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XXIII. Students in Colleges to receive the Communion four times a year.

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After "halls" say, on the principal Feast Days, and on the first or second Sunday of every month, (not before, or after, a principal Feast Day,) at the least, requiring all the said masters," &c., (as in Canon to the end.)

XXIV.--Copes to be worn at the Altar, and at Choral Funerals.

In all cathedrals and other churches, each Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, shall provide himself with two copes, one of garter blue velvet lined with black silk, (Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, and Chancellors, to be distinguished by borders of gold embroidery, of various width, according to the rank of each ;) the other of black velvet, (Bishops, and the others aforesaid, to have black silk embroidered borders.) The black copes shall be used at the altar by the Epistler and Gospeller, as well as by the principal officiating Minister, and, where the Litany is chanted, by the Priests, v. c., who chant it, on the 30th of January, on Ash-Wednesday, the eve before Palm Sunday, and Passion Week, (not including Palm Sunday or Easter Eve, and on general fast days specially appointed,) and at Cathedral Funerals, if they be choral, the officiating Minister shall wear a black cope at that part commencing at the grave, and the Minister appointed to throw in the earth shall also wear a cope. The blue copes shall be used, in choirs, in chanting the Litany on the eves before all principal feast days that the Litany is used, and, at the altar, on principal feast days, by the principal officiating Minister, and by the Epistler and Gospeller; and, at the altar, by the officiating Minister in the afternoon, on principal feast days; and on other Sundays, Saints' days, or other Communion occasions, by the principal officiating Minister at the altar only. They shall not be worn at the short Morning Services, nor in that part of the service preceding the Communion, nor in the pulpit by the preacher. In parish churches it shall be sufficient for the principal officiating Minister to wear a cope on principal feast days and principal fast days. In cathedral and collegiate churches, the Holy Communion shall be administered sometimes by the Bishop, and sometimes by the Dean, (if the Bishop be not the Dean,) and sometimes by a Canon or Prebendary, each assisted by the Gospeller and Epistler, according to the advertisements published, An. 7. Elizabetha; and all adult members of every cathedral, whether clerical or lay, shali receive the Communion four times yearly at the least.*

*If the reader should have imbibed a very common prejudice against the ancient use of copes, I would refer him to a work of great merit and research by the Rev. Mr. Palmer, of Worcester College, Oxford, on Liturgies and Vestments, which no clergyman, I think, ought to be without. The principle of the other changes of vestments I have recommended in other Canons, he will also see is

XXV.-Surplices, Hoods, Gowns, and Caps.

On all occasions of Morning, Communion, or Evening Service, and of all the occasional offices of the Church, Ministers of all churches, and lay Vicars or Vicars choral, and choristers' boys, shall proceed to their churches from their homes, v. c. in their respective gowns (unless in very inconvenient circumstances, to be acknowledged such by their Ordinary,) either with or without their surplices; and except on certain solemn days, herein to be stated, shall, in their respective churches, wear over their gowns, (not wear surplices alone, as, with great disregard of propriety and antiquity, has frequently been the practice of some Ministers,) their surplices, and those who are graduates their caps and respective hoods, and all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons their respective scarfs ; cathedral Dignitaries, and Chaplains to the King and Nobility, to wear wide and long scarfs stole-wise; other Priests and Deacons, short and narrow ones, the Deacons, however, to wear theirs according to the primitive practice, fastened at the left shoulder, and hanging down before and behind. Scarfs, given to clergymen at funerals, to be worn belt-wise over the right shoulder in addition to their ordinary one. Short bands tied round the neck shall also be worn with gowns, &c., by all the Clergy, lay vicars, and singing boys.

And whereas at the Restoration of his Majesty King Charles II. and frequently ever since, the new-fangled custom of preaching without surplices, introduced by the Puritans (who are so little to be relied on as authorities in antiquity, and ecclesiastical history, that they actually argued against kneeling at Communion, as not the exact original posture, and, not dreaming that the original posture was lying on couches, advocated that posture we now call sitting, to say nothing of their deviating from the original posture in prayer,) has too much prevailed; all preachers, in their own churches, shall preach in surplices, except on the under-mentioned days.

On Ash-Wednesday, and all days upon which the chanting and singing is directed to be performed without the organ, no surplices shall be used except by the Ministers reading the Morning or Evening Prayer, and officiating at the altar; the other Ministers, or lay Vicars, &c., present shall wear black gowns without hoods, except the preacher, who shall, if a graduate, wear his hood over his gown, without a surplice, on these occasions only.

XXVI.-Notorious Offenders not to be admitted to the Communion.

To be verbally altered, more or less, according to the intended law for Churchwardens, &c.

not unsupported. I may, however, add, that I wish the shape of the mitre was altered, as it was occasioned confessedly by a wrong translation of a passage in Scripture.

XXVII-Schismatics not to be admitted to the Communion. To be verbally altered a little.

XXVIII. Altered Title instead of "Strangers not to be admitted to the Communion." "Non-Communicants not to leave their seats till the whole Service is concluded, and receiving in their respective parish Churches to be the rather encouraged.'

Whereas a practice, never directed by any Article, Rubric, or Canon, has been connived at by the Clergy in prematurely pronouncing the blessing, of non-communicants leaving the church on Sacrament Days directly after the Sermon, a practice only apparently countenanced by the primitive practice, because we, with our general infant baptism, are not circumstanced as were the primitive Christians, whose rules excluded Catechumens from being present at the Eucharist, or the repetition of the Lord's Prayer; for the future, all non-communicants shall remain, from which improvement we expect these good results, viz., that sermons exhorting to partake will not so frequently be preached in vain, as example will assist precept, and as no man's light will then be "hid under a bushel," communicants will be more anxious that their conduct, both before and after, may be consistent with the exercise of their blessed privilege. And we strictly charge all Parish Priests, in their private domiciliary visits to their parishioners, to advise them not habitually to receive in strange churches, but, when not inconvenient, to give the preference to their own parish churches, or to their cathedral, which in law is held to be the parish church of the whole diocese.

XXIX.-Children at Baptism to have the number of Sponsors required in the Rubric in addition to their Parents, and Sponsors

to be Communicants.

The three Godfathers and Godmothers, (two of one, and one of the other,) required at Baptism must be in addition to the parents, who are the natural sponsors of the infant, as, among other reasons, a precaution against the child being left an orphan: therefore no parents shall be required to be present; though, if it is more satisfactory to their minds to attend and answer personally with the other sponsors, they shall be allowed to do it. And no Godfather or Godmother shall be suffered, &c., (to the end of the Canon, as in Prayer Book.) The old 30th Canon slightly altered, to be made a Rubric for the office of Baptism, and a new one to be here inserted.)

XXX.-Times of Baptism, Churching of Women, and Solemnization of Matrimony by Banns, &c. being performed. "Forasmuch as the offices of public Baptism, Churching of Wo

men, and Matrimony, were clearly composed with a view to public celebration; and forasmnch as the more frequent practice of preaching has tempted many Ministers to perform these offices in private, that the congregation might not be too long detained, we appoint that these offices shall take place, (some at one service, and some at another, as the Minister shall find the time allows,) at the early Morning Services on Sundays, immediately after the Gospel, and at the week-day Services, immediately after the Second Lesson."

MINISTERS, THEIR ORDINATION, FUNCTIONS, AND CHARGE.

XXXI.-Time for making of Ministers.

Altered so as to make the time only once a year, (say the Sunday nearest to September 14th, generally a convenient time, the Ember Days to be the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday before that Sunday,) reserving, however, a power to individual Bishops to hold an extra Ordination at any other period of the year, if there be sufficient necessity, that extra Ordination to be on a Sunday, and the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday before, to be Ember Days only in that diocese. And all Ordinations, and Consecrations of Bishops to be public, in the cathedral if not manifestly very inconvenient.

XXXII. None to be made Deacon and Minister in one day. To be verbally altered.

XXXIII.-The Titles of such as are to be made Ministers. Verbally altered.

XXXIV.-The Quality of such as are to be made Ministers. Altered so that several of the cathedrals shall, in process of time, have a college such as the Reformers seem to have contemplated, (Durham, first in so many good works, and therefore a great argument in favour of liberal endowments, has already established one,) and the others have a free school; and that ultimately one half of the newly ordained Ministers shall be taken from University Graduates, and the other half from the cathedral Collegians, and that all patrons, whether public or private, shall be bound to divide the disposal of their patronage, as equally as possible, between University and cathedral College Clergymen; that thus the church may be better supported, being more suitable to all ranks, and the children of the poorest peasant, and of the richest duke,* being equally en* It is right to here acknowledge, that I owe some of my ideas, about cathedral Colleges, expressed in these suggestions, to a valuable article (I forget how many months ago) in Fraser's Magazine.-(Luke vii. 22.)

couraged to aspire to the highest and best endowed preferments. Also there shall, in cathedrals having colleges, be a sufficient number of extra Prebendaries, to be Masters, and Professors, &c., of the College.

Moreover, there shall be required, as indispensable qualifications in candidates for orders, good testimonials of their having made a decent progress in the study of medicine, and of anatomy, and, in short, the whole of natural religion; the first being of great temporal use to their poor neighbours in many retired country situations, to which they may be appointed; the latter, that they may be the more able to combat the materialist, and other specious arguments, which they may find sceptics endeavouring to propagate among their flocks.

*

XXXV.-The Examination of such as are to be made Ministers. Altered verbally.

XXXVI.—Subscription required of such as are to be made Ministers. As in Prayer Book, and add, "that he subscribe ;-that he will faithfully perform his duty of domiciliary visits to such of the parishioners, in whatever parish he may hold cure, as may not reject his offer that, in great towns, he will call upon them all once in every quarter of the year, and oftener if placed in a rural situation;-that, if ever he has a Curate under him, he will not, by his own indolence, cause the parish to derive no advantage from that circumstance; that, on all occasions of his domiciliary visits, he will, as a true disciple of Christ, endeavour to confirm what he sees good in them, and dissuade them from what he sees to be reprehensible-that he will encourage them to prefer that Bible with Notes, or Explanations, which he conscientiously believes to be most in accordance with the sacred volume, and doctrine of the Catholic Church ;-that he will not encourage any Bible Society which distributes Bibles without Notes to the unlearned, such practice, there is too much reason to believe, being calculated to make schismatics of some, infidels of others;-and that he will not, in trying to keep his flock from sin, do any thing calculated to drive them into that great ally of the devil, a gloomy fanaticism."

XXXVII.—Subscription before the Diocesan.

Altered verbally.

XXXVIII.-Revolters after Subscription censured.

Altered verbally.

* This idea I have taken from the Scotch Presbyterian Clergy, many of whom, from the precarious prospect of obtaining a Church to maintain them, take, as a precaution, their degree in medicine.

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