But all this presupposes, on the part of the minister himself, nothing more than the exercise of sympathy, instruction, advice, warning, comfort, and prayer with and for the sinner, that God's general promises of forgiveness may, in that particular case, receive their fulfilment. It pre-supposes no indicative absolution. The minister does not tell him (what he cannot possibly know), that he is there and then forgiven.

Nor, in either of the cases supposed, is the minister sought as a "priest." In the first case, he is sought as a man learned in God's Word, versed in spiritual things, and possessing the confidence of those who seek him. And the usefulness of the interview depends, under God, on the ability of the pastor so to interpret Christian principles as to apply them rightly to the individual case. It depends, that is to say, on something moral and spiritual, not on the use of a mere formal machinery.

In the second case, the minister is sought, not as a priest, but as the office-bearer in the congregation, and the representative of the authority of the Visible Church as usually exercised in public discipline. And the most that the interview will bring about will be the voluntary adoption, in private, of such discipline as the crimes confessed, if public, would necessarily incur. It is not absolution from the sin of the soul which is here sought, but absolution from what would be, if all were known, the censures of Church Discipline.

In neither case, therefore, will those limits be transgressed under which I endeavoured to show, in my former letter, that the words of our Lord in John xx. 22 are to be understood-namely, as applying, first of all, to the general character of the Christian ministry, whose object it is to bring home to individual souls the forgiveness of sins; and next, in particular, to the exercise of Church discipline, just as the words "binding" and "loosing" had always been understood, in the Synagogue, of the imposition or removal of Church

censures.

It has been a favourite argument in support of Confession as now practised, that a pastor could not rightly prescrible for a spiritual disease unless the symptoms were laid before him.

But the implied analogy is fallacious in two ways. In the first place, the physicians of the soul are always prescribing for spiritual diseases in public lectures (so to say) gratuitously given. Cases are there hypothetically described, the method of relief and cure fully explained, and each patient, as he listens, may take to himself what it is of most importance for him to know.

In the next place, (and this covers the extreme case of spiritual diseases of a kind not usually treated fully in the pulpit,) the pastor who so preaches is ready to enforce and apply in private to the individual soul all the spiritual remedies he knows of.

But to absolve the soul from all its sins at any particular moment, or to declare it so absolved, is as though a physician of the body were to pronounce every case cured as soon as the regular remedies had been exhibited. No physician does so; few venture, in any serious case, even to promise recovery;-the more learned and the

more experienced they are, the more thoroughly they understand how much must be left in other hands.

Circumstances requiring prudence and discretion being put on one side, and anything like morbid self-consciousness discouraged, there can be no objection to the disclosure to the spiritual pastor of the symptoms of the spiritual disease, provided the honest intention is to seek, and, if conscientiously approved, to follow the advice which may be given.

Beyond this, there is no real analogy between the two things. Again, it is said that, to forbid the use of the kind of Absolution in question, is to deprive the penitent of the comfort he has a right to look for.

I think, Sir, that none of your readers will require to be reminded that a true penitent needs no further comfort than is to be derived from the certainty of God's promises on the one hand, and the witness of God's Spirit within him on the other. And if he be not really and truly penitent, why delude him with false hopes, by pretending to assure him he is forgiven?

Of the two forms of Absolution used in the public service, the first exactly reflects what I have taken to be the general sense of our Lord's words. God it is who forgives. He pardoneth and absolveth all those that be truly penitent. It is the part of His ministers to declare and pronounce that He does so. It is a "ministry of reconciliation," carrying with it the constant declaration of the terms on which the forgiveness of sins is extended to individual souls. In the same ministerial way, sacraments and means of grace carry with them forgiveness,—not absolutely, not in all cases, but conditionally, and to those whose state of mind corresponds to the grace offered.

In the Communion Service, the form of Absolution provided is really no more than a prayer.

In the Service for the Visitation of the Sick, the retention of an indicative form can be justified only on the supposition that it represents a comparatively private exercise of public and common discipline, the witnesses present representing the congregation. It is (as was most ably pointed out) immediately followed by a prayer for forgiveness.

Adopting the language of the modern revival in the sense in which it uses it, I have several times spoken of resorting to a "priest." But it is plain that the revived use of this word in a distinctive and pregnant sense, and not merely as an old name for one of the orders of the Christian ministry, is itself one of the cardinal errors of the movement.

Do those who so use it require, in truth, to be reminded that the word "priest" is only a shortened form of "presbyter," and really means nothing but "elder"? Do they, indeed, require to be told that the natural meaning of the word had become so changed, by the associations which had gathered round it,-associations drawn from the Pagan world, or based on false analogies drawn from Judaism, that our translators, when they came to "presbyter" in the New Testament, dared not translate it by its equivalent and literal representative "priest," but were obliged to render it "elder"?

Do they need to be reminded that in the Old Testament, still more curiously, the seventy "presbyters" of the LXX. were on the same principle rendered "elders," while the sons of Aaron were called "priests"-i.e., presbyters? And why, but that the shortened form of presbyter had become inextricably mixed up with mystical and sacrificial notions?

Would that it had also disappeared from the Book of Common Prayer! But it was retained there for the same reason which Hooker brings forward to justify its retention in his own daynamely, that it was the ancient and universal title by which the second order in the ministry had always been known. His remarks have now a very significant meaning "As for the people, when they hear the name, it draweth no more their minds to any cogitation of sacrifice, than the name of a Senator or of an Alderman causeth them to think upon old age, or to imagine that every one so termed must needs be ancient, because years were respected in the first nomination of both." (Ecc. Pol., v. 78. 3.) In Hooker's time no doubt this was true. The Church of Rome had not as yet lifted up her head again in England, and no one could foresee the birth, within the Reformed Church of the land, of that travesty of Romanism which has already grown to such extraordinary di

mensions.

In the Prayer Book of 1552, great care was taken to show, by the interchangeable use of the two titles, that "minister" and "priest were regarded as synonymous. The Absolution was to be pronounced by the "minister"; and in the Litany, for a hundred years, the Church of England prayed for "bishops, pastors, and ministers," where we now have "bishops, priests, and deacons." And this was one of the instances in which the revision of 1662 was plainly of a reactionary character. I cannot but think the extravagant claims and doings of modern Ritualism are fast affording a strange justification for what have seemed to us the idle quibbles of the Puritans.

But it did not escape the sagacity of Hooker that the names of the Christian Ministry were based upon "family," rather than "sacerdotal," associations. The whole body of the Church was the Family; its heads and rulers (who were also its servants) were the elders, assisted by deacons, that is to say "servants," and watched over by elders of elders, "bishops," overseers; and, in process of time, (as the system of Church government became expanded and solidified,) the overseers watched over in their turn by "patriarchs" (heads of tribes of families); and at last, they also by a " Pope," whose name of "Father" continued to bear witness to the impress of the family idea.

Nor should it escape our notice now, that the analogies drawn from the old dispensation are not only to be demurred to in limine, as untenable, the "veil " being "rent in twain," and all alike now "having access to the Father,"—but that, if to some extent we could allow them to have any force, they would afford no countenance whatever to the pretentions of modern " priests." The sons of Aaron, so far forth as they were priests, possessed no power over the congregation. Their duties were minutely laid down for them : they were of a purely ceremonial kind; and afforded no opportunity

for the exercise of a secret influence, or the gratification of ecclesiastical ambition. No priesthood in the world was ever more completely the servant of the congregation to which it ministered. From the return from the captivity, neither the worship of the synagogues, nor the management of public discipline, seem to have been in any special way, if indeed at all, connected with the priesthood. As a body, they remained still the ceremonial ministers of the Temple.

A double mistake, then, seems to have been made; and there are traces of it in the 3rd century, in the adoption of certain sacrificial words to designate the Christian ministry. First, the elders came to be commonly called "sacerdotes" (priests in the ordinary sense of that word); and, in the next place, the absolution of penitents came to be considered as a specially priestly function. I cannot but think it was far more the assumption of a Divine prerogative.

Much stress has indeed been laid on the fact, that in healing the paralytic, our Lord said, "the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." But, first, in His case, who was both God and man, the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, the words have a significance which could belong to no other child of Adam. And next, it would have been premature, and altogether beside His purpose, to have announced Himself, at that moment, as the Son of God. They had said, 'none but God could forgive sins;' He would show them that there was one man who could do so. But He was a man like to no other, a man who wrought an immediate miracle in attestation of the truth of His claims, which were, in point of fact, at the same time, Divine.

Nor is it altogether irrelevant to remark that those to whom He gave in some sort a power to remit sins, were also endued by Him with a power to work miracles.

On the whole, I contend that the power so given to the Apostles, was given to them as the representatives of the Church; and that the power so given was, first of all, the general power of conveying the forgiveness of sins through the functions pertaining to their office; and next, the special authority for the exercise of public discipline in the imposition and remission of Church censures.

These powers were given to persons who were not called priests, but missionaries, for such is the meaning of the word "Apostle." They were not formal or mechanical only, for they were given with the Holy Spirit. They were attached therefore to the spiritual work of the first Christian missionaries.

And, to recur to a distinction already insisted on, while every act of the faithful ministers of Christ does unquestionably set in motion a force, which is calculated to end in, and to secure, the forgiveness of sins for those to whom he ministers, especially and above all because the sanctions of Heaven are attached to his ministerial acts done in the name of Christ,-yet, I contend most earnestly that our Lord's words (take them as strongly as you will) give him no authority to pronounce that to have been done in a particular case, which, in general terms and on conditions, has been promised as the effect of his ministry.-I remain, dear Sir, your faithful servant,

AN ENGLISH CHURCHMAN.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

Family Prayers. Second Series. By the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, D.D., Metropolitan of Canada, and the Rev. C. H. Ramsden. London: Hatchards. 1874.- Daily Devotion throughout the Year. By Daniel Moore, M.A., &c. London: Kirby. 1874.-Daily Meditations. By the Rev. G. Bowen, of Bombay. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1873.-Sacred Trichords. London: Hatchards. 1874.-Those who are familiar with the First Series of Bishop Oxenden's Family Prayers-and we believe they are a numerous classwill be glad to be reminded that there is now a Second Series within their reach. The compilers have fully succeeded in what they have aimed at: "simplicity of expression, brevity in the construction of sentences, and directness of supplication.' The peculiarity of Mr. Daniel Moore's volume is, that what he terms the "Scripture Prayers" are framed on the successive portions of the New Testatament, as appointed in the Table of Lessons recently introduced into our worship. Family Prayers for a Fortnight, and a few for special occasions, are added. The volume is in great part rewritten from a former work, which has already obtained extensive circulation. "Daily Meditations" are reflections on brief and wellchosen passages of God's Word. They are the production of an American Missionary in Bombay, and will be found pregnant with holy thought. An interesting Memoir of Mr. Bowen is prefixed, by Dr. Hanna, in which the manner of Mr. Bowen's rescue from infidelity is described; in it there is a remarkable account of how Mr. Bowen was led astray by Gibbon's celebrated chapter on Christianity, and how Paley's Evidences was blessed to him. Upon Paley Mr. Bowen remarks, "We do not say that it is the book best adapted to all phases of scepticism, we do not think that it is; but to an out-and-out unbeliever of a logical turn of mind, we believe it is well adapted." "Sacred Trichords" is one of the ingenious arrangements by which the Word of God is broken up into small portions for daily use. A Text of the Old Testament is followed by a suitable verse of poetry, and to this is added a congenial text from the New Testament. The idea is happy, and well executed. “A threefold cord is not easily broken." In this book, too, the arrangement is for each day in the year.

A Lily among Thorns. By Emma Marshall. London: Seeleys. 1874.-A clever tale, in which the interest of the story is well sustained throughout. It can hardly be denominated a religious novel, although there is manifest a desire to inculcate some religious truth. Most of the characters are influenced purely by worldly considerations, and might find their place in one of Mr. Anthony Trollope's fictions quite as suitably as in the story in which they play their part. It is a curious indication of the style of modern thought and feeling, that the heroine, a fascinating young lady, is represented as making her way with the Vicar, a very attractive bachelor clergyman, to his Vicarage alone, after "undertaking the font" at his re