SYSTEMATISED CONFESSION. [TO THE EDITOR OF TEl " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—On the third page of the Spectator for January 7th you appear to regard " compulsory " and " systematised " con- fession as equally unlawful in the Church of England. I am not sure what you understand by " systematised" confession, but I imagine you would include in it any announcement by word or writing that Mr. So-and-So will hear confessions in such-and-such a church at such-and-such times. If I am right in thinking this, will you permit me to point out the difficulty in which you place a clergyman who is anxious to obey the law ? He is bound, when he " giveth warning for the celebration of the Holy Communion," to read an exhortation directing any of his hearers " who cannot quiet his own conscience " to come to him and "open his grief" that "he may receive the benefit of absolution." It seems to me that, after inviting any one who will to come to him, it is only common courtesy to name the days and hours at which he can be seen, and as it is obviously expedient that confessions, if they are heard at all, should be heard in the open church and not in holes and corners, we get at once the kind of notice to which, perhaps wrongly, I suppose you to object. Possibly, however, by " systematised " you mean the practice of coming to confession at fixed intervals, as before the great festivals, or before every Communion. In that case I would observe that the law—for the Prayer-book, as Sir William Harcourt has reminded us, is only a schedule to the Act of Uniformity—makes the penitent, not the priest, the judge of the frequency with which he shall come to con- fession. The exhortation already quoted lays down a single condition,—that he " cannot quiet his own conscience." Whether this inability is of weekly or annual occurrence, or only happens once in a lifetime, makes no difference. The priest is simply directed to say : Yon must not come to the Holy Communion " but with a quiet conscience." I have given you general directions how to obtain this, but if these are in- sufficient in your case, come to me, confess your sins, and be absolved.' In all this I see nothing about how often ; I see only two things,—a conscience which the owner cannot quiet, and a priest who invites him to come to him to have it quieted. Very possibly this may be "an institution which can never be tolerated in the Church of England." But if so,
those who refuse to tolerate It must strike out of the Prayer-book the exhortation which immediately follows the Prayer for the Church Militant.—I am, Sir, &c., A LAYMAN.
[By "systematised" we mean confessions which are not spontaneous and occasional, but produced and enforced by an elaborate analysis and examination such as is laid down in casuistic manuals. Herein lies the distinction we have tried to draw between the confessional as an institution and confessions which are spontaneous unburdenings of the heart. The confessional appears to us the most dangerous and demoralising of institutions, and as far as we can judge, the intention of the English Church is to avoid the creation of such an institution without forbidding what practically no Church can forbid or wish to forbid, the seeking of spiritual consolation by the nnburdening of the human heart.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
