13 DECEMBER 1873, Page 3

Dr. Pusey sent the Times of last Saturday a Declaration,

signed by a good many of the High-Church party,—not of the rebel- lious Ritualists, but of the moderate Sacramentalists, including Canon Liddon,—(Archdeacon Denison seems to be about the farthest-going of the signataries), —defining exactly their view of the English Church's doctrine as to private Confession and Absolution. This view is that the Church does not per- mit her ministers to insist on confession as a condition of receiving the Communion, but that it does distinctly admit, and in some cases recommend to penitents, private confession ; and that while it always ascribes the forgiveness of sins directly to Jesus Christ, yet "that the priest, acting by a delegated authority and as an instrument," does convey the "absolving grace." As far as we can see, this position of the High-Church party, within the Church as defined by our formularies, is quite as impregnable as the position of the Low-Church party. The simple truth is that our Anglican Church does not, and never did, set forth a coherent theological system. That Church is a care- fully constructed compromise, without a distinct theological teaching of her own, and the only defence for such a compromise is not a logical or religious one,—that it presents the truth,—but an ecclesiastical and politic one,—that it comprehends a great many opposite views of revelation. We believe the priestly power and right to grant absolution to be a mischievous dream ; but we believe the same of the Calvinistic teaching of the 17th Article for example. These opposite doctrines are landmarks of the extreme range of the Church, not revelations of its mind ; indeed, a com- promise cannot be said, with even analogical propriety, to have a mind at all.