Bishop of Westminster fifth, the Bishop of Windsor sixth, and the Bishop of Southwark seventh; (all these, except the Bishop of Windsor, Lords of Parliament ex officio, as also the Archbishops, English and Irish ;) the other Bishops, whether English or Irish, shall rank according to priority of consecration, which rule is not to be affected in any way by having a seat in the House of Lords.

CANON TO FOLLOW THE PRECEDING.

The Rule for sitting in Parliament.

The number of Bishops to be Lords of Parliament also, shall never exceed thirty, which number shall be completed thus: The Prelates, mentioned in the preceding Canon, shall be Lords of Parliament er officio; of the remaining, whether English or Irish, the last consecrated shall be Chaplain of the House of Lords, and daily attend the House in his rochet to read prayers; that in case of any vacancy happening during his chaplaincy, either by the death of a Bishop, a Lord of Parliament, but not so in virtue of his see, or by the translation of such to a see entitling him, in virtue of such translation, to a seat in the House, that, in either of such cases, he shall succeed ex officio the Prelate deceased, or translated, and shall not forfeit his seat by translation; but that, in the other alternative, he shall not be eligible to a seat in Parliament, except by being translated to one of those sees giving that privilege. This mode of arranging parliamentary duties we have adopted, conceiving it to be better than election, on account of its tendency to supersede all temptation to jealousy, or love of intrigue, both so highly unbecoming the clerical profession; and, moreover, we have judged that it is a plan, which, when put in practice, will be more satisfactory to all classes of our lay brethren. And forasmuch as Bishops who do their duty, must of necessity have a great deal of correspondence, we recommend, in justice to their correspondents as well as to themselves, that those Bishops, who do not happen to be Lords of Parliament, shall still possess the usual parliamentary privilege of franking and receiving, postage free, letters.*

ADDITIONAL CANON, WHICH MAY PROPERLY COME IN ABOUT THE 40TH.

College Advowsons.

Forasmuch as there has been a custom at King's College, Cam

* It is not the first time I have stated the hardship of the Clergy being totally excluded from the House of Commons, composed of people of all professions, each profession therefore having some one to reply to an unfair attack upon it, and composed of all sects, except Jews, summoned indeed to consult for the good of the church, but having the power to vote for injury to it. I would propose about ten extra clerical members for the three Universities, non-beneficed men, or, if beneficed, residing in or near London.

bridge, and New College, Oxford, in reference to several benefices belonging to those Colleges, of the senior Fellow (sometimes only taking orders upon the vacancy) having, as a matter of course, the option of a vacant cure, and upon his declining, the next having the option, and so on till one will accept it; and forasmuch as this is in detail, the most vicious kind of arranging patronage possible, repressing inducements to improve natural talent, and creating a frightful temptation to indolence; the patronage of such colleges shall, for the future, be vested in the Crown, only on condition that the Crown always give a vacant living to one of the Fellows belonging to the College now presenting to it, if there be any holy orders, properly qualified, and willing to take it, or, in the other alternative, that it be given to one out of twenty returned, in a list of Curates alphabetically arranged, by the Vice Chancellor to the King's Minister.

in

ADDITIONAL CANON, WHICH MAY FOLLOW THE PRECEDING. Curates.

Curates of twenty years' service, with good testimonials as to their character, shall be entitled to claim promotion from their Bishop within a reasonable time of their application; (we do not say invariably upon the first or second application;) but if, from the scanty patronage of a particular see, the Bishop cannot hold out a not very remote prospect of presenting an applicant to some living, or stall, he shall at once say so, in which case, upon application to the ecclesiastical Minister of the Crown, the latter may name some other Bishop more able, and the Curate shall then, with letters dimissory from his own Bishop, go to the other Bishop nominated, who shall be bound to name something held by a Minister more than sixty-seven years old for the Curate to succeed to.

CANON WHICH MAY PROPERLY COME IN ABOUT THE 42ND. The Prebendaries of each episcopal cathedral shall ex officio be the council of the Bishop, whenever he shall deem it necessary to collect their opinions and advice. Moreover they shall be trustees of all property in the diocese, arising from commutation of tithes, or any other scource, belonging to the Church; and they shall see that their treasurer make the proper quarterly, or half yearly (as the case may be) payments to the Bishop and others, according to the foregoing Canons. And besides they shall make any lawful payments, if required, for the benefit of other dioceses, always, if possible, leaving, after paying all expenses of officers, &c., such a surplus to add to their capital or property, that till church-rates, and heavy poor-rates, can be dispensed with without injury to religion, the

*It is hardly necessary to remark, that much of this Canon was suggested to me by a proposal understood to have been made by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin.

diocese may never be without an accumulating fund. And forasmuch as the King's Minister will require constant information on local matters connected with different churches, every diocese shall maintain two lay commissioners for that purpose, to be appointed by the Crown, and to, for eight months in every year at least, or more if required, reside in the diocese.

CANON, WHICH MAY FOLLOW THE PRECEDING, V. C.

Ordinaries.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is, in spiritual things, the Ordinary of the other Primates; the Archbishop of each province the Ordinary of the Bishops in it; and the Bishop the Ordinary of the Clergy of his diocese.

THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

The Articles which seem to me to require remark, are the 3rd, which requires explanation, or else there should be a marginal note in the Prayer Book at that part of the Creed; those Articles on Justification, upon which we sometimes meet with contradictory explanation; the same of Regeneration, Good Works, Free Will, Original Sin, Predestination, and Election. All these I would suggest to be worded so as not to admit of so many, at least, ingenious ways of deviating from their intended meaning. One would think that the Collect for Christmas Day would show us what the Reformers meant us to understand about Regeneration; and that that answer in the Catechism, which asserts Universal Redemption, and calls all baptized (that is, properly baptized) children "the elect people of God," or the earlier answer, which asserts that in baptism the child is adopted by God, and made heir of his kingdom; the same Catechism containing other answers which show that Universal Redemption does not mean final salvation, which is conditional. One would think that the answers in this Catechism would be a sufficient commentary upon the intended meaning of the framers of our Articles. On Regeneration I may remark, that the Lord's Prayer, unless it is admitted, with some Calvinists, to have been merely a temporary command of Christ not meant to be used after the resurrection, when the merits of our Saviour-not the forgiveness of injuries-were to be the grounds of hope of acceptance, which it cannot be by those who assent to our Liturgy containing the Lord's Prayer;-I may remark, that the Lord's Prayer, being so often used by the Reformers in compiling the Liturgy, ought to settle that question, seeing that men of their acumen would, had their sentiments been like the sentiments of those of modern divines, called Evangelicals, have most carefully excluded the Lord's Prayer, as (to use the words of the late Dr. Andrew Thompson of Edinburgh, a very clever man, though, as I believe, a most wretched divine)" an imperfect form;" for (and I confidently

put it to every learned reader) is it possible to think, for a moment, that any hardly of the Reformers were ignorant of the fact, that, in the early ages of the church, the catechumens were not allowed to be present when the Lord's Prayer was said, because only in the case of the regenerated, or baptized, or adopted, could the merits of Christ be said to be understood? (Rom. viii. 15, and Gal. iv. 6.) In a word, I believe that the framers of the Articles, avowedly written to prevent what they have not prevented, naturally concluded that, in case of doubt, the reader would go from the Articles to the Liturgy, not from the Liturgy to the Articles. My own sentiments are known to not a few; but I am only a layman, and therefore I am no authority; but thus much I may suggest, that the Church decide, either for or against Calvinism, and unequivocally say which, in her Articles: this seems the common-sense way of going to work.

THE END.

LONDON:

ROAKE AND VARTY, PRINERS, 31, STRAND.