A mere verbal confession that one is a sinner is not repentance.

The teaching of the Reformed who subscribe to the Augsburg Confession about this verbal confession is this:

No one can ever know his sins; therefore they cannot be listed, being also inward and hidden, so that a confession would be false, imprecise, faulty and incomplete. If, however, one confesses oneself to be wholly and utterly sinful, one takes in all sins, omits none and forgets none. Yet the listing of sins, although not required, is for the sake of tender and timid consciences not to be abolished; but this is merely a childish and general form of confession for the more simple and untutored people. (Formula of Concord, pp. 327, 331, 380.)

This confession was adopted by the Reformed in place of real repentance after they had parted from the Roman Catholics, because it is based upon their doctrine that faith is imputed, and alone without charity, and thus also without repentance, it brings about the forgiveness of sins and regenerates a person. It is also based upon the fact that it is an inseparable corollary of that faith that in the process of justification man does not co-operate with the Holy Spirit; and that no one has free will in spiritual matters; and again that the whole process is the result of direct mercy and in no respect indirectly by or through the person himself.