"An intolerable new burden": the Irish revision of 1878 and Taylor's teaching on private confession

No change has been made in the formula of Ordination of Priests, though desired by some; for, upon a full review of our Formularies, we deem it plain, and here declare that, save in the matter of Ecclesiastical censures, no power or authority is by them ascribed to the Church or to any of its Ministers in respect of forgiveness of sins after Baptism, other than that of declaring and pronouncing, on God's part remission of sins to all that are truly penitent, to the quieting of their conscience, and the removal of all doubt and scruple; nor is it anywhere in our Formularies taught or implied that confession to, and absolution by, a Priest are any conditions of God's pardon; but, on the contrary, it is fully taught that all Christians who sincerely repent, and unfeignedly believe the Gospel, may draw nigh, as worthy Communicants, to the Lord's Table without any such confession or absolution.

These words from the Preface to the Church of Ireland's 1878 Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, written against the background of Tractarian and Ritualist teaching on private confession and absolution, are often taken as an example of the supposed 'low church' nature of the 1878 revision.

They are, however, no such thing.  In fact, this is classical High Church teaching, rooted in the Laudian critique of Tridentine teaching.  Jeremy Taylor exemplifies this:

But since there is no necessity declared in scripture of confessing all our sins to a priest, no mention of sacramental penance, or confession, it must needs seem strange that a doctrine of which there is no commandment in scripture, no direction for the manner of doing so difficult a work, no office or officer described to any such purpose; that a doctrine, I say, of which in the fountains of salvation there is no spring, should yet become in process of time to be the condition of salvation. And yet for preaching, praying, baptizing, communicating, we have precept upon precept, and line upon line; we have in scripture three epistles written to two bishops, in which the episcopal office is abundantly described, and excellent canons established, and the parts of their duty enumerated: and yet no care taken about the office of 'father confessor'  ... [St. Paul] commands every one that is to receive the holy communion to “examine himself, and so let him eat:” he forgot, it seems, to enjoin them to go to confession to be examined: which certainly he could never have done more opportunely than here; and if it had been necessary, he could never have omitted it more undecently ... He that commanded His disciples to fast to God alone in private, intended that all the parts of repentance transacted between God and our consciences should be as sufficient as that one of fasting, and that other of prayer: and it is said so in all; for "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". It is God alone that can cleanse our hearts, and He that cleanses us, He alone does forgive us; and this is upon our confession to Him, His justice and faithfulness is at stake for it; and therefore it supposes a promise, which we often find upon our confessions made to God, but it was never promised upon confession made to the priest.

The Preface's particular reference to the form at the Ordination of Priests also echoes Taylor's insistence that the dominical words do not require private confession and absolution:

For the words of Christ are general and indefinite; and they are comprehensive of the whole power and ministry ecclesiastical : and in those parts of it which are evident and confessed, viz., preaching remission of sins and baptism, a special enumeration of our sins is neither naturally necessary, nor esteemed so by custom, nor made so by virtue of these words of Christ; therefore it is no way necessary, neither have they at all proved it so by scripture. 

What, however, of the Preface's statement regarding the special form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick?

The Special Absolution in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick has been the cause of offence to many; and as it is a form unknown to the Church in ancient times, and as we saw no adequate reason for its retention, and no ground for asserting that its removal would make any change in the doctrine of the Church, we have deemed it fitting that, in the special cases contemplated in this Office, and in that for the Visitation of Prisoners, absolution should be pronounced to penitents in the form appointed in the Office for the Holy Communion.

Here too we find coherence with Taylor's understanding:

The priest baptizes, and he absolves, and he communicates, and he prays, and he declares the will of God; and by importunity he compels men to come, and if he find them unworthy he keeps them out; but it is such as he finds to be unworthy: such who are in a state of perdition, he cannot, he ought not to admit to the ministries of life. True it is, he prays to God for pardon, and so he prays that God will give the sinner the grace of repentance; but he can no more give pardon than he can give repentance; He that gives this gives that. And it is so also in the case of absolution; he can absolve none but those that are truly penitent: he can give thanks indeed to God on his behalf; but as that thanksgiving supposes pardon, so that pardon supposes repentance; and if it be true repentance, the priest will as certainly find him pardoned as find him penitent. And there fore we find in the old penitentials and usages of the church, that the priest did not absolve the penitent in the indicative or judicial form ... the solemn form of reconciling, Absolvo te a peccais uis, is not perhaps above the age of four hundred years; and that the old form of absolution in the Latin church was composed in words of deprecation, so far forth as we may conjecture out of the ecclesiastical history, ancient rituals, tradition, and other testimonies without exception.” And in the Opuscula of Thomas Aquinas, he tells that a doctor said to him that the Optative form, or deprecatory, was the usual; and that then it was not thirty years since the indicative form of Ego te absolvo was used.

The suggestion that 1878 - particularly on this point - represented a 'low church' ethos only holds true if we assume Tractarian and Ritualist teaching to be High Church when, in fact, it was a profound rupture with the Old High Church tradition.  Retaining the dominical formula in the Ordination of Priests (in the face of low church demands for change), recognising a continued need for private absolution in "special cases" contemplated by the 1662 provision, and rejecting the Tractarian and Ritualist appropriation of Tridentine teaching, the 1878 Revision embodied the traditional High Church understanding exemplified in Taylor:

And indeed it were infinitely strange that since in the Old testament remission of sins was given to every one that confessed to God, and turned from his evil way, that in the New testament, to which liberty is a special privilege, and the imposed yoke of Christ infinitely more easy than the burden of the law, and repentance is the very formality of the gospel covenant; and yet that pardon of our sins shall not be given to us Christians on so easy terms as it was to the Jews, but an intolerable new burden shall be made a new condition of obtaining pardon. 

(All Taylor quotes are from The Second Part of a Dissuasive from Popery, Book I, Section XI 'Auricular Confession Imposed Without Authority from God'.)