Definition of "confession"

With a crafty madness keeps aloof, / When we would bring him on to some confession / Of his true state.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene i]

Both the basic idea of confession, and the techniques devised by Yezhov for extracting them, however, were to receive significant employment in Asia in the 1950s. The Chinese accused the Americans of waging bacteriological warfare in Korea. The evidence they produced consisted of feathers, insects, clams, rats, and other things riddled with germs and allegedly dropped from American planes. Such evidence was not, on the face of it, very convincing - though even this was accepted by one type of Westerner. To fortify their case, the Chinese resorted to confessions, extracted from American pilots.

1968, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties‎, Macmillan Company, page 493

Hauing diſpleaſ'd my Father, to Lawrence Cell, / To make confeſſion, and to be abſolu'd.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]

With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Romans 10:10