enumerate, or not to enumerate such as he wishes."^734 The practice of private confession is still
retained in some sections, but has entirely disappeared in other sections, of the Lutheran Church.
The Church of England holds a similar view on this subject. The Book of Common Prayer
contains, besides two forms of public confession and absolution, a form of private confession and
absolution. But the last is omitted in the liturgy of the Episcopal Church of the United States.
Besides these doctrinal sections, the Little Catechism, as edited by Luther in 1531 (partly,
also, in the first edition of 1529) has three appendices of a devotional or liturgical character: viz.,
(1) A series of short family prayers; (2) a table of duties (Haustafel) for the members of a Christian
house hold, consisting of Scripture passages; (3) a marriage manual (Traubüchlin), and (4) a
baptismal manual (Taufbüchlin).
The first two appendices were retained in the "Book of Concord;" but the third and fourth,
which are liturgical and ceremonial, were omitted because of the great diversity in different churches
as to exorcism in baptism and the rite of marriage.
The Little Catechism was translated from the German original into the Latin (by Sauermann)
and many other languages, even into the Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. It is asserted by Lutheran
writers that no book, except the Bible, has had a wider circulation. Thirty-seven years after its
appearance, Mathesius spoke of a circulation of over a hundred thousand copies. It was soon
introduced into public schools, churches, and families. It became by common consent a symbolical
book, and a sort of "layman’s Bible" for the German people.
Judged from the standpoint of the Reformed churches, the catechism of Luther, with all its
excellences, has some serious defects. It gives the text of the Ten Commandments in an abridged
form, and follows the wrong division of the Latin Church, which omits the Second Commandment
altogether, and cuts the Tenth Commandment into two to make up the number. It allows only three
questions and answers to the exposition of the creed,—on creation, redemption, and sanctification.
It gives undue importance to the sacraments by making them co-ordinate parts with the three great
divisions; and elevates private confession and absolution almost to the dignity of a third sacrament.
It contains no instruction on the Bible, as the inspired record of Divine revelation and the rule of
faith and practice. These defects are usually supplied in catechetical instruction by a number of
preliminary or additional questions and answers.
§ 90. The Typical Catechisms of Protestantism.
In this connection we may anticipate a brief comparison between the most influential manuals
of popular religious instruction which owe their origin to the Reformation, and have become
institutions, retaining their authority and usefulness to this day.
These are Luther’s Little Catechism (1529), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Anglican
Catechism (1549, enlarged 1604, revised 1661), and the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647).
The first is the standard catechism of the Lutheran Church; the second, of the German and Dutch
Reformed, and a few other Reformed churches (in Bohemia and Hungary); the third, of the Episcopal
Church of England and her daughters in the British Colonies and the United States; the fourth, of
(^734) Articuli Smalcald. P. III., cap. 8.