publication in my "Enquiry." But I think it will be found that most of his objections are there considered, so far as they fall within the scope of my own argument. For (let me press it upon you) this work is addressed to those who acknowledge that sacerdotal absolution is an ordinance of God, conveying grace and remission of sins; and that it is not merely an authoritative declaration, whether general or particular, of such re

mission.

But I must not conceal my sense of the kind and Christian spirit in which the Letter of Mr. Hill is written. It would be a source of regret to me, if there should be a cause of offence to him by any word that I have said. And his example, by experience in my own case, has confirmed me in a resolution which I have long striven to observe; namely "to avoid the use of harsh and unkind words towards others, and to keep within the reasonable bounds of Christian controversy." Let me go on with this same sentence, written more than two years ago, in the preface to another work: "I have endeavoured to remember that they whose judgements are different from my own, may be far more competent than myself to argue upon many matters, on which I have nevertheless not hesitated to speak plainly my belief; first, because it seemed not right to be silent, and,

xii To the Clergy of the Diocese of Exeter.

secondly, because I was satisfied that I was but uttering the doctrine of the Church of England, in which I am a priest."

May God of His great goodness guide us into all Truth.

I am, Rev. Brethren,

S. MARY CHURCH,

Dec. 20th, 1848.

Your very

faithful servant,

W. MASKELL.

Y object, in the present publication, is to enquire into and ascertain so much of the doctrine of the Church of England upon Absolution, as may be gathered from, or is mixed up with, the forms of Absolution contained in the Common Prayer Book.

Absolution is a doctrine so great, that the consideration of any branch of it must involve consequences of no little importance to every Christian: an importance not to be estimated, when we have to argue points with which practice is concerned. Then the discussion can be no longer regarded by any one who is sincerely anxious to work out his salvation, as merely one among many questions debated in the schools; but he must acknowledge, in his own conscience, that he is himself deeply and personally interested in the truth, whatever that may at last be shewn to be.

B

As we proceed, it will probably happen that I shall advance arguments which some will desire to dispute, and that I shall assert positions from which they will be eager to dissent. Many causes, which it is not now necessary for me to enter into in detail, will conduce to this and let me earnestly request the reader, to weigh dispassionately all that may be said, and, before he decides against the truth or the correctness of the conclusions at which we shall finally arrive, carefully to recollect whether he is or is not influenced by previous habits of thought and prejudice; by a too great and long-established reliance upon authorities whose judgment he may not so accurately have examined, as he has hastily adopted; or, by a desire to consent to something which may look like an easier explanation of what he must own to be very difficult and obscure easier, not in the mode by which it seeks to remove the difficulty, but in the results to which it leads, and in the claims which it makes upon the active practice of those who accept it.

Nor in this place is it out of the way for me to observe, that the easiness, so understood, of explanations of chief doctrines of the Holy Gospel, is in itself— I would not say a mark of error, but, -at least a note of warning, and an intelligible call upon us to hesitate and doubt. If our earthly pilgrimage towards heaven were over roads always plain, smooth, and pleasant; if it was quite certain that having wandered from the right path, we could regain it without labour and pain and sorrow; nay, more than this, if there were no

words in the discourses of our Divine Redeemer telling us of our taking up His Cross; of hating one's own kindred for His sake; of making foes of one's own household; of losing life itself; then we might perhaps be borne out in thus explaining all the duties which, being His disciples, we are bound to perform: but we should make His burthen so light, and His yoke so easy, that neither the one nor the other would be any longer a reality, but a shadow.

And if what has just been said be true, as undoubtedly it is, of the Christian life of those who, in purity and constant faith, have their lives-long laboured to walk worthy of their high calling, how much more must it be true in regard to others who by wilful and continued sin have stained, over and over again, their baptismal robes, and fallen from grace. Who can think that he speaks the language of the Gospel, when to such as these he proposes, and proposes only, brief and easy remedies; and passports opening even, as it were, upon the first demand, the door of reconciliation?

It is a source of comfort to me, about to enter upon such an enquiry as I have proposed, to remember that these pages will not in any popular manner set before our people generally, arguments and proofs and decisions; on the contrary, from the very nature of those arguments, and from numerous quotations being given in the language of the original writers, this work will chiefly be read by the clergy, whose proper office it is first to form their own judgement, and then to teach men over whom they are placed in the Lord.