The Absence of Authority to Correct Books of Prayer. 63

mistake of writers, occasioned the imperfection of the copy. The priest, therefore, in the use of words, had depended on memory, or he had used others ad libitum. Over the contents of the book no authoritative supervision had prevailed; and therefore, the priests, having the book as their own, dealt with it and with its contents as best pleased them. Henceforth the 'Canon of the Mass' was to be corrected; but not one word is uttered as to the other parts. Neither is the archdeacon empowered to correct even this part; if done at all, the priest or some friendly scribe for him was to do it, and that according 'to some true and approved copy.' Probably the 'Use of Sarum is intended; if so, the design was to expedite a more general acceptance of the book, the reception of which dragged heavily along. Be that as it may, an approved' copy was to be the model in the correction. Authority is not meant by the word 'approved;' it rather must be restricted to some copy which had found favour or acceptance. For authority would have been itself obliged to be more definite; whereas some' one book is mentioned. Had any authority existed upon this matter, the man who issued the instruction would have been the last, not to have summoned it forth to his aid. Hubert Walter, who made the constitution, was Archbishop of Canterbury, Legate a Latere, and Chief Justiciary of England, at one and the same time. 'He was a man who evinced an im'moderate affectation for secular power,' Johnson tells us : and he himself, in the preamble states, that he 'held assizes and all pleas of the Crown by his officers, but he and his officials held pleas of Christianity,' i.e., sat in the Ecclesiastical Court. His object is also stated to have been to 'reform the 'ecclesiastical manners of that Church'-York-where he sat in Council. Yet even this man, armed and fenced about as he was with power, both civil and ecclesiastical, did not seek to carry out this reform of the 'Canon of the Mass' (the most vital point) by the aid of either one or the other kind of law. Whatever of correction was to take place was to be made by archdeacons. Now mark-the threat was despised. For, according to Lynwood (quoted by Johnson, in his note upon the 25th Canon of 1222), the archdeacon has by common 'right power to visit by way of inquiry, but they have no 'power of correction without custom, except for slight matters;' and therefore this last-quoted canon charges the archdeacons to 'view' the books. So that Walter, in throwing this correction of them upon the archdeacons, tacitly acknowledged there was no authority that could reach this case.

Things grew worse. Priests are charged, in the succeeding

canons, with not 'rightly pronouncing the words;' with not 'knowing their true meaning;' with being 'stupidly unwilling 'to Baptize;' and many other things of this sort. For these negligences and irregularities a remedy was provided; not one that should correct the priest, but one designed to mislead the people. It was pretended that the priest, both in the nocturnal and diurnal office, celebrated with diligence and devotion, as 'God gives ability; and that all the sacraments were performed 'with such devotion as God inspires.' Was it a ray of light that had lingered from better times, which now induced the Church to talk about ability? It was the word Justin Martyr had used in A.D. 155, when he said, 'the Bishop sent up praises and 'prayers to God with his utmost ability,' oon duvauio. Respecting the full and true meaning of this word many strong controversies formerly prevailed among learned men. It does not belong to our present purpose to even mention the views entertained by them upon. this point. Had the word 'ability' stood alone in this Canon of A.D. 1222, such reference would have been ad rem. But, seeing that a claim to inspiration is linked in with it, we must take the two words together. The Church was fond of this claim to inspiration; it had often been advanced in the Saxon age; and was set up by Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1236, when he ushered in his Constitution, as being made by the power of the Holy Ghost.' Peckham followed the same rule, when, in 1281, he says, 'the Church, by the 'Holy Ghost, with her sacraments and laws, is sufficient for the 'salvation of every man, though he be a sinner to never so great a degree.' These later authorities explain the meaning of the words 'ability' and 'inspire.' They show the gathering of errors in the Dark Ages of the Church, and are the matured form of that fatal dogma, the opus operatum of the Papacy.

The Church becomes more degenerate and more impiously pretentious; but holds, withal, a certain kind of freedom. You have a remarkable illustration in the proceedings adopted by Peckham, or 'roaring John,' as he was called, because of the fury with which he addressed the priests of his day. He delivered himself thus:

'Ye ignorant priests. We fear not the teeth of detraction. We intend, by the preventing grace of the Spirit, to correct some innovations, or rather, transgressions, now exhaling from the infernal pit. Among your damnable neglects, ye, with accursed tongues, consecrate the Sacrament of the Lord's body. Through your ignorance, the effects of the Sacrament of Penance are lost; so that those who were thought to be safe landed, are but sunk deeper in the abyss of damnation. Ye slay souls redeemed with the blood of Christ, and

subvert ecclesiastical discipline. We judge such men to be confossers of the Devil's ditches, rather than confessors.'

What punishment followed? None at all. Were these priests who subverted ecclesiastical discipline, and, according to him, did much worse things, were these men expelled the Church? Nothing of the sort. Their neglects,' and 'the great and scan'dalous neglect' of the men of A.D. 1662, were treated by a perfectly opposite process. So much so, that the 381 years that had elapsed since Peckham had thus roared, ought to have been transposed; the last period being allowed to fall into the first, and the first made to take the place of the last. For, as to the effects of the legislation of the two periods, the contrast is so great as almost to preclude the belief that they belonged to the ecclesiastical code of the times when they bear date..

This extraordinary Archbishop Peckham had to contend single-handed against priests. His successors had to do battle with the people. These were the most formidable antagonists. The Lollards, as an organized body, were the first to enter on the field of conflict with the Roman priesthood, and the last to leave it. Their exploits of faith, of toil, and of courage, are patent to the world.. To crush them the entire body of the Episcopates became content to hazard one of the most ancient constitutional rights of their own order. They, at least, placed that right in abeyance for the time. Desiring to dilate the worship of God,' says Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1416, 'we think fit that the memory of "John of 'Beverley (an old Saxon saint and bishop, who had been dead 695 years) 'should be celebrated everywhere within our province ' in the manner of one confessor, with the regimen of the choir, 'according to the Use of the Church of Sarum for ever. Several things are here remarkable:-1. The Use of Sarum had never before, during the 339 years it had obtained accept. ance, received an authoritative sanction. It had prevailed only by custom, according as priests or people chose to accept or decline. 2. Now that it gains an authorization, the sanction runs no further than to those parts which regulate a yearly feast, and does not extend to public worship generally; and 3, this very sanction is given with reserve, 'We think fit,' and 'do ordain, with the advice and consent of our brethren and 'clergy'-terms which Linwood says were not only proper, but necessary, because the whole province was brought within the reach of the obligation. Had any other matter engaged the attention of convocation, or secured their approval, it would have sufficed to specify the fact in general words. But here

NO. LXXI.

F

the matter was peculiar. It pressed hard upon the ancient prescriptive right of each bishop, to prepare and provide a use for his own diocese, a right he could not surrender without the consent of his own diocesan synod, composed, as that was, of laymen as well as clergy,-a right which was old as the first submission of the bishops to the Pope under Theodore, A.D. 673, and re-affirmed in the act of formal submission of the secular power in England to Rome, A.D. 785. The bishops might well be chary, therefore, in a matter involving such weighty considerations.

To this period (i.e., 1416), the whole question of public worship or prayer had rested upon the same basis as praise. Neither hymns nor psalmody were ever legally provided or legally enforced. As far back, indeed, as A.D. 747, it was determined in a National Council that nothing be read or sung which is "not allowed by common use; but only what is derived from the "authority of Holy Scripture, and what the custom of the Roman 'Church permits. But, as Johnson remarks, 'the Church never 'made any laws or canons about it, but it was taken up and 'carried on by the tacit approbation of all.' The italics are his, in a note upon the Canon of 1305. Therefore it is that to this very day, everything connected with hymns or tunes rests with the minister of each church, be it parish or district, cathedral or collegiate. We repeat it, the same principle prevailed as to the Service of the Church. Use, not law, was the rule, and the only rule. 'The people' did in this matter what Henry VIII. says they did with the canon laws-they, at their free liberty, by their own consent, took and kept them."* And because the Service of the Church was thus taken, it gained the force it acquired. It became inwrought in all their habits of thought, mixed in with all their desires, flowed with all their affections, soothed their sorrows, accompanied them to the grave, and gave repose to their souls after .death. No wonder such service became another name for life itself. The intrinsic merits of the Service of the Church lie not within the province of the present question. Be these what they may, the one great fact established is, not only that diversity of service obtained, but also that liberty in the use prevailed.

So stood this grave national institution of public worship until the time of the Reformation. Then a new and unique phase appears upon the whole arrangement. The framework underwent reconstruction, and the principle of adoption entirely changed. As we have examined the anterior order by

* 25 Henry VIII, ch. 21., Preamble.

Edward VI.-First Act of Uniformity.

67

light supplied from ecclesiastical law, emanating from ecclesiastical persons; so now we have to exhibit the newly-established order of service, through the media of statutes proceeding from parliamentary authority.

The First Act of Uniformity passed A.D. 1549. The preamble confirms the previous illustrations of the diversity and liberty of public worship. It has these words: Where of long time 'there hath been had in this realm divers forms of Common 'Prayer, commonly called the Service of the Church, that is 'to say, the Use of Sarum, of York, of Bangor, and of Lincoln; 'and besides the same now of late, much more divers and sundry 'forms and fashions have been used in the cathedral and parish 'churches; with divers and sundry rites and ceremonies con'cerning matins and even song, and in the administration of other 'sacraments of the Church." 'The King hath hitherto divers 'times assayed to stay innovation or new rites, yet the same hath 'not had such good success as his Highness required, therefore 'he hath been pleased with the intent to secure a uniform, quiet, 'and godly order,' to appoint Cranmer and others to make one 'convenient and meet Order of Common Prayer, the which, by 'the aid of the Holy Ghost, is of them concluded.' This order was thenceforth to be used in such order and form as is 'contained in the said book, and none other or otherwise.'

This statute did two things. It struck away the ancient prescriptive right of bishops to prepare, vary, and recommend a Use of Open Prayer for their respective sees; and next, it tied up the entire body of the clergy to certain words, to be uttered in prescribed forms, and none other or otherwise.' Had this been all, the Act would have been a dead letter as to many of the clergy. There were then, had been from time immemorial, and there are now, ministers who are 'ordinaries' in their own churches. The bishop even now does not visit' them. By virtue of institution, they can exercise all the functions of a diocesan, and are remnants of the ancient parochial bishops. Such unique ordinaries' were, however, by a very graceful turn in the Act, brought within its scope and operation. Section xiii. gives archbishops, bishops, and other ordinaries, 'having peculiar ecclesiastical jurisdictions,' power to carry the Act into effect; and by consequence what these other ordi'naries' did, or aided in doing in a diocess, that they might be called upon to do in their own parishes. It was necessary to bring in this provision, because by the constitution of Peckham, A.D. 1281, certain things were to be done by certain men, 'unless he [who did them] be exempt from the 'ordinary jurisdiction, both diocesan and metropolitical;' and