SO. The power of Absolution then, which emanates from the Ministry, cannot so have died, the exercise of it being fully as much needed now as it was in the primitive days.

Yet it must be observed that, in the exercise by the Apostles of the power of remitting and retaining sins, there is no trace whatsoever of the form which the Roman Church has given to Absolution. There is not the smallest vestige of a practice of habitual confession to the Apostles by the members of their Churches, or of a formal Absolution by them. There is not the slightest attempt on their part to usurp any judicial power over the human conscience; so far from it, that St. Peter's counsel to Simon Magus is (not "Come to me for absolution," but) "Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee."

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The elders, say St. James, are to pray over the sick man, that his sins may be forgiven. Why to pray, unless in acknowledgment that the forgiveness merely passed through them as channels, did not (and could not) originate with them,-that in the absolute and judicial sense, none can forgive sins but God only?” That men can act otherwise than ministerially in remitting sins is a doctrine as contrary to Holy Scripture as it is to Reason and the teaching of the early Fathers. And to attribute to the Christian Minister the power of Absolution (when thus understood) is not more arrogant than to attribute other spiritual effects to his Ministry. No one denies the spiritual effect of God's preached Word upon the conscience, nor the spiritual effect of Sacraments, where duly administered and duly received, in strengthening and refreshing the soul.

Yet these spiritual effects are in no wise due to the Minister, except as a medium: he cannot, except as an instrument in the hands of God's Spirit, touch a single conscience or comfort a single soul. The utmost that can be said of him is, that ordinarily (not that God is bound to any means, or that He does not frequently show Himself to be independent of all means) God administers through His ordained servants the stores of His treasury of Grace. Why not also the stores of His treasury of Forgiveness?

God often converts souls, and edifies them, without any human instrumentality at all. Some dealing of His Providence, some passage of His Word, arrests the conscience of the sinner, and awakens it to righteousness and repentance. The Holy Ghost is as free as the wind, which is His great emblem in nature, and bloweth where He listeth, apart from the instrumentality which He Himself hath ordained. And similarly God can (and doubtless does) forgive sinners independently of His Church, speaking peace to many a conscience on the moment of its coming to Christ. Yet it appears to be no less true that God has ordained an instrumentality in the earth, which He delights to bless and honour; and that this instrumentality is the ordinary vehicle, through which mercy and other spiritual blessings reach us. O let us seek at His hand that sound judgment which fairly balances, and gives its due weight to, every testimony of His Word, and that simplicity and honesty of mind which seeks not the establishment of preconceived views, but Truth, and Truth only.

LECTURE V

OF THE FORMS IN WHICH THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

DISPENSES ABSOLUTION

When He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receibe ye the Holy Ghost; whose soeber sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soeber sins ye retain, they are retained.”—JOHN xx. 22, 23

THE question whether the power of Absolution still

very much to resolve itself into the prior question, Whether there is an ordained Ministry of the Church at all? If a man chooses to deny that God hath committed to human Ministers the word of reconciliation; if, while he believes in Christianity, he disbelieves, as many do, in the Christian Society or Church, and resents altogether human intervention between God and the individual conscience, he may be easily confuted from Holy Scripture; but the confutation of him is not our present business. But if a man admits (as it is presumed all of us are disposed to admit) that there is an ordained Ministry, and that this Ministry is the usual, though not the exclusive, channel through which God conveys spiritual blessings, then he grants implicitly the power of Absolution as inherent in that Ministry. No one (at least no member of the Reformed Churches) imagines that any man, whatever his ecclesiastical position, can forgive sins

absolutely, and as a matter of his own arbitrament. Even the Apostles themselves never claimed to do this. He only can forgive in this manner, against whom the offence is committed; and as God is the Person who in all sin (even in that against our neighbour) is aggrieved, none but He can forgive in the absolute and judicial sense of the word. But if God dispenses forgiveness through certain human instruments, those instruments have derivatively the power of Absolution. And can this method of dispensing forgiveness be denied? If a person burdened with a sense of guilt, and in a state of mental depression, should stray into a church, and there hear the message of free forgiveness and grace through Christ fully and faithfully set forth from the pulpit; if it should there be pointed out to him that what the heavy-laden conscience has to do is not to qualify itself for acceptance with God, but simply come to Christ, and embrace that acceptance which is already purchased by His Blood and Merit; and if on hearing this glad tidings, he goes away lightened and relieved, having found that joy and peace in believing, which are among the first fruits of the Spirit, what is this but God's dispensation of forgiveness to that man by the mouth of the Minister? It may not be technically called Absolution; but surely it is Absolution to all intents and purposes; it is as if the Minister, in the Name and by the authority of his Master, had said to that soul, "Thy sins be forgiven thee; “The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die."-Suppose another hearer, conscious of still cleaving in his intention to some course which both Scripture and the moral sense condemn, to receive from the pulpit the equally true message that whatever flatteries the deceitful heart may practise

upon us there is no salvation for sinners obstinately holding by their sins; and after receiving it, to go down to his house heavy and displeased, unable any longer to lay to his soul the flattering unction that his good impressions or his religious ordinances make him safe; what is this but the binding of his sins on the man's conscience, the retention of his sins so far as man' can retain them, that is, the declaration that they are retained upon a certain moral condition?

Again: Baptism is said expressly to be for the remission of sins: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." It is an ordained vehicle of remission; and the administration of it (like that of the other sacrament) is lodged in the hands of those who inherit the charge given to the Apostles: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." If, then, a Christian Missionary, after long instruction and probation of a Catechumen, has satisfied himself of that person's fitness for baptism, and administers to him this holy Sacrament, is not this a virtual absolution of the person who receives the rite, an absolution which is conveyed under the express commission and authority of the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls? And if, on the other hand, such a Missionary should with good reason pronounce the Catechumen at present unfit for the Sacrament, should discover in him