'Tis but like the little wimble to let in the great auger." He then adduces the vulgar objection against their seats in parliament, so glib upon the tongue of levellers :-"but they are but for their life; and that makes them always go for the king as he will have them." His answer exposes well the vulgar illiberality in which such objections take their rise:-"This is against a double charity; for you must always suppose a bad king and bad bishops." Selden, grateful as his name has ever been to whigs as the advocate of Hampden, and for the part he took against Strafford and Laud, was too good a lawyer, i. e., too "upright and conscientious an assertor of constitutional rights," to follow the liberals of those days in their track of regicide and confusion; nor could all the arts of Cromwell prevail upon him to answer the Eikov Bariλun, or, in other words, to prostitute his principles, as well as talents, in an attempt to mar the glorious "Pourtraiture of his sacred Majesty, King Charles I., in his solitudes and sufferings."

"How oft," remarks the unfortunate monarch himself in his solemn musings, recorded in that work upon events as they passed, "how oft was the business of the bishops, enjoying their ancient places and undoubted privileges in the House of Peers, carried for them by far the major part of lords!-Yet, after five repulses, contrary to all order and custom, it was, by tumultuary instigations, obtruded again, and by a few carried, WHEN MOST OF THE PEERS WERE FORCED TO ABSENT THEMSELVES." God knows a portentous measure has passed in these our days, under the same circumstances.* The fact was this. The last Bill for the removal of the bishops from the House of Lords, in 1641, was tripartite; and each part was, upon the first introduction of the Bill, submitted separately to the vote. The ejection of the bishops was the subject of the first; and, exclusively of the votes of the bench itself, was negatived by a

Those who would understand the nature of these “tumultuary instigations," the concoction and progress of revolutionary mischief, the powers of audacious, subtle, and energetic profligacy, the contemptible character in numbers and public estimation of the successful agents of a nation's ruin, the whole process of poisoning the minds of "the people," the destructive fallacy of preferring what is called peace and prudent compliance to a firm and consistent, although apparently dangerous, adhesion to known duty and religious principle, the atrocious policy of doing evil that good may come, and the crowning guilt of party feeling, which, for selfish or malicious ends, for interest or revenge, would let loose the lower orders of society on the higher,—those who would thoroughly comprehend all these things, and in the present awful crisis

"attain

To something like prophetic strain,"

should make Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion" the subject, not merely of their perusal, but of their profound study and reflection. It may give them "a heart sick with thought," but it will give them also a clear insight into the drama now enacting in this degraded country, and " very pregnant and potential spurs to be using instantly and unremittingly every means with which rank, wealth, education, office, society, or nature may have endowed them, for individually and in their own perhaps confined sphere of action, frustrating the designs and machinations of a restless republican faction, and for averting, by the Divine aid and blessing, that worst of all national visitations, a DEISTICAL REVOLUTION.

majority of sixteen. The two other propositions were these: first, that bishops should not be "Commissioners of the Peace, or Judges in any Temporal Courts; and, secondly, that they should not sit in the Star Chamber, nor be Privy Councillors." These were carried almost unanimously. The "anti-prelatists," however, declared that the plan adopted of voting by parts or branches, was unparliamentary and illegal, and that the Bill must be either wholly passed or wholly rejected. The objection was admitted; and the whole Bill being again submitted to the vote, was cast out by a large majority. But the snake was only scotched, not killed; and, contrary to all rule and precedent, the same Bill made its appearance again within a few months, and, notwithstanding the King's answer, when it was proposed to him for his approval, that, "by the grace of God, he was resolved to maintain both the government and doctrine of the church of England in their glory and purity, and not only against all invasions of popery, but from the irreverence of those many schismatics and separatists wherewith of late this kingdom and the city of London did so much abound," it passed on the 6th of February, and on the 14th, the King, who was on his melancholy journey to Dover, signed it, after a threat, that if he refused, the Queen should not be allowed to leave the country, as she was then doing, at the instigation of the King, for her personal safety. Thus did this unhappy monarch lay up for himself another pang of remorse, against the dark hours of wretchedness and imprisonment that so soon awaited him, and of that still more gloomy passage through "the valley of the shadow of death," when his heart sunk within him, not with the dread of the axe, but with the fresh remembrance and deeplyfestering self-reproaches of frequent compromise and temporizing, as wrong as they were unavailing. "Was it through ignorance," he exclaims, in one of his penitential prayers, "was it through ignorance that I suffered innocent blood to be spilt by a false pretended justice? or that I permitted a wrong way of worship to be set up in Scotland? or INJURED the bishops in England ?"

"The passing that Bill for taking away the bishops' votes," remarks Clarendon, upon this preliminary step of the great rebellion, "exceedingly weakened the king's party, not only as it swept away so considerable a number out of the House of Peers, which were constantly devoted to him, but as it made impression on others, whose minds were in suspense, AS WHEN FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKEN. Besides, they that were best acquainted with the king's nature, opinions, and resolutions, had reason to believe, that no exigence could have wrought upon him to have consented to so ANTI-MONARCHICAL an act, and, therefore, never after retained any confidence that he would deny what was importunately asked, and so either absolutely withdrew themselves from those consultations, thereby avoiding the envy and the danger of opposing them, or quietly suffered themselves to be carried by the stream, and to consent to anything that was boldly and lustily attempted!"

Let us, the subjects of a limited monarchy, whose "foundations" rest upon a religious and constitutional aristocracy, an enlightened and

conscientious clergy, and a Commons that "fear God, honour the King," "meddle not with them that are given to changes," and are cordially attached to the institutions upon which they know the prosperity of the country to have grown up,-let us, I say, take a lesson from a few general observations of other eye-witnesses to the origin and outrages of those bloody days of reform.

"The chiefest apparent cause," says one of these, "and most pregnant outward occasion of our ecclesiastical mischiefs and miseries (as I humbly conceive) ariseth from that inordinate liberty and immodest freedom" (the italics are his own) "which, of late years, all sorts of people have challenged to themselves in matters of religion, presuming on such a toleration and indulgence, as encourageth them to chuse and adhere to what doctrine, opinion, party, persuasion, fancy, or faction they list, under the name of their religion, their church-fellowship and communion; nor are people to be blanked or scared from anything which they list to call their religion," &c. &c., "each aspiring to set up their particular way as to give law to others," (the glorious majesty of private judgment !) "not only proposing, but prescribing such doctrine, discipline, worship, government, and ministry as they list to set up, according to what they gather or guess out of Scripture, whereof every private man, and woman too, as St. Jerome tells of the Luciferian heretics, flatter themselves that they are meet and competent judges, since they find themselves no way directed by any catholic interpretation, nor limited and circumscribed by any joint wisdom and public profession of this church and nation, which heretofore was established, and set forth in such a public confession of their faith, such articles and canons, rules and boundaries of religion, as served for orderly and unanimously carrying on and preserving Christian doctrine, discipline, worship, ministry, and government."

Again, "what wise magistrate or minister is there, who doth not find, by daily experience, that if you will but save people's purses, they are not very solicitous how to save their souls. Most of them

think taxes and tithes farre greater burthens than all their sins and trespasses; not much valueing their sanctification or salvation, so as they enjoy that rustick, thrifty, and unmannerly liberty, which they naturally affect AGAINST THEIR TEACHERS AND BETTERS.

The following is equally pertinent to the levelling, infidel spirit of these days of "useful knowledge," and grievance, and persecution to our dissenters :-"O! how little regret would it be to such sacrilegious libertines to have no Christian Sabbath or Lord's dayes, as well as no holy-dayes or solemn memorials of evangelical mercies! How contented would they be with no preaching, no praying, no sermons, no sacraments, no scriptures, no presbyters, as well as no bishops; with no ministers or holy ministrations; with no church, no Saviour, no God, further than they list to fancy them in the freedom of some sudden flashes and extemporary heats! There are, that would still be as glad to see the poor remainder of church-lands and revenues, all tithes and glebes quite alienated and confiscated, as those men were, who had got good estates by the former ruins of monasteries, or the later spoylings of bishops and cathedrals. NOTHING IS

SACRED, NOTHING SACRILEGIOUS TO THE ALL-CRAVING AND ALLDEVOURING MAW OF VULGAR COVETOUSNESS and LICENTIOUSNESS! O! how glorious a liberty would it be, in some men's eyes, to pay no tithes to any minister! Much more precious liberty would it be to purchase them, and, by good penniworths, to patch up their private fortunes."

But let us hear another cause of the subversion of episcopacy, and the utter degradation of the clergy. "All experience tells us poor mortals, that our greatest enemies are many times nearest to us, and oft lie in our own bosoms; so the greatest mischiefs that have befallen or can befall the Christian reformed religion in England, do chiefly arise from some preachers, or such as would be accounted the ministers of Christ's church, under several notions and formations. Vulgar reproaches, plebeian contempts, the injuries of laymen, yea, the persecutions of great and mighty men,-the clergy, or true ministers of Christ's church in England, might possibly have borne with patience, constancy, comfort, and honour (though much to their outward diminution), if they had had the grace, wisdom, and understanding to have kept among themselves that harmony, constancy, and integrity in judgment, practice, and affections, which became men that should be both wise and warm-'prudent as serpents, and innocent as doves.' If they had, as one man, held together, like a well-turned arch, surely they might at once have upheld themselves, and easily sustained any pressures laid upon them by the levity, violence, and ingratitude of other men." "Yet in our distresses and afflictions many ministers (as Ahaz) have 'sinned more and more;" and as if it were a small matter that plebeian spite and petulancy could ambitiously inflict upon ministers, themselves have added much fewel to their fires, encouraging their malice by wretched complyings with them, and flattering of them, in the very abuses of their liberties, in their rude arrogatings and usurpations upon the ministry, infinitely to the disgrace of their holy calling, to the disparagement of their own judgments, and to the prostrating of their due authority, which is (as I have proved) divine, or none at all.” TARPA.

SOCIETY FOR BUILDING CHURCHES.

Alrewas, 16th June, 1834.

DEAR SIR,-The operations of the Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building, and Repairing of Churches and Chapels, &c., are conducted in so quiet and Christian-like a spirit, that, in these boisterous, clamorous times, they are in great danger of being overlooked and disregarded. I would wish, through the medium of your valuable Magazine, to suggest that it might be useful to publish in the newspapers circulating in the several counties the names of the respective churches in each county to which grants are made by this Society, together with the sums granted and the additional accommodation provided. There is in every county, I think, at least one paper, the

conductors of which would gladly insert such a table two or three times in a year, as information interesting to the county; and I am persuaded that the Society does not want friends in every county who would readily assist in arranging for the insertion of such a table. Your's truly, M*.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE REGULATIONS EXISTING IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN REGARD TO ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS.

SIR,-The only regulation on this subject contained in the Prayer Book is the rubric at the beginning of Morning Prayer, which directs that "such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI."

This rubric refers to the first rubric of the First Book of Edward VI., sanctioned by Parliament in 1548, which is as follows:

"In the saying or singing of mattens and even-song, baptizing and burying, the ministers in parish churches, and chapels annexed to the same, shall use a surplice. And in all cathedral churches and colleges, the Archdeacons, Deans, Provosts, Masters, Prebendaries, and Fellows, being graduates, may use in the quire, besides their surplices, such hoods as pertain to their several degrees, which they have taken in any University within this realm. But in all other places every minister shall be at liberty to use any surplice or no. It is also seemly that graduates, when they do preach, should use such hoods as pertain to their several degrees. And whensoever the bishop shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, besides his rochet, a surplice or alb, and a cope or vestment, and also his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain."

Now as this rubric is sanctioned by that in the Prayer Book, and that again by the authority of the whole church of England, expressed by the voice of Convocations of the Clergy, of both Houses of Parliament, and of the King,-it is manifest that these regulations, however unknown or forgotten, are those by which we are bound, as clergymen of the church, in preference to all others. For although sundry canons, upon the same subject, have received the sanction of fully authorized Convocations and of the King, yet the Prayer Book, with all its rubrics, having received a more recent sanction by all the requisite authorities, is more binding than the canons. And yet, if there are any points in which the canons supply omissions of the rubrics, I imagine they are to be regarded as sufficient authority in those respects.

Now the twenty-fourth canon of the Convocation of 1603 ordains, that "in all cathedral and collegiate churches the Holy Communion shall be administered upon principal feast days the principal minister using a decent cope, and being assisted with the gospeller

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