The power of the keys and the High Church tradition: definitively Protestant

In a recent paper on The North American Anglican, Onsi A. Kamel convincingly argues that both Thomas Cartwright and Richard Hooker held to a Reformed understanding of the 'power of the keys'.  Whereas Roman teaching saw this power exercised in priestly absolution in the Sacrament of Penance, the Reformed view was that the power is dispensed "in the ministry of the Word, the sacraments, and discipline".  While there were undoubted differences of emphasis between Hooker and Cartwright, "on this issue ... Anglicans and Puritans were both committed to the broader Reformed theological movement".

Of particular interest here is that Hooker's stance, "following Jewel and Calvin", is also the stance of the Laudian and High Church traditions.  From the 17th to the 19th centuries, this can be consistently seen in influential figures in these traditions.  John Cosin, preaching at an episcopal consecration in 1626, declared of the offices of bishop and priest:

the holy Ghost is then given them, partly to direct and strengthen then in their ways, and partly to assume unto Itself, for the more assurance and authority, those actions which belong to their place and calling. And such is the Power of the Keys.

The Laudian Richard Montague in his A New Gagg for an Old Goose (1624) - which provoked intense criticism and controversy for its supposed 'popery' - insisted of Saint Paul's summary of the power of the keys in 2 Corinthians 5:19:

It is not to purpose of forgiuing sinnes by delegated authority vnto a Priest, but of Reconciling by the whole office and function of the ministry.

William Beveridge, a High Church figure in both the post-Restoration (appointed an incumbent in 1661) and post-Glorious Revolution (consecrated bishop in 1704) periods, similarly identified the power of the keys with the work of the priest (quoted by Mant):

the persons, who are ordained priests in his Church, are to preach the same word, administer the same sacraments, and exercise the same power in the censures of the Church, as the apostles themselves did. And therefore it is necessary, that they should be endued with the same Spirit, ordained after the same manner, and entrusted with the same power of the keys, as the apostles themselves were.

Charles Wheatly's commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1710 and republished repeatedly thereafter, was a High Church staple throughout the 18th century.  Wheatly says of the ministerial office:

God has committed to them the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whosesoever sins they remit, they shall be remitted; whosesoever sins they retain, they shall be retained. They are the Stewards of the mysteries of God, and the dispensers of his holy word and sacraments: in a word, they are the ambassadors of heaven; and on their ministrations the assistances of the holy Spirit, and all the graces of a good life depend.

Finally, we move to the a different era, to the conflict between the Old High Church tradition and Tractarians in the Victorian Church.  In his 1874 Pastoral Letter On Confession and Absolution, Bishop of Lincoln Christopher Wordsworth invoked the traditional High Church teaching against the Tractarian notion that the power of the keys was a reference to private absolution:

we may say in reply to the question, What is the force of the words, "Whosesoever sins ye remit," spoken by our Blessed Lord to the Apostles on the evening of the Resurrection, after He had breathed upon them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," and spoken to the Priests of the Church of God at their ordination, that they contain a commission and a power derived from the Holy Ghost, given by the Eternal Son of the Father - to remit sin by applying those means which Christ has instituted and appointed for its remission; namely - (1). The sincere Word of God duly preached. The declaration of remission of sins in Christ's name to all those who repent and believe. (2). The Holy Sacrament of Baptism duly administered. (3). The Holy Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist rightly consecrated, and fully and freely dispensed. (4). The prayers of the Priesthood for the forgiveness of sins.

From the Laudian era, through the 'long 18th century', to the latter part of the 19th century, we see the High Church tradition consistently defining the power of the keys after Hooker: that is, in a Reformed manner.  The power of the keys was exercised by bishops and presbyters in the ministry of Word and Sacrament: it did not have exclusive, primary, or normative reference to private absolution.  This is suggestive of the fundamentally Reformed character of the tradition in its various iterations: eirenic, often distinctive in expression, but definitively Protestant in central doctrinal commitments.