newly ordained were co-celebrants:1 and not till after the Mass, at which they had assisted, were these words pronounced, as conferring a special commission, not essential to such orders. Thus, even before the Reformation, these words did not confer the Order of Priesthood."

The action taken by Cranmer in 1550 is therefore very striking. He took the words from St. John xx. out of a subordinate position, and made them the actual formula of ordination. At first sight it seems a strange and even daring innovation: but when we remember that the true meaning of those words was now being understood, after centuries of misinterpretation, we can recognize in what Cranmer did the sign of deep spiritual insight, even though we may question the policy of retaining them. If we can only get back to the original breadth of that solemn commission, and read those words, as used in our Ordinal, in the same large sense that the Reformers attached to them, we need not regret that our Church, in granting her com

1 Maskell (Mon. Rit. ii. 227 n.) speaks of the "repetition by all of the words of consecration," of which there is evidence in early times. Debent enim ex consuetudine concelebrare, et etiam verba consecrationis proferre.

2 Maskell, ibid. p. 231 f., where much information on this point is given from Martène. "No priest can validly absolve a penitent, except in articulo mortis, without faculties from the ordinary."

mission, uses the ipsissima verba with which she received it. In the words of Whitgift, "By speaking these words of Christ . . . (the Bishop) doth show the principal duty of a minister, and assureth him of the assistance of God the Holy Spirit, if he labour in the same accordingly " (i. 489).

our Reasons for more late a form retaining so

Yet it naturally causes surprise that Reformers, with their desire to return to primitive practice, did not, at least in 1552, reject a form of late introduction, and liable to misconstruction. They were probably not aware of the late introduction of the words into the Ordinal. With all their knowledge of the Fathers and Schoolmen, they do not show an intimate knowledge of the history of liturgical forms. Even Bishop Andrewes,2 in 1616, lays stress on the words as essential to valid ordination. It

1 It is to be noticed that the words were so far changed as to be used in the singular instead of in the plural; this is due to the personal nature of the charge.

"For by these words are they (Holy Orders) given. 'Receive ye, etc.,' were to them, and are to us, even to this day, by these and by no other words: which words, had not the Church of Rome retained in their ordinations, it might well have been doubted, for all their Accipe potestatem sacrificandi, whether they had any priests or no. But, as God would, they retained them, and so saved themselves. For these are the very operative words for the conferring this power, for performing this act." Andrewes, Sermon on Whit-Sunday, 1616. A. C. Lib. iii. p. 263.

The Second

1552

was not till after Morinus in the seventeenth century had investigated the history of Penance and of Orders, that the later introduction of this formula was realized. The same reason probably accounts for the retention of the words, "I absolve thee." But a return to the primitive interpretation of John xx. 23 amply explains Cranmer's willingness to retain what was thought in those days to be a venerable feature of the Service. It is that interpretation, and not the mediaeval one, which determines for us their meaning in the Ordinal.

1552. The Revised Prayer Book, Edward's Prayer Book Second Book, appeared in this year. It is remarkable that little is said on the subject of Confession in Bucer's Censura.1 He urges the revival of Public Discipline, and approves of the Commination Service, but wonders why it should be so seldom used. Traces, however, are found of the influence of the foreign refugees, Pullanus and A'Lasko, in the penitential approach to divine worship now inserted both in the Daily Offices and at Holy Communion.

Morning and Evening Prayer (1552). The omission of 1549 was now remedied. Quignonez had placed the Confession and Absolution after the Lord's Prayer, which he left as the "founda

1 Bucer was asked to give his “ censure on the first Prayer Book.

tion" on which subsequent worship was to be built. Cranmer now placed Confession and Absolution in the forefront of our worship, and as a preparation for the Service which followed, commencing with the Lord's Prayer.1

The suggestive sentences of Scripture, placed as an introduction to Confession and Absolution, remind us of what we may regard to be the true office of the "Comfortable Words." The Exhortation and Absolution are meant to apply the

comfortable salve of God's Word" to all who join truly in the words of Confession. To that Confession" the Scripture moveth us in sundry places"; and the "benefit of Absolution" is made to depend not on a formula, but on the "ministry of God's Holy Word."

In the new Absolution we have a deliberate expression of the Church's doctrine on this subject. Taken with the words of the Exhortations at Morning Prayer and at Communion, it leaves no doubt as to what was meant by the almost final changes made in the matter of Confession and Absolution in 1552.

(1) God's ministers have “power and authority" given to them in this matter. It is not an

1 In the Book Annexed a line is drawn after the Absolution, so as to mark this fact. Tertullian speaks of the Lord's Prayer as a fundamentum on which to build our other petitions. See The Lord's Prayer in the Liturgy in the writer's Two Studies (Nisbet), p. 6.

absolute but a ministerial power: it is to "declare and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins." In the Visitation form this authority is said to have been left to the Church, and it is "to absolve all sinners which truly repent and believe.”

At first sight the words of these Absolutions seem to create two difficulties. In one case the authority is given to the ministers, in the other to the Church: in one case that authority is to pronounce God's pardon and absolution, in the other it is to "absolve." But such discrepancies are only on the surface: and they find their natural reconciliation in that broader view of Absolution which the writings of our Reformers abundantly illustrate. The authority" to absolve" involves, as one chief factor, the open offer of God's pardon to the penitent and we follow lines of teaching current among those under whose influence our Prayer Book was compiled when we say, that "to absolve" is to proclaim, "He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His holy Gospel."

Moreover, the authority is left to the Church, who exercises it through her duly ordained ministers, committing to them in Christ's own words, the exact commission which she herself received. If there is no discrepancy between St. Paul's statement that God had given to His ministers, as "ambassadors for Christ," "the ministry of reconciliation," and our Lord's express commission to the Church to forgive and retain sins, there can be no need to reconcile the terms in which our Absolutions are drawn up. (2 Cor. v. 18 ff.; John xx. 23.)

(2) This declaratory form of Absolution is the Church's ordinary provision for her children who seek the "benefit of Absolution." It conveys