unauthorized but dangerous. Because, even if conditionally announced,
the formality of the absolution, and the fact that the church has made
a _special rite_ of it, are calculated to beget the idea, especially in
the unintelligent, that the granting of absolutions by the minister, is
proof of the genuineness of their faith, and reality of their pardon.

(_e_) Finally, the doctrine of ministerial absolution, or the supposed
sin-forgiving power of the ministry, is inconsistent with the doctrine,
that justification or pardon can be attained only by a living faith in
Jesus Christ, a doctrine of cardinal importance in the eyes of the
Reformers, and the one which Luther has styled the _articulus stantis
vel cadentis ecclesiae_, the doctrine with which the church must stand
or fall." The Scriptures and also the Reformers, teach that pardon or
justification can be obtained only through the merits of Christ, which
merits must be apprehended by a living faith, which living faith can be
found only in the regenerate or converted soul. Hence, as none but a
regenerate sinner can exercise living faith, no other can be pardoned,
whatever else he may do or possess. Now those who attend confession are
either regenerate, or they are not. If they were regenerated or
converted before they went to confession, they had faith, and were
pardoned before; if they were unregenerate or unconverted, then neither
their confession, nor the priest's absolution, can confer pardon on
them, because they have not a living faith, although they may be
sincere and exercise some sorrow for their sins. On the other hand, if
any amount of seriousness and penitence, short of true conversion or
regeneration, could, through the confessional, or any other rite,
confer pardon of sin; the line of distinction between converted and
unconverted, between mere formalists and true Christians would be
obliterated; we should have pardoned saints and pardoned sinners in the
church, converted and unconverted heirs of the promise, believing and