ABSOLUTION, a term used in civil and ecclesiastical law, denotes the act of setting free or acquitting. In a criminal process it signifies the acquittal of an accused person on the ground that the evidence has either disproved or failed to prove the charge brought against him. It is now little used except in Scotch law, in the forms assoilzie and absolvitor. The ecclesiastical usage of the word is essentially different from the civil. It refers to sin actually committed, and denotes the setting of a person free from its guilt, or from its penal consequences, or from both. It is invariably connected with penitence, and some form of confession, the Scripture authority, to which the Roman Catholics, the Greek Church, and Protestants equally appeal, being found in John xx. 23, James v. 16, &c. In the primitive church the injunction of James was literally obeyed, and confession was made before the whole congregation, whose presence and concurrence were reckoned necessary to the validity of the absolution pronounced by the presbyter. In the 4th century the bishops began to exercise the power of absolution in their own right, without recognising the congregations. In consequence of this the practice of private confession (confessio auricularis) was established, and became more and more common, until it was rendered imperative once a year by a decree of the fourth Lateran Council (1215). A distinction, indeed, was made for a time between peccata venialia, which might be confessed to a layman, and peccata mortalia, which could only be confessed to a priest; but this was ultimately abolished, and the Roman Canon Law now stands, Nec venialia nec mortalia possumus confiteri sacramentaliter, nisi sacerdoti. A change in the form of absolution was almost a logical sequence of the ...

in the church of Rome, is a sacrament, in which the priests assume the power of forgiving sins. The rite of absolution in the church of England is acknowledged to be declarative only--“Almighty God hath given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins: He pardoneth,” &c. In this view it is innocent; and although any private Christian has a right to declare and pronounce the same doctrine to his neighbour, the _official_ publication of the grace of the Gospel is the public duty of its ministers in the congregation, since they are Christ’s “ambassadors.”