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CONFESSION —CONFIRM A-TION
discipline by which such were punished. The 33rd of the 39 Articles and certain Canons assume the existence of ecclesiastical courts for the excommunication and restoration of such persons • but it is long since such courts were put in motion, and for the most part notorious sinners excommunicate themselves. The Prayer-Book uses very strong language on ministerial absolution. Power and commandment have been given to ministers to declare and pronounce the remission of sins (Mattins), and Christ’s authority, which was primarily left to the Church, has been committed to the priest for this purpose (Visitation of the Sick ■ see also Ordering of Priests). This absolving power is exercised both in the public services of the Church and in private ministrations. Thus Bishop Latimer in his 6th Sermon on the Lord’s Prayer (1552) wrote: “The priest or minister, call him what you will, he hath power given unto him from our Saviour to absolve in such wise as he is commanded by Him ... I would have them that are grieved in conscience to go to some godly man, which is able to minister God’s Word, and there to fetch his absolution, if he cannot be satisfied in the public sermon; it were truly a thing which would do him much good ... I may absolve you, as an officer of Christ, in the open pulpit in this wise, ‘ As many as confess their sins unto God . . . and believe . . . Bgo absolve vos •, I as an officer of Christ, as His treasurer, absolve you in His Name.’ This is the absolution that I can make by God’s Word.” The Prayer-Book of 1549 pointed out that the benefit is conditional on the sincerity of the repentance. “For neither the absolution of the priest can anything avail (the impenitent), nor the receiving of this Holy Sacrament doth anything but increase their damnation.” These words referred primarily, but not exclusively, to the public absolution in the Communion service. It is maintained by some that, except in the case of the sick, the only legitimate method of receiving absolution in the Church of England is in the public services of the congregation; and the Church of Ireland has recently made important alterations even in the passages that concern the sick, while the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States has omitted that part of the Visitation Service altogether. The main point of recent controversy in the Church of England has been the question of auricular confession, i.e., confession made into the ear of the priest. Its essential features are that a priest hears the penitent “open his grief ” in secret, and if he is satisfied of the sincerity of the repentance, he pronounces a special authoritative absolution. It is common also for him to give “ghostly counsel and advice,” technically called “ direction.” And he may further impose certain conditions, such as the restitution of stolen property, and defer the absolution until these have been fulfilled. The priest thus hears secrets, has to form a judgment on the penitent’s sincerity, and may lay definite commands upon the man or woman who has come to consult him. The early history of this practice has been sketched in the article Confession in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, and it is there stated that it was not the Reformers’ intention to abolish it, but that it was still common even at the end of the 17 th century for priests to hear confessions. It is probably not too much to say that auricular confession has never altogether died out in the Church of England, but it is obvious that evidence on the subject must always be hard to find. Recently there has been a great increase and development of the practice, dating from the Oxford Movement in the early part of the 19th century. Two chief difficulties have attended this revival. In the first place, owing to the
general disuse of such ministrations, there were very few English clergy who had experience in delicate questions of conscience; and there had been no treatment of casuistry since Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor (see Ency. Brit., 9th ed., Casuistry). Those, then, who had to hear penitents unburden their souls were driven to the use of Roman writers on the subject. A book called The Priest in Absolution was compiled, and at first privately circulated among the clergy; but in 1877 a copy was produced in Parliament, and gave rise to much scandal and heated debate, especially in the House of Lords and in the newspapers. In the following year Dr Pusey published a translation of the Abbe Gaume’s Manual for Confessors, abridged and “ adapted to the use of the English Church.” The other chief difficulty arose from the absence of any authoritative restraint on the hearing of confessions by young and unqualified priests. With characteristic love of liberty, the Church of England allows the penitent who wishes for special help to resort to any “ discreet and learned minister,” instead of sending him to his parish priest, as. is the Roman rule (though in practice there are large exceptions). In 1873 a petition signed by 483 clergy was. presented to Convocation asking for the “ education, selection, and licensing of duly qualified confessors.” The bishops declined so to act, but drew up a report on the subject of confession. The question excites the keenest, feeling, and extreme views are held on either side. On the one hand, it is suggested that indecent questions mightbe asked of the young and innocent; and that frequent, secret interviews give rise to scandal if not to sin. None will deny the reality of this last risk, but it may be doubted whether any other method of individual dealing with souls does not lead to the same dangers; and the greater formality of confession, especially if it takes place in church, may even afford something of protection to both sides. In consequence of recent outcry, inquiry wasmade in 1900 by the bishops, at the request of the House of Lords, into the number of confessional-boxes erected in parish churches within their dioceses. On investigation, the number of alleged cases dwindled into a mere handful. In 1898 the Bishop of Salisbury advised “the minister to sit within the altar rails . . . and to let the penitent kneel outside it ” {Considerations on Public Worship and on the Ministry of Penitence). On the other hand, there are those who speak as if auricular confession were a necessary element in every Christian life (it is obligatory in the Roman Church at least once a. year), and hold that post-baptismal sin of a grave sort can receive forgiveness in no other way. Such a view cannot be found within the covers of the English Prayer-Book. Authorities.—Hooker. Ecclesiastical Polity, Book vi.—J. Morinus. Commcntarius Historicus dc Sacramento Pcenitentice. Venice, 1702. “Exomologesis” and “Penitence” in Dictionary' of Christian Antiquities. London, 1875.—E. B. Pusey. Advice, Ac., being the Abbe Gaume’s Manual for Confession. Oxford, 1878.—T. T. Carter. The Doctrine of Confession in the Church of England. London, 1885.—F. W. Robertson. Sermons. Third Series—Absolution. London, 1887.—F. Meyrick. The Confessional, in Church and Faith. London, 1899. (W. O. B.) Confirmation. — Confirmation, in the religious sense, is the initiatory rite supplementary to and completing baptism, which is especially connected with the gift of the Holy Ghost to the candidate. The word “confirmation ” has only been used in this technical sense since the 5th century, and only in the Western Churches of Christendom and in their offshoots ; but the rite itself has been practised in the Church from the beginning. The history of confirmation has passed through three stages.. In the first ages of the Church, when it was recruited chiefly by converts who were admitted in full age, con-
