but _of_ England. It became a State Department, the archbishops and
bishops receiving their appointment, care of souls, and jurisdiction,
from the king, just as the judges, the officers of the army and navy,
are commissioned to their circuits, their regiments, and their ships.
The Crown is not only the fountain-head of all spiritual
governing-power, but the Crown, aided later by its Council, became the
final Court of Appeal in all disputes about doctrine.

The Established Communion, in its doctrinal code, the Thirty-nine
Articles, which each clergyman declares he accepts _ex animo_,
asserts that "Penance is not a sacrament of the Gospel." And in the
Book of Homilies, which the said Articles commend as containing "good
and wholesome doctrine," do we read: "We ought to acknowledge none
other priest for deliverance from our sins but Jesus Christ. * * * It
is most evident and plain that this auricular confession hath not the
warrant of God's word. * * * I do not say but that, if any do find
themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned
curate or pastor, _or to some other godly learned man_, and show the
trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive
at their hand the comfortable salve of God's word; but it is against
the true Christian liberty that any man should be bound to the
numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of
blindness and ignorance."[53] It is clear that both the Articles and
the Book of Homilies deny the power of absolution and the necessity of
confession as essential conditions, in the ordinary course of things,
for the forgiveness of sin.

The Book of Common Prayer--the Liturgy of the Anglican Communion--in
the office for visiting the sick, does urge the confession of the sick
person, and gives the form of absolution to be used by the minister.