minister, remembering his ordination Let it not, however, be forgotten that no strictness of rubrical observance promise, to "maintain and set forward, quietness, peace, and love" among those committed to his charge, to make due allowance for the prejudices of his people, and while he teaches (2 Cor. i. 24) them "with all diligence to keep and observe" the "Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and Realm hath received the same" (Ordination Service), to remember that they should be led as lambs, and not driven like geese. I do not write this as myself disapprov-vised, and those who look into them ing of the weekly use of the Prayer for the Church Militant, for I heartily approve of it in itself, and think Bishop Mant's Pastoral Letter on the subject (Rivington, 1843,) worthy of attention. Such things as this are, however, exceptions to the general rule noticed above, and which is more fully treated of in Archdeacon T. Sharp's Charges, No. 1, (delivered in 1731) and Bishop Mant's "Clergyman's Obligations," c. viii. These two works would be useful to clergymen,* as pointing out the best mode of carrying on their ministrations in accordance with the regulations of our Church, to which they have bound themselves, and containing much useful matter (multum in parvo) on doubtful points. makes no exception in favour of a licence. Would a minister, on the plea of rubrical conformity, refuse to marry upon the permission of a licence 2 (See Canon 62, and Sharp's Charges, No. 12.) * I am far, very far, from wishing these works to supersede such works as Rev. C. Bridges, on the Christian Ministry, Rev. R. W. Evans' Bishopric of Souls, &c., &c., but, on the contrary, that they should be quite subordinate to them, and used as adjuncts to them. Different men 'excel in different subjects (1 Cor. xii. 14-23), and we may avail ourselves of their respective labours. Rev. S. Rowe's Appeal to the Rubric is the most edifying work on the subject which I have met with, and the author is one who holds the Evangelical doctrine taught in our Articles. It is to be will often discover great wisdom in many of the directions, which is unobserved by a careless reader; and I am sure, that even if the strictest letter of the Rubrics were observed, we should find no sanction in them for Romish and Tractarian vagaries. 2. I will now notice how far the Homilies and Canons are binding on the acceptance of ministers, and also some of the ordination questions bearing on the subject. As to the former of these points, I cannot do better than quote part of Archdeacon Sharpe's first Charge, which, also, incidentally notices the entire subject of these papers, since it includes a notice of the Articles and Liturgy; and will, therefore, be a recapitulation of my own. remarks upon them. Having well remarked, that "we ought to make a difference between those laws and rules, to the observance of which we have bound ourselves by public declaration, and express promises, and regretted that the work does not extend beyond the daily service, and that the learned author has never put in practice his design of continuing the subject, by writing on the sacramental and other offices of the Liturgy. Such a work from his pen, with the former part, would be quite sufficient for the Evangelical minister, who is usually too much occupied with better things to attend to dry discourses on Rubrics. The Rubric being the standard of unifor- those which are bound upon us by authority only, without our formal consent or voluntary stipulation to observe them" (p. 4), he considers the case of the Rubric, and sums up his remarks as follows: "At present I shall only confirm the distinction I have made, between our obligations to observe Rubric and Canons, by a parallel case taken from the doctrines to which our Church hath required our assent and approbation to be expressed, but in a different degree and manner. Thirty-nine Articles, and the Two Books of Homilies, are the doctrine of this national Church, as established since the Reformation. In like manner, the Rubric and Canons are the standing laws of this Church. And, as the Articles and Homilies are set forth by authority, to be the rule of our doctrine, who are admitted to be teachers in this Church; so, likewise, the Rubric and Canons are to be the rule of our ministration, who are appointed to officiate in this Church. Now we shall find, upon examination, that the same degree of preference that is given to the Articles of religion before the Homilies, in point of doctrine, is given to the Rubric before the body of Canons, in point of practice. The Thirty-nine Articles, for instance, being the capital rule of our doctrine, as we are teachers in this Church, (they being this Church's interpretation of the Word of God, in Scripture, so far as they go), and designed as a bulwark against Popery and fanaticism; we are bound to a very full and explicit acknowledgment under our hands, that we do deliberntely and advisedly, and ex animo, assent to every part and proposition contained in them. For this every body knows to be the meaning of clerical subscriptions, both before ordination, and as often as the three Ar-1, it is stated, that the charges are "not to be understood of any duties to which we ticles of the Thirty-sixth Canon are are antecendently bound by the laws of subscribed by us. In like manner, the the Gospel, either as men or clergymen." * But vided" these laws or customs "be not At p. 4, it had been remarked, "proagainst the laws of God; which we are supposed to be clearly satisfied in, before we enter into such engagements." At p. same; for though we subscribe to the Homilies, yet this subscription amounts to no more than our acknowledgment, that they contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, necessary for' the times when they were written, and fitting to be publicly taught unto the people; and not that we will maintain every particular doctrine, or argument, or assertion, contained in them. In like manner we say as to the Canons; we receive them, in general, as a body of ecclesiastical laws; we acknowledge the wholesomeness and fitness of them all for discipline, and order, and edification, and proper for the times in which they were drawn | up. But we do not look upon every particular thereby enjoined as absolutely and indispensably requisite to be practised now by us, in the manner it is enjoined, any more than we hold our approbation of every sentence or expression in the Book of Homilies to be necessary." (Charge 1. pp. 1114.) In Bishop Jebb's "Pastoral Instructions," (pp. 225-258,) are some useful observations on the Homilies. While he gives as his opinion that ministers do not "subscribe to the doctrine" of the Homilies (pp. 225-6), but that he supposes "the framers of our Articles merely to have asserted, that the Homilies, generally speaking, contained religious and moral instruction, good and salutary, and necessary to be so administered, under the peculiar circumstances of their own times," (pp. 228-9,) he yet admits, "with pleasure, that though composed for other times, the Homilies are, in many respects, valuable and useful in the present" (pp. 246-7); and that "they must be presumed to throw light on the doctrines of our English Reformation, and to elucidate many disputed points, both in our Liturgy and Articles." (p. 247.) As to the assent to the Homilies, implied in subscription to the 35th Article, Bishop G. Burnet well observes, -"this approbation is not to be stretched so far, as to carry in it a special assent to every particular in that whole volume; but a man must be persuaded of the main of the doctrine that is taught in them.-By necessary for these times, is not to be meant that this was a book fit to serve a turn; but only that this book was necessary, at that time, to instruct the nation aright, and so was of great use then : but though the doctrine in it, îf once true, must be always true, yet it will not be always of the same necessity to the people." (Exposition of the 39 Articles, Art. 35, p. 492.) His concluding remarks on this Article, illustrate his meaning: "If the nation should come to be quite out of the danger of falling back into Popery, it would not be so necessary to insist upon many of the subjects of the Homilies, as it was when they were first prepared." (p. 493.) These remarks were first published in the year 1699. Now, when we seem to be moving Rome-wards again, (see Rev. F. Close's Sermon, for 5th Nov., 1844, on the Restoration of Churches, and the review of a "Christian [rather Anglo-Popish] Kalendar," for 1845, printed at Cambridge University Press, (!) in the Churchman's Monthly Review for Jan. 1845, pp. 22-26, and in the leading article of the Record of 6th Feb.*), the following remarks on the Homilies seem worthy of serious attention. "The most material points [i. e. of doctrine] are there rather copiously entered into ; and though we are not bound to every minor expression, yet we are certainly * See, also, various Reviews in the Church Magazine of 1843, pp. 490, 4923; and of 1844, pp. 85, 86, 164, 165, 231, 388; and for January, 1845, pp. 28-30. Also Churchman's Monthly Review for July, 1843, pp. 516-546. 66 bound, by the Articles, to their doc-, writer, made in 1790, that in the 35th trines. On these they are very ex- Article," the words, these times, should plicit, and they deserve, at the present be understood by each subscriber of time, to be brought into particular his own time," as foolish, yet most notice. For, like the sun in the morn- Protestants will, I think, agree that the ing, and in the evening, may the Gos- doctrine IS very necessary for these pel be said to be: there is twofold (1845) times." In one sense, then, the twilight. At the twilight of the Homilies are subscribed to, while, in morning, the Homilies came, as one of another sense, they are not subscribed the auxiliary lights, for those who to. In the Hereford Discussion, awaited the coming beams; and at p. 75, the Romish Priest quotes who can tell but that, in the Church, sundry passages from them, in which the evening twilight has come, and the Apocrypha is quoted as Scripture, those who lament the departing rays, and Henry VIII. spoken of as a remay need the smaller light, also, to ligious prince; and says, that “Mr. keep them from walking in darkness? Venn subscribes" them. At pp. 79-80, If there was need, when men arose Mr. Venn very properly denies having to give knowledge to the land, that ever "subscribed to the Homilies," i.e. they should not leave the people with- in the sense Waterworth intends, and out a beacon to guide them, it is expresses himself in terms very similar equally needful now, when there to Bishop Burnet, quoted in this paper. seems some danger of its being re- (Compare also Rev. T, Lathbury's served from sight, if not removed from Hist. of Convoc., c. viii., pp. 169-70.) our reach. We should not altogether The sixth Article is very clear on the be left in the dark. It is true, there subject of the Apocrypha, hence, are many writings which now come hearty assent to the doctrine of the forth, and leave us little doubt upon the Homilies, is not inconsistent with a dematters in debate; but, although some nial of the correctness of so quoting the of them are most valuable, yet none Apocrypha.* can be said to have the authority of the Homilies. Nothing can be clearer than the system which they teach throughout. It is evident that the matters of which they treat were deemed the most essential at the time; and they are so important now, that all the arguments against popular Protestantism are arguments against the Homilies. A slight review of the book will satisfy any mind as to their doctrinal complexion." (Graham's Essays, quoted in the Church of Eng. land Magazine, No. 508, for 8th Feb. p. 104.) Useful as Bishop Jebb's remarks on the subject are, I think he underrates both the authority and value of the Homilies; had he lived during the last few years, he might have felt their value more. At p. 242, though he speaks of the remark of a As to the Canons, no Minister subscribes to them, as Rev. J. Venn observed in the Hereford Discussion, (p. 67,) unless a kind of general assent in some degree be implied in the Ordination promise to minister the discipline as this Church hath received it. Bish * Even the character of Henry VIII. admits of some extenuation, especially when a papist assails it. This is successfully (as I think) attempted in the Churchman's Monthly Review, for Oct. 1844, in answer to Count Montalembert, whose Letter to the Cambridge Camden Society is there reviewed. At p. 80, Mr. Venu says, that he never heard a Homily read; and perhaps many others never have. I heard one read at St. Peter's Church, OxIt was Rogation Sunday, and one of the ford, on Sunday Evening, 21st May, 1843. parts of the Homily for Rogation week was read by the officiating Deacon. light on the "Visitation of the Sick ;” the promise to set forward "quietness, peace, and love," has been already noticed; the promise to "obey" the in deviating "from the directions of a plain and express Rubric." (Clergyman's Obligations, c. viii., pp. 132-3.) Granting this, as a general rule, and admitting that a Minister is not bound to obey his Bishop in such a case, as, for instance, in a command to give up the revival of the Prayer for the Church Militant; it would, I think, be worthy of the serious consideration of a Minister, how far he would be justified, in the sight of a greater op Mant observes, "that the CANONS are binding upon the Clergy, by virtue of their own authority: and a general acknowledgment of their authority, as part of the law of the" ordinary," must be restricted to Church," in this Ordination promise. things lawful, and provided his com(Clergyman's Obligations, c. x., p. 180.) mands are not contrary to the laws of Hence, as Sharp observes, "the con- the Church. Bishop Mant writes stant and apparent connivance of our strongly on this point, that a Minister ordinaries" allows "a general tacit is not "justified, by the example or dispensation for several practices" en-judgment of his superior in the Church,” joined in them. (p. 14 and 10.) Our Church then requires much less assent (if any) to the Canons, than to the Homilies. Many of the directions in the Canons are utterly unsuitable for these times; e. g. the 74th, on the Apparel of Ministers, which, among other things, enjoins them to wear "plain nightcaps of black silk, satin, or velvet." If the first eight Canons were enforced, they would bear rather hard on some who pretend to exalt them; e. g., the author of " Modern" Puritanism" (at p. 28) says of Rev. C. I. Yorke," the 20th Article, and the twelve first Canons of the Church, are imperative on his acceptance!" Now, the 5th speaks quite as strongly of impugners of our Articles, as the others do of the Liturgy; the writer himself impugns the Articles, (pp. 3031,) far more than Mr. Yorke does the Liturgy! Were these Canons now observed, our prelates would have little time for their other, already too onerous, duties. I must now briefly touch on some of the Ordination Vows bearing on the subject. Thus, the oath of the Sovereign's Supremacy is something similar in substance to the 1st Article in the 36th Canon; the declaration of belief in the Scriptures, as the sole rule of faith, agrees with the 6th Article; the promise to minister "the doctrine and Sacraments," as this Church "hath received the same," with the declarations of conformity; the "monitions" to "the sick" throw es Bishop,” (1 Pet. ii. 25; v. 1-4,) in refusing to listen to such advice in the matter, when the refusal causes discord and strife among the people, about a thing which is in itself unimportant. Let us ever remember the words of our chief" Bishop," in Matt. xii. 7! "The law is not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient," (1 Tim. i. 9): so declarations of conformity are not meant to impose a yoke of bondage, but to ensure sential and honest conformity ;" and I acquiesce in the remarks in the Church [Advocate and] Magazine, in the Review of J. C. Robertson's "How shall we conform ?" in No. 58, (for Oct. 1843,) p. 492; and No. 73, (for Jan. 1815,) pp. 24, 25, and 30, 31. Archdeacon Sharp says, that "if any man shall presume to innovate, or vary the form and practice therein, [i. e. in the Rubrics] prescribed him, where no authority doth dispense with him; he is as much to blame, and doth as much prevaricate, and fall from his solemn declarations and professions, as if he |