PRIVATE MINISTRATIONS
1. The only private ministration for which detailed directions are
provided in the Prayer Book (other than Private Baptism, which has been
already noticed in Ch. V. § 6) is the Visitation of the Sick with the
Communion of the Sick in appropriate cases. With reference to this the
67th Canon directs that when any person is dangerously sick in the
parish, the minister or curate having knowledge thereof shall resort to
the sick person (if the disease is not known or reasonably suspected to
be infectious) to administer instruction and comfort 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. And when
any one is passing out of this life a bell is to be tolled, and the
minister shall not then be slack to do his duty. The Order for the
Visitation contains several alternative forms to suit different
circumstances. Among these is the provision for confession and
absolution. The minister is in all cases to examine the sick person
whether he repent him truly of his sins and be in charity with all the
world, and is to exhort him to forgive from the bottom of his heart all
who have offended him. This direction does not contemplate any
confession either particular or general, except so far as profession of
repentance involves admission of sins to be repented of. But the
minister is further to move the sick person to make a special confession
of his sins if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter;
and after this confession, if he humbly and heartily desires it, the
priest is to pronounce a prescribed form of absolution. It appears,
therefore, that confession is only contemplated if the sick person's
conscience is troubled with some weighty matter, and absolution is only
to be pronounced if (_a_) there has been confession, and (_b_) the sick
person desires it. Communion of the sick may take place either along
with or apart from the visitation. In either case there must be three,
or at least two, in addition to the minister, to communicate with him,
except in time of plague or similar contagious illness, when the
minister may communicate with the sick person alone. In every case he
must receive the Communion himself first, and then administer to the
sick person's friends, and to the sick person last. After a special
Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, the Order of Holy Communion is to be
followed from the words "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of
your sins" onwards. The Church of England at present permits no
administration of any reserved Sacrament to the sick nor any further
abbreviation of the service.[316] If the sick person is too ill to
receive the Communion in the prescribed way, or is otherwise impeded, he
is to be instructed that, without doing so with his mouth, he eats and
drinks the Body and Blood of Christ to his soul's health if he truly
repents of his sins, and steadfastly and thankfully believes in the
redemption wrought by Christ's death on the Cross for him.
2. The Prayer Book requires the incumbent of every parish to bring or
certify in writing to the bishop all persons within the parish whom he
thinks fit to be presented to the bishop for confirmation. No special
mode of preparation for that rite is prescribed beyond public
instruction in the Catechism (see above, Ch. V. § 9). But this _minimum_
is rightly in the present day not considered sufficient. Special
confirmation classes and private interviews with intending confirmees
are now almost universal, and form one of the most responsible and
important parts of the pastoral duties of the clergy.
3. Besides the ordinary occasions of Confirmation and Sickness, the
minister may be called upon to give spiritual advice or comfort to
persons whom he knows to be living evil lives or to be at enmity with
their neighbours, or who are troubled in conscience about coming to Holy
Communion, or generally about their spiritual state. In the first Prayer
Book of Edward VI. the Exhortation to be said in giving previous notice
of Holy Communion where the people were negligent in coming to it,
contained injunctions to reconciliation and charity among neighbours and
restitution of wrongs, without which "neither the absolution of the
priest can anything avail them nor the receiving of this holy sacrament
doth anything but increase their damnation." And it then referred to
confession and absolution in these terms:--
"And if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled and
grieved in anything lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to
me or to some other discreet and learned priest taught in the
law of God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly,
that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort
that his conscience may be relieved, and that of us (as of the
ministers of God and of the Church) he may receive comfort and
absolution to the satisfaction of his mind and avoiding of all
scruple and doubtfulness: requiring such as shall be satisfied
with a general confession not to be offended with them that do
use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret
confession to the priest; nor those also which think needful or
convenient, for the quietness of their own consciences,
particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended
with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God
and the general confession to the Church: but in all things to
follow and keep the rule of charity, and every man to be
satisfied with his own conscience, not judging other men's minds
or consciences where as he hath no warrant of God's word to the
same."
In the present Prayer Book, all allusion to "auricular" confession is
omitted. The minister simply exhorts that if any person cannot by his
own confession to God, with full purpose of amendment of life and by
reconciliation with any neighbours whom he may have offended, quiet his
own conscience with a view to receiving Holy Communion, he should come
to the incumbent of the parish, or to some other discreet and learned
minister of God's word, and open his grief, "that by the ministry of
God's holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution together with
ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience and
avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." The procedure is clearly
contemplated as exceptional, as respects (_a_) the persons who have
recourse to it, (_b_) the occasions on which they do so, and (_c_) the
sins or stumbling-blocks on which they consult the minister.
4. In addition to these more formal ministrations, a diligent clergyman
will pay frequent visits to his parishioners, and hold interviews or
correspondence with them on any questions of intellectual perplexity or
of practical difficulty in their daily life in reference to which they
may desire his counsel or assistance; but his action in these matters is
not regulated by law, and lies outside the scope of the present
treatise.
Footnote
[316] Archbishops' Hearing at Lambeth (1900) _Times_, May 2. The Prayer
Book of 1549 directed that if on the same day there was a celebration in
church, the priest should reserve (at the open Communion) so much of the
Sacrament of the body and blood as should serve the sick person and so
many, if any, as should communicate with him, and so soon as convenient
after the open Communion should go and minister the same first to any
appointed to communicate with the sick person, and last of all to the
sick person himself, after having previously made the general confession
and added the absolution and the comfortable words of Scripture as in
the Communion Office; and after the administration he was to say the
Collect "Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank," &c. But
if the day were not appointed for the open Communion, then the curate
should come and visit the sick person afore noon and celebrate the Holy
Communion according to the Order for the Communion of the Sick. But
these directions were omitted in 1552, and have not since been restored.