LORD HUGH CECIL ON CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE SPECTATOR-"]
Sra,—The difficulty which Mr. Stephens finds in the words of our Ordinal, understood to convey the power of ministerial absolution, " Whose sins thou dust forgive, they are forgiven . . .," arises from the idea that it is the ordaining bishop who confers that power, and that the power to absolve resides in the person of the priest. Those of us who find this idea impossible, and who understand that the priest absolves only as the agent of the Church, that he is but the hand and voice of the Church in the forgiving or retaining, can adopt the words without embarrassment, and encourage a Free Church minister to do the same. But in truth this principle, that the priest (and the bishop) is the agent of the Church, and his ordination (sr con- secration) is the act of the Church—an act of communion of the Church and the minister, and of both with Christ—holds in it the solution of the problem of reunion of the Churches so far as reunion turns on the question of ministerial orders. I have not seen this principle recognized in the present discussion. If established it would do much to break down " the middle wall of partition " between the Anglican and the Free [We cannot continue this correspondence.—Ea. Spectator.]
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