here named, and in the order of the petitions in the Litany.

"Who alone workest great marvels (cf. Ps. cxxxvi. 4). The existence and conservation of the Church is a marvel due to God alone (Humphry).

(iv.) The prayer of St. Chrysostom is found in the Liturgy of St. Basil, but not in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, in the earliest MS. of those two, viz., the Barberini. In subsequent MSS. it occurs in both Liturgies, and, of course, in the earliest printed volume of Greek Liturgies, viz. that which appeared in 1526 at Rome in Greek, and in 1528 at Venice in Latin. (For its appearance in situ, vide Sw. 76, 113; and N. & L. 95.) In 1544, when this was the only volume of Oriental Liturgies yet printed, this prayer was adopted in the first authorised English Litany, or rather at the end of it. In 1662, without being removed from the Litany, it was given a second place in Morning and Evening Prayer, as at present.

(v.) The Benediction, from 2 Cor. xiii. 14, was introduced into the Prayer Book in 1559, among the prayers at the end of the Litany. In 1662 it received an additional place at the conclusion of Morning and Evening Prayer.

CHAPTER X.

THE ABSOLUTIONS.

§ 54. Three Forms of Absolution compared.--In the Morning and Evening Prayer the Absolution is declaratory: "He pardoneth and absolveth." At Holy Communion it is (like the Blessing) precatory : "Pardon and deliver thee." In the Visitation of

the Sick it is partly precatory, "Our Lord... forgive thee;" and partly direct, "I absolve thee." This third absolution is the only private one. For persons in health there is now no private form, the rubric of 1549, which appointed the third one for this purpose, having been omitted in 1552.

§ 55. The Authority for Absolution is cited in the first and third forms alone, viz., (1) That God the Father hath given power and commandment to His ministers to declare and pronounce absolution; (2) That our Lord Jesus Christ hath left power to His Church to absolve.

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Only for the second of these statements, viz., that our Lord Jesus Christ" left power, can a direct text be adduced, viz. St. John xx. 23, where it is Christ who says, "Whosesoever sins ye remit," etc.; and it is in these words that the jus absolutionis is conferred upon the priest at his ordination. That

"God the Father" gave power and commandment is nowhere expressly stated; but God speaks unto us in His Son (Heb. i. 1), and this justifies the wording of the first Absolution, which no doubt refers also to the passage in St. John.

§ 56. The Office of Absolution, its Nature.-The first of the three forms, by its manner of referring to its authority, understands that the minister's office, as conveyed by St. John xx. 23, is to declare the absolving grace of God, and assure the penitent of it. In the third absolution, therefore, since it is founded on the same authority, as itself more expressly declares, the minister must needs consider that he discharges an office of the same nature, and he must understand the words "I absolve thee" as an equivalent form to "I declare and pronounce unto thee God's absolving grace."

§ 57. The Effects of the Absolution. The first form, after declaring the pardon and absolution of those who truly repent, goes on to exhort us to pray for true repentance. It is also followed by the Lord's Prayer, which supplicates forgiveness. On the twenty-first and twenty-fourth Sundays after Trinity, notwithstanding that pardon and absolution have been already declared, both are prayed for in the collect for the day. Absolution is also prayed for in the Commination, remission and forgiveness in the Litany and on Ash-Wednesday. The second form also is succeeded, though not immediately, by the Lord's Prayer and its petition for pardon; while next

to this again comes a prayer in which God is most humbly besought to grant remission of sins. In the case of the third absolution the after-prayer for pardon is more especially noticeable. The penitent has confessed with an express view to absolution ; the precatory absolution, "Our Lord absolve thee," has succeeded; then the official sentence, "I absolve thee;" and still there immediately follows a very full and most earnest supplication by the minister that God would put away the sins of His servant, who is still desiring pardon and forgiveness, and that God will continue him in the unity of the Church and not impute unto him his former sins.

The penitent is thus not lulled into a false security, as though the Church's absolution completed the remission and took effect, like a judge's sentence in court, by the utterance of the words, or like the words which complete the act of baptism or the act of marriage; he is not made to suppose that the official sentence settles his account with God. The office of a minister in absolution is to present in the name of God a remission of sins as a gift to the penitent which he himself must take up, either then or thereafter, by his own personal and individual faith in Christ and true repentance. Wheatly understands the daily absolution to be " an actual conveyance of pardon, at the very instant of pronouncing it, to all that come within the terms proposed;" and that it "is more than declarative, that it is truly effective, insuring and conveying to the proper subjects thereof the very absolution or remission itself" (pp. 114, 119, and Preface, ed.

1839). He urges this view by various arguments. Mr. Humphry (Hum. 104) is not convinced by them. He understands it to be "a declaration on the part of God's minister that God forgives those who truly repent."

§ 58. The Office of Absolution, its Limits.-The priest has received at ordination with the jus absolutionis no personal grant.

(a) He absolves in no other form of words than the authorised one; it would be exceeding his authority to frame any for himself.

(b) That authorised form he pronounces while officiating in authorised offices only, and where his directions mark the proper place for him. He cannot pronounce an absolution in the Litany, in the Commination Service, in baptism, in confirmation; nor at any private conference with one of his flock, except in sickness, nor even then unless at the penitent's own request, however much the penitent may have been moved to make confession, and may have made confession. The jus absolutionis is not his at family prayer, in social worship, in a free mission service, much less on any non-devotional occasion. He can never act freely and spontaneously, as our Lord did in addressing the palsied man brought to Him: "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee" (St. Mark ii. 5).

(c) The minister, when he forms one of the congregation, and even when he is officiating in the confession, receives absolution like any layman: ordination has given him no exceptional privilege in this respect.