When, my dear Christian, you go to confession, you must not content yourself with repeating, by rote, a memorized confessional prayer or with having your pastor repeat it to you, but you must bring along a penitent heart, from which your confession will flow of itself. To offer confession when the heart is impenitent is mocking God, and without a penitent heart there is no forgiveness of sin.
The first requisite for a penitent heart is that you recognize your sins and feel sorry and repentant over them. By nature no man knows his sins, nor can he of himself cause repentance to spring from his heart; on the contrary, this must be obtained from God by prayer. By nature we are far too blind, too indifferent, too careless, to self-righteous, too much absorbed in self-love and self-conceit, honestly and penitently to plead guilty in the sight of God of all sins.
Above all things therefore bow your knees before God and call upon Him to open your eyes that you may recognize the multitude and magnitude of your sins. Pray in the words of the sainted David: "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Hereupon take the holy Ten Commandments and according to them institute a careful examination of your whole life. You will then soon find that you are a sinner. For even as a man does not see a spot on his face without a mirror, so he does not recognize his sins unless he sees himself in the mirror of the holy Ten Commandments. For every deed, every word, yea, every thought against God's commandments is a sin, whether it consist in doing what God has forbidden or in failing to do what He has commanded. But you must look not only at the gross, external sins, but also at those internal, secret digressions from God's commandments, the evil thoughts and desires of your heart. When thus examining yourself, being instant in prayer, you will discover that you did not fear, love, and trust in God as He demands; that you have not called upon God in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving so heartily and cofidently as you should have done; that you have not properly heard and learned His Word and kept it sacred. You will find that you have not duly honored and loved your parents and superiors, but that you have been disobedient and surly towards them; that you have sinned against your neighbor by being angry, revengeful and unforgiving; by showing envy, covetousness, and a carnal mind or by speaking slanderous words. To sum up, you will come to know that you did not love your neighbor so uprightly and heartily as yourself; rather, that self-love, the quest for personal gain and honor, was the motive power of all your actions. Because of these and other sins you indeed have deserved God's wrath, temporal and eternal punishment, if God would deal with you strictly according to justice. From these sins that you notice in yourself you can infer how unclean and polluted your heart must be from which these sins flow; for the stream is no purer than its fountain, and by its fruits the tree is known. In this way you will come to a true conception of original sin.
Now, when you notice these and other sins in yourself, yea, if you consider that the sins you do not know, but still have committed, are far more numerous that those you do know and that the omniscient God places all your sins in the light of His contenance, you certainly will be terrified in your conscience and experience sorrow and contrition for having offended your loving God so grievously and for having repaid His mercies with such base ingratitude.
The second part of repentance is faith, faith in Jesus Christ, who has rendered full satisfaction for all your sins, procuring forgiveness of them all, also for you. Faith is, so to speak, the hand that appropriates forgiveness of sin and accepts it as an unmerited gift of divine grace. Without this faith all knowledge of sin and repenitence over it is nothing but the repentance of a Cain and a Judas and must end in despair. But by faith in Jesus Christ, the Savior of all sinners, the heart is comforted and satisfied. This faith, however, you cannot bring forth yourself; it is the work and gift of God the Holy Ghost. But if you feel that your faith is weak,-- you desire to believe, but you think you cannot, -- then pray God to strengthen this faith of yours, which is battling against doubt. He is willing to do so and surely will give you a stronger faith, so that you will overcome all the doubts which are harassing your soul.
Now, if you come to confession with such a penitent and believing heart, you will rejoice in the absolution spoken by your pastor, by virtue of which your sins are really and truly forgiven by God in heaven. Forgiveness of sins, Christ has procured for all sinners by the shedding of His bloood and by His death and by His resurrection He sealed it to them. This He commanded to preach throughout the world by means of the Gospel. Therefore, when your pastor absolves you, he does nothing else than proclaim to you the Gospel of the foregiveness of sins. This, however, is not an empty announcement, but one actually offering and coveying the forgiveness of sins to the penitent sinner. Whenever, therefore, you hear your astor pronounce absolution, do not doubt, but firmly believe, that your sins are forgiven before God in heaven; believe it as firmly as though Christ were calling to you directly from heaven; "My son (my daughter), be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee." For He says: "Whosoever heareth you heareth Me"; and: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them."
Thereupon the fruits of repentance are to follow. These consist in no longer knowingly and intentionally committing such sins as were forgiven you, but rather hating them, abstaining from them, and battling against them with the assistance of the Holy Ghost.
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