AURICULAR CONFESSION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 4, 1878

AURICULAR CONFESSION.

Rev. Dr. Morgan, of Cincinnati, left the Protestant Episcopal church and joined the Reformed Episcopals. Here are his reasons, or rather the gist of them: “Witnessing the action of the last General Convention, I was overwhelmed with astonishment. It was with difficulty I could believe what I saw and heard; but the sorry fact was before me all the same, whether ignored or believed. And it stands to day on the minutes of our journal, as alas! on the records of Heaven, certifying that, on the eighteenth day of the last General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, it was then and there decreed by this church, acting in her corporate character, that auricular confession, the reservation and adoration of the sacrament, with, of course, whatever else is inseparable from that system, should be sanctioned and tolerated as worthy a place in this church.”

As regards confession he says: “I had heard of it, but never put much faith in the rumor until it was verified to me personally on a visit to Baltimore not long ago. I there learned that a society of Episcopal ladies, called the Sisterhood of St. Mary the Virgin, had been organized under a system of confessional doctrines similar to those of the Catholic Church, and in direct contradiction to the canons of the Episcopal Church. Instead of enforcing these canons against the Sisterhood, the diocese refuses to apply them, and aid the Sisterhood in their institution. Then, again, only a few months ago Dr. Morgan Dix, son of the late Governor Dix, and rector of Trinity Church, New York, in an address, spoke of the Christian martyrs as conspirators against Christ and his doctrines—these men who died for Protestantism, and who gave us the English Bible. Dr. Dix further said that these ‘conspirators against Heaven’ were checked in their designs by the death of the boy

king, Edward VI. of England, and foiled by Queen Mary, who succeeded. Just think of it!—by this woman, who put to death over two thousand Protestants. When I found this most influential rector of the Episcopal clergy preaching Romanism openly; when I heard that Dr. Seymour, the dean of our largest seminary, is advocating the same doctrine, and drilling it into the minds of our theological students, I thought it was time for me to leave the church I so loved.”—New York Weekly Witness.