C0trsibcrations 0it '§Mt cictlovsjjip antr 
 011 t\^t lltiiiistri) of Hfiukiicc. 
 
 
 A LETTEE 
 
 ADDRESSED 
 
 Zo tbc Clcrg? of the 2)ioce6e of Saliebur? 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN WORDSWORTH, D.D., 
 
 Btsljop of 5?alisburg, 
 
 TOGETHEK WITH 
 
 A PASTORAL LETTER " 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Xait^ ot tbe Diocese. 
 
 ISSUED AFTER CONSULTATION WITH THE GREATER CHAPTER. 
 
 Second Thousand. 
 
 BROWN AND CO. 
 
 SALISBURY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND 0. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1898.
 
 Ill this second thousand a few misprints have been corrected 
 and slight amendments made, and tlie statements as to Confession 
 in the Roman Church in the Pastoral have been brought into 
 more exact conformity with those in tlic Considerations, by adding 
 the words " at least once a year" on p. 77 1. 2 from bottom ; and 
 substituting the words " though this order is largely infringed in 
 practice" for " with certain exceptions in favour of certain pri- 
 vileged orders" on p. 78 1. 13. 
 
 J. S. 
 
 1 Aayust, 1898.
 
 CONTENTS OF THE LETTER. 
 
 I. Tliis Letter issued after cousultatiou with the Chapter 5 
 II. Nature of the present Disquiet. — Origin of this Letter 6 
 
 III. A Bishop's Responsibility in regard to Public Worship 7 
 
 IV. Rules laid down ou the use of Services 9 
 
 V. The Bishop's Authority a common Benefit ... ... 10 
 
 VI. A Bishop not likely to be too precise or arbitrary ... 11 
 VII. Principles of Public Worship. It must be distinctly 
 
 Christian ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 VIII. Christian Worship essentially the Worship of the 
 
 Blessed Trinity ... ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 IX. Of Prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ ... ... ... 11 
 
 X. Reasons for caution respecting the Worship of our 
 
 Lord in the Sacrament ... ... ... ... lt> 
 
 XI. What kind of Worship is proper to the time of Con- 
 secration 18 
 
 XII. The points of Christ's manward attitude are the proper 
 
 occasions for the special adoration of His Person ... 19 
 
 XIII. Evidence on sj)ecial adoration at Communion time ... 21 
 
 XIV. Cautions as to pressing this practice into undfle 
 
 prominence 25 
 
 XV. In any case there must be the proper number of Com- 
 municants to receive with the Priest 27 
 
 XVI. Reservation of the Sacrament for Worship not per- 
 missible ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 
 
 XVII. Considerations ou proposed Reservation for the Sick 29 
 XVIII. Recognition of God's Providence in the Loss of certain 
 
 sacred things ... ... ... ... ... ... 30 
 
 XIX. Adoration of the Cross interferes with the proper use 
 
 of Symbols 31 
 
 XX. A kind of Divine Worship paid by Romanists to the 
 
 Cross. Confusion introduced by subtle Distinctions 32 
 XXI. Public Worship as conformable to Holy Scrix)ture ... 33 
 XXII. Worship of the Saints tried by this Test. Official 
 Prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary and 
 
 the Saints , ... 34 
 
 a2
 
 XXIII. FurlJicr Dovotioiifs to tlie Bk-syed Vir^i-iu Mary per- 
 
 mitled in the Roman Church ... ... ... 36 
 
 XXIV. Evidence of Scripture on thi.s point. Our relation 
 
 to Ann;els and Saints 37 
 
 XXV. All Cliristians are waiting for Judg-ment 38 
 
 XXVI. Impossibility of relative place being taken before the 
 
 End 39 
 
 XXVII. Other Considerations. Uncertainty of the Evidence 40 
 
 XXVIII. Why Public Worship of the Saints is disallowed . . 11 
 
 XXIX. Why Private Worship of the Saints is disallowed ... l2 
 XXX. Public Worship must be Worship of the Church of 
 
 England ... ... ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 XXXI. Application of the Principle ... .. . . .. 46 
 
 XXXII. On the Ministry of Penitence, especially in private 48 
 
 XXXIII. Evidence of Scripture on the subject 49 
 
 XXXIV. Sketch of ancient penitential Discipline. Gradual 
 
 change to privacy ... ... . . ... ... 51 
 
 XXXV. The Lateran Canon and our own Discipline ... 55 
 
 XXXVI. What our practice ought to be 58 
 
 XXXVII. The outAvard sign of imposition of hands 58 
 
 XXXVIII. The form of words, first precatory, then indicative 59 
 
 XXXIX. Cautions as to the conduct of the Minister 62 
 
 XL. On iniblic praijer toiichimj the faithful departed ... 68 
 
 XLI. Concluding exhortation ... ... ... ... 69 
 
 Appendix. Counsels on some points of order and ritual where 
 caution or explanation is necessary, viz. (1) Use 
 of the Te deum ; (2) Publication of Banns ; 
 (3) Licenses after Divorce ; (4) Special forms for 
 Burial ; (5) Preparation of the elements, especially 
 of the chalice ; (6) Attitude at the Epistle ; 
 (7) Responses at the Cospel; (8) "Drawing near"; 
 (9) Attitude of the priest in communion; (10) De- 
 livery of the chalice; (11) "Gloria in Excelsis"; 
 (12) Reverent consumption of what remains after 
 communion ... ... ... ... ... ... 70 
 
 PASTORAL LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE LAITY 73 
 
 r 
 
 O
 
 CONSIDERATIONS ON PUBLIC WORSHIP AND 
 THE MINISTRY OF PENITENCE. 
 
 Zo tbe CletGP ot tbe Diocese ot Sallsbuvp, 
 
 I. — This Letter issued after consultation with the 
 Chapter. 
 
 Brethren beloved in the Lord, it seems right that I should 
 use the opportunity^ which the annual meeting of our Pente- 
 costal Chapter has given me, to take counsel with my con- 
 stitutional advisers, the Dean and Canons of our Cathedral 
 Church, and, after so doing, to address the whole Diocese, on 
 a subject which causes some disquiet around us. It was in 
 this way, as you will remember, that I first addressed the 
 Diocese some twelve and a half years ago ; and I have always 
 thankfully regarded that action as one which had the blessing 
 of Almighty God, May He grant that the words which you 
 now receive from me*, and those which you will communicate 
 to our brethren who are in your spiritual charge, which are 
 issued to you after such common counsel in Chapter, may 
 have an equal blessing from God ; and may He by the grace of 
 His holy Spirit assist us all in the discharge of our common 
 duty to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth ! 
 
 While, however, I have followed generally the precedent 
 just referred to, I have thought it well to separate what I 
 have to say into two portions. To yourselves, my reverend 
 brethren of the Clergy, I have in the first instance addressed 
 the fuller " Considerations" on which the Pastoral Letter to 
 the Laity is based. You are representatives with myself of 
 
 * This letter, in different stages of its composition, lias been twice 
 before the members of the Chapter (on Thursday 2 June and Friday 
 1 July), when advice was freely given thereon. But the Bishop alone is 
 finally responsible for it.
 
 6 
 
 the teaching office of the Church, and it is right that you 
 should know, in some detail, the principles, and the evidence, 
 and the grounds of reason and argument, by which the 
 counsels which I have given are supported. I desire that 
 you will be good enough to communicate my Pastoral Letter, 
 attached to these *' Considerations," to the Christian people 
 of your own cures in whatever manner you think most expe- 
 dient, either by reading it from the pulpit or by publishing 
 it in some other way ; and that, in so doing, you will give 
 them what further insight you may think desirable into the 
 matter contained in these " Considerations." I feel sure 
 that I may, in every single case, rely upon your loyalty 
 neither to add to or diminish from the weight of what has 
 been here set down, but to let it speak for itself as a message 
 from one who has by God's providence a very responsible 
 duty to discharge. 
 
 II. — Nature of the present Disquiet. — Origin op this 
 
 Letter. 
 
 There is undoubtedly at the present time some serious 
 disquiet as to innovations in the forms and accessories of 
 public worship in the Church of England, especially in 
 certain churches and in certain dioceses. There is further 
 some rather indefinite searching of heart as regards the pro- 
 cedure of a few of our own clergy. This disquiet is not due 
 to the action of the clergy alone, or to the conduct of persons 
 all belonging to one section of the Church. A good many 
 persons, both clergy and laity, have taken advantage of the 
 profound objection which has been felt to ritual prosecutions 
 on one side, and of the general sense that some greater liberty 
 of public worship was needed on the other, to incline to a 
 sort of Congregationalism. There has been a tendency to 
 encourage local uses and customs, and to try experiments, in 
 the hope that out of these varying forms might grow a 
 greater spontaneity and force of religious life. 
 
 At the same time it has recently been felt that some of 
 these experiments were straining the links of unity too 
 severely. They seemed to embody more serious differences
 
 in faith and principle than were compatible with united 
 loyalty to the doctrine and discipline of the Church as re- 
 ceived by this Church of England. 
 
 There has, therefore, been a general disposition, on the 
 part of those who are troubled by liturgical and ritual 
 disputes, to turn, as it is right they should do, towards the 
 Bishops of the Church. Men desire to know that they are 
 really giving serious attention to the subjects which are being 
 debated. They wish also to be informed on what principles 
 and in what manner the Bishops will think it right to act. 
 Many, perhaps most, of those whose conduct has given rise 
 to alarm, are anxious to be guided ; and the clergy, especially, 
 are mindful of their ordination vows and of the oaths and 
 promises made by them to their Bishops, and desire that 
 definite advice and, if necessary, command should be given 
 them which they may in conscience follow. 
 
 Before expressing any judgment of my own as Bishop, 
 either by way of warning or counsel, I think it right to 
 explain that the impulse to write this letter comes to me from 
 within, not from without. It expresses my conviction that, in 
 the position in which God has placed me, I ought not to be 
 silent under the circumstances just referred to, even though no 
 complaints have reached me, as regards the conduct of public 
 worship in this Diocese, either as to omissions from or addi- 
 tions to ordinary usage, which seem to require formal notice. 
 
 III. — A Bishop's Responsibility as regards Public 
 Worship. 
 
 The office of a Bishop involves indeed a very solemn 
 responsibility in respect to the regulation of public Avorship 
 Ever since the days when the Episcopate first generally 
 emerged into prominence on the death of the Apostles, it has 
 been viewed as a centre of unity, especially as regards the 
 Sacraments and the tradition of doctrine. The first thought 
 in particular is expressed in the teaching of S. Ignatius 
 (circa a.d. 110), for instance in the phrases "one altar, one 
 Bishop," " Let nothing be done without the Bishop." 
 The second appears in the teaching of S. Irenpeus (circa
 
 8 
 
 A.D. 170), who ascribes to the Episcopate the "charisma 
 veritatis" or spiritual gift of truth (Haer. iv. 26, 2). Further 
 the Bishop is, according- to all Church order, the one 
 immediate Pastor of the souls of all the faithful within his 
 Diocese and jurisdiction. Nothing can be done officiallj^ in 
 any Parish for which he is not directly or indirectly 
 responsible. The doctrine of the Vatican Council of 1870 
 that the Pope has immediate Episcopal jurisdiction in every 
 Diocese, and has therefore a right to communicate his 
 pastoral counsels and decrees to the pastors and flocks of the 
 whole Church, is not less subversive of the fundamental 
 order and constitution of the Church, than his assumption 
 of personal infallibility in faith and morals is dangerous to 
 the truth of her doctrine. (See the Constitution Pastor 
 aefermis cap. in. in Decrefs et Canons du Concile (hi Vatican 
 p. 146 foil. Paris 1871). Nor has any Metropolitan ordinary 
 jurisdiction in the Diocese of any of his suffragans, or the 
 right to address pastoral letters or to issue injunctions to the 
 clergy and people of such a Diocese. Diocesan Bishops 
 have, indeed, been relieved from a great burden of 
 responsibility by the prescription of "one use" for the 
 whole Church in the Book of Common Prayer and of the 
 AdministfYition of the Sacraments and other Rites and 
 Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church 
 of England. But, outside formal prescriptions, their old 
 "jus liturgicum" still remains, in the form unanimously set 
 forth by the Bishops assembled at the Lambeth Conference 
 of 1897. They have the " exclusive right" of putting forth or 
 sanctioning additional services for use within their jurisdiction, 
 and of adapting existing services to local circumstances, and 
 also of directing or sanctioning additional prayers " subject 
 to such limitations as may be imposed by provincial or other 
 lawful authority, and provided that any such adaptation shall 
 not affect the doctrinal teaching or value of the service or 
 passage thus adapted" {Land)eth Conference, Ptesolutions 45, 
 46, S.P.C.K. 1897). 
 
 Further, a Bishop has rights and duties specially confided 
 to him by the laws or customs of our own Church, in addition
 
 9 
 
 to the general obedience guaranteed by the promises made in 
 the ordination service and the oath of canonical obedience 
 taken after it. He has, firstly, the delicate duty which is 
 assigned to him in the Preface to the Prayer-Book, in the 
 section Concernmg the Service of the Church, to be the 
 interpreter of any questions as to " the manner how to under- 
 stand, do and execute the things contained" in that Book. 
 
 Secondly, he is, in the first instance, the " lawful authority" 
 referred to in the solemn declaration made by all clergy to be 
 licensed to the cure of souls or admitted to Benefices, who 
 promise that " in public prayer and the administration of the 
 Sacraments they will use the form in the said book prescribed 
 and none other except so far as shall he ordered by lawfid 
 aifthoritij.'" Thirdly, he has the discretion to stay pro- 
 ceedings under the Puhlic Worshix) Regulathm Act of 1874, 
 which is reserved to him under Section 9 of that Act. 
 
 It cannot therefore be denied that a Bishop still has a very 
 serious burden to bear in these respects, especially in his own 
 Diocese. I have taken pains to intimate this to all clergy 
 admitted to cure of souls by the constant use, in giving them 
 license or institution, of the old formula " Accipe curam 
 meam ac tuam," "Receive my (spiritual) charge which is 
 also thine."* It might be well for me to be more explicit and 
 emphatic on this point, and particularly to explain the 
 meaning of the phrase *' lawful authority" in the solemn 
 declaration, by addressing those newly ordained on the 
 subject, or mentioning it to those who come from the outside 
 into the Diocese. 
 
 IV. — Rule laid down on the use of Services. 
 I must therefore lay down this general rule that no form ot 
 service may be used in public worship or open prayer in Church, 
 or in any licensed building, other than those of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, except it be directed, issued, sanctioned or 
 allowed by myself ; and that no adaptation of the services of 
 that Book (except as provided in the Schedide to the Act of 
 IJniformHy Amendment Act of 1872) or prayers additional to 
 
 * Perhaps it should l)e rather " tuam et meam ;" Gribson p. 807 n.
 
 10 
 
 such services, may be used without the same sanction. I 
 use the word Schedule with emphasis, because the " special" 
 and " additional" services referred to in Sections 3 and 4 of 
 that Act must both be " approved by the ordinary." 
 
 This is the general rule. It obviously is not intended to 
 prohibit services authorised by my predecessors, either of 
 their own motion or as being sanctioned by the Upper 
 House of Convocation, at any rate when they have not 
 specifically been withdrawn by me, or superseded by some 
 other form. Nor is it intended to press hardly on clergy who 
 have, perhaps for many years, used certain offices for guilds 
 or parochial societies in Church, apart from public prayer. 
 Nevertheless I think that such offices should be gradually all 
 submitted to the same rule as others, although they need not 
 necessarily be all of the same form everywhere. 
 
 With these reservations I desire to promulgate this rule 
 and to bring it to the notice of all concerned. Any wilful 
 and intentional infraction of it would be liable to be treated 
 as a breach of the oath of canonical obedience. 
 
 In judging what should or should not be sanctioned I 
 shall naturally consult some such Committee as that which 
 the Chapter has recently appointed to deal with the Report 
 on Tables of Additional Psalms and Lessons which has been 
 drawn up in pursuance to a resolution of the Synod of Clergy 
 held in November, 1897. 
 
 V. — The Bishop's Authority a common Benefit. 
 
 In addition to the special duties of a Bishop towards his 
 Diocese, his position as a member of the Upper House 
 of the Convocation of the Province, and of such bodies 
 as the Lambeth Conference, gives him duties to the 
 whole Province and to the whole Communion. He may also 
 sometimes have to be the interpreter of that Communion to 
 members of other religious bodies, as it has from time to 
 time fallen to my own lot to be on the Continent of Europe 
 and in the Levant. Unless he acts with authority inside his 
 Diocese he can hardly advise with authority outside it. 
 
 A Bishop may therefore well ask those of the clergy and
 
 11 
 
 people, who may be in favour of introducing or maintaining 
 changes in the ritual or practice of public worship (whether it 
 be by omission or addition, and whether in a puritan or a 
 medieval direction, especially when those changes may be 
 considered expressive of doctrine) to remember their duty to 
 his office and their interest in maintaining its authority. It 
 is important to the Church at large as a centre of unity. 
 Everything that undermines this authority, or makes its even 
 application difficult (and this is surely a very serious con- 
 sideration), is injurious to the whole body. A Bishop need 
 not plead for charity or consideration to be shown to him- 
 self (though such gentle thoughtfulness is in most cases 
 abundantly visible), but he must ask loyal and reasonable 
 men not to endanger the stability of the spiritual building 
 under the shadow of which the congregation of Christ's 
 Church comes together to meet their Lord. 
 
 VI. — A Bishop not likely to ur too trectse or 
 
 ARBITRARY. 
 
 A Bishop on the other hand, finding by experience the 
 value of different types of character and opinion in a manner 
 that probably no other one man is able to do, and considering 
 the variety of circumstances and tempers of the people, the 
 difference between town and country and between sparse and 
 thickset populations and the like, and being conscious of the 
 value of local traditions connected with the ministry and 
 influence of godly men, and many other like points — will 
 undoubtedly be careful not to act too precisely or arbitrarily. 
 Any such action on his part would be resented by presbyters 
 of all parties, and by the great mass of the laity, on whose 
 respect and goodwill he depends for the working of the whole 
 large system of Church Societies and Meetings for counsel, 
 which are now happily practically essential to the existence of 
 the Church as a body corporate. The days of autocratic 
 Bishops are, I believe, passed. The position of an English 
 Bishop is probably stronger in some respects than that of 
 any other Bishop in any other country, but it depends, much 
 more than it used to do, upon his reasonable action and
 
 12 
 
 fulfilment of reasonable expectations. On all these grounds, 
 then, I think you may trust your Bishops not to he unduly 
 vexed ahout smaller matters nor to fall into the mistake of 
 unduly vexing others. They must bear, and hear willingly, a 
 certain considerable variety in the action of those to whom 
 they have delegated a share in the ministry of the word and 
 sacraments as well as of the cure and government of the souls 
 of the people. They will be also anxious to act together 
 with other Bishops of the Province and Communion. 
 Personally I rejoice to reflect that I have not only the 
 Synod of Clergy to look to in case of need, but meetings of 
 the Greater Chapter of this Cathedral, twice a year, with 
 whom I can take counsel on matters of theory and principle, 
 as well as with the Archdeacons and Ptural Deans who are 
 my executive council for the administration of the Diocese. 
 I rejoice too to think that there are men in the Diocese to 
 whose judgment and knowledge any Bishop might be thankful 
 to have the right to refer in regard to what is right or wrong 
 in questions of public worship. 
 
 VII. — Principles op Public Worship. It must be 
 
 DISTINCTLY CHRISTIAN. 
 
 So much by way of preliminary considerations. Let us 
 now pass to principles of public worship and to illustrations 
 drawn from present circumstances. 
 
 We are bound to act in this matter on principles, the first 
 being that our ritual is the expression of the faith and life of 
 Christianity. " Lex supplicandi legem statuit credendi " 
 is a maxim which has been always acknowledged since it was 
 uttered, and indeed was felt long before it was formulated.* 
 It means, for us, that the expression of the Church's belief 
 
 * Tlio pliraso appoavs to bo taken, as Bp. Kino-don of Fredcrieton 
 pointed ont to me in 1888, from tlie Appendix to tlie letter of Pope 
 Celestine to the Bishops of Provenee, a.d. 4'>1 (in Constant Epist. 
 Font. Rom. p. 1193, or Migiie P. L. 50, p. 535 = ep. 21 § 12). The 
 prayers (like those now nsed on Good Friday) are referred to as 
 proving the belief of the Chnreh on the qnestion of graee, '* Ut legem 
 credendi lex statnat snpplieandi.'" See also my note in Holy 
 Communion ed. 2 ]). 93.
 
 lb 
 
 must be sought for in the Prayer-Book as well as in Creeds 
 and other documents describing or limiting our doctrine. 
 
 We are joint guardians then of a Christian lituaL This 
 sacred name reminds us of our duty both negatively and 
 positively. Negatively it cuts off anything that is distinctly 
 Pagan, or anything that is Jewish in the lower sense of 
 abolished ceremonial. It cuts oft' anything inconsistent with 
 the highest thought of the character of God, anything that 
 militates against the highest ideal of human service. Almost 
 all Christian thinkers see that bloody sacrifices or mutilations 
 of the person are intolerable in the Church. But it requires 
 some firmness of grasp to resist what is merely artificial, or 
 ascetic for the sake of asceticism, or injurious to the full 
 brightness and strength of the mind, heart and soul of man, 
 and above all anything derogatory to the character of God. 
 
 This I trust you are all fully prepared to assist me in 
 doing. You will discourage vain repetitions of prayers, use 
 of charms, belief in indulgences, ascription of power to local 
 shrines, images and relics, mechanical forms of penance and 
 adoration and the like. These must not only be kept in 
 check in our missions to the heathen, but in our own usages 
 at home. The human heart is not weaned from superstition 
 all at once, and it must carefully be guarded against slipping 
 back into a second childhood. 
 
 VIII. — Christian Worship essentiality the Worship of 
 THE Blessed Trinity. 
 Even more important than the negative sense of the word 
 is its positive import. Worship to us is, above all things else, 
 worship of the Blessed Trinity in Unity. If we wished to 
 define Christian worship we should say it is the humble but 
 joyous and confident approach of the Body of Christ, endued 
 both in the whole and in part with the Holy Spirit, and led 
 on by its unseen High Priest and Head, to the throne of God 
 the Father.* This great name, " The Father," by itself 
 implies the two other persons who with Him compose the 
 ineft'able Unity of the Godhead. Hence it is used by itself 
 
 * Cp. S. Basil de Spiritu Sancto vii. § 16.
 
 14 
 
 to deiiiie the object ol prayer. Thus our Lord in the sermon 
 on the Mount teaches us '* Thou when thou prayest . • • 
 pray to thy Father which is in secret" (8. Matt. vi. 0), and 
 in this sense He gives us His own prayer that follows. 
 Similar to this are His precepts on prayer in other places of 
 the Gospel, as in His discourse with the woman of Samaria 
 (8. John iv. 21 — 24), and the many places where He touches 
 on or uses the thought of prayer to the Father in His name 
 {ib. xiv. 13, XV. 16, xvi. 23, and chap, xvii generally). 
 Hence by far the largest proportion of ancient collects are 
 addressed simply to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Cp. 
 Origen De Orationc cap. 15). Hence also two important 
 African Councils* went so far as to say that ^' in the service 
 at the altar prayer should always be directed to the Father." 
 So cautious were the first ages of the Church in regard to 
 anything that might lead to a suspicion of polytheism or the 
 worship of many Gods. 
 
 IX. — Of Prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Nevertheless it is undoubtedly the Catholic doctrine that 
 prayer may also be addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ, f 
 This we gather from His own words at the feast when He 
 healed the impotent man, implying that He is to receive the 
 same worship that we give to God the Father, "• who hath 
 committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should 
 honour the Son even as they honour the Father" (S. John v. 
 22, 23). This He directly encourages, according to what I 
 believe to be the true text, in one of His discourses after the 
 Last Supper. For after declaring " Whatsoever ye shall ask 
 in my name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
 
 * Hippo, A.D. 393, canon 21, and Carthage III., a.d. 397, canon 23. 
 S. Augustine was present probably at both, certainly at tlie first, when 
 as presbyter he delivered liis discourse dejidc et symholo at tlie request 
 of the assembled Bishops, which lie afterwards embodied in his treatise 
 known by that title {Retract i. 17). 
 
 f See Origen contra Cclsum viii. 12, and Fulgentius Ruspensis ad 
 Monivmm ii. 5, tlie latter on sacrifice as offered to the Son in the 
 Unity of the Trinity. Cp. also Bp. Pearson on the Creed, art. 2, 
 " His only Son," side page 143. The texts quoted are not quoted, I 
 think, either by Origen or Fulgentius, and the second is not quoted by 
 Bp. Pearson. Fulgentius relics on Old Testament authorities.
 
 15 
 
 in the Son," He proceeds, ''If ye shall ask me anything in 
 my name I will do it" (ib. xiv. 13, 14, R.V.). So again we 
 have evidence of worship addressed to Christ in the Apoca- 
 lypse. The Evangelist, in a vision, heard every created 
 thing saying '' Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and 
 unto the Lamb, be the blessing and the honour and the 
 glory and the dominion for ever and ever" (Rev. v. 13, R.V.). 
 Simpler but equally striking acts of worship were those of S. 
 Thomas, '' My Lord and my God," which our Saviour clearly 
 accepted as right, and of S. Stephen, in his dying prayer. 
 
 But the condition of prayer which our Lord lays down, 
 "in my name," is evidently of extreme importance. If we 
 ask what that name is, in so many words, we shall find an 
 answer in the context. Our Lord, in His High-priestly 
 prayer, teaches us in the solemn sentence "And this is life 
 eternal that they may know Thee the only true God and 
 Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (S. John xvii. 3).* The 
 meaning of the name is not of course confined to the syllables 
 " Jesus Christ ;" but the use of His " name" implies a 
 recollection of the unity of the Divine and Human Natures 
 in the one Person. It is on this account that all ancient 
 collects addressed to our Saviour have some concluding 
 Trinitarian formula, such as "Who livest and reignest with 
 the Father and the Holy Ghost" as our collects for tRe third 
 Sunday in Advent and the first in Lent have, or at least 
 some recognition of His Mediatorial position, as our collect 
 for S. Stephen's Day has. Nor is it any real departure from 
 this rule when we say in the Te Deum " Thou art the King 
 of Glory, Christ, Thou art the everlasting Son of the 
 Father," or invoke Him as the "Lamb of God" (much as is 
 done in the Apocalypse) in the Gloria in Excelsis and the 
 Litany, both of which bear witness to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity. The title " Lamb of God" clearly implies His 
 relation to the Father, just as "Word of God" "Son of 
 God" do. Hymns too have naturally a greater freedom than 
 
 * I venture to differ somewhat from the Bishop (Westcott) of Diirluim 
 i 11 the iiitcrpretatioii of this verse, which appears to represent a very 
 important revelation of our Lord's own direct teaching.
 
 16 
 
 prayers ; and it was probably in Hymns that the practice of 
 addressing our Saviour as God in worship first became 
 prevalent. (See my Hohj Conuiumion pp. 61, 62, ed. 2, 1892.) 
 The apostrophe of S. Thomas and the song of creation in the 
 Apocalypse are indeed Hymns of praise rather than acts of prayer. 
 
 X. Keasons for caution respecting the Worship of our 
 Lord in the Sacrament. 
 
 But this worship becomes matter of more serious question 
 when it is directed towards visible objects, especially in con- 
 nection with the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, 
 whether in the Communion office or outside it. Two considera- 
 tions must clearly be attended to in discussing it, first the 
 character of the sacramental signs, and secondly the general 
 purpose of the sacrament as an act of worship. 
 
 In the first place, if we consider the character of the 
 sacramental signs, we shall at once observe that they suggest 
 and symbolize the Human rather than the Divine nature of 
 our Lord. They have all the associations proper to the 
 existence of a creature : they are in their natural condition 
 not even elemental forces, but products of human foi'esight 
 and labour. But the humanity of our Lord by itself, accord- 
 ing to all Christian theology, is not a proper object of 
 Divine worship. If it were, a fourth term would be added 
 to the Blessed Trinity. It is by this rule that we criticise 
 such developments as the cultus of the Sacred Heart. One 
 reason then why we must be cautious about sacramental 
 adoration is the fear lest it should degenerate into a like 
 error. Again, the sacramental signs not only suggest the 
 Humanity apart from Divinity, but the Humanity restricted 
 by local and material conditions. This, I suppose, is why 
 the Trent Catechism directs the clergy to warn the people 
 that the Body of Christ is not in the Eucharist ''as in a 
 place" (ii. 4, 42). That this warning is not wholly suc- 
 cessful is evident from the language habitually employed by 
 many Romanists. To speak of our Lord as " the Divine 
 prisoner of the Tabernacle" is surely to use very misleading 
 and distressing language.
 
 17 
 
 Secondly, we must consider the general purpose of the 
 Sacrament as an act of Christian worship. We cannot 
 express it more simply than by saying that it is a pleading 
 before God the Father, on the part of the Church on earth, 
 in union with her great High Priest and Head, of the atone- 
 ment made by Him, with which she dares humbly to associate 
 her own oblation of herself as His visible Body.* It is the 
 appointed memorial {avaiiivii(nQ) of the one offering of Christ. 
 All English Churchmen agree that it is more than a '' bare 
 commemoration" of a historical event. It is as true now, as 
 it was when S. John wrote,! and so it will be till the end of 
 time, that our Saviour is ''the Lamb of God," and ''the 
 propitiation for our sins." Because He lives we live also. 
 And yet it is not a repetition of the Sacrifice of the Cross. 
 All Christians, of every communion, agree to this. It is 
 something then between the two ; something mysterious, as 
 to the exact definition of which we do not need, and, I think, 
 ought not, too curiously to enquire. It is not certainly to 
 our purpose to do so in this connection. What we have 
 established is that, as an act of worship, the Eucharist is one 
 in which the offering is presented by our Saviour, as the 
 High Priest and Lamb of God, to the blessed Trinity ; and 
 that, so far as He is separable in thought from the blessed 
 Trinity, He is the minister and also the subject of the 
 heavenly sacrifice in which we join. In some mysterious 
 way, to use the words of S. Cyprian {Ep. 63, 17), " The 
 Passion of the Lord is the sacrifice which we offer ;" or to 
 use the words of Bishop Thomas Wilson's prayer, " Give me, 
 when I commemorate the same sacrifice which Jesus Christ 
 once offered, give me the same intentions that He had — to 
 satisfy the justice of God, to acknowledge His mercies, and 
 to pay all the debt which a creature owes to his Creator. None 
 
 * This is well brought out in a well-kuoAvn Chapter of S. Augustine 
 on the City of God, x. 20. He clearly considers the self-sacrifice of the 
 Church as part of the act not as a mere appendage to it. 
 
 t See the Apocalypse v. 6 foil., 12, vii. 17, " The Lamb which is in 
 the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd and shall guide them 
 unto fountains of waters of life" (R.V.) And 1 John ii. 2, where 
 notice the verb ia-ri. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 can do this cUccluully l)ui Jesus CJhrist. Him therefore we 
 present to Clod in this Holy Sacrament.'' {Sew. Pr. p. 160, 
 A.C.L.). This is the general mind of the Church, and not 
 less of the Church of England than of other Churches ; but 
 this is something difiercnt from, and in a certain degree in- 
 consistent with, the separate adoration of our Saviour as 
 almost the sole object of worship at the time of Consecration. 
 
 XI. — What kind of Worship is proper to the time of 
 Consecration. 
 
 It follows then from these two considerations that adora- 
 tion of the Person of Christ, in this separate sense, must be 
 very carefully guarded so as not to interfere with the general 
 movement of our public worship. It must be entirely sub- 
 sidiary, and must be protected from any appearance of leading 
 to a superstitious attitude towards the sacramental signs. 
 We have then to ask ourselves. Is the moment of the Conse- 
 cration the suitable time for such subsidiary worship ? 
 
 We try to " lift up our hearts" in this holy mystery; we 
 ascend in heart and mind with our Saviour in His Godward 
 attitude ; we thankfully recognise that He carries our nature 
 along with Him ; we see Him pass through the throngs of 
 upward -looking angels ; we see as it were Justice and Love 
 embracing on the throne of God. As a living writer, who 
 is also a practised theologian, has well expressed the thought, 
 we cry in adoration and penitence — 
 
 •" Look, Father, lojok on His anointed Face, 
 
 And only look on us as found in Him : 
 
 Look not on our misusin,^"s of Thy pMce, 
 
 Our prayers so languid, and our faith so dim : 
 For lo ! between our sins and tlieir reward 
 We set the Passion of tliy Son our Lord." 
 
 Is this the proper moment to adore the sacramental signs 
 of that Passion, though doubtless they are " no longer 
 common bread but Eucharist" ? Is this the moment to 
 chain our ears to the sound of certain holy words and our 
 eyes to certain spots of earth *? Surely to do so is confusing
 
 19 
 
 to the ordinary worshipper and in some degree interferes with 
 the proper upward movement of our worship. 
 
 During the utterance of the prayer of consecration, or when 
 it is over, there should be no ringing of a bell or sound of 
 any kind, but a solemn and awful silence. Then should follow 
 the Communion, and this is a season or part of the service 
 during which it is fitting that when Christ turns to minister 
 to us we should turn to adore Him. Suitable Hymns may 
 be used, but should be used with care and moderation. 
 
 Xn. — The Points of Christ's manward attitude are the 
 
 PROPER OCCASIONS FOR SPECIAL AdORATION OP HiS PeRSON. 
 
 There are indeed several points in the service where such 
 special adoration of His Person seems not only justifiable 
 but eminently right. They may be called points of His 
 manward attitude, when, instead of turning His face towards 
 the throne of God, He rather turns towards His people. The 
 first is when He speaks to us in the Gospel, which in the 
 Greek Church is brought in solemnly at the " Little {i.e. 
 lesser) Entrance." When the Gospel book is taken by the 
 reader, and the place from which he is going to read is given 
 out, is among ourselves the first occasion of this separate 
 manward attitude of our Saviour. , 
 
 The Church then salutes Him with the adoring recognition 
 " Glory be to thee, Lord," and, when His words are ended, 
 she responds " Thanks be unto thee, Lord, for this thy 
 Holy Gospel," or with some such reverent address. It is a 
 misfortune that the ignorant custom of kneeling during the 
 Epistle has crept in in some churches, so as to destroy the 
 full significance of this rite of standing at the Gospel. 
 Kneeling is the posture of prayer, not of attentive listening, 
 and to give greater honour to the Epistle than to the Gospel 
 is a blunder of a serious kind, and injurious to the true 
 reverence we owe our Saviour. As regards standing at the 
 Gospel, Hooker well says " It sheweth a reverend regard to 
 the Son of God above other messengers, although speaking 
 as from God also. And against infidels, Jews, Arians, who 
 derogate from the honour of Jesus Christ, such ceremonies 
 
 b2
 
 20 
 
 arc most proti tabic" {FJ.P. v. 80, 1). The Church here 
 recognises her Lord as the Word of God, and therefore 
 adores Him in these short loving ejaculations, just as S. 
 Thomas did when he said " My Lord and my God." 
 
 Another point in the service, where reverent recognition of 
 our Lord's manward attitude is made by great part of the 
 universal Church, is the inbringing of the gifts of bread and 
 wine previous to consecration. This is the principal moment 
 of adoration in the Eastern Church, and is therefore called 
 '' the Great Entrance." It would be well if more solemnity 
 were used by ourselves at such a moment, at least when the 
 gifts are placed on the Holy Table. It represents, so to say, 
 our Lord's readiness to give Himself a sacrifice for us, the 
 movement of His heart towards us. I find S. Ambrose 
 referring to this as a very solemn moment.* 
 
 Another point, peculiar to our own service, where we 
 continue still kneeling after the absolution, but with a 
 somewhat different purpose, namely, to adore the Person of 
 Christ, is that of the Comfortable Words. The words of S. 
 Paul and S. John that follow, speaking directly of Him, are 
 naturally received in the same posture. 
 
 And again, after the commemoration and representation of 
 the Sacrifice has been made, when our Lord turns to us, as 
 the Minister of the true tabernacle, to give us His body and 
 His blood, we kneel in reverence to His person to receive so 
 great a gift. This is what is usually understood as 
 Eucharistic adoration, by writers of our Communion, and it 
 is truly the supreme part of it. But it is likely to be some- 
 what misunderstood, if viewed apart from these other points, 
 as if it stood absolutely alone in the ordinance. 
 
 That it is an attitude of adoration is clear from the rubric, 
 generally called the black ruln-ic, which defines and explains 
 it. The object of that rubric is not to deny that we adore 
 the Person of Christ, as separate in thought from the blessed 
 
 * Enarr. in, Fmlni xxxviii. § 25, " Vidoiiius nunc per iinagiueiii bona 
 et tencinus iinagiiiis bona. Vidimus Principcm saccrdotum ad nos 
 vcnientom, vidimus et audivimus ott'ercntem pro nobis san<i-uinem suum: 
 sequimur ut possumus sacerdotos ut oit'cramus pro populo sacrificium," 
 etc.
 
 21 
 
 Trinity, but to explain that we do not offer adoration *' unto 
 the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received, or 
 unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and 
 Blood." That we ought before receiving to adore the Person 
 of Christ, who so lovingly ministers to us so wonderful a 
 gift, whether by kneeKng, or, as the ancient Church did, by 
 humbly standing and bowing the head, is surely not a thing 
 to be questioned. As Hooker well says on this point, 
 " Coming as receivers of inestimable grace at the hands- of 
 God, what doth better beseem our bodies at that hour than 
 to be sensible witnesses of minds unfeignedly humbled ? " 
 (E.P. V. 68, 4). 
 
 XIII. — Evidence on special Adoration at Communion 
 
 Time. 
 That this is the thought too of the Liturgy at present 
 in use in the orthodox Eastern Church seems to me certain. 
 Nothing can be clearer than the passage of the Byzantine 
 Liturgy, based largely on '' S. Basil's, " which occurs some 
 time after the recitation of our Lord's words and the 
 Invocation of the Holy Spirit which follows them, and 
 just before the Communion : — '' Hear us, Lord Jesus 
 Christ, our God, out of thy holy dwelling-place, and from 
 the throne of the Glory of thy Kingdom, and Qpme and 
 sanctify us ; Thou that sittest above with the Father, and 
 here unseen art present with us ; and vouchsafe with thy 
 mighty hand to make us partakers of thy spotless Body and 
 precious Blood and all the people through us." 
 
 It is, I think, through some such underlying thought as 
 this, that we must explain, not only the words of the Eastern 
 Fathers, but those of Westerns, like S. Ambrose and S. 
 Augustine,* who are often quoted as justifying adoration 
 
 * The passages of S. Ambrose de Spiritu Sancto iii. 11, § 78, 79, 
 and of S. Augustine Enarr. in Psalmum xeviii. § 9 (=Ps. xcix. 5) 
 are closely connected. S. Ambrose comments on the verse, " Adorate 
 scabellum pedum eius," and suggests that the ''footstool" is "earth" 
 and tliat it is to be understood of " the flesh of Christ, which even 
 to-day we adore in the mysteries, and which the Apostles, as we said 
 above, adored in the Lord Jesus." S. Augustine accepts this curious 
 a^loss without mentioning liis authority. It is however doubly iuaccu- 
 rate, since the footstool is clearly not "earth" but " iho ark of the
 
 •22 
 
 directed towards the sacramental signs. This is clearly, at 
 any rate, the meaning of Bishop Beveridge when he writes in 
 his tract on Frequent Communion {JVorl's A.C.L. viii. p. 
 607), where he is explaining the act of kneeling at reception, 
 " How can I, hy faith, behold my Saviour coming to me and 
 oflerinr/ to me His own Body and Blood and not fall down 
 and worship Him ? How can I, by faith, lay hold upon the 
 pardon of my sins, as there sealed and delivered to me, and 
 receive it any otherwise than upon my knees?" No doubt 
 he and others do not always sharply distinguish between the 
 Lord, as the minister of the communion, and His Body and 
 Blood, which He gives us in communion. They are so truly 
 His Body and His Blood that our reverential thoughts about 
 Him cannot be dissociated from them. But what I desire to 
 point out, as regards our English theologians, is that they 
 are thinking of the duty of worship at the time of Communion, 
 not as the Church of Rome does during the consecration. 
 This is the principle brought out in the late Archbishop of 
 Canterbury's judgment (to which I was a party as an 
 
 covenant," and the Hebrew is rightly rendered " worship at or towards 
 liis footstool." What influence this misrendering may have liad on 
 practice is not of conrse easy to calculate. S. Augustine liowover (as 
 Mr. Freeman remarks) " connects the ' adoration ' of which lie speaks 
 with the prospect o£ reception ; and may tlie rather on that account be 
 understood in accordance witli tlie Liturgies as above explained " 
 {Principles, Int. to j>t. 2, p, 184). His words are "Nemo illam caraem 
 manducat nisi prius adoraverit." These and other passages are best 
 considered as using adoration in tlie sense of strong reverence. For 
 S. Augustine of course considers the " flesli of Christ"' as sometliing 
 distinct from the person of Clirist. For he writes in reference to tJie 
 words that follow in the Psalm (" For he is holy"), "Who is holy?" 
 to which lie answers, " He in whose honour ye adore tlie footstool of 
 His feet." According to Roman doctrine he ouglit to liave answered, 
 " He whom ye adore present under tlie likeness of His footstool, the 
 substance of wliich has been annihilated and lias become not only His 
 body and His blood, but the whole and entire Christ." See also 
 Dr. J. B. Mozley Lectures and other Theological Papers, The Holy 
 Eucharist, p. 215 (Lond. 1883). The whole section on Adoration is 
 very instructive and full of important ai'ofument, as is the Lecture 
 generally. I do not wish to dogmatize on the point whether it is right 
 to speak of the Soul and the Divinity of Christ being present or not in 
 the sacramental signs. It is a very mysterious siibiect on which over 
 definition is to be avoided. But S. Augustine's language sIicavs that 
 lie drew a distinction between the flesli of Christ and His Person.
 
 23 
 
 Assessor) in favour of permitting the short anthem, " O 
 Lamb of God." It was ruled that it may be sung publicly 
 " during the communion time," In the ancient Mass it was 
 said privately by the priest before communion {Judqment 
 pp. 61—64)". 
 
 But you may perhaps ask, ' Is not a ritual elevation of the 
 Sacramental signs at or shortly after consecration a very 
 ancient and almost universal custom ?' I would reply : * Yes; 
 but originally not at, but consklerahly after, the consecration, 
 and as an immediate invitation to communion.' It was ac- 
 companied, as now in the Greek rite, by the celebrant's 
 words TO. ayia Toiq ayioig, which were certainly regarded 
 in the fourth century as meaning '' holy things to holy 
 persons" i.e. devout communicants.* They were met by a 
 reverent disclaimer in the response of the people, ascribing 
 true holiness to God and Christ alone, or to the blessed 
 Trinity. Then communion followed at once. The signi- 
 ficance of the invitation has however been obscured in the 
 Byzantine rite, and others influenced by it (' S. James,' 
 ' S. Mark' and the Armenian), by the postponement of the 
 manual acts till after the elevation. The separation of the 
 communion of the clergy from that of the people has worked 
 in the same direction. 
 
 The transformation of this act in the Western* Church 
 into one of another character, where attention is prominently 
 called to the words uttered by the priest and the gestures 
 which he uses in consecration, cannot perhaps be exactly 
 described. But it seems not unnatural to connect the main 
 impulse to it with the controversies which were brought into 
 prominence by the case of Berengar of Tours in the middle 
 and later half of the 11th century (circa 1050 — 1080). A 
 
 * Mr. Briglitman has kindly helped me to clear up this point. See 
 S. Cyril Hierosol. Cat. Myst. v. 19, S. Cln-ys. Horn. xvii. in Hebr. § 5 t. 
 xii. p. 245, S. Cyril Alex, in S. Joli. xx. 17. The old connection is pre- 
 served in Lit. Apost. Const, viii. 12 (Briglitman p. 24) in tlie Syrian 
 (ib. 101), the oldMhiopic (ib. 191) and tlie Nestorian (ib. 296). Mr. 
 Brightman rejects explanations like ' holy things are offered to lioly 
 Persons,' ' holy things are lifted up to tlie lieavenly sanctuary,' ' holy 
 things are mixed with holy things' (tlie liost placed in tlie clialicc.)
 
 24 
 
 Council of Paris ordered elevation of the host, after the words 
 ''This is my body," so that all might see it, in 1188.* It 
 was not, however, till after the final definition of the doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation at the fourth Lateran Council (a.d. 
 1215) that a general rule bearing on this subject was pro- 
 mulgated by the Eoman Church in the person of Pope 
 Honorius III., and then only in the way of a reverent 
 inclination. I Bishop Poore's rule in our own Diocese was 
 simply that " laymen should be warned to behave reverently 
 at the consecration of the Eucharist and bend their knees, 
 especially at the time when the sacred host is lowered after 
 the elevation." t 
 
 The old EngHsh rites were in some respects simpler in 
 this point than the Roman. The full habit of adoration did 
 not grow till the later centuries before the Reformation when 
 Communion had become infrequent, and external worship had 
 taken its place. It is against this bad result that we have 
 specially to be on our guard and to take care that we do not 
 unwittingly contribute to restore it. But true adoration 
 addressed to the living person of Christ in connection with 
 different points of His manward attitude towards us in the 
 Sacrament, and recognising His loving presence in particular 
 when He comes to us to minister to us His sacred Body and 
 His most precious Blood, not only does not interfere with the 
 general direction of our worship, but is in itself the right and 
 natural, nay, we may say, with Bishop Beveridge, the 
 necessary attitude of the Christian soul. 
 
 * Quoted by W. Maskell Anc. Lit. of the Church of England ed. 3 
 p. 137. Mr. G. G. Scott in liis Essay on the History of English 
 Church Architecture, pp. 116, 117, Loud. 1881, connects tliis clian^e 
 with the disuse in the West of tlie veils, Avhidi used to surround the 
 altar or enclose the sanctuary, as tliey still do in the East. But the 
 explanation, though interesting, is insufficient. He has much to say on 
 these veils pp. 155 — 164. 
 
 t Decretal. Greg. IX. lib. III. 41, 10. 
 
 X Sarum Charters and Documents Rolls Series p. 147 (A.D. 1223) 
 and in Wilkins, Lahbe, &c.
 
 25 
 
 XIV. — Cautions as to pressing this practice into too 
 
 GREAT PROMINENCE. 
 
 If this adoration, however, ceases to hold its proper 
 subsidiary place, and becomes the chief end of the service, 
 the result is contrary to the great principle above laid down. 
 This, it is to be feared, is too much the case at those 
 Communions where few if any communicate except the Priest. 
 This is what makes the custom now beginning in some 
 places, and existing already in others, of bringing large 
 bodies of children, very frequently and as a matter of course, 
 to worship at the Sacrament, a subject of great anxiety to 
 myself. I feel also much the same anxiety about pressing a 
 whole congregation on a Sunday to attend as a matter of 
 religious observance, many of them never being Com- 
 municants and some perhaps being unfit to be so. 
 
 This is not exactly a thing to be settled by authoritative 
 interference, since, as you are aware, the Church of England 
 nowhere orders non-communicants to withdraw^ and it is 
 clear that children, as well as grown up persons, might be 
 present without communicating at the time of the Reforma- 
 tion. But I would, in all affection and sympathy, ask those 
 who attach importance to this experiment — for an experiment 
 it undoubtedly is — to consider certain lines of argument 
 which seem to me personally to weigh upon the other side. 
 
 In the first place any departure from established custom 
 on one side may be used to justify any other departure on 
 another side. You are all aware that I have expressed my 
 opinion on the inexpediency of Afternoon or Evening Com- 
 munions. Yet it is equally pleaded on behalf of them that 
 there is no law of the Church against them. The Roman 
 Church permits mass to be said on fast days up to the ninth 
 hour, though not in Parish Churches ; and the first mass at 
 Christmas is said in the night. The Greek Church begins 
 its celebrations in the Ploly Sepulchre soon after midnight. 
 Both however require fasting. Our Church has allowed the 
 rule as to fasting to lapse by desuetude, and therefore custom 
 rather than law stands between us and Evening- Communions.
 
 26 
 
 Most of you will aj^n-ce with me that this is decidedly a whole- 
 some custom, and one not to he lightly infringed. Let us 
 heware therefore how we make light of customs. 
 
 In the second place those who introduce experiments may 
 he ahle, from their special graces and force of character and 
 the general halance of their teaching, to deprive them almost 
 entirely of injurious results. But the same action, if done as 
 a general rule by all sorts of persons and without similar 
 caution, might be far from innocuous. Yet a custom broken 
 through by one wise man may be broken by hundreds of 
 unwise ones in imitation of him. 
 
 For, in the third place, there would seem to be a danger 
 in such methods of using up the forces of religion too 
 quickly. An impression is undoubtedly quickly made ; but 
 is it maintained ? 
 
 Again is there not a real danger that the balance of 
 worship may be destroyed and the proportion of faith 
 disturbed ? The natural and proper instincts of childish 
 reverence turn so readily to our Saviour. Hymns, pictures, 
 httle books all contribute to this impression. It is certainly 
 difficult for them to think of Him as our great High Priest, 
 and to have any true sense of the infinite value of His 
 offering for sin, and of our duty to offer ourselves our souls 
 and bodies in union with His sacrifice to the Father. Is it 
 not the case that children and undisciplined persons generally, 
 assisting at the Sacrament, think more of the subsidiary acts 
 of worship and less of the principal one ? And will it not be 
 difficult for them to change this attitude of mind as they 
 grow older ? 
 
 Lastly is there not a danger in the tendency to substitute 
 worship for edification, especially in the case of children, 
 whose minds are naturally indolent and who have everything 
 to learn ? And is not the English Communion office, as a 
 service standing by itself, deficient in certain important 
 elements both of edification and worship ? The lections 
 from Scripture in it are generally very short, there is very 
 little of the Old Testament, there is no psalmody, the element 
 of intercession is comparatively slight. The Morning Prayer
 
 27 
 
 and Litany supply these elements, but they are now seldom 
 joined in one service with the Communion office by those 
 who make a strong point of Eucharistic worship on a large 
 scale. 
 
 Is it desirable to habituate our people to lose, perhaps 
 during the whole of life, the discipline and instruction in- 
 volved in careful following of the teaching of the Sundays 
 and festivals, in the psalms and lessons of Mattins and the 
 wider range of supplication in the Litany ? 
 
 I know that this practice is introduced with a good object, 
 and by zealous men, often worthy of high praise, in order to 
 familiarize men's minds with the Sacrament and to make 
 communion in after days easier, as well as to instil more 
 reverence into both children and grown up people. I make 
 you partakers of my anxieties lest, even if we gain more 
 communicants, our success may be purchased at too dear a 
 cost. 
 
 XV. — In any case there must be the proper number of 
 Communicants to receive with the Priest. 
 
 I cannot, in any case, do otherwise than draw your attention, 
 dear brethren in the ministry, to the rubric which requires that 
 at least three communicants should partake with tlje Priest. 
 If ever you find that such a number of communicants is not 
 forthcoming, not once perhaps, but several times, you may 
 be sure that you are advancing too fast for loyalty to the 
 Church of England. This rule is a positive one, and I feel 
 that I have no right to give you a dispensation from it. On 
 occasion of a storm or accident it might not indeed be ne- 
 cessary for a Priest to deprive himself of the blessing of 
 communion, if less than three are present ; but in ordinary 
 cases it is the duty of the clergy to make certain that the 
 service is needed as a Comriuuiion. Nothing can be more 
 certain than the mind of the Church of England that the 
 service is essentially one for Communion. But the laity 
 should help us by sending in their names beforehand, ac- 
 cording to the rubric.
 
 28 
 
 XVI. — Reservation of the Sacrament for Worship not 
 
 PERMISSIBLE. 
 
 If this caution is to be observed when the balance of truth 
 is so protected as it is by the prayers and acts of the 
 Liturgy, there can be no doubt that niuch greater caution is 
 needed where there is no such protection. It is clearly not 
 only contrary to the law of the Church of England, but 
 contrary to the principles of Christian worship, as already 
 laid down, to reserve the sacrament for the purpose of isolated 
 worship, cither by those who casually enter a church and see 
 a light burning before pyx or tabernacle, or in a special 
 service of Benediction. I do not suppose that these practices 
 are anywhere in vogue in this Diocese ; but it is possible that 
 some to whom this letter comes with the weight of authority 
 may be inclined to wish they were permissible, or may be 
 associated, for certain purposes, with others who have adopted 
 them. If a sense of mystery in religion were the chief thing 
 to aim at, they might be considered permissible instruments 
 of devotion. But this is a very low type of religion, much 
 lower than even the Jewish ideal ; and the practice is not a 
 " due use" of the Sacrament (Art. xxv.) " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy strength" is fundamental to the 
 Law as well as to the Gospel. The intelligence, will, and 
 conscience must be at work, as well as the emotions. 
 
 If also we may judge such a thing by its fruits, we must 
 remark that this temper of worship has in Romanist 
 congregations not only led to infrequent communion, but has 
 even led to the preference of the afternoon or evening service 
 of Benediction, with its simple and irresponsible prostrations 
 and vague affections, to the somewhat more responsible and 
 self-denying duty of attendance at a morning mass, where at 
 any rate much good may be learnt from the prayers and 
 Scriptures, and from an entrance into the main purpose of 
 the rite.
 
 29 
 
 XVII. — Considerations on proposed Reservation for the 
 
 Sick. 
 
 I know indeed that reservation is sometimes honestly 
 desired among ourselves for a more speedy and perhaps more 
 reverent administration to the sick, and that clergy who 
 desire to shew their reverence by fasting reception — as it is 
 honourable in them to wish to do where it is possible — are 
 sometimes at a loss how to act when suddenly called upon to 
 attend a sick or dying person. 
 
 I cannot myself doubt that in such a case charity to the 
 sick should override any scruple of conscience; and such 
 cases are not very common, since those who require 
 communion are more often chronic cases for whom previous 
 arrangement can be made. There is perhaps a greater 
 difficulty in populous places how to arrange for the Easter 
 communion of sick cases. But, when all this is fairly 
 considered, the balance of advantage is on the side of our 
 present rule. It would be a very sad day indeed for the sick 
 when the unique privilege of celebration by the bedside 
 accorded to them by their mother the Church of England, 
 became obsolete. Yet experience (as far as report of it has 
 reached me) is to the effect that the practice of reservation 
 does lead to the rapid diminution of the number of sick-room 
 celebrations, if not to the entire cessation of the custom. 
 Methods of meeting cases of extreme difficulty have been 
 proposed, and on these I am willing to communicate privately 
 with any clergy who may experience extreme difficulty. But 
 I am unwilling, by mentioning them publicly, to seem to 
 suggest as a general usage what might easily become 
 dangerous if it were promulgated as a sort of law of the 
 Church. In our own Diocese, with moderate populations and 
 generally cleanly and not too crowded homes, the bed-side 
 celebration ought to be a joy and delight to the Pastor.
 
 30 
 
 XVIII. — Kecognition of God's Providence in the Loss 
 
 OF CERTAIN SaCRED THINGS. 
 
 It is natural that those who are students of antiquity 
 should regret the absence of the ancient custom of reservation, 
 and its prohibition among us on account of its misuse. But 
 if they are students also of Scripture they will recollect not 
 only that the Church sometimes has to discharge the difficult 
 duty of abolishing holy things that have been misused (as in 
 the case of the brazen serpent), but also that it has to 
 recognise God's Providence in the loss of what it might have 
 much desired to retain. The ark of the covenant contained 
 or had attached to it the most interesting and time-honoured 
 symbols of the doctrine and sacraments and discipline of 
 Christ, in the tables of the law, the pot of manna and Aaron's 
 rod that budded. It was also in itself " the footstool " of 
 God's feet, which the invisible Presence, "that sitteth upon the 
 Cherubim," made the basis of His throne. Towards it prayer 
 was directed, not indeed idolatrously but as a material 
 though generally invisible centre of worship.* 
 
 Yet it was ordered by God's Providence first that two out 
 of the three treasures of the ark should disappear, when it 
 was placed in Solomon's Temple, ! and then the ark itself, 
 when the second Temple was built. 1 Yet God has taught 
 us that the glory of the latter house was greater than the 
 glory of the former. It was to the Avorship of the second 
 Temple that our Saviour gave the sanction of His presence 
 and approval, partly explicit and partly tacit. Let us not 
 doubt that He approves our modest ritual and our more 
 simply furnished Churches, and gives the glory of His 
 presence wherever His faithful people come to meet Him, 
 and to the silent single worshipper in them as truly as where 
 a light burns before a tabernacle. 
 
 * The followiug references should be looked out: — Josli. vii. 6 — 15, 
 Ps. xcix, 5 and cxxxii. 7, 1 Clir. xxviii. 2, Jeremiah iii. 16. Tlic whole 
 sanctuary is sometimes the footstool, Is. Ix. 13, Lam. ii. 1. 
 t 1 Kings viii. 9. 
 
 X Josephus B, J. V. 5 § 5 ; Tacitus Hist. v. 9 ' inania arcaua.
 
 81 
 
 XIX. — Adoration of the Cross interferes with the 
 PROPER use of Symbols. 
 
 Another kind of adoration to which our attention is perforce 
 directed as one that requires regulation, is that of objects not 
 identified by any one with the Saviour, but nevertheless 
 closely connected with His sacred person, especially, the 
 symbol of our salvation, the Cross. I am deeply grieved that it 
 should be necessary to write on this subject, because it implies 
 not only disloyalty on the part of those who have introduced 
 such adoration, but a disregard on their part of that proper 
 use of symbols which was becoming a matter of course 
 among us. The use of a Cross as an ornament on or above 
 the holy Table has become so common among us that it has 
 almost ceased to excite any attention or surprise, or to be 
 viewed except with joy or contentment. It is so natural and 
 proper an object in that position, as a reminder that we are 
 in a Christian building, and in the presence of the sanctuary 
 to be used for the solemn ''memorial" of Christ's passion, 
 that it would be a great loss to give its presence any shade of 
 party character. We know indeed that ornaments of this 
 kind were by no means universal and perhaps not everywhere 
 common before the Reformation in the Church of England.* 
 In fact there is more English authority for a processional 
 cross than for one that stands where ours usually does. But 
 neither ought to be liable to the least suspicion. It is a 
 vexatious perversity on the part of certain men with medi- 
 evalist leanings to introduce ceremonies of worshipping or 
 
 * Some kind of haug'iiig or picture was generally l:)eliind the altar, 
 but there was no rule that cither a cross or a pair of candlesticks were 
 to stand there. The only definite rules apparently were that one light 
 should be placed on the altar at the time of mass, and that a cross for 
 processions should be provided by the Parish. The head of this might 
 often be detached and inserted in a standing foot on or over the altar. 
 Such a detachable cross is much used in the Eastern Church to-day. 
 I have seen it first carried in procession and then thrown into the sea, 
 at Kyreuia, in Cyprus, on the Greek Epiphany. On the general rules 
 as to the ornaments of the altar, see Almiin Club Tracts, No. I. The 
 Ornaments of the Rubric, by J. T. Micklethwaite, f.s.a., pp. 30, 31, 
 Lond. 1897. I am grateful to Mr. Micklethwaite for much informa- 
 tion, though I do not consider his thesis correct.
 
 32 
 
 kissing tiic cross which ciiii onl}^ end, unless they are 
 checked, in a bitter controversy about what ought to be 
 entirely outside controversy. 
 
 XX. — A KIND OF Divine Worship paid by Komanists to the 
 Cross. Confusion introduced by subtle Distinctions. 
 
 For it must be remembered that medieval theologians of 
 the high standing of S. Thomas Aquinas determine that abso- 
 lutely Divine worship is to be paid to the Cross.* It is true 
 that later Roman teachers have recoiled from this extreme 
 position and introduce the qualification ^'relative" or ''re- 
 spective."! But what is a peasant likely to understand of 
 such a qualification ? 
 
 For observe that Divine worship when addressed to the 
 Sacramental signs is defended by Roman doctors by the ex- 
 planation that though they seem to be bread and wine they are 
 not so in reality. Their substance as bread and wine has been, 
 it is said, annihilated, and they have become not merely the 
 Body and Blood of Christ but Christ Himself. On the other 
 hand Divine worship, when addressed to the Cross or to 
 Relics of Christ, is defended on the opposite principle, that 
 they are so obviously and evidently material that no one can 
 suspect the Church of idolatry in worshipping them. They 
 are adored in themselves indeed, but not on their own 
 account, but because of their relation to Him whose they are 
 (in se, non propter se). Are not these dangerous subtleties 
 difficult for even an educated mind to grasp and almost im- 
 possible for the mass of mankind ? I The evidence of the 
 senses is in the latter case appealed to as decisive, in the 
 former rejected as delusive. And if, besides all this, we have 
 to explain the lower kind of worship paid to the Blessed 
 Virgin and the saints and their images, pictures and relics, 
 the mind has to be furnished with a further set or sets of 
 subtle distinctions. It may have indeed four or five kinds of 
 adoration to practise in looking at the same altar, and trying 
 
 * Sumiiia III, quacst. 25, art.'i, f See V. Tlialliofer Katholische 
 Liturgik i. pp. 282—292, Freiburg- i. Br. 1883. X Bellarmiue sees 
 tliis difficulty De cultu Sanctorum ii, 22.
 
 33 
 
 also to realize the one supreme and true Object of Divine 
 worship in and through these outward forms. Far be it 
 from us to say that it cannot be done, or that the teachers 
 who have drawn these distinctions do not believe in them. 
 But they have all the appearance of being drawn for the 
 purpose of covering practices which had become popular and 
 which the teaching body had not the courage or the power to 
 resist. It is hard to believe that these distinctions exist 
 consciously in the mass of mankind. Let us do nothing to 
 involve the minds of our people in this entanglement. 
 
 Idolatry dies hard, even in the educated ; and a Church 
 which has to preach the Gospel to all mankind, especially to 
 the heathen, must remember its duty to make the worship of 
 the one God easy and not difficult. It must give no opening 
 to the weak and ignorant to put their trust as Christians in 
 objects Httle removed from those in which their fathers and 
 forefathers (whose inherited instincts they retain) put their 
 trust as real habitations and vehicles of the Divine presence. 
 
 XXI. — Public Woeship as conformable to Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 Hitherto we have been considering public worship gene- 
 rally as far as it is conformable to the Catholic faith, that is 
 to say as Christian worship^ and have tested various forms of 
 it by asking the question do they or do they not interfere 
 with the great principle that all worship should be directed 
 to the Trinity in Unity. There is also another test which 
 we in the Church of England are especially bound to apply, 
 namely, that of conformity to Holy Scripture, This is of 
 course a test which may be readily misapplied, as it has been 
 by those who are slaves of the letter, whether ultramontanes 
 or puritans, and who think it necessary to find everything in 
 so many words in the text of the Bible. It would be easy to 
 give instances of such misapplication on the part of ultra- 
 montane innovators in religion as well as of those who aim at 
 rigid simplicity, as when a Pope founds an argument for the 
 possession of temporal as well as civil power by the Church 
 on the text '' Here are two swords" (S. Luke xxii. 38), or an 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 eager veneration of St. Joseph is supported by the words of 
 Genesis " Go unto Joseph" spoken by Pharoah of his prime 
 minister (Gen. xli. 55). Not everything that the Chm'ch 
 rightly teaches or does is to be found verbally in Scripture, 
 and that Christian liberty to which the Holy Spirit leads us, 
 cannot be abridged or extended by a mere citation of texts, or 
 a proof that something is or is not mentioned in the Bible. 
 
 A right and moderate view of this subject has been secured 
 for us mainly by the instrumentality of one man, whom we 
 may gratefully claim as one of ourselves, Richard Hooker, 
 who as Subdean of this Cathedral Church, Prebendary of 
 Netheravon, and Rector of Boscombe, wrote the first books of 
 his treatise Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity within a few 
 miles of Salisbury. 
 
 XXII. — Worship of the Saints tried by this test. 
 Official prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin 
 AND THE Saints. 
 
 On the other hand there is such a far-reaching power in 
 the principles discernible in Scripture, that we must con- 
 stantly refer to it for instruction when a form of worship is 
 proposed to us. The most important form that comes before 
 us under this head is the cultus or veneration of the Saints, 
 a veneration which we are expressly told by its promoters is 
 not divine adoration ; and it therefore cannot be treated on 
 exactly the same principles as the adoration of the Sacrament 
 or of the Cross. They are either directly or relatively objects 
 of Divine Adoration. The Saints, it is said, on the contrary, 
 are objects of honour and veneration, or what is called dulia, 
 literally the service rendered by slaves to a master. Never- 
 theless this service frequently takes the forms of the service 
 of God, and is by no means confined to requests to Him that 
 we may have their intercessions, but is extended to direct 
 Invocations and to prayers for their protection and grace. 
 Thus the following prayers to the Blessed Virgin are in 
 general and official use in the Church of Rome, as seen by 
 the two Offices printed in the Roman Breviary, one for use 
 on Saturdays, the other called the " Little Office of the
 
 35 
 
 Blessed Mary." Both contain the hymn Ave Maris Stella, 
 in which she is addressed as " the gate of heaven " and 
 petitioned as follows : — " Loose the chains of offenders, Bring 
 forth light to the blind, Drive away our evils. Ask for all 
 good things." '' Shew that thou art a mother, Let him who 
 being born for us. Bore to become thy Son, Receive our 
 prayers through thee."* " Thou unique in the Virginity, Mild 
 amid all others. Make us mild and chaste. Freed from our 
 faults." '' Grant us a pure life, Prepare us a safe way. That 
 seeing Jesus, we may always rejoice together." This hymn 
 contains indeed implications that these gifts and graces 
 are to be obtained through intercession (Bona cuncta posce). 
 But that intercession is of an imperative character (Monstra 
 te esse matrem) ; and the greater part of the prayers in the 
 hymn are direct appeals for grace. Throughout these offices 
 words of Scripture which belong to the Church or to divine 
 Wisdom are used of the blessed Virgin. Perhaps the most 
 astonishing text is this from Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 9, 10 : — 
 " He created me from the beginning before the world, and I 
 shall never fail. In the holy tabernacle I served before him," 
 which is of course only applicable to the Wisdom of God. In 
 one Antiphon attached to the Magnificat the Blessed Virgin 
 is addressed as " Queen of the World," in another as ''Queen 
 of Heaven." In the second of these offices occurs the hymn 
 Memento rerum Conditor, in which we find the verse " Mary 
 mother of grace, Sweet parent of clemency, Do thou protect 
 us from the enemy, And receive us in the hour of death,"" 
 and to the Nunc Dimittis is attached this Antiphpn : — 
 " Under thy protection we take refuge, holy mother of God ; 
 do not despise our supplications in our necessities ; but free 
 
 * Cassander in his ConsuUatio, art. xxi, (p. 971 in Opera Omnia, 
 Paris 1616, and p. 155 in Via ad pacem Ecclesiasticam ed. Grotius 
 1642), quotes as being sung- in some churches " Ora matrem et iube 
 filio" and " O felix puerpera, Nostra plans scelera, lure matris impera 
 Redemptori." Bp. Andrewes quotes the first phrase correctly in his 
 Besp. ad Bellarmini Apologiam (p. 236 A.C.L. 1851) as " Ora patrem 
 et iube filio." The prayer " lure matris impera . . . filio" is from 
 the * crown' of S. Bonaventura : see Ussher Ans. to a challenge c. ix. 
 {Worhs iii. p. 489), and cp. Bp. Chr. Wordsworth's Sequel to letters 
 to Gondon, j). 191 note. Lond. 1848. 
 
 c2
 
 86 
 
 us from all dangers ever glorious aixl blessed Virgin." 
 Another Antiphon runs thus :— '* Kejoice, Virgin Mary, 
 thou alone hast destroyed all heresies throughout the whole 
 world," and another, " Suffer me to praise thee, O sacred 
 Virgin : Give me strength against thy enemies," and, at the 
 end of the Psalm (97), words properly applied to our Lord 
 are apphed to her, '' Grace is poured upon thy lips; Where- 
 fore God hath blessed thee for ever." 
 
 Similar direct prayers are addressed to the Saints, as in the 
 hymn to S. Peter and S. Paul for the 29th June : — 
 
 O blessed Shepherd Peter graciously receive The voices of those 
 who pray, and with thy word unloose The bouds of crime, to whom 
 the power is given To open heaven to the earth (terris) and to shut it 
 when opened. 
 
 Wondrous teacher Paul, instruct our lives (mores), And draw with 
 thee our hearts towards heaven ; Until veiled Faith beholds the 
 noonday liglit. And Love alone reigns like the Sun. 
 
 XXIII. — Further Devotions to the Blessed Virgin 
 
 PERMITTED IN THE KOMAN ChURCH. 
 
 I have purposely only cited official prayers. It would be 
 easy to add much more startling examples of worship, in 
 which the language of divine honour paid to God has been 
 studiously copied and imitated, by approved and even 
 beatified and sanctified writers, and applied especially to 
 the Blessed Virgin, without any hint of disapproval on the 
 part of the authorities of the Roman Church. In this 
 matter, as Dr. Pusey has well shown at length, in his 
 Eirenicoji, addressed to the author of the Christian Year, 
 permitted practice has run to almost incredible lengths, far 
 exceeding anything spoken of in the Canons of the Council 
 of Trent, which are comparatively speaking very moderate in 
 assertion. In this practice the great mysteries of Redemp- 
 tion and Grace are ascribed to the Blessed Virgin almost as 
 the equal and sometimes even as the superior power. She 
 is considered our Co-Redemptress, and has a common pre- 
 sence with Christ in the Eucharist. To her especially 
 sinners are advised to turn as having a more tender heart 
 than her Divine Son. (See e.g., Pusey 1. c. pp. 102, 103.)
 
 37 
 
 XXIV.— Evidence of Scripture on this point. Our 
 
 RELATION to AnGELS AND SaINTS. 
 
 What is the evidence of Scripture as to this — not merely 
 as to the practical system, but as to the basis on which it 
 rests ? Not as to the excesses but as to the ordinary 
 exhibitions of the habit ? 
 
 As regards the holy angels, about whose condition we have 
 far more light than on that of departed Christians, we have 
 the evidence of the Apocalypse (xix. 10, xxii. 8). The 
 Evangelist records that on two occasions when he was about 
 to worship an angel who talked with him, evidently by 
 throwing himself at his feet, he was plainly rebuked in the 
 words ^' Do it not." ..." Worship or adore God." 
 Obviously this rebuke would have been most misleading if 
 it had been his duty, or at any rate a praiseworthy and pious 
 act on his part, to give the angel a worship or veneration 
 such as the Romanists use, which is almost identical in 
 outward form with that offered to God, but differs only or 
 chiefly from it in intention.* Yet it is not as if Scripture 
 was wholly silent as to our relation to angels. We are not 
 forbidden wholly to have converse with angels. The Psalms 
 are full of addresses to them, which shew the kind of 
 language we may use towards them. Again and jigain we 
 call upon them to join us in our worship of God. We have 
 no warrant for going any further. So too we may, according 
 to the use of the Church of England, call upon the spirits 
 and souls of the righteous to bless God with the rest of His 
 creation, as we do in the Benedicite omnia opera. We are 
 not cut off from the communion of Saints, but we recognise 
 its true conditions. 
 
 If then we have no warrant for this worship of angels, 
 whom we know to be sinless, and to behold the face of God, 
 a fortiori we have none for the worship of Saints as practised 
 in the Roman Communion. See below chapter xxviii. 
 
 * See Thalhofer 1. c. p. 296 who urges that all these outward acts 
 must be judged according to tlieir intention. Bp. Andrewes writes 
 well on this point JSes^. ad Apol. Bellarmini pp. 65, foil. A.C.L. 1851.
 
 38 
 
 XXV. — All Christl\ns are waiting for Judgment. 
 
 The great theological and scriptural ground indeed on 
 which we reject the invocation of Saints is one which is of a 
 very hroad character. It rests upon our assurance of the 
 incompleteness of their state in another world. To this the 
 ancient Church bore witness, as the Greek Liturgies do to 
 the present day, when they oifer prayers on behalf of all 
 Saints, even the Blessed Virgin herself. The Church no- 
 where specifically prays for the Angels, which shows that she 
 regards their state as a more perfect one than that of the 
 highest Saints. We may not anticipate the result of 
 judgment for any mortal, however much we may have reason 
 to believe that God has blessed him or her during their 
 earthly probation. We may not do it for anyone : much less 
 may we make a list of those to whom one kind of prayer may 
 oe addressed whom we call '' Saints," and a second list of those 
 to whom a secondary kind of prayer may be addressed whom 
 we call ^' Blessed." To do so offends against the precept 
 *' Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who 
 both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and 
 make manifest the counsels of the hearts ; and then shall 
 each man have his praise from God" (1 Cor. iv. 5 R.V.) 
 This text plainly means that " then," and not till then, 
 " shall each man have his praise," that which describes his 
 own peculiar position, " from God", and not first from man. 
 Again and again judgment is represented as future. '' We 
 shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. . . . 
 Each one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom. 
 xiv. 10, 12). " We must all be made manifest before the 
 judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things 
 done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it 
 be good or bad" (2 Cor. v. 10 R.V.) What are these words 
 of the Apostle but an echo of our Lord's own teaching about 
 Himself: — ''All that are in the tombs shall hear His voice 
 and shall come forth : they that have done good unto the 
 resurrection of life, and they that have done ill unto the 
 resurrection of judgment" (S. John v. 29 R.V.)? Remark, 
 dear brethren, in each case the words implying universality,
 
 39 
 
 ''all," ''each," ''all that are in the tombs." What would 
 be the meaning again of our Lord's words " they that have 
 done good," if all the really good had been in a state of 
 saintly blessedness, enjoying the vision of God, perhaps ever 
 since the hour of their death ? The whole theory of the 
 cultus of the Saints rests upon a very natural but wholly 
 unscriptural idea that peculiar excellence, especially martyr- 
 dom, exempts men and women from the common lot of all 
 men. There is a sense indeed in which the judgment of 
 departed Christians will differ from that of the heathen. 
 This is implied in the accounts of judgment, under different 
 types and figures, given by our Lord in the latter part of the 
 Gospel according to S. Matthew (ch. xxiv., xxv.) Similarly 
 S. Paul teaches us that " those who sleep in Jesus shall God 
 bring with him," that is to say with our Saviour, and *' the 
 dead in Christ shall rise first." He looks forward to his own 
 death as "to depart and be with Christ," which is "far 
 better" than even to remain and work for Him on earth. 
 But there is no distinction between one Christian and another 
 in this view, no classification attempted between the " Saints" 
 and the " Blessed" and common Christians. All the saved 
 are together "in Paradise" waiting for judgment, when they 
 will receive higher or lower places " according to the deeds 
 done in the body." Some will "suffer loss," Jihat is be 
 placed in a lower position than they might expect ; others 
 will receive a higher place and fuller praise from God than 
 either they or those who knew them imagined. 
 
 XXVI. — Impossibility of relative place being taken 
 
 BEFORE THE EnD. 
 
 There are other considerations which might naturally 
 weigh with us in forming a judgment on the duty of the 
 Church as to the cultus or invocation of the Saints. To some 
 (as to myself) it may seem a very strong argument that, from 
 the nature of the case, it is impossible for men to take their 
 final place, relatively to each other, in God's Kingdom until 
 the whole record of history is completed and the full purpose 
 of God unfolded and brought to an issue. The final
 
 40 
 
 judgment will be a great revelation, in which it will be 
 explained to each and all what each has contributed to the 
 execution of that design. To some it will surely be said : 
 "You meant well : you were zealous and active, but you did 
 not use your mind conscientiously ; you neglected such and 
 such warnings ; you failed to act on such and such principles 
 of which you knew the truth. See what a terrible hindrance 
 your conduct was to the truth ; see how in the result, many 
 ages after your death, the wrong turn you gave to practice 
 has led other souls astray. You are saved, but without 
 honour or dignity, as one who just escapes through the fire 
 with his bare life." 
 
 The fairness of this judgment can hardly be understood 
 until the event has fully shewn what the consequences are. 
 So again to others, little known and observed of men, it will 
 be revealed how their quiet perseverance, or self-denial, their 
 use of small means, and small opportunities, and small 
 intellectual capacities, sowed seeds and laid foundations on 
 which step by step great developments have grown. The 
 last judgment will be a great scene of the reversal of human 
 judgments, even when they have been judgments of great 
 portions of the Church, not merely of worldly men. 
 
 XXVII. — Other Considerations. Uncertainty of the 
 Evidence. 
 
 Another consideration is that of the extreme uncertainty of 
 the communications made between ourselves and the other 
 world. We all know the attempts to guarantee their reality 
 by producing the evidence of visions and miracles and gene- 
 rally of "legends" — a word which in the first instance simply 
 meant acts of the saints, "to be read " (legenda) for the 
 edification of the church. Investigation of this evidence does 
 not indeed lead to a simple rejection of all legend as myth, 
 and all ecclesiastical miracle as delusion. There is pro- 
 bability at least that Cod has sometimes thought fit to bless 
 simple childlike faith even when mingled with superstition. 
 But the enquiry also reveals, again and again, the painful 
 part played by credulity and duplicity. We find cautious
 
 41 
 
 reluctance on the part of honest leaders and teachers over- 
 borne by popular desire for marvels and local desire for gain. 
 Are we in the Church of England at all prepared to plunge 
 into this labyrinth of known uncertainty and delusion in 
 order to revive a practice which, even on the showing of its 
 promoters, is only an added comfort to spiritual life and not a 
 necessity? Look at the new religion taught in Liguori's 
 Glories of Mary if you wish to see the mischief in its true Hght. 
 
 XXVIII. — Why Public Worship of the Saints is 
 
 DISALLOWED. 
 
 But it may be said : ' No doubt excess is to be avoided : 
 but may we not make such simple requests to honoured names 
 among the saints and departed persons for the assistance of 
 their prayers, as we make to living friends ? ' 
 
 The answer, as regards public worship, is partly drawn 
 from the absence of any hint of such invocation in Scripture. 
 An argument from the silence of Scripture is not indeed an 
 easy one to handle, and yet it can by no means be overlooked. 
 The force of such argument differs of course with the subject 
 matter. Whatever can be known by the light of nature is 
 presupposed in Scripture, which is only a revelation, or the 
 record of a revelation, as to what could not be so known. 
 Scripture is complete only in relation to the end to which it 
 is directed.* But as regards worship it certainly* seems that 
 Scripture is intended to be a sufficient guide both in respect to 
 what it teaches and what it omits to teach, at any rate in broad 
 principles if not in details. This is the principle laid down in 
 Deuteronomy (xvii. 3 cp.iv. 2, xii. 32), where worship of the sun 
 and moon and the host of heaven is counted as wickedness 
 and transgression, because not commanded by God. And this 
 thought is several times repeated by Jeremiah (vii. 31, xix. 
 5, xxxii. 35). No doubt the Old Testament ritual was more 
 complete in detail than that of the New. But this matter of 
 Invocation is not a matter of detail, but is in practice a very 
 wide and extensive custom, encroaching largely upon other 
 public services. And, as regards the letter of the New Testa- 
 
 * See the couclusiou of Hooker, E.P. book ii. cliap. 8, esp. sec. 5, 6, 7.
 
 42 
 
 ment, none of us who look to our Lord's words, " Come unto 
 me . . . and I will give you rest," can doubt both His 
 power and His will to do all we need. Nor when we consider 
 the emphatic teaching of S. Paul in regard to the one 
 Mediator (1 Tim. ii. 5), and his rejection of that form of 
 opposition to it in worship, which alone was a danger in the 
 Church of the first age, the exaltation of the mediation of 
 angels (Col. ii. 18 — 28), can we doubt that he would have as 
 strongly opposed any other form of mediation expressed in 
 worship. The word eOeXoOpricTKua '' will- worship" is founded 
 on the Old Testament view that man's own device in such 
 matters is forbidden. So that we have not only the silence 
 of Scripture but actual and definite indications, here and in the 
 Apocalypse, bearing upon this question.* And, though requests 
 for intercession addressed to living friends, over whom friend- 
 ship gives us a right, (conditioned and limited, as they must be, 
 by time and space,) are eminently proper, it does not follow 
 that our place in the Communion of Saints gives us a right 
 to claim from God such minute and personal attention on the 
 part of the supposed leaders of that Communion as is implied 
 by the invocation in question. It is His will that they should 
 be out of our reach for the ordinary offices of friendship : it 
 requires a revelation to assure us that they are at our dis- 
 posal for these highest offices which we should scruple to ask 
 or expect with great frequency, except from those whom we 
 know very well. 
 
 XXIX. — Why Private Worship of the Saints is 
 
 DISALLOWED. 
 
 To the individual also nothing is permissible that endangers 
 his moral life, either by wasting his energy or by weakening 
 his sense of responsibility. Time spent in invocation of the 
 Saints is time in most cases taken from direct prayer to God ; 
 and such invocation consists of prayers which might just 
 as well be addressed to Him. But, if direct prayer to God 
 
 * On these texts the reader will do well to consult Bp. Andrewes 
 liesponsio ad Apologiam Bellarmini, pp. 241, 242, A.C.L. 1851. The 
 quotation from S. Augustine, contra epist. Parmeniani ii. 8, is much 
 to the purpose.
 
 43 
 
 is posyible, it is a duty to Him to offer it as fully as may 
 be. The doubt again whether the Saints can hear our 
 prayers, and, if they hear them, can find ability to attend to 
 them all, must make a properly conscientious mind hesitate 
 before it uses such prayer. Again, nothing can be more 
 weakening to a sense of responsibility for sin and more 
 injurious to the honour of God, than to turn aside from prayer 
 to God for forgiveness to some easy or gentle Saint who is to 
 intercede for us and mitigate God's wrath. . Tenderness to 
 self, unwillingness to repent, hard thoughts of God — these 
 are miserable vices in a Christian character, but they are 
 largely fostered by this habit if indulged on any large scale. 
 
 Again, I say, let us be wise in time. It is easy at present 
 to check the beginnings of this dangerous habit. Let the 
 clergy and parents be careful of what books of devotion are 
 used by the young and the zealous. Let them be cautious as 
 to the influence of members of other communions, especially 
 in nurseries and schoolrooms. Let them enquire into the 
 practice of the religious communities whose retreats they 
 attend or whose charities they support. 
 
 XXX. — Public Worship must be worship of the Church 
 OF England. 
 
 Further, brethren, there is a third principle, no4 so sacred 
 perhaps as the two former, but nevertheless a religious prin- 
 ciple as well as one involving expediency in a very high 
 degree. It is, as we have seen, our duty to remember that 
 we are guardians of Christian worship and that our worship 
 must be in conformity with Holy Scripture. It is also our 
 duty to remember that we are ministers of the Church of 
 England. You will recollect the questions put to you at 
 your ordination as Deacons and Priests, in which reference 
 is made in the first case to " the due order of this Kealm," 
 and in the second to '' the order of the Church of England," 
 and your promise as priests "so to minister the Doctrine 
 and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord 
 hath commanded, and as this Church and Realm hath 
 received the same."
 
 44 
 
 This is not merely an ecclesiastical rule, but it has its 
 roots very deeply in our religion. Our Lord's portraiture of 
 Himself as the Good Shepherd is full of teaching on the 
 duty of speaking to the people in a voice that they under- 
 stand. " The sheep hear his voice and he calleth his own 
 sheep by name." " The sheep follow him, for they know 
 his voice, and a stranger will they not follow, for they know 
 not the voice of strangers." (S. John x. 3 — 5). 
 
 So it was that the Cross was providentially ordered to speak 
 to the three great nations of the world, in whose presence the 
 Saviour suffered, in their own language. So the Gospels may 
 be reasonably divided as a Hebrew Gospel, a Roman Gospel 
 — though not in the Latin tongue — and a Greek Gospel, 
 together with the universal Gospel according to S. eTohn. So 
 it was most strikingly on the day of Peaitecost. In the 
 record of the Acts it is three times emphatically recorded 
 that the bystanders heard the Apostles speak '' every man 
 . . . in his own language," "in our own language wherein 
 we were born," '' we do hear them speak in our tongues the 
 wonderful works of God" (Acts ii. 6, 8, 11). 
 
 We feel sure that God has, in these different ways, con- 
 secrated the great principle of nationality, since language is 
 the chief symbol of national life. 
 
 It is our duty, then, not only to preach and to read the 
 Scriptures and prayers in the tongue of the people, but to 
 speak to them in a way which they will understand, both in 
 words and outward acts. The language of signs, especially 
 of ritual signs, is a very powerful language to attract or to 
 repel. 
 
 It is a grievous error to adopt or adapt a foreign ritual, 
 unsuited to the religious habits and unwelcome even to the 
 prejudices of our people. It is one thing to do what is 
 necessary to exhibit the doctrine of the Church. That is, in 
 all conscience, a hard enough message. How unwilling are 
 our people sometimes to listen to words about doctrine, 
 >vhich teach them that they are sinners in fact as well as in 
 word ! How readily they fall into grave moral faults them- 
 selves and palliate them in others, and think us over strict in
 
 45 
 
 upholding the law of the Church as to prohibited degrees or 
 infractions of the marriage tie ! How lightly they think of 
 the sin of schism ! It is criminal, when we have such diffi- 
 culties, to increase our difficulties unnecessarily by talking to 
 people in what is to them a foreign language, and so to give 
 them a pretext for not listening to us. There are words 
 and phrases, innocent in themselves, which are not the 
 English of our Prayer-Book, and a light use of them may 
 simply destroy our influence. 
 
 But if this is true in regard to words outside the Churchy 
 how much more is it in regard to acts of public worship ! 
 
 It is our duty to give no oifence either by word or deed, 
 even to those who may be prejudiced, unless it be such 
 offence as the preaching of the Cross necessarily involves in 
 the ignorant and worldly. As Bishop Thomas Wilson well 
 says, " Prudence is very necessary in dangerous times ; it 
 being no small fault to give occasion to the raising of storms 
 against the Church and her ministers, for want of having a 
 due regard to the times and to the passions of carnal men " 
 {Sac. Pr. p. 68 A.C.L.) How much more is this true if 
 offence is given to devout fellow Christians ! 
 
 I have written thus, dear brethren, desiring in no way to 
 give an impression that I have reason to doubt your entire 
 loyalty to the Church of England. Four alone ^f all the 
 hundreds of beneficed clergy, whom it has been my privilege 
 to have known in this Diocese in the past twelve years, have, 
 to my knowledge, become unfaithful to her teaching ; and 
 they have gone in three very different directions. I pray 
 God to pardon them and to pardon any defect or imprudence 
 of mine which may have contributed to their errors. But, 
 as each generation passes away, the old warnings must be 
 from time to time repeated, and perhaps with more of reason 
 against errors in the direction of excess than of defect. 
 
 For as the general level of worship and doctrine becomes 
 gradually raised, as, thank God ! it surely does, it is very 
 natural that men should wish to advance further, and to 
 create an atmosphere about them in which they will be able 
 to realize the inheritance of our Church in the ritual
 
 46 
 
 traditions which wc see in other countries of Christendom. 
 In doing so, however, they are apt to forget the actual in 
 pursuit of the ideal. The very virtues of the clergy, their 
 zeal and self-denial and devotion to their ministerial and 
 pastoral work, separate them from much of the so-called 
 secular life of the country in which they used to take a more 
 prominent share. They have for the most part smaller 
 private incomes, smaller public incomes, smaller libraries, 
 fewer friends, fewer social engagements, fewer amusements, 
 fewer interests outside their work. All this tends to centre 
 and contract their interests upon the details of public worship, 
 and to incline them to trust more to eye and ear as instruments 
 of training the spirit of men, than to the discipline of mind 
 and intellect and character. When I think, indeed, of the 
 perfect simplicity of the great men of the last generation, 
 and of their force in the ministry of the Word and 
 Sacraments, their energy in catechizing and other like 
 duties, and the remarkable results which they accomplished 
 with apparently intractable material, I can only regret how 
 very much their memory has faded and their example ceased 
 to operate. You will therefore. I trust, be patient with one 
 another, and by close and constant association with one 
 another, as one of the first of the " duties to your neighbour," 
 strive to give to each other that balance which cannot be 
 obtained from the example of those who are gone. Let no 
 party spirit or shyness prevent you from contributing to each 
 other's education. 
 
 XXXI. — Application of the Principle. 
 
 But take the principle I have laid down very seriously. 
 Think what the best characteristics of Englishmen are, such 
 as simplicity and straightforwardness, self-reliance coupled 
 with respect for order, reserve in expressing their inmost 
 feelings and in making professions or proclamations of piety. 
 These characteristics are the result of our history and are a 
 very remarkable blending of British and Celtic, Norman, 
 Saxon, and Danish, and other elements of race and population, 
 developed in the long struggles between Church and State,
 
 47 
 
 Kings, Nobles and Commons, Puritans and Cavaliers, Church 
 and Sects, Whigs and Tories, and the like. Nor can we 
 forget the debt we owe to the United States, India, and the 
 British Colonies, as a training ground for the development 
 of character in our race. No one can understand the growth 
 of these characteristics, or their tenacity of root, who does 
 not understand something of history. But a man, however 
 ignorant of history, must be very weak-sighted who does not 
 recognise their present value. It is to a people so constituted 
 that we, my brethren, have to minister, and unless we keep 
 their character in mind, and thoroughly respect its strong 
 points, we shall be no true representatives of the Good 
 Shepherd. 
 
 In public worship be simple, without an irritating variety 
 of gesture and an artificial obtrusiveness of prostration and 
 genuflection, and teach your people, especially your choirs, 
 to be so. The choirs, loving and helpful as they are, easily 
 catch defects and exaggerate mistakes. Declplt exemplar 
 vitiis imitahile. On the other hand remember always in 
 Whose presence you are ; and be reverent, as servants in their 
 Master's House. 
 
 That wonderful funeral service lately held in Westminster 
 Abbey, when we laid the mortal remains of Mr. Gladstone to 
 rest (2 June, 1898), was impressive very greatly through its 
 simplicity. It will live long in the minds of those who 
 witnessed or took part in it as a thoroughly English scene 
 both in the way of simplicity and of reverence. 
 
 In reading the service be clear and distinct. '' The sheep 
 hear His voice." I fear this is not the case always with the 
 Shepherds of to-day : but some clergy think it a proper 
 custom to gabble or mumble, to read mysteriously or 
 affectedly, or to read almost in a whisper. This is clearly 
 wrong : but the fault is no new one. My predecessor Bishop 
 Richard Poore, the founder of our Cathedral, lays down most 
 decidedly in a.d. 1223, re-echoing the words of his pre- 
 decessor Hubert Walter when Archbishop of Canterbury : 
 " We order that the words of the Canon (or consecration 
 prayer) be said roundly and distinctly. Likewise let all the
 
 48 
 
 hours, and offices also, be said openly and distinctly, so that 
 the words be not cut short or abbreviated by too great haste." 
 I pray you, brethren, be none of you offenders in this respect. 
 It has been, I may remark, a sort of inspiration to me to 
 write the latter part of this letter in Bishop Poore's Hall, 
 and to feel how, under very altered circumstances, I could 
 re-echo many of his wise words. 
 
 Lastly, I would say, respect the English book of Common 
 prayer. It needs very little supplementing indeed, provided 
 you will take pains to understand it. Respect both what is 
 in it textually and literally, and the spirit of reserve and 
 simplicity that underlies it. For my own part the better I 
 know it the more I admire it ; and the more I feel that it is 
 easier to criticize it imprudently, than to understand it 
 thoroughly. Let it be said, at least of this Diocese, that it 
 is possible to go from Parish to Parish and to find the same 
 services intelligently and intelligibly performed, so that all 
 our people may really recognize the Church as their old and 
 familiar home. There can be no greater rebuke to the 
 clergy of our Church than for an intelligent person to be 
 able to say, '' I went to the service, but I really did not know 
 what was being done : I did not recognize the service." I 
 have not, thank God, heard this said of any of you, but I 
 have heard it said of others. 
 
 I have added, by way of appendix, a few counsels on points 
 of ritual or order where caution or explanation seems to be 
 required. Some of them have already been published as 
 Appendix V. to my Visitation Addresses of 1894. 
 
 XXXII. — On the ministry of Penitence especially in 
 
 PRIVATE. 
 
 Before concluding this letter I will draw .your attention to 
 another portion of our ministry which is a subject of criticism 
 on the part of many of our laity, a criticism which is to a great 
 extent suggested by those English characteristics to which 
 I have referred. This ministry is not indeed at present, (ex- 
 cept on very rare occasions, of which I can only remember 
 one or two in my administration of this Diocese), directly a
 
 49 
 
 part of public worship. But it has an intimate connection 
 with it, as being a prelude to Holy Communion, and it 
 therefore falls within the general scope of this letter. This 
 is the ministry of Penitence, as the ancient Church called 
 it, which is especially a subject of criticism when it takes 
 the form of private confession and absolution. It is objected 
 to as a piece of ecclesiastical pretentiousness, as invading the 
 reserve natural to Englishmen, and as dangerous to spiritual 
 health both in the confessor and the penitent. This last 
 feeling is particularly present when it is observed that the 
 penitents are chiefly of another sex. 
 
 We ought surely to recognize that there is reason in some 
 of this criticism ; and should do nothing, by wilfully or 
 imprudently arousing prejudice, to make the due exercise of 
 this ministry less possible. For that it is a true help to the 
 really penitent in the Church of England, when exercised by 
 the right persons towards the right persons, no one who has 
 even a little experience can doubt.* 
 
 XXXIII. — Evidence of Scripture on the subject. 
 
 In treating this matter in the light of Scripture we ought 
 to remember that one of the texts often cited in support of 
 it, that about ''binding" and "loosing" in the xvith and 
 
 * The rocider will do well to eousult Hooker £". P. BooIj vi., which 
 is almost entirely concerned with this subject: Abp. Usshcr Answer 
 to a Challencje cc. iv, v, Worhs iii. pp. 90 — 176 ; J. Morinus Com- 
 nientarius Historic as de disciplina in luhriinistratione Sacramenti 
 Penitentiae XIII. primis seculis in ecclesia Occidentali et hue usque in 
 Orientali observata first published in 1651 ; and Bingham's Antiquities 
 of the Christian Church. He gives a summary account of the matter 
 in book xv. ch. 8, What preparation the ancients required as necessary 
 to communicants to qualify them for a worthy reception. Books xvi. 
 and xvii, give details on Discipline, xviii. on Penitence and xix. on 
 Absolution of Penitents. See also N. Marshall's Penitential Dis- 
 cipline Lond. 1714, reprinted in Anglo -Catholic Library; and the 
 articles on Excommunication, by Rev. I. Gregory Smith, and on 
 Exomologesis and Penitence by Rev. C Mead in Smith and Cheetham's 
 Diet, of Chr. Antiquities. There are long notes by Dr. Pusey on the 
 subject in the Oxford Library of the Fathers appended to Tertulliau 
 De Pcenitentia. I may also refer to the late Bishop of Lincoln's Twelve 
 Addresses 1873 No. 7, i^p. 112 — 120; and his Miscellanies Literary and 
 Religious ii. pp. 189—211 1879, and to Dr. E. B. Pusey's introduction 
 to Gaumc's Advice on hearing Confession, 1878. 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 xviiith chapters of 8. Matthew, has, primarily, nothing to do 
 with what we call *' ahsolution." The ])ower given by our 
 Lord first to S. Peter and then to the Apostles, in connection 
 with His doctrine about the Church, is a power concerning 
 things not persons. It is a power to " bind" or " prohibit" 
 some things and to " loose" or "permit" others,* a power, 
 given by Christ to His Church as a society, of making rules 
 on the initiation of its chief Pastors. On this text we may 
 rest the validity of the canonical rules of the Church, but 
 not the ministry of Penitence to persons. 
 
 The ministry to persons rests chiefly upon our Lord!s words 
 (S. John XX. 21) which we repeat in Ordination ; and it 
 clearly must be exercised in the name of the Church and in 
 accordance with its rules, and this is its connection with the 
 power of '' binding" and " loosing." 
 
 All ancient authors agree that from the first, as now, it 
 was exercised specially in two ways :t (1) by admitting 
 persons to baptism or refusing it to them : and hence we 
 say in the Creed, *' I acknowledge one baptism, for the 
 remission of sins ; " (2) by excluding guilty persons from the 
 communion of the Church and re-admitting them to it on 
 repentance, as S. Paul first delivered over the guilty Corin- 
 thian to Satan, and then ordered his re-admission, lest he 
 should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow (1 Cor. v. 5, 
 2 Cor. ii. 5 — 7). The whole of this case, it may be re- 
 marked, is treated as a public one. 
 
 The other passage of Scripture specially bearing on this 
 
 * See Lightfoot Horae Hehraicae on S. Matt. xvi. 19 for ample 
 quotations showing the meaning of the Hebrew clsar to ' bind ' or 
 'forbid' and Idttir to 'loose' or 'permit.' See also for further in- 
 stances Schoettgen, and Buxtorf s Lexicon Chald. et Tahn. On the 
 power of the Cliurch in making laws see Hooker "passim, but especially 
 his summary in relation to penitential discipline E.P. vi. 2, 2. To 
 those who are in the liabit of making common-place books I would 
 recommend this passage to be copied out. The cautions of the XXth 
 Article must of course always be observed. 
 
 t This is the express teaching of S. Cyril of Alexandria on S. John 
 XX. 23 (book xii.), and of other fatlicrs quoted by Bingham Ant. xix. 
 1, 2. S. Ambrose says " Unum in utroque mysterium est" de Pcen. 
 i. 8. This also is S. Jerome's meaning in the well-knoAvn phrase, 
 evidently a gloss on Acts xxvii. 44, " Secunda post uaufragium tabula
 
 51 
 
 subject is found in the two last paragraphs of the Epistle of 
 S. James. Here we have a picture of a sick man visited by 
 the ''elders" or "presbyters," that is the body of clergy 
 belonging to the Church ; but it appears that others are also 
 present. The clergy anoint him with oil and pray over him 
 that his sickness may be healed, ^' and if he has committed 
 sin it shall be forgiven him." Mutual confession of offences 
 is recommended and prayer for one another. Here the 
 ministry of forgiveness is very closely connected with prayer, 
 and the Presbyters act together as a body. Other texts 
 which have been held to bear upon this topic may be found 
 discussed in the sixth book of Hooker (4, 5) with his usual 
 thoroughness. 
 
 XXXIV. — Sketch of ancient penitential Discipline. 
 Gkadual change to privacy. 
 
 Inasmuch as the Church is a voluntary religious society 
 its punishments and acts of discipline are spiritual, and 
 consist of censures leading if necessary to exclusion, for a 
 greater or less period, and in a greater or less degree, from 
 the fellowship of the society and especially from its chief act 
 of fellowship, the Holy Communion. 
 
 The ministry of Penitence is a part of this discipline, ap- 
 plied to persons who may, from whatever cause, have become 
 wholly or partially unworthy of Christian fellowship. 
 
 That this ministry is now generally exercised in private, 
 and by a single Presbyter, of course subject to appeal to the 
 Bishop, is a concession to human weakness and to con- 
 venience, rather than a primitive or an ideal condition of 
 things. One man may sit alone to exercise it, but in so 
 doing he must remember that he is acting as the repre- 
 
 cst ciilpam simpliciter confiteri" in his Ep. 84 ad Pammachium et 
 Oceanum sec. 6, which is quoted by Gratiau, Dec7'. II. 33, Dist. i., c. 
 72 de 'penitentia, and by tlio Council of Trent, Bess. xiv. de poenit. 
 canon 2. St. Jerome is not however laying down a rule, but speaking- of 
 his own regret for his early errors : and the Council of Trent probably 
 forgot that he urges a Christian Virgin Demetrias in another Epistle 
 (130 sec. 9) so to live as to have no need of this " secunda tabula" of 
 penitence. See below end of chapter xxxix. 
 
 d2
 
 52 
 
 sentative of the whole body, both of clcr<j:y and hiity, of 
 clergy as the ministers of the act, of laity as the body which 
 receives back to Christian fellowship or refuses the society 
 of the penitent, and whose prayers avail with those of the 
 clergy to gain God's compassion and pardon. The primitive 
 discipHne was that of public confession, especially of grave 
 faults, with circumstances of shame and sorrow, attended by 
 intercessory prayer on the part of the whole Church both 
 clergy and laity on behalf of the sinners, and finally con- 
 cluded by re-admission to communion. This was an act of 
 laying on of hands which immediately preceded the reception 
 of the sacrament. If the Bishop were present he was specially 
 the minister of this absolution, and it pertained particularly 
 to his office to direct it when absent. On occasion not only 
 the whole body of Presbyters, but a single Presbyter or 
 even a Deacon might be delegated to perform the principal 
 duty, when death was imminent, as we see in S. Cyprian's 
 Epistles (18 cp. 19, 20). This, however, as regards Deacons 
 was a Latin rather than a Greek custom.* 
 
 This privilege of Deacons, in cases of necessity, to hear 
 confessions and impose penances is recognised, while it is 
 restrained, by two English Councils under Archbishop 
 Hubert Walter, and by our own Bishop Kichard Poore.f 
 It seems to have stood much on a par with their ministry 
 of baptism, which (as we have seen) is the other half of 
 the same power. Similar considerations have led to a 
 partial recognition of the action of laymen in both spheres, 
 Baptism and Penitence. A story was circulated in the 
 middle ages of an unreconciled Penitent and an un- 
 baptized person desiring Baptism travelling together alone 
 in a boat, and falling into danger of shipwreck. The Peni- 
 tent baptized his fellow-traveller, who thereupon reconciled 
 him, and both were held to have done right when they 
 
 * See for further details Moriiius' De poenitentia viii. 23, p. 588 
 foil, ed. Antwerp 1682, and Bingham Ant. xix. chap. 2. 
 
 t York in 1195 and London 1200: Wilkius Cone. i. pp. 501-2, 
 and 505. Cp. Saravi Charters p. 139. Sec more in Martenue Ant. 
 Eccl. Bit. I. 6, 7.
 
 5B 
 
 escaped to land.* And Aquinas f holds that in necessity 
 a Layman may hear a confession, and that whatever the action 
 lacks of sacramental virtue is supplied by the great High 
 Priest. This is surely reasonable, and should be recollected 
 by our Physicians, Soldiers and Sailors of all grades, and 
 generally by all in contact with danger. Joinville received 
 such a confession in the Crusade ; and Bayard made one to a 
 member of his household when mortally wounded, in 1524. 
 
 The sign of readmission was universally imposition of 
 hands, and this was accompanied with prayer that God would 
 absolve the penitents and remit and pardon their sins, in a 
 form not unlike that in our Communion Office. 
 
 The offices first for the exclusion, and then for the recon- 
 ciHation of penitents in public, are to be found in the Sarum 
 services for Ash Wednesday and for Thursday in Holy Week, 
 and apparently were used up to the sixteenth century.:}: 
 
 Private Confession and Absolution was gradually sub- 
 stituted in ordinary cases for this solemn public act. It 
 began first apparently in a natural distinction being drawn in 
 favour of those who came forward to acknowledge their faults. 
 The substitution at length became almost entire, being the 
 result of various tendencies such as are observed in all parts 
 of the Church's discipline, and such as almost necessarily 
 accompany the attempt of a victorious Christianity to treat 
 all persons born in a district as members of the Church. § 
 
 * This is given by Ivo Decret. i. 191 and Gratian Decret. de Conse- 
 cratimie Dist. 4, 36, as from S. Augustine ad Fortunatum. It is not 
 however in the only letter to Fortunatus extant in the works of 
 Augustine (No. 115) nor anywhere in his works. It has all the ap- 
 pearance of a fiction : hut it illustrates opinion. 
 
 t In lib. sent dist. 17 qusest. 3 art. 3, 9, 2. See more in Morinus De 
 Poen. viii. 24 and Martenne 1. c. 8. Benedict XIV. de Synodo Dioec. 
 vii. 14, decides in the contrary sense, and is followed by Liguori, Theol. 
 Mor. Lib. v., tr. 4, cap. 2, § 540. 
 
 X The first is given in the note to Dickinson's edition of the Missal, 
 the second in the text. Both are in the Processional and Gradual. 
 
 § The Epistle of Pope Leo I. to the Bishops of Campania no. 168 
 (alias 136) a.d. 459, in which he rebukes them for publishing the sins 
 of penitents, refers to those undergoing public penance. Morinus vii. 
 1 dates the prevalence of the custom of making a distinction as to 
 public penance between secret and open sins a.d. 700 — 730, the time 
 of Bede.
 
 54 
 
 For the discipline of public penance would not seem 
 strange, and does not seem strange, to new converts from 
 heathenism in our own day, who have lately gone through the 
 great open trial and spiritual crisis of accepting Baptism as 
 full-grown men and women. But when people have been 
 baptized as infants, and adult baptism is the exception not 
 the rule around them, their feelings are more tender and they 
 shrink from publicity. Hence the Church has to consider 
 how to help them to realise the sinfulness of sin and to 
 submit to, what is more necessary to them, an educational 
 training instead of a sharp external discipline. This it has 
 sought to give in private confession. 
 
 The objects of the change were, therefore, to save the 
 position and feelings of penitents and to give greater oppor- 
 tunities to the clergy to educate their consciences. It was 
 thought, not unnaturally, more edifying that a certain reserve 
 should be used, enabling a greater variety of influences than 
 shame and distress to be brought to bear on penitents. 
 
 So much for the method of ministration. As regards the 
 sins to be confessed in it, we note that in the primitive 
 Church there was no penance exacted under the Canons 
 except for the gravest faults. Originally it would seem that 
 the three capital sins, which, as it were, stand at the head of 
 the three great divisions of human error, Idolatry, Murder, 
 and Adultery,* or like heinous offences, alone needed to be 
 confessed. Others were left to the conscience of the peni- 
 tent. ! It is noticeable, as an evidence of this, that the severe 
 
 * See the evidence well collected in Rev. George Mead's article on 
 Penitence, Diet. ofChr. Ant., vol. ii. p. 1599 foil. Idolatry is the great 
 sin belonging to the class of sins of the intellect (or Pride) ; Murder 
 the most striking sin of the angry temper, and Adultery of tlie sensual 
 tem'per. This is well brought out by Gregory of Nyssa in his Epistola 
 Canonica ad Letoium. Op. toni. i. pp. 646 foil. Paris 1615. He follows 
 naturally the Platonic division of the soul into the Koyia-TiKhu, iTnOvix-qriKhv 
 and 6ufjLoeiS4s. Early Latin writers take their text from tlie decree of 
 the Apostles, Acts xv. 29, where three classes may be distinguished of 
 things to be avoided, (1) meats offered to idols, (2) blood and things 
 strangled, (3) fornication. TertulHan, e.g., interprets this as a prohibi- 
 tion of the three great sins, De Pudicitia 12. 
 
 t See for instance an important passage of Faustus Reiensis Serm. 
 15, quoted by Hooker under the name of Salvianus, E.P. vi. 4, 6, with 
 others of like import. See also ih. 5, 16. Cp. Marshall ch. 2 pt. 2 p. 
 84 foil.
 
 55 
 
 Council of Elvira and the milder Council of Ancyra, at the 
 beginning of the fourth century, deal almost exclusively with 
 these three sins in their canons of penance. Of course nothing 
 prevented men from voluntarily seeking advice on their 
 inward state, and this was often done.* 
 
 XXXV. — The Lateran Canon and our own Discipline. 
 
 Now if we compare this primitive state of things with the 
 Canon of the fourth Lateran Council (No. 31, a.d. 1215), 
 which ordered private confession of all sins at least once a year 
 to the ' proprius sacerdos,' and with the offices of the Church 
 of England, which deal with penitential discipline, namely, 
 those for Holy Communion and for the Visitation of the 
 Sick, we shall see that our Church desired to return very 
 much to the primitive discipline, but to adhere at the same 
 time to the spirit of gentleness which underlay the changes 
 which had been found almost necessary and expedient owing 
 to the altered circumstances of the Church. The Lateran 
 canon opens as follows: " Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, 
 postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus 
 peccata confiteatur fideJiter, saltem semel in anno, proprio 
 sacerdoti, et injunctam sibi poenitentiam studeat pro viribus 
 adimplere, suscipiens reverenter ad minus in Pasgha eucha- 
 ristiae sacramentum ; nisi forte de consilio proprii sacerdotis, 
 ob aliquam rationabilem causam ad tempus ab ejus percep- 
 tione duxerit abstinendum : alioquin et vivens ab ingressu 
 ecclesiae arceatur et moriens Christiana careat sepultura."" 
 The confessor is ordered to act like a discreet physician, 
 ''diligenter inquirens et peccatoris circumstantias et peccati, 
 per quas prudenter intelligat, quale illi consilium debeat 
 exhibere et cujusmodi remedium adhibere." He is strictly 
 forbidden to reveal the person of the penitent. 
 
 We should judge wrongly if we supposed that the main 
 object of this Lateran Canon was to establish private confes- 
 sion in order to enlarge the power of the priesthood. The 
 object clearly was to bring every one of the years of discretion 
 
 * Cp. Orig-en in Ps. xxxvii. Horn. 2, 6, quoted by Hooker 1. c. 7.
 
 56 
 
 to Holy Communion, and to secure, in tlie way least likely 
 to be disagreeable to the people, that they should not come 
 with mortal sin upon their consciences. The man who does 
 not obey the canon is to be denied entrance into the Church 
 and Christian burial, not because he has not been to confes- 
 sion, but because he has put himself out of Communion. 
 No doubt in the three hundred years that elapsed between 
 the Lateran Council and the Reformation the system had 
 been found not to work well. It rendered communion in- 
 frequent ; it fostered a coarse and material conception of 
 sin; it checked the development of a sense of responsi- 
 bility ; it encouraged priestly pretentiousness. This led to 
 the modifications wisely introduced by our forefathers, which 
 were directed to meet all these ill consequences of the 
 medieval system, while retaining the ancient institution in 
 such a form as seemed suitable to the times. The object of 
 course was to ensure reception of Holy Communion with the 
 greatest reverence and preparation, but with the utmost 
 frequency which might be expedient. 
 
 Our English discipline of private confession, therefore, 
 differs from the Roman in three very important and, I venture 
 to assert, most valuable particulars. In the first place it 
 emphasises most strongly the Scriptural duty of self-exami- 
 nation, and makes private confession to a priest an entirely 
 subsidiary duty, and one left to a man's own conscience to 
 decide upon. Secondly, it suggests confession only of sins 
 in regard to which a man cannot quiet his own conscience, 
 or in other words, ''any weighty matter." Thirdly, it 
 permits confession to other discreet and learned ministers, 
 and does not limit it to the " proprius sacerdos," as the 
 Lateran Council does, though this order has been greatly 
 infringed in practice. I may add to this that it directs re- 
 ference to the Bishop, after the older plan, in regard to 
 everyone who may be, for any reason, debarred from Com- 
 munion against his will. See the rubric at the beginning of 
 the Communion office. This, inferentially at least, restores 
 to the Bishop his proper place in penitential discipline, since, 
 of course, a penitent who is refused Communion can appeal
 
 57 
 
 to the authority to whom the Priest must report a case of 
 such public refusal. The rubric in question presupposes that 
 the people have sent in their names for Communion, and 
 that the Priest finds among them offenders directly against 
 God or against their brethren. If he excludes any from 
 Communion he is to report them to the Ordinary and the 
 Ordinary is to proceed against the offending person " accord- 
 ing to the Canon." The latter part of this rubric, about the 
 report, was added in 1662. " The Canon," therefore, pro- 
 bably does not mean the ''Laws of the Church" generally, 
 but the 109th Canon of 1604, which implies punishment in 
 the Ecclesiastical courts, involving excommunication. 
 
 On the other hand our Church secures to the penitent who 
 comes forward of his own free will, the milder treatment of 
 secrecy as to the matter of his confession, according to the pre- 
 cedent of Leo 1st and theLateran Canon. In the 113th Canon 
 of 1604 it strictly forbids the revelation, by the minister "to 
 any person whatsoever," of " any crime or oiience committed 
 to his trust or secrecy (except they be such crimes as by the 
 laws of this realm his own life may be called in question for 
 concealing the same) under pain of irregularity." The latter, 
 I may remark, is a very severe punishment, involving 
 suspension from the duties of the clerical office, ^A priest, 
 then, may not reveal what is said to him in private confession, 
 even to the Bishop. But if a penitent desire to appeal to the 
 Bishop, against unjust refusal of Communion, I have not the 
 least doubt that he may do so. The law of secrecy is 
 entirely for his benefit not for that of the Priest. In these 
 matters we are servants of our people, set, after the Lord's 
 example, to wash their feet before holy Communion. 
 
 It is, as I have said, part of the ancient law of the Church 
 
 that the Bishop is the chief minister of penitence, but there 
 
 are many indications that it was right for him in any difficulty, 
 
 to consult his presbyters. Such an appeal for instance to 
 
 shorten the discipline which forbids a man Communion, 
 
 ought, in my opinion, to be heard by the Bishop in Chapter 
 
 if it is at all an unusual case.* 
 
 * See for interesting matter bearing on tliis point the article on 
 Penitence 1. c. pp. 1606, 1607.
 
 58 
 
 XXXVI. — What our practice ought to be. 
 
 We must therefore bewjire how we infringe the liberty 
 guaranteed to our people. We have no right to press con- 
 fession indiscriminately upon a mixed audience. We ought 
 to teach our people the special danger of heinous sins as 
 separating us from God and His Church ; we ought, some- 
 times, to repel certain persons from Communion. But if we 
 do not know them to be guilty of grievous sins we have no 
 right to press them to confession either public or private. 
 They have a right to guide their own consciences, and this 
 responsibility on the whole works well, and produces a fine, 
 independent type of character. This was clearly the object 
 of the changes made by our Church in the sixteenth century, 
 which have eftected the condition of discipline under which 
 we live. 
 
 If people ask our help, however, we must give it, nothing 
 doubting that it is God's design that we should be able to 
 counsel the penitent and to give the benefit of absolution and 
 to pronounce remission of sin to those who wish to be 
 admitted to Holy Communion. This end must always be 
 kept in view if we wish to understand the practice to be 
 followed. 
 
 XXXVII. — The outward sign op imposition of hands. 
 
 As to the outward sign to be used, I have no doubt that 
 we ought to keep to the ancient rite of imposition of hands 
 to be imparted either at once, if the necessary conditions 
 have been fulfilled, or at the end of the period of dis- 
 cipline, if a period is needed. The Eoman Church, for 
 some obscure reasons, has given up this primitive practice, 
 apparently from the middle of the 13th century, though S. 
 Charles Borromeo attempted a partial restoration of it in the 
 Province of Milan, in the form of lifting up the hand.* Our 
 
 * See a coUection of information on the subject in Morinus de Poen. 
 viii. 15. S. Thomas Aquinas argues that imposition of hands is not 
 necessary ; Summa III., q. 84, art. 4. The Schoolmen differ a good 
 deal on the question of the "matter" : see G. L. Hahn Lehre von den 
 Salcramenten p. 149, Breslau 1864. Finally the Council of Trent calls 
 the " quasi-matter" of the Sacrament of Penitence " the acts of the 
 penitent, cuutrition, confession, and satisfaction."
 
 59 
 
 own Sarum rites order public absolution to be given elevata 
 Diana ; and imposition of hands is ordered in the reconcilia- 
 tion of a sick penitent in the Leofric Missal of the 11th 
 century (p. 238 foil.) There is a beautiful ancient collect, 
 ordered in the Gelasian and later service-books, to be said by 
 the minister for himself, which I recommend for your use 
 before saying the absolution either publicly or privately. It 
 runs thus, as well as I can translate it : — 
 
 " Be favourable, Lord, to our supplications ; and of Thy 
 goodness hearken unto me who myself first need thy mercy ; 
 and whereas, for no desert of mine, but by the gift of thy 
 grace, thou hast appointed me to minister this holy act, grant 
 that I may execute thy office with boldness ; and do thou 
 thyself perform thy work of pity through the ministry of our 
 unworthy hands : through Christ our Lord. Amen."* 
 
 XXXVIII. — The form of words, first precatory, then 
 
 INDICATIVE. 
 
 As to the words which we should use in the reconciliation 
 of a penitent, whether privately or publicly, befere his 
 admission to Communion, if we look to antiquity we find 
 that they always were couched in the form of a prayer. This 
 has always continued the only form in the Greek Church, 
 and such a form stood equally alone in the West until the 
 13th century. Two old precatory forms in fact are still 
 ordered to be said first in the Roman Rituale, and cannot be 
 supposed to have lost the value which they once undoubtedly 
 possessed, although another form is now joined to them.) 
 
 The date of the addition of an indicative form, as it is 
 called, containing the words " I absolve thee," is fixed by a 
 short tract of S. Thomas Aquinas on the question of the 
 
 * Adesto, Douiine, supplicationibus nostris ; et me, qui eiiam mise- 
 ricordia tua primus indigeo, clementer exaudi : et quem iion electione 
 meriti sed douo gratiae tuae constituisti operis huius ministrum, da 
 fiduciam tui inuneris exsequcudi, et tu ipse iu uostro miuisterio, quod 
 pietatis tuae est, operare. Per Christum Doiuiuum nostrum. Ameu. 
 
 t The account of this matter given by the Council of Trent is an 
 inversion of the facts as far as history is concerned. The form " I 
 absolve tliee" is added to the prayers, not the prayers to the form ; 
 Sess. XIV. De Poen. cap. 3.
 
 60 
 
 right form, in answer to a ''libellus" of some unknown 
 author sent him by the General of his Order. He does not 
 attempt to prove " I absolve thee" to be an old form, or to 
 refute the assertion that great schoolmen, like William of 
 Auxerre, William of Paris, and Cardinal Hugo (of S. Cher), 
 had been opposed to it. He bases his support to it upon S. 
 Paul's words (2 Cor. ii. 10), " To whom ye forgive anything 
 I forgive also ; for what I also have forgiven, if I have 
 forgiven anything, for your sake have I forgiven it in the 
 person of Christ," and on the analogy of the baptismal and' 
 confirmation forms ''I baptize thee," "I sign thee." And 
 against the earlier authorities he sets the judgment of the 
 Doctors teaching at Paris apparently in his own day. As to 
 the meaning of the words he does not entirely approve of 
 the explanation '* I declare thee absolved," but supposes 
 them to equal " I impart to thee the sacrament or ministry 
 of absolution."* 
 
 The precatory form is certainly the more Scriptural, as we 
 can see by comparing the passage of S. James ; and the 
 indicative form is liable to be misunderstood by those who 
 think that it implies a claim to omniscience and omnipotence 
 on the part of the priest. But explained in either of the two 
 ways named by Aquinas there is nothing arrogant in it. Our 
 Church has preserved both in the service for the Visitation 
 of the sick, where the priest is ordered to absolve the 
 penitent first in the indicative form and then to say the very 
 ancient prayer or collect beginning " most merciful God, 
 who, according to the multitude of thy mercies, dost so put 
 away," &c. This collect appears in the Gelasian and Gre- 
 gorian Sacramentaries, and therefore seems to go back to the 
 sixth or seventh century. 
 
 In the ministry to the sick the indicative form, '' I absolve 
 thee," exhibits our office as that of a judge, deciding on the 
 evidence before us, that the person is fit for Communion. If 
 he has not told us the truth, or is not really penitent, the 
 
 * Opusculum V de forma absolutionis, Works torn. xix. pp. 176 foil. 
 Venice 1737. Op. Summa III. qnaest. 84 art. 3. See more in Morinus 
 de Pcpn. yiii. 8 foil.
 
 ()1 
 
 absolution does not convey God's grace of pardon. We may 
 hope, however, that the sick usually do tell the truth under 
 such circumstances. We at any rate cannot be blamed for 
 arrogance in using these words. But if we have not taken 
 pains to ascertain the signs and character of penitence, or if 
 we decide hastily and without study of the conditions which 
 the Church exacts before it admits an offender to Communion, 
 we may justly be blamed. Bishop Poore insists on the 
 obvious duty of consulting the Bishop or wise men {Sarum 
 Charters p. 143). 
 
 The collect that follows exhibits our office as that of a 
 physician of souls, an almost more important duty. 
 
 The further question, whether the form " I absolve thee" 
 should be used by us in the private absolution of those who 
 are not sick, is not quite easy to answer. It was ordered to 
 be used in the Prayer-book of 1549 : but the order was struck 
 out in the revision of 1552, and it has never been restored. 
 
 The indicative form cannot, therefore, considering the 
 history of the rite, be considered as necessary. Nor on the 
 other hand does omission in this case appear to be prohibition, 
 if we are clear that a person is then and there fit for Com- 
 munion. It has interested me to find that my predecessor 
 Bishop Burnet considered either form to be proper, but him- 
 self, in private absolution, used the form in the Communion 
 Office.* But in any case we should use a prayer — e.g. the 
 collect, or the form in the Communion Office, both of which are 
 certainly adequate forms by themselves. If we use the collect 
 it will be necessary to make such slight modifications of phrase 
 as will adapt it to a person in health. As to the form of 
 confession nothing is laid down, and it may vary according 
 to the circumstances. The person making it should however 
 be instructed that he is confessing to God, in the presence of 
 one who is at once a witness on behalf of the whole Church 
 and an ambassador of Christ. 
 
 * See Pusey's Gaume p. cxxviii.
 
 62 
 
 XXXIX. — Cautions as to the conduct of the Minister. 
 As regards the attitude of the minister it is right that he 
 should be exceedingly cautious, neither to exact an enumera- 
 tion of all sins, nor to suggest unthought of sins to the 
 penitent. The words of the Tlomily of Repe?itance may well 
 be remembered by him : " It is against the true Christian 
 liberty that any man should be bound to the numbering of 
 his sins as it hath been used heretofore" (p. 577 S.P.C.K., 
 1846). In order to avoid undue pressure or suggestion, and 
 as a matter of common sense, it is right first to hear what 
 the person who is troubled in mind has to say. This may of 
 itself suffice. But if it is clear that questions must be 
 asked, the minister should follow generally the lines of the 
 exhortation in the Communion Office. This will be perfectly 
 safe, and will enable him clearly to do his main duty, which 
 is to pronounce, either then or later, that a person is fit to 
 receive holy Communion. For he will have followed the 
 instructions of our own Church as to preparation for holy 
 Communion. He may therefore go on to ask the following 
 questions : — 
 
 (1) Have you carefully examined your conscience by the 
 
 rule of God's commandments, and confessed all 
 your sins to Him ? Have you considered sins of 
 omission, or neglect of the duties of love to God 
 and man, as well as sins of commission ? 
 
 (2) Have you done all in your power to reconcile yourself 
 
 to your neighbours and to make restitution for any 
 wrong that you have done ? 
 
 (3) Have you committed any of the great sins named in 
 
 the exhortation, and are you satisfied that you have 
 truly repented of them ? Have you been guilty of 
 fraud ? 
 
 (4) Is there anything still weighing on your conscience 
 
 which you wish now to confess ? 
 If the answers are satisfactory, we have done all that we 
 are bound to do in testing a person's fitness for the Sacra- 
 ment. But if they are not, we ought, in deference to ancient 
 custom, to defer absolution till such time as fitness is shewn
 
 68 
 
 and in case of difficulty to take careful advice, of course 
 without indicating the person requiring help. The in- 
 dicative form and the laying on of hands should not be used 
 except as a direct prelude to the Sacrament. Originally the 
 laying on of hands was given in the same service as the 
 Communion. 
 
 There are however two other dangers which we must 
 specially guard against. In the first place we must beware 
 of introducing the elaborate and artificial distinction between 
 venial and mortal sins which occupies so large a place in the 
 manuals of moral theology of the Church of Rome. In the 
 second place we must avoid in any way giving currency to 
 the idea that satisfaction, made by the penitent, is a substitute 
 for proper reparation to our neighbour and faith in the 
 atonement made by our Blessed Lord. 
 
 The distinction between venial and mortal sins is in one 
 way matter of common sense. "In many things (says St. 
 James) we all offend" (iii. 2). But as carried out in detail, 
 in connection especially with the Jesuit theory of " pro- 
 babilism," which dominates Roman moral teaching at the 
 present day, it is a terrible snare to the conscience. " Pro- 
 babilism " means that if you are in doubt about a thing, and 
 can find an " opinio probabilis " in its favour, you may safely 
 do it. This means in practice that you must discover one 
 " Doctor gravis et probus " who permits it, after the manner 
 of the School of Hillel among the Jewish Rabbis.* But 
 
 * A full discussion of this subject will be found in the text and 
 notes to Liguori's Theologia Moralis torn. i. of the Paris edition of 
 1872. Great part of the labour of the defenders of probabilism is 
 taken up with dexterously combating or evading the condemnation of 
 65 propositions of Jesuit morality by Pope Innocent XI. in 1679. The 
 following thesis is Gury's : "Licet sequi opinionem vere et solide 
 probabilem, relicta tutiore aeque probabili, vel etiam vere probabiliori, 
 ubi de solo licito vel illicito agitur " (1. c. ]3. 61). The same page gives 
 the approbation of all Liguori's opinions on the part of the court of 
 Rome, as being safe for a confessor to follow in practice. What some 
 of those opinions are may be learned e.g. from the Christian Bemem- 
 brancer vols. 27 p. 38 foil, and 28 p. 401 foil, both for 1854. There is 
 a good passage on the danger of this distinction between sins in Dr. G. 
 Salmon's sermon entitled Truthfulness in his Non -miraculous Christi- 
 anity, &c., pp. 240-6, Lond. 1881.
 
 04 
 
 since there is usually some oue who takes a milder view than 
 others of any particular sin, it is often easy to find excuse for 
 the conscience, and so have authority to rank what may really 
 be a great sin among venial offences. Further the teaching 
 as to the importance of quantity in distinguishing venial 
 from mortal sins is excessively misleading. 
 
 These teachers mean by " venial" sins, not merely such as 
 all men would honestly consider less important, but cases of 
 theft, fraud, lying, deceit, uncleanness, cruelty,* which 
 moralists of any strictness would consider very serious, and 
 which, when habitual, would go far to ruin the whole character. 
 Many of these are made light of by a series of distinctions 
 as to intention, quantity, frequency, consequences, directness 
 and indirectness of the act, and the like, and thus the 
 conscience is depraved, and its standard made shifty, by the 
 very authority which ought to elevate it, that of the 
 representative of God. 
 
 Liguori's own standard of truthfulness may be gathered 
 from his manner of citing passages from the Fathers in his 
 Glories of Mary.\ A writer, who recommends this book, 
 cautions those who use it not to employ it in controversy, for 
 ''it is only necessary to mention that S. Alphonsus did not 
 scruple to make the most important additions to the passages 
 which he quoted from the Fathers ; and this, though perfectly 
 allowable in a book of meditations, of course destroys its 
 value as a work of authority in matters of controversy." 
 Both the original author's act, and the justification of it as 
 " perfectly allowable in a book of meditations," are explained 
 by the lax system of morals taught in the confessional as 
 administered by the advocates of " probabilism." 
 
 The question of Satisfaction would require a volume for its 
 
 * See for a painful instauco the '' probable" opinion cited by Liguori, 
 lib. iv. tr. iv. cap. 1, No. 374. BuU-figlits, forbidden elsewhere, arc 
 allowed in Sjjain by a decree of Pope Clement VII [, ib. No. 365. 
 
 t See the Chr. Bememhrancer, vol. 30, p. 452 foil., 1855. These 
 articles on Liguori and other important material were reprinted by 
 their author. Rev. F. Meyrick, then Fellow and Tutor of Trin. Coll., 
 Oxford, under tlie title of Moral and Devotional Theology of the 
 Church of Rome, Loud. 1857. The passage quoted is on p. 38 of the 
 article in question.
 
 65 
 
 treatment, but I venture to lay down the following principle 
 with regard to it. The schoolmen divide the ''matter" of 
 penitence into three parts, Contrition or genuine sorrow, 
 Confession and Satisfaction. By Satisfaction the Church of 
 Rome understands fastings, prayers and alms, and other acts 
 of piety enjoined by the Confessor. See the Council of 
 Trent, Session xiv. on Penitence, canon 13. It would, how- 
 ever, be more true to moral theology to divide this head into 
 three parts, and to avoid the use of the ambiguous term 
 Satisfaction, which in early writers differs little from sorrowful 
 confession,* but in strict Theology describes the Atonement 
 made by our Lord for us. There are in fact five parts of 
 true penitence, (1) Sorrow, (2) Confession, (3) Beparation, 
 (4) Submission to discipline, (5) Loving Self-ohlation of the 
 penitent to God in humble faith in the merits of Christ. We 
 may call this last Faith in the Atonement. No penitence can 
 be complete without all these. None for instance is adequate 
 without Reimration. For all sin is against our neighbour as 
 well as against God. Even the most secret fault involves 
 sins of neglect and omission, and therefore requires some 
 Reparation to be made to man for our indolent carelessness 
 as to his claims upon us. As regards Submission to discipline, 
 the minister of penitence must be careful to teach that the 
 penances enjoined are not in themselves " satisfactory," but 
 merely educational. He must be careful also not to enjoin, as 
 penances, religious acts which are otherwise duties, or which 
 will thereby become associated with disagreeable sensations. 
 Lastly he must teach that love to God and thankfulness for 
 the atonement of Christ is absolutely necessary for reconcilia- 
 tion of the soul to Him. 
 
 Lastly I would remind my younger brethren that the 
 words of the Exhortation, " Let him come to me or to some 
 other discreet and learned minister'' give them, what they 
 must often feel that they need, an opening to decline con- 
 fessions which may be dangerous to them to receive. The 
 Roman Church exacts serious conditions from its Confessors 
 
 * See Pusey's TertuUiau in Library of the Fathers, note K. 
 
 E
 
 fi6 
 
 before they arc licensed. In tho Greek Church it is stated 
 that a Confessor must be forty years of age. The Church 
 of England should not be less cautious. But if it is 
 absohitely unavoidable that they should hear confessions 
 which they would rather decline, let there be no secrecy, no 
 lack of precaution. 
 
 Private confession is quite a different thing from secret 
 confession, as many rules of the medieval church testify. 
 One of Bishop Poore's rules is : " Confessiones mulierum 
 audiantur extra velum, et in propatulo quantum ad visum, 
 non quantum ad auditum" (1. c. p. 141). I see no reason to 
 doubt the wisdom of this rule ; and, for the sake of protec- 
 tion, I would advise the minister to sit within the altar rails, 
 in his surplice or gown, with black scarf or almuce, and to 
 let the penitent kneel outside it. "Let all things be done 
 decently and in order."" " Provide things honest in the 
 sight of all men." '* Let no man despise thee." 
 
 I cannot do better than to sum up the Roman and English 
 views of the subject in the words of Hooker {E, P. vi. 4, 18 
 and 15). 
 
 The Roman view is: "1. That the only remedy for sin 
 after baptism is sacramental penitency. 2. That confession 
 in secret is an essential part thereof. 3. That God himself 
 cannot now forgive sins without the priest. 4. That because 
 forgiveness at the hands of the priest must arise from con- 
 fession in the offender, therefore to confess unto him is a 
 matter of such necessity, as being not either in deed, or at 
 the least in desire performed, excludeth utterly from all 
 pardon,* and must consequently in Scripture be commanded, 
 wheresoever any promise of forgiveness be made." 
 
 With regard to private confession and absolution the 
 English view is : '* The minister's power to absolve is 
 publicly taught and professed; the Church not denied to 
 
 * The strange custom of beating the dead body or the tomb of au ex- 
 comiuuuicated person, wlio has shown signs of contrition before decease, 
 and then absolving him, has been introduced to meet this difficulty. 
 See the Roman Riiuale tit. 3 cap. -4. 
 
 Lignori v. 4, 2 § 540 cites this as a reason against confession to lay- 
 men having any validity.
 
 67 
 
 have authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and 
 exercise of that power ; upon the people no such necessity 
 imposed of opening their transgressions unto men, as if 
 remission of sins otherwise were impossible ; neither any 
 such opinion had of the thing itself as though it were either 
 unlawful or unprofitable, saving only for these incon- 
 veniences, which the world by experience observed in it 
 heretofore. And in regard thereof, the Church of England 
 hitherto hath thought it the safer way to refer men's hidden 
 crimes unto God and themselves only ; howbeit, not without 
 special caution for the admonition of such as come to the 
 holy Sacrament, and for the comfort of such as are ready to 
 depart the world." 
 
 This seems to me a fair statement of the salient points of 
 difference between English and Roman discipline. As 
 regards the debatable points who should and who should not 
 be counselled to come to confession, I give my own judgment, 
 with all submission to the general rules of the Church, and 
 without claiming such authprity for my judgment as I should 
 claim for a definite exposition of these rules. 
 
 I think that there are many persons living with heavy sin 
 upon their consciences, sin perhaps that has found expression 
 in single dark acts, or sin that has become habitual, who 
 would be very much helped by confession. To sucb» it may 
 mean all the difference between interior light and darkness. 
 Such confession may need to be repeated, perhaps at regular 
 intervals, in order to test the progress and perseverance of 
 the penitent. There are others, of scrupulous consciences, 
 who may be made easy and at peace by it, who should never- 
 theless, in their own interest, not be advised to seek it often. 
 There are many others to whom I would say, as S. Jerome 
 does toDemetrias {ep. 130, 9), ''Nos ignoremus poenitentiam, 
 ne facile peccemus. Ilia quasi secunda post naufragium 
 tabula miseris sit : in virgine Integra servetur navis." A 
 Christian virgin should not need that second plank of 
 penitence, on which those who have made shipwreck of life 
 may escape safe to land. 
 
 e2
 
 68 
 
 XL. — On public prayeh touching the faithful departed. 
 
 There remains one question on which I feel sure some of 
 you will desire to have a distinct answer from myself, namely 
 to what extent I should be able and willing to sanction 
 " additional services" containing prayers for the faithful 
 departed. To this I would reply that I should have to com- 
 pare any forms submitted to me with the prayers already 
 existing in the Prayer-book. For although I do not think 
 it necessary that every syllable of such services should be 
 found in the Bible or Prayer-book, I have no right, in sanc- 
 tioning prayers to be used in Church, to go beyond the '' lex 
 supplicandi" supplied by the Prayer-book (see ch. vii.), 
 especially on a matter where there is great difference of 
 opinion and feeling among Churchmen. Now the prayers 
 touching the departed contained in the Prayer-book (besides 
 the general petitions in the Lord's prayer and the Te deiim) 
 are marked by two characteristics. Firstly they treat the de- 
 parted as part of the whole communion of saints, rather than 
 as a separate class. Secondly they look forward beyond the 
 intermediate state to the joy of the resurrection and the glory 
 of heaven. Thus in the first collect of the Order for the 
 Burial of the Dead we pray to God '* that we, with all those 
 that are departed in the true faith of thy holy Name, may 
 have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body 
 and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory." And in the 
 Communion Office we pray that '' with them we may be 
 partakers of thy heavenly kingdom," and that "by the 
 merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith 
 in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain re- 
 mission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion."*' 
 Fuller forms of this type may be found in our Cathedral 
 Commemoration Service (first held 5th November, 1889) and 
 in a Commemoration Service for Wimborne Grammar School 
 (first held 25 July, 1896) ; and I should be willing to sanction 
 similar services elsewhere. 
 
 As regards the short versicle " Fidelium animne," often 
 found at the close of English adaptations of the *'hour"
 
 69 
 
 offices, I would remark that it does not occur in the Sarum 
 Breviary, nor even in the English Marian primer of 1555. 
 It began to be introduced here and there shortly before the 
 Reformation, as in the Compline, Eouen 1497. If any such 
 service were sent to me containing it, I should either direct 
 the hour service to end as it did in the Sarum books, or 
 substitute such a fuller form as this : — '' Lord grant to all 
 thy faithful people to rest in peace and to rise in glory." 
 For what may without offence be used in private devotion, or 
 on a sepulchral monument, cannot so readily be prescribed 
 for use in a Church to which all parishioners have rights 
 of access, and which should be the common home of all 
 Christians. 
 
 XLI. — Concluding exhortation. 
 Finally, my brethren, I would exhort you to unity in the 
 common faith. This is held by the clergy of the Church of 
 England, I am convinced, with greater tenacity and confor- 
 mity to the simple truth of the Gospel, than by the ministers 
 of any other religious body, whatever its claims may be. It is 
 by this faith that we shall be saved. Do not let transitory 
 irritation or party feeling lead you to think lightly of this 
 priceless bond ; but by trying to understand one another 
 where you differ on details, and by supporting one another 
 gently and temperately where you agree, help the whole body 
 to a more balanced and rounded apprehension of the truth. 
 As a Bishop I see the good in every honest and pious 
 Christian man, and I by no means limit this perception to 
 our own communion. But I see particularly the enormous 
 value of your life and work. I may say this with scarcely a 
 reserve as to any one of you ; and I long to be able to keep 
 you united to one another, and to the dear flock of Christ 
 committed to us, without strain or heartburning, suspicion 
 or sharpness. G-od grant this of His great mercy ! 
 
 Your loving Friend and Bishop, 
 
 JOHN SARUM. 
 
 Salisbury, 
 
 4th July, 1898
 
 70 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Counsels on some points of Order and Ritual where 
 caution or explanation is necessary. 
 
 1. Tlie Te deum consists of three parts and should be so divided as 
 to music and recitation : (1) tlie hymn Te deum laudamus addressed to 
 the blessed Trinity, in which the threefold " Holy, Holy, Holy" of the 
 Angels answers to the threefold doxology of the Church on earth. 
 Both doxologies (viz. verses 5, 6 and 11 — 13) may well be said by the 
 minister and congregation together, or by the full Choir. In any case 
 we should make a fresh start at (2) the liymn Tu rex gloriae, Christe 
 addressed to Clirist as G-od, and (3) the Versicles and Responses, 
 almost entirely from Scripture, beginning Lord save thy 'people, 
 which might be attached to any other hymn and, with a slight change, 
 to an evening hymn. Tliis division should be brought to the attention 
 of musical composers, organists and choirmasters, and should be ob- 
 served especially in any solemn use of the Te deum. 
 
 2. Banns of Matrimony, when published in the morning, should, 
 strictly speaking, be published after the Nicene Creed "immediately 
 before the sentences for the offertory." In the afternoon " immediately 
 after the second lesson." The rubric prefixed to the marriage service 
 lias been for a long time printed incorrectly in our Prayer-books. 
 
 3. My rule is tliat no marriage licenses should be issued to either 
 party in a Divorce suit. Such remarriages should be discouraged, even 
 in the case of an innocent person. Tlie license clearly acts as an 
 encouragement. On the otlier hand, when tlie party on whose suit a 
 divorce Juis been obtained, is remarried "'under civil sanction," and 
 there is no otlier reason for debarring him or her from holy Communion, 
 the clergy are not, in my opinion, authorised to refuse Communion. 
 See the resolutions of the Lamheth Conference of 1888, No. 4 C (ed. 
 S.P.C.K., p. 278). 
 
 4. I am constantly receiving requests regarding Special Services for 
 the burial of the Dead. Those authorised in this Diocese have for 
 many years been printed in the Diocesan Kalendar, where the clergy 
 may find them for themselves. Of course I am always ready to give 
 advice in any difficulty that may arise. 
 
 5. As regards the elements for holy Communion, they should be 
 prepared by or immediately under the direction of the Priest. Where 
 the chalice is mixed, it should be prei^ared before the service begins,
 
 71 
 
 aud placed upon the credence table or in some other accustomed place, 
 and remain there until the offertory. If more Communicants than 
 were expected are found to be present, an addition may be made to it at 
 that time. 
 
 Question has been raised as to the quantity of water which should be 
 added. Bishop Poore's rule in his Constitutions, § 58, was that the 
 wine in the chalice should be more in quantity than the water, " major 
 pars vini et modicum aquae ponatur " {Sarum Charters and Docu- 
 'ments, p. 148, Rolls Series, 1891). The Lincoln rule was, "aqua modica, 
 tamen quod stet per substantiam et colorem vini" (see my Holy Com- 
 munion ed 2, p. 290). The printed Missale Sarum (p. 656 ed. Dickin- 
 son) has : " Item cavendum est ne apponatur nisi modicum de aqua ; 
 quia si tantum poneretur quod speciem vini tolleret, non conficeretur." 
 
 This is based upon what Honorius III. calls " the reasonable custom 
 of the Church at large " that the wine should be in the greater propor- 
 tion. He therefore reproves and forbids the contrary custom which was, 
 it seems, growing up in Sweden (Archiepiscopo Ablasensii.e. Upsalensi 
 " Perniciosus valde, sicut audivimus " Decretal. Greg. IX. lib. III. 41, 
 14 in 1220). The Council of Tribur on the Rhine in 895 had laid down 
 that the mixture was to be two thirds wine and one third water " quia 
 major est majestas sanguinis Christi quam fragilitas populi " (Canon 
 xix. Labbe Cone. ix. p. 451). But this proportion has no great authority. 
 Thomas Aquinas speaks of " modica aqua " {In art. fid. et sacr. eccl. 
 expositio tom. viii. p. 47, ed. Yen. 1776). Eugenius IV., who generally 
 follows him, turns this into "aqua modicissima " in his Decretum ad 
 Armenos in 1439 (Labbe xiii. p. 536), and this is now the rule of the 
 Roman Church. The Greek Church, however, mixes wine and water 
 in equal projDortions, as I learn from the Very Rev. A. Paraschis. 
 
 There seems no authority for so large an admixture of \^ter as has 
 been suggested in tlie interests of some who fear temptation to excess ; 
 and therefore the Resolution of the Upper House of the Convocation 
 of Canterbury of 5 July, 1883 (".the Church . . . has never 
 prescribed the strength or weakness of the wine to be used") and 
 Resolution 2 of the Lambeth Conference of 1888 (" true wine diluted 
 or undiluted" ed, S.P.C.K. p. 277) must, in my judgment, be inter- 
 preted in the sense of the Church at large. A really light wine, with 
 an admixture of water of equal or nearly equal proportion, can be in- 
 jurious to no one. 
 
 6. I have already explained that the congregation at least should sit 
 during the reading of the Epistle. In fact the clergy were also 
 expected to do so according to the Sarum Liturgy, except of course the 
 Epistoler. See Dickinson's Missale Sarum p. 586 and Maskell Anc. 
 Lit. of the Church of England p. 50 &c. ed. 3. 
 
 7. I wish that we could have the same responses everywhere both 
 before and after ihe Gospel : Glory be to Thee, Lord beftre it, and
 
 72 
 
 Thanks be unto Thee, Lord, for this Thy Holy Gospel after . They 
 are addresses to our Saviour Christ, wliose words the Gospel especially 
 coutains, aud Whom we should tliink of as i^resent in the midst of us, 
 as He lias promised. 
 
 8. While tlie shorter exhortation is being read, at the words " Draw 
 near with faith" some of the congregation should be encouraged to 
 come forward and kneel at the altar-rails, as tlic Theological students 
 now do at Salisbury. " Wifli faith" means " with lo^nng confidence 
 and faith in the gift offered," and the phrase is adopted from Heb.x.19 — 
 22, cp. iv. 16. Some people ignorantly think it means " spiritually and 
 not literally," but this is a mistake. The communicants ought to come 
 forward in person to show the close union of the clergy and faithful in 
 the "royal priesthood" of the Church. 
 
 9. It seems to me (following Bp. Andrewes and others) most fitting 
 that the priest sliould kneel when he communicates liimself, now that 
 otlier communicants kneel. When all stood, as in old days, of course 
 he also stood ; and he stands as the rex^resentative of Christ to minister 
 to the people. But it is fitting for him, when he himself receives, to 
 considei' that he receives from the hand of the Great High Priest ; 
 and kneeling is therefore the more devout and appropriate posture. 
 It is in fact an act of communion rather than an act of administration. 
 
 10. "The communion in both kinds" is to be "delivered" to the 
 people " into their hands." The chalice should not be waved about, 
 and the people should be allowed to take it, in agreement with Psalm 
 cxvi. 12 {Heh. = ' I will take or lift up' from nasfi). 
 
 11. The Gloria in Excelsis may be said or sung kneeling or standing. 
 The latter is however the more usual and appropriate posture when the 
 service is choral. Strangers in a place should follow the custom of the 
 Church whatever it be. 
 
 12. The reverent consumption of what remains of the consecrated 
 bread and wine is a matter requiring some little care. It seems best, 
 after the larger pieces have been eaten, to brush the small fragments 
 gently into the chalice and so consume them, rather than to attempt to 
 take them up with the fingers or on the palm of the hand, which is 
 often difficult and may be even slightly indecorous. In cleansing the 
 chalice only water should be used. To add wine to the chalice (called 
 in old days "augere" or "augcre sanguinem") was a form of consecra- 
 tion. It was long in use, e.g. among the Cistercians : see Gieseler Ch. 
 Hist. E. T. lii. p. 324. But to consecrate fresh wine is to defeat the 
 object of cleansing the vessels. The fact that such a consecration 
 would now be irregular among us does not make it less technically 
 valid. Wine should therefore not be used in cleansing the chalice. A 
 little water should first be poured on the paten and from the paten 
 into the chalice.
 
 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 To the faithful Laity of the Church of Christ within the 
 Diocese of Salisbury, John, by Divine permission Bishop 
 of Salisbury, greeting. Grace to you and peace and joy in 
 the holy Spirit be multiplied. 
 
 1. Dear brothers and sisters in the household of Christ, 
 the attention which has recently been called, in some parts of 
 the country, to certain ritual and liturgical questions among 
 us has given me an opportunity of addressing a letter to our 
 clergy, in which I have put before them certain general con- 
 siderations on the subject of public worship and on the 
 ministry of penitence, particularly in the form of private con- 
 fession and absolution, and have endeavoured to draw certain 
 conclusions which I trust may be helpful to them. 
 
 That letter will, I hope, be read and pondered by many of 
 yourselves ; but I think that it may be desirable that you 
 should have from me a simpler and shorter statement both 
 of the law of the Church of England on the subject of the 
 services of the Church, and of the general principles which 
 ought to regulate the whole conduct of public worship. I 
 believe also that many of you will be desirous to know what 
 it is right to think as regards that ministry of penitence 
 which is closely connected with admission to holy Com- 
 munion. 
 
 You will not, I am persuaded, imagine that, in taking this 
 course, I am unmindful of the debt which this Church and 
 Nation owe to the clergy as a body, and especially to those 
 of them who have taken pains to raise the standard of 
 reverence, beauty, and expressiveness, as well as of frequency 
 
 * This Letter was considered by some twenty-seven members of the 
 Chapter, besides myself, on Friday, 1st of July ; and those present 
 were good enough unanimously to express a general approval of its 
 contents.
 
 74 
 
 and regularity in our public services. It is my earnest desire 
 and prayer that this standard may be maintained, and that 
 defects and shortcomings, especially as regards infrequent 
 celebrations of holy Communion, and the inadequate use of 
 our churches for daily and festival services, may be remedied 
 wherever they still exist. The laity have a right to frequent 
 celebrations, and the clergy have a duty to say public prayer, 
 when not reasonably hindered, on week days as well as on 
 Sundays. We must all heartily desire that the unity of the 
 faith, which exists in singular fulness among our clergy, may 
 be duly, fitly, constantly and consistently manifested to the 
 eye and ear, as well as to the heart and mind, by unity of 
 outward expression in public worship. 
 
 I have therefore thought it right to use the occasion of the 
 awakening of the public mind to interest on the subject, to 
 give such quiet teaching of principle, as will, I trust, enable 
 both clergy and laity, and both men and women, not only to 
 perceive what is right to be done in regard to matters that 
 are at present in question, but to have rules to guide their 
 consciences in future. May God's holy Spirit direct the 
 hearts of those who read as well as the hand of him who 
 writes these words ! 
 
 2. In the first place the law of the Church of England 
 as to the service of the Church and the general direction 
 of public worship is that of primitive Christianity : " Let 
 nothing be done without the Bishop." The Presbyters have, 
 of course, their own share of responsible ministry ; but the 
 Bishop is the authorised interpreter of the Prayer-book when 
 '* doubts" arise. He receives the promises of the clergy at 
 ordination. He is in the first instance the '* lawful authority" 
 referred to in their solemn declaration on admission to office. 
 He is Pastor of every Parish, though acting generally through 
 others. He has therefore to bear a great load of respon- 
 sibility as a centre of unity. Both clergy and laity are 
 interested in maintaining this authority, and in lightening 
 this load. Let me remind you, indeed, dear brothers and 
 sisters, that difficulties which have arisen in regard to in- 
 novations have, in the experience of history, arisen as much
 
 from the laity as from the clergy. Congregational emula- 
 tion and local ambition, and the eagerness of devout but 
 untrained minds seizing upon isolated aspects of truth, have 
 been potent sources of mischief in all movements which 
 have brought dangers to the Church. Be on your guard, I 
 pray you, against any tendency of this kind in yourselves. 
 
 I have therefore explained to our brethren of the clergy 
 that no services or forms of prayer, outside the Prayer-book, 
 may be used in public worship, unless directed, issued, 
 sanctioned or allowed by the Bishop, including of course 
 those already approved by my predecessors. I trust that you, 
 especially the Churchwardens and Sidesmen, will assist me 
 in seeing that this rule is carried out. 
 
 3. I have also called the attention of the Clergy to three 
 great principles to be recollected in regard to public worship. 
 It must be Christian, both in what it avoids and in what it 
 expresses ; it must be in conformifi/ with holij Scripture ; 
 and it must be 2vorship according to the in^e of the Cliurch of 
 England. As Christian worship it must avoid all supersti- 
 tion, and must express the true faith, since, above all things, 
 it is worship of the Blessed Trinity in Unity. The special 
 worship of any one person of the Blessed Trinity, where it 
 is offered, must therefore be a subsidiary act, and not be 
 permitted to cause confusion as to the general Object of our 
 worship. We must not, for example, let it be supposed by 
 anyone that the principal Object of worship in Holy 
 Communion is the presence of Christ, separated in thought 
 from the Unity of the Godhead, and bound up with the 
 sacramental signs of His Body and Blood. Nor can we think 
 it a "due use" of this holy rite (see Art. xxv.) that separate 
 worship of His Presence should be directed towards the 
 reserved Sacrament. 
 
 Nor is it right that the mind should be confused by any- 
 thing approaching divine worship being paid to the cross, or 
 to any other sacred but material thing. Such symbols are 
 useful as reminders of the character of our worship. They 
 become dangerous when they are turned into objects of 
 worship.
 
 76 
 
 4. The Invocation of Saints and Angels, practised in the 
 Church of Rome, is not permissible to English Churchmen, 
 as not being, in the opinion of our Church, in conformity 
 2Vith the teaching of Holy Scripture. It does not agree with 
 that teaching, nor with the example set therein, as to the 
 attitude of God's people on earth to the holy Angels, of 
 whose perfection in blessedness we have greater evidence than 
 we have as regards the present perfection of departed Saints. 
 Nor does it agree with what is revealed to us as to the future 
 judgment of all men. Nevertheless we have communion of 
 another kind, as sympathetic fellow-worshippers, with the 
 members of the invisible Church of God, both Angels in Heaven 
 and departed Saints in Paradise. It is not strange that some 
 persons should desire more. But God has ordered the 
 conditions of our life on earth, not as we like, but as is best 
 for our probation. He has separated us, for a time, from 
 many offices of love and friendship with the departed, and we 
 must humbly bow to His Providence. 
 
 5. The duty of cojiforming to the Use oj the Church of 
 England is not only one of ecclesiastical order, but is a 
 religious duty based on our Lord's teaching about the 
 character of the good Shepherd, who speaks to the sheep in 
 a voice that they know and understand. It is based also on 
 the recognition of national life in the record of the great 
 miracle of Pentecost and in other parts of Holy Scripture. 
 
 It is the duty of Englishmen to respect the best 
 characteristics of Englishmen such as unpretentious sim- 
 plicity, self-reliance coupled with respect for order, and 
 reserve in expressing emotion. It is no small fault either 
 in clergy or laity to irritate such feelings by artificiality, 
 exaggeration or affectation, by sudden or obtrusive gestures 
 and postures, by seeming in any way to despise or make 
 light of the Prayer-book. Respect one another and respect 
 the Prayer-book, both in what it teaches directly and in its 
 reserved and sober spirit. 
 
 At the same time I would affectionately remind the laity 
 that the more hard-working and self-denying the clergy are, 
 the more naturally their thoughts centre on the service of
 
 77 
 
 God ; and that it is the duty of all to help them in their 
 efforts to make it more regular and frequent, more reverent, 
 bright and beautiful. If some of the clergy have an ideal, 
 which men of sober judgment may criticise, let the latter 
 not forget what is noble in such aspirations. If we determine 
 to go on working together, on the foundations laid by 
 our forefathers, we may, by God's blessing, establish 
 a type of Christianity, which will be English at once and 
 Catholic, and which will play a great part in the future 
 development of God's Kingdom, and counteract the influence 
 of ultramontane error. 
 
 In this connection I should especially like to thank the 
 members of our Choirs for their self-denying labours in the 
 service of the Church ; for the regularity of their attendance, 
 both at practices and in public worship ; for their reverence 
 and good behaviour in Church ; and for their recollection of 
 their duty to consecrate their daily lives more than others to 
 God's glory and the good of His people. I have often had 
 occasion to feel and to express this gratitude at Confirmation - 
 times to the members of particular Choirs, but I wish to 
 make a more general and formal acknowledgment now. I 
 have also much cause to thank the Parish Clerks and Sextons 
 and the Bell-ringers, who are all rising to a higher conception 
 of the dignity of their sacred duties. 
 
 6. The ministry of penitence in the Church of England, as 
 regards private confession and absolution, is a matter on 
 which caution is always necessary, on account of the " incon- 
 veniences which the world hath by experience observed in it 
 heretofore," to use the words of our great Salisbury theolo- 
 gian, Richard Hooker {E.P. vi. 4, 15). These ''incon- 
 veniences" are matters of common notoriety, and I cannot be 
 surprised that many among yourselves are anxious about them. 
 The general order of the Church of England is, however, per- 
 fectly clear, and is distinct from the Roman in the following 
 points : — Firstly private confession is wholly voluntary among 
 us, while in the Church of Rome it is compulsory, at least 
 once a year, on all who desire to come to Holy Communion. 
 Secondly, the minister of penitence has no right to require a
 
 7ft 
 
 detailed enumeration of all sins, but should listen to the 
 disclosure of those which, after careful self-examination, weigh 
 upon the penitent's conscience, p:iving it such assistance as may 
 be needed. The Church of Rome requires all " mortal sins" 
 to be confessed,* even those of thought, which are against the 
 10th Commandment, and has thereby entangled itself in an 
 endless and indeed most dangerous discussion as to what 
 are " venial" and what '' mortal" sins. + Thirdly, the Church 
 of England leaves the penitent free to choose whatever 
 ** discreet and learned minister" he may prefer, to whom to 
 open his grief, whereas the Church of Rome lays down that 
 confession should be made to the parish priest (though this 
 order is largely infringed in practice). 
 
 No Pastor of our Church has a right to contravene this 
 teaching, or to lay down conditions for coming to Holy Com- 
 munion which are inconsistent with it. If he gives further 
 counsels from his own experience, he must be very careful 
 to distinguish them from the order of the Church. Private 
 confession was introduced, in the place of public penance, as 
 a concession to the natural feeling of men, who shrank from 
 open shame, and yet desired to be reconciled to the Church. 
 It is so continued among, us, though of course not forbidden 
 to others who desire to use it. We clergy have no right, 
 however, indiscriminately to press this ordinance, intended 
 for the relief of mankind, in such a manner as to make it 
 a snare to the scrupulous or a burden to sadden the hearts 
 of those whom God has not made sad. 
 
 7. As regards public prayer touching the faithful departed 
 I am willing to give wider sanction to such forms as are 
 already in use in our Cathedral Church, or elsewhere by my 
 authority ; but I cannot go beyond the standard set us by 
 our Prayer-book in those parts of it which bear upon this 
 subject. 
 
 * See tlie Council of Treut Session xiv. de Puenitentia chap. 5 and 
 canon 7. 
 
 t On the dauber of tliis distinction in practice I may refer to an 
 interesting sermon of Dr. G. Salmon's, Provost of Trinity College. 
 Dublin, entitled Tndhfahicss, in his Non'miracidous Christianity. &c.. 
 Lond. 1881.
 
 79 
 
 8. Finally, I would exhort you all, dear brothers and 
 sisters, to remember the extreme value of the points in 
 which we are all happily agreed. The Church of England 
 is really so united that it often forgets its union in de- 
 nouncing some partial danger or zealously defending some 
 less important practice. This is the failing of a noble or at 
 any rate of an open character. But we must not forget that 
 we do not stand alone in the world. If we are to do God's 
 work in manifesting the truth of the Gospel for the salvation 
 of souls, it must be by making much of the points in which 
 we agree. I can certainly notice a great advance in this 
 matter during my lifetime, and, I believe, even during my 
 episcopate. If certain teaching is requisite at this moment in 
 regard to certain dangers, I believe it will be loyally accepted 
 by those who require it. But let no one triumph over a 
 brother who has received a check or a word of warning. Let 
 each think how his own presentation of the truth may be 
 improved. If some may confess to a zeal that has outrun 
 discretion, let others reflect on shortcomings, indolence, and 
 indifference, or one-sidedness of another character. 
 
 It is a comfort inexpressible, dear brothers and sisters in 
 Christ, that I can address words oi this kind to you with 
 a consciousness that in every Parish they will find an echo, 
 if not in every heart, yet in a daily increasing body of faithful 
 men and women who are learning to think less of themselves 
 and more of the kingdom of God. To which may He bring 
 us all in His own good time and in His own way ! 
 
 Believe me, with much affection, 
 
 Your faithful Friend and Pastor, 
 
 JOHN SARUM. 
 
 Salisbury, 
 
 4th July, 1898. 
 
 Pennett Brothers, Printers, Journal Office, Salisbury,