Bishop Pilkington.-"Let every man obey the ordinance of the rulers, which command not anything contrary to God".-" Works", "561.

Dr. Fulke." We limit the supremacy of Princes within the compass of God's Word and Christian religion, against which neither prince nor priest hath any authority to command".- "Answer", 381.

Hooker.- 66 "They that received the law of Christ were, for a long time, people scattered in sundry kingdoms, Christianity not exempting them from the laws which they had been subject unto, saving only in such cases as those laws did enjoin that which the religion of Christ did forbid ".—II., 434.

Now, whom shall we prefer as the most competent authority on the true notion of the supremacy of the Crown? whom, as the best exponent of the true notion of the union of Church and State? Did Sir R. Bethell enunciate the doctrines of Hooker and of the Elizabethan reformers? Had Convocation, under the sanction of the Crown, devised the matter of the law of which he was the advocate? Would Elizabeth and her prelates have consented that Parliament should take the initiative in such a law as the recent Divorce Act? Could Sir R. Bethell have said, I am now the advocate of the Crown and of the Convocation; or was he then pleading for the rejection of doctrine which these, in former ages, had sanctioned ? Would those prelates and divines, whose opinions we have quoted, subscribe to the modern doctrine of “absolute and implicit obedience"? There is no occasion to dwell longer on the extraordinary contrast.

The Divorce Act embodies Sir R. Bethell's

doc

Parliament more than responded to Sir R. Bethell's appeal. By the Divorce Act it has declared that adulterous parties may be divorced a vinculo matrimonii; that they may afterwards intermarry according to the rites of our Church; that these points may be claimed as common-law rights; and that the clergy, "excused" by the letter of the statute, in point of common-law obligation are bound to solemnize such adulterous unions.

trines.

As to the point of the common-law obligation put upon the clergy, the present exemption is provided for by the following clause:

No clergyman in holy orders of the United Church of England and Ireland shall be compelled to solemnize the marriage of any person whose former marriage may have been dissolved on the ground of his or her adultery, or shall be liable to any suit, penalty, or censure for solemnizing, or refusing to solemnize, such marriage”. This clause is an assertion of common-law obligation to obey, and of right and power to compel to obedience. It is self-evident that the exercise of power to exempt, involves as its converse the claim of power to include. To remove all doubt we subjoin an interpretation of the spirit of the law by one who, as a lawyer and as an advocate of the Act, will at once be received as more than competent to expound it; we mean Lord St. Leonards ::-"The desire not to impose upon the clergy a duty which might be contrary to their

conscientious feelings, induced the Legislature to excuse those who objected, from performing the marriage ceremony -"A Handy Book ", &c., 6th Edit., 79.

We have here, not the language of debate, but an extract from a popular law treatise on every-day business; it is therefore a natural aspect of the subject. Now, do we ever speak of "excusing" from obedience, except where we suppose that we have both the right to command, and the power to compel, the excused to obey? Further, what mean the words :"Nor shall be liable to any suit, penalty, or censure for solemnizing" marriage"?

"such

Are they not designed to intercept the action and power of the episcopal consistory courts? Do they not contemplate preventing any bishop from visiting with ecclesiastical censures any clergyman who, by celebrating such marriages, may violate his obedience to the common-law of the Church? If Parliament have thus asserted its control over the executive of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; has it, in point of principle and of claim, allowed the other sections of the Ministry to escape? What would not a Common-Law judge be able to extract from such an enactment? By this alone Parliament has arrayed the Common-Law Courts in direct opposition to the inherent power of the Church. Add to which, clause 56 provides that :

Although a minister may refuse to solemnize such marriages himself, he must, nevertheless, permit any other minister of the Establishment, officiating in the diocese, to perform the marriage service in the parochial church or chapel."

1

What is this but exacting obedience of those whom just before it has professed to excuse ? Can a clergyman who esteems such marriages adulterous consistently resign his church to another in order to their celebration? Can such a clergyman obey this 56th clause, and yet say that the Act exempts him from obedience? That he cannot we esteem an undeniable truth. To exclude every reasonable doubt we will add an exposition of the effect of this enactment, which comes from an authority not likely to do the law any injustice; and as it is an authority which may be fairly acquitted of every shade of partiality for our Church, the evidence cannot be treated as that of an ex parte witness: The Times, August 20th, 1857, thus unexceptionably argues the case:

"On this point, then, what the House of Commons had to do yesterday, and what it finally did, though with a woful loss of valuable time, was to confine the inconvenience of this scruple to the person of the holder, and deprive it of public efficacy or territorial sway. As the Bill stood on Tuesday night, the incumbent of any parish, St. Pancras for example, containing 200,000 inhabitants, might boast that he rendered an Act of Parliament a dead letter over a large section of the metropolis. No doubt, the temptation to defy Lords and Commons at the cost of one fee out of a thousand would have its attractions to a certain class of minds. It was, therefore, at least possible that when the persons for whom Parliament had been at the pains to pass this measure went to the church, license in hand, they might find that, owing to the scruples of the rector, they

must put off their marriage for a fortnight, in order to try, possibly with equal ill success, whether some other clergyman could conscientiously comply with the Act of Parliament. Certainly, the Legislature does not contemplate that those whom it thinks proper to relieve and befriend shall have to go about begging for the promised relief. As a matter of course, therefore, the House of Commons has introduced a clause providing that wherever the incumbent has a scruple on this point the persons to be married may have the ceremony performed by a clergyman of their own choice. This was necessary for the very purpose of giving entire effect to the relief granted to the incumbent. Of course, a clergyman who felt he could not read the service for divorced persons, would feel an almost equal difficulty in a voluntary concession of his church for the purpose to another clergyman. Parliament will now take that responsibility at least, and so relieve him. This is so rational a provision that the self-constituted representatives of the clergy holding these opinions ought themselves to have asked for it. That they did not,—that some of them wished to drive divorced persons to the Registrar's-office, and even to deprive their religious feelings of a last refuge in the Dissenting Chapel, is only another proof of the intolerable tyranny which lurks under the guise of a pious scruple". We have said that this argument is "unexceptionable"; but we beg to recall the expression. We make an exception: we must deny that the law "confines the inconvenience of the scruple to the person of the holder"; it has, on the contrary, taken it from him: Parliament has taken possession of his Church for the ungodly purpose of the Act; and the clergyman who submits to this law gives up his objection.

Yet as affects the adulterers seeking re-marriage, it is true that the law "confines the inconvenience of this scruple to the person of the holder, and deprives it of public efficacy or territorial sway", and so virtually destroys the much vaunted exemption. And who sees not that as the present race of clergymen are withdrawn from the stage of life, perhaps long before, the exemption will be forgotten, and the principle of the law generally prevail? Already this begins to take place: The Times was prompt to indicate the path of ungodliness, on August 5th, 1857:—

"Of course, all who may henceforth become candidates for ordination will do so with their eyes open, and be prepared to obey the law".

Terrible democratic assertion of supremacy over the episcopate! Nor was it long before one convert published, under date August 27, his adherence:

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

"SIR,-In your report of the debate last night in the House of Lords on the clause in the Divorce Bill respecting the parish church, the Bishop of Oxford is stated to have said that if he knew of one of those hired interlopers being about to enter a church, he would meet him at the door with an inhibition, and suspend him from his office. He believed there was nothing in the clause which prohibited him from doing that.'

"If the Bishop of Oxford's law be correct, a clergyman may be punished by his bishop for conscientiously carrying out the spirit of the law of the land; and the clause added to the Divorce Bill as a concession to the laity is, as far as the diocese of Oxford is concerned, utterly useless. I therefore write to express a hope that, in some Bill introduced ́next session, the limits of episcopal jurisdiction may be strictly defined. If this right rev.

T

prelate's speech has not already been noticed in your columns, I trust you will not reject this, the first letter to The Times of

"Your obedient servant,

"A CAMBRIDGE UNDERGRADUATE.”

Having thus disposed of the supposed exemption, we re-assert that Parliament more than responded to Sir R. Bethell's democratic appeal, because it enacted that adulterous parties may be divorced a vinculo matrimonii; that afterwards they may intermarry according to the rites of our Church; that these points may be claimed as common-law rights; and that the clergy, though said to be exempt by the letter of the statute, are in point of common-law obligation and demanded concession of their churches required to solemnize such adulterous unions.

And now let us contrast with this legislation our prior and higher obligations. We have read debates, "leaders", and pamphlets; and possess, perhaps, the greater part of the arguments publicly urged in support of this

The prior and higher obligations of the Clergy.

unprecedented legislation: we know, that never yet since the day of Satan's appearance in Eden have men been wanting who are skilfully capable of reducing the Word of God to nothing: but, despite all the attempts to extract the truth and life from the doctrines of our Church, it still is

a fact, that those who have accepted Holy Orders in our communion, and specially such of these as are in actual public ministration, are precluded by their subscription from regarding the indissolubility of marriage as an open question. Our marriage ritual says:

(1.) “Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

(2.) "Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?" (3.) "I, M., take thee, N., to my wedded wife" "till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance."

...

(4.) "I, N., take thee, M., to my wedded husband"

according to God's holy ordinance."

"till death us do part,

(5.) "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

(6.) "I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

These are points to which the clergy have yielded both assent and consent.

These professions are adopted, too, by the married pair in the name of the Eternal Trinity: yet all is to be set aside by Act of Parliament; and adulterers and adulteresses are to demand, as a common-law right, that after their adulterous perjury they may again enter upon the vows which they have violated, if they should chance to find a clerical participant of their iniquity! This is a parliamentary exercise of spiritual supremacy!

For the present limiting our view of this legislation to its effect upon our

Our Church trampled on

by the Div. Act.

ecclesiastical polity, we assert that as to principle we have reached the final phase of a dire conflict. The primary origin of the measure lay in open contempt of the Church: the Act embodies as a principle of statute law Parliamentary precedents, which were known and understood to be sought because dissolution of marriage could not be obtained in episcopal consistorial courts: it is Parliament and the Common-Law v. the Ecclesiastical Courts; and, in its issues, v. the inherent office, power, and jurisdiction of the Church: let the matter be pared down, turned, and twisted, yet it will come to this; and thus The Times plainly puts it :

:

Indeed, owing to the persevering but uniformly unsuccessful scruples of certain bishops and lay peers, Parliament has always specially and emphatically asserted the right of the adulterer to marry the adulteress, leaving the Church of England to do as it pleased in the matter".-July 25, 1857.

As to matter of fact, this general statemeut may be open to some qualification as an expression of contempt it is beyond exception. That we have in it an advance in antagonism to our Church one or two extracts will sufficiently evidence :

Mr. Gladstone."This, at least, is the first time on which the House of Commons has been called on to entertain for the purpose of debate the question of the dissolution of marriage".-The Times, July 25, 1857.

Lord Lovaine.-"It had been the invariable rule of the House of Commons to pass such bills sub silentio".-Idem, August 1, 1857.

Major Warburton.-It was for the first time about to be made part of the written law of England that divorced persons might marry again".-Idem, August 19, 1857. The error will be deadly should the nature of this case be misapprehended by our clergy. We have watched with some anxiety the subsequent relative action of our ecclesiastical authorities, and are grieved that some of them consider that the emergency has been sufficiently met: we have read also the high exultations of the Papists, who have received fresh occasion for the taunt, that we receive and preach whatever may be the creed of Parliament. Again, therefore, let it be said, that we have attained the crisis of a momentous conflict. It is not the old resistance to the spiritual supremacy of the Crown; and though the measure may partly have arisen from the kindred resistance-desire to be quit of the Spiritual Courts, yet this is not by any means its final result. Nor is it the Crown, through the intervention of Parliament, depriving the Church of the external co-active power delegated to her by Elizabeth: she has long lost that. But Parliament and the Common-Law Courts, after centuries of conflict, have virtually stripped the Crown of its prerogative of spiritual supremacy; Convocation, that essential element of the Elizabethan constitution, has been silenced; and at length

The ascendancy of lay spiritual democracy.