the Church" or "Canon Law," properly so called, but from the "Law of the Realm;" the Act establishing and enforcing it being enacted by the King, by the advice and with the consent of the "Three Estates of the Realm," the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons in Parliament assembled.

It received this august sanction, not for the "tolerant recognition of divergent ritual practice," but

to the intent that every person within this realm may certainly know the rule to which he is to conform in public worship and administration of Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, and the manner, how and by whom, bishops, priests, and deacons are and ought to be made, ordained, and consecrated.

The Act further provides,

That the former good laws and statutes of this realm, which have been formerly made, and are still in force, for the uniformity of prayer and administration of the Sacraments, . . . shall stand in full force and strength, for all intents and purposes whatsoever, for the establishing and confirming the said Book . . . and no other.

Now the Eliz. c. ii., which is thus in pari materiâ, and to be read together with the 14 Car. II. c. 4, as though in fact they were one Act, directs that

all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church or other place within this realm of England, Wales, and the marches of the same, or other the Queen's dominions, shall . . . be bounden to say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's supper, and administration of each of the Sacraments, and all their common and open prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book, so authorised by Parliament . . . and none other or otherwise. This clause, as an acute and learned Ritualist long since

Jus canonicum, i.e. ab Ecclesia seu viris ecclesiasticis institutum. - Lyndw. p. 76. See App. A.

pointed out, disposes of the fallacy that "omission is not prohibition," as well as of all questions as to the "maximum" and "minimum" of observance.

And the "Law of the Church" is in entire accordance with the "Law of the Realm." It directs that

all ministers shall observe the orders, rites, and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer . . . without either diminishing in regard of preaching, or in any other respect, or adding anything in the matter or form thereof.

And the Canons, or such of them as are still in force, are unrepealed laws of the Church of England; and they are moreover

8 Maskell, Anc. Lit. p. cxxxv.

The 14 Car. II. c. 4 orders "that all and singular ministers . . . shall be bound to say and use the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, celebration and administration of both the Sacraments, and all other the public and common prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book annexed and joined to the present Act." And see "Of Ceremonies" in the Preface to the C.P.

The 34 & 35 Vict. c. 37 and the 35 & 36 Vict. c. 35, have amended and altered the Calendar and Table of Lessons, and made provision for shortened, special, and additional services. Under the authority of this last Act the service on Good Friday, commonly known as the "Three Hours," was introduced at St. Paul's, as the Dean courteously informs me. It is a curious instance of the use of a shortened service Act. It has parliamentary authority only.

The "Three Hours" is the modern conceit of a South American Jesuit in the seventeenth century. Both it and the "Rite of Benediction," a sixteenth century addition, were gravely said by a writer in the now defunct Union Review, to have been "wickedly flung away by the Reformers," the "Three Hours" being "of remote antiquity."-Ch. Rev. Ap. 8, 1880, p. 164.

9 Can. 14, 36; Can. 36 of 1865 has not received the Royal Assent. The declaration of assent made by all before ordination, institution, collation, or licence, runs, "I assent to the 39 Articles of Religion, and to the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; . . . and in public Prayer and administration of the Sacraments I will use the form in the said Book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority."

The Curate's licence binds him to perform the office "according to the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, made and published by the authority of Parliament, and the canons and constitutions in that behalf lawfully established and promulgated, and not otherwise or in any other manner."-See Blunt's Ch. Law, pp. 196, 237. Whoever therefore introduces or uses, of his own private authority, any other manner or form of service, commits wilful and deliberate perjury.

laws which it is the business of the Archbishop's Official Principal to enforce upon the clergy.10

Upon all matters of ritual or ceremonial about or concerning which directions are to be found, nothing is left to the discretion or indiscretion of the minister; the conformity must be absolute. A piebald ritual or obedience is an absurdity, if there are to be any laws at all, and if ordination vows are not to be made only to be broken at the will of those who make them.

And to prevent confusion and to remove difficulties, the I Eliz. c. ii. § 14 provides

that all laws statutes, and ordinances, wherein or whereby any other service, or administration of Sacraments or Common Prayer, is limited, established, or set forth to be used within this realm or any other the Queen's dominions or countries, shall from henceforth be utterly void and of none effect.

This very important clause swept away all injunctions, "constitutions, ordinances, canons provincial or synodal," and laws, that before and up to 1558 affected or regulated the public worship of the Church. There was no longer any need

10 The Canons of 1603 are, in Dr. Liddon's opinion, unrepealed laws, though overridden by Acts of Parliament.-Ch. Troubles, p. xvii. The validity of laws, canons, and statutes, like the decisions of the courts, varies much in these days, depending for their authority and reception rather upon the fancies and private opinions of citizens, than on anything else. Anciently it was not so; men did not claim the right to interpret or disobey the law whenever it conflicted with their individual judgments. Now-a-days, Acts of Parliament and judicial decisions are only to be obeyed in Church matters when they agree with our wishes and views.

The Canons of 1603, that were made for uniformity of Prayer, were, together with the Acts of Uniformity in force, brought over by the 14 Car. II. c. 4, § 20, enforced and applied to our present Book; for "a lawful canon is the law of the kingdom as well as an Act of Parliament."-Vaugh. 327.

That no one in 1662 thought that the altered rubric in the Act of Uniformity had repealed, or was in conflict with, the canons, is certain; for in July, 1662, some two months after the Act passed, a quarto edition of the canons was printed and published "for the due observation of them by His Majesty's authority;" and a royal letter to the Primate soon after directed both the Canons and 39 Articles to be read twice in the year to the people, "that they may the better understand and be better acquainted with the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and not so easily drawn away from it as formerly they have been."-Kennett, Reg. pp. 724, 5, 795.

to "search and examine" them. Their authority forthwith ceased.

Express and solemn injunctions were given to all ordinaries to enquire for and punish offenders "by admonition, excommunication, sequestration, or deprivation, and other censures and process, in like form, as heretofore hath been used in like cases by the Queen's ecclesiastical laws." 11

And all, bishops and clergy alike, are bound by the most solemn vows to maintain and yield a loyal conformity and obedience.

The one promise, on consecration, to correct and punish "such as be unquiet, disobedient, and criminous within their dioceses, according to the authority they have by God's word and the ordinance of the Realm."

The other, on ordination, "always so to minister the doctrine, and sacraments, and the discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and Realm hath received the same;" as well as "to reverently obey the Ordinary and other chief Ministers unto whom is committed the charge and government over" them, "following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting" themselves "to their godly judgments," setting forward as much as lieth in them "quietness, peace, and love amongst all Christian people." 12

In case of doubt "concerning the manner how to understand, do and execute the things contained" in the Book of Common Prayer, resort is to be had to the Bishop of the Diocese, and if the Bishop be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution thereof to the Archbishop.

11 1 Eliz. c. ii. § 4, 11, and see App. A.

12 The Oath of Supremacy, appointed to be taken by the 28 & 29 Vict. c. 22, runs, “I, A.B. do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law." That of canonical obedience is, "I, A. B. do swear that I will bear true and canonical obedience to the Lord Bishop of and his successors in all legal and honest demands." This of course means all such demands as the Bishop by law is authorised to make (Long v. Bishop of Capetown, Moore, P.C. Rep. [N.S.] I. 465), not such as any clergyman may, in his private judgment, think he ought to obey.

It was never meant that the Prayer Book, or its Rubrics, any more than any other part of the laws of the Church and Realm, should be of private interpretation, or that any minister, however sincere, learned, or pious, should set up in each or any parish a supreme court of final appeal, of which he is the selfconstituted and infallible judge. A layman who tried the experiment would fare but badly; it is hard to see why a clerk should fare better.13

For the question of conformity is not one of this or that party, but of common order, conscience, and honesty.

It is one in which all are alike interested; for the Book of Common Prayer is the heritage of all; and every parishioner, who may wish to attend the parish church, has the undoubted right to require that the services of the church be conducted in a lawful manner, and according to the prescribed and accustomed form, and not according to individual caprice, ignorance, or self-conceit.

For the Acts of Uniformity and the Canons were not made or enacted for the sanctioning or toleration of diversity of ritual or ceremonial, but to prevent it; and in the interests of all, to secure and provide that neither diversity of doctrine nor ritual be fed out of the funds of the Established National Church.

And although the keeping or omitting of a ceremony, in itself considered, is but a small thing, yet the wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking of a common order and discipline is no small offence before God. . . . The appointment of the order pertaineth not to private men, therefore no man ought to take in hand or presume to appoint or alter any public or common order in Christ's Church, except he be lawfully called or authorised thereto.14

The present confusion and conflict has arisen upon the construction put upon a Rubric by a court confessedly

13 "If the judgments of the Privy Council had proceeded from a court in every respect unobjectionable, they would have been rejected all the same."-Ch. Times Summary, 1882, p. 275. See 1 Hagg. Con. 428.

14 Pref. to Common Prayer.