Confess your faults, &c.— Confess therefore your faults, &c. See Mills, and Wetstein. They were to make a confession of those particular sins which had drawn some remarkable diseases upon them, as a token of the divine displeasure for their unchristian conduct. Their sending for the elders of the church plainly supposes that they had faith to be healed; and the confession of their sins, which they are here ordered to make, as plainly supposes that they were penitent: for, unless they repented of those particular sins which had occasioned the disorders under which they laboured, it does notappear that they obtained a miraculous cure. The confession was to be made by a sick person, in order to his being cured; not by a person in health, in order to his obtaining eternal salvation: and it was to be made to the elders, or to any other Christians, who had the power of miraculously curing diseases, that they might pray for the pardon of those particular crimes, and that the penitent might be released from the punishment under which he had fallen. From these considerations it appears, that the popish doctrine of auricular confession has as little foundation here, as their sacrament of extreme unction, and the necessity of sacerdotal absolution, in order to the remission of sins. They would build several of their novel doctrines on the concluding part of this epistle; but they are like castles in the air, without any foundation or support. From this direction of the apostle, Confess your faults, &c. they have introduced the necessity of private Christians confessing all their sins to a priest; that they may obtain his authoritative absolution, and may be assured of being fully pardoned. By this means, they have brought the people into a blind subjection to, and slavish dependance upon the clergy; by this means they have enticed women to lewdness, and taught vice to the innocent; have dived into the secrets of families and cities, of courts and kingdoms; have betrayed princes and states, as well as private persons, and done infinite mischief in the world: whereas, according to this direction of the apostle, the same persons are here ordered to confess their faults one to another, who in the next sentence are ordered to pray one for another. The priest ought therefore to confess to the people, and desire their prayers and absolution, as well as the people to the priest, in order to have his prayers and absolution; for it is said, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another.
The effectual fervent prayer, &c.— The prayer of a righteous man under the divine impulse avails much. The word ενεργουμενη signifies, "wrought by the energyof the Spirit." The apostle, says Benson, means a prayer wrought in a man by the Spirit of God, or which proceeded from a prophetic impulse, and by which he knew what success he should have; as plainly appears from what is said in the preceding notes, concerning the miraculous cures which were effected upon such a prayer, and likewise from what isafterwards said concerning the prayer of Elijah. See Ephesians 3:20. Colossians 1:29. 1 Corinthians 12:11.