A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

CONFALON, or GONFALON, Society of the. So called from the Gonfalon, or banner, bearing the figure of the Virgin Mary, which was their ensign.—Raynaldus. A confraternity of seculars in the Church of Rome, called penitents, established first of all by some Roman citizens in 1267: and confirmed by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1576. Henry III. began one at Paris in 1583, and himself assisted in the habit of a penitent, at a procession wherein the cardinal of Guise carried the cross, and his brother the duke of Mayenne was master of the ceremonies.

CONFESSION. (See Auricular Confession.) The verbal acknowledgment of sin. The following are the rules laid down by the Church of England on this subject. The Warning for the Celebration of the Holy Communion: “Because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy communion but with a full faith in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore, if there be any of you who by this means cannot quiet his conscience therein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and open his grief, that by the ministration of God’s holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.” Rubric, in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick: “Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort.” By the 113th canon, empowering ministers to prevent offences at the court of visitation, it is provided that “if any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him, he shall not in anywise be bound by this constitution, but is strictly charged and admonished that he do not at any time reveal and make known to any person whatsoever, any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy, (except they be such crimes as, by the laws of this realm, his own life may be called in question for concealing the same,) under pain of irregularity.”

In the primitive Church, no other confession of sins was required in order to receive baptism than the general renunciation of the devil and all his works.

Nor did the Church lay any obligation on the consciences of men, to make either public or private confession of their sins to any but God, in order to qualify them for the communion. The confessions of the primitive Christians were all voluntary, and not imposed upon them by any laws of the Church. Notwithstanding which it must be owned, that private confession, though not absolutely required, yet was allowed and encouraged by the ancients, in some cases, and upon special occasions. For, first, they advised men, in case of lesser sins, to make confession mutually to each other, that they might have each other’s prayers and assistance, according to the advice of St. James, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.” Which, though it be produced by the Romanists in favour of auricular confession to a priest, yet the ancients understood it only as a direction to Christians to confess mutually to each other. 2. In case of injuries done to any private person, it was expected that the offender should make a private confession of his fault to the person injured. 3. When men were under any perplexities of mind, or troubles of conscience, this was another case in which they were directed to have recourse to some pastor, and to take his counsel and advice. 4. Origen gives another reason for confessing private sins to the priest, which is, that he was the fittest judge when it was proper to do public penance for private offences. (See Penitentiary.)—Bingham, b. xv. ch. 8, § 6.

The Romish Church not only requires confession as a duty, but has advanced it to the dignity of a sacrament; and this greatly adds to the power of the clergy of that Church over the laity. “Confession submits a fearful penitent, whose conscience is oppressed with scruples, loaded with remorse, and weakened by the remembrance of its sins, to the absolute will of a cunning priest, who beholds sceptres at his feet, humbles crowns, and makes those tremble who strike terror into whole nations.” Confession, in the Church of Rome, must be made in the day-time, and, if possible, when there are people in the church. As soon as the penitent comes up to the confessional, or the seat of the priest who confesses, he makes the sign of the cross, and asks the confessor’s blessing. Then the penitent kneels, with his hands clasped and uplifted. The confessional is open before, and has two lattice windows in it, one on each side. The confessor sits with his cap on his head, and his ear stooped towards the penitent, in which posture he receives his confession in a whisper; whence it is called auricular confession. This ended, the priest uncovers himself, and stretching out his right hand towards the penitent, pronounces the absolution. (See Penance.)—Casal de Veter. Christ. Ritib. Alet’s Ritual.

That confession is a custom observed in the Greek Church is past all dispute. Ricaut calls this practice “One of the fundamental pillars of the Eastern Churches; the axis upon which their whole ecclesiastical polity turns, and that without which the clergy would no longer have any authority or influence over the consciences of the people, and would very seldom be able to reprove them in a country where they could fly to the arms of infidels for shelter and protection against the censures and reprehensions of their own pastors.” There are four stated times in the year for confession. The penitent withdraws with the priest to some remote corner of the church, where he sits down, with his head uncovered, and the confessor assures him, the angel of the Lord is there present to take his confession, exhorting him at the same time to conceal none of his sins. After confession, the penitent receives absolution, and gives the priest a small gratuity of money for his trouble. If we may credit a judicious and learned traveller, the practice of confession is enormously abused by the Greeks. If a penitent acknowledges he has robbed another, the priest asks him whether the person injured be a native of his own country, or a Frank: if the penitent answers, the latter, “Then there is no harm done,” says the priest, “provided we share the booty between us.” These are natural consequences of the ignorance and poverty of the Greeks in general.—Tournefort’s Voyages.

“It standeth with us in the Church of England,” saith Hooker, “as touching public confession, thus: First, seeing day by day we in our Church begin our public prayers to Almighty God with public acknowledgment of our sins, in which confession every man, prostrate before his glorious majesty, crieth against himself, and the minister with one sentence pronounceth universally all clear whose acknowledgment hath proceeded from a true penitent mind, what reason is there every man should not, under the general terms of confession, represent to himself his own particulars whatsoever, and adjoining thereto that affection which a contrite spirit worketh, embrace to as full effect the words of Divine grace, as if the same were severally and particularly uttered, with addition of prayers, imposition of hands, and all ceremonies and solemnities, that might be used for the strengthening of men’s affiance in God’s peculiar mercy towards them? The difference of general and particular forms in confession, is not so material that any man’s safety or ghostly good should depend upon it.” “As for private confession,” says Bishop Jewel, “abuses and errors set apart, we condemn it not, but leave it at liberty.”—Broughton. Bingham.

All that can plainly be deduced from the scriptural doctrine concerning confession is this, that, in common or ordinary sins, we are to acknowledge them before Almighty God, either particularly in our private, or generally in our public devotion; but as for some sins of a more extraordinary kind, the heinousness whereof ordinary Christians may not be sufficiently apprized of, or which may be attended with such nice circumstances as perplex their consciences, here resort is proper to be made to the ministers of the Church, who, as physicians of the soul, are best able to advise the fittest remedies upon such uncommon emergencies. Matters of this kind stood within these limits for a considerable time after the first propagating of the gospel; but, during the piety of very early times, another sort of confession came in use, for it having been the practice for excommunicates, before their reception into the Church, to make a solemn confession of their faults before the whole congregation, some persons who had fallen into a great sin, though they had never been censured for it, thought it a part of their duty to take upon themselves a public shame for it, by discovering it to the whole congregation they were members of, and to desire their prayers to God for their pardon. Some difficulties and inconvenience arising from this practice, about the year 360, the office of a public penitentiary in the Greek Church began, who was to be a presbyter of good conversation, prudent, and one who could keep a secret; to whom those who were lapsed into any greater sin might confess it; and he, according to his discretion, was to enjoin a penance for it. But still there was no command for all people to confess their sins to this presbyter. In the Latin Church, the practice of public confession to the whole congregation continued 100 years longer, viz. till the time of Pope Leo, which was about the year 450, who, by an injunction of his, did abrogate it; and, after some time, the Greek Church began to grow weary of this private confession to a penitentiary, and so laid it aside. But whilst private confession to ministers was practised, in some of the earlier ages of the Church, recourse was had to them only as spiritual physicians and counsellors, as appears by many passages of antiquity. In the Council of Lateran, A. D. 1215, every person, of each sex, was obliged once in a year to confess to the minister of his parish, the sins which he had been guilty of. Auricular confession to the priest being thus established, some of the school divines of the Romish Church carried it to further lengths, making it to be an article of faith; to be received by the priest, not ministerially, but judicially and authoritatively; that every single sin must be discovered to them, with all its aggravating circumstances, &c. All which horrible tyranny over men’s consciences, and diving into the secrets of families and governments, was confirmed by the Council of Trent. The excellent compilers of our liturgy, willing to settle this upon the ancient bottom, ordered only a general confession of sins to be pronounced by all persons indifferently, not requiring any particular confessions to be made, thereby coming much nearer to the apostolical practice than the Roman liturgy can pretend to, in all which service there is no confession which the people share in; for their “Confiteor tibi, Domine,” &c. in the mass, relates to the priest, and the “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti,” “Beatæ Mariæ,” &c. in the breviary, is the confession only of the clergy.—Nicholls.

Forms of confession are generally to be met with in the liturgies of antiquity, but a form superior, or equal, to our own is nowhere to be found. Our confession, like the prayer which Jesus taught us, though concise, is comprehensive and full. It is conceived in general terms, yet at the same time it is so particular, that it includes every kind of sin. Where the minister is not too precipitate, when he allows the congregation time to repeat it, with such deliberation, that their hearts may go along with their words, each individual may, and ought, under the general form, to make a particular mental confession of his own personal sins, known only to God and his own conscience.—Shepherd.

At the time of the review of the liturgy, A. D. 1661, it was objected by the Presbyterian clergy against this Confession, that there was no preparatory prayer for God’s assistance and acceptance; and that it was defective in not clearly expressing “original sin,” nor enumerating actual sins with their aggravations. To which it was answered by the Episcopalian commissioners, that the preparatory sentences, and the preceding exhortation, amply supplied this; and that the form being so general is rather a perfection than a defect, as in such case all may join, since in many things we offend all. And as to the notice of original sin, they conceived that to be sufficiently acknowledged in the sentence, (with others, as the “devices and desires of our own hearts,” &c.,) “and there is no health in us.” With respect to the general terms used throughout the Common Prayer Book, dissenters have complained of such expressions as, “that we may do God’s will”—“that we may be kept from all evil,” &c.; to which the Episcopalians properly remark, “these are almost the very terms in the Lord’s Prayer; so that they must reform that, before they can pretend to amend our liturgy in these petitions.”