"The power of authoritative absolution": Hobart on the Absolution at Mattins and Evensong

Another example of the Old High Church understanding of the Absolution in "the daily service" is seen an 1818/19 Charge given by John Henry Hobart, Bishop of New York:  

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.

Note how Hobart here repeats the well-established Laudian and High Church view that the power of keys was more expansive than absolution, referring to wider ministerial acts.  Including absolution, however, it finds expression in the Absolution at Mattins and Evensong: here is "authoritative absolution", flowing from the dominical commission.  Alongside this, Hobart's rejection of auricular confession and private absolution reflects the 18th century High Church tradition's increased reserve regarding even its occasional practice. 

It is worth noting Hobart's Hookerian emphasis. The reference to "some exceptions" echoes Hooker relating private confession and absolution to "particular enormous crimes".  The concern regarding "rights of conscience" is also seen in Hooker's emphasis that it is "the safer way, to refer men's hidden crimes unto God and themselves only".  Finally, of course, the belief in the efficacy of the Absolution in the daily service is rooted in Hooker's affirmation that the difference between general and private absolution "is not so material, that any man's safety or ghostly good should depend upon it" (LEP VI.4.15).