The Marriage Service.

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Thirdly, if confirmation be merely the admission of communicants to the table of the Lord, why is it specifically the act of the diocesan rather than of the congregational bishop or pastor? Is there any peculiar virtue in the Episcopal office, qualifying for a spiritual insight which the ordinary pastor does not possess ? Or is it, as Dr. Wordsworth affirms, that only a bishop can confirm, inasmuch as Peter and James, who confirmed the Samaritans, were apostles? On what authority does it need a bishop to qualify communicants to come to the Lord's table? Mr. Blunt supplies us with the only possible explanation by telling us that some virtue inheres in the laying on of Episcopal hands, for which an ordinary pastor is not sufficient.

'The outward sign of Confirmation is the same as that of ordination, the laying on of hands by a bishop. Confirmation is indeed a kind of lesser ordination, by which the baptized person receives the gift of the Holy Ghost for the work of adult Christian life.'* And to him Dr. Wordsworth agrees, 'The laying on of hands of the bishop on those who have been baptized, is an act done by him after the example of the apostle.' Even for the same purpose as the apostles had done, namely, for the conveyance of the gift of the Holy Ghost to those who had been baptized.'+

So that in this nineteenth Christian century, we have, in the Protestant Church of England poor fallible men calling themselves the successors of the apostles, and claiming power to impart to their fellow-men gifts of the Holy Ghost. Indeed this is the only coherent explanation of this service: this alone makes it congruous with the office for Baptism; but it also proves how thoroughly the entire system of the Prayer Book is pervaded with the idea of sacramental grace; and how truly the Book of Common Prayer was described by James I., when he designated it an ill-translated mass-book.' As is invariably the case, in proportion to the supposed sacramental virtue, is the mechanical character and practical inefficiency of the spiritual tests.

Concerning the Marriage Service and its gross outrage of all modest feeling, we will say only, First-granting as we do, that it is the archaism of an age when such things did not offend delicacy—what are we to think of the miserable impo

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+Manual,' pp. 8, 9. Dr. Hook explains it to the same effect in 'Questions and Answers,' p. 9.

For a concise and admirable exposition of the Rite, and of the Sacramentarian and superstitious ideas involved in it, we would refer to a pamphlet entitled 'A Candid Examination of the Rite of Confirmation,' by a Nonconforming Minister (Jackson and Walford).

tence that is unable to alter even offensive phraseology upon which no disputed question can turn? And next, What are we to think of the 'filthy dreamers' who resent the quiet suppression of the most offensive phrases, which, with a great feeling of relief, modern delicacy has sanctioned, and insist upon the ipsissima verba of the entire service as prescribed by the rubric? And yet this is but on a par with the disgusting prescriptions concerning the administration of the Lord's Supper which are found in the Directorium Anglicanum.' Priestism is true still to its traditional pruriency; only it will not be so easily tolerated as aforetimes.

The Service for the Burial of the Dead might provoke extended comment, were not our space exhausted. Its presumptuous because indiscriminate use of language of absolute assurance, while perfectly congruous with the Church's sacramentarian theory of baptism, is yet so utterly contradictory of notorious facts of actual life, and is practically so delusive and pernicious, that it has ever been a great Téтρа σкávòaλov of the Prayer Book. A London physician, since dead, as eminent for his piety as for his professional skill, once told the writer that he was summoned to a patient who had been thrown from his horse while hunting, and whose case was a 'hopeless one. In his spiritual solicitude, the patient appealed to his physician, who sought to comfort him by directing him to the merciful Saviour; but in vain. The physician, the next morning, was surprised and gratified to find his patient calm and hopeful. Ah, doctor!' said he, 'you yesterday told me many things, but you did not tell me of what I have been ' reminded this morning, that in my baptism I was "made ""a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; "and resting upon that hope he died.' In one of our principal metropolitan grave-yards, just before it was closed, a poor prostitute was followed to her grave by two of her unhappy companions. When the words of glorious hope which the Burial Service prescribes were uttered by the excellent clergyman, one was heard to say to the other, 'Then, it, Nan, there is no fear for us, for she was a

'precious deal worse than we are.'

By what authority does a poor ignorant man anticipate the sentence of the final Judge, or pronounce in any way concerning the destiny of an individual human soul? At any rate, a common service, to be indiscriminately used, should be constructed so as to be free from the perilous defect of obliterating all moral distinctions.

As to the moral effect of the service upon those who use it, we

could not have a better or a more melancholy illustration than is furnished by Dr. C. J. Vaughan, the pious" and excellent vicar of Doncaster, who in his 'Revision of the Liturgy' says:

'I question indeed whether any omission or modification of particular expressions in the Burial Service to adapt it to the individual character could convey a more awful lesson than that which is involved in the promiscuous use of the Service as it stands, and the contrast in certain cases between the words employed and the circumstances which contradict them. There is, if I might venture so to express it, a sort of solemn protest in the hopes and the thanksgivings uttered over the grave of the sinner, which is far more thrilling in its testimony against sin and for holiness, than any omission or any qualification that the ingenuity of men could have devised. "That is what ought to have been true of him; that is what ought to have been his life and his death.'

So that it comes to this, that solemn falsehoods are to be uttered by the minister of truth over the grave of one whom he firmly believes to have lived and died a profane person. He is to say not to-but concerning the wicked man,' 'He shall not surely die,' in order that the shock of the falsehood may startle into thoughtfulness careless bystanders. Could a more melancholy instance be furnished of the perverted ingenuity, the hoodwinked moral sense into which even a high-minded and deeply religious man may be led by the exigencies of an ecclesiastical system ?

The Prayer Book, it is urged, formulates the theology of two centuries ago, and must therefore be accepted with that practical modification which the changing thought of ever advancing generations necessarily demands. As a general plea we admit the force of this; but in this particular case it is hardly applicable; for to say nothing about the fierce contention of parties out of which the Prayer Book issued-who, relatively to it and to each other were pretty much then what they are now-the plea is practically valid only where theological thought is consentaneous. Were this the case in the Establishment, we should deem it unjust to bind its members too rigidly to the phraseology of former times. All trust deeds and Church confessions must be interpreted with reasonable latitude. But in what way can the Established Church avail itself of this canon? Do not the three great parties into which it is split demand practical modifications in utterly divergent directions? If each be allowed to modify the interpretation as seems best in his own eyes, will not the result be a fiasco as fatal as it would be Page 91.

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absurd? The dismembering of a criminal, by tying his limbs to wild horses, is but a faint analogy of it.

On any possible showing the Church is in a state of hopeless schism. The nonconformity within it is more intense and determined than the nonconformity without it; and the Prayer Book is the one great bone of contention. The High Church Dissenters are more rabid in their antagonism to much that, since the Reformation, the Church has taken for granted; and strange to say, to the alliance between Church and State especially, and are more openly and recklessly defiant of the law of the land, than any member of the Liberation Society. It is no longer a simple question of Conformity and Nonconformity; but, whether the Nonconformity shall be without the Establishment, or within it.

Nothing is more remarkable than the unexpected confirmation which the chief positions of Nonconformists are on every hand receiving. From the time of the Savoy conference, the incongruous sacerdotalism and sacramentarianism of the Prayer Book have been insisted upon by them; but their arguments have been received, sometimes with scorn, sometimes with insult. Suddenly, it is discovered that they were right; and now that their own independence and strength have made them practically indifferent to it, the cry for revision comes from within, and they are entreated to sustain it. How complete the revolution of opinion is, may be inferred from two remarkable articles in the Edinburgh Review, in the numbers for April and October of the present year. Indeed, as Mr. E. T. Vaughan acknowledges, in another notable article in the September number of the Contemporary Review,' the dilemma is complete. The Church can neither stand still nor advance; if she attempt to stand still, she will inevitably drift to destruction; if she attempt to advance, she will as inevitably be torn into fragments. We cannot rejoice in such a spectacle; it is for a lamentation and a shame; although, if any might rejoice, we more; for is it not the inevitable issue, the righteous Nemesis of past arrogance and intolerance? Nay, pitiable as it is, is it not on the whole more wholesome that it should be so? It would be a contravention of the great laws of righteousness in the Providence of the world, if any ecclesiastical corporation could act with impunity as the Church of Rome and the Church of England have done: both have conspired against the most sacred rights of men, and have sought to tyrannize over them. Even in this nineteenth century the Nonconformists of England are still subjected to social disparagement and disabilities. If they are not, as they formerly were, compelled to repeat the

old apostolic offence, and to teach men to worship God con'trary to the law;' if the Conventicle Act, and scores of similar Acts of the good old time' be repealed; they still pay church rates; they are excluded from grammar-schools, and from fellowships and other rewards of the national universities; the parochial churchyard is interdicted to their dead, save on condition that their religious preferences be practically repudiated. We cannot affect to be sorry that the Frankenstein of 1662-the Act of Uniformity-has turned upon its creators, and threatens to effect that disruption from the State, even of Episcopalians, which it was originally intended to punish in Nonconformists. We would rather that the essential iniquity of the Church establishment had been remedied in a less ignominious way; but better that righteousness should be done at any cost, than that it should not be done at all. Believing as Nonconformists believe, that State churches, qua establishments, are uniformly and inherently evil; that they both compromise the spiritual prerogatives of Christ, and corrupt the spiritual character of their members, we are not sorry to see the rapid and ignominious way in which they are breaking down all over the world. Let not our Episcopalian brethren be unduly angry with us; even a good Romanist may think it a beneficial thing to relieve the Pope of his temporal power, albeit he may not be able to persuade the Pope himself that it is so. The Church itself and its establishment by the State are two different things. All that is spiritual, and holy, and useful in its ministers and members will be liberated, elevated, and strengthened by the disruption; and the great cause of centuries of injustice and heart-burnings removed, the Episcopal Church will enter the brotherhood of churches on equal terms, and will receive from them all a loving welcome.

The remedy now proposed for the present chaotic state of the Establishment is a revision of the Prayer Book. This has often been proposed before, and as often found impracticable; and never perhaps was it more impracticable than it is now. Among recent attempts at revision we may mention one or two.

Some fifteen years ago, Mr. Pickering published 'The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, adapted for 'general use in other Protestant churches;' it is said by Chevalier Bunsen. Not only was the Sacramentarian element eliminated, but also a good deal more. The creeds were expunged; to which we have no objection; for no more serious embarrassment can be imposed upon a Church than any human formulæ of past ages. Bygone creeds belong to the History of the Church, not to its Liturgies; they are weapons whereby our forefathers won