such as omitting or mutilating some of the Prayers, shortening the occasional services, and even changing the Sunday Lessons, which are always canonical Scripture. Such dishonest evasions and practices, however, are confined to comparatively few: and the number must soon be diminished by the operation of the Church Discipline Bill, by which the Diocesan is enabled in a summary way to correct these irregularities. It is indeed in the power of the parishioners to see that the Clergy are consistent, in such clear cases as those to which I have referred: for whenever a Clergyman is reported to the Bishop for violating express and obvious Rubrics, a commission of inquiry must be issued. Nor should the parishioners be deterred from doing their duty, by any pretence of unkindness to the Clergyman: for surely it is an act of greater kindness to prevent a man from violating solemn vows and promises, than, by silence, to encourage him in a dishonest practice.[1] The Rubrics and the Calendar are as much a part of the Book to which the Clergy subscribe, as the various services which it contains: and the man, who urges the plea of Conscience for non-compliance, is guilty of dishonesty in subscribing to regulations which he never intended to follow.[2]
- ↑ I can see no difference between the man who subscribes to the Thirty-nine Articles, when at the same time he rejects some of their doctrines, and the man who subscribes to all things contained in the Book of Common Prayer, and then refuses to comply with his solemn pledges—both are equally dishonest.
- ↑ Those persons who systematically violate the Rubrics, would do well to ponder the following passage. "And that whosoever among the Clergy either adds to it, or diminishes from it, or useth any other rule instead of it, as he is in the eye of the law a nonconformist, so it behoves him to consider with himself whether in point of conscience he be not a breaker of his word and trust, and
