The Lutheran Church practiced private confession and absolution fairly universally until about 1750. For example, the great Lutheran cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, went to confession regularly in preparation to receive holy communion at St. Thomas or St. Michael Church in Leipzig. He did not consider it a burden or a tyranny upon his conscience. Nor should we.

However, confession is a burden and a tyranny upon our old Adam, who absolutely rebels against making a truthful and clear confession of sin. He will always be an enemy to this truthful speech. Therefore, we should get it out of our minds that there is no difficulty involved in making confession of our sin to another person, whether a brother or our dear pastor. Indeed, it will help us put down old Adam and trample him if we learn the discipline, which is a cross bearing, of confessing our sins out loud to another. It is humbling to form our mouths around our sin and spit it out, laying it out before a brother. It is also humbling for the one who hears the confession, because he knows that he is a sinner like the one confessing and is warned by St. Paul, "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" ( 1Co 10:12-13). Those who hear confession have been tempted just as those who confess. Those who hear confession have sinned just like those who confess. Their standpoint is not righteousness, their standpoint is the divine mercy in Christ. Their standpoint is another's holiness, not their own.

There is certainly internal coercion involved in going to private confession and absolution, because old Adam will not volunteer to do this. He will go only as a small boy goes to his bath: kicking and screaming. However, there ought never be external coercion used against the Christian by the church, so that the Christian person is driven to go to confession by some kind of law or rule. The papacy established the rule that a Christian had to go to confession at least every year; usually at Easter, to be considered a faithful Roman Catholic. Such coercion is entirely counterproductive. It misses the whole point of confession and absolution by turning into a burden that which frees Christians from burdens. The center of confession and absolution is the declaration of forgiveness of sins to the person who is burdened in their heart and troubled in their conscience because of particular sin. Absolution then frees from burdens; we must not make it one.

What then should impel the Christian to avail himself of private confession and absolution? First, are you troubled or burdened by a particular sin? If yes, then second, you should be compelled by the blessing of the holy gospel which promises forgiveness of sins in the pronouncement of absolution on the lips of a friend or a dear pastor ( Jn 20:21-23). Here is the solution for sin that comes from God; it is the solution of absolution which proclaims what God has done in Christ to remove every sin by placing it on Christ. The penitent does not need to bear his sin. It need not infect his conscience. Christ has taken it away. Our confessor tells us so.