4. Private absolution, as a whole, could be a blessing only so long as that specific religious interest which the IJeformation awakened in all circles remained fresh and full of life; with a lassitude of the latter, the former also, togetheV with confession, its offspring, necessarily dete- riorated to a dead ecclesiastical form, and, instead of encouraging faith, favored a false security. In several Lutheran churches its exercise was ignored, and finally resulted in a complete change of the manner of confes- sion and absolution (Steitz, ]). 159 sq.). The fresh and living spirit of the Keformation had fled, private con- fession and "private absolution had sunk to a mere thoughtless form. Church ban had become a punish- ment, public reconciliation a public restitution; this ec- clesiastical punishment was pronounced only by the con- sistories, and simply in cases of offences of the flosli.
h. Siiildenly Pietism came forwjird with a loud protest, and demanded a decided reform in the exercise of the power of the keys. The forerunner in this direction was Thcophllus Grossgebauer, professor at Kostock (IVdch- tersiimme aus dem vericiiMelen Zion, IGGl), who regard-
ed as essential for private sins only confession before God, but for public sins, to wliich alone he referred the power to bind and to loose, iiublic confession and recon- ciliation in i)resence of the offended Church. Spener, although in favor of retaining private confession and private absolution, advocated a modified form, viz., an- nouncement to the pastor, and, as its object, advice for and examination of the condition of the confidant's soul; and he insisted that the confessor, whose choice he left to personal confidence, should absolve only those truly rejienting, but shoidd impress the sinner with his guilt, and should turn over the doubtful ones to a college of elders for them to judge and to exercise the authority of the ban. With special emphasis he declared the pow- er of the keys to be a right of the whole Church or of the brotherhood, which, by way of abuse, had fallen exclu- sively into the hands of the ecclesiastics. With far greater decision his adherents opposed the institution of private confession : the attacks of pastor Johann Kas- par Schade, of Berlin, on the confessional, which he call- ed an institution of Satan, and his abolition of private absolution of his own accord, resulted first in an investi- gation of the merits of the question (Nov. IG, 1G98), and finall}' in an electoral resolution (shortly afterwards fol- lowed by a like regulation on tlie part of other states), which ordered confession and absolution of all confidants in common, but, on the other hand, left private confes- sion and private absolution to be determined by the needs of the individual. The war thus opened between Pietism and Lutheran orthodoxy led the latter to de- clare private confession and private absolution a divine institution, and thus only brought some credit to the old Lutheran institutions, while it greatly increased the fervor of their opponents.
6. In the sphere of dogmatics Schleiermacher Avas the first among German Protestant divines to reintroduce the idea of the power of the keys, but he confines its application, after special exclusion of the sermon, to the law-giving and judicial (administrative) power of the Church, which he regards as tlie essential outgrowth of the ecclesiastical office of Christ, and whose exist- ence he ascribes to the association of the Church with the world (§ 144, 145). When we consider, however, how vague and contradictory are the confessional IjoolvS of the evangelical churches on this point (we need in- vite OJily to a comparison of the passages collected by Schleiermacher in § 145), how things altogether distinct are there joined, and how difficult it is in an exegetical way to define the subject with any degree of certainty, it seems the most proper course to ignore the attempt altogether of introducing into dogmatics such figurative terms as '' keys of the heavenly kingdom,"' to "bind and loose." What has thus far been written upon these phrases would have been much more in place in defining "forgiveness of sin" and "justification" when alluding in practical theology to preparation for communion (as has been done, with a good deal of tact, by Nitzsch in his Prakf. Tlieol. ii, 2,428), and in ecclesiastical law un- der discipline without any cause for fear of complication.
As regards the idea of absolution so prominent in the exercise of the power of the keys, it has, during the last twenty years, again become (in Germany) matter of general investigation. The beginning was made by the court preacher, Dr. Ackermann (at the Church diet in Bremen in 1852), on private confession. Altliough he did not lay particular stress upon absolution, but simply justified confession on its own account and as a psyclio- logical need, it naturally led to a debate on absolution by the Church diet, followed by a lively discussion be- tween the Lutheran and Reformed ministers. On the part of the Lutherans every possible effort was made to reinvest private absolution with its former rights, and to pave the way at least for its early reintroduction. They went so far as to vindicate it as a divine institu- tion, argued for general absolution as a duty, and, well knowing its origin in the IMiddle Ages, appealed to it as an institution sanctified by tradition of the Church,