SUPPLEMENT.

HE preceding Dissertation was directed. especially to one object, namely, to the right interpretation which we ought to put upon the forms of absolution in our Common-prayer book. I avoided, therefore, mixing up with that enquiry more than was required for the purpose immediately in hand. But there are two or three other particulars which will excuse, I trust, some brief remarks by way of a supplement.

It has been well and truly said of the power of absolution that" it is a power which the Church has ever thankfully acknowledged to have been given to her by her Divine Head, and which no particular Church can ever surrender, without cutting itself from the Catholic Church of Christ, and therein from Christ Himself." In reply to this it has been asked, as if it were an irrefragable objection; "How is it that, if the priesthood possess this power of absolution,' it was never exercised for the first twelve centuries that succeeded the apostolic times?" Never exercised, we are told, because "during this whole period, the form that

was exclusively used was precatory or optative." And we are further told, that it is so clear that "a prayer for a blessing, or an expression of a desire for it, is inconsistent with the notion that he who uses that form does himself give it," that no one "need stop to prove it." But, with submission, I must be allowed to say that this is rather a rapid mode of settling a question upon which much by very learned men has already been written.

If I understand the objection, it does not stop short of a denial that the church of England now exercises in any way, or by any form, the power of absolution. This is a statement which I shall leave others, who think it worth while, to contend against, for the present work throughout is addressed only to persons who accept and believe the doctrine that our Church not merely claims but really and duly exercises "the power of absolution." But it will be well to enquire a little into the extent of the consequences of this change, if it was made, of a precatory or an optative form into an indicative form.

Morinus, one of the most learned men of his age, examined this question at much length, in his elaborate work on the sacrament of penance; and from him, who almost exhausted the sources of information about it, later writers have been contented to take the grounds of their arguments. Before I pass on to his statements, I must observe, that the great author to whom such objectors (as I have spoken of) are indebted for the proofs of the reality of their objection,

did not himself conceive that the facts upon which he insisted, interfered even in the most remote degree, with the full, complete, and constant exercise of the power of absolution by the Church, during the first twelve, as well as during the last six, centuries of the Faith. It is, therefore, to say the least, somewhat curious to find the whole question not only quietly decided against the deliberate judgement of the best writer on the subject, but decided as if not worth the trouble of examination. However, until I see proofs to the contrary, I am satisfied to err in this particular with Morinus, and to believe that even if for twelve hundred years, the forms of absolution in the western Church were, as he asserts they were, precatory and optative, yet that nevertheless the power of absolution was as fully exercised and claimed by the Church then as now, and the grace of that sacrament as completely and entirely conveyed to the penitent and faithful recipient.

For the real question, as every one unprejudiced must see, is not in what words the remission of sin was conveyed by the ministry of the priest, but whether such an ordinance as pænitentia, or absolution, was or was not believed by the Catholic Church for the first 1200 years to be an ordinance of our Blessed Lord. If it was not so believed, and this is the conclusion which we are desired to arrive at, because for 1200 years the form is said to have been precatory,-how are we to account for the innumerable passages in the fathers, about the necessity of con

fession in order to the grace of absolution; for the old penitentials; and for the rites with which administration of the sacrament of absolution was performed?

Before any person takes upon himself to decide that a form is not sufficient (sufficient, that is, to convey the characteristic grace of the sacrament of which it is the form) he ought distinctly to prove what essentially constitutes the form. Take now our present form in the order of visitation of the sick: it is not short, and every word in it is most admirably adapted for the occasion; so that it would not appear to be easy to say how a word should be altered, much less omitted, with propriety. There is the declaration of the power of absolution, and of the qualifications necessary in the recipient; a short prayer that our Lord would forgive the penitent; an assertion by the minister that to him individually this power has been committed; the exercise of that power; closing with the awful formula, In the Name of the Blessed and Undivided Trinity.

But when, leaving "propriety" we pass on to the essential part of this form, I cannot see but that three words alone, I absolve thee, are sufficient; following, as they do, after distinct confession of sins, and in order to assurance of pardon. I am not saying that these must be in every form of absolution, but that they alone would, and perhaps do, entirely and completely convey the grace of sacerdotal absolution. And in like manner as they convey it, so also do equivalent words. The reason is, because these or equi

valent words fully express the action of the minister, the person of the recipient, and the grace of the ordi

nance.

The addition In the Name, etc. is essential to the form in baptism, because it was positively appointed by our Lord not so, in the exercise of the power of sacerdotal absolution. Again; the Church has, from the beginning, ruled the necessity of them in the one case, and has not so ruled in the other. Once more; belief in the deep mystery of the Holy Trinity, is a primary object of that religion, of which baptism is, upon the part of the recipient, a solemn profession;' not so, in any especial way, in the administration of absolution.

But, not to delay upon these enquiries, which are rather suited to the subtle disputations of the schools, than, in practice, tend to much general profit, let us examine a little further into the accounts which we have of the precatory form.

Morinus tells us that he found in almost every ritual or penitential which he had seen, earlier than the year 1200, no other than a precatory or optative form of absolution in the administration of the sacrament of penance: in one or two of greater antiquity, and in more, about that period itself, he had observed the indicative form together with several prayers, or an optative form, preceding or following it. After the

1 Dissertation on Holy Baptism.

p. 98.

2 De admin. sacram. pœnitentiæ. lib. viij. cap. ij.