RITUALISM AND THE BISHOPS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
:Bru,—In your article on the Ritualists and the Bishops, you say that " the Protestants may fairly point to the public services, and -declare that as these show the change which was made where it was thought most needful and desirable to make it, they should be the standard," and you ground this argument on your previous -statements that " those who drew up our formularies gave up the priestly form of absolution, ' I absolve,' in the regular public services of the day, and exchanged it for a declaration that God _Himself absolves all who truly repent and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel," and that "in the public Communion service they -dispensed with all but the general confession of sins."
Now, the truth is that in the un-Reformed Communion Service, that is, the " Sarum Missal," the form of confession is quite as general" as in our own ; and that in the other "regular public services of the day," the only form of absolution which appears I(that of Prime and Compline) does not contain " I absolve," any more than our own. It runs as follows :—" Absolutionem et Temissionem omnium peccatorum vestrorum, spatium verse peni- tentia3, emendationem vase, gratiam et consolationem Sancti Spiritfis, tribuat vobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. Amen."
Is it not the fact that our formularies (or at least our services) were not " drawn up" by anyone whatever, but gradually adapted -from those previously in use, and that some knowledge of their history is needed for the formation of a fair judgment on their
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