This essay is an adaptation and expansion of material I prepared for a Sunday school class a year ago. The purpose of the class was simply to explain what we do on Sunday morning and why we do it, my inspiration being Anthony Sparrow’s A Rationale Upon the Book of Common Prayer. As our parish holds Holy Communion once a month, I decided to focus on our more common service, the Morning Prayer Office (specifically as found in the REC BCP, 2005), though as time went on the project became much more in-depth than I had expected, combining numerous commentaries and resources (including pieces published here at The North American Anglican) with my own synthesizing and reflection.
My motivation for the class was my own experience with Anglican worship. I attend the same parish today that I was baptized in (which, I’m told, is unusual these days), yet Prayerbook worship only first “came to life” for me during college when I started using the BCP for private devotions, kindling my curiosity into Anglican liturgics and Church tradition generally. On school break, returning to my home parish one Sunday morning, I was suddenly grabbed by the great richness and drama of what I was experiencing. We, the priesthood of God, are entering into His court to make sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, to incense His Throne with our petitions, to receive his instruction and commands, and (pertinent to this essay) to confess our unworthiness before His presence and be authoritatively assured of our pardon. These are not mere pleasant, therapeutic metaphors, but fearful, invisible realities.
Now, I am not of the belief that half-understood worship is no worship at all, nor (certainly) that old liturgical prayers “don’t come from the heart.” But there is a reason Scripture emphasizes that the People of God should have understanding in their service (Nehemiah 8:1-12, 1 Corinthians 14:1-19): it is a mark of maturity to not just do what is godly, but to know that it is so. It is easy, after all, to let spoken words just become sounds in your mouth. Therefore, my goal for the Sunday school class, and now for this essay, is to encourage my audience’s devotion by a meditation on what is occurring during their worship. This essay will focus just on the General Confession, but I find that within this one prayer is an entire spiritual journey to be unfurled.
The Purpose of Confession
Let us begin with the purpose of the General Confession. What are we doing at this point in the liturgy? And what Scriptural foundations do we have for it? Here is Anthony Sparrow, writing in 1684:
We begin our Service with Confession of sins, and so was the use in Saint Basil’s time, Ep. 63. And that very orderly. For before we beg anything else, or offer up any praise or lauds to God, it is fitting we should confess, and beg pardon of our sins, which hinder God’s acceptance of our Services. Ps. 66. 16: If I regard iniquity with mine heart, the Lord will not hear me.
See also Charles Wheatly in his Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, early 18th century:
The holy Scriptures assure us, that sin unrepented of hinders the success of our prayers;3 and therefore such as would pray effectually have always begun with confession; to the end that, their guilt being removed by penitential acknowledgments, there might no bar be left to God’s grace and mercy. For which reason the Church hath placed this confession at the beginning of the service, for the whole congregation to repeat after the minister, that so we may first be witnesses of each other’s confession, before we unite in the following service.
On witnessing each others’ confession, think too of James 5:16, which begins, Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.5 Healing follows such confession. But keep also in mind the rest of the verse: The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
If we want our prayers later in the service to avail much, therefore, we should confess our sins and be cleansed of all unrighteousness as early as possible. We should remember Ephesians 4:30 (meant for Christians to hear), and, by heeding it, avoid aggravating our God with sin-stained worship: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Probably the single biggest Scripture reference you can make for the General Confession, however, is Psalm 51, the great “penitential Psalm.” It can be seen as a model for the Confession, sharing a lot of the same basic components: admission of wrongdoing, request for forgiveness, asking for help being restored to godly life, and statements of intent to turn away from sin (see also Wiseman’s appraisal). You could simply print Psalm 51 in this spot of the Prayerbook and it would perform the same function for us in the liturgy. This is the point when we, the “royal priesthood,” call upon God right out of the gate, hiding nothing, to confess our unworthiness to offer up any sacrifice. This is when we acknowledge our scarlet sin before the High King and ask to be made white as snow. That is what we are doing here: our behavior in the Daily Office corresponds to one’s behavior in a royal courtroom and before the Throne. Certainly, one would want to clean the mud and muck off their shoes before tracking them through the King’s halls.
You might also notice verse 15 of the Psalm:
O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth your praise.
We are discussing the General Confession; but what do we say just a minute later, right before we are to stand up for the Venite?
O Lord, open thou our lips.
And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.
The pronouns are made plural, making the versicle fit for corporate usage. In Psalm 51, King David is confessing sin, being reassured of his forgiveness, and becoming enabled by God to do what is pleasing to Him. By God’s grace, we are experiencing the same thing in the liturgy. On the use of this verse, here is John Boys commenting on the Prayerbook in 1610 (with my own slight modernizing of his English):
Here we note the great wisdom of the Church assigning this place to this versicle in this book: namely, before the Psalms, Lessons and Collects: and yet after the Confession and absolution of our sins, insinuating that our mouths are silenced only by transgression, and opened only by God: and therefore when we meet together in the Temple to be thankful unto him, and to speak good of his name, we must crave first, that according to the multitude of his rich mercies, He would pardon all our old sins, and then put into our mouth a new song: that, as the service is holy, the time holy, the place holy; so we likewise the persons holy, who sing, “Holy, holy, holy,” etc.6 We are not quite there in the liturgy yet; but that is a further connection between all of these elements.
Now let us walk through this prayer of confession, line by line, paying special attention to its structure and narrative. Observe the craftsmanship of Thomas Cranmer as he guides us through the drama of this most dreadful, and yet most necessary and even life-giving, of Christian practices: confessing fault before a holy God.
The Narrative of the Confession
1. The Address
We begin our confession with an address to the God we hope to approach with it: ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father…
He is our almighty and our most merciful Father; He has full might, or power, “to destroy both body and soul in hell,” (Matt. 10:28) and yet is “merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.” (Ps. 103:8) These are two aspects of one consistent God. Yet, of course, it is that mercifulness we are especially hoping to find at this time, like the prodigal son would upon returning to his father’s house. With that address made, we begin our way down a rhetorical “descent,” one which continues for the next several lines as we acknowledge and plumb the depths of our sinfulness.
2. The Descent of Our Sin
We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. Good writers put a shape to their text. It is not just their definitions that can give words their meaning, but the sound of their pairing, the length of their phrases, and the rhythm of their arrangement. We find this in poetry, and we find it here in the General Confession.
In this prayer we will lay ourselves bare before God, finding nothing in ourselves to give us hope. It will only be then that we are fit to find our deliverance. To help lead us there, Cranmer takes us through three descending stages, each intensifying as they go. In the first stage, we are presented with three, distinct illustrations of our sinfulness in three sentences, one after another.
In the first: We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. Here we echo the last verse of Psalm 119: I have gone astray like a lost sheep; Seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments. (Ps. 119:176) Likewise Isaiah 53:6, within a prophecy of the crucifixion: All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And of course, if we have strayed like sheep, then that means that we have not stayed close to the shepherd. And who is our Shepherd? Read the beginning of Psalm 23:1.
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
We have strayed from our Lord, our Shepherd who cares for us and provides for our every want. By sinning, we have despised the very first phrase of Psalm 23.
Second: We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. “Devices” are plans, schemes, literally that which is “devised.” Here we admit, with Jeremiah (17:9), that our heart
is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
And logically, if we have been following our own hearts too much, then we have not been following the heart of God, whose devices and desires are all perfect, loving, and gracious. In following the will of our hearts, we have not lived up to the Lord’s Prayer, in which we ask God that “thy will be done.” Instead, we have been doing our own will, whatever our corrupted heart has devised and desired.
And third: We have offended against thy holy laws. We have transgressed God’s Laws, His teachings and commandments as summarized in the Ten and encapsulated by our Lord in the great Two: Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
And if we have offended against His holy Laws, then it follows we have not been loving them as we are exhorted so abundantly to do throughout Psalm 11:10-119.
With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.
Instead, we fall under the condemnation of Deuteronomy 27:26 (confirmed by Paul in Galatians): ‘Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ And as James (2:10) says, For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
Now the enormity of our sin is beginning to weigh upon us. In this first stage we have heard three statements describing our sin, three witnesses to our guilt. Now in the second stage, continuing our descent, we find two witnesses paired together: We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done. It is as if we are now looking from left to right, one side to the other, realizing that we have enclosed ourselves in by our trespasses. Here we confess both sides of our wrongdoing: our failure to do what He desires and our success at doing what He hates, our omissions and our commissions. Notice: first we had three statements, then two. The walls are narrowing. We are approaching a climax. We are counting down.
The weight of our unworthiness is intensifying and compounding: we have strayed, followed our own hearts, and offended His Laws. Then, turning this way and that, we find there is sin both ways we look. And now, just when it seems like there is nothing more to be said, you find in the third and final stage this devastating “cherry on top”: a single, finishing punch to the gut: And there is no health in us. Some have thought this blunt statement too contextually harsh. A modern, alternate phrasing reads, “And apart from your grace, there is no health in us.” After all, isn’t this more accurate, knowing, as we do, the full story of God’s love?
But this phrasing totally disrupts what we are doing at this moment in the prayer. Now is not the time to make nuance with God. Now is not the time to remind Him of his forgiveness, before you have even finished confessing what He should forgive. You do not walk up to your earthly father sitting in his chair, after your evening out with the family car, and the first thing to come out of your mouth is, “Remember, dad, we do have insurance!”
Furthermore, this kind of language is thoroughly biblical. Look at Romans 7:18: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. And look again to Psalm 51:
Behold, I was brought forth in guilt,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
With each movement in the Confession, structurally, we have been performing a countdown. First we made those initial three confessions: “We have erred and strayed… We have followed… We have offended…” Three statements, three illustrations, three witnesses against us. Then two statements paired together in a couplet, demonstrating that we have nowhere in our power left to turn: “We have left undone… and we have done…” And then the one: the cincher, the gut punch. “And there is no health in us.” Hear the cadence. Each movement of text intensifies and mounts on the weight. Each movement has become shorter and shorter, counting down: three, two, one.
And so, at this point—narratively, structurally, and spiritually—we are at the end of our rope. This is the bottom of the pit. This is the depth of the abyss. Just think of it: “There is no health in us.” Nothing. There is no health to be found in us, there is no help to be found in us, there is no hope to be found in us. Note that phrase well: “in us.” We are unable to make ourselves alive again. When we look into ourselves to find hope and deliverance from our sins, we will only ever reach this utterly helpless, utterly hopeless end.
Our Deliverance Appears
But thou, O Lord. “But thou.” Suddenly, it is as if we look up from the miry pit. The entire prayer hinges here. But thou, O Lord. We say “thou” for the first time in this prayer, making God the subject. We began with “we”: we have erred and strayed, we have followed too much, we have offended, we have left undone, we have done, and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord. Right in the middle of our prayer, at the base of the Valley, confronted with the Shadow of Death; at our lowest point and when all hope seemed lost; right then, we lift up our eyes off ourselves, and look out upon another. We look up unto the hills, and there we see our Help coming to rescue us.
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
At this moment in our prayer we turn away from oblivion. And now, with our hope in God, we begin an ascent of restoration.
1. The Ascent of Our Hearts
In The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography, Alan Jacobs gives this commentary on Cranmer’s rhetorical craft:
Perhaps most striking of all is what Cranmer does with the grammatical subjects of his clauses: “We have erred and strayed … We have followed … We have offended … We have left undone … we have done”—this pronoun ringing like a bell—and then the sudden pivot: “but thou, O Lord, have mercy … spare thou … restore thou.” Note also the chiasmus of putting the subject before the verb when describing our actions and after it when describing the hoped-for actions of God, which creates a mirroring effect: our miserable offending counterbalanced by the mercy of the righteous Lord.
Now we are beginning our rhetorical climb back up to God and into His graces, the climb of the Divine Ladder. And yet this is not of ourselves, but God in us. This is the work of God’s Holy Spirit: lifting our heads that we may look up (Ps. 3:3), turning us that we may turn ourselves, (Lam. 5:21) teaching us to pray as we ought to pray (Rpm. 8:26). This is not a self-empowered act, climbing up to God on our own. No, in our very turning God is already empowering that turn, lifting our hearts so that we can “lift them up unto the Lord.” And it is precisely this “lifting” that we are doing now—structurally, narratively, and spiritually.
Track the second-person verbs we are requesting of God during this ascent: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name.
We ask God to “have mercy,” to “spare,” to “restore,” and finally to “grant.” A very fitting sequence. We should not ask God to grant us anything before we are restored to a right relationship with him; but we should not ask to be restored before have first asked to be spared from the punishment we deserve; and it is not fitting to ask God to spare us before we have asked Him to remember His mercy upon us miserable offenders. And so, we ask Him first to have mercy upon us, then to spare us, then to restore us, and finally to grant us to live a life worthy of this redemption. A proper sequence indeed, as this prayer constitutes our humble request to be lifted back up to our proper station as heir of God and co-heir with Christ.
Next, note the manner in which God is to restore us: “According to [His] promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord.” How has the Father declared His promises of redemption? He has declared them in Christ Jesus. Paul testifies in Acts 13:38, Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [Christ Jesus] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins… And again, in 2 Corinthians 1:20: For all the promises of God in Him [Christ Jesus] are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
Therefore, as we come to God humbled in spirit, claiming nothing to our own name, we are asking Him to remember all those promises made in the old time before us, made incarnate in the Man Jesus Christ and verified upon the Cross, and now to apply them to our miserable estate. Then we say, “And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake…” For whose sake? For the sake of the one whom we just mentioned: “Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, we are asking that God, our “most merciful Father” (bringing us full circle by recalling the opening address) would grant, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life. Wherein we quote the epistle to Titus almost directly, though you have to reverse the order that the adjectives are listed (for what reason I am not sure, though it makes no difference in meaning). For reference, here is the passage (Titus 2:11-14):
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
Notice also that, according to Paul, the reason we want to live a godly, righteous, and sober life for Christ Jesus’ sake is because it is Christ who wishes to “purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.” All this we ask to be done, finally, “To the glory of thy holy Name,” that is, the name of our Father who is both almighty and most merciful.
2. Amend and Conclusion
And with that, all those praying agree and certify this grand petition by saying, “Amen.” Now, at last, we have completed the journey. We have gone “there and back again,” by the grace of God. We have acknowledged and descended to the depths of our depravity, but by faith we have grabbed hold of His promises, and our hearts have been lifted back up and out from the dark pit. When it seemed we were counting down to oblivion, the Deus Ex Machina, in divine irony, intervened. When man could not fulfill the righteous requirement, God acted. Glory be to God.
It has often been said that one’s whole Christian life should be marked by repentance. We need to be continually renewed in our minds, continually sanctified, continually purified from the dross of the Old Man. As a function of that, whenever the Christian man realizes he has sinned he must waste no time: he has to go to God in prayer and confess it, whether at home, at work, or anywhere else. When we gather together for Common Prayer, though, we make this General Confession in unison (“general,” here, meaning in essence “by all”). We do so to live out Paul’s command in Romans, that we should with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 15:6)
We do not only have a personal relationship with God and with His Son Jesus Christ (without which, of course, gathering with any congregation is useless) but also a relationship with God collectively as a Church, as a Body with its Head, as a Bride with her Husband. This is the basic principle of “Common Prayer.” Therefore, when we gather together as the Body, it is meet and right to confess our sins together, not only to symbolize our common imperfection, but to confess ourselves a common subject of Christ’s temporal cleansing and sanctification (Titus 2:14), that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. And again (Eph. 5:27), that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
In this Office we come together before God on the Throne, not just metaphorically, but mystically in Spirit and in truth. In this General Confession we desire to be cleansed and restored together so that in the rest of our worship, our corporate petitions may be in accord with the Spirit and gladly received by the Throne. And once this prayer has left our lips, it is on our part to have faith that it will be answered.
This point, though, can pose a difficulty for especially troubled minds: what will signify for us that we have obtained this cleansing and restoration? How can we be confident that we are truly permitted to proceed in our priestly duties? Our human frailty causes us to doubt such things; our fallen flesh, so often, is weak. That is what leads us to the Declaration of Absolution, wherein the minister, the King’s ambassador, declares the King’s pardon with His full authority in the hearing of all burdened consciences. Truly, it is a gift and blessing to the Church that God has commissioned the clergy with this regular task (Is. 40:1-2):
“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
Says your God.
“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.”
But lest any imagine that apart from an ambassador’s speech the King’s intent is foiled, we can rest assured with the words of John (1 Jn. 1:9) and go forth in joy: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. Amen.
