fully erroneous and mistaken. If such innovations were to be allowed, there would soon be an end to the Established Church in this country, for how could it flourish without discipline and without government? Such a measure as the present would annihilate Church discipline and Church government; and without them how was it possible that the Established Church could continue to be, as it now was, a visible society? He hoped their Lordships would on this, as they had on other occasions, prove themselves the true guardians of the interests of the Church, and of its liturgy and admirable formulas. He would move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. Amendment moved, to leave out " now," and insert "this day six months." was the gravity of the subject that he ventured to urge the noble Lord not to divide the House on the present occasion. The noble Lord had said that no petitions had been presented against his proposal; but that might be accounted for by the fact that it was not known throughout the country, for it was only a week ago that he (the Bishop of London) had been able to obtain a copy of the Bill. Two other Bills, which professed to have a similar object, had been introduced in the course of the Session; but this Bill was of a very different character-it was very important because it had much in it that was good, and at the same time it touched on very delicate ground. He did not think. therefore, that during the week which had elapsed since the Bill was printed the country had had a sufficient opportunity THE BISHOP OF LONDON said, he ven- of considering what would be its probable tured to present himself to their Lord- effects. It seemed to him that their Lordships, because in this matter he felt that ships and the country should have more he, in some respects, differed from many time for consideration before they pledged of those with whom on all matters of im- themselves to a decision on so important portance he should desire always to concur. a matter. A few petitions had been pre. He confessed himself obliged to the noble sented on the other side, but they were Lord the proposer of the Bill, not only from persons with whom the noble Lord for the temperate way in which he had co-operated. There was one very imintroduced it to their Lordships, but for portant principle which seemed to bo the distinct form in which his propo- embodied in the remarks of the noble sitions were stated. The noble Lord had Lord-namely, that persons ought not to reduced his attempts on this subject to make solemn declarations which did not very simple points; but these points, how- perfectly express in their plain and obever small and simple they might appear, vious sense the sentiments of those who were of very great and grave importance. were called upon to make them. No He thought it a very serious thing, to doubt, when they received old forms of tamper with an Act of Parliament which subscription prepared in days of controhad existed now for 200 years, notwith-versy long past, they must take them in standing the attempts made at different their general sense as honest men rather times to subvert it. An attempt of that than in their strict grammatical sense; kind was made only twenty-five years but still they were always glad when there after the time when it was originally was not a single syllable which did not adopted; but it passed safely through exactly express the conscientious views of the epoch of the Great Revolution, when the men who were to be bound by them. many were desirous to conciliate as much Far be it from him to say that there were as possible the Protestant Dissenters. any clergymen in the Church of England He considered, likewise, that it was a who did not unfeignedly assent to the Book very grave matter indeed, when they re- of Common Prayer. He was convinced that garded this Act as not only a time-ho- those who found a difficulty in signing that noured Act, but as partaking of the cha- declaration would very generally find an racter of a charter by which the Church equal difficulty in using the prayers which and State were united. Therefore he felt that declaration prescribed. But they gratitude, he repeated, for the plain and were not to judge of men's consciences distinct manner in which the proposed as if all were alike, and he had no doubt alterations had been introduced to their of the truth of what the noble Lord had Lordships, and it was with great pain and stated, that there were many excellent hesitation that he differed from several men who had been tormented by scruples of those whom in a matter of this kind he with regard to the words of the existing should desire always to follow. So great declaration-men whom they would desire to retain in the Church of England, but who, from what appeared to him unnecessary scruples, had felt obliged to withdraw from her communion. He called those scruples unnecessary, because he thought that there was in this matter a fallacy into which the noble Lord and persons who had written on the subject had fallen. They were told that that declaration had been inserted in the Act of Uniformity for the distinct purpose of causing the Puritans to give up their livings; and no doubt it had that effect. But there was another clause in that Act which grated far more against their consciences - -a clause which was removed in 1688-a clause to which he believed not one of their Lordships would have subscribed-that under no pretence whatsoever was it lawful for a Christian man to take up arms in defence of his liberty against the civil power. He believed that when Baxter and others gave up their livings they were influenced to some extent by the clause in question; but they were influenced to a far greater extent by the latter clause, which ac quiesced in would have made all their previous lives a lie. He thought that any man who calmly studied the history of the times would arrive at the conclusion that it was the two clauses united which had driven those men from their livings. It was generally stated that the proposal of the noble Lord would altogether change the subscription made by clergymen at their ordination. But one reason why he was disposed to give his approval to the proposal was that it would do nothing of the kind. He himself for twelve years had had to discharge responsible duties in the University of Oxford, and during that time he had never made this declaration. He believed there were instances of other right rev. Prelates who had never made it. Why, then, was every man instituted into a living called upon to make it? His approval of the proposal was grounded on this, that it put an end to a partial and foolish arrangement. The fact was, the declaration was not to be made at ordination, nor by persons in the Universities who were intrusted with grave duties; it was simply to be made by a man when taking possession of a benefice; and the distinction was probably accounted for by the fact that the persons who framed the Uniformity Act had principally in view to turn obnoxious persons out of their livings. The noble Lord, therefore, would scarcely relieve as many as he expected; and he either meant a great deal more than he said, or he wished for something which was scarcely worth taking. There were numerous other declarations, and why should a man who made them hesitate to make this one also? The Bill of the noble Lord, therefore, was chiefly important as enunciating an important principle that these declarations should be made as simple and as plain as possible. He had also enunciated the principle that their forms should be divested as speedily as possible of everything which would remind men of departed and painful controversy. Now, it was only two Sessions ago that their Lordships had agreed to expunge certain services which were painful to the feelings, because they reminded men of bitter discussions and controversies long past. It would therefore only be following up the same principle which had induced their Lordships to do away with those services, if they were to agree that this clause, so far as it was a memorial of a departed controversy, should also be abolished. Ile had heard it said that there was now more difficulty than formerly in inducing young men of talent to enter on holy orders. This was a more thoughtful age than many which had preceded it, and he was glad that young men took more time to consider before they made the declaration required. He should rejoice to simplify the forms of declaration in respect to such men; but they must not magnify the principle involved. His experience would not lead him to suppose that there was a gradual deterioration in the qualifications of the persons taking orders. His experience was that the young men whom he ordained this year and last year were superior in learning and attainments to those whom he had ordained five years ago. For his own part, he believed there never was a time when the Church of England held a more important place in the estimation of the country. The clergy were zealous in the discharge of their peculiar duties, and he doubted also whether there ever were more men of literary taste and sound thought who sought to enter the ministry than now. Ile believed that the same complaint was made in other professions. It was said the young men who entered the profession of the law, or gave themselves to political life, were not equal to their predecessors; and there was a general fear lest if those honoured names which had long been before the country were removed, they would find no worthy successors. He had no such fears as to the clergy. He did not doubt, | abstained from addressing their Lordships that if himself and all his right rev. Brethren on the present occasion. But although he were removed to-morrow, there would be no fully agreed that more time ought to be want of properly-qualified men to fill their allowed, in order that public attention places. He saw nothing of this gradual should be drawn to this subject, still he deterioration, and he would advise the noble must own his mind was not in that state Lord not to lay too much stress on this of suspense and fluctuation with regard to argument. Whilst, therefore, it was quite the merits of the question which appeared right that they should endeavour to conci- to be the case with his right rev. Brother. liate the scruples of young men who were He therefore asked their Lordships' perdesirous of entering into holy orders, at mission to state how far he was prepared the same time they ought not to magnify to go along with the noble Lord who the importance of the change now under brought forward the measure, and at what consideration. With respect to the effect precise turning-point he felt compelled to of removing these declarations on the Dis-part company with him. He would first senters, he believed, that if not only the say that he not only gave the noble Lord declarations but also the Liturgy were the fullest credit for the purity and excelswept away, a good many Dissenters would lence of his intentions, but that he sympabe just as far from the Church of England thized with him in the general tenor of his as at present, because they announced observations. He sincerely deplored, in that the one vital question was the separa- common with the noble Lord and the mation of Church and State; and they would jority of the Christian world, the character continue to hold aloof from the Church so of the times which gave birth to the Aet long as the clergy of the Establishment of Uniformity, and the spirit in which that accepted the hire and pay of the State. It act was framed. It must not, however, be was hopeless, therefore, to suppose that by forgotten that it was enacted at a period any concession of the kind now contempla- of very great excitement and reaction. ted it would be possible to conciliate these Still, he would remind their Lordships that persons. They, however, formed only a it was not the substance of the declaration to small fraction of those who separated from which objection was made, but its phraseothe Church of England, and he was hope-logy and form, which might possibly offend ful enough to believe that a day would some tender consciences. Undoubtedly, come when a large portion of those who if their Lordships were now for the first now dissented from the Church of England would return to it, and be gathered within its pale. He believed, that if the Church acted not hastily, but on mature consideration, it might, without any sacrifice of principle, gradually conciliate many who now kept at a distance from its services. The day might come when that great mistake which sent the whole Wesleyan body adrift from the Church of England might be remedied, and that this body, whose great founder and leader was a minister of the Church, would return to strengthen the hands of the clergy. It might be said that he had spoken on both sides; but, as he had been forced to express his opinion at so short a notice, their Lordships would, he trusted, forgive him for the manner in which he had spoken. With regard to the Bill, he trusted that his noble Friend would wait until the country had had an opportunity of fairly considering this question. THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S said, that if he could accept what had been said by his right rev. Brother as a full expression of his own sentiments, he should have time considering the form of declaration, he should oppose the introduction of the declaration now imposed. But this Bill was grounded on a proposition to which he for one could not assent. He was required by the Bill to assert that of the two declarations cited in the present Bill one was sufficient. It would thus be enough if a clergyman, on taking possession of any benefice, promised to conform to the Liturgy of the Church, instead of, as now, being obliged to declare his assent and consent to everything contained in the Prayer Book. This declaration was a quite different one from that required to be made on admission to holy orders; and though, if the declaration had to be prepared over again, he should not frame it in the same way, he could not admit that on such an occasion as a clergyman taking charge of a parish he should not be required to make some profession of his adhesion to the Common Prayer book. If he were not required to make some such declaration, an external and mechanical conformity with the terms of the Liturgy would be all that would be obtained. He could not but think that the effect would be to give a Parliamentary | England while he held all Roman docauthority to men conforming to rites and trine; and there were other similar cases doctrines which did not correspond with in that and in the opposite direction. their inward convictions. Therefore, however much he might disapprove the terms of the declaration, and might desire to see some modification introduced, he could not assent to the proposition of the noble Lord, which he thought would deal a heavy blow to the Church of England. He concurred in the wish that had been expressed by his right rev. Brother, that the noble Lord would upon this occasion withdraw his Bill; but in giving utterance to that desire he wished it to be understood that he did so, not because he did not sympathize with the object, but because he believed that the form in which it was proposed to attain it would completely defeat that object. It was true these cases were exceptional; but if all securities were abolished, they might cease to be exceptional. He also deprecated the initiation by Parliament of measures directly or indirectly affecting the doctrines of the Church of England, and he thought that the present measure did indirectly affect those doctrines. The Church had never been looked upon as liable to be dealt with by the civil Legislature without any voice on the part of the Church itself. In former times the voice of the clergy was heard in Convocation, and the voice of the laity in Parliament; but Parliament could not be said now in any sense to represent the laity of the Church of England. He did not mean to say that Convocation was a satisfactory representation; but such as it was, it was the only representative, not only of the clergy, but of the Church. He did not desire to give that body greater executive power; but he thought that before any measure affecting the doctrines of the Church of England was proposed, it ought to be referred by the Crown to Convocation for their opinion, which opinion must necessarily carry much weight in the ultimate decision of Parliament. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY said, he should deeply regret if this Motion were pressed to a division, because he knew the extreme delicacy and difficulty of this subject, and how little the clergy and the public were yet prepared for its decision. At the same time, it was impossible to have mixed much with the clerical, and what was called the religious world, with LORD LYTTELTON said, that while he felt bound to oppose the Bill, he did not wish to be understood as holding that the present declaration might not be modified with advantage to the Church; for he was inclined to think that it was drawn up in terms somewhat too stringent. He might remark, in reference to that point, that the Royal declaration prefixed to the Articles of Religion in the Prayer Book required that all who accepted that important portion of the book should accept them in their usual and literal sense. But it was a fallacy to suppose that the usual was always the literal sense. No one could be bound to accept in every case the words of the Scriptures in their literal sense. He thought the Clergy ought not to be bound to adhere to the Prayer Book in any such way as to prevent them from consider. ing any amendment in its terms, the substance being adhered to; and therefore he was willing to consider whether a de-out seeing that principles and feelings claration from the clergy that they adhered to the substance of the Prayer Book would not be sufficient. But there was a wide gulf between those views and the views which had been advocated by the noble Lord who moved the second reading. The noble Lord proposed, not a revision of the Act of Uniformity, but the abolition of all securities to congregations that their clergy adhered to the Prayer Book. It might be said that a clergyman_conforming outwardly to the Prayer Book might be assumed to agree with it in substance; but such a matter was not to be dealt with in the abstract, but according to the light of experience. Some years ago a reverend gentleman claimed the right of remaining a minister of the Church of were now at work which threatened, sooner or later, to issue in something very serious to the Church of England. It was perfectly true that for a very long time past there never was a period when that Church stood so well as it did now with the country, or in which it showed itself so active or was so safe. Nevertheless, there were springing up around her dangers of great intensity and force, and which were pushed forward by persons of great zeal and intelligence. One of the greatest of those dangers, in his mind, was the demand for what was known by the name of liturgical revision; and unless something analogous to this proposal-he would not say precisely this Bill-were adopted to satisfy tender consciences, he was con But vinced that the integrity of the Church when, on the other, a number of men would be very much compromised. It banded themselves together resolutely to was very desirable that the attention of encounter suffering and even persecution the clergy and the country at large should rather than subscribe to religious doctrines be directed to this subject, and he felt to which they could not conscientiously satisfied that in no long space of time the assent. We were now, however, happily great body of the clergy and a consider- living at a totally different epoch. No able proportion of the Episcopal Bench one was now subjected to any privation or would acquiesce in some measure of this hardship on account of his religious faith; kind for affording relief to tender con- while, at the same time, men were not sciences. No doubt, the young men who ready to give up their conscientious belief now offered themselves for ordination were for any advantages which they might obwell qualified for the office they sought; tain by joining a Church to which they did but it should be remembered that those not in their hearts adhere. But, if that who had scruples against subscription did were so, certain inconveniences must arise not offer themselves at all for ordination. from such a state of things. They had Hundreds he might say thousands-of the testimony of his right rev. Friend (the young men, who would make highly com- Bishop of London) to the fact that there petent ministers of the Church, never pre- were many men sincerely attached to the sented themselves to the Bishop, because Established Church who suffered great disthey knew that they would sooner or latter tress of mind from being unable to reconbe compelled to take this subscription, cile their consciences fully to the declaraand it was an undoubted fact that a vast tions which his noble Friend proposed to number of them went over to the various modify. That of itself was a very conDissenting denominations. He was not siderable evil. Having a national Church at all anxious to bring into the Church and wishing to support it, it was a misforof England the great body of Nonconfor- tune if many men, from the number or the mists. He knew the good that those bodies ambiguity of those declarations, should were doing in their respective spheres, and feel pained in their consciences. he had no wish to disturb or interfere with there was another very important matter them in the good they were working out; to which his noble Friend who spoke last but he was very desirious to secure for (the Earl of Shaftesbury) had called attenthe service of the Church those hundreds tion. The Church was not threatened exof energetic, pious, and zealous young ternally. Nothing proved that more than men who were now deterred by the strin- the little progress made by those who gency of the present terms of subscription advocated the separation of the Church from presenting themselves for ordination. from the State. They were a small miHe trusted the noble Lord would not press nority; their views might, indeed, be the Bill at that time, but that further time maintained by men of talent and energy, would be given for the consideration of so but the great majority of the country was important a subject. opposed to them. But there was an internal and perhaps a growing danger, such as his noble Friend had pointed out, arising from the independence of mind and the spirit of inquiry to which he had referred. There were many young men of Christian picty, of Christian zeal, and of talents which, if devoted to the Church of England, might produce works of learning and earnest exhortation to the people, and which would strengthen the Church in the affections of the country. But these persons had certain scruples which prevented their joining the Established Church as clergymen, though they might still, perhaps, be ready to conform to her ordinances. It was, he thought, a great disadvantage, not to the Church alone, but to the Church and the State together, that the former should be deprived of the ser EARL RUSSELL said, he could not allow this discussion to close without expressing to his noble Friend, who had had to encounter many objections, his belief that he had rendered a public service by calling the attention of their Lordships and of the country to this important subject, because the question was really one of growing and pressing importance. He might be mistaken in his view of the present times; but, as it appeared to him, these were times remarkable for individual learning, individual inquiry, and for individual and independent judgment. It was not so in the century when this test was created. That was a period when, on the one side, many men were banded together in order to obtain the emoluments and rewards of the Established Church, and |