_THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CONFESSION OF SINS.
THE LAWFULNESS OF PRAYERS FOR RAIN._
"Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for
another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man
availeth much in its working. Elijah was a man of like passions with
us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not
on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again; and
the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her
fruit."--ST. JAMES v. 16-18.
The connexion of this passage with the preceding one is very close.
This is evident even in the Authorized Version; but it is made still
more manifest by the Revisers, who have restored the connecting
"therefore" to the text upon overwhelming authority. St. James is
passing from the particular case of the sick person to something more
general, viz. mutual confession of sins. If we draw out his thought in
full, it will be something of this kind: "Even if the sick person be
suffering the consequences of his sins, nevertheless the faith and
prayers of the elders, combined with his own, shall prevail for his
forgiveness and healing. Of course he must confess and bewail his
sins: if he does not admit them and repent of them, he can hope for
nothing. _Therefore_ you ought all of you habitually to confess your
sins to one another, and to intercede for one another, in order that
when sickness comes upon you, you may the more readily be healed." It
is not quite certain that the word rendered "ye may be healed"
(ἰαθῇτε) ought to be limited to bodily healing; but the context
seems to imply that the cure of bodily disorders is still in the mind
of St. James. If, however, with various commentators, we take it to
mean "that your _souls_ may be healed," then there is no need to
supply any such thought as "when sickness comes upon you."
It might surprise us to find that the practice of auricular confession
to a priest is deduced from the precept, "Confess your sins one to
another," if we had not the previous experience of finding the rite of
Extreme Unction deduced from the precept respecting the anointing of
the sick. But here also Cajetan has the credit of admitting that no
Scriptural authority for the Roman practice can be found in the words
of St. James. The all-important "to one another" (ἀλλήλοις) is quite
fatal to the interpretation of confession to a priest. If the
confession of a layman to a priest is meant, then the confession of a
priest to a layman is _equally meant_: the words, whether in the Greek
or in the English, cannot be otherwise understood. But the injunction
is evidently quite general, and the distinction between clergy and
laity does not enter into it at all: each Christian, whether elder or
layman, is to confess to other Christians, whether elders or laymen,
either to one or to many, as the case may be. When the sick person
just spoken of confessed his sins, he confessed them to the elders of
the Church, because they were present; they did not come to receive
his confession, but to pray for him and to anoint him. He sent for
them, not because he wished to confess to them, but because he was
sick. Even if he had had nothing to confess to them--a case evidently
contemplated by St. James as not only possible, but common--he would
still have sent for them. So far from its being among their functions
as elders to hear the sick man's confession, St. James seems rather to
imply that he ought to have made it previously to others. If
Christians habitually confess their sins to one another, there will be
no special confession required when any of them falls ill. But
granting that this interpretation of his brief directions is not quite
certain, it is quite certain that what he commends is the confession
of any Christian to any Christian, and not the confession of laity to
presbyters. About that he says nothing, either one way or the other,
for it is not in his mind. He neither sanctions nor forbids it, but he
gives a direction which shows that as regards the duty of confession
to man, the normal condition of things is for any Christian to confess
to any Christian. The important point is that the sinner should not
keep his guilty secret locked up in his own bosom; to whom he should
tell it is left to his own discretion. As Tertullian says, in his
treatise _On Penance_, "Confession of sins lightens as much as
concealment (_dissimulatio_) aggravates them. For confession is
prompted by the desire to make amends; concealment is prompted by
contumacy" (viii.). Similarly Origen, on Psalm xxxvii.: "See,
therefore, what the Divine Scripture teaches us, that we must not
conceal sin within us. For just as, it may be, people who have
undigested food detained inside them, or are otherwise grievously
oppressed internally, if they vomit, obtain relief, so they also who
have sinned, if they conceal and retain the sin, are oppressed
inwardly. But if the sinner becomes his own accuser, accuses himself
and confesses, he at the same time vomits out both the sin and the
whole cause of his malady" (_Homil._ II. 6). In much the same strain
Chrysostom writes, "Sin, if it is confessed, becomes less; but if it
is not confessed, worse; for if the sinner adds shamelessness and
obstinacy to his sin, he will never stop. How, indeed, will such a one
be at all able to guard himself from falling again into the same sins,
if in the earlier case he was not conscious that he sinned.... Let us
not merely call ourselves sinners, but let us make a reckoning of our
sins, counting them according to their kind, one by one.... If thou
art of the persuasion that thou art a sinner, this is not able so much
to humble thy soul as the very catalogue of thy sins examined into
according to their kind" (_Homil._ xxx. _in Ep. ad Hebr._)
All these writers have this main point in common, that a sinner who
does not confess what he has done amiss is likely to become careless
and hardened. And the principle is at least as old as the Book of
Proverbs: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper: but
whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy" (xxviii. 13).
But, as the context clearly shows in each case, they are each of them
writing of a different kind of confession. The confession
(_exomologesis_) which Tertullian so urgently recommends is public
confession before the congregation; that which Origen advises is
private confession to an individual, particularly with a view to
deciding whether public confession is expedient. What Chrysostom
prefers, both here and elsewhere in his writings, is secret confession
to God: "I say not to thee, Make a parade of thyself; nor yet, Accuse
thyself in the presence of the others.... Before God confess these
things; before the Judge ever confess thy sins, praying, if not with
the tongue, at any rate with the heart, and in this way ask for
mercy." All which is in accordance with the principle laid down by
St. John, "If we confess our sins"--our sins in detail, not the mere
fact that we have sinned--"He is faithful and righteous to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John i. 9).
Bellarmine has the courage to claim not only St. James, but St. John,
as teaching confession to a priest (_De Pœnit._ III. iv.); but it
is manifest that St. John is speaking of confession to God, without
either approving or condemning confession to man, and that St. James
is speaking of the latter, without saying anything about the former.
But just as St. James leaves to the penitent's discretion the question
to whom he shall confess, whether to clergy or laity, so also he
leaves it to his discretion whether he shall confess to one or to
many, and whether in private or in public.[96] In the second, third,
and fourth centuries public confession was commonly part of public
penance. And the object of it is well stated by Hooker: "Offenders in
secret" were "persuaded that if the Church did direct them in the
offices of their penitency, and assist them with public prayer, they
should more easily obtain that they sought than by trusting wholly to
their own endeavours." The primitive view, he holds, was this: "Public
confession they thought necessary by way of _discipline_, not private
confession as in the nature of a _sacrament_" (_Eccl. Pol._, VI.
iv. 2, 6). But experience soon showed that indiscriminate public
confession of grievous sins was very mischievous. Therefore in the
East, and (if Sozomen is correct) at Rome also, penitentiary
presbyters were appointed to decide for penitents whether their sins
must be confessed to the congregation or not. Thus, what Origen
advises each penitent to do for himself, viz. seek a wise adviser
respecting the expediency of public confession and penance, was
formally done for every one. But in A.D. 391, Nectarius, the
predecessor of Chrysostom in the see of Constantinople, was persuaded
to abolish the office, _apparently_ because a penitentiary presbyter
had sanctioned public confession in a case which caused great scandal;
but neither Socrates (V. xix.) nor Sozomen (VII. xvi.) makes this
point very clear. The consequence of the abolition was that each
person was left to his own discretion, and public penance fell into
disuse.
But public confession had other disadvantages. Private enmity made use
of these confessions to annoy, and even to prosecute the penitent.
Moreover, the clergy sometimes proclaimed to the congregation what had
been told them in confidence; that is, they made public confession on
behalf of the sinner without his consent. Whereupon Leo the Great, in
a letter to the Bishops of Apulia and Campania, March 6th, A.D. 459,
sanctioned the practice of private confession (_Ep._ clxviii.
[cxxxvi.]). Thus, in the West, as previously in the East, a severe
blow was given to the practice of public confession and penance.
But it is probable that the origin, or at least the chief
encouragement, of the practice of auricular confession is rather to be
looked for in _monasticism_. Offences against the rule of the Order
had to be confessed before the whole community; and it was assumed
that the only other grave offences likely to happen in the monastic
life would be those of thought. These had to be confessed in private
to the abbat. The influences of monasticism were by no means bounded
by the monastery walls; and it is probable that the rule of private
confession by the brethren to the abbat had much to do with the custom
of private confession by the laity to the priest. But it is carefully
to be noted that for a considerable period the chief considerations
are the penitent's admission of his sins and the fixing of the
penance. Only gradually does the further idea of the absolution of the
penitent by the body or the individual that hears the confession come
in; and at last it becomes the main idea. Confession once a year to a
priest was made compulsory by the Lateran Council in 1215; but various
local synods had made similar regulations at earlier periods; _e.g._
the Council of Toulouse in 1129, and of Liège in 710.[97] But when we
have reached these regulations we have once more advanced very far
indeed beyond what is prescribed by St. James in this Epistle.
There cannot be much doubt what is the main idea with St. James:
"Confess therefore your sins one to another, and _pray_ one for
another, that ye may be healed. The _supplication_ of a righteous man
availeth much in its working. Elijah ... _prayed fervently_.... And he
_prayed again_," etc. It is in order that we may _induce others to
pray for us_ that we are to confess our sins to them; and this is the
great motive which underlies the public confession of the primitive
Church. As Hooker well expresses it, "The greatest thing which made
men forward and willing upon their knees to confess whatever they had
committed against God ... was their fervent desire to be helped and
assisted with the prayers of God's saints." And the meaning of these
prayers is strikingly expressed by Tertullian, who thus addresses the
penitent in need of such intercession: "Where one and two meet, there
is a Church; and a Church is Christ. Therefore, when thou dost stretch
forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren, it is Christ that thou
touchest, Christ on whom thou prevailest. Just so, when _they_ shed
tears over _thee_, it is Christ who feels compassion, Christ who is
entreating the Father. Readily doth He ever grant that which the Son
requests" (_De Pœnit._ x.). To unburden his own heart was one
benefit of the penitent's confession; to obtain the intercession of
others for his forgiveness and recovery was another; and the latter
was the chief reason for confessing to man; confession to God might
effect the other. The primitive forms of absolution, when confession
was made to a priest, were precatory rather than declaratory. "May the
Lord absolve thee" (_Dominus absolvat_) was changed in the West to "I
absolve thee," in the twelfth century. From the Sarum Office the
latter formula passed into the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., in the
Visitation of the Sick, and has remained there unchanged; but in 1552
the concluding words of the preceding rubric, "and the same forme of
absolucion shalbe used in all pryvate confessions," were omitted.[98]
In the Greek Church the form of absolution after private confession is
precatory:--
"O my spiritual child, who dost confess to my humility, _I, a humble
sinner, have no power on earth to remit sins_. _This God alone can
do._ Yet by reason of that Divine charge which was committed to the
Apostles after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
words, Whose soever sins ye forgive, etc., and by that encouraged,
_we_ say, Whatsoever thou hast confessed to my most lowly humility,
and whatsoever thou hast omitted to confess, either through ignorance
or any forgetfulness, _may God forgive thee_, both in this world and
in that which is to come." And this is followed by a prayer very
similar to the absolution: "God ... forgive thee, by the ministry of
me a sinner, all thy sins, both in this world and in that which is to
come, and present thee blameless at His dread tribunal. Go in peace,
and think no more of the faults which thou hast confessed." The "_we_
say" holds fast to the doctrine that it is to the Church as a whole,
and not to Peter or any individual minister, that the words, "Whose
soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them" (John xx. 23),
were spoken.
"The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working."
"The effectual earnest prayer" of the Authorized Version cannot be
justified: either "effectual" or "earnest" must be struck out, as
there is only one word (ἐνεργουμένη) in the original; moreover, the
word for "prayer" is not the same as before (δέησις, not εὐχή).
But it may be doubted whether "earnest" is not better than "in its
working." Perhaps "in its earnestness" would be better than either:
"Great is the strength of a righteous man's supplication, in its
earnestness."
The example by which St. James proves the efficacy of a righteous
man's prayer is interesting and important in two respects:--
1. It is the only evidence that we have that the great drought in the
time of Ahab was prayed for by Elijah, and it is the only direct
evidence that he prayed for the rain which put an end to it. We are
told that Elijah _prophesied_ the drought (1 Kings xvii. 1) and the
rain (1 Kings xviii. 41); and that before the rain he put himself in
an attitude of prayer, with his face between his knees (ver. 42); but
that he prayed, and for the rain which he had foretold, is not stated.
Whether the statement made by St. James is an inference from these
statements, or based on independent tradition, must remain uncertain.
We read in Ecclesiasticus of Elijah that by "the word of the Lord he
shut up (held back) the heaven" (xlviii. 3); but that seems to refer
to prophecy rather than to prayer. The difference, if there be any,
between the duration of the drought as stated here and by St. Luke
(iv. 25), and as stated in the Book of the Kings, will not be a
stumbling-block to any who recognize that inspiration does not
necessarily make a man infallible in chronology. Three and a half
years (= 42 months = 1,260 days) was the traditional duration of times
of great calamity (Dan. vii. 25; xii. 7; Rev. xi. 2, 3; xii. 6, 14;
xiii. 5).
2. This passage supplies us with _Biblical authority for prayers for
changes of weather_, and the like; for the conduct of Elijah is
evidently put before us for our imitation. St. James carefully guards
against the objection that Elijah was a man gifted with miraculous
powers, and therefore no guide for ordinary people, by asserting that
he was a man of like nature (ὁμοιοπαθής) with ourselves. And let
us concede, for the sake of argument, that St. James may have been
mistaken in believing that Elijah prayed for the drought and for the
rain; yet still the fact remains that an inspired New Testament writer
puts before us, for our encouragement in prayer, a case in which
prayers for changes of weather were made and answered. And he
certainly exhorts us to pray for the recovery of the sick, which is an
analogous case. This kind of prayer seems to require special
consideration.
"Is it, then, according to the Divine will that when we are
individually suffering from the regularity of the course of
nature--suffering, for instance, from the want of rain, or the
superabundance of it--we should ask God to interfere with that
regularity? That in such circumstances we should pray for submission
to the Divine will, and for such wisdom as shall lead to compliance
with it in the future, is a matter of course, and results inevitably
from the relation between the spiritual Father and the spiritual
child. But ought we to go farther than this? Ought we to pray,
expecting that our prayer will be effectual, that God may interfere
with the fixed sequences of nature? Let us try to realize what would
follow if we offered such prayer and prevailed. In a world-wide Church
each believer would constitute himself a judge of what was best for
himself and his neighbour, and thus the order of the world would be at
the mercy everywhere of individual caprice and ignorance. Irregularity
would accordingly take the place of invariableness. No man could
possibly foretell what would be on the morrow. The scientist would
find all his researches for rule and law baffled; the agriculturist
would find all his calculations upset; nature, again, as in the days
of ignorance, would become the master of man; like an eagle transfixed
by an arrow winged by one of its own feathers, man would have shackled
himself with the chains of his ancient servitude by the licentious
employment of his own freedom, and would have reduced the cosmos of
which God made him the master to a chaos which overwhelmed him by its
unexpected blows" (the Bishop of Manchester, September 4th, 1887, in
Manchester Cathedral, during a meeting of the British Association).
The picture which is here drawn sketches for us the consequences of
allowing each individual to have control over the forces of nature. It
is incredible that God could be induced to allow such control to
individuals; but does it follow from this that He never listens to
prayers respecting _His_ direction of the forces of nature, and that
consequently all such prayers are presumptuous? The conclusion does
not seem to follow from the premises. The valid conclusion would
rather be this: No one ought to pray to God to give him absolute
control of the forces of nature. The prayer, "Lord, in _Thy_ control
of the forces of nature have mercy upon me and my fellow men," is a
prayer of a very different character.
The objection to prayers for rain, or for the cessation of rain, and
the like, is based on the supposition that we thereby "ask God to
interfere with the regularity of the course of nature." Yet it is
admitted that to "pray for submission to the Divine will, and for such
wisdom as shall lead to compliance with it in the future, is a matter
of _course_, and results _inevitably_ from the relation between the
spiritual Father and the spiritual child." But is there no regularity
about the things thus admitted to be fit objects of prayer? Are human
character and human intellect not subject to law? When we pray for a
submissive spirit and for wisdom, are we not asking God to "interfere
with that regularity" which governs the development of character and
of intelligence? Either the prayer is to obtain more submission and
more wisdom than we should otherwise get, or it is not. If it is to
obtain it, then the regularity which would otherwise have prevailed is
interrupted. If our prayer is not to obtain for us more submission and
more wisdom than we should have obtained if we had not prayed, then
the prayer is futile.
It will perhaps be urged that the two cases are not strictly parallel.
They are not; but for the purposes of this argument they are
sufficiently parallel. It is maintained that we have no right to pray
for rain, because we thereby propose to interfere with the regularity
of natural processes; yet it is allowed that we may pray for wisdom.
To get wisdom by prayer is quite as much an interference with the
regularity of natural processes as to get rain by prayer. Therefore,
either we ought to pray for neither, or we have the right to pray for
both. And so far as the two cases are not parallel, it seems to be
more reasonable to pray for rain than to pray for submissiveness and
wisdom. God has given our wills the awful power of being able to
resist His will. Are we to suppose that He exercises less control over
matter, which cannot resist Him, than over human wills, which He
allows to do so; or that He will help us or not help us to become
better and wiser, according as we ask Him or do not ask Him for such
help, and yet will never make any change as to giving or withholding
material blessings, however much, or however little, we may ask Him to
do this?
The objection is sometimes stated in a slightly different form. God
has arranged the material universe according to His infinite wisdom;
it is presumptuous to pray that He will make any change in it. The
answer to which is, that if that argument is valid against praying for
rain, it is valid against all prayer whatever. If I impugn infinite
wisdom when I pray for a change in the weather, do I not equally
impugn it, when I pray for a change in the life or character of myself
or of my friends? God knows without our asking what weather is best
for us; and He knows equally without our asking what spiritual graces
are best for us.
Does not the parallel difficulty point to a parallel solution? What
right have we to assume that in either case effectual prayer
interferes with the regularity which seems to characterize Divine
action? May it not be God's will that the prayer of faith should be a
force that can influence other forces, whether material or spiritual,
and that its influence should be according to _law_ (whether natural
or supernatural) quite as much as the influence of other forces? A man
who puts up a lightning-conductor brings down the electric current
when it might otherwise have remained above, and brings it down in one
place rather than another; yet no one would say that he interferes
with the regularity of the course of nature. Is there anything in
religion or science to forbid us from thinking of prayer as working in
an analogous manner--according to a law too subtle for us to
comprehend and analyse, but according to a law none the less? In the
vast network of forces in which an all-wise God has constructed the
universe a Christian will believe that one force which "availeth
much," both in the material and in the spiritual world, is the earnest
prayer of the righteous. It is better for us that we should be able to
influence by our prayers God's direction of events than that we should
be unable to do so; therefore a merciful Father has placed this power
within our reach.[99]
[96] In the _Dict. of Chr. Biogr._, I., p. 615, Tertullian's account
of public confession is given at some length, and then the question is
asked, "Is not this, clearly, the _exomologesis_ which St. James
enjoins?" To this one replies that St. James enjoins confession, but
says nothing about publicity.
[97] The Council of Trent anathematizes any one "who denies that
sacramental confession was instituted of Divine right, or that it is
necessary to salvation, or who says that the manner of confessing
secretly to a priest alone, _which the Church has ever observed from
the beginning_, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and
command of Christ, and is a human invention" (Canon VI. ii. 165).
[98] Moreover, "shall absolve hym after this _forme_" was changed to
"shall absolve hym after thys _sorte_," as if allowing another form in
the Visitation of the Sick.
[99] Dean Plumptre has pointed out an "interesting coincidence"
between this mention of Elijah and the account given by Josephus of
Caligula's mad attempt to set up his statue in the Temple.
P. Petronius Turpilianus had been appointed Governor of Syria in the
room of Vitellius, and was commissioned to erect the statue; but he
was much impressed by the earnestness of the Jews in opposing the
proposed outrage, and promised large multitudes of them at Tiberias
that he would do all in his power to induce Caligula to desist. It was
a year of great drought, no rain falling even when the sky was
overcast; but on this day, although there had been no previous signs
of it, abundance of rain fell directly Petronius had finished his
speech to the Jews. Josephus speaks of this as God showing His
presence (παρουσία) to Petronius, and says that Petronius recognized
it as a Divine manifestation (ἐπιφάνεια) of God's care of the Jews.
Dr. Plumptre says that the people--"Christians, we may believe, as
well as Jews"--had been praying for rain, and that Petronius regarded
the rain "partly as an answer to the prayers of the people;" which may
have been so, but _it is not so stated by Josephus_. "According to the
date which, on independent grounds, has here been assigned to
St. James's Epistle, the event referred to must have happened but a
_few months_ before, or but a _few months_ after it. If before, he may
well have had it in his thoughts; if after, it may well have been in
part the effect of his teaching." Dr. Plumptre thinks that the Epistle
was written between A.D. 44 and 51. The events recorded by Josephus
took place A.D. 39. Caligula was assassinated January 24th, A.D. 41.
The coincidence, therefore, breaks down upon examination. (1) The
unexpected rain is represented, not as an answer to prayer, but as a
sign of God's approval of the decision of Petronius. (2) Even if we
place the Epistle as early as A.D. 45, it was written _six years_
after the sudden rain at Tiberias; and St. James did not need that
occurrence (of which he had possibly never heard) in order to be
reminded of the drought and the rain prophesied by Elijah.