Michael Ramsey on Confession

From his classic book 'The Christian Priest Today', I find it one of the most wonderfully elucidations of the practice of confessing to a priest in the Anglican Tradition, and one of the most convincing pieces for the practice, in its unflustered manner.

"The Voluntary nature of private confession is emphasized. Whereas the Church of Rome has appeared to teach that the Sacrament of Penance is necessary in the case of mortal sin, our Church has insisted that we are free to confess our sins to God alone without the hearing of a priest; and if we do this in sincerity God's forgiveness is sure. But our Church has no less insisted that we are free to confess in the sacramental way if we so desire and to ask absolution from the priest. The motives which have led people to this course have been powerful indeed. There is the feeling that thoroughness is called for in our confession, and the sacramental way certainly ensures this. There is the feeling that some painful and costly act on our part is not amiss in the confession of sins which wound the heart of our Lord. There is the feeling that the corporate nature of the Church makes appropriate an acknowledgement of our sins to "the family" of which the priest is representative. Finally, the word of absolution as a salutary decisiveness, blending Word and Act in a truly evangelical way."