But if it be said, There is no minute description or account of the mode of absolution, it may still be but declaratory or precatory; I say, then, turn once again to another place, and see if the form and method of the absolution be not there actually all which we can suppose even an Apostle himself could use. In the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, when the sick man is in the full contemplation of death, and perhaps death very near at hand, the priest being solemnly engaged in his office of preparing him for it, the distinct direction is given that the sick person shall be “moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort.” And the words are: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences;” (so far we have the declaration of the power left to the Church, and either, it may be said, declaratory or precatory words, “forgive thee.” But this is not all; immediately it is added), “And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” {90} Now, brethren, I do not desire to say much in comment on such words as these. But I do say, and I know not how to avoid saying, first, if such authority was committed to the priest, when was it committed to him, or how, but at his ordination, and in and by “the form and manner of ordering priests,” which we have before noted? And, secondly, can any reasonable being believe that the Church could have drawn up such a service, and put such words into the priest’s mouth when dealing solemnly and truly with a sick or dying man, and yet believe that such power of absolution, as a part of the priest’s distinctive character and endowment by God, had not been conferred upon him? or maintain that she thought our Blessed Lord’s commission extended no further than to its first recipients, and died out with the Apostles themselves, when still she uses the words continually in her “ordering of priests?” If it be said,—Well: still we cannot believe this, and can only say that we heartily desire to remove from our Prayer-book and Ordinal, as a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit, all traces of such authority being given,—I can only reply that this argument is wholly beside our present question. I am not now arguing whether such an interpretation and use of Holy Scripture be the right interpretation and use, (though I have given reasons before for feeling sure it is,) but I am shewing what is the mind and understanding herein of the Church of England. I am silencing, if I may, (and in the judgment of right reason I cannot conceive that I should fail in doing so,) the calumny that they who