ments of God; so that you may teach the people committed to your care, and charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same?"

Answer: "I will do so, by the help of the Lord."

“Will you reverently obey your Ordinary, and other Chief Ministers unto whom is committed the charge and government over you, following with a glad heart all their godly admonitions, and submitting yourselves to their godly judgments?"

Answer: "I will do so, the Lord being my helper."

Similar vows are required of Deacons.

Moreover, in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, an Act was passed for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church, and administration of the Sacraments, which Act is printed in the beginning of the Prayer Book, and is binding on the clergy just as much now, as it was at first.

A portion of the said Act is to the following effect:

"To the end that uniformity in the public worship of God (which is so much to be desired), may be effected, be it further enacted,

by the authority aforesaid, that every person who shall hereafter be presented, or collated, or put into any Ecclesiastical Benefice, or Promotion, within this Realm of England,—shall, in the church, or chapel, or place of worship, belonging to the said Benefice or Promotion, within two months next after he shall be in actual possession of the said Ecclesiastical Benefice or Promotion, upon some Lord's Day, openly, publicly, and solemnly, read the Morning and Evening Prayers, appointed to be read by, and according to, the said Book of Common Prayer, at the time thereby appointed; and, after such reading thereof, shall openly and publicly, before the congregation then assembled, declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things therein contained and prescribed, according to the form before appointed." [Which form may be seen by any one looking at the preface to the Book of Common Prayer].

The

A similar declaration is made previously to any one being licenced to a cure of souls. 6th, 14th, and 28th Canons relate to the same subject; and the latter enacts, that, "If any Minister shall omit to use the form of prayer, or any of the orders or ceremonies pre

scribed in the Communion Book, let him be suspended; and if, after a month, he do not reform and submit himself, let him be excommunicated; and then, if he shall not submit within the space of another month, let him be deposed from the ministry. And in order to appease any diversity (if any arise), and for the resolution of all doubts concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute the things contained in this Book [of Common Prayer], the parties that so doubt, or diversely take any thing, shall resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who, by his direction, shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same, so that the same order be not contrary to any thing contained in this book; and if the Bishop of the Diocese be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution thereof to the Archbishop."

Now, here we have, in theory at least, ample provision for the maintenance of discipline and order in the public worship. Yet it is notorious that many of the Clergy do what seemeth good in their own eyes. You shall scarcely enter two churches where the mode of administration of the service is the same. In some churches most

important portions of the service are omitted, in some, various novelties are introduced.

The extreme inconvenience and impropriety of this arbitrary variation in public worship, has forcibly struck many of the Clergy, and they have spontaneously returned to the written orders of the Prayer Book, not only as being the rule according to which, by their own solemn declaration, they are bound to act, but as being the only possible means of establishing uniformity. Moreover, some of the Bishops have publicly recommended a return to the neglected portion of the Church Service. What is the result of their recommendation? In some places, their "godly admonitions" have been complied with, even by those who do not discern their necessity. They told their congregations that the Bishop had recommended certain restorations of the written instructions of the Church, and, therefore, they were to be restored; and so the matter ended, without the slightest difficulty or confusion. And so it might have been in every diocese in England, but for the opposition which has arisen in quarters where it could not have been expected.

In some places, the Clergy, who, before God,

vowed that they would reverently obey their Ordinary, and other chief Ministers, unto whom is committed the charge and government over them, have refused obedience; others have silently neglected to follow the recommendations of their Bishop; others have stirred up their congregations to resistance; and yet these men are suffered still to officiate in the Anglican Church! The conduct of some congregations, though not so flagrantly improper, inasmuch, as it is not in the teeth of vows solemnly and deliberately taken, is, nevertheless, most disorderly and schismatical. I will not record the name of the parish which has been most prominent in resisting the orders of their Diocesan. Suffice it to say, that they have informed the Bishop that the recommendations which he has made, and which, in this case, have been dutifully followed by the incumbent, are, though in exact accordance with the regulations of the Church, utterly inconsistent with their views and feelings; nay, more, are so utterly repugnant to them, that they are firmly convinced that, if persisted in, it will ultimately very materially injure the true interests of the Church. "We do not think it necessary," they