The Differences between Roman and Anglican Private Confession [Commentary on Browne: Article XXV (2)]

As seen previously, Browne readily grants that “four out of the five [minor sacraments] the Church of England admits, at least in a modified form.” However, it is important to note the qualification that they are admitted in a “modified form,” particularly with regard to private confession. Browne writes that “the Council of Trent anathematizes all who deny it to be truly and properly a Sacrament, instituted by Christ Himself, and necessary to salvation jure divino.” The relevant canon of Trent reads as follows:

If any one denieth, either that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or saith, that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention; let him be anathema.[1]

In contrast, the Anglican Church

Provides for all troubled consciences the power of relieving themselves, by making confession of guilt to their pastor, or “any other discreet and learned minister,” and so gives them comfort and counsel; but does not bind every one of necessity to rehearse all his private sins to man, nor elevate such useful confession into a Sacrament essential to salvation.[2]

The Roman Church’s elevation of private confession to the level of a necessity hinges in large part on its classification of sins as either mortal or venial. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, mortal sin “destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.”[3] Venial sin, on the other hand, is “a less serious matter” and merely “weakens charity” rather than destroying it. One commits venial sin when “he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.”[4] If mortal sin “is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell.”[5] Indeed, the gravity of mortal sin “necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart, which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation.”[6] Therefore, the Church of Rome teaches that

Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification.[7]

For this reason, the Roman form of penance requires—on pain of excommunication—that “all mortal sins of which penitents after a diligent self-examination are conscious must be recounted by them in confession”[8] to a priest:

If any one saith, that, in the sacrament of Penance, it is not necessary, of divine right, for the remission of sins, to confess all and singular the mortal sins which after due and diligent previous meditation are remembered…let him be anathema.[9]

It is necessary to shed light on the Roman account of mortal and venial sin as it relates to the sacrament of penance because some Anglo-Catholics wholesale import this account, which in turn colors their treatment of private confession. See, e.g., Francis J. Hall:

In every age there has been catholic consent…that in the case of those who fall into the more grave forms of sin, priestly absolution is needed for due reconciliation and for full recovery to the state of saving grace.[10]

Support for the Roman understanding of mortal and venial sin in an Anglican context could be claimed on the basis that, in the Litany of the English Prayer Book, it is said, “From fornication, and all other deadly sin…Good Lord, deliver us.”[11] Article XVI alludes to “deadly sin willingly committed after baptism” as well. But multiple commentators on the Prayer Book and Articles have been quick to deny any association between the phrase “deadly sin” and the Roman account of mortal and venial sin: “The phrase ‘deadly sin’ is not to be regarded as conveying the old scholastic distinction between sins ‘venial’ and ‘mortal.’”[12] Moreover, among the English Reformers, “Very few references are found in these writers to the distinction between mortal and venial sins; and even those do not go to the root of the distinction, but practically ignore it.”[13] It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that “while retaining the phrase ‘deadly sin’ in our Litany and in Article XVI., the Reformers by no means intended to retain the false and dangerous system of which the distinction between Mortal and Venial sins formed a part.”[14] This can be inferred from the fact that private confession was made discretionary by the 1549 Prayer Book, as seen in one of the exhortations before Holy Communion:

And if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled and grieved in any thing, lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned priest taught in the law of God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort, that his conscience may be relieved, and that of us, as the minister of God and of the Church, he may receive comfort and absolution, to the satisfaction of his mind, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness: requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession not to be offended with them that doth use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest; nor those also which think needful or convenient for the quietness of their own consciences particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended with them which are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church: but in all these things to follow and keep the rule of charity.[15]

Although the call for mutual charity was removed from subsequent editions of the Prayer Book, the discretionary character of private confession has always remained clear, thereby undermining any attempts to adopt the Roman account of mortal and venial sin in the context of Anglican theology and practice. Then, too, a number of divines expressly reject the Roman distinction, as does Bishop Hall: “Pardons do both imply and presuppose that known distinction of Mortal and Venial sin, which neither hath God ever allowed, neither while He gainsays it will ever the Protestants.”[16] Jeremy Taylor in particular addresses the insidious pastoral implications of the Roman distinction between mortal and venial sin, in a passage worth quoting at length:

Supposing the distinction to be believed, experience and certain reason will evince that it is impossible to prescribe proper limits and measures to the several kinds; and between the least mortal and the greatest venial sin, no man is able with certainty to distinguish. And therefore (as we see it daily happen, and in every page written by the casuists) men call what they please venial, take what measures of them they like, appoint what expiation of them they fancy, and consequently give what allowance they list to those whom they please to mislead.

But the evil is worse yet, when it is reduced to practice. For in the decision of very many questions, the answer is, It is a venial sin; that is, though it be a sin, yet there is in it no danger of losing the favour of God by that, but you may do it and you may do it again a thousand times; and “all the venial sins of the world put together, can never do what one mortal sin can, that is, make God to be your enemy,”—so Bellarmine expressly affirms.[17]

Thus we find that both the Prayer Book and the larger Anglican tradition weigh considerably against the mortal/venial distinction, at least as it is formulated within Roman Catholicism.

Another touchstone of the purported necessity of Romanist penance is the belief that priestly absolution is judicial. That is to say, the priest acts as a “just and impartial judge”[18] who “determine[s] whether the penitent is sufficiently fulfilling the conditions of remission,”[19] thus determining whether or not the priest absolves him or her:

If any one saith, that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring sins to be forgiven to him who confesses; provided only he believe himself to be absolved, or (even though) the priest absolve not in earnest, but in joke; or saith, that the confession of the penitent is not required, in order that the priest may be able to absolve him; let him be anathema.[20]

As with the distinction between mortal and venial sin, the Anglican tradition departs from Rome on this matter, maintaining that ministerial absolution is in fact “no more than a declaration what God hath done; it hath but the force of the Prophet Nathan’s Absolution, ‘God hath taken away thy sin:’ than which construction, especially of words judicial, there is not any thing more vulgar.”[21] This is the obvious sense of the general absolution found in Morning and Evening Prayer, in which the priest says to the congregation that God “hath given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. He pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel.”[22] The older language of Ego te absolvo (“I absolve thee”)[23] used in the Visitation and Communion of the Sick does not abrogate or nullify this reality, but should be read in light of the plain language of the Daily Offices:

We of this church, who use it [the phrase “I absolve thee”] only to such as are thought to be near death, cannot be meant to understand any thing by it, but the full peace and pardon of the church: for if we meant a pardon with relation to God, we ought to use it upon many other occasions. The pardon that we give in the name of God is only declaratory of his pardon, or supplicatory in a prayer to him for pardon.[24]

With the understanding that Anglican private confession is 1) discretionary, and 2) declaratory, it is not unexpected for Browne to caution that it should be “only commended to such as need it”:

There can be no doubt, that a distressed conscience may be soothed and guided by confidence in a spiritual adviser. Most people, much in earnest, and much oppressed with a sense of sin, have yearned for such confidence. Hence the Church should always afford to the sin-stricken soul the power of unburdening itself. But, on the other hand, whatever tends to lead people to substitute confession to man for confession to God, and to make the path of repentance less rugged than the Gospel makes it, must be dangerous. Such is the systematic and compulsory confession of the Church of Rome.

In short, private confession should not become “a mere routine of ordinary life,” else we run the risk of “substituting false peace for that peace which can come only from a true penitence, and from the sense of God’s pardoning love through Christ.”[25] Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the general confession and absolution of the Daily Offices, as great a blessing as they are, should not be treated as the only occasion for “ordinary” confession and forgiveness of sins:

As to a general absolution upon a general confession, which is retained in our liturgy, and is a defect in Calvin’s; though it must be owned to be a very useful and edifying part and form of Divine service, (which Calvin wished to have inserted into his liturgy, but could not obtain it), yet we cannot say, it is so necessary a part of Divine service, as that no church can have absolution or remission of sins without such a form of absolution in her liturgy. For this would be an unwarrantable condemnation of all churches that want that particular form, though they otherwise supply it by preaching, which is the declaratory application of God’s promises of pardon to his church.[26]

To suppose that we can only find forgiveness at the hands of a priest, albeit through a public form of confession rather than a private one, is no less rank a form of clericalism. Again, the general confession and absolution of the Book of Common Prayer are a gift to the church, but it is imperative to remember that God alone forgives our sins, and it is only to Him we must turn in repentance:

The doctrine of Confession, as taught by the Reformers, was different in kind from that taught by the mediaeval Church. Forgiveness was now made to depend absolutely upon personal confession made by each penitent to God Himself. Other means might be helpful, this alone was essential.[27]

For this cause does the 1928 Prayer Book contain “Forms of Prayer to be used in Families,” to facilitate (among other things) lay confession and repentance in order to receive forgiveness from God for all our sins.[28] A proper attitude toward sin demands that we run at once in repentance to the God who forgives it, rather than waiting a day, or even so much as an hour, for this same forgiveness to be sealed by the priest, grateful though we may be for his assurance of God’s mercy toward us.

Notes

  1. J. Waterworth, ed. and trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Œcumenical Council of Trent (London: C. Dolman, 1848), Fourteenth Session, “On the Most Holy Sacrament of Penance,” Canon VI, 108. See also Waterworth, Trent, Fourteenth Session, “On the Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction,” Chapter V, 97; Richard Hooker, Works, vol. II, ed. W. S. Dobson (London: G. Cowie and Co., 1825), 182‒83, 204‒206; Christopher Wordsworth, On Confession and Absolution, 2nd ed. (London: Rivington’s, 1874), 20; Robert Louis Cloquet, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1885), 572; Randall T. Davidson, A Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Winchester (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899), 20‒21; E. Tyrrell Green, The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Age of the Reformation, 2nd ed. (London: Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co., 1912), 192n1; and W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles, 4th ed. (London: Church Book Room Press, 1951), 356.
  2. See also Hooker, Works, 164‒65; Gilbert Burnet, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, ed. James R. Page (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1842), 361, 365; George Tomline, Elements of Christian Theology, 14th ed., vol. II (London: T. Cadell, 1843), 370; Wordsworth, Confession and Absolution, 21; William Baker, A Plain Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Rivington’s, 1883), 144; T. W. Drury, Confession and Absolution (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903), 141; Arthur J. Tait, Lecture Outlines on the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Elliot Stock, 1910), 177; Green, Thirty-Nine Articles, 191; E. J. Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 2nd ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1925), 455‒56; and Thomas, Principles, 356.
  3. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2012), par. 1855, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM.
  4. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1862‒63, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM.
  5. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1861, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM.
  6. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1856, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM.
  7. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1446, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4C.HTM.
  8. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1456, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4D.HTM.
  9. Waterworth, Trent, Fourteenth Session, “On the Most Holy Sacrament of Penance,” Canon VII, 108‒109. See also Hooker, Works, 204; Wordsworth, Confession and Absolution, 23‒24; Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, ed. Philip E. Hughes (London: James Clarke and Co., 1960), 315; and Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1463, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4E.HTM.
  10. Francis J. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics: Francis J. Hall’s Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, ed. John A. Porter, Bk. IX, The Sacraments (Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2021), 510. See also Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, 509, 520; A. P. Forbes, An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 2nd ed. (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co., 1871), 234‒37; Darwell Stone, Outlines of Christian Dogma, 3rd ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903), 198‒99; and Cyril Bickersteth, The Ministry of Absolution (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 22, 36‒37.
  11. Samuel L. Bray and Drew N. Keane, eds., The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), 32, italics original.
  12. Charles Neil and J. M. Willoughby, eds., The Tutorial Prayer Book (London: The Harrison Trust, 1913), 141. See also Burnet, Exposition, 187; Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1848), 170; T. P. Boultbee, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1871), 132; John Macbeth, Notes on the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1894), 83‒84; F. E. Middleton, Lambeth and Trent: A Brief Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Chas. J. Thynne, 1900), 90; and Tait, Outlines, 128.
  13. Drury, Confession and Absolution, 205.
  14. Drury, Confession and Absolution, 210.
  15. Liturg. Ed. VI. P.S. p. 4, quoted in Drury, Confession and Absolution, 237.
  16. Joseph Hall, Sacred Polemics, in Paul Elmer More and Frank Leslie Cross, eds., Anglicanism (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Co., 2008), 433.
  17. Jeremy Taylor, Works, in More and Cross, Anglicanism, 432.
  18. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1465, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4E.HTM.
  19. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, 516.
  20. Waterworth, Trent, Fourteenth Session, “On the Most Holy Sacrament of Penance,” Canon X, 109.
  21. Hooker, Works, 214. See also Hooker, Works, 206, 208; H. C. O’Donnoghue, A Familiar and Practical Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1816), 217‒18; Burnet, Exposition, 361; Tomline, Elements, 369‒71; Joseph Bingham, The Antiquities of the Christian Church, vol. II (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852), 1103; Wordsworth, Confession and Absolution, 7, 13‒15, 24; Baker, Exposition, 144‒45; and Drury, Confession and Absolution, 39, 141‒42, 145, 155, 172‒73. That said, it is not unheard of among especially high-church Anglicans (by which I do not mean Anglo-Catholics) to hold that priestly absolution “must in some sense convey what it declares.” See M. F. Sadler, Church Doctrine, Bible Truth (London: George Bell and Sons, 1888), 258.
  22. Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 3, 19, italics mine.
  23. Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 329.
  24. Burnet, Exposition, 370‒71. See also Wordsworth, Confession and Absolution, 26.
  25. See also Tomline, Elements, 370‒72; Wordsworth, Confession and Absolution, 17‒18; Davidson, Charge, 30, 39‒40, 43‒44, 47; Drury, Confession and Absolution, 140‒41, 278‒279; and Green, Thirty-Nine Articles, 191‒92.
  26. Bingham, Antiquities, 1115.
  27. Drury, Confession and Absolution, xxi‒xxii. See also Drury, Confession and Absolution, 37‒38, 140, and Davidson, Charge, 42.
  28. Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), 589‒90. See also the form for “A Confession of Sin” included with the “Additional Prayers and Thanksgivings” in Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 699.

 


James Clark

James Clark is the author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.


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