It is incorrect to say with Bingham (Antiq., xix. 2, 5) that there were no instances of the indicative forms of Absolution current before the twelfth century, since we find such forms in the Pontifical of Egbert, archbishop of York, 734–767, published by the Surtees Society (vol. xxvii.). In the MS. of this Pontifical there is inserted in an eleventh-century hand a Form of Absolution in Anglo-Saxon, of which the following is a translation :

"Brethren beloved, we absolve you of the bands of your sins, as representing Peter, chief of the Apostles, to whom our Lord gave the power to bind for sins and to loose again; and so far as the accusation of your sins belongs to you, and the forgiveness of them to us, so far be God Almighty life and preservation against all your sins, forgiven through Him who with Him liveth and reigneth through worlds and worlds."

It is important to notice that this indicative form of Absolution occurs in a Pontifical, which is a bishop's service-book, containing those offices which could only be performed by a bishop, or by a person specially authorised to act in his place. And any indicative forms of Absolution current before the twelfth century were used only by bishops, or delegates specially appointed, to authoritatively pronounce sentence of restoration to those who had been cut off from the communion of the Church.

2. Mediæval and Roman. The first writer to defend formally the (judicial) indicative form was the celebrated Thomas Aquinas (1227–1274) in his short work, De forma absolutionis. That at this time the practice was a novel one is clear from the account Aquinas himself gives of a certain learned man who found fault with it on the ground that up to within thirty years of his writing, i.e. about the year 1220, the only form used by the priests and known to the objector was the deprecatory one, Almighty God give thee remission and forgiveness" (see Usher's Answer to Jesuits' Challenge, c. 5). And Aquinas acknowledges that "in some absolutions, which were even then allowed of, the form was still optative and not indicative" (Summa Theol., iii. 84, 3).

"

It was in the thirteenth century that we find beginning a mixture of the deprecatory and indicative forms of Absolution; and many contemporary theologians asserted that the deprecatory procured from God the sinner's pardon, the indicative reconciled him to the Church. So Alexander of Hales (ob. 1245) the distinguished Franciscan schoolman, speaking of Absolution and of the twofold office of the priest as suppliant and superior says:

"In the first way, he is qualified for obtaining grace by his supplication on the

sinner's behalf. In the second way, his province is reconciling the sinner to the Church. In token of this there is premised to the formulary of absolution a prayer, by way of deprecation; and then absolution itself follows, which is pronounced indicatively. The prayer obtains it; the absolution itself pre-supposes the grace of forgiveness, since the priest would never absolve but on the presumption that the party was already absolved by God."

It was not till 1268 that the indicative form of Absolution was authoritatively ordered to be used in respect to sins against God. The Constitution of Cardinal Othobon in a national council held that year at St. Paul's in London, enjoined that those who heard confessions should absolve in the precise words subjoined, "By the authority vested in me I absolve thee from thy sins" (Ego te a peccatis tuis auctoritate qua fungor te absolvo).

The recognised form of Absolution in the Roman Church is, "I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritûs Sancti); and the sense of this form is defined thus, "I judicially bestow on thee the grace of the remission of all thy sins, or grace of itself remissive of all thy sins, as far as is in the power of my ministry." The interpretation "I declare thee absolved" is anathematised by the Council of Trent (sess. 14, can. 9):—

"Whosoever shall affirm that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but merely a ministry to pronounce and declare that the sins of one confessing are remitted. . . . let him be anathema."

3. Church of England. In our English Prayer Book we have three forms of Absolution, Declaratory, Precatory, and Indicative.

(1) Declaratory.-In the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer,

"He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His Holy Gospel,"

it is simply a solemn declaration of God's pardon to each penitent believer; and that no forgiveness is conveyed in this absolution is evident from the exhortation following the declaration: "Wherefore let us beseech Him to grant us true repentance, and His Holy Spirit," &c.

Up to the time of the Hampton Court Conference this form was entitled "The Absolu tion," the explanatory words "or remission of sins" being added at the revision to meet the objections of those who considered the expression "the Absolution" standing by itself to be too popish. The form was probably

based on that in the Liturgy of John à Lasco, whose Absolution is in many phrases identiIcal with our own. (See Procter's Book of Common Prayer, appendix to ch. 2.)

(2) Precatory.-(a) In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick. The former clause of the Absolution in that office runs :

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power in His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences." (8) In the Order of the Administration of the Lord's Supper, and in the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea :

"Almighty God... have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins." It is to be observed that this Absolution is addressed to the whole congregation assembled; and so, as is fitting in the case of those who are assembled to join in this solemn act of Christian worship, or of those who are in imminent danger of death, there is a tone of greater assurance and solemnity about it than in the form used in the daily services.

This Absolution, which assumed its present form in 1549, is based on that in the Sarum Missal, and ran :

"Almighty and merciful God grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, space for true repentance, and amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit."

It is interesting to note that the absolution given by the Church or congregation to the priest furnished the wording which our Reformers selected and retained.

In the "Order of Communion" 1548 the preamble was added :—

"Our blessed Lord, who hath left power to His Church to absolve penitent sinners from their sins, and to restore to the grace of the Heavenly Father such as truly believe in Christ; have mercy upon you, pardon" &c. (as in the present form).

The Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea were

ie. The minor clergy, or lay quasi-clergy. For much interesting light on the gradual steps by which the Lay Absolution by the Church of the priest came to be obscured, see Simmons Lay Folks' Mass Book, p. 257.

inserted in the Prayer Book in 1662. When there is imminent danger, the service consists merely of the Confession and Absolution taken from the Communion Office. The rubric is particularly worthy of notice :

"When there shall be imminent danger, as many as can be spared . . . shall be called together, and make an humble confession of their sin to God; in which every one ought seriously to reflect upon those particular sins of which his conscience shall accuse him."

Observe that here nothing is said of auricular confession or private absolution.

(3) Indicative. -In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick. The latter clause of this Absolution runs :

"By His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

The rubric preceding this Absolution lays it down that the sick person is to be moved to make a special confession of his sins if he be troubled in conscience by any weighty matter; and that Absolution is to be used only if he heartily desire it; and further that the priest has no "judicial" discretion as to refusing Absolution, "if he humbly and heartily desire it." By the Reformers the use of this Absolution was restricted to this particular case; and by Canon 67 the use of the whole service is rendered optional to a clerk who has received a licence from the bishop to preach :

:

...

'When any person is dangerously sick in any parish, the minister or curate shall resort unto him or her . . . to instruct and comfort them in their distress, according to the order of the Communion book if he be no preacher; or, if he be a preacher, then as he shall think most needful and convenient."

This Absolution probably has reference to Church censures, for, in the prayer following, which was itself the original Absolution and is found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (Palmer, Orig. Lit., 8) the sick man

(a) is described as still "earnestly desiring pardon and forgiveness," which there would be no occasion to do had he already received that pardon;

(8) is prayed for that he may be "preserved and continued in the unity of the Church," which implies that by the foregoing Absolution he had been restored to that unity (cf. Article XXXIII.).

If moreover, this Absolution conveyed forgiveness of sins against God, the Church would surely have pressed it earnestly upon all men, and not have left it for the benefit of one making "a special confession of his sins." See, further,

Wheatley, On the Common Prayer, c. xi., where the view here taken is ably argued. Another view has been maintained-that the Absolution is declaratory, "the declaration of God's will to a penitent sinner, that upon the best judgment the priest can make of his repentance, he esteems him absolved before God, and accordingly pronounces and declares him absolved" (Bingham, Antiq. xix. 2, 67; see also his Two Sermons on the Nature and Necessity of the Several Sorts of Absolution-well worth study). To this view the difficulty attaches of accounting for the prayer following the Absolution; we should expect first prayer for deliverance, then the declaration of it.

At the Savoy Conference it was proposed that the form should run, "I pronounce thee absolved if thou dost truly repent and believe." The answer of the bishops was: "The form of absolution in the liturgy is more agreeable to the Scriptures than that which they desire, it being said in John xx., 'Whose sins you remit, they are remitted,' not 'whose sins you pronounce remitted'; and the condition needs not to be expressed, being always necessarily understood" (Cardwell, Conferences, p. 361).

This form of Absolution, together with prefixed rubric on special confession, is entirely omitted in the Prayer Book of the American Protestant Episcopal Church. It was permitted by the Irish Form for Visitation of Prisoners of 1711 in the case of criminals under sentence of death.

In the Church of Scotland the following form was formerly used for the restoration of penitents to Church Communion :

"Whereas thou hast been shut out for thy sin from the congregation of the faithful, and hast now manifested thy repentance, wherein the Church resteth satisfied: in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, before the congregation, I pronounce and declare thee absolved from the sentence of excommunication formerly pronounced against thee, and do receive thee into the communion of the Church, and the free use of all the ordinances of Christ, that thou mayest be partaker of all His benefits to thy eternal salvation." 4. Absolution of the Dead. We have some instances of forms of Absolution in the case of persons who had died excommunicate. A stone coffin was discovered in Chichester Cathedral in 1826, and by it a thin leaden plate on which was engraved a form of Absolution granted to Geoffry, bishop of Chichester in 1088. It ran as follows:

"Absolvimus te Gode fride Epē vice Sci Petri principis

Apto cui Dâus dedit

ligandi atque solvendi

potestatem ut quañtu tua expetit accusatio et ad nos pertineat remisio sit tibi deus redemptor omps salus omni peccatorum tuorum pius indultor. Amen." In 1326 a commission was issued from the Archbishop of Canterbury to enable one who had died excommunicate to be buried with Christian rites; and an Absolution is ordered to be pronounced over the dead man. Another was granted in 1369, also by the Archbishop (Maskell, Monum. Rit. Eccl. Ang., 2, clxxviii., 2nd edition). The student may see the text of these commissions in Wilkins's Concilia (1737), vol. ii.

5. Literature.

Aquinas De forma Absolutionis-Opuscula, xxii.

Morinus: De Pænitentia, viii. cc. 8 ff. Maskell Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Angli

canae.

Martene: De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus. Bingham: Antiquities of the Christian Church. Marshall: Penitential Discipline of the Early Church.

Pusey's Tertullian, pp. 376-408.

Reichel (Bp.): History and Claims of the Confessional.

See also the articles ABJURATION, ABSOLUTION, ASSURANCE, CONFESSION, in this Dictionary; and the literature mentioned under these heads. [A. W. G.] ABSTINENCE.-See FASTING. ABYSSINIAN CHURCH.-See EASTERN CHURCHES.

ACCIDENTS.-See MASS and TRANSUBSTAN

TIATION.

ACOLYTE.-A minor order in the Church of Rome. See ORDERS. The acolyte (i.e. "follower") has the duty of lighting the lamps, and assisting the priest at mass by handing to him the bread and wine, holding the Gospel for him to read, and in other ways. All such ceremonies were declared unlawful in the Church of England by Judgment of the Court of Arches (Sir Robert Phillimore) in the case of Elphinstone v. Purchas.

ACT OF FAITH.-See AUTO DA FÉ. ADMONITION or Monition is an order of an

ecclesiastical judge directing the performance of a certain act-e.g. to reside on a benefice, to remove illegal ornaments, &c. The order has to be formally served, and disobedience is punished by inhibition, and ultimately by deprivation or imprisonment. Execution of a monition may be suspended during an appeal. The formalities as to monitions vary under different Acts of Parliament. See Chitty's Church and Clergy Statutes, by Lely and Whitehead.

ADORATION OF THE CROSS.-A service of the Church of Rome used on Good Friday, during

which a crucifix is unveiled, kissed, and adored on their knees by the priest and congregation. This service has been of recent years introduced by Ritualists into the service of the Church of England. See CROSS. ADORATION OF THE EUCHARIST.— The practice of worshipping the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

This is one of the consequences of the dogma of the Objective Presence in the elements. If Christ has entered into the bread and into the cup when the priest consecrated them and thereby made them to be His body and blood, their worship becomes intelligible, though still open to the charge of the Nestorianism which worships a part of Christ instead of His person. If the bread is the symbol of Christ's body and the wine of His blood, and if their participation is an appointed means of conveying to the duly qualified soul the benefits of His passion, to worship them is a superstition as unreasonable as it would be to worship the water through means of which the grace of baptism is conveyed. The first of these views, originating in the ninth century, was authorised for Latin Christendom in the thirteenth century under the name of Transubstantiation, and it was rejected by the Church of England in the sixteenth century. With it fell the practice of Adoration of the Sacrament. When the doctrine of the Objective Presence in the bread and wine, encouraged by Dr. Pusey and taught by Archdeacon Wilberforce, crept back into the Church of England, with it came a doctrine undistinguishable from Transubstantiation, and the practice of Eucharistical Adoration.

Christ said that His absence from earth in His human nature was expedient for His Church, which should be ruled by the Holy Spirit, His only Vicar. But men would not continue to believe this. They would themselves create His bodily presence on earth, as He had not vouchsafed it. In heaven He was too far off; they could not lift up their hearts so high. They could raise them as far as to the altar, but not to heaven. Christ must be here in His humanity as well as by His divine Spirit, and they must be able to bring Him down (comp. Exod. xxxii. 1), and to cause Him, at their will, to appear under the form of bread and wine, which, however, were not bread and wine but Himself in person. So the weak and timid faith, which was not brave enough to launch itself upwards to the throne of God, called Him down to be within reach, and having Him thus an object of sight felt relieved from making the too great effort that had been demanded of it, and sank lower and lower till it worshipped the Sacrament, outward part and all, as God and in place of God. Image worship arose

and justified itself in the same way. Christ in heaven was lost to view, hidden by the intervening clouds, but the crucifix could be seen: there it was-before the eyes-near at hand -and it could be reached by a far feebler effort of the soul. In Eucharistic adoration and in image worship alike spirituality is lost and a superstitious materialism is substituted.

Is it conceivable that when our Lord held out the bread to His Apostles at the Last Supper they prostrated themselves and worshipped it as being Himself that He was holding in His hand? Did they worship the wine that they drank in turn as being Christ in all the integrity of His soul and body, and did the Evangelist say no word of such an act? Could the Corinthians have worshipped the bread and the wine which they confounded with the ordinary bread and wine that they were eating and drinking at a social meal? Could the early Apologists have been full of their scornful taunts of the heathen for wor shipping the material representations of their divinities, if they had been open to the retort that they habitually did the same? It was not possible that Adoration of the Sacrament could exist until the doctrine of Transub. stantiation, sanctioned in 1215, was admitted. It was hardly possible that it should not arise after that dogma had been adopted. At the Reformation it necessarily fell to the ground, on Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass being repudiated. When this took place there were some that objected altogether to kneeling at reception, lest it should countenance Adoration of the Sacrament. To meet this objection, and at the same time to stamp with condemnation adoration whether of the elements or of Christ in the elements, there was inserted, in 1552, the so-called Black Rubric, declaring the adoration of the elements to be idolatrous and the corporal presence of Christ "here" to be impossible, as He had but one natural body and that was in heaven, while it expressed approval of kneeling as signifying humility and thankfulness and preventing disorder. In 1559 it was thought that this rubric might be safely dropped, but as the objection to kneeling still prevailed in 1662 and the danger of a recrudescence of adoration was discerned, it was reinserted, with a verbal alteration, at the final revision in 1662, and it still stands as the rule of the English Church.

Ritualist manuals have a great difficulty to find authority for Eucharistical Adoration in the Anglican divines. It is easy to find exhortations to worship Christ in heaven while commemorating in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion His sacrifice on the Cross. But these passages not only do not commend the

For

worship of Christ in the Sacrament but they teach the truth which this practice parodies; yet these words are taken as though they contained an approval of the practice. Even Ridley, though he has distinctly declared that "adoration" in this connection means no more than "reverent treatment" (according to the old signification of the word), is quoted as favourable to the worship of the Eucharist (Ritual Reason Why, 359), and Jeremy Taylor is paraded as a supporter of the same tenet (a passage, lending itself to a misunderstanding, being cited) although he has discussed the point at length and condemned the practice unreservedly. The following are some of his words: "The commandment to worship God alone is so express; the distance between God and bread dedicated to the service of God is so vast; the danger of worshipping that which is not God, or of not worshipping that which is God, is so formidable, that it is infinitely to be presumed that if it had been intended that we should have worshipped the Holy Sacrament, the Holy Scripture would have called it God or Jesus Christ, or have bidden us in express terms to have adored it.. concerning the action of adoration this I am to say, that it is a fit address in the day of solemnity, with a sursum corda, with our hearts lift up to heaven, where Christ sits (we are sure) at the right hand of the Father; for Nemo digne manducat nisi prius adoraverit, said St. Austin, 'No man eats Christ's body worthily but he that first adores Christ'; but to terminate the divine worship to the sacrament, to that which we eat, is so unreasonable and unnatural and withal so scandalous, that Averroes observing it to be used among the Christians with whom he had the ill-fortune to converse, said these words: Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt, sit anima mea cum philosophis, 'Since Christians worship what they eat, let my soul be with the philosophers'" (Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, § 13). Again: "We may not render divine worship to Him as present in the blessed sacrament according to His human nature, without danger of idolatry; because He is not there according to His human nature, and therefore you give divine worship to a non ens, which must needs be idolatry. . . . He is present there by His divine power and His divine blessing and the fruits of His body, the real effective consequents of His passion; but for any other presence, it is idolum, it is nothing in the world. Adore Christ in heaven, for the heaven must contain Him till the time of the restitution of all things. . . . God is a jealous God; He spake it in the matter of external worship and of idolatry; and therefore do nothing that is like worshipping a

mere creature, nothing like worshipping that which you are not sure is God; and if you can believe the bread, when it is blessed by the priest, is God Almighty, you can, if you please, believe anything else. . . . If it be transubstantiated, and you are sure of it, then you may pray to it and put your trust in it, and believe the holy bread to be co-eternal with the Father and with the Holy Ghost. . . . But I am ashamed of the horrible proposition" (Letter to a Gentleman that was Tempted to the Communion of the Romish Church).

Yet this is the author especially relied upon as an Anglican witness to Eucharistical Adoration (Ritual Reason Why, 359; E.C.U. Declaration of 1900).

The Ritual Reason Why attaches great importance to the priest's adoration and gives its reasons for "the priest worshipping after each consecration," which, professing to describe English practice, it calmly says that he does. "By his twofold adoration he expresses the truth that 'Christ being dead dieth no more"" (Ibid. 362). We are at a loss to see how that signification is attached to a second act of worship, done to the wine. The real reason of Roman priests making this "twofold adoration" is that Anselm formulated the tenet (consequent upon Transubstantiation) that the whole Christ is made to exist under each species. Therefore not only is the bread Christ but the wine also is Christ. Why then should not the wine be adored as well as the bread, and separately from the bread? Ritualists often adopt Roman practices without at first apprebending their real purpose, and then the practice leads to the doctrine. [See Lord Halifax in Lord's Day and Holy Eucharist, p. 3, and note Ch. Assoc. Tract No. 219 on "The Gospel of Expiation."-ED.] [F. M.] ADVERTISEMENTS, i.e. Official Notices.This name, though used of various public notices given by authority, is now usually connected with the celebrated regulations described in the twenty-fourth Canon as "the Advertisements (admonitiones) published anno 7 Eliz." That description, however, was inexact, as the Advertisements were not, in fact, "published" until March 1566, whereas the" seventh year of Elizabeth" ended on November 16, 1565. The explanation is that the legal force of the Advertisements depended entirely on the Queen's Letter directing the Primate and his fellow "Commissioners under the great seal for causes ecclesiastical" (in other words, the episcopal members of the High Commission, who formed a quorum for such matters), to publish "Orders or Injunctions" for carrying out the Queen's disciplinary plans. A long time necessarily intervened, because the Commissioners were directed first to inquire into