Full text of "A charge delivered in December, 1862, to the clergy of the Diocese of London : at his visitation"

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CHARGE

DELIVERED TO THE

CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF LLANDAFF,

AT HIS FOUETH VISITATION,

SEPTEMBER, 1860.

ALFRED OLLIVANT, D.D.

BISHOP or LLANDAPF.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CLERGY.

LONDON:

EIVINGTONS, WATEELOO PLACE.

1860.

a month by partaking of the Holy Communion, at the parish or other
church; that he may be preserved from the spiritual dangers to
which his peculiar position may expose him, and be enabled to adorn
his Christian profession, and influence those among whom he ministers,
by his own example.

On the occasion of his attending the church for the purpose re-
ferred to, he is permitted, if the clergyman should desire it, to take
part in the service.

TIIU END.

GILBERT AND RIVtNGTON, PRINTERS, ST JOHn's SQUARE, LONDON.

CHARGE

DELIVERED IN DECE:yrP.ER 180:2,

THE CLERGY

DIOCESE OF LONDON,

AT HIS VISITATION,

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,
LOUD BISHOP or LONDON.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON :
JOHK MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1862.

THE CLERGY

THE DIOCESE OF LONDON

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND AND SERVANT

A. C. LONDOjS.

FuLHAM Palace,

2d Dec. 1862.

Almighty God, giver of all good things, who by thy Holy Spirit
hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church ; Mercifully
behold us thy servants ; and so replenish us with the truth of thy
doctrine, and adorn us with innocency of life, that, both by word
and good example, we may faithfully serve thee in our Office, to
the gloi-y of thy Name, and the edification of thy Church ; through
the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth
with thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.

'^owc

CHARGE.

My Reveuend Brethren,

God has granted us to meet again after four
years for another solemn scrutiny. We do well,
joining in the Holy Communion and the other
Services of this week, to ask Him that He would
deepen our sense of responsibility, for it is in-
deed a great trust which He has committed to us,
and inestimably important are the issues which
hang upon our faithfulness. A Visitation puts
to each of us these questions — Art thou faithful ?
What are thy failures ? How canst thou improve ?
And many tilings conspire to give special so-
lemnity to our meeting at the close of this year.
We began the year with a public mourning, such
as England never knew before. Agitated with
apprehensions of a coming war, the nation then
felt in its heart the loss of the wise, and good
and loving Counsellor, to whom our Queen, from
her early youth onwards, had looked for support

in every trial. We have, indeed, through God's
mercy been saved from war, bnt we are looking
forward now, for a vast multitude of our people,
to di'eary months of famine and its attendant
sickness. Again, in our distress, we feel the loss
of him who was ever foremost to aid our Queen
in promoting the people's good and alleviating
their sufferings. All men of Christian thoughts
throughout the nation see in these things the
hand of God, and remember how near they are
to Him. Our Church, too, at this time following
its loved Primate to his honoured grave, while it
enters a new period, to be noted by a new name,
has been reminded how the years of its probation
hasten to a close, and learns to look upwards
in all changes to Him for whose coming it is
waiting.

Bishops at their Visitations usually state their
views on the general condition of the Church,
and the important questions which have recently
arisen in it. If this be reasonable in any diocese,
it must be necessary in ours ; for the metropolis
stands in the fore-front of the Church's battle, and
we have to grapple personally with diificulties,
the very rumour of which alarms our brethren in
quieter places. Doubtless the especial object of
a Visitation must be, not to inspect the Church
generally, or deal with its general relations, but
rather to stir us one by one, each in his sphere to

perform his own part faithfully and well. But
none of us stands alone. Members of a great
body, we cannot accomplish our own work well,
apart from the company of the faithful. Looking
on the Church as a whole, we may be saved from
exaggerating, each of us, our own petty difficul-
ties, and thus pusillanimously yielding to them.
We shall also, perhaps, understand better what it
is most important for us to do each in our own
limited sphere, from considering what are the
Church's most pressing wants and greatest dan-
gers. The eye will see objects better in their true
proportions, when it corrects its minute observa-
tions by sweeping over a wider range.

In my last Charge, amongst other subjects, I
drew attention prominently to two great dangers.
Eirst, to that of exaggerating the importance of
the outward and ceremonial parts of religion, and
thus coming to think lightly, in comparison, of
that simple Gospel, which is its spiritual essence :
and, secondly, to the danger, in our zeal either for
or against ceremonials, of not fostering that large-
hearted spirit of comprehensive love, which is cha-
racteristic of the real Christian. While I thus
spoke, I felt that there was danger lest that very
zeal, which we thanked God was taking the place
of the old lukewarmness, might encourage us to
split up into sections, each magnifying unduly the
importance of its own partial view of truth, and

its own helps to holiness. I was deeply convinced
that the great national Church of England must
"be careful not exclusively to mould itself according
to the fancies of the clergy only, or of some limited
number of persons of refined tastes, nor yet to
think, on the other hand, of the feelings of the
great body of the middle classes alone : again, that
it must neither overlook nor confine itself to its
mission amongst the poor ; that it has to deal
with men of subtle intelligence, as well as with
the unreasoning crowd. Of course, these dangers,
to which I especially drew attention in my last
Charge, still exist. They are the product of cer-
tain principles of human nature, nay, are con-
nected closely with certain Christian graces,
which we do not seek to eradicate or dwarf, but
to develop rightly, and wisely to direct, in due
subordination to the whole orderly training of
the Christian life. When the Church is alive
to the importance of its own ritual, there will
always be some danger of ceremonialism; and
Avhen souls are stirred to zeal for what they
love, there will be danger of a sectarian spirit.
On the whole, however, we have cause to thank
God that there is in our Church in these days, so
much appreciation of the real essence of Christ's
Gospel, and that men rightly zealous for their
own views have so much consideration for others,
and are able, without compromise of principle,

to think so well of each other, and act so har-
moniously together.

The difficulties with which our Church has to
contend are, it is true, more or less the same
in all ages, hut they are modijSed hy the varying
circumstances of each generation. Some of our
difficulties have hecome more, some less pro-
minent and alarming, even during the short time
which has elapsed since our last quadrennial
meeting. Our Church — an established Church
in close connexion with the State— a true por-
tion of the Catholic Church of Christ, holding
fast by His unchanging, everlasting Gospel, con-
necting itself through the hallowed associations
of 1800 years, with Christ's saints of all ages
and countries, up to the Apostles ; — clinging to.
the oldest forms of worship and of government,
and yet protesting against errors with which, for
centuries before the Reformation, the Church
was clouded — has, committed to it by God, in
the middle of this nineteenth century, in an in-
quisitive and restless age, the difficult task of
gathering together, fostering, developing, re-
straining, and guiding the Christian feelings and
thoughts, and energetic life of many millions
of intelligent Englishmen, impatient both of
political and still more of ecclesiastical control ;
and that not in these densely peopled islands only,
but in colonies spread over the habitable globe.

Now, perhaps, we sliall best appreciate the
momentous work which lies before our Church,
if we consider its present difficulties under
three of the several heads which might suggest
themselves.

I. The difficulties that spring from that un-
restrained spirit of free inquiry, which claims
the right to sift and test all theories, and bows
to no authority, however venerable, which can-
not make good by argument its claim on our
allegiance.

II. The difficulties which beset an established
Church, standing side by side with other reli-
gious bodies, in an age of perfect toleration,
when every collection of men is perfectly free,
so far as the law of the State is concerned, to
form a communion of its own, to believe what
it pleases, and worship God as it wills.

And III. The difficulties which spring from
an ever-growing population, rendering it scarcely
possible for the Church's machinery, keeping pace
with progress of the nation, to meet men's wants
as quickly as they arise.

I. As to free inquiry ; what shall we do with
it ? Shall we frown upon it, denounce it, try to

stifle it? This will do no good even if it be
riglit. But after all we are Protestants. We
have been accustomed to speak a good deal of
the right and duty of private judgment. It
was by the exercise of this right and the dis-
charge of this duty that our fathers freed their
and our souls from E,ome's time-honoured false-
hoods. Are we to be scared from those great
principles which opened the closed door of truth
in the sixteenth century, because some men,
using our instruments of investigation, arrive
at false and dangerous conclusions ? As well
might Luther have turned against the E-efor-
mation because of the eccentricities of the Ana-
baptists, or our own divines have thought it
best to make common cause with the Jesuits
because of the spread of Unitarianism. Am I
convinced of the heavenly origin of those great
truths, for which the Church of England has
been appointed by the Lord Jesus as the chief
witness upon earth ? And shall I, from a craven
fear lest these truths be shaken, disparage the
use of that great instrument of reason which
God has given to man for the investigation and
defence of truth ? If I am wise I will not ask
my people to give to the Church's teaching an
unreasoning and stolid assent. I will set myself
to work, as being conscious of the value of that
priceless gift of reason, to discipline myself, and

help others, that we may use it as God directs ;
and I shall feel confident that its investigations
rightly and reverently conducted must result in
furthering the cause of the God of truth. Do
I believe that supernatural Revelation and the
natural discoveries of reason are two methods
through which God makes himself known to
man? Then I can have no doubt that ultimately
the conclusions arrived at by the use of God's
two instruments must agree. It would argue
little faith to have any doubts on this score.

What then are we afraid of ? Is the approach
of no real danger intimated by all the alarm
which has discomposed the Church for the last
two years ? To assert that there is no danger
would be folly ; but it is a danger to meet which
requires calmness and great discretion. The
difficulties we have to deal with need very deli-
cate handling. If there are persons likely to
injure themselves and others by free inquiry,
they can only be effectually met by those who
are able to a certain extent to sympathise with
them, and to enter with considerate feeling into
the intricacies of those questions which have
unsettled their faith.

Por example — am I the pastor of a parish, and
do I know that some intelligent and promising
young man of my flock is distressing the old-
fashioned piety of his parents by giving utterance

to speculations which sound to them like blas-
phemy ? How shall I deal with him ? Before I
try to influence him I must carefully endeavour
to ascertain what is his real state of mind. An
affected scepticism, bred of ignorance and shal-
low self-conceit (and there is abundance of such
abroad in the world noAV as in all ages), might
not unnaturally provoke a sharp rebuke, though,
perhaps, it is doubtful even in such cases how far
the rebuke would do good. An exposure of the
man's ignorance might perhaps tell upon him,
and teach him more humility. But suppose I
find that the young man is not more self- con-
ceited than his neighbours — that he is of a really
inquiring mind, anxious to know the truth, but
unsettled. He has been, say, to the University,
and has heard questions freely discussed there, of
which he never dreamed in childhood ; questions
as to the nature and limits of inspiration, as to
the difficulties which stand in the way of an
unquestioning assent to the perfect historical
accuracy of the Bible narrative ; questions as to
the possibility of reconciling a belief in mira-
culous interpositions with the maintenance of
unchanging laws; questions as to how far the
discoveries of modern science agree with the teach-
ing of the sacred books; or (after the general truth
of the Bible scheme is admitted), intricate meta-
physical questions which still may be raised as to

the particular mode in which the life and death
of Christ avail for man's salvation, and how far
the exact truth on this momentous subject is ex-
pressed in the Church's formularies.

A man need neither be conceited, nor shallow,
nor rash, nor irreverent, to have had his thoughts
exercised on any one of these subjects. Nay,
are you an ordained guide of souls — a minister
of that God who has promised to lead you and
your people into all truth, responsible to Him
for wisely directing all who come to you in their
difficulties — not the souls only which are depressed
with the burden of sin, or uncertain as to practi-
cal questions of conscience in matters of every-
day outward action, but souls clouded with intel-
lectual doubts also — and are you, though thus set
apart for this difficult work, unable to minister
where the help of your ministry is so much re-
quired ? The questions now raised cannot be
new to you if you have been rightly trained for
your office. You must be able to say to him
whom you would influence, I know what these
perplexities mean. I can point the way to solve
them. Let us talk of these things quietly and
reverently together, invoking the Divine blessing,
and by the Divine guidance we shall certainly
emerge into the light. We believe with the
Church of all ages that the Bible is the Word of
God ; that through it God speaks to each separate

soul, and through it also God's voice is heard
century after century proclaiming truth aloud to
a world wandering in error : We believe that the
eternal Son of God visited, in human guise, the
earth He had created : that His advent was
heralded, and His presence attested by many
miracles, and that when the men He came to
save slew Him, His power over death, as the
Prince of Life, was shown by His rising, the
greatest of all miracles : We believe that through
His death the barrier was thrown down, which,
as the effect of sin once entering into our nature,
kept God and man asunder — that thus God was
reconciled to man once for all — as, through the
spectacle of His death and rising again set forth
to human souls age after age, they are one by
one reconciled to God.

Are you called to reason with one who dis-
believes these verities ? Ask him first what are the
points on which, if there be such, he has no doubt,
or practically, at least, no doubt: say to him, *'0n
these at least we are agreed. We shall gain com-
fort and light from dwelling reverently on these.
Are you convinced of the being and nearness of
God ? How will the soul be solemnised by the
great thoughts which spring from truly realising
even one deep religious truth." Indeed, experi-
ence as well as Scripture teaches us how much is
gained towards acquiring a full view of all reli-

gious truth, when the mind is once thrown, as it
were, into the religious attitude, and has, as it
were, its religious faculties awakened. I sup-
pose the eye which has heen accustomed to gaze
attentively through the telescope at one star is
better prepared to scan and take in the whole
intricacy of the heavenly maze. God has inti-
mated that he who has mastered even that sim-
plest of all religious truths, viz. that he ought
to obey conscience, and clings to this, is on the
road to learn all religious truth. If a man wills
to do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine
whether it be of God.^

It is thus, I think, that a wise pastor will deal
with any members of his flock whom it is desired
that he should influence while they are likely to
be misled by the prevailing free inquiry, and the
intricate questions on which it expatiates. And as
we are to deal with our people one by one, so the
Church generally has to deal with public opinion.
Nothing would be so likely to spread scepticism
and unbelief amongst an intelligent laity as any
crude attempts on the part of the Clergy to
treat the difficulties arising from free inquiry
without thoroughly understanding them. Dog-
matic denunciations — sweeping accusations as to
the corrupt state of heart from which doubt and
unbelief is supposed to spring — unwise and arro-

1 John vii. 17.

gant claims to an unquestioning obedience and
submission of the understanding — I can conceive
nothing more likely to irritate intelligent men,
and excite the very evils we desire to allay. So
also is it with any unskilful and ill-informed treat-
ment of the questions at issue. Much knowledge
and experience, much charity, and a wise con-
siderateness for the thoughts and feelings of
men unlike themselves, must be required, if the
clergy, by their preaching or their writings, are
beneficially to influence the laity in such matters.
Nothing is to be gained by haranguing against
scepticism to a sympathising crowd of attentive
orthodox believers who never knew a doubt.
And if even of " Butler's Analogy " it has been
reported to have been said by a man of the highest
ability, whose mind was supposed to be too much
engrossed in questions of practical statesmanship
to allow leisure for religious speculation, that it
raised within him more doubts than it solved,
what must be the effect of ill- digested discussions
on momentous historical or metaphysical questions
connected with the evidences of our faith poured
forth inconsiderately to the mixed bodies which
form, for example, our ordinary congregations
in the metropolis ? I have known it insinuated
that to hear a young uninformed divine preach
on the evidences of the Kesurrection, is not un-
likely to make a clear-headed lawyer doubtful

as to points which he before steadfastly believed.
Certainly it is much to be deprecated that, in our
alarm at the dangers of free inquiry, we should,
either in our preaching or our wTiting, hurry
into an argumentative contentious style, always
attempting to slay supposed adversaries, and
probably, for the pleasure of easily disarming
them, i^utting into the hands of imaginary com-
batants weapons which our real opponents never
would have used. It is in the attempt practi-
cally to build up your people's Christian cha-
racter, to deepen their convictions of the great
Gospel truths, as presented to them in the sim-
plest and most scriptural form, without either
compromise or exaggeration, that you will find
the chief field of your preaching. And if there
be occasions, as there undoubtedly are, when
it is right for those who are equal to the
task, to enter distinctly upon controversy, even
then, if, either in your preaching or "v\Titing,
you would win your way with the followers of a
sceptical or unbelieving school, deal with them
in your public, as I have already advised you to
deal with individuals in your private, ministra-
tions. DavcU much on the positive truths wliich
you know your opponents hold — urge them to
act on these truths, to show that they believe
them, not in name only, but heartily — not to
yield to them a half-acceptance, but to embrace

them in their depth and breadth, with all their
cognate truths, and all the consequences that
flow from .them. This is our best chance of pre-
paring their minds to receive the evidence of the
other truths we love, which at present they
hesitate to accept or have rejected.

I have hitherto spoken of our duties respect-
ing such matters, in our attempts to influence
the laity. But the apprehended dangers of free
inquiry are not confined to laymen ; and here,
perhaps, is the most difficult and delicate part
of the whole subject. In a Church like ours —
which does not separate its clergy into a priestly
caste ; which wisely educates in common its
young candidates for the ministry and the aspi-
rants to secular professions ; which encourages
its clergy to mix freely with the laity, and join
in all their interests — no thoughts and feelings
can prevail extensively amongst laymen without
the clergy also being greatly influenced. We
must not, therefore, be staggered if we find the
sort of difficulties we have spoken of put forward
even in a more marked manner by clergymen
than by laymen. Indeed, a layman may be
contented to let such things alone. It is, per-
haps he says, no part of his business to be
attempting to instruct others on such questions ;
he has some other profession, which practically
claims his time and thoughts in another direc-

tion. But a clergyman cannot altogether avoid
such questions. He is called every day, in his
common occupations, to announce that he has an
opinion on one side or the other of at least some
of them. He cannot therefore shut his eyes to
them. He may, indeed, say, and wisely, that as
a young man, or not a very learned man, he will
leave intricate questions untouched as much as
possible, and trust, in such matters, to the
general guidance of those who know better than
himself ; he may feel that he has, in dealing
with his people's souls, an abundant sphere of
practical occupation, into which such questions
scarcely enter ; and he may thank God that his
own soul's religious life is independent of them.
Still, I suppose we must allow that the clergy
generally are more brought face to face with
such questions than the laity. And we must not
be, therefore, alarmed if we find free inquiry
amongst the clergy.

To be sure, there is certainly this difficulty
respecting the clergy-^that it is part of their
commission to teach a distinct and settled
system of Gospel truth : And, as embodying this
principle, most religious communions — our own
Church, perhaps, neither more nor less than
others — require of those who have the commis-
sion conferred on them a declaration that they
believe and are ready to teach the truths to

which the Cliurcli witnesses. There is cer-
tainly a difficulty as to the prosecution of any
very free inquiry by those who begin by thus
professing their belief in fixed formularies of
doctrine, and obtain the very position which
gives them influence as teachers, in virtue of
this profession. Still, it would be altogether
wrong to exaggerate this difficulty. It will
never do to lay down that a clergyman is bound
not to inquire. Like any one else— if you will,
even more than any one else, in virtue of the
sacredness of his calling — he is bound, entering
on such inquiry, to proceed in a deeply reve-
rential frame of mind, looking up to the Holy
Spirit of God to be his guide. And this is
certain, that, neither while he is conducting, nor
when he has finished such inquiries, can he be
justified in availing himself of his position, as
one of the Church's ministers, to speak against
the truths to which the Church is pledged. If
his mind is long harassed by doubt, he will,
during this time of suspense, be subjected to a
very great trial. God knows, he is entitled to
the sympathy of all good men ; and if the doubt
ends in disbelief of the Church's doctrines, of
course he will resign his office as one of the
Church's authorised teachers. Very many have
done so on one side or the other since the be-
ginning of the present century. The general

principles which we lay down must apply alike
to those who wander in the E-omanizing, the
ultra-Calvinistical, and the free-thinking direc-
tion. Much as we lament the loss of the services
of those who have left us — greatly as we deplore
(while we respect their honesty and self-sacrifice)
that they should have missed what we firmly
believe to be the truth, — we cannot for a moment
admit any theory, which, teaching that as clergy-
men they were bound to an unquestioning ad-
herence to the Church's standards, removes the
clergy out of the category of inquiring honest
men, thus robbing the Church of all that weight
of testimony in favour of its doctrines which is
derived from the heartfelt free adherence of so
many of the most intelligent and best men of
each generation, who have found their highest
happiness as its ministers.

It may be said, indeed, that the period for free
inquiry ought to have ended before holy orders
were obtained, and that the clergyman, once
having chosen his lot in life, as a minister com-
missioned to teach the Church's doctrines, dares
not look back, and is free no longer to examine
them. I do not urge in answer to this the
early age at whicli holy orders are usually sought
accordini? to the Church's rule. God forind that
I should overlook the deep responsibility as to
doctrine, as well as in reference to his whole life,

which for the youngest as well as for the maturest
of our candidates the ordination vow implies.

A grave thing it is, indeed, after a lengthened
preparation and many warnings as to what we
are doing, to have placed ourselves, by our
own deliberate act, through a solemn service
of dedication, in that intimate relation with the
heart-searching God, which is implied in becom-
ing His commissioned ministers, and to have
bound ourselves with the heavy responsibility
that henceforward many souls, looking to us as
a guide, must be affected by what w^e do and
say and think. It is difficult to exaggerate the
solemnity or responsibilities of ordination. Still
no man is bound by his ordination vow to turn
a deaf ear to the whisperings of his conscience,
even if it be a mistaken conscience ; or to resist
those longings of his highest nature, w^hich urge
him to make sure of truth. What the Church
prays for him in the Ordination Service is, not
that he may cease to inquire, but that, daily
led by God's teaching, he may grow^ to greater
ripeness of knowledge and a more thorough ap-
preciation of the real truth. If seeking he falls
into error, and acts, at whatever personal sacri-
fice, straightforwardly according to his convic-
tions, great as is the inevitable separation
between a man who forsakes the Church's
ministry and those who continue in it, he is

c 2

certainly not to be denounced ; he is entitled to
our respect. The clergy, therefore, are not
precluded from free inquiry, even at the risk of
this inquiry leading them far aAvay from the
Church, in which it was once their heart's desire
to exercise a lifelong ministry.

And here I will remark that I do not look
much to legal prosecutions and the courts of
the Church's judicature for the preservation
of orthodoxy in our clergy. The Church of
England is wisely jealous of such prosecutions.
The precedents for their management and effects
are found sparingly in our annals ; and this, not
I suppose because we have been more free than
other nations from dangerous opinions— for each
generation has had its own peculiar bias of error —
but rather because the authorities of our Church,
under the leading of its best divines, have ever
deemed it wise not to spread the influence of
unsound teaching amongst a generous people,
by any the remotest semblance of persecution;
and have rather sought ever to overcome the
danger of heresy by the manifestation of supe-
rior learning and acuteness and a truer Christian
spirit, than to prop up truth by the terrors of the
law. It is not to courts of justice that we are
indebted for our having been brought safe through
the Arianism of the last or the Romanising teach-
ing of the present century. A wise son of the

Church of England will be very jealous of every
sort of prosecution for opinion, unless demanded
by some overwhelming and inevitable necessity.

After we have reverently sought the Holy
Spirit's guidance for ourselves and those whom
we would influence, we trust most — both for our
people's safety and the ultimate recovery of those
who we fear are misleading them — to wise argu-
ment and kindliness and considerate forbearance,
acting on that manly honesty of character which,
thank God, as a general rule, we find in all our
countrymen. Of course, if questions of erroneous
or heretical opinion are brought before a court
of justice, and the law is sought to be enforced
(and I do not say that sometimes such a course
may not be inevitable), all that the members of
the court can do is to decide to the best of their
ability, and on conviction the penalties must
follow. But this can only be requisite in excep-
tional instances.

It is worth noting that some of the most
attached members of our Church, deeply con-
vinced of these principles, think it no evil that
the system of our Ecclesiastical courts presents
an effectual bar against cheap and easy prosecu-
tions for heresy. They deem it to be no dis-
paragement to our Church, but in full consistency
with her free and tolerant spirit, that such pro-
secutions as we have been speaking of should be

difficult as well as rare. I do not advocate the
maintenance of this cumbrous mode of indirectly
compassing a good result, but this I think is
certain, that, whatever reforms in our ecclesias-
tical law are contemplated, no encouragement
should be given to rash prosecutions of this
kind. Some complain that under the present
Church Discipline Act no one but the Bishop
can institute proceedings against a clergyman.
But certainly such prosecutions at least as we
now speak of, ought never to be allowed to be
instituted, except at the instance of some one
occupying a grave and important position, re-
sponsible to the Church and the country for his
every act. After all, it is only dishonest men
who can be kept in check by the fear of penalties.
As matters stand at present, a good, truth-loving
man, who falls into great error, will usually,
long before he arrives at that point where alone
the divergence of his opinions from the authorised
standard would be cognisable by law, have made
up his mind, following the dictates of his own
conscience, to forsake, of his own accord, the
ministry of a communion in the teaching of
which he has ceased to believe. The whole
experience of our history shows that determined
teachers of error in our Church sooner or later
leave the Church. They cannot bear the Liturgy
and Articles.

Por one thing I would plead in passing, that
as we are unwilling to force any into separa-
tion, so we should leave as ready an oppor-
tunity as possible for those who have already
gone, to return, if God brings them to a sounder
mind. It is very satisfactory to know that several
of our clergy, of late years seduced by the at-
tractions of Rome, have now come back to their
allegiance ; and we earnestly trust that it may
be so with all who ever fall into any grievous
error. So long as a man desires to remain one
of our clergy, we may feel confident that he
must have in his heart a stronger sympathy
with our system than we are willing to believe
in the heat of controversy. It is a grave res-
ponsibility to drive any from us who feel that
they are really of us, and the consequences of any
harshness in their violent expulsion may be quite
as grievous as any evil likely to result from their
teaching.

But ought not the Bishops to take care so to
fence the gate to holy orders, that no young men
can enter the ministry who are ever likely thus
to wander ? I confess this seems to me to be
asking too much. We are very fallible in such
matters. Nothing, indeed, can excuse a Bishop
who does not employ every means within his
reach to ascertain that his candidates are deeply
impressed with the responsibilities of the mini-

sterial office. He must see that they have con-
sidered carefully, as before God, whether they can
give their lives to those self-denying efforts, by
which Christ calls His ministers to win souls
to Him. And he must see, also, that so far as
their age and progress in education admits, they
have well weighed and sifted the Church's doc-
trine. If he perceives any young man to be
of a wavering unsettled spirit, he is bound to
warn him of the danger of taking upon himself
the solemn and enduring voavs of ordination.
Any appearance not only of common worldliness,
but of light-mindedness, of not having weighed
fully and prayerfully all that ordination implies ;
of hanging so uncertainly by the great simple
Gospel doctrines of which our Church is the
guardian, as not to be able to speak of them to
men's souls in Christ's name — these are serious
matters which the Bishop must note, and unless
the unfavourable impression is removed, he dares
not proceed Avith the ordination : and he will seek
to make the preparatory ember days a time of
great solemnity, that the candidates may not only
be tested by their examiners, but stirred by prayer
and exhortation to understand the momentous
point in their lives which they have reached. He
is bound to do everything in his power, to prevent
young men from being ordained, without seeing all
that lies before them. But as he ought not to pry

into youug men's consciences, so he must not strive
to probe, with too minute a scrutiny, every pos-
sible phase of their necessarily unformed opinions.
He must trust them, and he must pray for them,
and he must do his best to guide them in the real
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But he must
not strain their belief, or endeavour to twist them
into his own mould. And so very liable are we
to make great mistakes, when we attempt to con-
jecture what will probably be in coming years
the course of thought of a young man of twenty-
three, that I think the Bishops are certainly ex-
pected to go beyond their office and their power,
if they are asked to admit no man to holy orders,
who may possil)ly wander in course of time into
grievous error.

Even as to the declarations which the law of the
land requires to be made at ordination, I should
be ready myself, even now, in spite of all tempo-
rary alarm as to unsound opinions, to relax rather
than to tighten the bond. I hold that in this ques-
tion of guarding the threshold of the ministry,
as elsew here in dealing with the difficulties of an
inquisitive age, the generous confiding policy is
the best and the most Christian. It would be
indeed a melancholy catastrophe, if by an unwise
over-sensitiveness, w^e were to deter from ordina-
tion, I do not say merely the most intelligent
of our young men, but many of the most really

thoughtful and conscientious — if formalists and
hypocrites, and persons who had never thought
at all, were, as is quite possible, to satisfy an
ordeal through which the ablest and most holy
young man could not pass, if in matters of opinion
he was at all inclined to eccentricity, or at all
morbidly afraid of committing himself, beyond
what he had realised in its fulness, as the posi-
tive decision of his personal faith. We must not
forget the kindly consideration with which Arch-
bishop Howley made allowance for the youthful
scruples of Arnold.^ And certainly, most good
men will allow, that the Church of England of
this century would have been maimed if Arnold
had been scared from its ministry.

Where then is the Church to look for security
that its young clergy shall, by God's blessing, be
fully imbued with the Gospel doctrines which
Christ has committed to it ? Bishops are ex-
pected to guide their clergy, and it is their duty to
test and warn them at the entrance of their office ;
but whose business is it to train them ? This
is a serious question for the Universities. With
them far more than with any less important semi-
naries must rest this great Avork. Our Universities
have undergone many salutary changes of late
years. There is said to be much more encourage-
ment to study — there is certainly great enlarge-

' Arnold's Life. Vol. II. p. 132. Firle Appendix A.

ment and improvement in the machinery of edu-
cation : but so far as my own experience goes,
I cannot speak very confidently of any marked
improvement as yet, in the way in which they in-
struct and train candidates for holy orders. This
is a great responsibility which rests with our Uni-
versities. The experience of our own, as of all
past ages, will show that it is scarcely possible to
exaggerate the influence which a hearty, vigorous,
able teacher wins over the generous minds of his
young disciples in a University. Shall we not
trust that a reverent admiration of holy Scrip-
ture, and a zealous desire to be imbued with its
teaching, and a love for the great truths of Christ's
Gospel, and a hearty appreciation of the wise
tolerant spirit of our own Church — as well as of
those time-honoured schemes of devotion and of
doctrine which the Church has inherited — may be
stirred up in the hearts of a generous youth, eager
to devote themselves to the noble oflice of the
ministry? If, by God's blessing, the Universities
send us a large sujoply of prayerful, studious, in-
telligent, humble-minded young men, there need
be no fear that we shall lack able ministers
to hand on the torch of Christ's truth, burning
brightly and purely to another generation.

II. We pass to the difficulties which beset the
Church as established in an age of unbounded

toleration, and in the face of sects, some at least
of which strongly oj^pose even when they are
not determinatcly hostile to it.

And here we need not dwell long on disad-
vantages to which, according to some amongst
us, the Church is exposed from the very fact
of its being established. Granted that an
established Church must have parted in some
degree with its liberty ; that laws of uni-
formity, sanctioned and enforced by the State,
must restrain its power of self-action and of
adapting itself freely to the changing circum-
stances of each age according to the unfettered
discretion of its ecclesiastical rulers. Granted
that civil rulers must, in an established Church,
according to the compact of its establishment,
have certain rights of control conceded to them,
which they could not claim l3efore the days of
Constantino — rights which go much beyond that
ordinary power of superintendence in the admini-
stration of justice, and the regulation of property,
which the sovereign authority in every state
must exercise over the members of all commu-
nities, whether religious or secular, in Avhich
its citizens have been enrolled. Probably this
want of perfect Church liberty, whatever it
may amount to, is well compensated by those
fresh elements, conducing to order and greater
stabilitv in the mode and instruments of its

operation, which the Church receives from its
connexion with the State, ratified on fixed con-
ditions. Certainly, also, in the discharge of the
commission it has received from its Head, a wide
field is opened for the Church, and many helps
afforded, from this very association with the
State. What a blessing to have the whole
land mapped out by the law of the State into
parishes, for the express purpose of enabling
the Church to promote the spiritual welfare
of the citizens. What an advantage that the
clergy, depending on some fixed legal endow-
ment, should be enabled, in so many thousands
of districts (in every district, if the system
of an established Church were fully developed),
to minister the Gospel without fee or reward
from those to whom they minister, having
become perhaps at first thus chargeable to no
man through bequests of ancient charity or
piety, Avithout the direct interference of the
State ; but being secured by the State in the
enjoyment of these bequests during many cen-
turies and throughout the whole country, and thus
placed in a position of independence to which
no non-established Church has ever attained.
Let those who, for the support of themselves and
their families, are dependent altogether on the
voluntary offerings of the people, and on their
own powers of attracting numbers to their con-

gregations, tell us whether they do not think that
we enjoy a great advantage for our ministry in
that independent position in which so many of
us are placed.

Are there plain advantages in these arrange-
ments of an established Church even in towns ?
And how would the Church be cramped in bearing
its message to the scattered populations of remote
country places, if men could secure no ministers
of the Gospel to dwell amongst them, except in
dependence on the liberality of small farmers, or
the cheerfully- given, but very ill- spared, pennies
of the poor. The Roman Catholic Church in
Ireland, indeed, depends on such alms and fees ;
but I do not think our clergy, as a body, could
ever bear rigidly to exact such payments. We
are thankful that most of us are independent of
them, and we recognise in this a great help for
our spiritual work.

Moreover, the fact of our being clergy of an
established Church, as it gives us influence in
the State, brings us more into contact with men
of all orders, and thus affords us an opportunity,
for which we are deeply responsible, of better
leavening the nation with Christian principles,
through its many Christian institutions for
charity, for education, for the development alike
of its social and its corporate life. Wherever Eng-
lishmen are met together for any purpose not

unworthy of them as Christians, there the clergy
of the national Church have their proper place
assigned to them. I cannot see how such an
obvious acknowledgment of Christianity could
be secured, if men had to select from amongst
the ministers of a number of rival bodies, having
no clergy of any established Church at hand to
whom they could always naturally turn.

The State must receive from an established
Church, if its clergy are faithful, great helps
towards extending and deepening those Christian
influences which foster and give power to its
national life. The State, through our connexion
with it, gains much from us if we are faithful, as
we also are greatly aided by it in the discharge of
our duties to our heavenly Lord. The great
Nonconformists of old felt and acknowledged
this. They would have been as much shocked
at the idea of a Christian nation not maintain-
ing the Church in its connexion with the State
as the most rigid of our own divines or Church
and State politicians of last century. Nay, though
we hear a great deal now-a-days of the vaunted
excellency of what is called the " voluntary
principle," we may fairly doubt whether, if we
polled the whole body of those who, from various
causes, dissent from the Church of England, we
should find anything like a numerical majority
of them opposed to Chnrch establishments. It is

as with the show of hands at a popular election.
The loudest and most violent, on account of the
noise they make, and their vehement demonstra-
tions, we very often take for the majority, when,
in truth, they represent hut a very small hody.
And if a few unwise voices have at times been
raised from amongst ourselves, lamenting as if
the Church were trammelled by its connexion
with the State, it will, I think, be well, both for
ourselves and those who differ from us, that we
should quietly call to mind some of the heads
now suggested, under which the national benefits
of a Church establishment may be classed.

But it is not of the general objections to an
established Church that I would now chiefly
treat. Xo doubt it is a peculiar difficulty of this
century, not perhaj)s in our own country alone,
that an established Church has never before
been maintained in the midst of an imbounded
toleration of all communities that differ from it,
with most perfect religious as well as civil liberty.
I should feel alarmed as to the stability of our
established system, if I did not believe that we
are, and are likely to continue, a truly national
Church, commanding the affections of the nation,
and representing, on the whole, the nation's faith.
The days when a dominant Church amongst us
could look for the support of any extraneous
helps derived from some lingering remnants of

the spirit of persecution, are hai)pily for erer
gone. We stand on the merits of the system we
administer — on its being interwoven with the
noblest associations of our national history — on
its giving strength to the constitution of our
Christian land — on its being felt to be promotive
of sound learning, good education, well-regulated
piety, pure morality, and thus advancing the
best interests of the people whom, for Christ's
sake, we serve in the maintenance of His truth.
Our commission as a Church comes direct from
Christ's delegation, and we trust to His promise
for a never-endino^ stabilitv. As an established
Church, on the other hand, we may be over-
thrown, and our security must greatly depend on
our being thus rooted in the heart of the nation
in which God's providence has established us, and
bound up with what the nation acknowledges to
be its best interests.

^N'ow it is not uncommon for us to hear great
exaggerations as to the number of persons who
are alienated from the Established Church. We
naturally desire to ascertain exactly how we
stand : it is well we should know both the best
and worst aspects of our position. Eut perfectly
trustworthy statistics by which to judge, are
difficult to obtain. Certain well-known circum-
stances attending the last and the previous census,
and the way in which all attempts to remedy

alleged mistakes as to the religious statistics
taken in 1851, were, for some strange reason,
opposed in 1860, have involved the whole subject
in obscurity. All that we can do is, without
pretending to speak with perfect accuracy, to
enumerate such of the data placed in our hands,
as, when taken together, may seem likely to give,
in the aggregate, a tolerably fair view of the case.
1st. Church accommodation is said ^ to have
been afforded, in 1851, for 29 per cent, of the popu-
lation by the Church of England ; for 12 per cent.
by the AYesleyan Methodists ; for 6 per cent, by
the Independents ; for 4 per cent, by the Bap-
tists ; for 1 per cent, by the E.oman Catholics ;
for 3i per cent by all other sects. That is, speak-
ing roughly, the Church of England, it is asserted,
was able, at the time of the calculation, to supply
29 per cent, of church accommodation, as com-
pared with 27 per cent. supj)lied by all other
bodies. This, if accurate, would be for Church-
men a discouraging aspect of our relative posi-
tions, were we not aware that the clergy of the
Established Church are responsible for the whole
mass of those who look to them for comfort and
relief, whether there be room provided for them
in church or no ; whereas the ministers of other
bodies necessarily confine their efforts much more

^ Vide Abridged Report on Religious Worship. Census Returns,
1851, p. 72.

to their congregations; and were it not that
further it is very difficult to ascertain how much
extra accommodation the Church provides through
its innumerable services in school-rooms, respect-
ing which we can scarcely ascertain whether they
were generally returned or no.

2d. A second point bearing with great force
on the illustration of the first, is that, in 1851,
all the places of worship of the Nonconformist
Protestant bodies, including the Wesleyans, were
served by 6,405 ministers ; whereas the clergy of
the Established Church reached 17,320.' This
shows that amongst Nonconformists the existence
of a place of worship does not imply the presence
of a minister, or that provision for the social wel-
fare of the surrounding district, which is inherent
in the very idea of a well-appointed parish church.

3d. The Education Commissioners' E-eport- of
1861 shows us that the influence of Dissent is
greatly maintained by Sunday-schools. AVhereas
there are reported to be in all, in England and
TVales, 33,516 Sunday-schools, attached, all of
them, with very rare exceptions, to reKgious
denominations; the Church, indeed, supplies
22,236 of these, as compared with the remainder
of 11,280 ; but yet the sum of scholars taught
in all these many Sunday-schools of the Church
is returned as less than the aggregate in the

1 Census, 1851 ; Occupations, &c., vol. i. p. cxl., table xxviii.

2 Page 594.

D 2

non- Church Sunday-schools. The Church has
1,092,822 Sunday scholars ; and deducting 2,662
as the scholars in the 23 non-denominational
Sunday-schools, we have a remainder of 1,292,913.
That is, the reported aggregate of the Sunday-
school scholars of all the other hodies, exceeds
those of the Church hy 200,000 ; the Wesleyans
furnishing 453,702 ; the Primitive Methodists,
136, 929 ; and the Calvinistic Methodists, 112,740;
while the Roman Catholics are reported as fur-
nishing only 35,458. Now, this result from the
Commissioners' Report is deserving of most seri-
ous consideration. It points to a wide- spread and
growing influence of Dissent amongst the reli-
gious poor. Nor is the force of this inference to
be shaken hy the fact that Dissenters are alleged
to make a great point of their Sunday-schools,
while the clergy look to their day-schools rather
for the maintenance of an enduring good influence.
4th. The same Education Commissioners' Re-
port certainly shows that in the maintenance of
day-schools for the poor, the Church, as com-
pared with other hodies, occupies a truly national
position. Of the 22,647 day-schools for the
poor supported hy religious bodies, 19,549 belong
to the Church of England.^ Of the 1,549,312
scholars taught in such schools, the schools of
the Church of England furnish 1,187,086.

1 Page 593.

Again, of 2,036 evening-schools the Commis-
sioners calculate that the Church of England
supports 1,547, in which are taught 54,157
scholars out of the whole number of 80,966.'

5th. It is stated that above 80 per cent, of the
whole marriages in the country are celebrated
by the Churcli of England.^

The Church, then (if we can rely on this infor-
mation), is brought before us as affording not
much more than one-half of the available ac-
commodation for public worship. It is granted
even on an unfavourable and somewhat dis-
credited estimate ^ to supply more than one-half
of the worshippers, the other half being distri-
buted amongst thirty-seven other bodies, of whom
the various branches of the Methodists and
Independents, the Particular Baptists and the
Homan Catholics are alone returned as having
any important hold on the community. It
instructs not quite one-half of the children
frequenting Sunday-schools. But if we are thus
presented with but a low estimate of the Church's
influence on those seven millions and a quarter
who in 1851 were returned as habitual worship-
pers, there lies before it a boundless field of
missionary labour amongst the neglected masses,

' Page 593.

^ Registrar General's Report, 1862, p. viii.

^ The Census Return of 1851, Religious Worship, (1854,) p. 19.

in which it has comparatively few rivals : There,
in house to house visitation, organising and
superintending schools, and a thousand charities ;
it finds ample work for a body of clergy said to
exceed in number the aggregate of all other
Protestant ministers of religion in the ratio of
17 to 6i.

Again, as the Church has thus a boundless
work amongst the very poor, and is, I will make
bold to say, strong in their good-will, so it is
granted on all hands that it alone of all com-
munions has a real, perceptible influence with
the highest ranks. Its general hold on the nation
as the instructor, civilizer, guide, is thus very
great. And this influence it turns to the best
account by having vindicated for itself in so
remarkable a degree — not through the help of
old endowments or any fostering care of the
State, but through its own self-denying and un-
tiring eflPorts, and chiefly through the unexamj)led
sacrifices of its parochial clergy — the difiicult and
noble task of educating the great body of the poor.

Now when in all these ways the position of
the Chvirch is shown to be so strong, no wonder
that the habits of the people should bear witness
that its old traditions have a hold upon their
hearts, and that besides its own worshippers so
vast a number, even of those who are separated
from it in their ordinary pursuits, should desire

to mark their still enduring union with it in the
chief events of their family life.

I cannot think that this picture, much of
which is drawn from representations not favour-
able to the Church, is discouraging, in an age
of perfectly unrestrained liberty ; when every
man, whether from hereditary prejudice, or some
idiosyncrasy of private opinion, or merely from
disliking the representative of the Established
Church who happens to be brought near to him,
is perfectly free to choose any communion which
may suit his convenience or his tastes. It seems
rather, that, while we have an almost boundless
field peculiarly our own, there is also a great
amount of half-expressed feeling in favour of the
Church and its ministers entertained even by
those who to a certain extent are alienated from
it, and a desire on their parts to profit by what
the Church has to offer, whenever they can do so
without a sacrifice of principle. How shall we
deal with this state of things ? How shall we
bear ourselves towards those who are completely
separated from us ? How hope to win back, or,
without winning back, strive as far as we may
to influence those who, without being distinctly
hostile, are still closely allied to some other com-
munion ?

Pirst, shall we conciliate them by change in
our own system ? Of the large number of persons

4.0

in England who are unfortunately separated from
tlie National Church, a very large proportion of
those who have sufficient knowledge and intelli-
gence to understand the subject, feel no repug-
nance to our distinctly doctrinal formularies,
and are willing also to assent generally to the
teaching of our formularies of devotion. That
is, if they are deterred from subscribing to the
Thirty-nine Articles, this is not from any con-
viction that the teaching of the Articles is un-
scriptural. They probably occasionally join in our
worship ; or, if they abstain from doing so, this is
not because in our ordinary confessions, prayers,
thanksgivings, or songs of praise, they find any-
thing which they deem inconsistent with the
teaching and spirit of the Gospel. There are no
doubt certain portions of our more occasional
services to which they object, but this is generally
from attaching to them some meaning, which,
though put forward by a certain important sec-
tion of our Church as their true exponent, is by
no means adopted and sanctioned by the Church
as a whole. Now why, it is asked, should we not
conciliate such persons, by removing the com-
paratively few phrases, which are a stumbling-
block to them ? This is the form of the strongest
plea noAV advanced by advocates for liturgical
revision. " No need," they urge, " to insert
one statement which shall be distasteful to anv

portion of the Churcli. If a man chooses to hold
any extreme doctrines as to the influence of
sacramental grace, or insists on exaggerating
the powers of the ministerial office, we have no
wish that he should he prevented ; only deprive
him of all pretence for asserting that his views
are the exclusive views of the Church of England,
and do not allow him to retain his few passages
which taken unexplained by themselves seem to
build him up in his mistaken opinions, and
enable him to terrify from the Church's portal
many who are anxious to find admittance." There
is no denying that at first sight there is a great
appearance of good sense and fairness in such
a plea.

If a few passages can be specified in our for-
mularies which might be expunged or altered
without wounding the feelings or convictions of
any, the alteration of which would make the
Church of England no less powerful a Avitness
than it is at present for Christ's truth, while
it would bring many to our communion who
are now estranged from it, no fair man will
maintain that we should be justified in resisting
so reasonable a demand. We must not, however,
hastily conclude that such an alteration of our
formularies is j)ossible.

In the first place it must be remarked generally
that, as is often said, mere omission mav be almost

as painful to minds deeply convinced of certain
truth, as the assertion of its contradictory. The
Church in its formularies is to be a witness to
truth, and it may sacrifice principle by being
silent. To take an extreme case — in some com-
munions on the Continent, the attempt has been
made to conciliate Arians or Socinians by the
omission of all express mention of the Lord's
Divinity or atoning sacrifice. None of our pre-
sent liturgical reformers would wish the Church
to be silent on such subjects, or by its silence to
aim at such a compromise. Though it is well
to note by the way, that something like this was
the object of the movement for the alteration
of subscription in the last century.' I mention
this case now, however, only to show that we
must be careful how we omit, lest truth may
suffer even by silence. It has been well said
that an excision must leave a scar, and there-
fore a revised Prayer-book, in which nothing
has been altered except by omission, may leave
many blanks lamented by devout worshippers.
No doubt many will be pained by the mere
absence of words, speaking to them of views of
truth on which their hearts are much set. The
answer given is, that it is taken for granted by

^ Archdeacon Blackburn's Proposal for an application to Parliament
for relief in matters of Subscription, published in 1771, was followed
by the Feathers' Tavern Petition, 1772. Vide Appendix B, p. 101.

the very terms of the present proposal for re-
vision, that nothing shall be omitted which the
Church of England imposes as doctrine on all its
children. All that is proposed is, that certain
phrases, which when fairly viewed in connexion
with the whole teaching of the Church, are
capable of more than one interpretation, shall be
omitted, lest tliey should mislead, and because
they are practically found to be to some a stum-
bling block.

Now, as it is granted to be impossible that
such omissions should take place without offence
to some — the matter-of-fact question remains,
whether there is any reasonable ground for
believing that we shall conciliate more than we
shall alienate by such changes. Those who are
separated from us have their traditions — some-
times of two hundred years' standing — their close
associations one with another — their inherited and
acquired prejudices, very difficult to overcome.
Many interests of all kinds have grown up around
their communities, from the influence of which
it is difficult for them to free themselves. All
these things are against any migration on a
large scale from their ranks to ours. We must
remember, that it is very difficult to win over an
antagonist, very easy to distress and alienate a
friend. In all proposals which have hitherto
been made for such changes, I desiderate any

reasonable assurance on this point, and till this
matter has been well weighed, and the probable
balance shown to be on the right side, the
authorities of the Church cannot be expected to
consent to changes, which may produce no result
but the alienation of friends.

If the advocates for change could prove any
of our statements t ) contain false doctrine, that
would be another matter. Not a word could then
be said in their favour. But what you hold out
is this — that some phrases are capable of being
understood as favouring certain extreme state-
ments, to which the general tone of the Church's
teaching gives no encouragement, or rather which
it repudiates as anything more than allowable
opinions. We are asked to expunge these.
Then seeing that, as a matter of fact, many of
our people are wisely or unwisely attached to
these phrases, before you ask us to move, give us
some good reason to believe that we, by the
changes you propose, shall really gain over more
opponents than we shall lose friends. If you
cannot satisfy us on this point, Ave must leave
things as they are. Change is not repudiated
in itself; but the burden of the proof that the
change will attain the objects for which it is
urged, must rest Avith its advocates.

And here we call to mind, that it is not so
simple a matter as some suppose, to alter Avords

and phrases which are objected to in our for-
mularies, without altering doctrine. No doubt
all our Church Services are constructed on the
principle that Christ died for ail men; that
all baptized Christip.ns may and ought to be
addressed as God's children in Jesus Christ. I
do not mean that a Calvinist, holding the doctrine
of particular redemption, may not with perfect
honesty remain within the pale of our Church,
and subscribe her formularies ; but certainly our
Prayer-book and Catechism are not constructed
on a Calvinistic basis, and even with regard to
the Articles, it is important to note, that when
Calvinists came to have absolute power in Eng-
land, they thought it best to rewrite the Articles.
Now, any omissions which were to alter this
characteristic of our Church — which were to
weaken the force of that solemn protest which
the Church of England makes in favour of the
Gospel doctrine of God's all-embracing love,
giving His Son to die freely for all men in Jesus
Christ, and encouraging His ministers to address
their flocks collectively as God's children — would
be felt by a vast body — may I not say, by an
overwhelming majority of clergy and people— to
be a compromise of principle, and to involve a
failure of the Church's duty in bearing witness
to Christ's truth. On the whole of this range of
subjects, then, we are extremely sensitive. And

even if, as a matter of private opinion, there
be any who ree^ret the addition respecting the
Lord's Supper in the close of the Catechism, or
wish that, at the Reformation, our Church, in its
Ordination Service, had returned more completely
to the simplicity of primitive centuries, still, with
that consideration for the opinions of others which
our union in a National Church implies, we must
ask them not to forget that the lapse of time,
and the advocacy of many honoured divines, have
conciliated for these portions of our ritual a degree
of affectionate regard which it is impossible to
overlook, and might be dangerous to set at nought.

It will be seen, then, that I am not hopeful as
to the probability of any safe, and wise, and con-
siderate plan of liturgical revision being pro-
posed with the assured prospect of uniting to our
Church those who are at present separated from
it, without driving from us many of our present
friends. This, I repeat, I must strongly maintain,
that such prospect ought to be held out to us be-
fore we can be expected to move.

But, again, it is urged that even without litur-
gical revision or any alteration of the Articles,
much may be gained by a relaxation of the
present terms of subscription to our formularies.
It is said that many hopeful candidates for the
ministry are at present deterred from serving our
communion, and retained within the influence of

Dissent, which they would gladly leave, by the
required declaration that they give their un-
feigned assent and consent to everything con-
tained in the Book of Common Prayer. How
far there may he such persons thus deterred
from joining us, who yet are one with us in the
profession and love of the great Gospel doctrines,
I have not the means of knowing. I have already
alluded above to the argument in favour of a
relaxation, derived from the danger of offending
tender consciences amongst our own people, and
deterring some of the best of them from binding
themselves by the obligations of the ministry. If
there be really the additional reason now advanced
for a revision of our terms of subscription, the
subject certainly demands most grave considera-
tion, and I doubt not will — I trust, soon — receive
it both from the Bishops and from other members
of the Legislature.

I subjoin in the Appendix' a statement of the
actual subscriptions at present required, and the
authority on which they rest. I will not say that
these declarations may not be too minute in their
expression of agreement. Looking back to history,
we learn that their minuteness was devised for
the express purpose of driving out of the Church
many persons whom we should be very glad now-
a-days, under the prevalence of a better spirit,

^ Fidn Appendix C, p. 1 1 1.

and with wiser views of the Church's compre-
hensiveness, to retain, and employ as its mini-
sters. It is a grave matter for consideration,
whether the apparent minuteness of this strin-
gency subserves any good purpose. Of course a
man must accept and believe the teaching of the
Prayer-book, if he is to use it habitually in his
public ministrations. It would be intolerable
hypocrisy so to use it, if his conscience revolted
against its teaching; but still it may fairly be
doubted Avhether that hearty assent to its general
teaching which we rightly presuppose in all, need
be expressed in the particular form of words
which has seemed to some men of tender con-
sciences, to exalt every outpoui'ing of devotional
sentiment into a strict logical statement of the
Church's doctrine. Doubtless, the declarations as
at present required, are fairly understood by the
great majority, both of those who administer and
of those who subscribe them,to imply that general
hearty acquiescence in the teaching of the Prayer-
book, which sees nothing in it contrary to Scrip-
ture, which, I have said, is indispensable in those
who are to use it with a safe conscience in their
ministrations. AYe explain to candidates for ordi-
nation that this is what is meant. But if it be true
that any considerable number of persons regard
the words of subscription as naturally meaning
something more— something which many of the

voun» men who are called to subscribe cannot
fairly be expected to declare, in its simple literal
sense, from the necessary imperfection of their
knowledge, and the scanty opportunities they
have enjoyed of carefully studying all the intri-
cate questions which may be supposed to be in-
cluded in it ; if the scrupulous consciences of
some of the most thoughtful stumble at the
words, then, certainly, the whole subject of what
our subscriptions ought to be, requires, and must
receive, immediate attention. We are urged to
retain nothing of this kind which is not called
for by the real exigencies of the Church, and let
us carefully consider what these exigencies do re-
quire. This age has happily seen the aboKtion
of a great number of unnecessary oaths and decla-
rations. For the clergy, above all other men, it
is desirable that every solemn declaration to which
they are called, should express, in the simplest
and most straightforward language, the exact
meaning of what they are understood to assert.
This subject, I say, demands consideration, for
our own sake, and for the sake of our influence
over our o^ti laity ; it will be an additional argu-
ment for our pondering well the feasibility of
any change, if it can be proved, as is alleged,
that our present forms of subscription and decla-
ration deter from our communion any who are
one with us in heart and sentiment, and would

gladly, if they might, he permitted to lahour
within our pale.

These, however, are matters of legislation, on
which great diversity of opinion must exist.
There remain other steps more easily taken,
wherehy it is helieved we may win over those
who differ from us, by gradually disj^elling the
prejudices which make them distrust us. We
may spread amongst them a truer understanding
of those parts of our Church system which they
cannot fail to recognise as valuable. We may
supply, in strict accordance with our own rules,
certain wants which hitherto we have too much
overlooked, their wise attention to which has given
Nonconformists much of their influence.

Of this last class, for example, of easily practi-
cable improvements are the efforts now wisely
making to enlist our laity more than hitherto in
some definite work for the Church. In the middle
classes especially, no doubt, many zealous lay-
men have been driven into Dissent by the apathy
with which our clergy, in times past, looked on
discouragingly, while they were burning with zeal
to be engaged in some directly sanctioned work
for Christ. The employment of district visitors
and Scripture-readers, while it greatly increases
the power which a clergyman brings to bear
uj)on his parish, will doubtless preserve for us
many who in other days would have wandered

without our fold, simply because within it uo
definite work was assigned to them. Then again,
the legally appointed lay offices of the Church
are, I trust, every year becoming more truly
realities. Churchwardens and sidesmen are
learning to take more of an honest pride in the
strictly ecclesiastical part of their duties ; the
clergy are learning more to trust them, and
attach value to their advice and help. No doubt
throughout the whole country there is a great
and salutary movement, to unite the lay mem-
bers of our flocks with ourselves in active work
for the Church. And it is difficult to estimate
how much our Church's influence may be in-
creased by this movement wisely used.

Again, much may be done by a Avise and con-
ciliatory use of the advantages we enjoy, in
being able to offer education to all our people.
The Education Commissioners' Heport only re-
echoes what we learn from all other testimony,
that the great bulk of the educational machinery
for the poor in this country, is in the hands of
the clergy of the Church of England. Let us
thank God for their zeal and self-denial which
have won this result. Amongst many others
which are greater, it gives our clergy this ad-
vantage, that they have the opportunity of
winning the affectionate regard of the rising
generation, not only of their own peculiar flocks,

E 2

but of the great body of those who dwell
within the limits of their parishes. Let them
administer their system of education wisely,
considerately, and in the best sense of the word
liberally, not drawing unnecessary distinctions
between Church people and others, nor offending
the consciences of any by forcing upon the chil-
dren observances or professions of faith to which
the parents, and therefore also according to
God's order of providence, the chilcben, cannot
conscientiously assent ; let them be charitable
and conciliatory, at the same time that they
sacrifice no real principle, and give to their own
people the fullest instruction in their own for-
mularies and their oavti faith. It is impossible
to calculate how much will thus be effected to-
wards rooting the Church of England in the
affections of the coming generation. A really
national system of education may be in our
hands to administer, if we will conduct it on
really national principles.

Moreover, in this very matter of education we
shall, if we are wise, learn from the bodies that
are estranged from us, many lessons as to how
better to retain under instruction, those who
have passed the age of school, but who, as mem-
bers of Bible-classes, and Sunday-school teachers,
becoming helps to the clergyman in dealing with
those who are younger than themselves, may, by

a little kindly effort, be attached to our staff, and
made eminently useful in the Church.

When to such plans as these we add the many
ways in which the goodwill of those who differ
from us may be conciliated, in our common
relations as fellow-citizens, by kindly association
in charitable works, by watching for every oppor-
tunity in which, even in strictly religious matters,
we may without compromise of principle co-
operate ; certainly, we still find abundant oppor-
tunities for recommending our Church through
the offices of an expansive Christian fellowship,
to many both E^omanists and Dissenters, who
now look upoD it with suspicion and dislike.
It is an end worth labouring to secure, that the
Established Church of this nation may be in
very truth the Church of the nation — that it
may not only as now command the respect
and love of the nation, and number the great
majority within its pale, but include in the bonds
of a willing love and obedience, and in unity of
worship, not perhaps the whole, but well-nigh
the whole of the English people. Nothing, I be-
lieve, but our want of wisdom or of faithfulness,
can prevent the Church from gaining rapidly on
the affections of our countrymen. And we desire
the established Church thus to prosper because
we believe it labours faithfully for Christ.

Truly, it would be a good work for the Bishops

of this age, if in God's providence it were re-
served for them to repair the mischief caused
by the folly or coldness of their predecessors of
the last century. The Wesleyan hody^ (Original
Connexion) is reported (accurately or inaccu-
rately) to number above 900,000 worshippers.
John Wesley never designed that his people
should be separated from the Church of England.
He loved its communion, and would not have
formed any body even partially separate from it,
had he not been driven from exercising his
ministry. It is, indeed, a result worth praying
for, and labouring for, if by God's goodness this
sad wound might be healed.

In our dealings with Wesleyans, as with others
who are separated from us, let us bear in mind the
wise words of Archbishop Bancroft ; spoken be it
remembered by a man of no latitudinarian spirit,
who sacrificed every worldly interest to maintain
his Church principles — words tinctured no doubt
bv the common horror of returnino' Eomanism,
which in 1688 had drawn Churchmen and Non-
conformist together from a sense of common
danger, but still expressing, we must suppose,
his real sentiments : —

He exhorts his clergy ^ —

" That tliey walk in wisdom towards tliose who are not of our
communion ; and if there be in their parishes any such, that

^ Religious Worship Abridged Report.
Cftrdwell's Documentary Annals, Vol. II. p. 375. Oxford. 1844.

they neglect not frequently to confer with them in the spirit of
meekness, seeking by all good ways and means to gain and win
them over to our communion. More especially that they have
a very tender regard to our brethi-en, the Protestant Dissenters,
that, upon occasion offered, they visit them at their houses, and
receive them kindly at their own, and treat them fairly wherever
they meet them ; discoursing calmly and civilly with them,
persuading them (if it may be) to a full compliance with our
Church, or at least, that whereto we have already attained, we
may all walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing. . .
And in the last place, that they warmly and most affectionately
exhort them to join with us in daily fervent prayer to the God
of peace, for an universal blessed union of all reformed churches,
both at home and abroad, against our common enemies ; that all
they who do confess the holy name of our dear Lord, and do
agree in the truth of His holy Word, may also meet in one holy
communion, and live in perfect unity and Godly love."

There remains one unpleasant cause of dis-
agreement between Churchmen and separatists,
which must not he passed over in silence. In
my last Charge I intimated that the then
Government was likely to propose some measure
for the settlement of the question of Church-
rates. That measure was not accepted. Eour
years have passed, and the question of Church-
rates is still unsettled. I gratefully recognise in-
deed the signs of a change in public opinion, as
evidenced by the changed votes of the House of
Commons on this subject. I feel grateful to the
eiforts of those who have roused the nation to look
at this question in a truer light. I do believe that
there has been great exaggeration as to the irrita-

tion caused by Church-rate coutests, at least as they
are now conducted. What can he fau*er than that
the question shouhl he referred to the whole jiarish,
and that the majority should decide ? It is the
general characteristic of Englishmen to make a
bold fight for what they ^\dsh, and when fairly
outA^oted, to retire before the majority in tolerably
good humour, all the better pleased for having
had the opportunity of freely speaking their mind
while the contest lasted ; and I do not believe that
Church-rate contests are now any exception to
this rule.

Nevertheless, there are many difl&culties con-
nected with Church-rates as they at present stand,
whicli are calculated to keep up much irritation.
Many rejoice that the question has not been
settled hitherto, while the cry was strong against
Chiirch-rates, and while the Church being appa-
rently weak in the legislature, was ready to
accept a compromise. I cannot quite share in
this feeling. Prom the way, indeed, in which
both Churchmen and Dissenters, if I may venture
to say so, play with this question, it would seem
as if the grievance was not great. The one party
almost seems to rejoice in the privilege of object-
ing to the impost as their last remaining griev-
ance, the other to cling to the right of imposing
it, even where this right has become merely
nominal, as a proof that the old state of things

is not entirely gone. Meanwhile, I believe that,
in many instances grave evils do follow. Cer-
tainly, within the Church, there is much dis-
satisfaction and injustice, especially in towns ;
while many parish churches are ill cared for
because they have nominally a legal right to
be supported out of public funds, which are
refused by a vote of vestry, and the existence
of the public right stops the supplies of indi-
vidual liberality. District churches have suffered
under the anomaly of their congregations being
at once chargeable to the rates of some distant
mother- church, and having out of their private
funds, to support their own church ; ' while in a
large number of the churches at least of this
metropolis, the main support of the fabric and
services comes virtually from the 23oclvets of
the clergy very ill endowed and overburdened
already by the claims of a hundred charities.
These are evils arising from the present un-
settled state of the Church-rate question within
the Church.

Neither can it be denied that a certain amount
of unnecessary irritation is kept up between
Churchmen and Dissenters. It is scarcely
creditable to the two great political parties in
the State, that they should apparently have

' Dr. Lushington's decision of the 22d November, in Govgh v. Jones,
may be found very important in abating this evil.

resolved to leave this question thus unsettled.
Is it not one of those questions in which the
chiefs of contending j)olitical parties, anxious
all of them for the welfare of their common
Church, might have been expected to unite, and
in which a settlement might have been accom-
plished long ago ? I cannot profess to offer ac-
ceptable suggestions where so many have failed,
but I will not forbear from calling attention to
the deliberate decision of that Select Committee
of the House of Lords, which carefully sifted
the subject in 1860, a committee on Avhich some
of the chief men of both parties sat. The re-
commendation was as follows :^ —

" Clause G. That the entire abolition of the (^hurcli-rate is
opposed to the general feclmg of members of the Church, is not
universally called for by Dissenters of various denominations, and
especially not by that large and influential body, the "Wesleyan
Methodists, and would, in the case of a great number of
parishes, be attended with serious and prejudicial consecpiences,
by restricting the existing means for the repair and maintenance
of the parish church, by greatly restricting the labour and
responsibility of the clergyman, and otherwise materially im-
peding the ministrations of the Church in these parishes.

"Clause 7. That viewing the grounds of objection to the
payment of Church-rates, as well as the impediments which exist
to their collection, it is expedient to alter the law in the fol-
lowing respects :

" 1st. That for the future, persons desirous of being exempted

' Vide Report of Committee of House of Lords ou Church Rates
1860.

from coutributiiig to the Church-rate in any parish, may give
yearly notice to that effect to the churchwardens jprior to the
meeting of any vestry, for the purpose of making a Church-
rate ; and that such person shall not he entitled to attend any
such vestry, or to vote upon the making or application of such
rate, or to act as churchwardens in any matter relating to the
church, or to retain any seat appropriated to them in the
church, during the time of such exemption.

" 2d. That the rate, when voted by the vestry, shall be levied
upon all such persons liable to it, who have not given such
notice.

" 3d. That the items for which a rate may be made shall be
definitely declared by law.

" 4th. That the ratepayers in any new parish or district shall
be rateable for the jDurposes of their own church, and no other.

" 5th. That there shall be the same powers for the recovery of
Church-rates, as exist for the recovery of poor-rates, and in case
of objection to the validity of the rate, an appeal shall lie to the
General Quarter Sessions, and that the jurisdiction of the Eccle-
siastical Courts in such cases shall cease."

" Clause 8. That the principle of assessing the owner instead
of the occupier, to the Church-rate, is well deserving the serious
consideration of Parliament, in any future legislation on this
subject."

The most reasonable objection made to this
plan is, that in many country places, Avhere
there is at present no difficulty in enforcing the
compulsory, it would introduce the voluntary
system, and this in the very places where, from
the general habits of a rural population, such
system would be very likely to prove a failure. To
avert this evil, it has been suggested, provision
might be made that the new system should only
be applicable in places where the church accom-

modation fails to supply room for one-third of the
parishioners. This, it is nrged, would he reason-
able in itself ; for the old system of Church-rates
is obviously built on the principle that the whole
population is invited to receive benefits from the
parish church, and therefore ought as a body to
maintain it. AYliere the change of circumstances
prevents the Church from fulfilling this duty, it
may be supposed to have forfeited its rights.
And as this is the case solely, or principally, in
towns where Church-rate difficulties have arisen,
the new system, being introduced only where
the population is large, would remove irritation
and inconvenience wdiere it exists, without alter-
ing the old-established order of things in quiet
country places.

It cannot, perhaps, be expected that this, or
any such solution, will be accepted amid the
jealousies of contending parties ; but it is high
time to protest against unnecessary delays, and
against this great social question, wdtli all its
difficulties, being treated any longer as a matter
which may be left to settle itself, and which is
only worth attending to so far as it gives this or
the other political body the advantage of a party
cry and a momentary victory.

III. We now turn to the third, and most
directly pressing difficulty in our position —

that, namely, which springs from our ever-grow-
ing population. Nowhere, of course, is this diffi-
culty more felt than here. The population of
this diocese, by the census of 1861, is 2,570,079.
The number of churches is 198 ; of licensed
parochial clergy (a somewhat floating number),
about 980, to whom must be added a consider-
able body of clergy unlicensed, affording occa-
sional or temporary assistance. We shall not go
very far wrong then, if we say that there is thus,
in the London Diocese, a church for every 5,000
of the population, and a clergyman for every
2,500. Rightly to estimate our j)arochial organi-
zation, we must reckon, in addition, a large
number of schoolrooms, school-chapels, and other
buildings — some under the Bishop's licence, as
used for the administration of the Sacraments ;
others employed for Divine service on a mere
temporary tenure ; and we must note, also, that
our clergy are aided by a large body of Scrip-
ture-readers, acting directly under their pastoral
superintendence.

At first sight, this appears to present us with
a somewhat encouraging picture. It is perhaps
more encouraging than might have been ex-
pected; and this is well. Nothing is so likely
to paralyse our efforts as a conviction that the
task we have before us is impossible. But

now, let us view the matter in another aspect.
Between 1851 and 1861, the population of the
London Diocese has increased by 42 i, 232. The
number of churches consecrated in that interval
was 66, i. e. one for about every 6,500 of the in-
creasing population ; but 21 temporary churches
have also been added during that time, and,
altogether, there has been provided, in the ten
years, increased accommodation of worship for
about 73,000 persons. That is, during the ten
years, church accommodation has been sup-
plied for about one-sixth of the increased popula-
tion. Now, this is scarcely what is required
to keep pace with our growing necessities ;
and the appalling fact accordingly transpires,
that, whatever were our spiritual wants in this
respect in 1851, all our great exertions have not
lessened them, but have at best but prevented
the evil from growing worse.

Let us consider, then, carefully, how great the
evil is ; for hitherto, I repeat, it seems, at our
present rate of parochial extension, we are not
(so far as building new churches and forming
new parishes is concerned) making any pro-
gress in diminishing it. Obviously we dare not
intermit our present efforts in this matter : it
appears, by the great exertions which have
been made, we are able — but only able — to

prevent fresh water from rushing in to sink the
ship.

I have said, on an average, we have one church
to every 5,000 of the population, and one clergy-
man perhaps for every 2,500.' But, ohviously,
this gives no sort of test of the real proportion
between population and the means of grace in the
several localities. We have one' country parish
with a population returned to me as under 20,
and three others under 400. We have thirty-one
City churches, with a population under 600.
I subjoin a list of parishes or districts, eighty -two
in number, where, so far as I can ascertain, there
is a population of 10,000 and upwards, assigned
to one church. Three only have, as returned, a
population above 30,000 for one place of worship.
Between 20,000 and 30,000 to one place of
worship, there are eleven ; fourteen between
15,000 and 20,000 ; and fifty-four between 10,000
and 15,000. The number of licensed clergy in all
these districts amounts to 301 ; on an average one
for about every 4,500 souls. I remark that in eight

^ I find that at the last Visitation the number of Hcensed clergy,
now above 980, was 885. The number of churches con.seci*ated
in the interval has been 36, i.e. in four yeara we have gained 36
churches, and nearly 100 clergymen. If the population has increased,
as is calculated, by some 170,000, even this hopeful addition of
clergy and churches gives us somewhere about one church and three
clergymen for each 5,000 of the increased population.

^ Vide Appendix, p. 118.

districts, which I selected at the last Visitation '
as specimens of the most destitute in respect of
churches and clergy, three new churches have
been consecrated in the four years, hut one of
these had been previously used for Church of
England worship as a proprietary chapel ; and
one new district without a church has also
been formed. This, after all, is but a slight
relief. We cannot estimate aright the magni-
tude of the CAdl, and the difficulty of its remedy,
without taking into account how strong the
tendency is, for obvious reasons, to build churches
in rich rather than in poor neighboiu'hoods.
Of the thirty- six churches consecrated since the
last Visitation, certainly not more than seventeen
have been erected in neighbourhoods where there
was an overwhelming poor population. It will
be seen, from all this, how very great is the
evil we have to deal with, and how difficult of
cure.

Let it not be supposed that I am speaking as
if the sole way to remedy the social e^dls of an
overwhelming population, and propagate true
religion, was to multiply churches, or even
clergymen. We well know that neither the
buildings nor the men will avail "\vithout the
mighty Spirit of God. "We are not insensible to

1 Charge of 1858, p. 74.

self-denying labours of Dissenters and Roman
Catholics, and we grant the value of many other
appliances for promoting Christian civilization,
used by our own Church. Yet are we deeply
convinced, that our own parochial system, carry-
ing with it, besides churches and clergy, schools,
and a hundred arrangements of charity and philan-
thropy, gives the best hope of aiding our people for
time and for eternity. It is difficult to conceive
what a city of between two and three millions of
inhabitants must become, if it be not broken up
into manageable districts, each placed under the
superintendence of men, whose mission it is to
labour in every way for the social and religious
improvement of the people. Without this, no
regulations of a well-organized police, no array of
magistrates, will avail to repress crime, and bind
the State together. Nay, without this, we do not
see how a really efficient and kindly system of
relief, even of the people's temporal wants, can be
maintained in vigour. A vast proportion of our
poor in London come from country towns, where
they have been accustomed to their parish church,
and all the kindly influences which gather round
it. Shall we suffer them to join us in a great
army, adding to us yearly what is sufficient for
the population of a large new city ; and shall
their advent to our neighbourhood deprive them
of religious and social blessings which they might

have enjoyed at home ? If we neglect them,
it will he at the peril of the nation. In support
of no nohler cause — to meet no more pressing
necessity, can we call upon the wealthy and the
comfortahle to spare of their abundance, that
they may bless the poor, and, through the bless-
ings given to them, save the State from great
trials.

Those of us who live in wealthy neighbour-
hoods, will do well to press upon our people the
duty of, at times, personally visiting the poorer
parts of London, and thus ascertaining for them-
selves, how much need there is for special
efforts to extend our parochial system amongst
the growing mass. I grant that in many of what
are justly ^considered wealthy parishes in our
Western districts, there is a great assemblage of
poor hidden in back streets and lanes, and their
wealthy neighbours must be urged to consider
their case first. But these parishes enjoy this
advantage, that they contain many wealthy as
well as poor parishioners. What has to be
pressed on the upper and the prosperous middle
classes in these parishes, is to look out of the
back windows of their own dwellings — not to
hurry, with their eyes shut, through those short
cuts by which they pass, from one street of
palaces or gilded shops to another ; but to take a
little time to look about them, and think who are

dwelling very near their own doors. They hear
doubtless, from time to time, an appeal in their
parish chui'ch, in favour of the adjacent parish
schools ; they have only to go some few hundred
yards and visit these schools, and to follow some
of the children to their homes, and they will see
what God requires of them in their parochial
relations. I am glad to say, that in these
parishes there is not generally wanting a strong
parochial feeling, binding together the upper and
middle classes, in the effort to meet parochial
wants, and do good to the poor. Ladies and
gentlemen who, visiting London habitually, take
up their abode, even for a limited time in each
year, in such parishes, are inexcusable if they do
not find opportunities, through the clergyman
whose church they frequent, of co-operating in his
parochial work for the benefit of the poor around
them. And thus, in such parishes, to whatever
disadvantages they are exposed, the rich and
poor are reminded of their reciprocal duties, im-
posed by one common Lord, who, for His own
purposes, has separated them in rank, but united
them in the claims of right Christian principle.
The disadvantage of many of our other parishes
is, that they are inhabited almost exclusively
by poor — districts of tens of thousands, where,
except the clergyman and the doctor, and some
few tradespeople and publicans, no one has an

F 2

establishment sufficiently expensive to require
the assistance even of one maid- servant. These
parishes lie out of everybody's way. Some of
them can scarcely be reached without giving up
a great part of the day to the journey. They
are full of a shifting and precariously employed
population of dock-labourers, or weavers, or
costermongers ; most of their best houses are in-
habited by mechanics ; and their chief aristocracy
consists of small tradesmen, greatly dependent
for their commercial prosperity on the wages of
the poor, whose slender wants it is their business
to supply.

Now consider how unspeakably important in
such parishes, for every social and political as
well as religious purpose, must be the presence of
a sufficient number of well educated and zealous
clergymen, with their schools and schoolmasters,
and other staff.

Truly, a few instances have occurred of men ap-
pointed to the supervision of such parishes, who,
unfaithful to their trust, have lived an easy, care-
less life, unmoved, and therefore hardened, by the
daily pressing calls which in vain urged them to
exertion. Such men, to their own shame and ruin,
have done more than any other obstacles which
can be thought of to impede Christ's work, and
discourage those who would extend His Church's
influence. A few others, and we cannot wonder

at it — men fitted not for this rough work, hut for
some quiet country village — having accepted the
appointment to such posts in evil hour for them-
selves and others, have become so utterly dis-
couraged and beaten down by the want, and
ignorance, and vice around them, that they have
become reckless or insensible, being unable to
secure assistance in their hopeless labours from
without, and finding none within their own dis-
tricts. These may have failed, and no wonder ;
but, thank God ! the great majority of our truly
missionary clergymen are bravely doing their
Master's work, spending and being spent, bearing
up against discouragements which seem almost
overwhelming. Let us urge the wealthy, and all
who have leisure, in other parts of London, to
assist them. Money, time, sympathy will be well
spent in easing their burdens, and helping in their
inestimable work. Great progress has been made
in this work of late years. All thanks are due from
us, the clergy, to our lay friends who have thus
helped us, in whatever way.

It is something to find our Central Committee
of Relief, in St. Martin's Place, sending supplies
for the clergy to distribute in the most destitute
parishes, urging them to surround themselves
with district visitors, and helping them to esta-
blish provident funds. It is a remarkable feature
of the age, when we find that, through the in-

struinentality of another Society, young officers
in the Guards, and other men of this class, have
been induced to give not only their money, but
week after week some considerable portion of their
time, to visit and relieve the very poor in our
destitute East-end parishes. Great thanks are due
to those who, disregarding other claims of business
and of pleasure, have found time, in the hurried
months of the London season, to organize a regular
Committee for bringing the wants of the East-end
before the West; as also to those individuals who,
preferring to act singly, have placed themselves
in regular communication with some overworked
clergyman of a poor district, and eased his oppres-
sive burden. All these attempts have done much
to make the maintenance and extension of a real
parochial system possible in such parishes. And
all thanks especially to those who, by great acts
of Christian munificence, have constituted some
new parish, with a new parochial organization, in
some densely -peopled, poor neighbourhood. Many
more efforts than heretofore must be made in
this direction, if we are to avert great evils. Our
new parishes, constituted hitherto according to
the proportion of the last ten years, we have seen,
barely keep pace with the increasing population.
We must gain upon it ; and the thing is not diffi-
cult, if we would throw ourselves into the work
with a good heart. Do we, at our present rate,

add eight or nine parishes annually to the me-
tropolis ? Make it even fourteen, and by the
return of the next census we shall, by 140 new
parishes, with their clergy, churches, schools,
school-chapels. Scripture-readers, and district
visitors, have produced a sensible effect on the
hitherto untouched mass.

And here let me say, as an advocate of church-
extension, it is very important to guard ourselves
against the disadvantageous contrast continually
drawn between the greatness of the effort re-
quired for the erection of a new church and the
scantiness of its uses when erected. Every church
with a thin congregation casts a slur upon the
efforts of church-builders ; so every church which
is not often used — which on Sunday, for example,
in the midst of a superabundant population, is
open only twice, or which has its doors closed all
through the week. A great effort was made,
some years ago, to increase the number of our
regular daily church services. There is now
scarcely any neighbourhood in the metropolis in
which the limited number of persons who can
avail themselves of the full daily service will not
find it provided for them within an easy walk
of their homes. But why should not all our
churches be used in some way during the week ?
The Litany, with a hymn and a short exposition
of Scripture, at some suitable hour, would be wel-

corned as a boon by very many whose hard work
forbids attendance on a lengthened service. And
why shoukl not our churches be open habitually,
to give the poor a quiet place for private prayer ?
How great is the disadvantage under which they
labour, deprived of the power of retirement, ex-
posed to ridicule or other interruptions in their
crowded lodgings. It is now several years since
I heard the opening of our churches for this
object advocated by Dr. McNeile, at a great
meeting in Exeter Hall; but I am not aware
that any steps have yet been taken to act on
the good suggestion.

There is everything to encourage us in be-
ginning from this point a renewed effort. Noble
instances of self-denial and munificence are
already before us to set a good example. There
is a growing recognition on the part of the
owners of house-property in London that the
rents with which they fill their coffers will rust
and breed corruption if they do not largely tithe
them for the benefit of their tenants' souls. The
Ecclesiastical Commissioners have been called
upon by Parliament to use whatever funds they
derive from any district in the first instance for
providing for the spiritual wants of that district,
and by the recognition of this principle a great
movement has begun for the formation of new
Peel districts in that group of large poor parishes

stretching from St. Luke's, Old Street, through
Shoreditch and Hoxton, down towards Spital-
fields. And when such parishes are formed, symp-
toms are not wanting that young men of the
requisite qualifications, earnest to win souls,- are
ready to leave the refinements of the University
or the amenities of the country parsonage, that,
in their vigour, they may do this rough work for
Christ which is scarcely fitted for declining years.
Let us urge our people, then, to support their
own Diocesan Church Building Society, the centre
and organiser of all this work in London. It
does much by the grants which pass direct
through its own channels. It does even more by
collecting information and giving every help to
those who prefer to carry on the work of church-
extension in their own way. Its movement
for the erection of missionary or school-chapels
and the payment of missionary curates prepara-
tory to parochial subdivision, has of late greatly
extended its usefulness. Let us urge also the
claims of the Additional Curates and Pastoral
Aid Societies, which supply us annually the first
with 4,310/., the second with 4,410/., to aid in
curates' salaries, without which our parochial
work could not be maintained.^ Let us tell our

' The Metropolitan Church of England Scripture Readers Society,
also gives us annually £8,400 for lay agents, all placed under the
direct superintendence of the clergy.

people to aid the Diocesan Home Mission in
going out into the lanes and hyeways, compelling
those to come in whom our more established
organizations cannot as yet reach, and thus rough-
hewing the material for future parishes, in the
quarry which our regular labourers have not as
yet touched.

By these and many kindred exertions there is
every hope that our parochial system may greatly
be extended. With the boundless wealth and
energy of London it would scarcely cost an effort,
if we had the will, to double our present work,
and then, in a few years, we might, by God's
blessing, expect that the metropolis would assume
a new aspect.

Not to speak directly of instances nearer to our-
selves, the venerated Archbishop Sumner, whose
kindly gentle influence and unobtrusive activity
men of every shade of opinion and of party have
learned to honour, added 250 churches to the dio-
cese of Chester^ during his twenty years' tenure
of that see. It is not, indeed, every one who can
hope to stir men's hearts and win their sympathy
as he did. The way in which, three months ago,
his death called forth hearty expressions of re-
gard from all good men, whether Churchmen or
Dissenters, spoke of an unrivalled power which

• ' For this information I am indebted to Mr. Felix Kynatt, hia
Grace's secretary.

few bishops have possessed for enlisting the
sympathy of all Christians in the Church's
work, recommending that work to all English-
men as indeed the work of Christ. His pecu-
liar success might be the reward of that
quiet energy which was sustained by a life of
prayer — of that apostolic simplicity of character
which inspired a wide- spread confidence that
every work undertaken had but the one aim of
advancing God's glory — of that gentle consider-
ateness which enabled him to end a long, busy
life of government without making an enemy —
drawing all to love him who were ever brought
within his influence. But still the example of
what he achieved, and what we ourselves have
witnessed in past years in our own and in a
neighbouring diocese, may well encourage us to
renewed efforts.

We must not, however, forget that, after all,
perhaps the greatest difficulties in our work are
to be found, not in the attempt to extend it, but
in doing really well that particular portion of it,
be it what it may, which falls to our allotted
share. We all know in London the great temp-
tation to be attempting many things rather than
doing a few well — to spread our activity over a
large area, rather than concentrate it on the most
carefully selected spot. This is like firing on the
enemy at random, rather than forcing a breach

in his fortifications by repeated well-directed
assaults on the same weak point.

Have you a vast parish ? Pirst be careful that
you are not lost in the immensity of your work.
As it will never do to be sitting with folded
hands waiting till the parish is divided before we
attempt to influence our people, so neither must
all our activity be directed that we may be
ourselves instrumental in effecting its division.
Neither, again, will it be wise to be hurrying
over it, now here and now there, touching it all
lightly and not settling steadily on any one
point. The first thing to be done is to separate
between its distinctly missionary, and its settled,
established work — arranging what energy is to
be brought to bear on each. And no amount of
attention to those whom with all our efforts we
can scarcely induce to hear us, will justify any
perfunctory discharge of duty to that inner circle
which willingly attaches itself to the parish
church. A man, say, has a large moorland farm :
he will scarcely prosper if, in his attempts to
reclaim unprofitable acres, he neglects to till
diligently what is already brought under culti-
vation.

I grant that there are two dangers for the
best clergymen in large parishes ; one, while we
build up a little model congregation of the upper
and middle classes, with the more respectable

of the poor, to treat as if it did not exist that
dull mass of ignorance and degradation which
clings, as it were, to the skirts of our respecta-
bility, dragging us down; while it makes itself
felt, if in no other way, through the frightful
increase of the poor-rates. The other is, while
we think of this mass, not to give sufficient
attention to preparation for the pulpit and to
visiting members of our congregation in sickness,
and preparing their young people for confirma-
tion, and well organizing and superintending
our schools and other established institutions.
Obviously, neither fault is to be thought lightly
of, and both may be avoided by system and by
husbanding our means, and by the tact to avail
ourselves of delegated influence. But what I
press now is, that, if we are faithful, the portion
of work which falls to our own share must be
well done.

A man who works very well and carefully in
any one spot of Christ's vineyard, will find that
the influence of his good example spreads wonder-
fully. What a blessing, in any neighbourhood,
is a single well- worked parish. And a well-trained
and instructed congregation in the centre of a
parish, having their duties and means of influence
forcibly set before them, will be certain to affect
a large circle beyond of those who do not frequent
the church. There was a time certainly when

the clergy neglected their parishes in thinking
only of their congregations. I would have them
neglect neither. But that you may have wide
influence, strive to make it deep. However
vast be the size of your parish, labour steadily
with your congregation and your school. And if
you have a small parish — say a City parish, and
are contented, even at a loss of income, to make
the effort to find some place where you may live
in it, that you may be the real central moving
power of your flock, be it great or very small —
then you enjoy great facilities for doing all your
work thoroughly, serving your own people first,
and benefiting indirectly many others. I have still
to regret that thirty-eight of the City clergy reside
without the limits of their parishes. Where there
is no parsonage house, and no suitable house to be
obtained in or near the parish, the law allows them
to reside in any licensed house within two miles.
One great object proposed by the Act for the Union
of the City Parishes, which I was instrumental in
having passed two years ago (23 & 24 Vict. c. 42),
was to remedy this very serious evil by providing
the means of obtaining a parsonage house in each
united parish. Let us hope that the requisite
consents will not long be refused to enable this
Act to be put in force.

I will not weary you, my reverend brethren,
by entering upon details as to your work, in

which you are quite as capable of giving as of
receiving instruction. Suffer only a few general
words on three out of the many instruments as-
signed to you for the effectual working of your
parishes — your sermons — your schools — your
confirmation classes.

1. We have heard of late a great deal of criticism
on our preaching. Now the part of sensible men,
whether they feel that the unpleasant remarks
made on them be deserved or no, is to consider
what is said carefully, and make the best use of
it for improvement. I need scarcely touch on
what is alleged as to indistinctness of utterance,
or a dull monotony of manner. All persons who
are called to speak in public may find at first
that they are liable to these faults. The mis-
fortune is, that while other speakers who labour
under them are soon obliged to correct their faults,
or else find their opportunities of speaking gone,
by the fact that no one requests them to speak, or
if they do speak no one stays to listen, we clergy-
men, on the contrary, whether we can or no, are
obliged to speak in public every week ; it is an
essential part of our ofiice ; and a considerable
number of persons is obliged to sit patiently, and
at least appear to listen to us. AVe have not the
benefit of that practical criticism of our defects
which soon teaches men in other professions
either to amend or be silent. Now a good deal

has been said as to Bishops and Examining
Chaplains correcting these faults. That they
should do so directly is out of the question.
Only glaring imperfections of the kind may
legitimately stop ordination ; and in the Ember-
week examinations it is our especial business not
to teach, but to test. Real goodness of utterance
and manner (except so far as it is a natural gift)
can only be acquired through the training of
boys and young men at school and college ; and
the time spent in acquiring it will not be lost,
whether their future profession is to be clerical
or lay. After ordination also, I should advise
the experienced clergy not to hesitate kindly, in
a straightforward way, to point out to their
young assistants any deficiencies in this respect
which they observe, and young men will scarcely
be unwisely sensitive as to such criticism. If a
man can speak in a clear and forcible manner,
he is sure to do so, if the one great requisite be
there, viz. that he speaks from the heart, and is
awake to the importance of what he is doing, as
bearing a message from God to the consciences of
His people.

But the matter of our sermons is of course
far more important than the manner. Here,
obviously, the one great requisite must be, that
we preach Christ — His work — both His outward
works, manifested in the records of His past

history, and His spiritual work, which goes on
still in the immediate presence of the Almighty
^Father and in the believer's soul. If this kernel
and heart of all good preaching be absent, no
graces of oratory, no interesting narrative, no
discussion, no learning will avail. Ministers of
Christ — ambassadors of Christ — bearing a mes-
sage from God respecting Christ ; commissioned
to win souls to Christ, and build them up after
Christ's likeness by the Holy Spirit aiding us- —
it is thus that our office as preachers of the
Gospel is characterised. But of course even the
holiest truths and the best Gospel doctrine may
suffer from an unskilful handling.

Besides considering what we have to say we
must think carefully to whom it is we have to say
it. Hence there will be no effectual preaching
without a knowledge of our people's characters.
It is not only that a highly educated and a
simple poor congregation will often require to
be addressed differently : all the several classes,
ages, and professions have their own peculiarities,
and it requires no little skill in speaking to a
mixed congregation, so to adjust what we have
to say, as to meet the prevailing wants of the
majority, and leave none to go away without a
word in season. This would be impossible for
us, were it not — Pirst, that we have mainly to
speak to that in man which all men have in

common ; and Secondly, that the book which
we have to expound in speaking, while it sets
forth one unchangeable gospel, is yet as in-
finite in the variety of its adaptations to all
men's changing wants, as is the infinite God
whose voice it bears to them. To be mighty in
the Scriptures, well acquainted with every part of
them in its peculiar history, and bearing — accus-
tomed to read and ponder many other books by
the light which Scripture throws on them — to
know human nature, by having thought much
about it, and observed it closely ; to be well ac-
quainted with our people by going in and out
amongst them, and seeing how they bear the trials
of life, its joys, sorrows, and difficulties ; and then
to know the springs of action, how the conscience
is reached, and the will influenced ; to have the
Church's doctrines well fixed and arranged in our
minds, in their proof, their relations, and their
scope — not like some dead catalogue from the
schools — but each of them illustrated and under-
stood from its bearing on our own and other
people's hearts and lives ; to be a man of prayer
and holy thoughts, who lives much in that un-
seen presence, from which he is commissioned to
bear messages to his people's souls ; no less than
all this must enter into our conception of a really
good preacher, and no wonder if we fall very far
short. But let each of us hold up to ourselves

the high standard — our only hope of excellence
will be to aim at it — and then mechanically we
may be helped by sundry plain rules.

a. Obviously, if preaching be what this state-
ment implies, it is out of the question for a man
to preach other people's sermons, or even to form
sermons for himself out of some dry digest of
another's thoughts. If preaching is an ordi-
nance of God, the preacher bears a message from
God, and his announcement of it must have the
living reality of being poured forth from his own
heart to which God has spoken it.

h. I have used the word speech, not as dis-
couraging the preacher from using a manuscript ;
only, whether written or directly spoken, the ser-
mon is a speech. A man, certainly, to deal well
with all the varieties of a large London parish,
must be able, in the literal sense of the word,
to speak freely, as well as to write and read these
speeches. It will require a sound discretion to
decide, in reference both to our own rhetorical
powers, and the particular nature of the congrega-
tions we from time to time address, how we shall
best approach them with that earnestness, point,
and fulness of statement and illustration, and yet
condensed force of words, which go to make up
a really good sermon : whether, on each varying
occasion, we shall be most likely to arrest the at-
tention, touch the heart, instruct the judgment,

and control the will, by a freely spoken or a care-
fully written discourse. A really good preacher
must, I think, in our parishes, be equal to both
tasks.

c. There can be no good preaching without
much careful preparation. If a preacher is at
times to be called to speak to his people with-
out any preparation (a task he will always
eschew), it Ayill be here, as in other oratory; he
can only speak well thus unprepared on an
emergency, from his habitual careful preparation
having given him a ready command both of
thoughts and words. To study carefully the best
models of old and of modern divines, to note
their striking thoughts and phrases carefully and
minutely, and prayerfully to examine Scripture,
and fix it in the memory, marking the bearing
of its teaching on the subjects we are likely to
have to handle; this must be the clergyman's
habitual work : And then each week to choose
early the definite subject, look at it in all its
bearings, turn it over in the mind, consider to
whom it is we are to unfold it, and how, treating
it briefly and tersely, or at greater length, we
shall best win their attention, and make them
profit by our teaching ; searching the Scrip-
tures again carefully, and turning to our work of
preparation, with that prayer for right direction
which a trembling sense of our own weakness,

and the importance of the issues that hang upon
our due discliarge of duty, must wring from a
man of humble spirit. This will be the distinct
preparation for each separate discourse. A good
man will not think it an easy matter to speak to
the unlettered poor any more than to the edu-
cated, though the special sort of address suited
for each may require a special preparation.

d. And then, when he reaches the pulpit, the
preacher will endeavour to realize where he is
— what he is come for — who are around him —
how there, on the spot, he shall best deal with
their intellects and hearts. There is great mean-
ing in those few moments of private prayer by
which the custom of the Church encourages us
to recollect ourselves and ask God's help before
Vv^e preach. He will be most likely to avoid
being tedious and losing his hold upon his people,
who, distinctly realizing the purpose of his coming
before them, watches them as he proceeds, and
is not so tied to his previous preparation as to
be unable to enlarge or curtail as the occasion
and auditory shall suggest. If all experience
proves that eloquence resides partly in the ear
of the hearer as well as in the tongue of the
speaker — or is greatly dependent on that mys-
terious sympathy Avhich causes the one to listen
to the other's charm — certainly no preacher can
afford to overlook the visible signs of the impres-

sion he is making on his hearers and to be in-
fluenced by it as he proceeds.

€. Again — and I shall obtrude no more advice
on this subject — I would request the elder clergy to
be careful that they do their best to enable their
young assistants to learn by practice (the only
effectual teacher) how to preach well. If reality
is the life and soul of all good preaching, and
we wish our young curates to be good preachers
(and to help to train them in their work is the
very condition on which we receive them on a
title in the Diaconate) — if we wish them, I say,
to learn to be good preachers, we shall seek occa-
sions for their preaching when they may speak
with reality and authority. It is not a bad plan
to intrust some one service entirely to their re-
sponsibility. I have often pointed out to young
men, at their ordination, that if they feel diffident,
as they well may, of speaking with authority in
their unripe age, and without exj^erience, they
should remember that they have many to address
who are younger, less experienced, and far more
ignorant than themselves. A young curate may
well learn to preach effectively by habitually ad-
dressing sj)ecific congregations of young people.
He will, perhaps, know better what to say to them
even than his elders ; and other stated congrega-
tions may be found of elder people, whom, young
as he is, he is entirely in his place in addressing.

One thing I Avould especially deprecate — his heing
set to preach — which has, I helieve, in former
times, been too often the case — at some ill-fre-
qiiented afternoon service, the very sight of the
congregation at which is enough to chill him into
awkwardness. It is cruelty, to ask him to under-
take as his chief duty what is either the most use-
less or the most diificult part of our parochial work.
Indeed, with our teeming thousands, there ought
to be no services at which we have scanty congre-
gations. I cannot help thinking there is some fault
on our parts if there are such. But, certainly, if
we set our curates to learn how to preach by
addressing empty benches, they will probal)ly
learn their work so badly as to be likely to preach
to empty benches as long as they live.

Your kindness will, I know, excuse these few
homely remarks on what, certainly, is one chief
instrument by which the clergy greatly influence
that portion of their parishioners whom they can
reach, be it large or small. It would be a mis-
take to suppose that the days when men are
likely to be much influenced by preaching are
gone by. Quite independently of preaching being
an ordinance of God, which He has always used
in His Church for the conversion and edifica-
tion of souls, deadness in church shows a dead
state of society. There never was a time when
men were more ready to listen to lectures and

speeches than now. It has been well said, that
multiplicity of books, and the easy access to
them, has produced the very same effect which
once resulted from their paucity. Men, tired or
bewildered by them, will turn now, as in the old
days, when they could not have them, to the more
interesting and exciting deliverances of a living
guide. And, certainly, it will be great shame to
us, the clergy, if, through any failure on our
part, the manner, voice, life, substance of our
speeches for God be not as carefully used, and as
effective in their way, in rousing and ^uiding our
people, as are the lectui'es of laymen on common
secular subjects.

2. I dare not enter at any length on that other
instrument of parochial work which I spoke of —
our schools. The subject of our national system
of education has, within the last twelve months,
produced so sharp a controversy — the changes still
in contemplation, modified though they be, are
so uncertain in their issue, and the course which
school managers may feel themselves obliged, in
certain localities, to take, is as yet so undefined,
that probably, if I attempted to sj)eak explicitly,
experience, before another Visitation, might
prove me to have been altogether a false prophet.
But let me urge a few points which ought not to
be forgotten amid our controversies or alarms.

a. Thank God, in the first place, that the country

is so deeply imbued with the necessity of every
system of education being religious, if it is to
be good, that I cannot have any fears on this
score.

It seems to be allowed by all who know the
subject, that, speaking generally, our whole zeal
for education has taken a religious direction,
and that the various other denominations are as
anxious on this head as the Church of England.
All subsequent enquiry has confirmed what Sir
James Kay Shuttleworth said in 1853 :' —

" No one who has examined the history of Enghsh Public
Education, can doubt that to attempt to separate it from religion,
would be to offer the rudest violence, not only to the traditions
of the country, but to its institutions, whether they be the
growth of centuries, or the most modern offspring of the popular
will.

"... No scheme of Public Education could be more extrava-
gantly rash and arrogant, than one which would either venture
to overlook the religious origin, or the existence and peculiar
organization, of so great a number of schools.

"... Whatever plan be adopted for the education of the
entire nation, it is therefore clear, that it must be founded on
religion, and recognize the existing schools."

b. Again, as to specific religious instruction, the
Church of England, we have seen, has gained so
great a start in this matter, that it can never in
our day, and scarcely at all, unless from unfaith-

1 Public Education as affected by the Minutes of the Committee of
Privy Council, from 1846 to 1852, with Suggestions as to future
pohcy, by Sir Jamea Kay Shuttleworth, Bart. 1853. Pp. 30, 3(=, 37.

fulness in time to come, be deprived of this
advantage.

c. Agaiii, if it has been resolved to give a more
common practical turn to that part of education
for which the country directly pays, and to leave
higher accomplishments to be nurtured by those
in each particular district who, feeling them to
be needful, are not likely to encourage them to
the neglect of things more needful — and if the
result of this arrangement be, as is its promo-
ters' hope, that a greater number of persons
shall be able to read and write, it will be con-
trary to all experience if this increased facility
does not increase also the demand for higher
instruction; and I do not see why any impedi-
ments should prevent the clergy and other school
managers from supplying such instruction. If the
boon of communicating it comes more directly
from themselves, instead of from the Govern-
ment, and if from the Government arrange-
ments, the number of j)ersons who are capable
of profiting by the boon and are desirous of it is
widened, this cannot fail to increase the influence
of those who supply it. Let us trust that higher
education will not suffer, or those who give it
lose their influence, because means are adopted
to lay more deeply and spread out more broadly
the foundation on which it must rest.
d. Again, if our schoolmasters and pupil-teachers

are made more to depend on their own exertions
than on a forcing system of connexion with the
Government — necessary at first, but not cer-
tainly to he continued always — their profession
will lose none of its importance in a free en-
lightened country, where in all professions self-
reliance is the rule, and Government dependence
the rare exception. And if thus made more
independent in their position, they are, at the
same time, in the free interchange of what they
can supply with what school-managers demand,
to be brought into more intimate relations with
those who are their real employers, perhaps the
result will be good for both parties, who will
work in more entire harmony and with more of
mutual self-respect.

Let it not be supposed from this that I am
insensible to great difficulties which very pro-
bably may arise in the working of the new
system. What I wish to set forth is, that as
we grant, almost all of us, that there are good
features in it, so there can be nothing to justify
the clergy in being so discouraged as to relax
those great efforts by which they have so clearly
proved, that the Church of England earnestly
desires, for the good of the country, a thorough
education of the whole community — that in the
spread of such education it sees the surest hope
of extending its own influence, knowing our
very motto to be that sound religion and useful

learning go hand in hand. I am as confident
now as I ever was, that every clergyman in this
diocese will find a most powerful instrument for
his parochial work in his school — will have his
schoolmasters and other teachers as his aids, in
winning his way to his people's hearts, and in
moulding their characters, and will he incessant
in pressing the claims of his schools on all who
are able to assist him in supporting them.

3. The third and last instrument of which I
proposed to speak, was our confirmation classes.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance
of our confirmation work. With the poor it
deepens what religious teaching has been given
in the school. It brings young people of all
ranks directly under the pastor's eye. You form
them into classes to instruct them ; you examine
them, and converse with them ; you see them
one by one, and pray with them. My reverend
brethren, if wb do this work effectually, there is
no estimating its value. Is Confirmation one of
the Bishop's special functions ? — to govern, to
consecrate, to ordain, to confirm — this is the
cycle of his work : to rule the Church, to set
apart its holy places and those who minister in
them, and through Confirmation to admit each
of the baptized singly to riper Church member-
ship. Of these functions Confirmation is that
which brings him into most immediate connexion
with all his people. It is that function which

supplies the Bishop in this diocese with the
most habitually recurring portion of his public
work, and certainly not the least important.
But for the due administration of Confirmation,
the Bishop is greatly dependent on his clergy.

When we look to the population of this diocese,
the serious question arises, whether our candi-
dates for confirmation at all reach their proper
number. My reverend brethren, I know you to
be earnest in this matter : there are indeed some
lamentable exceptions, of large districts scarcely
supplying any candidates. This must be from
some very great fault. If we make allowance
for peculiarities, the number of his candidates
for confirmation is not a bad test of a pastor's
earnestness.

And here I will remark that I find a great
difiiculty in estimating what proportion of the
population ought to be expected to be annually
confirmed. The arrangements of this diocese,
handed down to me from my predecessor, and
gradually enlarged by myself without any per-
ceptible addition of labour or time on my part,
would admit of many more being confirmed than
now present themselves ; even according to the
present usual limit of 300 in one church, to
which I strive by multiplying opportunities to re-
duce the candidates. I am ready at any moment
to extend the present facilities, if, as I trust it
may, the supply of candidates increases, wishing

that no confirmation should be overcrowded or
occupy more than two hours. From the local
peculiarity of this diocese, there is no difficulty
in any person finding a confirmation within a
very limited distance of his home, almost at any
time. The confirmations go on all through the
year, except during the two months of vacation,
and are to be found every year in all quarters of
the diocese. This is an advantage which we gain
amidst many difficulties from living in the small
area of this closely packed metropolitan region.
Hitherto the numbers each year have varied from
10,000 to about 15,000.

We all feel how important it is that our con-
firmation classes should be increased — that
the confirmation should be looked ujoon as the
initiation into regular habits of receiving the
Holy Communion month after month. How
well would it be if that intimacy between pastor
and people, for which a confirmation gives the
opportunity, were rightly maintained in after life.
If confirmation classes developed into meetings
of communicants for prayer and reading of the
Scriptures, the pastor in the largest parish would
thus find himself at the head of a compact body
of coadjutors, selected from his congregation,
who would greatly aid his missionary labours,
amongst the surrounding crowd.

And now, my reverend brethren, I ought not to
detain you. God grant, that in looking steadily at

our own and the Clmrch's difficulties, we may-
learn more manfully to face them, and do our
allotted portion of Christ's work. The time is
short. Each year tells of many of our fellow-
lahourers snatched from their work. I could run
through a long list of names of zealous clergy
familiar to you, taken since we last met, either
from our own diocese, or the Church's more ex-
tended sphere — we trust to the Church in heaven.
The message which they have left behind for us
is : Work while it is day — work, as waiting for
your Master's summons, and anxious to have
done somewhat for Him before He calls you ;
above all things, work in prayer.

To my brethren the Churchwardens, if any of
them have remained for this service, let me
say in conclusion, in your name, my reverend
brethren, as well as in my own, how we feel
that we need their co-operation, and how much
the whole diocese benefits by their faithful dis-
charge of their duties.

They are the Bishop's officers, and as such they
have come here this week with their present-
ments. Let me explain that these presentments,
unlike the questions answered by the clergy some
months back, have of course as yet not been laid
before me. It will be my duty to have them
carefully sifted, and the Churchwardens may rest
assured that their suggestions shall receive due
attention. But it is not only in their strictly

official capacity as my officers that we claim
their aid. Perhaps their most valuable service
is that service of kindly regard which so many
of them yield cheerfully to a pastor whom they
love. I shall indeed rejoice, and shall feel that
the Church is being greatly strengthened and the
progress of true religion advanced, if the inter-
change of friendship between the clergy and the
lay Church officers of this diocese is greatly
increased. Thanking all for their attendance,
I commend you to the blessing of our common
Lord.

COLLECT.

AiiMiGHTT God and heavenly Father, who, of thine infinite love
and goodness towards us, hast given to us thy only and most dearly
beloved Son Jesus Christ, to be our Eedeemer, and the Author of
everlasting life ; who, after he had made perfect our redemption by
his death, and was ascended into heaven, sent abroad into the world
his Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Doctors, and Pastors ; by whose
labour and ministry he gathered together a great flock in all the
parts of the world, to set forth the eternal praise of thy holy Name :
For these so great benefits of thy eternal goodness, and for that thou
hast vouchsafed to call thy servants here present to the same
Office and Ministry appointed for the salvation of mankind, we
render unto thee most hearty thanks, we praise and worship thee ;
and we humbly beseech thee, by the same thy blessed Son, to grant
unto all, which either here or elsewhere call upon thy holy Name,
that we may continue to show ourselves thankful unto thee for these
and all other thy benefits ; and that we may daily increase and go
forwards in the knowledge and faith of thee and thy Son, by the
Holy Spirit. So that as well by us thy Ministers, as by them
over whom we are appointed thy Ministers, thy holy Name may
be for ever glorified, and thy blessed kingdom enlarged ; through
the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth
with thee in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, world without end.
Amen.

APPENDIX A,

The following extract is from Mr. Justice Coleridge's
Letter, prefixed to the first volume of Arnold's Life. Ed.
1844^, vol. i. p. 20 :—

" In our days the religious controversies had not yet
begun, by which the minds of young men at Oxford are,
I fear, now prematurely and too much occupied. The
routine theological studies of the university were, I admit,
deplorably low ; but the earnest ones amongst us were
diligent readers of Barrow, Hooker, and Taylor. Arnold
was among these, but I have no recollection of anything
at that time distinctive in his religious opinions ; what
occurred afterwards does not properly fall within my
chapter ; yet it is not unconnected with it, and I believe
I can sum up all that need be said on such a subject, as
shortly and as accurately from the sources of information
in my hands as any other person can. His was an
anxiously inquisitive mind, a scrupulously conscientious
heart ; his inquiries previously to his taking orders, led him
on to distressing doubts on certain points in the Articles ;
these were not low nor rationalistic in their tendency*
according to the bad sense of that term. There was no
indisposition in him to believe, merely because the Article
transcended his reason ; he doubted the proof, and the
interpretation of the textual authority. His state was very
painful, and I think morbid ; for I remarked that the
two occasions on which I was privy to his distress, were

precisely those iu which to doubt was against his dearest
schemes of worldly happiness ; and the consciousness of
this seemed to make him distrustful of the arguments
which were intended to lead his mind to acquiescence.
Upon the first occasion to which I allude he was a fellow
of Oriel, and in close intercourse with one of the friends I
have before mentioned, then also a fellow of the same col-
lege. To him as well as to me he opened his mind, and
from him he received the wisest advice, which he had the
wisdom to act upon. He was bid to pause in his inqui-
ries, to pray earnestly for help and light from above, and
to turn himself more strongly than ever to the practical
duties of a holy life. He did so, and through severe trials
was finally blessed with perfect peace of mind, and a
settled conviction. If there be any so unwise as to rejoice
that Arnold, in his youth, had doubts on important doc-
trines, let him be sobered by the conclusion of those
doubts, when Arnold's mind had not become weaker, nor
his pursuit of truth less honest or ardent ; but when his
abilities were matured, his knowledge greater, his judg-
ment more sober. If there be any who in youth are suf-
fering the same distress which befel him, let his conduct
be their example, and the blessing which w^as vouchsafed
to him, their hope and consolation. In a letter from that
friend to myself of the date of February 14, 1819, I find
the following extract, which gives so true and considerate
an account of this passage in Arnold's life, that you may
be pleased to insert it ; —

"I have not talked with Arnold lately on the distressing
thoughts which he wrote to you about, but I am fearful,
from his manner at times, that he has by no means got rid
of them, though I feel quite confident that all will be well
in the end. The subject of them is that most awful one,
on which all very inquisitive reasoning minds are, I be-
lieve, most liable to such temptations— I mean the doctrine

of the blessed Trinity. Do not start, my dear Coleridge ; I
do not believe that Arnold has any serious scruples of the
understanding about it, but it is a defect of his mind, that
he cannot get rid of a certain feeling of objections, and
particularly when, as he fancies, the bias is so strong upon
him to decide one way from interest ; he scruples doing
what I advise him, which is, to put down the objections by
main force whenever they arise in his mind, fearful that in
so doing he shall be violating his conscience for mainte-
nance' sake. I am still inclined to think with you, that

the wisest thing he could do would be to take John M

(a young pupil whom I was desirous of placing under his
care), and a curacy somewhere or other, and cure himself,
not by physic, that is, reading and controversy, but by diet
and regimen, that is, holy living. In the mean time, what
an excellent fellow he is ! I do think one might safely
say, as some one did of some other, ' one had better have
Arnold's doubts than most men's certainties.' "

The following note occurs p. 132 of the second volume : —

" In connexion with this subject, I may as well recur to a
previous passage in his life, which only came to my know-
ledge within the last year, and which this and other acci-
dental hindrances prevented from appearing in its proper
place. The graver difficulties which Mr. Justice Coleridge
has noticed as attending his first ordination, never returned
after the year 1820, when he seems to have arrived at a com-
plete conviction, both of his conscience and understanding,
that there was no real ground for entertaining them. But
during the inquiries which he prosecuted at Laleham,
there arose in his mind scruples on one or two minor
questions, which appeared to him for a long time to pre-
sent insuperable obstacles to his taking any office which
should involve a second subscription of the Articles.

H 2

100

' I attach/ he said, ' no importance, to my own difference,
except that however trifling the point, and however gladly
I would waive it altogether, still, when I am required to
acquiesce in w^hat I think a wrong opinion upon it, I must
decline compliance.'

" On these grounds he long hesitated to take priest's
orders, at least, unless he had the opportunity of explain-
ing his objections to the Bishop who ordained hun ; and it
was in fact on this condition that, after his appointment to
Rugby, whilst still in Deacon's orders, he consented to be
ordained by the Bishop of his diocese, at that time Dr.
Howley ; as appears from the following extracts from
letters, of which the first states his intention with regard
to another situation in 1826, which he fulfilled in 1828, in
the interval between his election at Rugby and his entrance
upon his office. 1. ' As my objections turn on points
which all, I believe, consider immaterial in themselves, I
would consent to be ordained, if any Bishop would ordain
me, on an explicit statement of my disagreement in those
points. If he would not, then my course would be plain,
and there would be an end of all thought of it at once.'
2. ' I shall, I l)elieve, be ordained priest on Trinity Sunday,
being ordained by the Bishop of London. I wished to do
this, because I wished to administer the sacrament in the
chapel at Rugby, and, because I shall have, in a manner,
the oversight of the chaplain, I thought it would be scarce
seemly for me as a Deacon, to interfere with a Priest ; and
after a long conversation with the Bishop of London, I do
not object to be ordained.'

" This was the last time that he was troubled with any
similar perplexities ; and in later years, as appears from
more than one letter of this period, he thought he had,
in his earlier life, overrated the difficulties of subscription.
The particular subject of his scruples arose from his doubt,
founded chiefly on internal evidence, whether the Epistle

101

to tlie Hebrews did not belong to a period subsequent to
the Apostolical age. It may be worth while to mention,
that this doubt was eventually removed by increased study
of the Scriptures, and of the early Christian writers. In
the ten last years of his life he never hesitated to use and
apply it, as one of the most valuable parts of the New
Testament : and his latest opinion was inclining to the
belief that it might have been written, not merely under
the guidance of St. Paul, but by the apostle himself."

APPENDIX B.

The following account from the " Annual Eegister," may
be interesting at this time, as setting forth the steps taken
in 1772 by the Clergy who were believed to favour Arian
opinions : —

" A petition was soon after (Feb. 6) offered to be pre-
sented to the House, from certain Clergymen of the Church
of England, and certain members of the two professions of
civil law and physic, and some others, who prayed for relief
from the subscription to the Thirty -nine Articles of faith.
These gentlemen had for some time assembled at a tavern
called the Feathers, and had invited by public advertise-
ments in the papers, all those who thought themselves
aggrieved in the matter of subscription, to join them in
obtaining redress. The petition was signed by about 250
of the Clergy.

" In this petition they represent, that it is one of the
great principles of the Protestant religion, that every thing
necessary to salvation is fully and sufficiently contained in
the Holy Scriptures ; that they have an inherent right,
which they hold from God only, to make a full and free
use of their private judgment in the interpretation of those

102

Scriptures ; that though these were the liberal and original
principles of the Church of England, and upon which the
reformation from Popery was founded, they had been de-
viated from in the laws relative to subscription, by which
they are deprived of then- invaluable rights and privileges,
and required to acknowledge certain articles and confessions
of faith and doctrine, drawn up by fallible men, to be all
and every of them agreeable to the Scriptures.

" They also represent these subscriptions as a great
hindrance to the spreading of true religion, as they dis-
courage further inquiries into the real sense of the sacred
writings, tend to divide communions, and to cause mutual
dislike among fellow-Protestants. That the diversity of
opinions held upon many of these Articles, occasioned great
animosity and ill-will among the established Clergy ; that
they afforded an opportunity to unbelievers to charge them
with prevarication, and with being guided by interested
and political views, in subscribing to Articles wliich they
could not believe, and about which no two were agreed in
opinion ; and that they afforded a handle to Papists, to
reproach them with their inconsistency, by departing from
the principles on which they had grounded their separa-
tion from them, and now admitting of human ordinances,
and doubtful and precarious doctrines, though they pre-
tended that the Scripture alone was certain and sufficient
to salvation.

" The two professions of civil law and physic complained
of the hardships they suffered, at one of the Universities
particularly, where they were obliged at their first admission
or matriculation, and at an age so immature for disquisi-
tions and decisions of such moment, to subscribe their
unfeigned assent to a variety of theological propositions,
in order to be enabled to attain academical degrees in their
respective faculties ; and that their private opinions upon
those subjects can be of no consequence to the public, as

103

the course of their studies, and the attention to their prac-
tice, neither afford them the means nor the leisure to
examine into the propriety or nature of such propositions.
They also lament the misfortune of their sons, who at an
age before the habit of reflection can be formed, or their
judgment matured, may be irrecoverably bound down in
points of the highest consequence, to the opinions and
tenets of ages less informed than their own.

"The petition being read in the House, by the gentleman
who moved to bring it up, it was said by those who sup-
ported the motion, that it was a matter highly deserving of
the most serious consideration ; that grievances that affect
the conscience, are of all others the most grievous ; that
religious toleration could never be too extensive ; that
nothing could be more absurd, or more contrary to reason
and to religion, than to oblige people to subscribe articles
which they did not believe ; that it was establishing under
a religious authority, habits of prevarication and irreligion ;
that the Articles were compiled in a hurry, were the work
of fallible men, were in some parts contradictory, and in
others contained matters that were utterly indefensible ;
and that such a compulsion upon consciences, was pro-
ductive of great licentiousness in the Cliurch ; and from
its tendency to lessen, or entirely to destroy Christian
charity, had the worst effects upon its members. They
said that a happy opportunity was now offered, of opening
such a door for the Dissenters, as it was probable tliat
most of them would enter at, and thereby be received in
the bosom of the Established Church ; that instead of
weakening it, this would be the means of giving it such
a firmness of strength as nothing could shake ; and that
the Church of England could never be in any danger,
while the hierarchy and Bishops existed.

" The great majority that rejected this petition, founded
their opposition upon different grounds and principles.

104

The high church gentlemen considered it as little less than
blasphemy to propose any innovation in the Thirty-nine
Articles. They said it would give a mortal wound to the
Church of England ; that the Church and State were so
intimately united, that one could not perish without the
other ; that this petition was levelled directly against
Christianity, and that the next would be for annulling the
Liturgy. They called to mind the destruction of Church
and State in the last century, which they charged upon
the sectaries ; represented the conduct and views of the
petitioners as avaricious and hypocritical ; and inferred
from the licentiousness of some writings which had ap-
peared on that side of the question, that they denied the
doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of our Saviour.
They said that Parliament could not grant any relief to
those who had already subscribed, as they had no power to
vacate oaths ; and that for those who were not yet beneficed,
and who wanted to seize on the emoluments of the Church
without believing in her tenets or complying with her
laws, they were not at all to be listened to, as from every
principle of reason and justice they should be excluded
from her from ever. They further contended, that it was
not in the King's power to comply with their petition, as
he was bound by oath to preserve the Established Church ;
and that a compliance with it would be a breach of the
articles of union, as it was engaged by them, that the
Church governments both of England and Scotland should
for ever continue as they then were.

" Many other gentlemen, who were more moderate in
their temper or principles, though totally averse to a com-
pliance with the terms of the petition, or to the reviving of
polemical disputes, by even making its controversial points
a subject of discussion, were notwithstanding inclined to
treat it with lenity and respect ; and some were disposed
to its being brought up to the table, and let to lie over till

105

the end of the session ; while others were for applying to
the King, that he might appoint a committee of the Clergy
to consider it. Upon the same principle they vindicated
the petitioners from the heavy imputations that had been
laid upon them, and showed several of them to be men of
the most irreproachable characters. They also set those
right who had been of opinion that the legislature had no
superintending control over the articles of the union ; they
not only showed that a supreme controlling power was
inherent in every legislature, but pointed out two parti-
cular instances in which it had been exerted since the
Union, and which affected both the English and Scotch
Churches ; the first of these was the act against occasional
conformity, and the latter, that which destroyed elective
patronages.

"But though some of these gentlemen declared them-
selves friends to toleration and to religious liberty, in the
most liberal and extensive sense, that could be compatible
with the public tranquillity and the good of the community,
they notwithstanding objected to the principles of the
petition. They insisted, that all governments had a right
to constitute the several orders of their subjects as they
pleased ; that the priesthood, in this instance, stood in the
same predicament with the others ; that it was necessary
that those who were appointed to be the public teachers
and instructors of the people, should be bound by some
certain principles from which they were not to deviate ; that
to prevent the disorder and confusion incident to so great
a number, it was also necessary, that some public symbol
should be established, to which they should all assent, as a
mark of their conformity and union ; that a simple assent
to the Scriptures, would in this case be of no signification,
as every day's experience showed, that no two would agree
in their general construction of them, and that it was too
well known, that the greatest absurdities, and even bias-

106

pheniies, had at difterent times been attempted to have
been supported or defended upon their authority. It was
also said, that so far as subscription related to the Clergy,
who were those principally concerned, it could not be con-
sidered that they suffered any injustice, as they were under
no necessity of accepting benefices contrary to their con-
science, and if their scruples arose afterwards, they had it
always in their power to quit them ; and that every man
now, according to the prayer of the petition, was at liberty
to interpret the Scriptures for his own private use ; but
that his being authorized to do so for others, contrary to
their inclination, was a matter of a very different nature.

" Many gentlemen who did not think the difference of
opinion with respect to the Articles, a matter simply in
itself of any great consequence, opposed the motion, merely
because they would not give any opportunity of increasing
our civil dissensions, by lighting up the more dangerous
flames of religious controversy. The House in general
seemed to be of opinion, that the professors of law and
physic being bound in matter of subscription, was a matter
of little concern to the public, and it seemed to be wished
that the Universities would grant them relief in that respect,
as well as to the young students at the time of matricula-
tion. The gentlemen in opposition were divided upon this
question ; many of them supported it, and others were now
seen, upon the same side with administration, and with
a great majority ; two situations which were not often
presented. The numbers were upon the division, 71 for,
and 217 against the motion."

107

The Petition itself was as follows : —

" Copy of the Petition of the Clergy, (&c., relative to the
Suhscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles, offered on
Thursday, the Qth of February, to the House of
Commons.

To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain, in

Parliament assembled.
The humble Petition of certain of the Clergy of the Church

of England, and of certain of the two Professions of

Civil Law and Physic, and others, whose names are

hereunto subscribed,

Sheweth,

That your petitioners apprehend themselves to have certain
rights and privileges which they hold of God only, and
which are subject to His authority alone. That of this
kind is the free exercise of their own reason and judgment,
whereby they have been brought to, and confirmed in, the
belief of the Christian religion, as it is contained in the
Holy Scriptures. That they esteem it a great blessing to
live under a constitution, which, in its original principles,
ensures to them the full and free profession of their faith,
having asserted the authority and sufficiency of Holy
Scriptures in — ' All things necessary to salvation ; so that
whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby,
is not to be required of any man that it should be believed
as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or neces-
sary to salvation.' That your petitioners do conceive that
they have a natural right, and are also warranted by those
original principles of the reformation from Popery, on
which the Church of England is constituted, to judge in
searching the Scriptures each man for himself, what may
or may not be proved thereby. That they find themselves,
however, in a great measure precluded the enjoyment of

108

this invaluable privilege by the laws relating to subscrip-
tion ; wliereby your petitioners are required to acknowledge
certain articles and confessions of faith and doctrine, drawn
up by fallible men, to be all and every of them agreeable
to the said Scriptures. Your petitioners therefore pray,
that they may be relieved from such an imposition upon
their judgment, and be restored to their undoubted right
as Protestants of interpreting Scripture for themselves,
without being bound by any human exphcations thereof,
or required to acknowledge, by subscription or declaration,
the truth of any formulary of religious faith and doctrine
whatsoever, beside Holy Scripture itself

" That your petitioners not only are themselves aggrieved
by subscription, as now required (which they cannot but
consider as an encroachment on their rights, competent to
them both as men and as members of a Protestant esta-
blishment), but with much grief and concern apprehend it
to be a great hindrance to the spreading of Christ's true
religion : As it tends to preclude, at least to discourage,
further inquiry into the true sense of Scripture, to divide
communions, and cause mutual dislike between fellow-
Protestants : As it gives a handle to unbelievers to re-
proach and vilify the Clergy, by representing them (when
they observe their diversity of opinion touching tliose very
Articles which were agreed upon for the sake of avoiding
the diversities of opinion) as guilty of prevarication, and of
accommodating their faith to lucrative views, or political
considerations : As it affords to Papists, and others dis-
affected to our religious establishments, occasion to reflect
upon it as inconsistently framed, admitting and authorizing
doubtful and precarious doctrines, at the same time that
Holy Scripture alone is acknowledged to be certain, and
sufiicient for salvation : As it tends (and the evil daily
increases) unhappily to divide the Clergy of the Establish-
ment themselves, subjecting one part thereof, who assert

109

but their Protestant privilege to question every human
doctrine, and bring it to the test of Scripture, to be reviled,
as well from the pulpit as the press, by another part, who
seem to judge the Articles they have subscribed to be
of equal authority with the Holy Scripture itself: And,
lastly, As it occasions scruples and embarrassments of con-
science to thoughtful and worthy persons in regard to
entrance into the ministry, or cheerful continuance in the
exercise of it.

" That the clerical part of your petitioners, upon whom
it is peculiarly incumbent, and who are more immediately
appointed by the State, to maintain and defend the truth
as it is in Jesus, do find themselves under a great restraint
in their endeavours herein, by being obliged to join issue
with the adversaries of revelation, in supposing the one
true sense of Scripture to be expressed in the present
established system of faith, or else to incur the reproach
of having departed from their subscriptions, the suspicion
of insincerity, and the repute of being ill-affected to the
Church ; whereby their comfort and usefulness among
their respective flocks, as well as their success against the
adversaries of our common Christianity, are greatly ob-
structed.

" That such of your petitioners as have been educated
with a view to the several professions of civil law and
physic, cannot but think it a great hardship to be obliged
(as are all in one of the Universities, even at their first
admission or matriculation, and at an age so immature for
disquisitions and decisions of such moment) to subscribe
their unfeigned assent to a variety of theological propo-
sitions, concerning which their private opinions can be of
no consequence to the public, in order to entitle them to
academical degrees in those faculties ; more especially as
the course of their studies, and attention to their practice
respectively, afford them neither the ineans nor the leisure

110

to examine whether and how far such propositions do agree
with the word of God.

" That certain of your petitioners have reason to lament,
not only their own, but the too probable misfortune of
their sons, who, at an age before the habit of reflection can
be formed, or their judgment matured, must, if the present
mode of subscription remains, be irrecoverably bound down
in points of the highest consequence, to the tenets of ages
less informed than their own.

" That, whereas the first of the three Articles, enjoined
by the Thirty-sixth Canon of the Church of England to be
subscribed, contains a recognition of his Majesty's supre-
macy in all causes ecclesiastical and civil, your petitioners
humbly presume, that every security, proposed by sub-
scription to the said Article, is fully and effectually pro-
vided for by the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, pre-
scribed to be taken by every Deacon and Priest at their
ordination, and by every Graduate in both Universities.
Your petitioners, nevertheless, are ready and willing to
give any further testimony which may be thought expe-
dient of their affection for his Majesty's person and
government, of their attachment and dutiful submission in
Church and State, of their abhorrence of the imchristian
spirit of Popery, and of all those maxims of the Church of
Rome which tend to enslave the consciences, or to under-
mine the civil or religious liberty, of a free Protestant
people.

" Your petitioners, in consideration of the premises, do
now humbly supplicate this Honourable House, in
hope of being relieved from an obligation so in-
congruous with the right of private judgment, so
pregnant with danger to true religion, and so pro-
ductive of distress to many pious and conscientious
men and useful subjects of the State ; and in that

Ill

hope look up for redress, and humbly submit their
cause, under God, to the wisdom and justice of a
British Parliament and the piety of a Protestant
King.

" And your petitioners shall ever pray, &c.

" Sir William Meredith moved to bring up the above
petition ; but Sir Eoger Newdigate objected to the receiving
of it, as it came from persons who had done that which
they represented to be wrong, and which they wanted to
undo. Lord John Cavendish wished the petition to be
brought up and examined with temper. Lord North ob-
jected to it, as tending to revive the flames of ecclesiastical
controversy ; and wished never in that House to proceed
to the discussion of orthodoxy. On a division it was
rejected; Yeas 71. Nays 217."

APPENDIX C.

The Subscriptions made hy the Clergy, and the avihority
by which they are enjoined.

I. At ordination :

1. Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, enjoined by
the Act 13 Eliz. c. 12, sec. 5.

2. Subscription to the three Articles of the 36th Canon,
relating (1) to the Queen's Supremacy, (2) to the Book of
Common Prayer, (3) to the Thirty-nine Articles.

This subscription is made upon the authority of the
Canon itself, passed in 1603.

The first of these is not ordered to be made in any
special form ; the second is to be made in the words—

112

" I do willingly and tx animo subscribe to the three Articles above men-
tioned, and to all things that are contained in them."

The common practice, however, is to put them together

in the following form : —

■' I do willingly and from my heart subscribe to the Thirty-nine

Articles of Religion of the United Church of England and Ireland, and
to the three Articles of the Thirty-sixth Canon, and to all things that are
contained in them."

The three Articles of the Canon are as follmxs : —

" 1. That the Queen's Majesty, under God, is the only b„pi eme Governor
of this Realm, and of all other Her Highness's Dominions and Countries,
as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal; and
that no foreign Prince, Prelate, State, or Potentate, hath or ought to have
any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authoritj-, ecclesias-
tical or spiritual, within Her Majesty's said Realms, Dominions, and
Countries.

"2. That the Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordeiing of Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons, contain eth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and
that it may lawfully so be used, and that he himself will use the form in
the said Book prescribed, in public Prayer and administi-ation of the
Sacraments, and none other.

" 3. That he alloweth the Book of Articles of Religion, agreed upon by
the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy, in
the Convocation holden at London in the Year of our Lord One Thousand
Five Hundred and Sixty-two ; and that he acknowledgeth all and every
the Articles therein contained, being in number Nine and Thirty, besides
the Ratification, to be agreeable to the Word of God."

The words of the Act 13 Eliz. c. 12, sec. 5, are as fol-
lows : —

" And that none shall be made minister or admitted to preach or ad-
minister the sacraments . . . nor shall be admitted to the order of deacon
or ministry unless he shall first subscribe to the said Articles."

The declaration made on admission to Priest's is the
same as that on admission to Deacon's Orders.

II. On being licensed to a curacy, the same subscription
is made as on ordination, with the addition of the words,

" I do declare that I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church of
England as it is now by law established."

113

These words are also subscribed to separately, and the
Bishop's certificate that they have been subscribed to is
read in church within three months after the license.

This form is prescribed by the Act of Uniformity,
13 Chas. II. c. 4, sect. 9, in a declaration mainly directed
against rebellion and the Solemn League and Covenant, all
of wliich, except the words relating to the Liturgy, have
been since repealed. It is to be made by every person in
holy orders "who may be incumbent or have possession of
any deanery, canonry, prebend, parsonage, vicarage, or any
other ecclesiastical dignity or promotion, or of any curate's
place, lecture, or school."

The words of the Act requiring this declaration to be
subscribed and read publicly (sections 10 and 12) are as
follows : —

" The said declaration or acknowledgment shall be sxibscribed before the
respective Archbishop, Bishop, or Ordinary of the Diocese by every other
person " {i.e. other than teachers in Universities) " hereby enjoined to sub-
scribe the same." " And after such subscription made, every such
Parson, Vicar, Ctirate, and Lecturer shall procure a certificate under the
hand and seal of the i-espective Ai'chbishop, Bishop, or Ordinary of the
Diocese (who are hereby enjoined and required upon demand to ,make and
deliver the same), and shall publicly and openly read the same, together
with the declaration or acknowledgment aforesaid, upon some Lord's Day
within three months then next following in his parish church where he
is to ofl&ciate, in the presence of the congregation there assembled, in the
time of Divine service."

III. At institution to a benefice, the person to be
admitted makes before the bishop the same declaration as
a licensed curate.

The subscription to the Articles rests upon the Act
13 Eliz. c. 12, sect. 3, the words of which are as follows : —

" And that no person shall hereafter be admitted to any benefice with
cure, except he . . . shall first have subscribed the said Articles in presence
of the Ordinary, and publicly read the same in the Parish Church of that
benefice, with declaration of his unfeigned asent to the same."

At reading-in, the incumbent reads the Morning and

114

Evening Prayers ; and after Evening Prayers professes his
assent to the use of the Book of Common Prayer. He
also reads the Thirty-nine Articles, and declares his con-
sent to them.

The reading of the Articles is enjoined by the Act
13 Eliz. c. 12, sect. 3. ISTo form of expressing assent is
prescribed.

The reading of the Liturgy and the declaration of assent
is prescribed by the Act of Uniformity of 1 662, 13 Chas. II.
c. 4, sects. 2 and 4. Sect. 4 enacts that : —

" Every person who shall be hei'cafter presented or collated, or put into
any Ecclesiastical benefice or promotion within this realm of England, and
places aforesaid, shall in the church, chapel, or place of public worship
belonging to his said benefice or promotion, within two months next after
that he shall be in actual possession of the said Ecclesiastical benefice or
promotion, upon some Lord's-day, openly, publicly, and solemnly read the
Morning and Evening Prayers appointed to be read by and according to
the said Book of Common Prayer, at the times thereby appointed ; and
after such reading thereof, shall, openly and publicly before the congrega-
tion then assembled, declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use
of ail things therein contained and prescribed according to the form
appointed. "

And the form is given in sect. 2 : —

"... shall declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all
things in the said booli contained and prescribed, in these words and no
other : — I do here declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and
everthing contained and prescribed in and by the book, intitled the Book
of Common Prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, and other rites
and ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of
England ; together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, pointed as they
are to be sung or said in churches : and the form and manner of making,
ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons."

APPENDIX D.

A LIST OF PAROCHIAL DISTRICTS IN THE DIOCESE OF
LONDON, CONTAINING A POPULATION OF 10,000 AND
UPWARDS.

Note. — Some of these Parishes contain more than one Church or licensed
place of worshi}} ; hut, after deducting a population proportionate to the
number aiul size of the extra Churches, the remainder is iqnvards of the
number specified for the Class in tchich Uiey are pilaced.

The numbers are taken from the Returns made by the Clergy, and the
Census 0/I86I.

Class A contains more than 30,000 people.
Class B „ between 20,000 and 30,000.

Class C „ „ 15,000 „ 20,000.

Class D „ „ 10,000 „ 15,000.

No. of Clergy

in the Parish

or District.

Class A.

Population.

St. Peter, Walworth 32,000

St. Dunstan, Stepney 30,000

St, Mary, Haggerstone . " 38,000

Class B.i

St. James, Clerkenwell 26,400

St. Luke, Chelsea 20,000

St. Luke, Old Street 24,000

Christ Church, Marylebone .... 30,000

St. John, Hoxton 24,800

St. Giles in the Fields 25,000

Bromley, St. Leonard 24,062

Woolwich, St. Mary 41,693

Greenwich 39,000

Plumstead 25,000

St. George East 30,000

^ The Return from Poplar, which was not made in time to be entered,
gives 33,000, with two Places of Worship, and four Clergy.

116

Class C.

Population.

Holy Trinity, Paddiugton 16,500

St. Stephen, Camden Town .... 10,000

St. John, Fitzroy Square 18,000

Holy Trinity, Haverstock Hill . . . 16,800

Holy Trinity, Southwark 17,700

St. Mary, Newington 15,000

South Hackney ' 15,000

All Saints, Islington 17,500

St. Andrew, Holboru 16,000

Spitalfields. 15,000

St. Mary, Whitechapel 15,500

St. Anne, Limehouse 15,600

St. Peter, Stepney 15,000

St. Philip, Stepney 15,000

No. of Clergy

in the Parish

or District.

. 3

. 2

. 4

. 3

. 2

. 3

. 5

. 4

. 3

. 2

Class I).

St. George, Bloomsbury 17,392 ... 9

St. James, Hatcham 10,000 ... 3

Trinity, Brompton 10,000 ... 3

St. John, Notting Hill 12,000 ... 5

St. George, Hanover Square .... 24,000 . . .17

St. Gabriel, Pimlico 16,000 ... 4

St. Michael, Chester Square .... 10,870 ... 4

St. Paul, Knightsbridge 14,120 ... 8

St. Peter, Pimlico 15,000 ... 6

St. Martin-in-the-Fields 16,000 ... 7

St. Clement Dane's 16,000 ... 5

St. Anne, Soho 13,000 ... 4

St. Marylebone 26,252 ... 16

St. Stephen, Marylebone 10,000 ... 2

117

Populaticin.

St. Mary, Bryanstone Square , . . . 27,678

Holy Trinity, Marylebone ..... 14,000

St. Mary, Paddington , 10,000

St. Pancras 13,000

Old St. Pancras 11,300

Kentish Town 12,000

St. Peter, Regent Square . . . . . 10,666

St. James, Hampstead Road .... 14,000

St. Luke, King's Cross 10,000

St. Andrew, Haverstock Hill . . . . 11,000

St. James, Piccadilly 12,504

St. Paul, Walworth 12,000

St. John, Walworth 10,000

St. Botolph, Aldgate 14,500

St. John, Stratford 12,764

St. Mary, Plaistow 11,000

West Hackney 13,000

St. Philip, Dalston 10,244

St. Peter, Islington 13,509

St. Paul, Ball's Pond 12,000

St. Andrew, Ishngton 15,000

St. Leonard, Shoreditch 15,000

Christ Church, Hoxton 14,500

Holy Trinity, Hoxton 10,800

St. Barnabas, King Square .... 10,000

St. Thomas, Charter House .... 10,000

St. Mark, Clerkenwell ...... 10,000

Holy Trinity, Gray's Inn Lane . , . 13,560

St. Mark, Whitechapel 15,300

St. Matthew, Bethnal Green .... 14,000

St. Andrew, Bethnal Green .... 10,000

St. Bartholomew, Bethnal Green. . . 10,000

St. John, Bethnal Green 10,000

St. Jude, Bethnal Green 14,000

St. Matthias, Bethnal Green .... 10,000

St. Philip, Bethnal Green 14,000

No. of Clergy

in the Parish

or District.

. 7

. 6

. 3

. 5

. 2

• 2 I
. 2
. 2
. 4
. 2
. 5
. 2

• 2 ^
, 3
. 2
. 2

118

St. Thomas, Stepuey . . .
Holy Trinity, Stepuey . . .
All Saints, Spicer Street
Christ Church, Watney Street

Population.

14,000
10,478
11,000
13.145

No. of Clergy

ill the Parish

or District.

. 2

In all the Parishes of Class A together there are 100,000
persons, with 11 Clergy, or 1 to every 9,100 persons.

In all the Parishes of Class B together there az-e 309,955
persons, with 53 Clergy, or 1 to every 5,850 persons.

In all the Parishes of Class C together there are 224,000
persons, with 39 Clergy, or 1 to every 5,760 persons.

In all the Parishes of Class D together there are 710,582
persons, with 198 Clergy, or 1 to every 3,590 persons.

The numbers are taken from the Census of 1861.

Country Parishes under 400.

Perivale 48^

Littleton 110

Cowley 370

Ickenham 360

City Parishes under 600.

Allhallows, Bread Street 122

Allhallows, Lombard Street ......... 415

Allhallows, Staining 358

St. Anne and Agnes 362

St. Antholin 263

St. Bene't, Graceohurch 278

1 Returned by the Incumbent as hating less tban 20 inhabitanta.
There seems to be some mistake in tlie Census,

St. Botolph, Billingsgate 222

St. Catharine Coleman 444

St. Clement, Eastcheap 198

St. Diouis Backchurch 534

St. Edmnnd-the-King 501

St. James, Garlick Hythe 461

St. Lawrence, Old Jewry 535

St. Margaret, Lothbury 164

St. Martin Outwich 165

St. Mary, Abchurch 264

St. Mary, Aldermary 444

St. Mary, Aldermanbury 443

St. Mary-le-Bow 317

St. Mary Woolnoth 291

St. Matthew, Friday Street 167

St. Michael, Bassishaw 501

St. Michael, Cornhill . 371

St. Michael, Wood Street 214

St. Michael Royal 400

St. Mildred, Bread Street 86

St. Mildred, Poultry 257

St. Olave, Jewry 328

St. Stephen, Walbrook 300

St. Swithin 459

St. Vedast, Foster Lane 352

R. CLAV, SON, ANl) TAVI.OK, PRINTEIIS, liliEAD STKEKT HII.L.

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Full text of "A charge delivered in December, 1862, to the clergy of the Diocese of London : at his visitation"

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