their sins privately to a minister, and to receive absolution, before they
23. Is it needful, advantageous, and desirable to receive the Lord's Supper fasting?
It is certainly not necessary, because the practice is neither commanded nor recommended in Scripture. Moreover, it is perfectly clear that at the first institution of the sacrament, the Apostles could not have received the elements fasting, because they had just eaten the passover. There cannot, therefore, be anything very important in this point, and every believer may use his liberty, and do what he finds edifying to himself without condemning others. But it may be feared that there lies in the minds of many who attach immense value to fasting communion, a vague belief that the consecrated bread and wine which we receive are in some mysterious way not real bread and wine, and ought not therefore to be mixed with other food in our bodies! Such a belief cannot be praised. Those who teach that fasting communion is a rule obligatory on all take up a position which is not only unscriptural, but cruel. To go fasting to an early morning communion is likely to cause the death of delicate persons.
24. Is it necessary, or desirable, or useful for communicants to confess their sins privately to a minister, and to receive absolution, before they come to the Lord's Supper?
Necessary it cannot be. There is not a single verse in the New Testament to show that the Apostles recommended such confession, or that the first Christians practised it. Desirable or useful it certainly is not. The habit of private or auricular confession to a minister, under any circumstances, is one of the most mischievous and dangerous inventions of the corrupt Church of Rome, and has been the cause of enormous immorality and wickedness. Moreover, it is so expressly condemned in the " Homily of Repentance," that no minister of the Church of England has any right to recommend, encourage, or permit it, if he is honest, and faithful to his ordination VOWS.
25. But is not private confession before communion sanctioned by that passage in the Communion Service of our Prayer Book, in which the minister says, "If any of you cannot quiet his own conscience, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me or some other discreet and learned minister of God's Holy Word, and open his grief,