solve the offender in sickness, when
penitent, without the formal absolution under the Court Seal.
Commutation for penances he did not approve of, but would sometimes
allow them on the advice of the minister of the parish; the commutation
to be entirely applied to Church uses and as notoriously as the offence
had been. The public good was to be the rule.[1248] Secker's
instructions to the clergy of Oxford in 1753 are still more full, though
he prefaces them by the acknowledgment that he is 'perfectly sensible
that both immorality and religion are grown almost beyond the reach of
ecclesiastical power, which, having been in former times unwarrantably
extended, hath been very unjustly cramped and weakened many ways.'[1249]
Five years later, in his first Canterbury Charge, Secker speaks much
less confidently on this subject. Wickedness, he said, of almost every
kind, had made dreadful progress, but ecclesiastical authority was 'not
only too much hindered, but too much despised to do almost anything to
any purpose. In the small degree that it could be exerted usefully he
trusted it would be.'[1250] He expressed himself to the same effect and
still more regretfully in his last written production, his 'Concio coram
synodo' in 1761.'[1251]

Fleetwood reminded the clergy and churchwardens that they were to
present not only for flagitious conduct, but also for non-attendance at
worship, for neglecting to send children or servants to be catechized,
for not paying Church rates, and for public teaching without
licence.[1252]

While a system of Church discipline carried out by presentments and
excommunications was still, more or less effectually, in force,
commutation of penance was very properly a matter for grave and careful
consideration. It was obvious that laxity on such a point might fairly
lay the Church open to a reproach, which Dissenters did not fail to
make, of 'indulgences for sale.'[1253] One of William III.'s injunctions
of 1695 was that 'no commutation of penance be made but by the express
order of the bishop, and that the commutation be applied only to pious
and charitable uses.'[1254] Early in Queen Anne's reign, in consequence
of abuses which existed, the subject was debated in Convocation, and
some stringent resolutions passed, by which it was hoped that
commutations, where allowed, might be rendered perfectly
unexceptionable.[1255] Some lay chancellors, on the other hand, wished
to do away with penance altogethe