  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.
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