A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The reader may judge how far the objections are worthy of notice, by the form composed by Calvin himself, and used by the French reformed Churches, which is as follows:—“O Lord God, eternal and almighty Father, we acknowledge and confess before thy sacred Majesty, that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in sin and iniquity; prone to evil, and indisposed to every good work; and that being vicious, we make no end of transgressing thy holy commandments. Hereby we call destruction upon ourselves from thy just judgment. But yet, O Lord, we are heartily sorry for having offended thee, and we condemn ourselves and sins by true repentance, desiring thy grace may relieve our misery. Therefore, O God, merciful Father, vouchsafe us thy mercy, in the name of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Blot out our sins, and purge away all our filth, and daily increase in us the gifts of thy Holy Spirit. That we, acknowledging our iniquity from the bottom of our hearts, may more and more displease ourselves, and be excited to true repentance; which, mortifying us and all our sins, may produce in us the fruits of righteousness and innocence, acceptable unto thee through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.” It appears, indeed, that our Confession was in great measure suggested by this form, or rather by the translation of it made by Valerandus Pollanus, for the reformed congregation of Strasburg.—See Laurence’s Bampton Lectures.

There is hardly anything in public worship which requires more caution and prudence in the ordering of it, than that confession of sin which is to be made by the whole congregation; it may be too loose and general on the one side, or it may be too particular and distinct on the other. There may be this inconvenience in a confession very short and general, that takes in all, that it does not so well serve to excite or to express that due sense of sin, nor to exercise that humility and self-abasement, wherewith we should always confess our sins to God. On the other hand, the inconvenience of a very particular and distinct confession of sins will be this, that some sins, with their aggravations, may be confessed in the name of the whole congregation, of which it is by no means to be supposed that all are guilty; and then they, who through the grace of God have been kept from them, cannot in good earnest make such confession.—Clagett’s Answer to Dissenters.

The General Confession with the Absolution, was first inserted in the Morning and Evening Prayer, by the Second Book of King Edward VI.

A Confession was formerly recited in the office for the first hour of the morning, according to the rites of the English Churches. It occurred in the course of prayers which came at the end of the service: and had this arrangement been regarded by the reformers, the Confession and Absolution would now be placed immediately before the collect for the day. There were, however, good reasons for placing the Confession at the beginning of the office. Christian humility would naturally induce us to approach the infinitely holy God with a confession of our sinfulness and unworthiness; and this position of the Confession is justified by the practice of the Eastern Church in the time of Basil, who observes that the people all confessed their sins with great contrition, at the beginning of the nocturnal service, and before the psalmody and lessons commenced.—Palmer.

Even in the most penitential parts of our service, even in the midst of accommodation to the wants of persons entering on a course of amendment, there is a prospect opened, of mature, established, and victorious Christianity.... Our “Almighty and most merciful Father” is entreated not only to remit the punishment, but to abolish the power of sin. And the absolution and remission of our sins itself, is made to consist, not merely in the reversal of a sentence, and removal of a curse, but in the influence of the Holy Spirit, consequent on true repentance, and productive, not of mere temporary and outward amendment, but of that inward abiding “purity and holiness, for the rest of our life,” which, “at the last,” will bring us to “God’s eternal joy.”—Bishop Jebb.

CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. The systems of theology drawn up by foreign reformers were frequently called Confessions of Faith. The following are the Confessions of the different Churches.

1. That of the Greek Church, entitled “The Confessions of the True and Genuine Faith,” which was presented to Mohammed II., in 1453, but which gave place to the “Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Greek Church,” composed by Mogila, metropolitan of Kiev, in Russia, and approved in 1643, with great solemnity, by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. It contains the standard of the principles of the Russian Greek Church.—See Mr. Palmer’s (of Magd. Coll. Oxf.) Collection of Russian Symbolical Books; and Mr. Neale’s Hist. of the Greek Church.

2. The Church of Rome, though she has always received the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, had no fixed public and authoritative symbol till the Council of Trent. A summary of the doctrines contained in the canons of that council is given in the creed published by Pius IV., (1564,) in the form of a bull. It is introduced by the Nicene Creed, to which it adds twelve articles, comprising those doctrines which the Church of Rome finally adopted after her controversies with the Reformers. (See Creed of Pope Pius IV.)

3. The Lutherans call their standard books of faith and discipline, “Libri Symbolici Ecclesiæ Evangelicæ.” They contain the three creeds above mentioned, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology for that Confession by Melancthon, the Articles of Smalcald, drawn up by Luther; the Catechisms of Luther; and, in many churches, the Form of Concord, or Book of Torgau. The best edition is that by Tittmann, Leipsic, 1817. The Saxon, (composed by Melancthon,) Wurtemberg, Suabian, Pomeranian, Mansfeldtian, and Copenhagen Confessions agree in general with the symbolical books of the Lutherans, but are of authority only in the countries from which they are respectively called.

4. The Confessions of the Calvinistic Churches are numerous. The following are the principal:—(1.) The Helvetic Confessions are three—that of Basle, 1530; the Summary and Confession of the Helvetic Churches, 1536; and the “Expositio Simplex,” &c., 1566, ascribed to Bullinger. (2.) The Tetrapolitan Confession, 1531,—which derives its name from the four cities of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, by the deputies of which it was signed,—is attributed to Bucer. (3.) The Palatine or Heidelberg Confession, framed by order of the Elector Palatine John Casimir, 1575. (4.) The Confession of the Gallic Churches, accepted at the first synod of the reformed, held at Paris, 1559. (5.) The Confession of the Reformed Churches in Belgium, drawn up in 1559, and approved in 1561. (6.) The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland, which was that composed by the assembly at Westminster, was received as the standard of the Scotch national faith, in 1690.—See the following article. See also Harmony of Confessions, or the Faith of Christian and Reformed Churches, 1643; and Sylloge Confessionum, sub tempus Reformandæ Ecclesiæ, Oxon. 1804.