In 1944 Gregory Dix, an Anglican Benedictine monk of Nashdom Abbey, published a defence of Anglican orders, arguing that "It is a commonplace of all theology, Roman or Anglican, that no public formulary can be or ought to be interpreted by the private sense attached to it by the compilers", and that consequently the views of Cranmer were irrelevant. Looking at the Edwardian ordinal, Dix found sufficient mention of the priesthood in the service, the actual formula at the laying on of hands being concerned not only with the priestly act of forgiving sins but also with administering the sacraments and sufficient mention of intention in the prefaces to the ordination rites, to make it impossible to believe that the priesthood was not being conferred and the traditional ministry continued.