Confession Confirmation
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Luther also advocated confession to the brethren. The main thing with him was absolution. This might be received without ecclesiastical confession, and took place also in baptism and in the communion.
The Reformers wished, moreover, to avail themselves of the custom of the laity to go to confession at regular intervals, since they were thus enabled to gain a knowledge of their lives, examine their conversation, instruct them, and influence them. The old order that the laity should go to confession before the communion was maintained. The penitent went to church, either without special reason or a day or two before the celebration of the communion; the confessor arranged an examination in the catechism, which might, however, be omitted, if he had confidence in the penitent; the latter was asked to name a sin which especially troubled him, and was examined concerning some 5. Confes- special sins. If there was no impedision as Re- ment, he was absolved. Luther's tained by formula of absolution was the col- Luther- lative: " I forgive thee," while the ans and Brandenburg- Nuremberg ritual has Reformed, the declarative formula: "I pronounce to thee." But the difference is not a matter of principle, because this same ritual has the parallel formulas: "God forgiveth thee" and " I absolve thee." Luther preferred the coUative form because of its clearness. The power to forgive sins, he says, belongs alone to God, but he exercises it through the outward ofHce of the forgiveness of sins. If absolution is to be right and effective, it must proceed from the command of Christ in John xx. 21-2.3 and read thus: " I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of Christ and by virtue of his command, so that it is not I, but he, who through my mouth forgives thee thy sin, and this thou must accept and firmly believe as if thou hadst heard it from the lips of Christ the Lord." Private or individual absolution was best in keeping with this concept of absolution. When, therefore, the Nuremberg congregation would not give up the public confession and general absolution, the Wittenbergers expressed their acceptance of private and individual confession in harmony with ancient custom, so long as both parties would exhort their people to private confession. In the first half of the Reformation-period the Lutherans of Wiirttemberg had become content with a general exhortation and the offer to hear a private confession. Among the Reformed private confession was mostly dropped, but a service preparatory to the communion was retained, as well as the general confession of sin. Compare also the Book of Common Prayer with its general confession at the communion and its confession of sin in morning and evening prayer.
Among the Lutherans the carrying out of the private confession met with great difficulties. In large communions the clergy were obliged to perform it in an unsatisfactory manner, and the moral harm of these mechanical confessions was justly regarded as a ground of complaint. The coUative or exhibitive formula of absolution touscmI opposition. Spener declared that the coUative and
declarative formulas were, on the whole, the same, and that he would not hesitate to use the absolute formula, where it was 6. Oppo- prescribed. But the spirit of antagsition to onism remained and has remained to Private this day. The confessional fees, more- Confession over, debased the existing practise of among the Lutherans. Although Luther had Lutherans, repudiated these fees, they remained, since many ministers could then not very well get along without them, especially as they were regarded as justified and not as extorted by compulsion. But they soon gave rise to scandal, and it was felt that both the dignity of the office and the proper cooperation of colleagues suffered by the system. In some congregations the fees were not customary. Here and there they were voluntarily changed into New Year's gifts, while some ministers declared that they would take no fees at all on account of the abuses of the custom.
Most of these abuses concerned the general confession just as much as the private confession, but popular disapproval was directed against the latter. The general confession existed as early as the sixteenth century among the Lutherans of Wtirttemberg while in the electorate of Saxony it became general after 1657. In 1697 J. K. Schade convened his communicants in a general confession and absolved them as a whole. His col- 7. Its Place leagues disapproved of his procedure. Taken by which had also provoked dissatisfaca General tion among the citizens, but the elector Confession, dispensed with private confession in 1698, appealing to many Lutheran churches in Sweden and Denmark, in Upper Germany, and to all the Lutheran churches in Holland and neighborhood, where neither a confessional nor private confession is to be found. The older national churches followed this example, except in Mecklenburg, where, according to Ivliefoth, private confession and absolution have never been abolished. On the other hand, the rule was observed that each communicant had to confess before the communion and thus take part in the general confession. With private confession private absolution ceased; and though here and there the penitents are individually absolved by laying on of hands, it is only a special application of the general absolution. In place of hearing the individual the confessionary sermon was introduced. The privilege of making a private confession to the confessor was not abrogated by this arrangement, but was seldom claimed.
With the cessation of the private confession a very useful instrument was taken from special pastoral care, and a revival has taken 8. Private place during the nineteenth century. Confession This is not intended as a mere resto- Revived in ration, however, for the same abuses the Nine- which were felt in times past would teenth again return in an increased degree. Century. An ecclesiastical body which would make private confession an obligatory preliminary to communion would not only injure the celebration of the communion, but such a law would be unjustifiable. Private confession can