incumbrance which carelessness has allowed or superstition has introduced, would not rob the Church of any one of its fair proportions or legitimate ornaments.

The efficiency of the Church does not proceed from its being called this or that, nor even from its having nominally all the characteristics of a Church which are found in Scripture: its efficiency depends upon the machinery being complete, and this organization being filled with power. Christ had called apostles during his life time; but he commanded them not to begin their work, but wait at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. Succession from the apostles means continuing to carry on the same work in the Church now which the apostles began; and as they transmitted to others the power which they had received from above by laying their hands on the baptized, so that power has been transmitted by the laying on of bishops' hands throughout all ages of the Church. And it does not appear how, where the succession has been broken, the power can be continued. We do not say that the sacraments are invalidated so as to lose their saving efficacy where the succession is interrupted; for it has often been determined that baptism is valid by whomsoever administered nor do we say that this succession supersedes the necessity of faith, or that faith may not realize all the blessings of the Gospel, even where this succession is wanting; but, like all the other ordinances and means of grace, when received in faith, it will be accompanied with a larger measure of blessing. And the Churches in which it is found should feel a greater responsibility resting upon them in consequence : they should shew forth the fruits of the Spirit in a larger measure of zeal, diligence, holiness, and brotherly love towards each other, and charity towards all men.

:

The via media, which the Church of England advocates and exemplifies, is not a compromise of truth, but gives to truth its fair proportions, by keeping each one of the ordinances of Christ in its proper place, and so in harmony with all the rest. The reading of the word and the preaching of the Gospel are commanded by Christ, and these are therefore means of grace which he will acknowledge and bless. But these are not the only means of grace, nor are they the highest ordinances and most solemn of our Lord's commands: for Christ's last institutions his parting legacy to the disciples and the highest ordinances of the Christian Church-are the sacraments; and these, received in faith by those who know the Scriptures and believe the Gospel, shall nourish, strengthen, and preserve all such Christians unto life eternal.

453

ART. XI.-The Discipline of the Church in the Choice of her Ministers. London: Painter.

2. The Discipline and Government of the Church of England. London: Painter.

3. Discipline of the Anglican Church. By the Rev. H. CHRISTMAS. London: Painter.

4. Practice of the Anglican Church. By the Rev. H. CHRISTMAS. London: Painter.

THE English Church, in its present condition and organization, is one of those anomalous things that we occasionally, though rarely, meet with in this world; and, as a vast and influential body, it is certainly one of the most extraordinarily constituted in existence. It has amongst its orders, and degrees, and ranks, dignitaries so high that the Sovereign only is higher; beneath those are others who take precedence of all the barons of the realm; others also, its thousands upon thousands of subordinate ministers, dispersed over the whole land, officiating in every nook and corner of the kingdom, having everywhere a local habitation, and everywhere exercising a considerable influence over all around them-and yet has this great and active body no Head-no Executive.

Meanwhile it is in itself utterly powerless to make any laws, to enforce any canons, to correct any defects: it can neither reform itself nor extend itself: be its wants whatever they may, it cannot add one to the number of its bishops: it can form no new dioceses, nor in any manner change the old: it can in no case interfere for spiritual purposes with any existing parochial boundaries, inconvenient often as these are, and advantageously as they might in many cases be enlarged or diminished. It is in itself powerless to effect any change in its present condition and system-it has no settled lex scripte, and no power to form one. Canons it certainly has, which have, however, no force of law, and which are besides so unsuited to its wants that the greater portion are little better than a dead letter, and many are by general consent allowed for peace sake to lay by obsolete altogether.

Even the rubrics of the Church-the directions printed expressly in the Prayer Book for the very purpose of securing, as it was thought, uniformity in the service-even these are in some cases at variance wholly with its present practice; and some of these rubrics, if not actually contradictory one to another, admit at least of a wide difference of opinion, and are

variously acted upon according to the various views taken of them, and the various meanings assigned to them. Even the men who call themselves the especial interpreters and expounders of its laws, the proctors and the judges in the Ecclesiastical Courts, greatly differ at times among themselves as to what the law in reality is, and are continually giving very opposite judgments in causes ecclesiastical; nor can any one at this moment say what law is to guide the clergy in all their ministrations of the services of the Church; nor do they know whether the rubric, and the rubric alone, is in every case to be considered as their sole guide; or whether present customs may lawfully supersede the rubric; or whether an order from the bishop may legally set aside both, or the Arches Court judgment set them all aside. As a necessary consequence-where the law determinately settles so little, and present customs can plead no great antiquity, and so wide a field is open for diversities of opinion -the most opposite practices prevail in all the details of ministerial duty throughout all the dioceses in the kingdom.

None have more just cause to lament this than the clergy themselves; and many have been the attempts made by tracts, and pamphlets, and letters, and books, to suggest something that would amend the evils complained of. The very little result that has followed from all that has been hitherto written and said on the subject proves very clearly that our condition and discipline are such as to admit of no amendment from trifling means or from petty legislation. The confusion that prevails in the obscurity and complexity of the laws that bear directly and indirectly on the Church-the uncertainty in so many cases as to what the law is until the Dean of the Arches has given his judgment upon it-the ignorance and the indifference of the laity to all such subjects, and the extreme jealousy of the State and of statesmen of all parties lest the Church should escape from its present thraldom and subjection to the temporal power, paralyze the will as well as the power of all who attempt to legislate on her behalf, and seemingly convince all that profitable legislation is impossible.

Men's minds are exceedingly perplexed in reference to the bishops on this subject. It is argued that they must know the defective state of discipline in the Church, and yet they move not a finger nor lift up a voice to amend that which in the Church most needs amendment, and which, if amended, would relieve them of nineteen-twentieths of their trouble. But it is difficult to conceive that so many men of such various talents, and such active habits, should all tacitly agree to do nothing, unless they were all morally convinced that they would be al

lowed to do nothing. The seeming indifference of the bishops to the present almost lawless condition of the Church may arise from their utter hopelessness to effect any good, if they attempted to do good. It may be something more than a question with them whether the law lords would suffer any bill to pass that a bishop introduced, or any bill relating to Church subjects that was not introduced by themselves. What passed in the session of 1846 would lead to such a conclusion; but, if we are wrong in all this, the silence and inertness of the bishops on the subject is undoubtedly unaccountable, and for any thing we know indefensible.

Help, however, from some cause or other, does not come from them, and it can come from nothing beyond them; and herein is our difficulty that we are a multitudinous body, set apart for directly spiritual uses, having exclusively spiritual functions to perform, and exceedingly ill defined laws to lead us to a faithful performance of our various spiritual duties and yet have we no Executive in the Church-no spiritual head to govern or to guide us-to direct us in the right way, or to correct us when we are wandering from it. When difficulties arise, or doubts and perplexities on any subject, we must settle our own diversities of ideas as we best can, and compromise our many differences of opinions as we are best able. The bishops are invariably divided upon every subject that can possibly interest the Church: it seems to be a fixed law among them that there never shall be agreement between them-that their house shall, on every question spiritual or political, be ever divided against itself that Norwich shall always oppose Exeter; and, so far as votes and speeches can go, invariably defeat all the designs of London. As there is never any concord among them on any imaginable subject, and there is no spiritual authority superior to their own in the kingdom, the Church at large has provided the next best substitute for a spiritual head that it could find in the Dean of the Arches. The nearest approach to a Pope that we have yet attained is Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, who has more power over the Church than all other persons, lay or ecclesiastical, in the kingdom: no one, like him, can enunciate laws, or decide controversies, or punish delinquents: he alone has the power to suspend or deprive clerics ab officio et a beneficio, and to decide absolutely upon all the multifarious questions that, from time to time, are agitated within the Church; so decisive is his judgment, and so deferentially is it received, that the dicta of all the bishops of the united kingdom would not upset it; nor would their most strongly expressed opinion be valued one rush in comparison with it.

This in times to come may work for good or for evil, as those times will show; but at the present, for any head that hears, and sees, and thinks, that opens its mouth and speaks, the Church must content itself with the head of the Judge in the Arches Court: that head unfortunately, perhaps unavoidably, winks at much that it sees, and nods drowsily or otherwise over much that it hears: and it would never in fact open its mouth at all, did not some learned advocate force from it an opinion, and call upon it deliberately and decidedly for a judgment. It being a rule of the Arches Court never to know anything whatever of what the Church does but what is spoken of within its own walls-but what is brought before it expressly for adjudication-we can never hope that the head of that court would look a little into the strange disorders of that body with which he is so strangely connected, and endeavour to heal some of its very many infirmities. No one, however, better knows its constitution than he does, nor the many just causes of its continual complainings; nor has any one the power and the influence over it which he has. Any mere hint from him would be received as a law by the Church, which would at once tacitly and firmly act upon it. Even bishops must bow under the weighty sceptre he wields when he chooses to rule; for he has rods of brine for all ranks and for all sorts of clerical delinquencies: one word from him would suspend the whole bench, if just cause arose, and send them adrift on the world without a profession and without an income.

A power so great that it cannot be defined-that is limited by no law-that has never yet been exercised perhaps to its. utmost limits-is a formidable power, and a power greater than is professed by any other subject: it is the power to make laws and to enforce them when made; or, which is very much the same thing, of saying what the law shall be on every subject with which the Church has to do, and what the punishment shall be when such law is not obeyed. Yet, great as the power is, our regret is that it is so seldom exercised-that the hands that wield it are so slow to use it; in safer hands such power could never be. All our past experience has taught us, and all history teaches, the power, by whomsoever usurped, when put in force upon the Church, has invariably been scandalously abused; and to prevent it being ever again usurped it should be conferred or confirmed, and that in the amplest manner, upon those who were never known to use the power they possessed but for the Church's good.

Many instances are there of sovereigns, and of subjects, and of rebels, who used all the power they could grasp to plunder,