words of administration, once in giving the bread and wine to a number
that by the ministry of God's Word he may receive the benefit of absolution"?
It is impossible, with any fairness, to extract auricular confession and sacramental absolution out of this passage. The simple meaning is, that people who are troubled in mind with some special difficulties of conscience, are advised to go to some minister and talk privately with him about them, and to get them cleared up and resolved by texts of Scripture, that is," by the ministry of God's Word." This is exactly what every wise minister in the present day does with those who seek private interviews with him, or wait for an after-meeting at the end of a sermon. But it is as utterly unlike the mischievous practice of habitual confession before communion, as wholesome medicine is unlike opium-eating, and water is unlike poison.
26. Does a minister do anything wicked or wrong if he pronounces the words of administration, once in giving the bread and wine to a number of communicants altogether, and not to each one separately he certainly does nothing wrong according to Scripture. he does exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ did when He first instituted the Lord's Supper. In each of the four accounts given in the New Testament, He used the plural number and not the singular. In each He pronounced the words once, and only once, and then gave the bread and wine to the whole company of the Apostles. In the face of our Lord's own example, to blame and condemn ministers who find it necessary to do the same, is surely not wise.
27. Does not the rubric of the Prayer Book order that the minister shall say the words of administration to each communicant separately?
Most certainly it does. Yet reason and common sense point out that the compilers of the Prayer Book could not have meant this rubric to be interpreted and obeyed literally and exactly, when such obedience is seriously inconvenient, if not impossible. When a clergyman with only one curate has to give the elements of bread and wine to 300 or 400 persons, the service must necessarily be so long, that aged and delicate people are wearied, and any following service is interfered with, or prevented altogether. No doubt, when the rubric was drawn up, parishes were small, communicants were few, there were no Sunday Schools, and