tion to alter certain Canons of 1603; the licence recited the 25th of Hen. VIII. c. 29, restraining the meeting of Convocation, and continued as follows :

"And further, by the said Act it is provided that no canons, constitutions, or ordinance should be made or put in execution within this realm, by authority of the Convocation of the Clergy, which shall be contrariant or repugnant to the King's prerogative royal, or the customs, laws, or statutes of this realm, anything in the said Act to the contrary thereof notwithstanding; and, lastly, it is also provided by the said Act that such Canons, Constitutions, Ordinances, and Synodals provincial which then were already made, and which were not contrary or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customs of this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the King's prerogative royal, should then still be used and executed as they were upon making of the said Act, till such time as they should be viewed, searched, or otherwise ordered and determined by the persons mentioned in the said Act, or the more part of them, according to the tenor or form and effect of the said Act, as by the said Act amongst divers other things more fully and at large it doth and may appear."

B.-Historical and Theological Statements as to Identity.

Having made these observations with regard to the connection that subsists between the law as to the Church before and after the Reformation, I will now advert to the evidence of identity furnished by our history and theology since the Reformation.

In 1549, Edward the Sixth's government in their message to the Devonshire rebels state, "It seemeth to you a new service, and indeed is none other but the old; the self-same words in English which were in Latin, saving a few things taken out."1

Constant references are made in the Homilies, which were produced under the auspices of Cranmer early in the reign of Edward VI., to the "usages of the primitive Church," and the "sentences and judgements of the most ancient, learned, and godly doctors of the Church."

Collier, speaking of the various influences at work during this reign, says, "Peter Martyr concurred with Bucer in his animadversions upon the Common Prayer Book, as appears by his letter to him upon that subject.

1 Foxe, Acts and Mon., vol. ii. Bk. 9, p. 15. Note to Procter on the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 25, 26.

2 Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, vol. v. Book iv. p. 406 (ed.

"However, from what has been observed, the reader may perceive Bucer was somewhat overcharged with scruples, and carried his censure too far. Neither are his remarks at all reconcileable with his concessions in the beginning of his discourse. And amongst other things, his setting aside antiquity with so much ease is particularly remarkable. There is a great deference, without doubt, due to the authority of the first centuries. It was then the apostolical traditions were fresh, miracles were frequent, and the Church under the conduct of a distinguishing illumination. Then secular views and projects of ambition were foreign to inclination. Under such opportunities and qualifications what room is there for suspicion of ignorance or foul dealing? To reject the usages of the ancient Church, because we do not meet with them in Scripture, is no good logic. It is plainly not the design of the New Testament to furnish liturgies and rituals. The converts to St. Peter's sermon continued steadfastly in breaking of bread;1 that is, administering the Holy Eucharist; and in prayers. But what the prayers were at this solemnity is nowhere delivered in Scripture. Where the extraordinary effusions of the Holy Ghost were not supplied, things of this nature were left to the discretion of the spiritual directors, who were to govern themselves by St. Paul's general rule, 'Let all things be done decently and in order' (1 Cor. xiv.)

"It is true, if the religious customs of antiquity were plainly inconsistent with the doctrine of the inspired writings, we ought to stand off from them; but in other cases our Saviour's saying is applicable to the present purpose,' He that is not against us, is for us.' And where the governors of the Church are under no restraint as to ceremonies and compositions, what should hinder them from following their judgments, and directing as they think fit? For where there is no law, there can be no transgression.' What should hinder them in this case from enlarging the circumstances of worship, from assisting the memory, raising the affections, and explaining the mysteries, with additional ceremonies and devotions?

"His objection against primitive usages, because they have been overvalued and misapplied by the Church of Rome, goes upon a mistaken ground; for, granting the allegations hold good, there is no consequence in the reasoning. To argue from the abuse against the use of things is the way to take our Bibles from us; for what book has been more abused than the inspired text? By this topic almost everything in religion and nature must be contraband and prohibited. Bucer was formerly sensible of this fallacy; he saw the danger of disput1 Acts ii. 42.

ing at this rate, and determines against it. To quit antiquity in any custom because it is continued in the Church of Rome has neither reason nor charity in it. It is a peevish principle, and helps to keep up a spirit of division. We ought rather to lament the breaches in the Church than make them wider. All reproachful language, humoursome distance, and unnecessary squabbles, serve only to exasperate one part of Christendom against another, and make our common religion the jest of infidels and atheists."

The same author1 thus introduces the subject of the apology of Jewel, which is referred to in the 36th of the Canons of 1603.

"The next remarkable occurrence is Bishop Jewel's sermon at Paul's Cross. It was preached in Lent this year upon these words of the apostle Paul, I have received of the Lord that which also I deliver unto you.' From this text he took occasion to make that remarkable challenge in defence of the Reformation. The Church of England was reproached with novelty by the Papists, and charged with departing from primitive doctrine and practice. To wipe off these aspersions the Bishop put the case upon a bold issue, and declared in the pulpit, 'That if any learned men of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that are alive, are able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic doctor or father, or out of any old general council, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any one example of the primitive Church, whereby it may be plainly and clearly proved that for the first six hundred years after Christ there was any private mass in the world; or that there was then any communion administered under one kind; or that the people had their common prayer in a language which they did not understand; or that the Bishop of Rome was then called universal bishop or head of the universal church; or that the people were then taught to believe that Christ's body is really, substantially, corporally, carnally, or naturally in the sacrament,' etc. etc.

'If any one of his adversaries were able to make good but a single proposition amongst all these, either by sufficient declarations in Scripture, or by the testimony of the ancient fathers and councils, he was ready to give up the contest and subscribe himself a proselyte.'

It is not unworthy of remark that in the Canon of 1571, concerning preachers, it is ordered, " In primis vero videbunt, nequid unquam doceant pro concione quod a populo religiose

1 Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol. vi. Book vi. p. 303.

teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinæ Veteris aut Novi Testamenti, quodque ex illa ipsa doctrina Catholici patres et veteres episcopi collegerint."-(Cardwell's Synodalia, vol. i. p. 126.)

The Puritans did not dispute the lawfulness of set forms of prayer, but they were to be such as were used in Geneva and Scotland (Neal's History, p. 236; Madox, p. 78). But Bishop Burnet observes, speaking of the year 15481 "It being resolved to bring the whole worship of God under set forms; they (our Reformers) set one general rule to themselves (which they afterwards declared) of changing nothing for novelty's sake, or merely because it had been formerly used. They resolved to retain such things as the primitive Church had practised, cutting off such abuses as the latter ages had grafted on them, and to continue the use of such other things which, though they had been brought in not so early, yet were of good use to beget devotion, and were so much recommended to the people by the practice of them that the laying these aside would, perhaps, have alienated them from the other changes they made; and, therefore, they resolved to make no change without very good and weighty reasons. In which they considered the practice of our Saviour, who did not only comply with the rites of Judaism himself, but even the prayer he gave to his disciples was framed according to their forms; and his two great institutions of Baptism and the Eucharist did consist of rites that had been used among the Jews; and since he who was delivering a new religion, and was authorised in the highest manner that ever any was, did yet so far comply with received practices as from them to take those which he sanctified for the use of his Church, it seemed much fitter for those who had no such extraordinary warrant to give them authority in what they did, when they were reforming abuses, to let the world see they did it not from the wanton desire of change or any affectation of novelty, and with those resolutions they entered on their work.'

I now approach an authority to which almost universal homage has been accorded, the authority of Hooker.2

"They," he says, " which measure religion by dislike of the Church of Rome think every man so much the more sound by how much he can make the corruption thereof to seem more large; and, therefore, some there are, namely, the Arians in reformed churches of Poland, which imagine the canker to have eaten so far into the very bones and marrow of the Church of

1 History of Reformation, vol. ii. p. 150 (ed. Oxford, 1829).

2 Hooker, Eccles. Pol., Book iv. chap. viii.

Rome as if it had not so much as a sound belief, no not concerning God himself, but that the very belief of the Trinity were a part of antichristian corruption; and that the wonderful providence of God did bring to pass that the bishop of the see of Rome should be famous for his triple crown,- -a sensible mark whereby the world might know him to be that mystical beast spoken of in the Revelation, to be that great and notorious antichrist in no one respect so much as in this, that he maintaineth the doctrine of the Trinity. Wisdom therefore and skill is requisite to know what parts are sound in that Church and what corrupted.

"Neither is it to all men apparent which complain of unsound parts, with what kind of unsoundness every such part is possessed. They can say, that in doctrine, in discipline, in prayers, in sacraments, the Church of Rome hath (as it hath indeed) very foul and gross corruptions, the nature whereof, notwithstanding because they have not for the most part exact skill and knowledge to discern, they think that amiss many times which is not; and the salve of reformation they mightily call for, but when and what the sores are which need it, as they wot full little, so they think it not greatly material to search.

"That1 the Church of Rome doth hereby take occasion to blaspheme, and to say our religion is not able to stand of itself unless it lean upon the staff of their ceremonies, is not a matter of so great moment that it need to be objected, or doth deserve to receive an answer. The name of blasphemy in this place is like the shoe of Hercules on a child's foot. If the Church of Rome do use any such kind of silly exprobation, it is no such ugly thing to the ear that we should think the honour and credit of our religion to receive thereby any great wound. They which hereof make so perilous a matter do seem to imagine that we have erected of late a frame of some new religion, the furniture whereof we should not have borrowed from our enemies, lest they relieving us might afterwards laugh and gibe at our poverty; whereas in truth the ceremonies which we have taken from such as were before us are not things that belong to this or that sect, but they are the ancient rites and customs of the Church of Christ, whereof ourselves being a part, we have the selfsame interest in them which our fathers before us had, from whom the same are descended unto us.

"No man which is not exceeding partial can well deny but that there is most just cause whereof we should be offended greatly at the Church of Rome. Notwithstanding at such 1 Hooker, Eccles. Pol., Book iv. chap. ix.