"Exercised in the sentence of absolution in the daily worship": Hobart and Old High teaching on the absolution

From an 1818 Charge of John Henry Hobart - the defining High Church influence in the pre-Tractarian PECUSA - demonstrating the Old High Church conviction that the absolution at Mattins and Evensong exercises the dominical charge given to the apostles. This general absolution is sufficient, avoiding the dangers of "auricular confession and private absolution". Hobart's words are a reminder of the Old High Church belief in the importance of the absolution given by the priest at Morning and Evening Prayer, and how the Tractarian promotion of auricular confession represented a profound rupture.

In the service of the Church the Churchman recognizes the power of authoritative absolution in the Christian ministry, founded on the declaration of Christ to his apostles, and through them to their successors to the end of the world - "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." While he acknowledges this power in the due administration of the sacraments and of ecclesiastical discipline, he considers it as also exercised in the sentence of absolution in the daily worship, by which he maintains God certifies, to those who truly repent and believe, the pardon of their sins.

But while in making this absolution a part of the daily service, he differs from his Protestant brethren in general, he even more essentially differs from the Church of Rome. For the Church of Rome makes the absolution of the Priest in the sacrament of penance essential to the salvation of every individual. The Churchman only considers a general absolution as an edifying and consolatory part of public service. The Church of Rome makes auricular confession - the private confession to the Priest by every individual of all his sins of thought, word, and deed - an indispensable condition of forgiveness. The Churchman justly deems auricular confession and private absolution, an encroachment on the rights of conscience, an invasion of the prerogative of the Searcher of Hearts, and, with some exceptions, hostile to domestic and social happiness, and licentious and corrupting in its tendency.

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

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