"Sufficient for the conveyance of remission of sins": Mant on the Absolution at Mattins and Evensong

From Richard Mant's 1836 The Churches of England and Rome Compared, an example of Old High Church teaching on the sufficiency of the general absolution at the daily service and Holy Communion, and how private confession was to be understood as a "rare occurrence".  Also significant is the emphasis on absolution "not as a judicial, but as a ministerial act", characteristic of the Anglican ethos of pastoral, rather than sacerdotal, ministry:

according to the provisions of the Church of England, the "Absolution," pronounced by the minister in ordinary cases, has a general reference to the whole congregation; and it is only on one special occasion , the terms of which make it of rare occurrence, that it takes in this respect a different character ...

No such confession is esteemed necessary or required by the Church of England: in common cases, a general confession of sin is provided by her as the preliminary to absolution, such confession being addressed to Almighty God, not to the priest; and by the priest, as well as by the people . In case of "a special confession of sins" to the priest, it is made by the free will of him who makes it ...

Particular absolution is limited by the Church of England to those, who in sickness "feel their conscience troubled with any weighty matter," and who thereupon, having "made a special confession of their sins," "humbly and heartily desire" the priest to absolve them: the general forms of absolution in her daily services, and in the administration of the holy communion, following upon the general forms of confession of sin, being esteemed by her sufficient for the conveyance of remission of sins to her congregations ...

By the Church of England, absolution is practised, not as a judicial, but as a ministerial act: the priest performs the part, not of a judge, but of the authorised dispenser of God's pardon to those on whom God has promised and vouchsafes to bestow it . This is quite plain in the forms of words, prescribed for the Orders of daily Prayer and for the ministration of the holy communion.