y^^ •
 
 L I B R.A RY 
 
 O F THE 
 U N [VERS ITY 
 or 1 LLl N O IS
 
 Cfje ©fjurcTj's WBovit antr Sffitants 
 at tDc ^Present ®tmc. 
 
 A CHARGE 
 
 PELIVERED TO THE 
 
 CLERGY OF THE ARCHDEACONRY 
 OF MAIDSTONE 
 
 IN MAY, MDCCCLXXXI 
 
 WITH NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON, M.A. 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF MAIDSTONE 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 canterbtry: a. cinder, st. George's hall; hai, drury, mercery lane 
 maidstone : f. bunyard 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI
 
 lC-204.]
 
 TO THE REVEREND THE 
 
 EUEAL DEAXS AND THE CLERGY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARCHDEACONRY OF MAIDSTONE, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 THE C'HUECHWAEDEXS AND SIDESMEN, 
 
 PrBLISHED IX 
 
 WILLING COMPLIANCE WITH WISHES KINDLY EXPKLSSED FOK THE 
 
 OPPORTUNITY OF A MORE LEISURELY CONSIDERATION 
 
 OF ITS CONTENTS, 
 
 IS 
 
 RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 PEECISCTS, CAKTEEBURT, 
 
 MAY XXUI. MDCCCLXXXI.
 
 , UIUC ^
 
 A CHARGE 
 
 My Keveeend Brethren, 
 
 We are assembled again, by God's good 
 providence, for the business of the Ordinary 
 Visitation ; and I gladly avail myself of the 
 opportunity, in conformity with established 
 custom, of holding some discourse with you 
 on matters connected with the Church's work 
 in our appointed portion of the vineyard, or in 
 regard to questions affecting the interests of 
 the Church generallj^, so far as they fall within 
 the scope of the Archdeacon's office. 
 
 Last year, being the year of the Quadriennial 
 Visitation of the Archbishop, the Clergy were, 
 as usual, not cited to any Visitation of the 
 Ai'chdeacon ; but, in accordance with the ar- 
 rangement which has been in force ever since 
 the Primary Visitation of Archbishop Sumner, 
 now more than thirty years ago. Visitations 
 were held in each Archdeacomy, to receive the 
 presentments of the Churchwardens, and to 
 release them from their office, by admitting 
 their successors, who had been elected at the 
 Easter Vestries. I refer to this arrangement 
 
 B
 
 'Z A GHAEGE. 
 
 at the present time, because the post]3onement, 
 which is customary, of the Ordinary Visitation 
 in the years in which a Diocesan visits in 
 person, the autamn being generally a more 
 convenient time for the Bishops, has been made 
 an argument in favour of a Bill lately brought — 
 or rather, I should say, brought again — into the 
 House of Commons, having for its professed 
 object to afford facilities for the admission of 
 Churchwardens to their ofQce. The Committee 
 " on matters Parliamentary " of the Lower 
 House of the Convocation of this Province, in 
 the fulfilment of the duty which devolves upon 
 them, with each opening Session, of reporting 
 Bills affecting the Chm'ch w^hich have been 
 brought into Parliament, having examined the 
 provisions of this Bill, among others, recom- 
 mended to the House that their Lordships of 
 the Upper House should be requested to oppose 
 the Bill, if it came before the House of Lords. 
 This recommendation' the Lower House unani- 
 mously adopted ; and when the subject was 
 before the Upper House, his Grace the President, 
 to satisfy doubts which were entertained by one 
 or two of his brethren, requested the Prolocutor 
 to inform their Lordships of the grounds on 
 which the Lower House pressed opposition to 
 the Bill. The Lower House, with this reference 
 made to them, after a brief consultation, repre- 
 sented to their Lordships as follows — and I am
 
 A CHAKGE. 3 
 
 anxious to call attention to it here, because of 
 its important bearing, as will be seen, on these 
 gatherings of ours for the yearly Visitation. 
 
 " Mr. Monk's Bill," the Lower House ob- 
 served, " allows any Churchwarden to be ad- 
 mitted to his office by the Incumbent or the 
 Eural Dean, without attending the Archdeacon's 
 Visitation. This," said the Lower House, ''will 
 obviously tend to Churchwardens not attending 
 the Visitation ; though the Bill, no doubt, de- 
 clares that nothing contained in the Bill is to 
 interfere with such attendance." They added 
 — what I presume will be regarded as equally 
 clear — that " precisely the Churchwardens whose 
 attendance is most important — Churchwardens 
 of outlying parishes, or places in which matters 
 need looking after — will be absent." "The 
 object of the Bill," the Lower House went on 
 to observe, "is expressly to facilitate the admis- 
 sion of Churchwardens ; " and, no doubt, one 
 object in view was "to avoid Visitation fees. 
 But," as the Lower House proceeded to say, 
 "there is no need of such facilities; inasmuch 
 as any Churchwarden, who cannot conveniently 
 attend the Visitation, can," as you well know, 
 "go before the neighbouring Surrogate, or appear 
 at the Eegistry," at Canterbury or in Doctors' 
 Commons. It was added further — as I have 
 before now taken occasion to state — that the 
 Visitation fees are not fees for the admission of
 
 4 A CHAEGE. 
 
 the new Cliiircli wardens, but the payment due 
 for the maintenance of the Diocesan Eegistry," 
 and the remuneration of its legal officers for 
 duty done in behalf of each parish ; " payable 
 by the late Churchwardens, together with other 
 charges for repair of churches and supply of 
 things required for Divine Worship," With all 
 such payments the incoming Churchwarden, I 
 may add, has nothing to do : he is not supposed 
 to know anything of the parish accounts, of 
 the church expenses, or the means of discharging 
 them. 
 
 In the default of the alleged reasons for the 
 proposed legislation, you will be of opinion, I 
 doubt not, my Keverend Brethren, and our Lay 
 Brethren with you, that the Low-er House w^ere 
 fully w^arr anted in giving it as their judgment, 
 that " Mr. Monk's Bill, if it became law, would 
 infallibly impair," if it did not, in the result, 
 altogether "put an end to, the gathering of 
 Churchwardens, with Clergy, at the annual 
 Visitations; w^hich," I am sure you will agree 
 with the Lower House, '' are very advantageous 
 in every point of view." It was felt, moreover, 
 that, in the place of the personal promise made 
 by the individual Chm-chwarden to the Ordinary, 
 whose officer he is, he ^vould seem, when ad- 
 mitted by the Incumbent — which would be the 
 general case — ''rather to be the officer of the 
 person who admits him than of the Ordinary; "
 
 A CHARGE. ') 
 
 and would be less free to do his duty, if such 
 painful necessity arose, of making j)i"esentment 
 of anything faulty in which the Incumbent was 
 himself, in any degree, involved. The legisla- 
 tion proposed would, therefore, as it seemed to 
 the Lower House, "introduce a great change," 
 which might " seriously affect the relations be- 
 tween the Archdeacon and the Churchwardens, 
 as well in the care of the churches as in matters 
 of discipline." 
 
 In regard, indeed, to these Visitations generally, 
 I shaU be expressing, I believe, my Eeverend 
 Brethren, the feehng of you all, when I say that 
 we should greatly regret to lose the advantage 
 and the pleasure, which we have in an increased 
 degree, of late years, enjoyed in the more free 
 communication and intercoui'se with our Lay 
 Brethren which these our gatherings at the 
 Visitation have afforded ; to the strengthening 
 of the bonds of brotherly relation to each, other, 
 to a fuller realization of our being, in our several 
 detachments and posts of individual duty, com- 
 panions and fellow- soldiers in one spiritual host, 
 " the whole state of Christ's Church militant 
 here in earth." The communications to which 
 I have referred, as having passed between the 
 two Houses of the Convocation of this Province, 
 took place at a late hour on the last day of the 
 group of sessions held in February. There has, 
 therefore, been no opportunity of dealing with
 
 C) A CHAEGE. 
 
 the subject furtlier ou the part of the Upper 
 House. I have reason, however, to beheve that 
 their Lordships, as a body, would be not less 
 desirous than their brethren of the second Order, 
 that every existing link of association and union 
 between the Clergy and the Laity should be 
 strengthened rather than impaired ; and that, 
 to this end, the arrangements at present in force 
 in these Visitations, for the exercise of whatever 
 remains of disciphue still in the hands of the 
 subordinate and concurrent Ordinary, with the 
 efficient aid of the constitutional representatives 
 of the Church Laity — the Churchwardens of the 
 several parishes — should, by all the means in 
 our power, be cherished and improved. 
 
 With the Churchwardens and Sidesmen alone, 
 called together, as before stated, last year, I 
 freely availed myself of the opportunity of ad- 
 dressing them on matters which specially belong 
 to their office, or which concerned the Laity as 
 deeply as the Clergy, and even more so ; amidst 
 circumstances of more than ordinary uncertainty 
 and anxiety ; which, nevertheless, by reason of 
 that very uncertainty in regard to the issues of 
 things then pending, left the course of thought 
 which opened itself before the minds of Church- 
 men and patriots at that time more than usually 
 free from questions of merely secular pohcy. 
 The gravity of the coming conflicts of opinion
 
 A CHARCiE. 7 
 
 in regard to morals and religion, as tliey loomed 
 in the doubtful future, cannot be said to have 
 become less momentous or less anxious in the 
 developments of the year that has now passed 
 over us : for this, I think, will be felt and ad- 
 mitted in the religious depths of men's hearts, 
 whatever may be the inclinations of their minds 
 in matters of political opinion. Happy if, amidst 
 aU the elemental war, and far above its utmost 
 range, their thoughts find rest, and their inmost 
 spirits take corn-age, with calmness and holy 
 confidence, in the view of Him, and of His ever- 
 lasting throne, "whose never-failing providence 
 ordereth all things both in heaven and earth ; " ^ 
 '' the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, 
 whose name is Holy; " ^ and to whose heavenly 
 abode the prayer of humble faith will assuredly 
 find its way, through the thickest mist and the 
 darkest sky, that He will mercifully grant, when 
 we earnestly beseech Him, " that the course of 
 this world may be so peaceably ordered by " His 
 " governance, that " His " Church may joyfully 
 serve" Him ''in all godly quietness; through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord." ^ 
 
 I pass on, however, to a more welcome topic, 
 when I proceed to fulfil the accustomed duty— 
 
 1 Collect for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 " Isa. Ivii. 15. 
 
 3 Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity. See Note A.
 
 8 A CHARGE. 
 
 or, I may rather say, to enjoy the accustomed 
 privilege — of reporting to yon, in a brief sum- 
 mary, the works lately completed, or now in 
 hand, of Chm-ch restoration and improvement, 
 or new fabrics built ; for the extension of the 
 means of grace where it is needed, and the more 
 fitting celebration of God's worship and service. 
 When I held my Visitation of the Church- 
 wardens last spring, I had to report that I had 
 just before, in Easter week, been invited to re- 
 open, with a religious service, the restored church 
 of Bromfield, in the deanery of Sutton, the sister 
 parish to Leeds ; a work which might be re- 
 garded as happily carrying on that which had 
 been taken in hand in the restoration of Leeds 
 Church, while it offered an affectionate me- 
 morial of him ^ who had himself desired to accom- 
 plish the work, and whose sudden removal from 
 among us demanded a tribute to his memory 
 among the losses which we had lately sustained, 
 when last we met, of highly esteemed and valued 
 members of our own brotherhood and of the 
 body of Churchwardens. 
 
 Shortly after, in the early part of May, the 
 Archbishop consecrated St. John's, Bromley; a 
 new church, taking the place, as has so often 
 been our experience of late, of an iron church 
 close by, which had for eight years past been 
 used as a temporary place of worship. The new 
 
 ' Philip Wykeham Martin, Esq., M.P., of Leeds Castle.
 
 A CHARGE. 
 
 church, supplying the spiritual wants of a 
 rapidly increasing neighhourhood, was built by 
 voluntary subscriptions, aided by the Church 
 Building Societies, the Diocesan and the Incor- 
 porated ; and had many Hberal gifts bestowed on 
 its fitting up and furnishing. Early in the fol- 
 lowing month, of June, his Grace consecrated 
 the church of St. Mary, Kippington ; a building 
 on which no cost had been spared by individual 
 liberaHty, and ; which, from the beauty of the 
 country in which it is placed, cannot fail to 
 become the centre of numerous dwelhngs. A 
 few days after, a commemoration was held, in 
 which the Archbishop took part, at Cranbrook, 
 on occasion of the completion, for the present, 
 of the works which, for a considerable number of 
 years, had been in hand, as means were forth- 
 coming, for the restoration of the noble and 
 spacious parish church which has been called 
 " the Cathedral of the Weald ; " a work involv- 
 ing an 'outlay of nearly 7000^. In the course 
 of the same month of June took place the con- 
 secration, by the Archbishop, of the new church 
 of Lamorbey ; in place of what was described as 
 " the old church," of which, however, I may 
 perhaps fitly record that I was in attendance at 
 the consecration, in 1840. But the growth of 
 the population made a larger church necessary ; 
 and the stained glass windows and other adorn- 
 ings of the new fabric, the offerings of divei-s
 
 10 A C'HAEGE. 
 
 parishioners, bore witness to their sense of the 
 spiritual benefit to be now conferred on the 
 place. In the month of July, I had the pleasure 
 of attending on a somewhat different, but not 
 less satisfactory occasion — the substantial repair 
 and internal improvement of the ancient village 
 church of Wormshill ; a long-neglected fabric in 
 a secluded parish, which formed, for many years, 
 an exception, in that part of the country, to the 
 general work of Church restoration which had 
 been going on around. The authorities of 
 Christ's Hospital were present at the reopen- 
 ing, the Governors having contributed 5001. to 
 the work ; including the repair of a north 
 chancel, now given over to the parish, and 
 fitted up with seats. 
 
 More recently, in the present year, in the 
 month of February, the new church of Ha] stead 
 was consecrated by the Archbishop ; superseding 
 the old parish church, which was not con- 
 veniently situated for the parish generally, and 
 which, amidst tasteless alterations of the last 
 centmy or earlier, had lost every ancient feature 
 of interest. The new church, incorporating, as 
 a chancel, what was built some j^ears ago for 
 a cemetery chapel, has been the gift, almost 
 entirety, to the parish, of the chief landholder, 
 the owner of Halstead Place. Still more re- 
 cently, the Archbishop consecrated anew St. 
 James's Churcli, Croydon ; enlarged and greatly
 
 A CHARGE. 11. 
 
 improved by the addition of what has been 
 described to me as "a really good chancel," 
 erected at the cost of between 2000Z. and 3000/. 
 And only on the afternoon of Saturday last, the 
 7th of May,^ his Grace, just retm-ned from the 
 Continent, consecrated St. Mary's, Plaistow, a 
 district church in the parish of Bromley; a 
 chancel, organ chamber, and vestries having 
 been added to a church which was erected for 
 the supply of the religious wants of a parish 
 rapidly extendmg in all dii'ections, and with a 
 large population, in this part of the parish, con- 
 siting of working men. I may mention also, that 
 the church of Knockholt has been enlarged by 
 the addition of a north aisle ; obtaining thereby, 
 and by a re-arrangement of seats, a considerable 
 increase of accommodation. Keston Church has 
 likewise been enlarged westwards, and a new 
 open-timbered roof been put into the nave, with 
 a new vestry and other adornings and improve- 
 ments. At Maidstone, St. Peter's Church has 
 been greatly improved in its internal arrange- 
 ments, and has had, moreover, some interesting 
 featm-es of its early days, as the old Pilgrims' 
 Chapel, brought to light. 
 
 In addition to these undertakings, in regard to 
 our ancient parish churches, or new churches 
 erected to supplement them, I have to report 
 instances of what is at the present time engaging 
 
 ^ The Visitation began on ]\Ionday, May 9.
 
 12 A CHARGE. 
 
 a good deal of attention on the part, specially, of 
 the Incorporated Church Building Society — I 
 mean the planting of iron churches, or school 
 chapels, in the outlying parts of our large rural 
 parishes — an object scarcely less important than 
 that of supplying, by these and other means, the 
 spiritual wants of our large towns. In the parish 
 of Chiddingstone, the schoolroom at the Hoath, 
 placed in the southern part of a parish of wide 
 extent, and which was enlarged a few years since 
 to enable the Clergy to hold Divine Service on 
 Sundays and other days, has been further fitted 
 with an Altar, and licensed for the celebration of 
 the Sacraments. In the parish of Dartford, a 
 new mission church, capable of seating 200 
 persons, has been built on the East Hill. The 
 site was given by a lady, who also presented the 
 Altar cloth ; and two stained -windows have been 
 placed at the west end of the chapel, the gift of 
 a justice of the peace. To the parish of Christ 
 Church, Erith, was transferred, last spring, by 
 Order in Council, a portion of the parish of 
 Crayford, with a population of about 800. Since 
 the transfer, the Primitive Methodists have sold 
 their chapel, the only one in the district, to the 
 Vicar and Churchwardens of Christ Church ; it 
 has been put into thorough repair, and Mission 
 Services, Sunday Schools, and Mothers' Meetings 
 are now held in it. At Southborough, St. Peter's, 
 a new mission-room has been erected in the out-
 
 A CHAllGE. 13 
 
 lying hamlefc of High Brooms ; iu which au 
 Infants' School and Mission Services will be 
 carried on. The room will hold about 150 
 persons. 
 
 I have spoken, thus far, of works brought to 
 completion in the course of the last year. But 
 I have the satisfaction of reporting others 
 nearly completed or already in hand. The re- 
 opening of the ancient and very interesting 
 church of Minster-in-Sheppey, the mother 
 church of the island, is fixed by the Archbishop 
 for the 9th of June ; and the Vicar of Queen- 
 borough will then feel himself at liberty to go 
 forward with his appeal for the repair and restora- 
 tion of the church of that once famous, long- 
 decayed, and now somewhat reviving borough. 
 When this work is accomplished, the renovation 
 of the ecclesiastical fabrics of the Isle of Sheppey 
 throughout will be well-nigh complete. The 
 entire rebuilding of Shipbourne Church, replac- 
 ing a fabric which, though dating only from the 
 early part of the last century, was found incapable 
 of repak, will soon be ready for consecration ; a 
 liberal gift to the parish from the owner of the 
 estate of Fairlawn. And we shall also soon see 
 finished and consecrated the permanent chm'ch 
 at Four Elms, which, with its duly appointed 
 minister and a smaU endowment, has been, as in 
 other cases to which I have referred, the result 
 of a temporary iron church, Kcensed and opened
 
 14 A CHAKGE. 
 
 some time ago, and supptying, as liad been long 
 desii-ed, the spiritual wants of outlying portions 
 of three adjoining parishes of Hever, Brasted, 
 and Chiddiugstone. At Croydon, the church of 
 St. Michael and All Angels will, it is hoped, he 
 opened at Michaelmas ; including the nave, as 
 well as the chancel and transepts, which alone, 
 according to the original design, were to be 
 first taken in hand. At Selhurst, in the same 
 parish, the church, as originally intended, is 
 approaching near to completion : a north aisle, 
 with a west narthex has been added, with other 
 improvements ; leaving the tower and spire, j^art 
 of the original design, still to be carried out. St. 
 Saviom''s Church, Croydon, is about to be en- 
 larged ; and a considerable sum has been collected 
 for a new chmx-h to be built on the Brighton 
 Road. A school chapel and mission-room, in 
 connection with the parish church of St. John's, 
 is now in course of erection ; and a small chancel 
 has been added to the mission-room at St. 
 John's, Norwood. Wilmington Church is under- 
 going considerable enlargement. In the parish 
 of Boughton Monchelsea, a mission chm'ch is 
 building at the Quarries, for a population distant 
 two miles and a half from the parish church. At 
 Pluckley, mainly by a mimificent offering fi-om 
 the Rector, a mission church is in hand for the 
 benefit of that part of the parish, at a distance 
 from the church, where, in consequence of the
 
 A CHARGE. 15 
 
 discovery of brick earth of a superior quality, and 
 the works established there, there is a population 
 sprung up, which needs to be provided for. At 
 Harrietsham, on the Rectory grounds, the church 
 being at some distance, a mission chnrch is in 
 hand for additional Services on Sundays and 
 week-days, and like objects. Last, not least, in 
 the good town of Maidstone, where some under- 
 taking of piety or charity is always in hand, 
 set on foot, or finished oftentimes, by the in- 
 dividual munificence of Maidstone Churchmen, 
 there is the work, now going forward, of 
 completing the new chnrch of St. Faith's, by 
 the erection of the tower, an ornament to the 
 sacred fabric itself, and also to the town of 
 Maidstone. 
 
 In the midst of all these undertakings, multi- 
 plying upon us from year to year, in every part 
 of the Archdeaconry, as you will have observed 
 — and I have not, meanwhile, referred at all to 
 the other side of the Diocese — I must take occa- 
 sion, afresh, to remind you, my Reverend 
 Brethren, of the urgent claims of our Church 
 Building Societies, both the Diocesan Society 
 which Archbishop Longley set on foot, and the 
 Parent Society in Whitehall. Both of them 
 alike well deserve a greatly increased measure of 
 support. The Committee of the Diocesan Society, 
 in the Report to be presented at the forthcoming
 
 16 A CHARGE. 
 
 Annual Meeting, will find themselves under 
 the necessity of expressing their regret " that, 
 notwithstanding the Pastoral Letter from his 
 Grace the Archhishop, the Church collections 
 have been smaller than in previous years. To 
 some extent," they think, ''this maybe accounted 
 for by the general depression of agriculture and 
 commerce, which has of late been so severely felt 
 throughout the country. But if, by God's bless- 
 ing, this should pass away during the coming 
 year, the Committee would earnestly appeal to 
 the benevolence of Churchmen to make up the 
 deficiency by increased subscriptions and dona- 
 tions, to enable the Society to maintain its 
 present scale of grants." I am well aware how 
 many objects aj)ply, in these days, for suj^port ; 
 but I cannot but think that, to the congregations 
 of our people, no claim can well be stronger than 
 the appeal to them of their Diocesan, in his 
 Annual Pastoral Letter, for this and the sister 
 Society for Diocesan Education, for the supply of 
 the spiritual necessities of our own people. And 
 they should bear in mind how even a few 
 shillings from every parish swell the general 
 amount. " In the course of the past year, the " 
 Diocesan Church Building " Society has lost by 
 death several friends and subscribers, amongst 
 whom they would especially mention Colonel 
 J^orthey, of Sevenoaks, who, as a member of the 
 Standing Committee, was ever ready to render
 
 A CHARGE. 17 
 
 whatever help lay in his power towards forward- 
 ing the interests of the Society. 
 
 In the Addresses delivered hy our Most Eeve- 
 rend Diocesan, in his Visitation last autumn, to 
 the Clergy and Laity of his Diocese, the Arch- 
 bishop opened before them a wide view of the 
 coming conflict with different portions of the 
 multitudinous host arrayed against the Church 
 of Christ, "its conflict with the Atheist," "its 
 conflict with the Deist," " its conflict with 
 the Eationalist." As introductory, however, to 
 what he wished to address to his Diocese at the 
 several stages of his progress, his Grace took 
 occasion, in his opening Address, to " say some- 
 thing as to the present position of our own 
 Church, in reference to controversies which " 
 had " of late much agitated it." On this subject 
 the Archbishop observed, " I am thankful to say 
 that I believe the agitations of the past years 
 are subsiding; and that our Church may now 
 soon be allowed to brace itself with undivided 
 energy to the great conflict of these latter days." 
 
 At a Meeting, however, held towards the end 
 of the year, of the Clergy of the rural deanery 
 of Westbere, specially convened for discussion of 
 some spiritual matters, the Archbishop began by 
 saying, that it seemed " unavoidable that " he 
 should address to them " a few preliminary re- 
 marks on circumstances which " had " occurred 
 
 c
 
 18 A CHARGE. 
 
 in tlie last few weeks, provocative of disunion 
 within our own Church. When I addressed my 
 Clergy," said his Grace, " at my Visitation three 
 months ago, I ventured to assert that the great 
 majority of our people were heartily tired of 
 such disputes; " and he added, "I still adhere 
 to the same opinion, trusting in the good sense 
 and good feeling of the members of our Church. 
 But I cannot deny," the Archbishop went on to 
 say, "that what I deem the very unwise course 
 lately taken by the four Churchwardens repre- 
 senting the parishioners of St. Vedast, Foster 
 Lane, in pressing for the imprisonment of their 
 Pastor on a writ of contumacy, has to a certain 
 degree checked the hopeful tendency towards 
 peace and real Church work, for which all good 
 Churchmen long. The events to which I allude 
 have removed the ritual question from the sphere 
 of reason and calm argument into that of feeling 
 and excitement — a result much to be deplored. 
 It is not surprising that many persons, who in 
 no way sympathize with the extreme ritual 
 which is the subject of litigation, should feel 
 pained by the rough treatment with which their 
 friends have met ; and should not unnaturally 
 feel indignant that clergymen of personally irre- 
 proachable character should be committed to 
 gaol. I do not conceal from myself also," said 
 his Grace, "that the questions raised in the 
 minds of many by what has occurred are of a
 
 A CHAEGE. 19 
 
 very complex nature, peculiarly unsuited to bo 
 discussed in the midst of excitement." "I 
 will make no further remarks," his Grace went 
 on to say, " on the policy pursued by the irritated 
 combatants in this quarrel. But what I would 
 wish to urge on the attention of all of you is 
 this — the absolute necessity, if you are dis- 
 satisfied with the present state of matters, of 
 gravely and calmly considering the side issues 
 raised in this controversy about ritual ; I mean 
 those which refer to the highest Court of Appeal, 
 and the constitution of the inferior Courts, and 
 the rights of Convocation, and the authority of 
 the Bishops. You will readily allow that these 
 questions, which have reference, on the one 
 hand, to the independence of the Church and 
 the Christian conscience, and, on the other, to 
 the controlling power which every well-ordered 
 State must exercise over all bodies, ecclesiastical 
 or other, which exist within its dominions, are 
 extremely grave. The whole history of England, 
 and, indeed, of all other civilized countries, 
 shows their gravity. No Church, established 
 or unestablished, no body of men associated for 
 any religious purpose, can claim to have any 
 property secured to it, or to have any rights or 
 liberties, unless it is willing to submit itself in 
 many matters to the controlling power of the 
 civil Government which protects it. The exact 
 form," said the Archbishop, "in which this con-
 
 20 A CHAKGE. 
 
 trol is to be exercised over Cliurches, eitlier 
 those wliicli are called free, or those which enjoy 
 a well-regulated dependence under the protec- 
 tion of the State, is a fair subject for discussion 
 and controversy. I believe myself, that, if we 
 wish for real, reasonable liberty both for Clergy 
 and Laity, and security for minorities, we shall 
 find it in such arrangements as the great Statutes 
 of the English Eeformation sanctioned, rather 
 than in any other scheme." "How far these 
 Statutes have been adhered to in practice age 
 after age," his Grace went on to say, "is 
 a fair subject for discussion in our Eeformed 
 Church. But what I want to direct attention 
 to is this — that, while we have many and dis- 
 cordant attacks made on our present system 
 of ecclesiastical legislation and judicature, no 
 one that I am aware of has come forward, as 
 representing those who ave dissatisfied, to ad- 
 vocate a scheme of practical reform such as 
 appears hkely to command the general assent 
 of our Clergy and Laity. I know, my Eeverend 
 Brethren," said the Archbishop, " you will agree 
 with me, that nothing in such matters is to 
 be gained by violence either of action or of 
 speech. What I wish to commend to all who 
 are agitated by recent events is this — that they 
 should calmly ask themselves definitely what 
 they want. The answer cannot be the short 
 and easy one, that they desire all intricate
 
 A CHAEGE. 21 
 
 questions of law and procedure to be decided 
 according to their personal wishes. If they are 
 anxious for certain important changes in our 
 existing constitution, let them state explicitly 
 what they are ; and they may rest assured that 
 their suggestions will be respectfully and calmly 
 considered. The Convocation of the Pro^dnce 
 of Canterbury," said his Grace, "will meet in 
 February, and have an opportunity of consider- 
 ing any definite proposals that are made ; and 
 the Laity will have full means also of making 
 known then- agreement or disagreement ^^dth 
 such proposals." The Archbishop then referred 
 to what he held in his hand, and which he 
 described as " a very carefully drawn and valu- 
 able Report of a Committee of the Lower House 
 of the Convocation of Canterbury," which treated 
 "with much fulness and fairness the intricate 
 historical and constitutional questions thus 
 raised." With regard, in particular, to the pre- 
 sent form of our highest Court of Appeal, which 
 was " adopted within the last ten j^ears, in 
 deference," said the Archbishop, "to what were 
 then supposed to be the wishes of what is called 
 the High Church party," " if there is any- 
 thing faulty in it," said his Grace, " by all means 
 let it be amended. All true Churchmen, desirous 
 that the Church of England should fulfil its 
 heavenly mission, will, I feel confident, endeavour 
 to allay any excitemeut which is around them ;
 
 22 A CHAEGE. 
 
 and, if they find tliat strong feelings have heen 
 aroused, will apply themselves, in a quiet spirit 
 of prayer, to consider whether any changes 
 ought, for the Church's highest welfare, to he 
 made, and, if so, what they are." 
 
 I have recited, my Eeverend Brethren, thus 
 fully the advice which our most Eeverend 
 Diocesan addressed thus recently to the Clergy 
 of one rural deanery — viz. that in which he was 
 at the time residing — because the godly counsel 
 which he gave to them applies equally to the 
 whole Diocese ; and demands a more deliberate 
 consideration than it would obtain, perhaps, if 
 only casually read at the time in the columns of 
 a daily paper.^ I have thought, therefore, that 
 I should be acting in accordance with the spirit 
 and purport of that counsel, if I availed myself 
 of the opportunity afforded us in this solemn as- 
 sembling of ourselves — preserving, as it does, the 
 vestiges of the ancient, yearly. Synodal gather- 
 ings of the Clergy — to open, at least in some 
 degree, however imperfectly, a subject which you 
 would with advantage follow up in quiet and 
 patient thought, agreeably with the desire and 
 counsel of our Diocesan. 
 
 When the Convocation of the Province met 
 for the dispatch of business, on Tuesday, 
 February 8, the first notice of business given 
 to the Upper House was, that " His Grace the 
 
 1 See Times, December 15, 1880.
 
 A CHAEGE. 23 
 
 President" would '^ call the attention of the 
 members of the Upper House (1) to the Eeport 
 of the Lower House on ' the Relations of 
 Church and State ' (presented to the Upper 
 House on the 4th of July, 1879), with special 
 reference to the Constitution of Courts Ecclesi- 
 astical," and (2) '' to the recent prosecutions for 
 Eitual Ofiences." The result of full deliberation 
 on the subject by the Upper House was a unani- 
 mous request that the Archbishop would, in the 
 name of his brethren, the Bishops, apply for a 
 Royal Commission to investigate these matters ; 
 his Grace having communicated to his brethren, 
 that he had reason to believe that there would 
 be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's 
 Government to grant such a Commission. The 
 Archbishop further undertook to bring before the 
 House of Lords, on the behalf of the entire 
 Episcopal Bench, a motion for a petition from 
 the House of Lords ; which, when it was moved 
 by the Archbishop on the 7th of March, was 
 agreed to without opposition. 
 
 Doubts have been expressed in some quarters, 
 whether the terms in which the object of the 
 Commission is worded are not so limited that it 
 would produce simply a Report of the constitu- 
 tion and past history of the Courts of Judicature 
 concerned, without any requirement as to the 
 suggestion of alteration, if need be, to be re- 
 commended by the Commission. But I think it
 
 24. A CHARGE. 
 
 must be regarded as a doubt unworthy to be en- 
 tertained, wbether a Commission, applied for and 
 granted as this has been, in consequence of the 
 serious difficulties and embarrassments which 
 have arisen as matters of fact, would for a 
 moment think of stopping short of any recom- 
 mendations which might commend themselves 
 to the Commission — doing less, in reality, than 
 the Committee of the Lower House of Convoca- 
 tion has, in the Eeport referred to by the Arch- 
 bishop, to the best of its power, attempted. Such 
 a result, assuredly, cannot for a moment be 
 anticipated. It w^ould be nothing less than to 
 
 " keep the word of promise to our ear, 
 And break it to our hope." ^ 
 
 This Commission, however, having been thus 
 granted by the consentient and concurrent action 
 of the heads of the Church and the authorities 
 of the State, is an additional reason wdiy we of 
 the Clergy, and our brethren of the faithful 
 Laity, should, as the Archbishop desires, apply 
 our minds quietly and patiently to the question, 
 how certain difficult problems in regard to these 
 matters may best be solved, with least disturb- 
 ance of established order, and therefore with the 
 best chance of successful action. 
 
 To take in inverted order the points which 
 the Archbishop has specified. First, in regard 
 to the authority of the Bishops ; his Grace, in 
 
 ' See Note B.
 
 A CHARGE. 25 
 
 his opening Visitation x\ddress, referred to '' the 
 oft-quoted words of the Preface to the Prayer 
 Book," and ohserved that, " whatever men may 
 think of the decisions of any Court — secular, 
 ecclesiastical, or mixed — it is with their Bishops, 
 to whom they have sworn canonical obedience, 
 that they have to reckon in then- controversy." 
 I am glad, my Keverend Brethren, to see signs, 
 as I think, in different quarters, of an increasing 
 disposition to occupy this indisputable ground. 
 And I may, in this connexion, perhaps be per- 
 mitted to recall to mind that, in addi'essing you 
 ten years ago, I ventured to express that, if 
 there was difficulty and expense in enforcing 
 law, there was, "in our case, the much more 
 effectual principle — if only the principle be 
 appealed to, and strengthened by being rightly 
 used — of due canonical obedience to those who 
 are, in their several places and degrees, ' put 
 in authority over us.' " I took the Uberty to 
 observe that the Church's rule provided not 
 only for "parties that doubt,'' but also for 
 those that " diversely take anything ; " and 
 certainly it could not be disputed that, in the 
 matters concerned, parties — and among them 
 men of high authority — " diversely take " certain 
 regulations.^ But it appears now-a-days to be 
 further pleaded that there is a qualifying clause. 
 
 ^ Visitation Courts and Synods. A Charge delivered at the 
 Ordinary Visitation in May, 1871 (pp. 14-17). See Note C.
 
 26 A CHAEGE. 
 
 The Bishop, indeed, to whom such parties are 
 "always" to "resort," "by his discretion shall 
 take order for the quieting and appeasing of 
 the same " doubts or diversities, " so that the 
 same order be not contrary to anything con- 
 tained in this Book ; " but the party concerned 
 is so confident, may be, of the correctness of 
 his own interpretation, that he pronounces the 
 Bishop's ruling to be contrary to the Book, and 
 so to have no binding force upon the conscience 
 of the clergyman. It must surely be palpably 
 evident, on the slightest consideration, that this 
 plea would simply nullify — not to say stultify — 
 the rule of the Prayer Book. To what purpose 
 is the Bishop to have the power to interpret, 
 if, after all, the individual clergyman is to be 
 the supreme interpreter and judge ? 
 
 It must at the same time, I think, my 
 Eeverend Brethren, be fairly said, that the duty 
 of reverent obedience to the Bishop, on the 
 principles of canonical order, has, in many cases, 
 hardly had full and free scope left for its 
 exercise. And this owing to the unhappy dis- 
 position to carry these matters into the outer 
 Courts of temporal law. The course of things 
 has oftentimes been this. There has been, in the 
 first place, the machinery of newspaper attack, 
 or the well-known " aggrieved parishioner " or 
 non-parishioner ; and proceedings threatened b}^ 
 some outside parties; and recourse thereupon.
 
 A CHARGE. 27 
 
 not imnaturall}^, to defenders from outside : and 
 all this lias tended to keep aloof tlie Bishoi^ from 
 the Priest and the Priest from the' Bishop ; 
 when, as I believe, in many cases, if they had 
 come into immediate communication with each 
 other, and, with " the door shut upon them 
 twain," and the outer world shut out, the 
 spiritual relation between them, as between a 
 "Father in God" and his spiritual "sons" in 
 Christ, had been allowed to plead its own cause, 
 and hold its natural and genuine sway, it would 
 have been oftentimes, as in the description given 
 by our poet of the good Man of Eoss — 
 
 " Is there contention ? Enter but liis door, 
 Balked are tlie courts, and contest is no more." 
 
 It was so certainly in a case well known to 
 many in this Diocese, where the clergyman 
 threw himself and his conscience on the E^us- 
 copal responsibihty of his Diocesan ; and the 
 conflict came to an end. It is natural, no 
 doubt, that a Bishop should feel unwilling to 
 pronounce his own judgment on a doubtful 
 rubric ; he would be apt to feel himself standing 
 on stronger ground, and to be acting less arbi- 
 trarily, as he might think, towards one of his 
 Clergy, if he appealed simply to the ruling of 
 Comis of Law : but he has too often, thereby, 
 come to be regarded as the simply ministerial 
 executor and enforcer of doubtful, and perhaps 
 discordant, legal judgments ; and, however kindly
 
 28 A CHARGE. 
 
 iutended, the effect may none the less have 
 been most unfortmiate. 
 
 In regard to the protective rights of the 
 Episcopal office, one event I must record with 
 great satisfaction ; viz. the decision of the 
 Com-t of Appeal, and subsequently of the House 
 of Lords, maintaining the lawfulness of the 
 exercise of the Bishop's discretion, as provided 
 for in the Church Discipline Act of 1840; in 
 regard to the i^i'om^otiiig of the office of the 
 judge, in what the Bishop may deem frivolous 
 or vexatious suits, or proceedings, in his judg- 
 ment, improper to be taken. I thought it 
 right, having been fully cognizant, in regard to 
 that Act, of the intention which had been 
 generally supposed by legal authorities to have 
 been carried into full effect, to put forth the 
 grounds of that view in some historical matter 
 a})pended to the Charge which I addressed to 
 you four years ago on these questions ; ^ and 
 it was with great satisfaction that I found the 
 meaning of the contested words " it shall be 
 lawful " finally determined as it was, recognizing 
 fully the discretion vested in the Bishop. With 
 reference to these controversial cases I must 
 say, that questions have been carried to the 
 Court of Appeal of the Province and to the 
 
 ^ The Church in its Divine Constitution and Office, and its Rela- 
 tions with the Civil Power. A Charge delivered in May, 1877 
 (pp. 74, 75).
 
 A CHARGE. 29 
 
 Court of Final Appeal, which, if the rule of the 
 Prayer Book is to be regarded, were to be dealt 
 with entirely by the Bishop ; the Bishop being 
 at liberty, if he were in doubt, to send to the 
 Archbishop. It was not contemplated that the 
 Bishop and Archbishop alike were to have their 
 discretion altogether overruled by sentences of 
 law. These questions have, therefore, really 
 been tried coram non jiiclice, if the Church's 
 rule is to be our law ; and hence our manifold 
 perplexities and troubles. 
 
 The truth is, our Rubrics were never intended 
 for iron rules, to be interpreted and enforced in 
 the hard and fast lines of temporal Courts of 
 Law : their very ambiguities and difficulties bear 
 witness, when we carefully examine their his- 
 tory, to conflicts of opinion and tendencies of 
 feeling in different directions, which would have 
 made rigid uniformity in minutiae to have been 
 purchased at the cost of multiplied division. 
 Nothing would be more easy than to propose in 
 the place, for instance, of the '' Ornaments 
 Rubric," a new rubric perfectly distinct and 
 unmistakable in its meaning. The Ritual Com- 
 mission, in fact, at first resolved, after examin- 
 ing many witnesses and holding several meetings 
 for deliberation, to draw up such a rubric ; "a 
 short and easy method," simply to embody pre- 
 sent practice, and make it the absolute rule. 
 But before they presented their final Report, the
 
 30 A CHARGE. 
 
 Commissioners cliangecl their view, and — wisely, 
 as the late Bishop Thiiiwall judged, and prudent 
 Churchmen generally with him — determined to 
 leave it alone. ^ And, let us just consider, sup- 
 posing a new rubric to be brought before Par- 
 liament for discussion there — for this would be 
 inevitable — to regulate the dress of the minister, 
 what a small portion would, after all, be touched, 
 of matters of recent complaint ! A legal " Handy- 
 book of the Public Worship Eegulation Act," 
 enumerates thirty-five such points.^ It is un- 
 authorized changes in the Service, insertions 
 and omissions, unaccustomed rites and cere- 
 monies, unknown to the Prayer Book and 
 strange to the people, — it is these things mainly, 
 and not the mere vestments, which offend and 
 alarm men. And if new rules were enacted for 
 rigid observance, with the principle which is 
 sometimes strongly laid down, that omission is 
 equivalent to prohibition, let us take an instance 
 of how we should fare — the Lay members of our 
 congregations alike with the Clergy — in regard 
 to some traditional customs, most harmless and 
 almost universal. For example, the custom of 
 turning to the east when we recite the Creed — 
 a custom dating fi'om the earliest ages of Chris- 
 tianity, long before there was any Pope in the 
 West. There are in some of our congregations, 
 I imagine, those who would not like to have 
 
 1 See Note D. - See Note E.
 
 A CHAEGE. 31 
 
 a custom of tliis kind enforced upon them ; 
 while the great majority of our people, on the 
 other hand, in a vast number of our country- 
 parishes especially, would be deeply offended if, 
 for observing it, they were made transgi'essors. 
 I trust that we in England, who enjoy the bless- 
 ing of our Book of Common Praj^er, happy in 
 all that it enshrines of Catholic truth and Scrip- 
 tural verity, with its strong witness and protests 
 against uncatholic belief, Eomish novelties, and 
 sectarian error ; not less happy in the Christian 
 hberty which it allows on lesser points ; may 
 ever " stand fast in the hberty wherewith Christ 
 hath made us fi'ee, and be not entangled again," 
 imder whatever form or disguise, "with the 
 yoke of bondage."^ 
 
 In connection with this subject of the Chm'ch's 
 ritual, I would report that, while the Upper 
 House, in the late sessions of Convocation, was 
 engaged as I have described, the Lower House, 
 after long and anxious discussion, adojoted and 
 presented to the Upper House an amended 
 Eepresentation, which concluded with this as its 
 prayer — "That your Lordships, having regard 
 to the uncertainties which have been widely 
 thought to surround some recent interpretations 
 of ecclesiastical law, as well as the pecuHar 
 character of parishes and congregations placed 
 in the most dissimilar rehgious circumstances, 
 
 » Gal. V. 1.
 
 32 A CHAKGE. 
 
 would discountenance, as far as possible, legal 
 proceedings in these matters. In making this 
 request," it was added, '' the House feels that 
 this forbearance must be conditioned by limita- 
 tions. It prefers, however, to remit the con- 
 sideration of those limitations to your Lordships 
 assembled in this sacred Synod under the guid- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit." ^ 
 
 I pass on to another point in the Arch- 
 bishop's enumeration of matters to be specially 
 considered — '' the constitution of the inferior 
 Courts." 
 
 (a) With reference, in the first place, to 
 the Bishop's Diocesan Court I would observe, 
 that there appears to prevail an impression that 
 the Act of 1840, now in force, ignored altogether 
 the existence of such Courts, and was a move in 
 an unecclesiastical and uncanonical direction. 
 This impression, however, is far from correct. 
 The Act did, indeed, make provision for the sub- 
 stitution of a reformed Diocesan Court in the 
 place of the existing Consistorial Court, pre- 
 sided over by the Bishop's Chancellor. And 
 this change was grounded on the principle, which 
 had been laid down in the able and highly 
 esteemed Eeport of the Commissioners of Ecclesi- 
 astical Law of 1832, that it was desirable to 
 " restore to the Bishops that personal jurisdiction 
 
 ' See Note F.
 
 A CHARGE. 33 
 
 which they originally exercised, and which was 
 afterwards delegated by them to their Chancellors 
 and of&cials." The Commissioners grounded 
 this recommendation upon the doctrine of tlie 
 Canon Law, that, although the trial of causes of 
 certain descriptions might be properly entrusted 
 to a Lay Judge, to the Bishop himself belongs 
 inquisition, correction, punishment of offences, 
 or removal from a benefice. " Agreeably to this 
 principle," they observe, " the power of depriva- 
 tion is reserved by our Ganoyis to the Bishop in 
 person ; and the same principle seems to apply 
 to the case of suspension, and to the infliction 
 of any other censure which may affect a clergy- 
 man's spiritual functions." In accordance with 
 these suggestions, the Act provided that, when 
 action is required, " the Bishop shall proceed to 
 hear the cause, with the assistance of three 
 assessors, to be nominated by the Bishop, one of 
 whom shall be an advocate who shall have 
 practised not less that five years in the Court of 
 the Archbishop of the Province, or a serjeant-at- 
 law, or a barrister of not less than seven years' 
 standing, and another shall be the Dean of his 
 Cathedral Church, or of one of his Cathedral 
 Churches, or one of his Archdeacons, or his 
 Chancellor ; and upon the hearing of such cause 
 the Bishop shall determine the same, and pro- 
 nounce sentence thereupon according to the 
 Ecclesiastical Law." The provisions of this Act, 
 
 D
 
 34 A CHARGE. 
 
 it is to be observed, were the result of very full 
 and grave discussion among the Bishops, and 
 in particular on the part of the late Bishop 
 of Exeter ; who had strongly insisted on the re- 
 cognition of the Episcopal principle ; while the 
 arrangement for the assessorship made what was 
 considered to be more satisfactory provision, in 
 regard to legal advice, than was afforded by the 
 ordinary Consistorial Courts/ 
 
 (b) It is, however, the constitution of the 
 Court of Appeal of the Province, as affected by 
 the Public Worship Eegulation Act of 1874, 
 which, I think, contains within it the gravest 
 subject of consideration ; indeed, far more than 
 even the Court of Final Appeal. The precise 
 wording of the Act will require, if I mistake not, 
 the most careful examination. By section 7, 
 it gives to the two Archbishops, subject to the 
 approval of her Majesty, to be signified under 
 her sign manual, power to appoint from time to 
 time a lawyer, legally qualified in a certain way, 
 "to be, during good behaviour, a Judge of the 
 Provincial Courts of Canterbury and York, here- 
 inafter called 'the Judge.'" And ''if the said 
 Archbishops shall not, within six months after 
 the passing of this Act, or within six months 
 after the occurrence of any vacancy in the office, 
 appoint the said Judge, her Majesty may, by 
 letters patent, appoint some person quahfied as 
 
 1 See Note G.
 
 A CHAKGE. 35 
 
 aforesaid, to be such Judge." It then goes on 
 to enact as follows: — ''Whensoever a vacancy 
 shall occur in the of&ce of Official Principal of 
 the Arches Court of Canterbury, the Judge shall 
 become ex-officio such Official Principal ; and all 
 proceedings thereafter taken before the Judge, in 
 relation to matters arising within the Province 
 of Canterbury, shall be deemed to be taken in 
 the Arches Court of Canterbury;" — and so in 
 like manner in regard to the Chancery Court of 
 York; — " and whensoever a vacancy shall occur 
 in the office of Master of the Faculties to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, such Judge shall 
 become ex-officio such Master of the Faculties." 
 " With reference to the mode of appoint- 
 ment of the newly created Provincial Judge," 
 who had succeeded thus to the office of Dean 
 of the Arches of the Province of Canterbury, 
 and to the corresponding office in the Province 
 of York, I took occasion to say, when I was 
 addressing you on these matters four years ago, 
 " that some of the provisions of the Act had 
 regard to this first appointment simply ; and 
 that there was, as I understood" — for I had 
 made some inquiry on the point — "nothing to 
 prevent a successor being appointed," whenever 
 a vacancy occurred, " with powers conveyed 
 directly, as in former instances, by the spiritual 
 authority of the Archbishop." " This clause," 
 as was further said in a Note added to what
 
 36 A CHABGE. 
 
 I had thus reported to you, '' provided for a 
 certain anticipated event — the vacancy, by re- 
 signation, of these offices ; but was evidently 
 inapphcable " — so, at least, it seemed — '' to any 
 future case when these vacancies all become 
 vacant together by the resignation, or death, 
 of 'the Judge.'" The Act did not say that 
 these offices should all be from henceforth united 
 in perpetumn ; the provision made thereby, as 
 I was informed, and as it rather appeared on 
 the face of it, was for the particular case in 
 which the new Judge, already appointed by 
 virtue of this Act, was to have right of succes- 
 sion to the other offices whensoever thej^ should 
 become vacant. '' It is to be hoped, therefore," 
 I ventured to say, "that, whenever a vacancy 
 occurs in the office of Dean of the Arches and 
 Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canter- 
 bury, he will be duly appointed according to the 
 ancient forms ; since there will be no one into 
 whose place he can succeed by virtue of the 
 provisions of the Public Worship Kegulation 
 Act of 1874."^ 
 
 Having expressed this hope, in regard to the 
 interpretation of the Act, I regret to be under 
 the necessity of adding that, having now con- 
 sulted further what may be regarded, I think, 
 as high and trustworthy legal authority, I learn 
 that "the better opinion," in a legal sense of 
 
 » See Visitr.tion Charge, May, 1875, pp. 41, 42.
 
 A CHARGE. 37 
 
 the word, appears to be that the term ''when- 
 soever," in the Act, means " as often as; " and 
 that on each vacancy the new Judge becomes 
 Judge under the Act, and also Official Principal 
 of the Arches and the York Courts. " The 
 scheme of the Acts," as it may be called, 
 '' seems," I am told, " to be this — a Judge under 
 the Act to be appointed now, — in the first in- 
 stance — and ' from time to time,' as a vacancy 
 occurs. On the first vacancy in the x\rches, the 
 then Judge under the Act becomes" — or, we 
 may now say, became — '' Official Principal of 
 the Arches. In like manner as to York. Then, 
 when the Judge (who has so become also Official 
 Principal of the Arches and of York) vacates 
 his Judgeship, he will also vacate the Official 
 Principalship. Upon this vacancy a new Judge 
 will be made Judge ; and, being made Judge, 
 will become also Official Principal." 
 
 If this, which is thought, as it w^ould seem, 
 to be " the better opinion," should be decided 
 by authority to be the true, legal meaning of 
 the Act, a question undoubtedly arises of the 
 utmost gravity. It is, I fear, nothing less than 
 this. It is held on all hands now that no new 
 Court has been created : if so, there will have 
 been done, unwittingly, what is far more serious 
 • — there will have been made an essential con- 
 stitutional change in the Court of Arches, 
 secularizing it ; taking it away, in fact, from
 
 38 A CHARGE. 
 
 the Archbishop and the Church, and makmg it 
 a temporal Court of the realm. When express- 
 ing to you, my Reverend Brethren, four years 
 ago, the hope which I had been led to entertain, 
 I added that, " at the same time, I should not 
 deal faithfully with the opinion which I had 
 been compelled to form, if I did not venture to 
 express my regret, that it had appeared to legal 
 minds necessary that the new Provincial Judge 
 should be invested with all the powers of the 
 Civil Judges ; and, in order thereto, that he must 
 be appointed with the sanction of the Crown. 
 And further," I went on to say, " in case of 
 difficulty in regard to a concurrent appointment 
 by the two Primates — a case not impossible, or 
 it would not have been expressly provided for — 
 the entire appointment is given over to the 
 Crown ; a provision which seems at variance 
 with the principles of our ecclesiastical system, 
 which, up to the last resort, would make the 
 Judge of the Ecclesiastical Court the direct 
 representative and commissary of the Bishop or 
 Archbishop. In the contingency thus provided 
 for in the Act," I said, "we might see the 
 whole ritual of the Church of England, in both 
 Provinces, dealt with by a single Lay Judge, 
 deriving his authority in no degree from a 
 sphitual source ; with no knowledge or experi- 
 ence, possibly, of Ecclesiastical Law or the 
 practice of the Ecclesiastical Courts ; and with
 
 A CHARGE. 39 
 
 no other qualification required by the Act than 
 that he should be a barrister of ten years' stand- 
 ing, or one who had been a Judge in one of the 
 superior Courts of Law." ^ 
 
 It is manifest, I think, my Eeverend Brethren, 
 that the question of the legal interpretation of 
 these provisions must come under the grave 
 consideration of the Commission now happily 
 granted by the consent of Church and State. 
 It will be found, I believe, fully to deserve — and, 
 I doubt not, it will receive — careful inquiry on 
 the part of the Commission about to sit, whether 
 the difficulties, disappointments, and pubhc 
 scandal which have arisen in regard to conflict- 
 ing penalties — imprisonment in particular — have 
 not arisen out of the setting up, not of a new 
 Court, indeed, but of a new judicature, a newly 
 constituted Judge, in the Chui'ch's Courts ; 
 clothed with authority and attributes belonging 
 neither to the ecclesiastical nor to the temporal 
 Courts of England; but to what has "the like- 
 ness " of a new creation, which is neither the one 
 nor the other, distinctively, but with something 
 of a composite character, unknown hitherto to 
 the system and order of this Church and realm. 
 Amidst the proverbial uncertainties of law, it 
 would be obviously presumptuous in any so- 
 called ''layman" (in legal phrase) to pretend to 
 interpret an Act of Parliament. But if I am 
 
 ^ Visitation Charge of 1877, pp. 46, 47. See Note H.
 
 40 A CHAEGE: 
 
 called upon distinctly to say at the present time 
 what it is that I desire, I must plainly say, that, 
 as at present advised, with all the lights which I 
 have been able to obtain upon the matter — if, 
 indeed, what is regarded as " the better opinion " 
 should be ruled to be the legal sense of the Act — 
 what I desire, primarily and above all things, is 
 that the Archbishop and the Church of Canter- 
 bury, and the whole Province, should have given 
 back to them the Court of Appeal of the Pro- 
 vince, the Court of Arches, which is the Church's 
 rightful possession ; and the restoration of which 
 to its true ecclesiastical position and character 
 appears to me, I must say, essential to the safety, 
 the welfare, and the peace of the Church. 
 
 I will only add that, if the inquiry now to 
 be made by the Eoyal Commission result in 
 clearing up doubts, and bringing the arrange- 
 ments to the test of their harmony with "those 
 great Statutes of the English Eeformation " to 
 which the Archbishop referred, it will be an 
 auspicious result for the Church, and not less — 
 I may say — for the State. The State has, 
 indeed, a great and deep interest therein. For, 
 little as some persons in these days may suppose 
 it, it is not the less true that, by the recognition 
 of the Church's Courts, their independence and 
 freedom, to quote the language of Magna Charta, 
 the State is set free from being mixed up with 
 doctrinal and ritual and controversial matters,
 
 A CHARGE. 41 
 
 which otherwise must come before it. They 
 come before it, according to our constitutional 
 system, only in the last resort. A question as to 
 the doctrine, creed, or practice of an unestab- 
 lished sect must come in the first instance, 
 as in a recent notorious case, before the tem- 
 poral Court ; whereas questions concerning the 
 Chm'ch, her own tribunals, duly recognized by 
 the State, are authorized to deal with, unless, 
 h&t- temporal rights being involved, the final 
 appeal has to be made to the civil power. It is 
 manifest that, when Roman governors could 
 bid Jewish accusers take the accused and judge 
 him after their law, in their own accredited 
 courts, the Roman State was dehvered fi'om a 
 great amount of most harassing and perplexing 
 rehgious controversy ; while it possessed, in all 
 its fulness, the supreme power of life and death, 
 and was the ultimate referee for all its subjects. 
 The established relations between the Church 
 and the State in England give, in truth, both to 
 the State and to the Church a freedom which 
 they would not otherwise possess. So entirely 
 at variance is the fact with modern theories, and 
 the popular dicta of those who would profess to 
 " hberate Religion from State control." But 
 this requires that we slip not away unawares 
 from our old moorings ; but rather, while we 
 adapt ourselves, indeed, to altered circumstances, 
 maintain unimpaired, in all their integrity, our
 
 42 A CHAKGE. 
 
 ancient principles. In accordance witli those 
 principles, as enshrined in the great " Statute of 
 Appeals," in the constitution of this realm of 
 England there is the spiritualty and the tem- 
 poralty, with judges and ministers of each ; and 
 " both their authorities and jurisdictions," in the 
 language of that Act, " do conjoin together in 
 the due administration of justice, the one to help 
 the other." So long as there is no confusion 
 introduced between them, each wields its own 
 appointed weapons ; the Church not claiming 
 the temporal sword, nor the State the spiritual 
 keys ; both alike God's institution in different 
 spheres of action ; both alike ruled by Him who is 
 at once " the head over all things to the Church, 
 which is his body,"^ and at the same time, " the 
 head of all principality and power," ''the 
 prince of the kiugs of the earth." ^ 
 
 On the questions concerning the Supreme 
 Court of Appeal and the rights of Convocation, 
 I have not attempted to enter. The limits 
 necessarily assigned to an Address like this 
 would preclude it ; and I am conscious that I 
 have already somewhat exceeded those limits, 
 and must plead as my excuse the importance, at 
 the present moment, of the matters in hand. 
 The constitution, moreover, of the Court of 
 Final Appeal, I have, on more than one occasion 
 of Visitation, referred to under varying circum- 
 
 ' Eph. i. 22, 23. ^ Col. ii. 10 ; Rev. i. 6.
 
 A CHARGE. 43 
 
 stances. In particular, with regard to the 
 arrangement last made, in regard to a body of 
 Episcopal assessors, appointed in a certain rota- 
 tion, to be always present to inform and advise 
 the Court when spiritual causes are before it, I 
 thought that " a right principle being here 
 recognized," it would "be our wisdom to watch 
 matters patiently and considerately, at the " then 
 '' present time, in regard to the satisfactory work- 
 ing of the new provisions." ^ I would only ob- 
 serve, that it is greatly to be desired that the 
 Commission now to be appointed should, among 
 other matters, carefully consider the proposals 
 on this subject made in Bills brought into the 
 House of Lords from year to year by the Heads 
 of the Church, long before the case of Gorham 
 V. the Bishop of Exeter ; one of those Bills in 
 particular having been carefully considered and 
 amended by a Select Committee of the Lords.^ 
 
 Amidst the responsibihties which devolve upon 
 us, and the dangers which beset us in the execu- 
 tion of the office entrusted to us by our high 
 commission, we, my Reverend Brethren, as 
 "watchmen on the walls" of our Jerusalem^ 
 are called to exercise sleepless vigilance — 
 
 * ' When round our walls the battle lowers ; 
 When mines are hid beneath our towers ; 
 And watchfvil foes are stealing round 
 To search and spoil the holy ground." * 
 
 But still, amidst it all, "in quietness and in 
 
 1 Charge, 1877, p. 41. ^ See Note I. ' Isa. Ixii. 6. 
 
 * The Christian Year : Eleventh Sunday after Trinity,
 
 44 A CHARGE. 
 
 confidence sliall be your strength."^ As the 
 Psalmist spake of old, in words which we have, 
 in the opening of this our solemn assembly,^ 
 joined in reciting, " Therefore will we not fear, 
 though the earth be moved : and though the hills 
 be carried into the midst of the sea ; though 
 the waters thereof rage and swell : and though 
 the mountains shake with the tempest of the 
 same. There is a river, the streams whereof 
 make glad the city of God : the holy place of 
 the tabernacles of the most High."^ If she be 
 but faithful to Him; if "the ministers and 
 stewards of His mysteries " guard the deposit 
 committed to her, and "watch for souls as they 
 that must give account ; " He will "make fast the 
 bars of" her "gates, and bless " her " children 
 within " her.* " For God is in the midst of 
 her," we humbly trust; and we believe that we 
 have gracious tokens of His presence, in the 
 blessing vouchsafed to our work, and its great 
 and wonderful increase, notwithstanding all our 
 shortcomings and sins ; " God is in the midst of 
 her, therefore shall she not be removed : God 
 shall help her, and that right early." 
 
 And to Him, even to the blessed and glorious 
 Trinity, Three Persons and One God, " be glory 
 in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all 
 ages, world without end. Amen." 
 
 ^ Isa. XXX. 15. 
 
 " Morning Prayer, Ninth Daj' ; the first day of the A^isitation. 
 
 » Ps. xlvi. 2-4. * Ps. cxlvii. 13.
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The Address, or Charge, delivered to the Churchwardens and 
 Sidesmen of the Archdeaconry at the Easter Visitation last year 
 (April 26-30), on the "Rights and Duties of Churchmen at the 
 Present Time," not having been published in the same form with 
 other Charges, but only a limited number of copies printed at the 
 office of the Maidstone and Kentish Journal, it seems desirable to 
 reprint the latter part of the Charge, in connection with the present 
 state of Church matters, in regard to dangers from without ; lest 
 the Charge delivered to the Clergy this year should seem to pass by 
 those matters with too little notice . Assiu-edly it has not been for 
 lack of anxious thought and concern in regard to them. 
 
 After noticing some Chnrch works as then in hand, the further 
 progress of which towards completion I am able to report this year, 
 I went on to say, "With works such as these which we see in 
 hand, as we pass from deanery to deanery, or from parish to parish, 
 and with the prospects which seem opening before us from day to 
 day, of conservation and improvement combined — and that 'by 
 means of the gift ' of zeal and charity ' bestowed by many persons, 
 differing widely on other matters, as in the case of some whose 
 good works I have referred to to-day, and specially of those faith- 
 ful and excellent Laymen, gone from us, and from their different 
 spheres of useful service, whose memories I desired to recall in 
 my Address to the Clergy last year ; — with thoughts and duties 
 and hopes like these, amidst the difficulties and discouragements 
 which constantly beset our path, it cannot certainly to thoughtful 
 Churchmen, whether of the Laity or of the Clergy, appear other- 
 wise than an anxious crisis at which we seem somewhat suddenly 
 to have arrived. It will not, I am persuaded, appear strange to 
 you, my Lay Brethren, if in few words, before I conclude, I advert 
 to it : it would rather, I imagine, seem strange to you if I did not. 
 Political questions within the lines of the constitution of our 
 country, such as have successively, under different designations, 
 subdivided Englishmen, in opposing parties, from each other for 
 the last two hundred years, it would be out of place to enter upon 
 within sacred walls, and in what is, in point of order, an ecclesi- 
 astical assembly and court. But it is a different matter when that 
 which is concerned is the very ' birthright of the people ' of Eng- 
 land— if I may use the language of the statesmen who drew up, at 
 the memorable close of the seventeenth century, the Act of Settle- 
 ment—combining as it does within it the national sentiments, the
 
 46 A CHAEGE. 
 
 rights and privileges claimed alike by both the hereditary parties 
 which belong to the history of our country.^ And our position at 
 the present moment, I think, is one which may well cause i^s to 
 look out from this happy island home of ours, upon the world on 
 whose peace and welfare England has, under God's providence, 
 amidst past troubles and dangers of Europe, had an auspicious 
 influence ; and above all, my brethren, to look up in humble con- 
 fidence and steadfast hope, notwithstanding all our shortcomings 
 and sins as a nation, to the throne of Him who ' sitteth above the 
 waterflood ' and ' remaineth a King for ever ; ' even He who alone 
 can ' give strength unto his people,' and ' give his people the 
 Iblessing of peace.' - 
 
 * ' I may, perhaps, the more freely say a few words on tliis 
 subject, because, while I write, preparing to meet you in this 
 Visitation, there is absolutely nothing known in regard to pohtical 
 affairs ; save that our Queen, returning only a week ago from a 
 visit to the tomb of a beloved daughter, over whom all England 
 was mourning last year, applied herself without delay to the diffi- 
 cult and important duty which devolves on the Crown ; and, fol- 
 lowing with faithful and careful observance the lines marked out 
 for her by constitutional practice, has taken steps for the forming 
 of a new Administration. The circumstances under which the 
 change of Ministry has taken place are somewhat peculiar ; and we 
 shall, if I mistake not, the better perform the duties which the 
 
 1 " And whereas it is requisite and necessary that some further 
 provision be made for securing our religion, laws, and liberty, 
 from and after the death of his Majesty and the Princess Anne of 
 Denmark ... It is enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, 
 by and with the advice and consent of the Lords, spiritual and 
 temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same. That whosoever shall hereafter come to the 
 possession of this crown shall join in communion with the Church 
 of England, as by law established . . . And whereas the laws of 
 England are the birthright of the people thereof ; and all the 
 Kings and Queens, who shall ascend the throne of this realm, 
 ought to administer the government of the same according to the 
 said laws, and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them 
 respectively according to the same ; the said Lords, spiritual and 
 temporal, and Commons, do therefore further humbly pray, that 
 all the laws and statutes of this realm for securing the established 
 religion, and the rights and liberties of the people thereof, and all 
 other laws and statutes of the same now in force, may be ratified 
 and confirmed, and the same are by his Majesty, by and with 
 the advice and consent of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, and 
 Commons, and by the authority of the same, ratified and confirmed 
 accordingly. "—Statute 12 and 13 Gulielmi HI., cap. 2 (1). A.i>. 1700. 
 
 " Ps. xxix. 11.
 
 A CHARGE. 47 
 
 position of affairs requires of all good citizens, all dutiful subjects 
 of the Queen, and faithful members of the Church, if we clearly 
 perceive and fully realize the position. A few words will state it. 
 Ordinarily, an adverse vote of the Commons of England, in oppo- 
 sition to some particular measure proposed by the Government, or 
 to its general policy, proves that the Administration has lost the 
 confidence of the House of Commons, and is unable to carry on 
 affairs. A resignation of Ministers is the result — other men are 
 called to the helm, representing the adverse opinions. In the 
 present instance, the dissolution of a Parliament which was draw- 
 ing near to its natural end having been determined on by the 
 Government, on no precise question of policy, and the Ministry 
 having at once resigned, the lines of coming action are entirely 
 undefined and unknown. We know nothing at the present moment, 
 even in regard to the general policy, at home and abroad, to be 
 agreed iipon, after mutual conference, by the heads of the party 
 now called to the helm ; we know nothing decisively as to the 
 probable composition of the Administrative Cabinet ; still less of 
 the deliberate judgment on important questions, after debate, of 
 the new House of Commons — the only representation known to the 
 Constitution, of ' the Commons of England.' But this we know, 
 that views and opinions of the most diverse and heterogeneous 
 character are gathered in one host ; some of them entirely con- 
 sistent with the maintenance of our Constitution, with sober sense 
 and rational libei'ty, while others are of a wild and lawless cha- 
 racter, utterly destructive of national order and unity, of the 
 weKare of our country, and the jaeace of the world ; principles at 
 open war, not only vnth. the doctrines of the Church, but with 
 Revealed Religion altogether ; with the very being of a God ; with 
 the maxims of eternal morality and the sanctities and purities of 
 domestic life. We have seen, in the progress of the recent con- 
 flict, places of professed religious worship turned into centres of 
 political agitation ; and men whose characters stood high among 
 their fellows for religious principle and strict conscience, so hurried 
 away by the political feeling of the moment as to be willing to 
 merge all differences of opinion, and give open svipport to the can- 
 didature of avowed infidelity, and views of morality which had 
 outraged public feeling ; canvassing for a seat in a House of Legis- 
 lature which still, happily, opens all its deliberations from day to 
 day with prayer to Almighty God. We shall surely seem to the 
 weU-judging and candid to take no exaggerated or unreal view of 
 our position, if we feel that we seem suddenly brought, I will not 
 say to the edge of a precipice, but, I may say, to the terrace, as it 
 were, of some hill, or lofty ridge, like that which overlooks some 
 of our lovely plains and valleys in Kent ; and the morning is still
 
 48 A CHARGE. 
 
 dim ; and there is a mist resting upon the landscape, and we stand 
 in doubt whether, when the clovids remove, we shall look out upon 
 a scene of tranquil abodes, of peaceful and rural toil, gathered 
 round the church towers and spires of our country villages — a 
 scene like that which the prophet of old saw stretched before him, 
 when he stood ' on the top of Peor that looketh towards Jeshimon,' 
 with the King of Moab, who had brought him there to curse Israel, 
 * and he saw Israel abiding in their tents, according to their tribes ; ' 
 ' as the valleys ' were ' they spread forth, as gardens by the river's 
 side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord had planted, and as 
 cedar trees beside the waters ; ' or whether the scene is to be such, 
 in England, in Europe, and in the world, as in the description 
 which the poet of Paradise Lost has put into the mouth of the 
 angel, as that which broke upon the view of the angelic armies, 
 when — 
 
 " ' On heavenly ground they stood, and from the shore 
 They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss. 
 Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild. 
 Up from the bottom turned by furious winds 
 And surging waves, as mountains to assault 
 Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole. ' ' 
 
 " It is impossible to look out on the continent of Europe and not 
 see what a seething mass there is beneath the siirface ready to boil 
 over ; how ' great matter ' is laid up among nations prepared for 
 war, ' armed to the teeth,' materials highly inflammable, which 
 'a little fire' might in a moment kindle.^ If the Administration 
 which now comes into power is able to take more efiectual 
 measures for the peace of Europe and of the world than the late 
 Government did, their efforts will be regarded with unfeigned 
 satisfaction by the faithful members of a Church, which has always 
 been distinguished by loyalty to the Crown, and true, unfailing 
 patriotism ; and which, in her appointed daily Service, offers up 
 each morning and evening the prayer, ' Give peace in our time, 
 O Lord ; ' distrusting, for any effectual aid, any succour but that of 
 Him whose ' kingdom is everlasting and power infinite ; ' ' be- 
 cause there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, 
 O God.' 
 
 "Or if the prevailing feeling among a large body of our con- 
 stituencies has been that commerce and agriculture had been alike 
 sadly depressed, that things could not be worse, and possibly in 
 other hands might be better, the Clergy, whose sympathies are, to 
 
 ' Paradise Lost, Book vii. 210, 215. '-^ S. James iii. 6.
 
 A CHARGE. 49 
 
 so large an extent, with those among whom their lot is cast — their 
 country neighbours, the gentry, the yeomanry, and the peasantry 
 of the land — will heartily rejoice ; and those in like manner who 
 minister to the people in our towns — in more prosperous cultivation 
 of the soil, and continued revival of trade : but neither they nor 
 their lay brethren will forget, ' whose gift it is that the rain doth 
 fall, the earth is fruitful, beasts increase, and fishes do multiply ; ' ^ 
 they will not be looking to fallacious hopes of impossible remedies, 
 much less to sacrilegious despoiling of His Church and people, 
 who hath said, ' I the Lord love judgment ; I hate robbery for 
 burnt offering.' They will rather say, in the language of earnest 
 pleading and entreaty of the plaintive prophet of old, ' We ac- 
 knowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our 
 fathers ; for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, 
 for thy name's sake ; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory ; 
 remember, break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among 
 the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain ? or can the 
 heavens give showers ? art not thou he, O Lord our God ? There- 
 fore we will wait upon thee : for thou hast made all these things.' ^ 
 "Some persons, I know, would urge the Clergy to borrow a leaf 
 out of their adversaries' book, and, in their pulpits and their official 
 relations with their people, take an active part in politics. I am 
 fully persuaded that the Clergy will do nothing of the kind. The 
 duty of good citizens and patriots devolves upon them ; and I trust 
 they mil ever faithfully discharge it. If, indeed, that should come 
 upon us which came on the remnant of Judah, when they wei'e 
 labouring to build up peacefully the walls of their Jerusalem, and 
 Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem 
 the Arabian, with ' the Arabians and the Ammonites and the 
 Ashdodites,' ' conspired all of them together/ as we read, ' to come 
 and tight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it ; ' it will be our duty 
 to do as Nehemiah, the pious governor and the faithful of Judah, 
 did, — ' We made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against 
 them day and night, because of them.' ^ Our earnest desire is to 
 build up, in peace, the spiritual walls of our holy city ; to labour 
 for the ' edification,' the building up of oiir people on their most 
 holy faith : * and we must look specially to our brethren, the 
 faithful laity, to do what Nehemiah looked to his brethren for, when 
 he ' set the people after their families with their swords and their 
 spears, their habergeons and their bows ; and I said unto them,' 
 
 ^ Prayer in the time of Dearth and Famine. 
 
 2 Jer. xiv. 20-22. Comp. ver. 1, " The word of the Lord that 
 came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth." 
 
 3 Neh. iv. 7-9. * S. Jude 20. 
 
 E
 
 50 A CHAEGE. 
 
 saith he, ' Be not ye afraid of them : remember the Lord, which is 
 great and terrible ; and fight for yonr brethren, yoiir sons, and your 
 daughters, j^our wives, and your houses.' ^ If, like those ' feeble 
 Jews,' as their adversaries called them, we are even compelled to 
 do as they, to hold their weapons in the one hand, while with 
 the other they built up the wall, we shall bear as best we may 
 the grievous hindrance to our work ; ^ for we shall feel that there 
 are no less sacred interests at stake than those which nerved the 
 hearts and strengthened the hands of the remnant of the captivity ; 
 if we have to contend for the sacredness of God's house and ' God's 
 acre,' the religious education of our children, the inviolate sanctity 
 of the Church's laws of marriage, and the peaceful purity of our 
 homes. Amidst whatever changes of sides in the political world, 
 we shall take for our own guidance those Avords of St. Peter which 
 formed part of the Epistle for last week, ' Honour all men. Love 
 the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king ; ' or those other 
 counsels of St. James, which we read in the Epistle for this week, 
 ' Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, 
 slow to speak, slow to wrath ; for the wrath of man worketh 
 not the righteousness of God.' From the conduct of some men it 
 would verily seem as if the outbreak of man's wrath were now 
 supposed to be the best, the chosen and divinely approved instru- 
 ment for God's righteousness to w^ork by. But meanwhile His 
 faithful servants will find comfort and support in the Psalmist's 
 assurance, 'Surely the ivrath of man shall praise thee ; the remainder 
 of ivrafh shall thou restrain. ' We shall think it our wisdom, look- 
 ing back on a time of political conflict, long protracted and of unex- 
 ampled bitterness, to have very short memories of things which 
 have been said and done in the past, which had better, as far as may 
 be, be forgotten ; while, on the other hand, we practise ourselves to 
 take very long and far-sighted vieAvs in regard to the future and its 
 issiies. We shall ofi'er continually from the depth of our hearts 
 the Church's prayer, ' that the course of this world may be so 
 peaceably ordered by 'God's supreme and gracious 'governance,' 
 that His ' Church may joyfully serve him in all godly quietness.' 
 And, above all, remembering that there is that which concerns 
 every one of us yet more deeply even than the safety and welfare of 
 God's Church on earth, which Christ, our Lord and Master, hath 
 taught us to make the foremost subject of our daily prayers ; 
 that there is that which comes nearer still to our individual con- 
 cern — the present peace and eternal salvation of our owai souls, in 
 His everlasting kingdom of glory — we shall earnestly ofier up the 
 
 Neh. iv. 13, 14. ' Ibid., vv, 17, 18.
 
 A CHARGE. 51 
 
 petition which the Church has put into our lips in this week's 
 Collect, unto Him ' who alone can order the unruly wills and 
 affections of sinful men,' that He will grant unto His people to 
 love the things wliich He commandeth, and desire that which He 
 doth promise, ' that so among the manifold and sundry changes of 
 the world our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joj^s 
 are to be foimd ; through Jesus Chi-ist our Lord, to whom, with 
 the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and dominion, world 
 without end.' " 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 The precise wording of the Commission, as regards its object, is 
 to " inquire into the constitution and working of the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, as created or modified under the Reformation Statutes of 
 the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth years of King Henry the Eighth 
 and any subsequent Acts." The Archbishop, when he projiosed to 
 the Bishops, in the Upper House of Convocation, the application for 
 the Commission, described its purposes in wide and comprehensive 
 terms. His Grace said, " I think we are taking the wisest step by 
 praying her Majesty to have the whole question thoroughly examined. 
 I suppose it right that I should say, though I am addressing a body 
 of Bishops of the Province of Canterbury, that we have had during 
 the previous week a meeting of the Bishops of both Provinces. 
 Unfortunately, the Primate of the Northern Province is, at present, 
 out of England, and, therefore, he has not had an opportunity of 
 freely discussing this question with us, and is enabled only to look 
 at it from a distance, and not to take part in our discussions. But 
 the Bishops of our Church who assembled here — twenty-six were 
 assembled in this room yesterday, — without a dissentient voice, 
 agreed that it was a wise course which was suggested to us — namely, 
 that I should be requested to move in the House of Lords for a 
 Royal Commission. . . . We are none of us anxious to be lords 
 over God's heritage ; we are always anxious to have the assistance 
 of our Presbyters, and of the Laity : and I hope and believe that, by 
 the blessing of God, we shall not be found unable rightly to discharge 
 the duties that are committed to us. We ask for a Royal Commission 
 in order that information, which it is almost impossible for us to 
 get in any other way, may be obtained ; mtd it is not our ivish that 
 the question should in any degree he shelved. On the contrary, we 
 wish to be able to have at our command all possible information 
 ivhicJi can be elicited, in order that we may study it, so as to be able
 
 52 A CHAEGE. 
 
 to pass a measure of usefulness to the Church, in such manner as 
 to hand it doivn in full vigour to those who will come after us " 
 {Guardian, February 16, p. 246, col. 1). 
 
 The precise wording of the Resolution moved by the Bishop of 
 Peterborough in the Uj)per House (Thursday, February 10), and 
 which was unanimously adopted, was as follows : — 
 
 "Whereas this House has received a Rei^ort from the Lower 
 House on the Relations between Church and State, and also a 
 Report on Clergy Discipline ; and whereas many members of the 
 Church have from time to time expressed their strong dissatisfac- 
 tion with the present constitution of the Courts Ecclesiastical ; and 
 whereas the laAvs relating to Clergy discipline are in many respects 
 in need of amendment ; this House requests his Grace the 
 President to pray her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission of 
 inquiry into the said laws, and the constitution of the said Courts, 
 with a view to the full statement and consideration of all objections, 
 and to the reform of whatever may he sJiotun to be amiss." 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 In these cases of diversity of opinion and interpretation, I said, 
 " both parties alike, if they be what the same Preface calls ' sober, 
 peaceable, and truly conscientious soiis of the Church of England,' 
 must be prepared to defer to the lawful authority ; and to allow 
 it, by its ' discretion, to take order for the quieting and appeasing ' 
 of such like doubt and diversity. " Under a strong conviction that 
 in the faithful observance of this rule of the Prayer Book was to 
 be found the only effectual cure for the evils under which we were 
 suifering, I ventured to say, " There is the better hope of remedy 
 and recovery, if we are able to discern the character of the disease : 
 if there were 'no balm in Gilead,' ' no physician there,' that had 
 been neglected and thought lightly of, then there were less reason 
 to look for ' the health of the daughter of our peoi:)le ' to be 
 ' recovered ' (Jer. viii. 22), in the humble and faithful use of the 
 means which He hath provided who left us His Church in the 
 earth, and left with her the gifts of His Spirit " (Charge, 1871, 
 p. 17). 
 
 I should be almost ashamed to think how often I have, in the 
 course of the last ten years, reverted to this rule of the Prayer 
 Book, were it not for its manifest and practical importance. At 
 my Visitation in April, 1874, speaking of the Court of Final 
 Appeal, and a change then lately made in it, I took occasion to say
 
 A CHARGE. 53 
 
 that, " bearing in niind wliat the holy Apostle's judgment was, 
 with regard to bringing questions which affected tlie Christian 
 brotherhood before the outer tribunals of the secular empire, I " 
 could "not but think that the results of our experience com- 
 mended to us more than ever, in the cause alike of truth and of 
 peace, the rule of our own Church, embodied in our Prayer Book, 
 concerning points upon wliich doubts arise, or diversities spring 
 up, in the Church's ritual. Let me repeat," I went on to say, 
 " though it were needlessly, words from the Preface to the Book 
 of Common Prayer, which embody, as it seems to me, the more 
 fully the more they are considered, the very principles of an 
 Episcopal Church, and therein of Apostolical Cliristianity. Accord- 
 ing to our Chiu'ch's just and reasonable statement, if I may recall 
 it again to your minds, ' there is no remedy, but that of necessity 
 there must be some rules ;' and therefore 'certain rules are,' in 
 her Book of Common Prayer, ' set forth,' ' few in number,' and 
 ' plain and easy to be understood. ' She is conscious, at the same 
 time, that 'nothing can be so plainly set forth, but doubts may 
 arise in the use and practice of the same ; ' and hence her provision 
 that ' for the resolution of all ' such ' doubts,' and, more than this, 
 ' to appease all such diversity (if any arise),' recourse shall be had 
 ' to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take 
 order for the quieting and appeasing of the same ; ' with the final 
 proviso to guard all, ' that the same order be not contrary to any- 
 thing contained in this Book of Common Prayer.' It is a rule 
 implying paternal and filial relations between the Bishop and the 
 Clergy and people of his Diocese ; it gives him a certain ' discretion ' 
 within defined limits " {Measures and Means of Unity in the 
 Church at the Present Time. A Charge delivered in April, 1874 ; 
 pp. 26, 2T). 
 
 I felt constrained to revert to the same subject when I was 
 addressing the Clergy again the following year (in April, 1875). 
 Looking back to the circumstances of the preceding spring, I 
 desired to recall to mind what I had strongly felt as to " the danger 
 of provoking legislation," "narrowing, too probably, the liberty 
 which the faithful and sober-minded of the Church's sons, Clergy 
 and Laity, had liighly prized, and would never desire to abuse. 
 Amidst these perils, it seemed to be more than ever necessary 
 to have recoiirse, in the spirit of dutiful loyalty, to the Church's 
 rule, laid down in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer." 
 " How sadly this ri;le had been lost sight of, and its provisions set 
 at nought and nullified, when men declared that they individually 
 had no ' doubt,' and were therefore at liberty to reject any refer- 
 ence to the Bishop — entirely forgetting, meanwhile, that the rule 
 provided not less distinctly for the case where parties ' diversely
 
 54 A CHARGE. 
 
 take anything' — I" had "thought it well/' as I reminded my 
 brethren of the Clei'gy "to notice on a former occasion, four years 
 before ; and the condition in which we " had "found ourselves in 
 the preceding spring seemed," as I thought, " to make more urgent 
 the duty of recurrence, before it was too late, to the Church's wise 
 and well-considered rule " (Charge of April, 1875, pp. 16, 17). 
 
 In putting forth the Charge of May, 1877, I ventured, at the 
 conclusion of the matter appended in the Notes, to say, ' ' I have 
 referred once more, in the foregoing Charge, to the rule embodied 
 in the Preface to the Book of Common Praj'^er, in regard to 
 doubtful or disputed points in the rubrics. And 1 cannot refrain 
 from saying, with respect to the case recently decided by the 
 Judicial Committee [the case of Ridsdale v. Clifton] — looking at 
 it from the point of view of that Preface, which speaks with full 
 Synodical authority the mind of the Church of England — that 
 supi^osing a person to have, himself, ' no doubt,' and to be never 
 so confident of the correctness of his own interpretation of the 
 Ornaments Rubric, he can scarcely refuse to recognize, in the 
 Report of the Judicial Committee, as well as in the conflicting 
 legal opinions which have been given on the subject, the fact that 
 the rubric is ' diversely taken ; ' and therefore that it is a case in 
 which the rule of the Chiu-ch applies, of reference to the Bishop. 
 However the Ornaments Rubric be interj^reted, there can be no 
 doubt, assuredly, as to the meaning of the direction, or of the 
 benefit and blessing to the Church which would follow on the 
 faithful and dutiful observance of her rule, in the mutual rela- 
 tions of her Bishops and Clergy " (Charge, May, 1877, pp. 79, 80). 
 
 I should have to apologize for having so often " harped" upon 
 the same string, were it not that I have felt throughout deeply 
 persuaded that it is the only one that can produce harmony in the 
 Church. ' I feel bound to add that there has been nothing within 
 my own Archdeaconry which made such enforcement necessary ; 
 but it was a general principle that was concerned, of supreme 
 importance for the welfare of the Church. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 The course taken by the Ritual Commissioners, as seen in their 
 minutes, in regard to the Ornaments Rubric, was traced out in a 
 Note to a former Charge (of April, 1875), entitled, Frospects of 
 Peace for the Church in the Frayer Book and its Bides, pp. 128, 
 129 ; which also gave the passage from Bishop Thirlwall's Charge
 
 A CHAKGE. 55 
 
 of 1872, in reference to this matter : " 'There is no reason,' said 
 his Lordship, ' to regret that the Ornaments Rubric, though it has 
 been the chief occasion of the whole agitation which it was the 
 object of the Commission to quiet, was left untouched. The fact 
 itself seems to show that it would have been hardly possible, even 
 if the Commission could have come to an agreement on this point, 
 to bring any action of the Legislature to bear upon it without risk 
 of very inconvenient consequences.' " 
 
 NOTE E. 
 
 Hanchj-book of the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, etc., 
 edited by William G. Brooke, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, pp. 41-45. 
 Mr. Brooke prefaces the list by saying, " It may be well to state 
 briefly, without pretending to state exhaustively, the points in relation 
 to ceremonial on which the Ecclesiastical Courts have given an 
 opinion." Beside the List above specified, there are the " omissions 
 from the prescribed order," which "maybe made the subject of 
 representation, equally with alterations or additions." 
 
 Since my Visitation, there have appeared in the Guardian (of 
 May 18) extracts from the Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of 
 Carlisle at his recent triennial Visitation. In reference to the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, I find the following passage, 
 which I take the liberty of cojjying ; and I do it, if I may be allowed 
 to say so, with great satisfaction. His Lordship observes — 
 
 ' ' It seems to have been assximed by many of us, amongst other 
 things — 
 
 " (1) That the Book of Common Prayer contains a complete 
 directory upon all ritual points ; 
 
 ' ' (2) That it is possible to arrive at the meaning of the directions 
 through the medium of courts of law ; 
 
 "And (3) That when the Courts have given a decision upon any 
 disputed points, all practical difficulty Vtanishes. 
 
 " These assumptions have all broken down, more or less com- 
 pletely ; and the difiiculties arising from this result have been 
 complicated by others connected with recent legislation, and with 
 the history of the Public Worship Regulation Act. Hence we seem 
 to have arrived at a point at which a review of the whole position 
 has become desirable ; and I cannot but feel thankful that her 
 Majesty has seen fit to order the issue of the Commission for which 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury moved. In saying this I do not 
 attempt to anticipate the conclusions of the Commissioners, or even
 
 56 A CHAEGE. 
 
 tlie line of inquiry which they may see fit to adopt ; but I feel con- 
 fidence in their integrity, and their desire to heal the Church's- 
 wounds ; and I sincerely trust that their Report, whenever it 
 appears, may be no occasion for party triumph, but may supply a 
 basis upon which all parties may meet to whom the Church of 
 England is dear. ... 
 
 " Meanwliile," his Lordsliip further observes, " the sitting of the 
 Commissioners will, I trust, be accepted very generally as a time 
 of truce, and so, in a certain sense, a time of peace. The Bishops 
 have been prayed to be tolerant ; and I think there is no fear lest 
 they should adopt an opposite line of conduct. Bishops have to 
 deal with men of such difl'erent temperaments, and with deviations 
 from what may seem to them strict Chi;rch order of such divers 
 kinds, that they are compelled to be tolerant ; and if there be one 
 plan more than another which, in my oi^inion, would lead to trouble 
 and disaster, it is that which proposes a perfectly clear rule upon 
 every point connected with public worship, and a compulsory con- 
 formity to this clear rule. Such a method of government I believe 
 to be impossible ; and, if it were possible, I should deem it to be 
 mischievous. Certain leading rules may be laid down, and those 
 rules ought to be as clear as they can be made ; but the notion of 
 settling everj^thing in a manner which can give rise to no doubt 
 and no difficulty is, I think, a mere delusion. "N^liat we want is 
 some living authority, and a willingness to submit to that authority. 
 There may be some reason, though I know not what it can be, 
 why the Bisliop should not be accepted as that authority within 
 his own Diocese. This seems to be the intention set forth in the 
 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. I see no better way out 
 of our difliculties ; but I speak with diffidence." 
 
 If Bisho2:)S "speak with diffidence" on this subject, there is no 
 reason Avhy Presbyters should ; least of all, those to whom the Church 
 has committed authority, subordinate and concurrent, in these 
 matters, in the cause of due order and the Church's peace. 
 
 A' TB F. 
 
 With the Petition of the Lower House should be put side by 
 side the Resolution adopted by the Upper House, on the motion of 
 the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, on Fridaj^, February 11 ; the Resolution 
 having been amended in consultation with some of his Right 
 Reverend Bretliren. 
 
 " That this House, having taken into consideration the Petitions,
 
 A CHAEGE. 57 
 
 and Memorials brought before it by the Lower House, is of opinion 
 that litigation in matters of ritual is to be deprecated and deplored, 
 and, if possible, to be avoided. It also declares that authority to 
 settle difFerences in such matters is inherent in the Episcopal 
 office, as Avitnessed by ancient practice, and as referred to in the 
 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. And while this House 
 entertains the hope that the Clergy, as in duty boiind, will, in 
 conjunction with the Laity, support the legitimate exercise of this 
 authority, it also expresses its confidence, that this authority will 
 be exercised by the Bishops of this Province, in their respective 
 Dioceses, with an earnest endeavour to compose such difiierences, 
 without litigation, and at the same time to maintain order, decency, 
 purity of doctrine, and edification in Divine worship. " 
 
 In supporting the Resolution, the Bishop of Cliichester said, 
 " We have reason to be thankful that the Reformandum sent up 
 to us breathes the very spirit of our Resolution ; and in that 
 unanimity of the two Houses I discern some prospect of a future 
 peace." 
 
 There was happily no ground for the apprehension that the 
 Resolution would disappoint the Lower House ; or that they would 
 wish for some statement, or at any rate some outline, of the amount 
 of toleration the Bishops were prepared to give. 
 
 His Grace the President, in svimming up, expressed that he 
 desired, in the first place, to say that he was " very thankful for the 
 tone which," he understood, had "pervaded the discussion in the 
 Lower House, and which certainlj'- showed itself," said his Grace, 
 ' ' in the Resolution sent up to us. We might naturally have 
 expected a great deal of irritation. And I shovild not have been 
 siirprised, if those feelings had prevented that sort of amicable and 
 kindly and Christian consideration of the matter which characterizes 
 the proceedings of the Lower House of Convocation." 
 
 NOTE G. 
 
 In the present lack of men learned in Ecclesiastical Law, since the 
 College of Advocates at Doctors' Commons has come to an end, the 
 provisions of the Act of 1840, in regard to Assessors of the Bishop, 
 may be regarded as an advantageous substitution for a Chancellor 
 in every Diocese to be appointed by the Bishop. Under the pro- 
 visions of the Public Worship Regulation Act, the party complained 
 of and the party complaining are to state in writing, within 
 one and twenty days, whether they are willing to submit to the
 
 68 A CHAKGE. 
 
 directions of tlie Bishop without apjieal, and, if so, "the Bishop 
 shall forthwith proceed to hear the matter of the representation m 
 such manner as he shall thinh fit, and shall pronounce such judg- 
 ment and issue such monition as he may think proper ; and no 
 appeal shall lie from such judgment or monition." There is no 
 such security here, in regard to law, as the Bishop's Court, pro- 
 vided for by the Act of 1840, gave. It is true, as Mr. Brooke remarks, 
 that the Act "does not preclude the- assistance of an Assessor;" 
 but, as has elsewhere been observed, "no such Assessor is re- 
 quired." And the proceeding, meanwhile, vmder this Act of 
 Parliament, it is hardly necessary to observe, is something totallj' 
 different, in its whole complexion and character, from the reference 
 to the Bishop prescribed in the Preface to the Prayer Book. 
 
 It has been observed above that, as far as regards the action of 
 the Bishop, when a representation has been made to him, there is no 
 provision for any legal assistance to the Bishop when he hears the case 
 " in such manner as he shall think fit," and pronounces judgment 
 without appeal. It must be added, however, that there does exist 
 luider the Act a provision for obtaining a legal opinion, if the two 
 jiarties " join in stating any questions arising in such proceedings 
 in a special case, signed by a barrister-at-law, for the opinion of the 
 Judge ; the Judge, thereupon, " shall hear and determine the ques- 
 tions arising thereon, and any judgment of the Bishop shall be 
 in conformity with such determination." But this " Judge " is the 
 same person whom, if the parties are not willing to submit to 
 the Bishop's direction, the Archbishop, to whom the representation 
 is to be transmitted, will direct and require to hear the matter. 
 Then (unless the parties shall both agree that the evidence shall be 
 taken by a shorthand writer, and that a special case shall not be 
 stated) the Judge shall state the facts proved before him in the form 
 of a special case, and give his judgment accordingly. Upon every 
 judgment of the Judge an appeal shall lie to her Majesty in 
 Council ; but how ? For " the purpose of an appeal to her 
 Majesty in Council under this Act, the special case settled by the 
 Judge (or a copy of the shorthand writer's notes) shall be trans- 
 mitted, and no fresh evidence shall be admitted upon appeal except 
 by the permission of the tribunal hearing the'appeal." The Judge, 
 Ln fact, is the party making the appeal ; so that throughout, from 
 first to last, before the Bishop, before the Covirt of Appeal of the 
 Province, and finally before the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council, there is one individual legal authority, and one only, 
 concerned. This, assuredly, is a course of proceeding quite new to 
 English law ; it is quite a novel theory of "appeal." 
 
 With regard to the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical 
 Law, of 1830, and the principles embodied in it, see Charge of 3 877,
 
 A CHAEGE. 59 
 
 Note F, pp. 55-57 ; and with regard to the Act of 1840 and its 
 history, vid. ibid., pp. 59-G2. In reference to this Act, the 
 late Dean of the Arches Court, Sir Robert Phillimore, in the 
 Preface to the volume of his Principal Ecclesiastical Judgments 
 delivered in the Court of Arches, 1807 to 1875, says — 
 
 "The Statute which, during the time I was Judge of the Court 
 of Arches, regulated the discipline of the Clergy, 3 and 4 Victoria, 
 cap. 86, was passed in 1840, after a very severe conflict and much 
 ditference of opinion in the House of Lords. 
 
 " It effected very matei-ial alterations in the existing law. It 
 destroyed all peculiar jurisdictions, under cover of which bad 
 clergymen had sometimes sheltered themselves against the penalties 
 due to their offences. It gave to every Bishop the power of sitting 
 with Assessors in his own Court, or of sending the case to be tried at 
 once in the Superior Court of the Province. It directed, in the 
 former case, the previous issue of a Preliminary Commission, which 
 was to report whether there was a prima facie case for further 
 proceedings. It provided, moreover — and this provision was 
 extremely wise, and has often worked very well — that the accused 
 Clerk might admit before his Bishop that he was guilty of the 
 offence charged against him ; and his Bishop had then power to 
 pass such a sentence as the law allowed, without the scandal of a 
 public trial. . . . 
 
 " I have read statements," Sir Robert Phillimore further says, 
 "relating to procedure in the Arches Court, which could never 
 have been made in the presence of any person really conversant 
 with the facts, or, if made, would have been immediately contra- 
 dicted. For instance, cases tried thirty years ago, under a system 
 of law and procedure materially different, have been represented as 
 illustrating the present state of the Ecclesiastical Courts, no 
 mention whatever being made of the subsequent alteration, because 
 such mention would at once show that the censure was inapplicable " 
 (Preface, pp. vi., vii.). 
 
 NOTE H. 
 
 The distinct recognition and maintenance of the purely spiritual 
 and ecclesiastical character of the Church's tribunals is important, 
 not only in regard to the essential claims of the Church, but also 
 in relation to the question of establishment or disestablishment, 
 so much talked of nowadays. By virtue of establishment, the 
 Chiirch's Courts are recognized, and their action in spiritual matters
 
 GO A CHAEGE. 
 
 allowed. On the other hand, if these matters are left to be dealt 
 with by a temporal Court, there is no longer an established Church 
 acknowledged. And this is obviously the effect, if what was, in 
 its origin and essence, the Church's Court becomes a State Court. 
 Of course, it is natural enough for legislators, if they desire to 
 frame a machine which is to combine temporal penalties with 
 purely spiritual authority, to put the temporal sword into a 
 secularized Church's hands, and so think to arm it with the j)owers 
 of the civil judicature. But the Church cannot possess these 
 powers, and at the same time avail itself of the jarovisions which 
 were gi-ounded on an entirely distinct and opposite theory. The 
 significavH, sent to the Court of Chancery, rested on the hypothesis 
 that the Church Court had no temporal power ; that all coercive 
 jurisdiction was in the hands of the State ; and that, if questions 
 arose involving the exercise of the civil power, to the civil power 
 the reference must be made. 
 
 If we look to the provisions of the Acts of Uniformity, we shall 
 find this distinction maintained. In regard to the legal penalties, 
 the last Act of Uniformity (13 and 14 Car. II., cap. 4), it is to 
 be observed, simply appropriates to the newly revised Prayer 
 Book the sanctions, whatever they were, of the preceding Act (1 
 Elizabeth, cap. 2). By section 24 it is enacted, "that the several 
 good laws and statutes of this realm, which have been formerly 
 made, and are now in force, for the uniformity of Prayer and admi- 
 nistration of the Sacraments, within this realm of England and 
 places aforesaid, shall stand in full force and strength to all intents 
 and purposes whatsoever, for the establishing and confirming of 
 the said Book, intituled. The Book of Common Prayer, etc. , . . . 
 hereinbefore mentioned to be joined and annexed to this Act ; and 
 shall be applied, practised, and put in use for the punishing of all 
 offences contrary to the said laws, with relation to the Book afore- 
 said, and to no other." 
 
 We are thus referred back to the Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth ; 
 and there we read as follows (section 15) : — 
 
 " And for the due execution hereof, the Queen's most excellent 
 Majesty, the Lords temporal, and all the Commons, in this present 
 Parliament assembled, do in God's name earnestly require and 
 charge all the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries, that 
 they shall endeavour themselves, to the uttermost of their know- 
 ledges, that the due and true execution thereof may be had 
 throughout their Dioceses and charges, as they will answer before 
 God for such evils and plagues wherewith Almighty God may justly 
 punish His people for neglecting this good and wholesome law." 
 
 It is a law enacted, essentially, by the Lay authority, giving the 
 temporal sanction, and at the same time distinctly recognizing the
 
 A CHARGE. 61 
 
 spiritual authorities of the Church, as those to whom was committed 
 the administration and enforcement of the Church's laws. And, 
 in order thereto, there follows this (section 16) : — 
 
 ' ' And for their authority in this behalf, be it further enacted by 
 the authority aforesaid, that all and singular the said Archbishops, 
 Bishox^s, and all other their officers exercising ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction, as well in place [places] exempt as not exempt, within their 
 Dioceses, shall have full power and authority by tliis Act to reform, 
 correct, and punish, by censures of the Church, all and singular 
 persons which shall oftend within any their jurisdictions or 
 Dioceses, after the said Feast of the Nativity of St. John the 
 Baptist next coming, after this Act and statute ; any other law, 
 statute, privilege, liberty, or provision heretofore made, had, or 
 suflered, to the contrary notAvithstanding." 
 
 We have here the authoritative recognition, by the State, of the 
 Church's spiritual tribunals, iising purely spii-itual weapons, pro- 
 ceeding " hy censures of the Church." But there followed, not less 
 remarkably, this further provision, for action in Courts entirely 
 distinct, viz. the temporal Coiu'ts of the realm. In section 17 we 
 read — 
 
 " And it is ordained and enacted by the authority aforesaid, that 
 all and every Justice of Oyer and Determiner, or Justice of Assize, 
 shall have full power and authority, in every of their open and 
 general sessions, to inquii-e, hear, and determine all and all manner 
 of offences that shall be committed or done contrary to any article 
 contained in this present Act, within the limits of the Commission 
 to them directed, and to make process for the execution of the 
 same, as they may do against any person being indicted before them 
 of trespass, or lawfully convicted thereof." 
 
 It is to be observed that, in the Thirty-fourth Article, offences 
 against the common order of the Church are treated under two 
 distinct aspects. It declares that " Whosoever through his private 
 j udgment, ^viUingly and purposely, doth openly break the traditions 
 and ceremonies of the Church, which be not rei^ugnant to the Word 
 of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought 
 to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he 
 that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteih 
 the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of 
 the weak bretliren." There is the aspect, on the one hand, of a 
 spiritual offence committed against " the Church," and its duly 
 appointed order ; and, on the other hand, there is the aspect of an 
 offence against " the authority of the Magistrate " — distinct offences, 
 and to be treated accordingly. To revert to the case of the Jews, 
 under the temporal authority of the Roman Government ; there 
 might be an offence against the Jewish law, on the part of men
 
 62 A CHAEGE. 
 
 accused of not walking according to the tradition of the elders, or 
 speaking blasphemous words against Moses and against the Law ; 
 or there might be an offence against the authority of the civil 
 magistrate, such as stirring up the people throughout Jewry, or 
 forbidding to give tribute to Csesar. But the great and crowning 
 act of wrong was committed Avhen these offences were mixed up 
 together, and a compound complaint made out of them, and the 
 Roman governor called upon to punish, with the penalties of the 
 tempoi'al law, what could only come plausibly under his authority 
 by unrighteous confusion of charges of divers character, in one 
 view spiritvial, in another civil. The provisions of our own law, 
 now before us, keep clear of this peril ; and still more remarkably, 
 when we find this proviso added (section 18) — 
 
 "Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, 
 that all and every Archbishop and Bishop shall or may at all time 
 and times, at his liberty and pleasure, join and associate himself, 
 by virtue of this Act, to the Justices of Oyer and Determiner, or to 
 the said Justices of Assize, at every of the said open and general 
 sessions to be holden in any place within his Diocese, for and to the 
 inquiry, hearing, and determining of the offences aforesaid." 
 
 This proAasion has been, perhaps, in some degree overlooked by 
 parties who occasionally refer, with a somewhat threatening sig- 
 nificance, to the power given by this Act to bring an ofi"ending 
 clergyman before the Justices of the Peace ; and there seems to be 
 a perfect unconsciousness in many people that the penalties of the 
 Act of Uniformity aflect any but the Clergy. The clause preceding 
 those above cited is as follows (section 14) : — 
 
 * ' And that from and after the said Feast of the Nativity of St. 
 John Baptist next coming, all and every person and persons inhabit- 
 ing within this realm, or any other the Queen's Majesty's dominions, 
 shall diligently and faithfully, having no lawful or reasonable 
 exciTse to be absent, endeavour themselves to resort to their parish 
 church or chapel accustomed, or upon reasonable let thereof, to 
 some usual place where common prayer and such service of God 
 shall be used in such time of let, upon every Sunday, and other 
 days ordained and used to be kept as holy days, and then and there 
 to abide orderly and soberly during the time of the common prayer, 
 preaching, or other service of God, there to be used and ministered ; 
 upon pain of punishment hy the censures of the Church, and also 
 upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such 
 offence twelve pence, to be levied by the Churchwardens of the 
 parish where such ofience shall be done, to the use of the poor of 
 the same parish, on the goods, lands, and tenements of such offender, 
 by way of distress. " 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford, in his recent Charge, observes, " No one
 
 A CHARGE. 03 
 
 at all acquainted with the history of Ecclesiastical Law can doubt 
 that its theory has been inconsistent throughout with the notion 
 of a Common Law right to employ its process in satisfaction of 
 every private complainant's fancied wrong. Usurpations and 
 errors there have been, indeed, in almost every age ; but the 
 spiritual jurisdiction has still borne on the face of it the spiritual 
 character, to be traced originally to the plain words of our Lord 
 and of His Apostles. Its proceedings have been instituted p'>'(> 
 salute animce. Its object has been to reform men's lives ; to put 
 sinners to open shame, and bring them to repentance ; to cast out 
 unworthy members from the Church, if no ligliter censure would 
 induce them to amend their lives. That this discipline should be 
 set in motion by the viandamns of a temporal Court, in order to 
 relieve a complainant, who alleged special damage to himself as 
 the ground of his complaint, appeared to me to be alien to the 
 whole idea of a spu'itual Court, and at variance -with its precedents 
 and histoiy from the dawn of Christianity. The ' apparent in- 
 congruity ' of the interference was, indeed, frankly acknowledged 
 by the Court of Queen's Bench itself. The judgments of the 
 superior Courts made it plain that the interference was an incon- 
 gruity to which the law, rightly interj^reted, gave no support. . . . 
 " I do not forget," his Lordshii5 went on to say to his Clergy, 
 ' ' while I congratulate you on the result of this suit, that the 
 decision goes but a little way towards the solution of the great 
 problem of enforcing, or revi\'ing, the discipline of the Church. 
 That discipline, in the true idea of it, is for the Laity quite as 
 much as for the Clergy. Is^ot in connection only with that primitive 
 Episcopacy to which the Church of England adheres, but in Presby- 
 terian bodies, and even to some extent in Congregationalist com- 
 munities, censures against immorality, and condemnations of false 
 doctrine, have been held to be part of the life of the Christian 
 society. Amongst ourselves. Bishop Wilson's Episcopate in the 
 Isle of Man furnishes the last example of a pure and effective 
 administration of discipline. Shadows, indeed, of such a system 
 remained in England within living memory ; but the absolute 
 immunity of the rich, and the entire separation of the disciplinary 
 Courts from the religious sentiment of the Church, deprived them 
 of all value in the eyes of those who wished well to the Church in 
 her true spiritual work. When it is the mind of the members 
 of the Church in general to ' withdraw from every brother that 
 walketh disorderly,' and to ' put away from themselves (all) 
 wicked persons,' that mind may be expressed, and reduced to 
 practice, by the sentence of Church Courts. Discipline which has 
 no echo in the thoughts and feelings of the Christian community — 
 even if it were possible to maintain it in full efficiency — would be
 
 64 A CHAEGE. 
 
 little worth. Meantime," as liis Lordship adds significantly, " the 
 problem of constructing a system for the correction of Clerks, 
 which is to be criticized by Laymen Avho repudiate all discipline 
 for themselves, is one of exceeding difficulty." 
 
 " The Court of Arches," says the learned Judge who for eight 
 years, at the earnest reqiiest of Archbishop Longley, and, for some 
 time, with hardly any emolument, filled the office of Judge, " has 
 great powers and privileges of jurisdiction. It is the only Ecclesi- 
 astical Court which has the power to pass sentence of deprivation. 
 It is practically the Court in which the Archbishop sits when exer- 
 cising jurisdiction over a siifFragan Bishop. It is the Court of Appeal 
 from all the Diocesan Courts of the Province of Canterbury. More- 
 over, recent decision,'' as he describes it, writing in 1876, "of 
 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has decided that it is 
 bound to take cognizance, in the first instance and without the 
 advantage which the Appellate Court enjoys of the previous 
 sentence of a competent Court, of every case which the Bishop of a 
 Diocese may send, by what are called Letters of Request, to be tried 
 before it " {Principal Ecclesiastical Judgments delivered in the Court 
 of Arches, 1867 to 1875, by the Right Hon. Sir Robert Phillimore, 
 D.C.L., Preface, p. v.). 
 
 "The extraordinary powers possessed by the Dean of the 
 Arches," I have elsewhere observed, " make it, it must be evident, 
 a very imjiortant question in what precise relation any newly 
 appointed Judge, exercising these powers, stands, by virtue of the 
 mode of his appointment, to the spiritual power or to the temporal" 
 (Charge, 1877, p. 79). 
 
 The language used by Oughton, a high authority, respecting the 
 office of the Dean of the Arches and Official Principal of the 
 Archbishop, must be carefully borne in mind. He tells us 
 (cf. ibid., p. 78) that "the Official Principal of the Archbishop is, 
 in regard to jvarisdiction, on an eqviality {(equiparat^ir) with the 
 Archbishop himself ; for the' Official and the Bishop are said to have 
 the same dignity, and the same Court (idem auditorium) ; and that 
 in the judicial forum the Official of the Archbishop is equal with 
 the Archbishop himself ; and the Official Principal has the same 
 consistory with the Archbishop ; and is sometimes said to be the 
 Ordinary of the Bishops {episcojwrum ordinarium)." (See Philli- 
 more's Ecclesiastical Laiv, p. 1205.) 
 
 By the provisions of the Public Worship Regulation Act, the 
 new Judge, to be appointed under that Act, was to have right 
 of succession to the offices of Dean of the Arches and Official 
 Principal of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Judge of the 
 Chancery Court of York ; which offices, it was well known at the
 
 A CHARGE. 65 
 
 time, were both about to be vacated. But it might have been 
 thouglit that there was nothing to hinder the new Judge, whenever 
 those offices became vacant, from qualifying himself as previous 
 Judges had done, in conformity with the rules and requirements of 
 Ecclesiastical Law. But, it would seem, the new Judge failed 
 to comply with any such rules. "It is understood that his non- 
 compliance was deliberate, not accidental ; he could not defer," so 
 it is said, " to the provisions of the Canon without implying that 
 the Statute was insufficient to make him what he claims to be." ^ 
 He thought, it is sujiposed, that he should mar his Parliamentary 
 title to the seat which he was to occupy, if he recognized any 
 derivation of its authority save from the Act of Parliament and 
 the State Legislature. Accordingly, when he took his seat there, 
 it might truly be said, " It is certain that, speaking ecclesiastically 
 and morally, he represents a very difierent kind of avithority from 
 that of the Judges who have heretofore filled that venerable chair. " " 
 The former head of the Archiepiscopal Court was gone ; and, 
 now — 
 
 " What seemed a head 
 The UTceness of a kingly crown had on." 
 
 By the 127th Canon, this was " The Quality and Oath of Judges : " 
 " No man shall hereafter be admitted a Chancellor, Commissary, 
 or Official, to exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, except he be 
 of the full age of six and twenty years at the least, and one that is 
 learned in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws, and is at the least a 
 Master of Arts or Bachelor of Laws, and is reasonably well prac- 
 tised in the course thereof, as likewise well affected, and zealously 
 bent to religion, touching whose life and manners no evil example 
 is had ; and except, before he enter into or execute any such 
 office, he shall take the oath of the King's supremacy in the 
 presence of the Bishop, or in the open Court ; and shall subscribe 
 to the Articles of Religion, agreed upon in the Convocation, in the 
 year one thousand five hundred sixty and two ; and shall also 
 swear that he will, to the uttermost of his understanding, deal 
 uprightly and justly in his office, without respect or favour or 
 reward ; the said oaths and subscription to be recorded by a 
 Registrar then present. And likewise all Chancellors, Commis- 
 saries, Officials, Registrars, and all others that do now possess or 
 execute any places of ecclesiastical jurisdiction or service, shall, 
 before Christmas next, in the presence of the Archbishop or 
 
 ^ Liddon'a Thoughts on Present Church Troubles, 1881, Preface, 
 p. xvii. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. xvi.
 
 66 A CHARGE. 
 
 Bishop, or in open Court, under whom or where they execute 
 their offices, take the same oaths and subscribe as before is said ; 
 or, upon refusal so to do, shall be suspended from the execution 
 of their offices, until they shall take the said oaths and subscribe 
 as afoi-esaid." 
 
 These regulations, carrying with them the Synodical authority of 
 the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, were, assuredly, 
 right and wise ; excellently fitted to prevent unworthy appoint- 
 ments, made under the undv^e influence of favour or aflection, 
 and to secure for the Church faithful and efficient men to hold 
 office in her Courts of judgment. There is not one of these 
 requirements which is inapplicable to the present time, even under 
 the altered circumstances of the Civil Law Bar. The Judge is to be 
 ' ' one that is learned in the Ci\'il and Ecclesiastical Laws, and is at 
 the least a Master of Arts, or Bachelor of Laws, and is reasonably 
 well practised in the course thereof," i.e. "of the law," as the 
 Canon very reasonably says ; it does not say, "in the practice of 
 the Ecclesiastical Courts ; " so that not even the destruction of the 
 College of Advocates involves any difficulty in the observance of 
 the Canon. But the whole ordinance of the Church's Canon has 
 been now set aside, ignored, or disregarded : the new Judge is, by 
 the Act, required simply to be "a member of the Church of England ;" 
 which declaration, it has been truly enough said, " may mean no 
 more than that he has not formally associated himself with some 
 other religious body. It does not necessarily mean, in its modern 
 acceptation, that he is a communicant, or even that he believes the 
 Nicene Creed ; it is a declaration which is, in practice, consistent 
 with repudiation of almost everything that ' a Christian ought to 
 know and believe to his soul's health. ' " ^ 
 
 The essential change that had passed over the Court of Arches, 
 under the operation of the Public Worship Regulation Act, came 
 to the knowledge of Churchmen generally when certain Retiu-ns 
 were moved for in the two Houses of Parliament. In the 
 House of Lords, the Lord Foxford (the Earl of Limerick) moved, 
 February 22, 1877, for "Copies of the- Patents or Instruments 
 of Appointment of Doctor Lushington, Sir Robert Phillimore, 
 and Lord Penzance, as Official Principal of the Arches Court of 
 Canterbury and Judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and 
 York, under the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, respectively." 
 In the House of Commons, May 11, 1877, Mr. Hubbard moved for 
 a like Return, and also for " Copy of Patents, or Instruments of 
 Appointment of the Worshipful Granville Harcourt Vernon, as 
 Official Principal of the Chancery Court of York." It appeared from 
 
 Liddon, Thovglits, sup. rif., j^p. xviii., xix.
 
 A CHARGE. 67 
 
 these Returns, that, heretofore, the requirements of the Church's 
 Canons had been duly and strictly observed. When Dr. Lushin;^- 
 ton was appointed, on a certain day in July, 1858, " before tlie 
 Most Reverend Father in God, John Bird, by Divine Providence 
 Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and 
 Metropolitan, at his Palace at Lambeth, in the County of Surrey, 
 in the presence of the subscribed Notary Public and Actuary 
 assumed," "appeared personally the said Right Honourable Stephen 
 Lushington, Doctor of Laws ; and the said Most Reverend Father 
 in God . . . did then name and constitute the said Plight Honour- 
 able Stephen Lushington to be Official Principal of the said 
 Arches Court of Canterbury. ..." The said Stephen Lushington, 
 we learn, after taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 
 did " further make oath of the Holy Evangelists in the following 
 words : — ' I, Stephen Lushington, Doctor of Laws, do swear that I 
 will, to the utmost of my understanding, deal uprightly and justly 
 in the office of Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury, 
 without respect, or favour, or reward ; as is enjoined in the 127th 
 chapter of the Constitutions or Canons Ecclesiastical, treated and 
 concluded upon in the Synod begun at London, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand six hundred and three, and afterwards approved 
 of by Royal authority. ' And the said Stephen Lushington did also 
 subscribe his name to the Articles of Pieligion agreed on by the 
 Ai'chbishops, Bishops, and Clergy of both Provinces, in Convocation 
 at London, in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-two ; 
 and voluntarily declared his consent to the same as agreeable to 
 the Word of God ; that being done, the said Most Reverend 
 Father in God, John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury, did admit 
 the said Stephen Lushington to the office of Official Principal of 
 the Arclies Court of Canterbury ; and did sign, seal, and deliver 
 into his hands. a commission or patent for the office. Which 1 
 attest, (signed) F. H. Dyke, Notary Public and Actuary afore- 
 said. " 
 
 The Letters Patent, bearing date July 2, 1858, ran thus — 
 "John Bird, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, to our beloved in 
 Christ, the Right Honoiirable Stephen Lushington, Doctor of Laws, 
 health and grace ; — We, trusting in your sound doctrine, good 
 morals, piety of conscience, and in your special fidelity, circum- 
 spection, and industry, do, for us and our successors Archbishops 
 of Canter bur J'-, give and grant, and by these presents confirm, to 
 you, during the term of your natural life, the office of Principal 
 of the Arches Court of Canterbury, now vacant, with all and 
 singular the fees, etc. . . . And . . . that you may the better 
 know how and in what manner you are to behave yourself in the
 
 68 A CHARGE. 
 
 exercise of the said oflBce according to what is from law and custom 
 to be known, we grant, enjoin, and commit, etc. ... by the tenor 
 of the words following, to wit, etc. We do, for ourselves and our 
 successors, give and grant to you, the said Stephen Lushington, our 
 power and authority legally to inflict any ecclesiastical censures 
 which occur, as also of sui-rogating, deputing, and constituting any 
 other person or persons in your place and stead ; he or they being 
 approved of by us and our successors, for the jierformance of all 
 and singular the premises. And we do, for ourselves and our 
 successors, by these j^resents, ordain, -appoint, and constitute you, 
 the said Stephen Lushington, Doctor of Laws, Official Principal of 
 the Arches Court of Canterbury during the time of your natural 
 life as aforesaid. In testimony thereof we have hereunto caused 
 our Archiepiscopal seal to be put." 
 
 "And we, the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral and Metropolitan 
 [Metropolitical] Church of Christ, Canterbury, do by these presents, 
 so far as in us lies, ratify and approve, and by our authority 
 confirm, the foregoing patent or grant, etc. . . . and all things 
 contained and specified in the writing or patent hereunto annexed, 
 ... so far as we may, we do by our authority ratify and confirm 
 by these presents. In witness thereof we have hereunto set our 
 common seal. Dated in the Chapter House of us, the said Dean 
 and Chapter, the sixth of August in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight himdred and fifty-eight." 
 
 Here was the solemn delegation, by personal act, of authority 
 given by t;he Spiritual Ruler of the Province to a Commissary 
 Judge, who was to represent the Archbishop himself in his Court ; 
 appointed in strict conformity with the Church's Canons, and 
 exercising his office in accordance with them ; administering Eccle- 
 siastical Law, with piu'ely spiritual penalties, "the censures of the 
 Church." There was the full setting forth of the qualifications 
 which he was known, by the person appointing him, to possess for 
 the office, and the expression of that full confidence in him which 
 warranted the committing to him so high a trust. 
 
 The same forms, siibstantially, were followed in the appointment 
 of Sir Robert Phillimore by Archbishop Longley, August 1, 1867 ; 
 with the like confirmation by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, 
 September 17, 1867. 
 
 But, in the case of the last appointment, all was changed. There 
 was a document, signed by the two Archbishops, in the presence of 
 their Secretaries, respectively, addressed, " To all to whom these 
 presents shall come ; " — rehearsing the provisions of the Public 
 Worship Regulation Act — " Whereas, by an Act made and passed, 
 etc. . . . And whereas we are desirous of appointing the Right 
 Honourable Sir James Plaisted, Baron Penzance, formerly a Baron
 
 A CHARGE. 69 
 
 of the Court of Exchequer, and afterwaivls Judge of her Majesty's 
 Court of Probate, and Judge Ordimuy of the Court for Divorce 
 and Matrimonial Causes, and a member of the Church of England, 
 to be the said Judge, etc. . . . Now know ye that we, in pursuance 
 of such desire, and in exercise of the power and authority to us 
 given by the said Act as hereinbefore mentioned, and of every 
 or any other power enabling us in this behalf, do, by these presents, 
 with the approval of her Majesty (which approval is intended to 
 be signified under her Sign Manual), appoint the said Right 
 Honourable Sir James Plaisted, Baron Penzance, to be, during good 
 behaviour, the Judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and 
 York for the purposes of the said Act." 
 
 Then follows the " Warrant signifying her Majesty's approval 
 of the appointment," etc. 
 
 The Letters of the Archbishop bore date October 28, 1874 ; the 
 Eoyal Warrant, November 14, 1874. On the 20th of October, 
 1875, as appears from the same Return, Sir Robert Phillimore 
 resigned his office; "and accordingly Baron Penzance became 
 Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury, and the 
 proceedings therein were continued before him." And "on the 
 30th of October, the resignation of the office at York took place ; 
 and accordingly Baron Penzance also became Official Principal or 
 Auditor of the Chancery Court of York, and the proceedings therein 
 were continued before him." 
 
 In this case we have simply a declaration made by each of the 
 Archbishops, in the presence of his Secretary, that he has fulfilled 
 his part in the carrying out of the provisions of an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, subject to the approval of the Crown. There has been, 
 however, a further Return moved for in the House of Commons 
 by Mr. Hubbard, May 16, 1878, viz. " Copy of Letters Patent or 
 other Instruments whereby the Archbishop of Canterbury or the 
 Archbishop of York has conferred vipon Lord Penzance any 
 Api3ointment, Powers, or Profits, subsequently to the resignation 
 of the offices of Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canter- 
 biuy by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Joseph Phillimore, and 
 of Official Principal of the Chancery Court of York by the 
 Worshipful Granville Harcourt." The Return made (May 31, 
 1878) exhibited " Letters Patent assigning an additional Share 
 of the Fees receivable in the Faculty Office to the Master of the 
 Faculties (in consequence of the vacancy in the office of Registrar 
 of the Faculties, occasioned by the death of the late Viscount 
 Canterbury, on the 24th of June, 1877), and the Ratification and 
 Confirmation of the Right Honourable James Plaisted, Baron 
 Penzance, M.A., in the said office of Master of the Faculties, and 
 also in the office of Official Principal of the Arches Court of
 
 70 A CHARGE. 
 
 Cantei'biiry." These Letters Patent, granted to Baron Penzance, 
 bearing date March 23, 1878, rehearse the appointment under the 
 Act of 1874, and the subsequent vacancy, and also the desire to 
 augment the share of fees payable to the Master of the Faculties ; 
 and they go on to " ratify and confirm the exercise of the said 
 offices," by Baron Peiazance, in terms taken from the old form of 
 appointment ; and also, as in the same form, the Archbishops' 
 " power and authority legally to inflict any ecclesiastical censures 
 Avhatsoever." 
 
 On the same day, "appeared personally," as before, the said 
 Judge, who having produced his Warrant of October 28 and 
 November 14, 1874, etc., "the said Right Honourable and Most 
 Reverend Father, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, by virtue 
 of all and singular the Archiepiscopal powers and authorities 
 vested in him, did then ratify and confirm the said James Plaisted, 
 Baron Penzance, Master of Arts, in and to the place of Official 
 Principal," etc. 
 
 In these Letters Patent the grantee is described as a " Master of 
 Arts " — so far, apparently, in conformity with the Canon ; and 
 there is reference made, significantly, to "all and singular the 
 Archiepiscopal powers and authorities vested in " the grantor : but 
 there was no signing of the Articles, no oaths taken, no promise 
 given, no mention of any personal qualifications ; with no allusion 
 meanwhile to the Court of Divorce, but only to the "former" 
 office of Baron of the Court of Exchequer, and membership of the 
 Cliurch of England, which the Act of Parliament had required ; 
 there was no setting right — as, indeed, there could not be — of 
 the original wrong done to the Church of England, its ancient 
 Courts and Ecclesiastical Laws. 
 
 The reply made, meanwhile, by the Archbishop of York, stated 
 that no Letters Patent or other instrument had been issued by him 
 since the resignation of Mr. Granville Vernon, " no occasion for 
 the same having arisen." "It is considered," said his Grace to 
 the Home Secretary, ' ' that the aj^pointinent made by the Arch- 
 bishops conjointly, after the passing of the Public Worship) Regu- 
 lation Act, had the eflfect of conveying to Lord Penzance, on the 
 vacancy occun-ing, the power conveyed to the Official Principal by 
 the former Patents. " 
 
 It appears, by the " deed poll or instrument in writing," of 
 October 28, 1874, that, when the two Archbishops declared them- 
 selves " desii'ous of appointing" the person named therein to the 
 Judgeship, he had " agreed, subject to the consent of her Majesty, 
 to midertake such office;" and so, in appointing him, "with 
 the approval of her Majesty — which approval," it was declared, 
 "is intended to be sicjuified under her 8i''n Manual," — the Arch-
 
 A CHARGE. 71 
 
 bishops do not stand committed to any personal opinion, as in former 
 apiiointnients, in regard to "sound doctrine, good morals, piety 
 of conscience," or " special fidelity, circumspection, and industry." 
 On the face of it, matters had been arranged with the Judge, by the 
 Government of the day, doubtless for what were thought good and 
 sufficient reasons them moving ; specially in regard to the remunera- 
 tion required, which there was difficulty in finding, and which the 
 pension of an ex-Judge of the Divorce Coiu't would supply. With 
 the precedent which has been unhappily set, it is impossible not to 
 see that, unless something is done in consequence of the present 
 Commission (presuming the oi^inion of lawyers, referred to in the 
 foregoing Charge, is correct), it is too certain that the one legal 
 officer to whom the rights and privileges — nay, rather the dvities 
 and responsibilities — of the Church of England will be committed, 
 will be simply one who is professedly " a member of the Church of 
 England," and whom the Government of the time being is prepared 
 to recommend to the favour of the Crown. 
 
 It has been pleaded by high authorities, that there is a great 
 advantage in the same person being Judge of the Courts of Appeal 
 of the two Provinces. Upon which it must be observed, that it is 
 one thing to have the same person Judge in the two Courts, and a 
 very proper thing, if he be the fittest person that can be found ; it 
 is quite another thing to hamper and fetter the appointment with 
 the requirement that the two Archbishoi^s shall agree in the choice 
 of their legal representative ; and that he must be a person whose 
 appointment the Crown — i.e. the Minister of the day — will sanction 
 and confirm ; and with the further prospect that, if the two 
 Primates cannot agree within six months, the Crown will step m 
 and appoint for them. When Potter was Primate of Canterbury, 
 Hoadley might have been Primate of York. What sort of agree- 
 ment would there have been between them, as to the views and 
 opinions of the Judge whom they would have been compelled 
 by the Public Worship Regulation Act to agree upon ? Or what 
 would have been the fate of the Arches Court amidst the conflicts, 
 in Queen Anne's days, between the Wliigs and Tories, and the 
 changes of Ministry in that, reign — even with a Queen on the 
 throne who, personally, had the interests of the Church at heart, 
 and consulted its spiritual heads ? 
 
 There is one argument which must be noticed here, as having, 
 apparently, found favour in the proceedings of the temporal Court. 
 It was argued that the Canons had been ruled to be not binding 
 on the Laity, and therefore not upon the Judge of the Arches 
 Court, being aLaj'man ; and consequent!}^, that it Avas imimportant, 
 in regard to his appointment, whetlier he had conformed to the 
 Canons or not. K ot to go into the question of the relation of the
 
 72 A CHARGE. 
 
 Laity generally to the Canons of the Church, duly confirmed by 
 the Crown, it must be observed that the Canons of the Church are, 
 primarily, the very code of the Ecclesiastical Courts : the articles 
 inquired of, in every Visitation of Bishop and Archdeacon, have 
 regard to certain Canons requiring this or that to be pro\dded by 
 the parish ; and the Visitation Articles systematically refer to 
 such Canons severally. To ignore the Canons of the Church, in 
 relation to the Ecclesiastical Coiu'ts and their proceedings is, in 
 fact, to call in qviestion, or to refuse to recognize, the existence of 
 any such Courts ; in fact, to abolish them ; and so, as has been 
 said above, to countersign the theory of disestablishment. It is 
 a perfectly intelligible theory ; but it contains witliin it essentially 
 a revolution. 
 
 INIr. Brooke's Ilandyhoolc of the Pichlic Worship Begtdation Act 
 surveys, with a certain legal calmness of well-satisfied complacency, 
 the precise provisions and operation of the Act. His work was 
 " meant, not as a technical, but as a popular treatise, the object 
 being to render the Act intelligible to the non-professional reader. " 
 He describes the penalties as " culminating in dej)rivation hy a 
 self-acting process, once an inhibition is ordered by the Judge. 
 Hitherto," he says, "in the absence of very aggravating cu-cum- 
 stances, the Ecclesiastical Courts have been inclined to susijend 
 rather than to deprive. The severer penalty of deprivation has 
 rarely been exacted. ... A great change, however, has now been 
 introduced. . . . Under this Act, . . . after three years, depriva- 
 tion follows as a natural and inevitable consequence." We may 
 say, indeed, that, as Milton would have described it — 
 
 "... that two-handed engine at the door 
 Stands ready to strike once, and strike no more." 
 
 " The penalties," Mr. Brooke observes, " are suflSciently severe 
 and easy of application." But, it seems, they have been found 
 by certain parties not sufficiently rapid in their action. There is 
 the interval of three years before the final blow comes down. 
 Hence the recent proceedings in the way of sif/nifcavit to the Court 
 of Chancery, and imprisonment in consequence. " The self-acting 
 process," meanwhile, as has already been said elsewhere, "would 
 seem to be an entire novelty in Ecclesiastical Law ; " and, it may 
 be added, I conceive, in temporal law also. At all events, it is a 
 somewhat different sort of procedure Avhich is contemplated in the 
 Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth, tolerably strict and stringent as its 
 provisions were. It is " ordained and enacted " there, that " if any 
 person or persons whatsoever shall . . . declare or speak anything in 
 the derogation, depraving, or despising of the same book [of Common 
 Prayer], or of anything contained, or any part thereof ; or shall by
 
 A CHARGE. 73 
 
 open fact, deed, or by open threatenings, compel, or cause, or 
 otherwise procure or maintain any parson, vicar, or other minister 
 ... to sing or say any common or open prayer, or to minister any 
 sacrament, otherwise or in any other manner or form than is men- 
 tioned in the said book ; or that by any of the said means shall 
 unlawfully interrupt or let any parson, vicar, or other minister . . . 
 to sing or say common or open prayer, or to minister the sacra- 
 ments or any of them, in such manner or form as is mentioned in the 
 said book ; that then every such person, being thereof lawfully con- 
 victed in form aforesaid, shall forfeit to the queen our sovereign 
 lady, her heirs and successors, for the first offence an hundred 
 marks." 
 
 Then follows, in another clause, " And if any person or persons, 
 being once convict of any such offence, eftsoons oftend against any 
 of the last-recited oflences, and shall in form aforesaid be thereof 
 lawfully convict ; that then the same person so offending and convict 
 shall, for the second oftence, forfeit to the queen our sovereign, her 
 heirs and successors, four hundred marks. 
 
 "And if any person, after he in form aforesaid shall have been 
 twice convict, etc., shall oifend the third time, and be thereof in 
 form aforesaid lawfully convict, that then every person so offend- 
 ing and convict shall, for his third offence, forfeit to our sovereign 
 lady the queen all his goods and chattels, and shall suffer 
 imprisonment during his life." 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 In regard to one of the two points, referred to by the Arch- 
 bishop, on which it was impossible to enter in the j^receding Charge, 
 viz. the highest Court of Appeal, I have desired to call attention 
 to the proposals made in Bills brought by the spiritual heads 
 of the Church into the House of Lords in successive years now 
 long past, not so much in regard to the particular arrangements 
 proposed in those Bills, as in reference to the question of amending 
 the order of final appeals, and, particularly, by the formation of a 
 special Court for the purpose, in place of the Judicial Committee of 
 the Privy Council, as at present constituted. It is important also 
 to bear in mind the fact that such proposals were thus made and 
 carefully considered ; inasmuch as it lias been very commonly 
 supposed, that Churchmen were satisfied with the existing arrange- 
 ments prior to certain decisions of the Judicial Committee, and, 
 primarily, in the Gorham case. It has also been a general impres- 
 sion, that the question lay between the Judicial Committee on the
 
 74 A CHAKGE. 
 
 one hand, and an exclusively clerical tribunal on the other — which 
 is a misapjDrehension of what was conceived to be included under 
 the "spiritualty." 
 
 A word, however, must here be said in reference to the rule 
 of former days, lately revived, concerning the Privy Council and 
 the secrecy required of its members. It is due, meanwhile, to the 
 memory of the Star Chamber, which is sometimes referred to in an 
 obnoxious sense, to recall to mind that there was no secrecy in 
 regard to the part which its individual members had taken. Cer- 
 tain published speeches of Archbishop Laud's in the Star Chamber 
 are, by themselves, sufficient to correct this mistake. And it may 
 be observed also that in the High Court of Delegates there was no 
 such secrecy. It was known jirecisely how every one voted. In 
 a testamentary cause, which originated in the Consistorial Court 
 at Chester, and sentence given which was affirmed by the Chancery 
 Court of York, the High Court of Delegates, to Avhom an appeal 
 was presented, in 1815, after five days' argument, gave no judg- 
 ment, the six judges delegates present being divided. " It was 
 understood" that Mr. Justice Bayley, Dr. Arnold, and Dr. 
 (Joseph) Phillimore were on one side ; and Mr. Baron Wood, Mr. 
 Justice Dallas, and Dr. Dodson on the other.' " A Commission 
 of Adjuncts was granted, and the cause was again argued," the 
 arguments occupying eight days, with eight judges delegates 
 present ; four of those who sat before, with four added, viz. Mr. 
 Baron Richards, Dr. Burnaby, Dr. Daubeny, and Dr. "Gostling : 
 and the Judges, " being equally divided, gave no judgment." " A 
 second Commission of Adjuncts issued. The cause was argued a 
 third time," on five days, before fourteen delegates, there having 
 been added Mr. Justice Park, j\Ir. Justice Holroyd, Sir Christopher 
 Robinson, Dr. Parson, Dr. Arnold, and Dr. Dodson ; who, again, 
 *' being equally divided, gave no judgment." "A third Commis- 
 sion of Adjuncts was then granted ; the cause was argued a fourth 
 time, on tliree days, the judges delegates, thirteen in number. Dr. 
 Meyrick being one of them, reversed so much of the sentence of 
 the Chancery Court of York as condemned certain parties in costs ; " 
 but in all other respects pronounced that the Judges of the Courts 
 below, as well in the first as in the second instance, had proceeded 
 rightly, justly, and lawfully, etc." ^ 
 
 Tliis one instance may suffice to show how it came to pass that 
 the High Court of Delegates was abolished, in conformity with the 
 advice of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Law, of 1830 ; its imper- 
 fection arose, it is important to observe, out of the very fact that 
 
 ' Burn's Erclcsiaslkal Law, edit. Phillimore, \o\. i. p. do. 
 ^ Ibid., p. Oo, a.
 
 A CHARGE, 75 
 
 the questions were to so gi-eat an extent dealt with by Judges 
 specially conversant with civil and ecclesiastical law. Hence arose 
 the inconvenience that, after eminent Judges in the Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Courts had given sentence, leading civilians being retained 
 as advocates on either side, the larger Court which was required 
 was made up by the addition of names of inferior authority. But 
 at every step, it will be observed, in connection with the point for 
 which it is now referred to, there was no secrecy as to the view 
 taken by each of the delegates. 
 
 In like manner, in the Gorham case, before the Judicial Com- 
 mittee, the judgment began with the statement, respecting this 
 case of appeal, "It has been fully heard before us; and by the 
 direction of her Majesty, the liearing was attended by my Lords, 
 the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the BishoiJ of 
 London, who are members of her Majesty's Privy Council. We 
 have the satisfaction of being authorized to state that the Most 
 Reverend Prelates, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, after 
 perusing copies of our jvidgment, have expressed their approbation 
 thereof. The Right Reverend the Lord Bishoj) of London does 
 not concur therein." The judgment also concluded by saying, 
 " His Honour the Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce dissents from our 
 judgment ; but all the other members of the Judicial Committee 
 who were present at the hearing of the case (those who are now 
 present and Baron Parke, who is unavoidably absent on circuit), 
 are unanimously agreed in opinion ; and the judgment of their 
 Lordships is that the doctrine held by Mr. Gorham is not contrary 
 or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England as 
 by law established ; and that Mr. Gorham ought not, by reason of 
 the doctrine held by him, to have been refused admission to the 
 Vicarage of Brampford-Speke. We shall, therefore, humbly report 
 to her Majesty that the sentence pronounced by the learned Judge 
 ought to be reversed ; and that it ought to be declared that the 
 respondent, the Lord Bishop of Exeter, has not shown sufEcient 
 cause why he did not institute Mr. Gorham to the said vicarage. 
 We shall humbly advise her Majesty to remit the cause with that 
 declaration to the Arches Court of Canterbury, to the end that 
 right and justice may there be done in this matter, pursuant to 
 the said declaration." 
 
 Again, the judgment given seven years afterwards (1857), in the 
 case of Liddell v. Westerton and Liddell v. Beal, ended by saying, 
 " In the case of ' Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter,' where a diflerence 
 of opinion existed among the Prelates who attended at the hearing, 
 it was thought proper publicly to announce such dilt'erence. In 
 tlie present case it is satisfactory to their Lordships to be able to 
 state that both his Grace the Archljishnp of Canterbury and the
 
 76 A CHARGE. 
 
 Lord Bishop of London concur in the judifment which has just 
 been delivered."^ 
 
 The Appeal was heard before " the Lord Chancellor (Cranworth), 
 Lord Wensleydale, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Sir John Patteson, and 
 Sir William H. Maule. Privy Councillors specially summoned : 
 the ArchbishoiJ of Canterbury (Sumner), Bishoj) of London 
 (Tait)."^ Two members of the Committee, it may be observed, 
 were the same as in the Gorham case. 
 
 In the cases of Williams v. Bishop of Salisbury and Wilson v. 
 Fendall (February, 1864), the tAvo Archbishops (Archbishops 
 Longley and Thomson) and the Bishop of London (Tait) were 
 members of the Committee, together with the Lord Chancellor 
 (Westbury), Lord Cranwoi-th, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord Kings- 
 down. The Lord Chancellor concluded the Report of the 
 Committee by saying, ' ' I am desired by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury and the Archbishop of Yoi-k, to state that they do not concur 
 in those parts of this judgment which relate to the seventh article 
 of charge against Dr. Williams, and to the eighth article of charge 
 against SL:. Wilson."'* 
 
 " The form now commonly used, when an appeal has been 
 decided by the Superior Court, is. That the cause be remitted to 
 the Court below, to the end that right and justice may be there 
 done." * It is very commonly supposed that the judgment of the 
 Judicial Committee is read, in full, before the Pri^^ Council, and 
 there adopted by the Queen in Council. But this, I believe, is a 
 mistake. All that comes before the Privy Council is the bare 
 Rejiort made on the case by the Judicial Committee ; the detailed 
 judgment of the Judicial Committee being a statement of the view 
 taken by the Committee, the platform on which the Rejiort is laid. 
 
 The two Acts, passed in successive years of Henry YIII., and 
 which are specified in the Commission lately gi-anted — viz. the 
 Acts 24 Henry VIII. , cap. 12, and 25 Henry VIII., cap. 192 
 — may be regarded as embodying within them the constitution, 
 historically and legally, of the Ecclesiastical Courts of England, and 
 the provision then to be made on recognized principles. With regard 
 to the latter subject, the later of the two Acts rejjresents that 
 "the Clergy of this realm of England hath most huml)ly besought 
 the King's Highness, that the constitutions and canons " then in 
 force "may be committed to the examination and judgment of 
 his Higliness, and of two and thii-ty jjersons of the King's subjects, 
 
 ^ Brooke's Six Judgments, p. 76 ; Brodrickand Fremantle, p. 155. 
 2 Brooke, p. 42. ^ ^-.j^^^ p i(,2. 
 
 * Erclesiafitiral Cases, etc., edited by Brodrick and Fremantle, 
 Preface, p. xxvii.
 
 A CHARGE. 77 
 
 ■whereof sixteen to be of the Upper and Nether House of the 
 Parliament of the temporalty, and the other sixteen to be of the 
 Clergy of tliis realm ; and all the said two and thirty persons to be 
 chosen and appointed by the King's Majesty ; " this enactment 
 being ' ' by authority of tliis present Parliament, according to the 
 said submission and petition of the said Clergy." The same 
 Statute provided for the appeal " for lack of justice, at or in any 
 of the Courts of the Archbishops of this realm, or in any the King's 
 dominions," " to the King's Majesty in the King's Court of 
 Chancery ; " whereupon a Commission was, upon every such 
 appeal, to be " directed, under the great seal, to such persons as 
 shall be named by the Bang's Highness, his heirs or successors, like 
 as in case of apx^eal from the Admiralty Court, to hear and defini- 
 tively determine such appeals, and the causes concerning the 
 same." Tliis was what was commonly known as the Court of 
 Delegates, which continued as the Supreme Court of Appeal till 
 tlie transfer was made to the Privy Council (1832), and thence to 
 the Judicial Committee (1833). 
 
 The two Statutes above specified, having been repealed by 1 and 
 2 Philip and Mar\^, cap. 8, were revived by the Act 1 Elizabeth, 
 cap. 1, and, with them, four other Acts of the same year of Henry 
 Till. (25 Henry VIII., cap. 9 ; cap. 12; cap. 20; and cap. 21). 
 Not so an Act of the year following (26 Henry VIII., cap. 1), 
 entitled, " The King's Grace to be authorized Supreme Head." It 
 has been incorrectly stated that this Act was revived by the Act 
 1 Elizabeth, cap.~ 1.^ Its non-revival is sufficiently accounted 
 for by the Queen's well-known repugnance to this title, however 
 qualified by the words of the Statute, " the only supreme head in 
 earth : " and the omission of tliis Act is the more remarkable when 
 we find another Ecclesiastical Act of the same year of Henry VIII., 
 revived by Elizabeth — an Act " for nomination of Suffragans, and 
 consecration of them." The Act of Elizabeth did, indeed, authorize 
 the Queen to assign Commissioners to exercise ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction ; and thus arose that great source of future trouble, the Court 
 of High Commission, framed on lines entirely distinct from the 
 established course of Ecclesiastical judicature, as recognized by 
 the earlier Statutes, reflecting the constitutional principles of 
 Church and State in England. 
 
 It is not difiicult to understand, now, how it is that there are 
 found so few instances, as has been often observed of late, of 
 appeals, in regular course, from the Archbishops' Courts to the 
 Delegates. Proceedings in matters concerning ritual went through 
 the Court of High Commission ; and not unnaturally. Amidst the 
 
 Stephens's Collection of Statutes, vol. i. p. 177.
 
 78 A CHAEGE. 
 
 prejudice against the Bishops' Courts, inherited from the reign of 
 Mary, here was a Court, deriving its effectual authority from the 
 Crown, wdth a large infusion of Laymen. There was no appeal 
 against it ; because it was a Court of first instance, constituted by 
 Statute, and with no appeal from it given in the Act which estab- 
 lished it. The serious question which its proceedings involved, as 
 stated by Bishop Stillingfleet, is, " Whether our ancient law doth 
 give the King a power, by ■virtue of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 to appoint Commissioners, by an extraordinary way of jxii'isdic- 
 tion, to proceed in prima instantid, against persons by ecclesiastical 
 censures." ^ 
 
 The Act 26 Henry YIII., cap. 1, it has been observed above, was 
 not revived by Elizabeth ; and a Vicar-General like the Lord 
 Cromwell never reappeared : but the Act of Elizabeth did 
 authorize the Crown to appoint Commissioners to exercise " all 
 manner of jurisdictions, pi"ivileges, and pre-eminences, in anj^ wise 
 touching or concerning any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction " 
 within these realms, "and to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, 
 and amend all such eiTors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, 
 contempts, and enormities whatsoever, which by any manner of 
 spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authoi'ity, or jurisdiction, can be 
 or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, 
 restrained, or amended, to the pleasure of Almighty God, the 
 increase of virtue, and the conservation of the peace and unity of 
 this realm." 
 
 " The High Commission Court which was created by virtue of this 
 clause, being abolished by Statute 16 Car. I., cajj. 11, the extent 
 and exercise of that authority," says Stephens, " are now matters 
 of mere speculation and cm-iosity ; but during the period that such 
 Coui't existed, there were many and great contests between it and 
 the Courts of Westminster Hall, concerning the extent of the 
 jurisdiction assigned and limited by this Statute; the Commissioners 
 not confining themselves to such crimes as might properly be called 
 enormous (heresy, schism, polygamy, incest, and recusancy), but 
 taking cognizance of adultery, alimony, defamation, laying violent 
 hands on a clei'k, misbehaviour of clergymen in their functions, 
 and the like ; the cognizance of which the Judges affirmed to belong 
 of right to the standing Ecclesiastical Courts, and not to the 
 enormities within the meaning of this Statute ; alleging further 
 that the exercise of jurisdiction, in these and the Hke cases, would 
 not only prej udice all the Bishops of England in their ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction, but would be also grievous to the subjects, who must 
 
 ^ Ecclesiastical Cases, pp. 2, 85, quoted by Stephens, vol. i. p. 
 357, note.
 
 A CIIAIIGE. 79 
 
 be drawn up out of all parts of the realm, when, before their own 
 Diocesan, they might receive justice at their own doors. Much 
 of this kind is to be met with in the reports of that time, 
 particularly in my Lord Coke, who strenuously resisted the 
 encroachments of the High Commission ; and he and the other 
 Judges restrained them, in many instances, by jirohibitions. " " The 
 Letters Patents, or Commission," as Mr. Stephens observes further, 
 " empowered the Commissioners to fine and imprison ; which they 
 accordingly practised in many cases ; and the practice was allowed 
 by the greater part of the Justices assembled at Serjeants' Inn to 
 consider of it (Gibson's Codex, 45), with this limitation, that the 
 fine ought to be reasonable, and the imprisonment only for a 
 moderate time. But the Commission being in its nature eccle- 
 siastical, and limited, by the express words of the Statute, to 
 oflences punishable by spiritual or ecclesiastical power ; and it 
 being found that divers, who were imprisoned in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, had been delivered by habeas corpus ; and that, 
 though fines had been imposed in that reign, none of them had 
 been levied ; — upon these considerations, and upon a full and 
 mature examination of the several parts of the Act, it was resolved 
 by all the Jiistices of the Common Pleas (9 Jac. I.), that this 
 Statute did not warrant a commission to fine and imprison ; which 
 resolution, and the reasons for it, are contained in the 4th Insti- 
 tute, 324." 
 
 It may seem to some persons a strange thing to find the temporal 
 Judges evincing this care and jealousy in behalf of the spiritual 
 Courts and their distinctive claims. But they were practically 
 alive to the difficulties which at once arose when the boundaries 
 between the spiritual and the temporal were in any wise trans- 
 gressed. They strongly felt what Lord Coke expressed where he 
 says, " Certain it is that this kingdom hath been best governed, 
 and peace and quiet preserved, when both parties, that is, when 
 the Justices of the temporal Courts, and the Ecclesiastical Judges, 
 have kept themselves within their proper jurisdiction, without 
 encroaching or usurping one upon another ; and where such en- 
 croachments or usurpations have been made, they have been the 
 seeds of great trouble and inconvenience. " ^ 
 
 In concluding these brief and inadequate notes, I would take 
 leave to add, that I do not ofi'er apologies for referring to previous 
 Charges : I should, in fact, feel it to be less excusable if I went 
 again over ground which had been traversed before. The present 
 
 1 4 Inst. 321. See Burn, edit. Phillimore (1842), vol. ii. p. 40.
 
 80 A CHARGE. 
 
 Charge may be said to be the following up, in some degree, pro re 
 natci, of discussions entered upon in former years, and in particular 
 in a Charge (referred to above) delivered four years ago, having for 
 its subject. The CJmrch in its Divine Constitution and Office, and in 
 its Relations with the Civil Power, 
 
 Pkecincts, Canterbury, 
 Jxdy 15, 1881. 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 41, line 10, dele her.
 
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