De arte praedicatoria

Authorities: Confess your sins one to another.¹ And elsewhere: I said: I will confess my injustice against myself to the Lord.² Job also says: I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.³ For he speaks in the bitterness of his soul, who, according to the contrition of his heart, confesses his sin with his mouth. The Apostle also says: With the heart we believe unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.⁴ In the Old Testament it was commanded that a man cured of leprosy should show himself to the priest.⁵ By this it is shown that a penitent, cured of spiritual leprosy through contrition, is bound to show himself to the priest through confession. You, therefore, confess your sins so that you may be absolved, accuse yourself so that you may be excused. If in the present you are not your own accuser, you will have three accusers on the day of judgment: God as accuser and judge, conscience accusing and punishing, the demon accusing and punishing. This is the difference between the judge of earth and the judge of heaven: he who accuses himself before the judge of earth is held as guilty, but before the judge of heaven, he who confesses his sin is absolved. Before the judge of earth, the referral or removal of the crime has weight. For the guilty man who removes the crime from himself, or attributes it to another, is in some way excused; but he who, before the judge of heaven, ascribes the crime to himself, and neither refers it to another, nor ascribes the cause of his sin to fortune or fate, is excused.

There can be a fourfold confession, namely, the confession of compulsion, the confession of despair, the confession of repentance, and the confession of praise. The confession of compulsion is that which comes about in a certain way from compulsion, as that by which the demons confessed the Son of God, saying: Jesus, Son of the living God, why have you come before the time to destroy us?⁶ The confession of despair is that by which Judas confessed, saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood,⁷ and Cain: My iniquity is greater than that I should deserve pardon.⁸ The confession of repentance is that which arises from penance, of which James says: Confess your sins one to another.⁹ The confession of praise is that by which we confess the goodness of God, saying: Give praise to the Lord, for he is good,¹⁰ by which Christ also made confession, saying: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.¹¹

There is a twofold confession of sin, one general, one specific. The general confession is that which is made daily in the morning and evening sacrifice, that is, at compline, for venial and hidden sins; the specific confession is that which is made for mortal and manifest sins: to this clergy are bound every Saturday, while the laity are bound to make specific confession three times a year; namely, at the Nativity of the Lord, at Easter, and at Pentecost. This was prefigured in the old law, by the fact that it was commanded to the children of Israel that they should present themselves to the Lord in Jerusalem three times a year, and not empty-handed.¹² So too it is commanded to us that three times a year we should offer ourselves to God through confession in the spiritual Jerusalem, that is, in the Church, and not empty of good works. But today it has become so common that scarcely a layman or a cleric confesses even once a year, and while he confesses, it must be feared that he confesses rather to satisfy custom than from contrition of soul. Some are kept from confession by negligence, some by shame, some by evil habit, some by fear of the penance that will be imposed; some by their intention to continue living in crime. These are the little frogs which, thrown into a dog's mouth, render the dog mute. It is asserted by some that the calamites is a frog living among reeds, which, if thrown into a dog's mouth, makes the dog mute. The dog is the unclean sinner, from whom the aforesaid plagues take away barking, that is, the sound of confession, as though little frogs were thrown into the dog's mouth. These are the foreigners who stopped up Abraham's well.¹³ By Abraham's well is signified confession, from which the faithful man draws water springing up into eternal life; the aforesaid plagues stop this up, so that man cannot draw the water of salvation from the well of confession. This is the cistern of Bethlehem which the Philistines besieged, from which David desired to drink;¹⁴ because the faithful man, prefigured by David, desires the water of confession and salvation; but the band of Philistines, that is, the multitude of the aforesaid plagues, besieges it, and prevents the faithful man from being able to draw from it.

Now confession ought to be universal, not partial, so that confession is made specifically for sins that are known, and in general for those that are unknown; for it belongs to devout minds to reckon guilt there where there is no guilt, and to acknowledge through confession there where it is not manifest, through recognition. For just as remission is universal, so confession ought to be universal; for the grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow contrivances of things; for whomever it heals, it heals wholly.

Three things must be present for confession to be true: namely, contrition of heart, profession of mouth, satisfaction of deed. Hence, if any of these is lacking, it is not confession, but merely an opening of the mouth: for confession is a complex proposition, and it denotes three things. This is the way of three days by which we must go into the wilderness, that is, tend toward the heavenly homeland, so that we may sacrifice to our God.