ministrations, arise not from the genuineness of the ordinance. God in
His goodness rewards the honest intentions, the good dispositions, and
faith of those who receive them. The same manifestations of grace are
found among Methodists and Presbyterians; Episcopalians would be the
first to deny the reality and truth of Sacraments in these bodies.

But, it may be asked, how has such a change been wrought in the minds
of Episcopalians on both sides of the Atlantic? The Oxford movement of
some forty-five years ago turned men's minds to the early history of
the Church: and, finding confession and absolution then to be the
ordinary and necessary conditions for reconciliation with God, the
practice was introduced, but without seeing the important truth that,
besides valid ordination, there is needed jurisdiction from the
Church, so as to make absolution of avail.

This new school of religions opinion among Anglican and Protestant
Episcopalians contributes its share of testimony to uphold what the
Church of God has always taught, namely, that over and above having a
genuine supernatural sorrow for sin, there is ordinarily required on
the part of the sinner confession of sin, followed by the judicial
absolution of God's minister, approved and commissioned by the Church,
who alone possesses the power of the keys to remit or retain sin, and
who has therefore the sole right to approve and authorize confessors.

* * * * *

The constant practice of the Roman Church; the belief and practice of
the earliest schismatics; the existence of the Penitential Canons; the
statements of the Fathers, representatives of all Christian lands in
the first five centuries, when Latins and Greeks were in the