus in the ordinary gloss upon the same place of St. Matthew; Victor Antiochenus upon the second of Mark; Theophylact and Bede upon the second of Mark, and the fifth of Luke; St. Ambrose upon the fifth of Luke: who in another place also bringeth this sentence of the Scribes, as a ground to prove the Deity of the Holy Ghost withal: forasmuch as

P Legimus in propheta dicentem Deum, Ego sum qui deleo iniquitates tuas. Consequenter ergo scribæ, quia hominem putabant, et verba Dei non intelligebant, arguunt eum blasphemiæ. Sed Dominus, videns cogitationes eorum, ostendit se Deum, qui possit cordis occulta cognoscere: et quodammodo tacens loquitur, Eadem majestate et potentia, qua cogitationes vestras intueor, possum et hominibus peccata dimittere. Hieronym. lib. 1. commentar. in Matt. cap. 9.

a Vere nullus potest remittere peccata, nisi unus, qui intuetur cogitationes hominum. Euthym. cap. 13. in Matt.

* Εἰ μὴ ἴσος ἦν, ἐχρῆν εἰπεῖν, τί μοι προσάπτετε μὴ προσήκουσαν ὑπόληψιν; πόῤῥω ταύτης ἐγὼ τῆς δυνάμεως. Chrysost. in Matt. 9. hom. 29. op. tom. 7. pag. 343. Vid. etiam Basilium, lib. 5. contra Eunomium, op. tom. 1. pag. 299.

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