(Regest.)
Since the dispute over absolution had still not been settled, the council had forbidden the preachers to preach on this subject and had ordered them to submit their opinions in writing. The opinion of the council and the local pastors, rectors and preachers has never been to abolish private absolution or to allow others to do away with it. The dispute revolved solely around whether, in addition to private absolution, general absolution should also be used in a divine and Christian manner, or whether it should be removed from the churches, since, according to Andreas Osiander, it was useless, harmful and ungodly, and should not be an absolution. Osiander's record aroused the suspicion that the city of Nuremberg was acting contrary to the Augsburg Confession by permitting common absolution, the use of which no one had yet been able to judge to be unjust. Now the council requests a renewed examination of the question in dispute.
From the letterbook of the Raths de dato Nuremberg Kreisarchiv reprinted in Kolde, Analecta, p. 190.
No. 2004.