In the notes on the Office for Churching of Women, Mr. Blunt does not seem to recognise any other for the "convenient place' in which the woman is to kneel than in the chancel. But the tradition of many a church is in favour of a "churching pew" near the entrance, and this is undoubtedly the best arrangement.

Mr. Blunt says but little about the Commination Service, and all that we would say is just to develope an idea of which we trace the germ in one of the notes before us. It is there remarked that "aspiration after the revival of 'open penance' amongst ourselves, which is utterly impossible, is apt to lead the thoughts away from the restoration of a discipline and penance which is both possible and desirable." In this view we quite agree; nothing is more futile than what is often said and written by High Churchmen on this subject. The exercise of public discipline is impossible: the feelings of modern civilization are irreconcileably opposed to it. What then is to be done? Is sin to be allowed to destroy the souls of men, while the Church does nothing? Surely there must be balm in Gilead! Surely the Church is not without resource in such an emergency. What then is "the possible discipline?" It is, of course, the " Power of the Keys," of which Mr. Blunt is unhappily shy, which he indicates here in spite of his own adverse feeling, but which theoretically he must approve. Mr. Blunt cannot escape his Nemesis. Public discipline, it is plain to see, can only exist in one of two stages of a society. (1) In order to support it the society must either be circumscribed within such narrow limits that one man is the spy upon his neighbours' actions. And then there must be the fervour of a first love to sustain the backslider in bearing those self-imposed penances. (2) Or secondly, there must be a friendly Civil Power that is prepared to back the Spiritual Power, and enforce its decrees with pains and penalties. Now the Church-we speak especially of the Church in this land—has long since passed out of both these stages of her existence. She can only now fall back on her own inalienable rogatives. In other words, the abeyance of public open discipline necessitates the rehabilitating the system of private confession. It must become again the Church's system, and it is high time that our bishops took order for its exercise more generally and more according to rule than is now done. This is the true remedy. And so we are brought again to see that Mr. Blunt's defective apprehension on this subject is the great blot of his, in so many ways, useful work.

pre

For the Psalms we have the Prayer Book Version, placed in columns parallel with the Latin of the Vulgate, and each Psalm has a short note on its history, structure, and spiritual interpretation. This portion of the volume occupies 212 pages, more than one third of the entire Commentary.

Mr. Mackenzie Walcott illustrates the Ordinal with his usual

abundant learning. We take exception, however, to three points. One is an incidental allusion to the consecration of SS. Paul and Barnabas, which he represents to have been "exceptional" and "miraculous," because performed by certain "prophets and teachers," and not by the Apostles. The more common view held by persons who feel a difficulty in the matter is to consider the narrative of S. Luke not to refer to consecration at all, but simply to a kind of sending them forth on their mission, a kind of solemn leave-taking. And this theory we consider preferable to that put forth by Mr. Walcott. But there is, we think, a better interpretation of the passage than either. To our minds the terms "prophets and teachers" were not meant to define any particular Order or Office in the Church, but are applicable equally to bishops or to priests. Were the Bible intended to be a complete manual of faith and practice the want of precision shown in this and many other places would indeed be fatal. But the Bible was never intended to exist apart from the Church. The traditions of the Church on this subject, we all know, are positive and uniform; and interpreted by them S. Luke's language seems to us certainly to imply that the consecration was done as all others were-by Episcopal hands. We assume that Ananias, who baptized S. Paul, was a priest, and so do not for a moment doubt that of those who "laid their hands" on him some were of the Episcopal rank. As a matter of fact, the terminology of the Church took some time to develope and fix itself. (2.) Our second difference with Mr. Walcott is that in his summary of the Contents of the Preface to the Ordinal he omits what is practically (though introduced parenthetically) the most important statement contained there. mean the limitation of the power of Ordination to bishops. The Preface says that no man shall be accounted a lawful bishop, priest, or deacon "unless admitted according to the form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal Consecration or Ordination." It was this passage alone, we believe, which prevented the late Bishop of London from admitting certain Protestant Pastors to our churches at the first International Exhibition. (3.) The third point is Mr. Walcott's method of defining the work and office of a priest, or rather we would say, in analyzing the words of the Ordination Formula. Mr. Walcott represents grace to be conferred for three purposes, viz., teaching, consecrating, and absolving. We do not say, of course, that this is wrong; but inasmuch as the deacon is invested with authority "to preach the Gospel if he be licensed by the bishop," it would conduce to a clearer understanding of the priest's office if the first of the three were omitted.

We

We will conclude with a few suggestions for a new edition, which, we doubt not, will soon be called for. And first it seems to us a great question, whether the Latin Version of the Psalms should be retained. It is easily accessible elsewhere, and the increase of one hundred pages in a book of this size is a very serious

item in the cost. Secondly, the binding is by no means in good taste, and we should much prefer a plain back to the present gaudy, and ill-designed invention. Thirdly, while we fully approve the omission of the XXXIX Articles, which are no part of the Prayer Book, though often bound up with it, we should desire a few concluding words saying why they are omitted; and this obviously would be the place for gathering up the dogmatic teaching of the Prayer Book, which is the birthright of the Church's children, in contrast with the loose ab extra apologetic statements of the Articles. To quote the Articles, which merely disclaim the errors of Baptists, or comment slightly on some popular Roman abuse, on the doctrine of our LORD's nature, of the Sacraments, or of Ordination, when we have the plain and positive definitions of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Catechism, the Exhortations and Prayers in the different Offices, and the Preface and Formularies of the Ordinal, can only be compared to the folly of a man who would light a candle at noonday.

MUTUAL APPROXIMATION: THE BISHOP OF
OXFORD'S CHARGE.

A Charge delivered to the Diocese of Oxford, at his Seventh Visitation, December, 1866, by SAMUEL, Lord Bishop of Oxford. J. Parker & Co.

Ir must have been felt, we think, for some time that the ritual divergence between the two extreme parties in the Church of England had reached a point when danger must certainly be said to be imminent. On the one side, were those who claimed to practise all the ritual of the Medieval Church, which had not been specifically forbidden, and it was not easy to show that any ceremonies had been forbidden except by implication. On the other extreme, were and are those who, not believing any portion of sacramental teaching, only look upon a church as a meeting-house for a congregation, and the person officiating simply as the officer and servant of the congregation. While between these two extremes lies the large body of so-called orthodox clergy, whose practice is, unhappily, very little in accord with their theories.

In this state of things, as the great danger to be apprehended is estrangement, so the remedy, which is especially needed, is mutual approximation. This is the key-note of the Bishop of Oxford's Charge. While condemning in no measured terms the more extreme developement of Ritual, the Bishop of Oxford pleads earnestly for liberty and progress.

We will quote one passage as expressive of this sentiment:

"In any normal condition of the Church, the spiritual necessities of the body necessitate changes. Every varying phase through which it is passing renders some change expedient, perhaps essential to life. The bark-bound tree, the hide-bound animal, must suffer, and too often die. The rigid clasp of an unalterable ritual may fatally repress zeal, generate formality, or nourish superstition. In the normal condition therefore, of the Church, ritual must be, and ought to be, elastic, and subject to variations. But it may be thought that with us such changes are made impossible by the legal character of our rubrics and services. Impossible of course such changes are not, even when they mount up to alterations of the letter of our rubrics; since they may be, and have been, effected by Convocation and Parliament. Difficult they no doubt are, and, from various causes, which will occur to most of you, often dangerous; and therefore not to be attempted save in the last extremity of some pressing danger; or, better still, when they are authoritatively registered by the legislatures of the Church and of the State as the conclusions which have been generally adopted after patient waiting and wide discussion. But it is of the essence of living bodies that they provide spontaneously and without external or foreign aid for the multitude of lesser contingencies by which they are beset. The bough which is growing overweighty to maintain in the blast its connection with the parent stem, secretes the knotty fibre which sheathes anew the threatened junction. Animal life abounds in such self-developed compensations, and the spiritual life is not less self-sustained or exuberant in resource. How often, alas! in our own and in every other Church has the ebbing tide of the spiritual life, by its mere restlessness, reduced to its own new level its nominally unaltered ritual? How often, thank GOD, has revived love and renewed earnestness in devotion filled the old limbs with a flood of life which has transfigured forms which it retained? And it is the special duty of the Church's living governors to understand such symptoms, and to minister to their relief whatever powers of relaxation or control have been left to them, without incurring the hazard or waiting for the tedious issues of actual legislation. Many such powers our own Church has lodged in its living governors. It is their charge to interpret ambiguous rubrics, to reduce to unity matters diversely taken, to acquiesce in or to disallow changes which by minute accretions the living body has silently developed. Great, no doubt, is the judgment, the courage, the knowledge, and, above all perhaps, the impartiality which is needful to enable them to discharge aright these delicate and often momentous duties. But they cannot leave these duties undone without grievous danger to the polity over which they are appointed overseers; and, however difficult be the task, there is a strength for its discharge which they who seek it faithfully will find. Such difficulties are the sure accompaniments of times of earnestness and growth; when the full current of the inner life must, by reason of its strength, cast itself forth into some new development. Dull and lazy governors marvel at and hate such times; and there is mixture enough of evil in all such movements to make such a feeling plausible at least, if not natural. The mountain torrent which brings down the dust of gold carries with it a heavy load of far ignobler substances.

But the opened eye reads in such flood-times, with all their turbulence and perils, tokens of the marvellous inworking of the Spirit, opportunities of co-operation with it, pledges of the great restoration of all things.

66

"It is in this spirit that I think we are called on to look at the present time. The waters surely are troubled, but what if the hidden presence of an angel of the LORD has troubled them, and it be, if rightly used, a time of healing from our God?

"Whilst then, I consider the actual ritual developments which have been so hastily adopted in their novelty, multiplication, and amount, as rash, unadvisable, and dangerous, may it not be that the attempt to introduce them, and the amount of welcome they have met with from many both of the laity and clergy, point to some part of our present system which may admit of perfecting? This is a grave question. Most of the heaviest blows dealt against our Church have been the result of neglecting such intimations. If her rulers had read aright the signs of the times, and tried the wise policy of supplying within the Church that for which so many yearned, instead of retreating upon what must always be the losing game of a chill repression of the desires of a multitude of hearts, the great Methodist division might, I doubt not, have been prevented.

"Does then, the present movement point to any want to be supplied, or to any point to be gained? I believe that it does. There is, I think, clearly to be traced, not only in our own communion, but in the more earnest of the religious sects around us, a craving for a more expressive symbolism in worship. This is probably a reaction against the chillness in which Puritanism has been long dying out, as well as against the utter vagueness of modern doubts. Now, if this is so, the wise ruler should, I think, consider whether it is possible in any way to guide and satisfy so legitimate a desire. Its mere repression may make some sluggish and apathetic who might have been trained up in all the glowing zeal of Christian soberness. This is perhaps the great danger of the policy of bare repression. It tends so terribly to dry up the springs of an earnest spirituality of life. Besides this, it will assuredly drive others over to adopt the deceiving symbolism of Rome, which is ever lying in wait to profit by any mistakes of ours. She manifests by her undisguised hatred to all Catholic movement amongst us, how well she knows the strength we might find against Papal perversion in a satisfying amount of English Ritual.

"But here we are met, first, by the allegation that this increased ceremonial is, after all, only the expression of a feeble love of ornament, an unmanly desire to deck out the ministers of the sanctuary in gorgeous attire and sumptuous vestments, and is really incompatible with spiritual worship. This, when it is examined closely, proves to be the old Puritan objection to the Church's whole system of external rites and ceremonies; it really applies as truly to surplices and hoods as to chasubles and copes. I need not repeat to you Hooker's old argument against Travers, to expose such fallacies as these. All God's appointments in the Jewish, all early practice in the Christian Church, and all the symbolism of the Apocalypse, alike contradict such a teaching,". Pp. 52-56.

VOL. XXIX,