'The same wise and moderate view': E. H. Browne's Old High view of private confession and absolution

Having considered in some recent posts Phillpotts' Old High critique of auricular confession, in light of the Tractarian attempt to promote private confession and absolution as a normative, routine practice within Anglicanism, we turn now to E.H. Browne's consideration of the matter in his An Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal (1874). Browne had received orders in 1836 and 1837, became Norrisian chair of divinity at the University of Cambridge in 1854, was appointed Bishop of Ely in 1864, as was transferred to Winchester in 1873. He was, therefore, a significant divine.

Expounding Article 25, Browne contrasts the teaching of the Council of Trent with that of the Reformed churches, amongst which he places the Church of England:

The reformed Churches have generally abolished auricular confession, as obligatory and sacramental. The Lutherans indeed still retain it, as a regular part of Church order and discipline. The Augsburg Confession declares concerning confession, that it is right to retain private absolution in the Church, but that it is not necessary in confession to enumerate every individual sin. Calvin also recommended both private confession to a pastor, and private absolution when needed for the remedy of any special infirmity; but he says, it should not be made obligatory upon all, but only commended to such as need it. Our own reformers appear to have taken the same wise and moderate view. Ridley, the greatest light of the English Reformation, writes shortly before his death: "Confession unto the minister, which is able to instruct, correct, comfort, and inform the weak, wounded, and ignorant conscience, indeed I ever thought might do much good in Christ's congregation, and so, I assure you, I think even to this day." So the second part of the Homily of Repentance, after condemning the auricular confession of the Church of Rome, says, "I do not say, but that if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor," &c. The exhortation to the Communion bids those, who cannot quiet their own consciences, come to the curate, "or some other discreet and learned minister of God's word, and open his grief, that by the ministry of God's holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly council and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." In the service for the Visitation of the Sick, it is enjoined on the minister, that he shall move the sick person "to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter;" and a form of absolution is appointed to be used, after such confession, to those who "humbly and heartily desire it." Thus the Church of England provides for all troubled consciences the power of relieving themselves, by making confession of guilt to their pastor or "any other discreet and learned minister" and so gives them comfort and counsel; but does not bind everyone of necessity to rehearse all his private sins to man, nor elevate such useful confession into a Sacrament essential to salvation.

The Church of England took "the same wise and moderate view" of the other Churches of the Reformation. (Note, by the way, that Browne's inclusion of the Lutheran churches within the description "reformed" was a very long-standing view amongst most Church of England divines, evident from the Elizabethan Settlement.) The "wise and moderate view" was to provide the pastoral ministry of private confession and absolution when a Christian soul required it for comfort and assurance. There was no sense in which this ministry would be a normal, routine part of the Christian life. Rather, it was prudent when experiencing a "troubled conscience". Crucially - and in stark contrast to the Tractarian adoption of Tridentine norms - this did not require the penitent to confess "all his private sins", a requirement which Jeremy Taylor had famously condemned as "the rack of consciences". 

In other words, Browne quite rightly insisted that the Prayer Book's pastoral provision for private confession and absolution was to be understood within the context of the provision of other Churches of the Reformation, not - as the Tractarians were promoting - a Tridentine context.

This is further emphasised by Browne invoking the Book of Homilies - an explicitly Reformed source - and by pointing to Ridley as "the greatest light of the English Reformation". Mindful that leading Tractarians were distancing themselves from the Reformers by the late 1830s, with Keble refusing in 1839 to support the proposed Martyrs' Memorial in Oxford, Browne's unembarrassed, confident celebration of Ridley is testimony to the continuation into the late 19th century of the traditional Old High affirmation of the English Reformation. 

It also rather appropriately illustrates what was at stake in the Old High-Tractarian debate over auricular confession: the historic Protestant and Reformed identity of Anglicanism.