by Methodists, comes from the service of Morning Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer. The confession of one's sin is particularly important before receiving Holy Communion; the official United Methodist publication about the Eucharist titled This Holy Mystery states that: Many Methodists, like other Protestants, regularly practice confession of their sin to God Himself, holding that "When we do confess, our fellowship with the Father is restored. He extends His parental forgiveness. He cleanses us of all unrighteousness, thus removing the consequences of the previously unconfessed sin. We are back on track to realise the best plan that He has for our lives." The Reformed tradition The earliest Reformers attacked the penitential practice of the Catholic Church, but differed in their teaching on the subject. The opinions expressed by some reformers in their later theological works do not differ as markedly from the old position as one might suppose. Martin Luther, whilst rejecting Catholic methodology (particularly of the listing and enumeration of individual sins, and the practice of mandatory confession), nonetheless praised the practice of confession, and described it as a sacrament in his early writings, and in the 1529 exhortation, also writing "Here we should also speak about confession, which we retain and praise as something useful and beneficial". Huldrych Zwingli held that God alone pardoned sin, and he saw nothing but idolatry in the practice of hoping for pardon from a mere creature. If confession had aught of good it was merely as direction. He saw no value in the confession of sins to a pastor, and no measure of sacramentality in the practice of confession. John Calvin denied all idea of sacramentality when there was question of Penance. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) denies the necessity of confession to a priest, but holds that the power granted by Christ to absolve is simply the power to preach to the people the Gospel of Jesus, and as a consequence the remission of sins: "" (Second Helvetic Confession 14.4-6) Liberal Catholic Movement The Liberal Catholic Movement believe that absolution is important. Liberal Catholic Church International states: We teach that Christ has given to the Priests of His Church the power to absolve the repentant faithful from their sins. We teach that the Sacrament of Absolution is a loosening from the bondage of sin, a restoration of the inner harmony that was disturbed by the wrongdoing, so that the