in addition to the Thirty-nine Articles, which were the only lawful tests. In proof of the latitude of interpretation allowed for the Thirty-nine Articles, he should now quote some of the highest authorities of the Church. Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, Book i. Part ii., speaking of the form in which the Articles of the Church had. been drawn up by those who framed them, states, that they cut off the errors of Popery and Anabaptism-" avoiding the niceties of schoolmen, or the peremptoriness of the writers of controversy; leaving, in matters that are more justly controvertible, a liberty to divines to follow their private opinions, without thereby disturbing the peace of the Church." Fuller, in his Church History, observes, that the present Articles in the main agree with those set forth in Edward VI.'s time, but those who drew them up wished to allow more liberty to dissentThese holy ing judgments. He says, men did prudently pre-discover that dif ferences in judgments would unavoidably arise in the Church, and were loth to unchurch any, and drive them off from our ecclesiastical communion for such petty differences, which made them pen, the Articles in comprehensive words, to take in all who, differing in the branches, meet in the root of the same religion." The noble Lord then quoted the Bishop of Bangor, Bishop Horsley, and several other eminent authorities for a wide interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles, To these authorities he might add the intention of the persons who established the Articles, which appeared from the King's declaration prefixed to them. As it thus appeared that the Articles of the Church of England admitted of more than one mode of arriving at belief in them, he must contend that the learned Prelate was bound to receive every answer by which a candidate could explain his belief according to the Articles. The candidate, it appeared, was not admitted to examination until the questions were answered. But if the candidate was ready to account for his faith according to the Articles, the Reverend Prelate was, according to the statute of Elizabeth, bound to examine him. Disregarding the statute of Elizabeth, the canon law, and royal declaration which precedes the articles, the Reverend Prelate persisted in submitting questions and demanding answers previous to examination. These questions, too, were not of the plain and simple nature described by the Bishop; but were, on the contrary, of a most metaphysical description, and calculated to produce great anxiety as to the answers. should quote one of the interrogatories and controverted points in theology. But the Right Reverend Prelate proceeded in his letter to insist on his mode of examination, which, he observed, depended entirely upon his own discretion; and he concluded with saying, "I think it right to inform you beforehand, that if you do not choose to conform exactly to the mode prescribed to you, you cannot be licensed." His Lordship was ready to admit that the mode of examination was left to the discretion of the Bishop; but then he must contend that the Reverend Prelate was, both by the statute and canon law, bound to confine his mode of examination within certain limits. He would not dispute the right of even examining persons removing from one parish to another; but as this sort of examina tion had not before been practised in the Church, the learned Prelate ought not to have been surprised at finding some hesitation in those who were called upon to submit to it. He would not contend that under the 48th canon such an examination was not within the reach of the Réverend Prelate's power. But when spiritual persons removing from one charge to another produced proper testimonials, such a course as that pursued in the diocese of Peterborough was altogether unknown, because it was naturally to be presumed that such persons had already been sufficiently examined. If their Lordships referred to the Act of 13th of Elizabeth, they would find that the Bishop could only examine the candidate in order to ascertain whether he could explain in Latin an account of his belief in the Articles of the Church. The canon, in the same manner, requires the candidate to give an account of his faith in Latin according to the Articles. Thus, though the Bishop was at liberty to exa. mine on his discretion with respect to the mode, yet he was limited, both by the canon and the statute law, as to the object, which was merely to make the candidate give an account of his faith according to the Articles. Here he wished their Lordships to consider what was meant by giving an account of faith according to the Articles. If a particular acknowledgment of the candidate's belief in the Articles was required, it would be easy by a single question. But if the Articles were framed so as to embrace different opinions, then it would be competent for persons to give an account of their faith in inore ways than one. The questions of the learned Prelate were, however, of a leading nature, and often admitted but of one answer. Indeed, he called upon the candidate to answer them with Yes, or No. They were a series of tests, framed for the see of Peterborough, VOL. XVII. 4 0 He as an example of the rest. It was in the following terms:-"Is not the power of God equally manifested, whether he operates on man immediately, as in a mere passive object, or whether he acts mediately through the agency of man himself, and by means which, as creator of all things, he must have previously impart ed?" The Reverend Prelate's questions were either identical with the Thirty-nine Articles, or they were not. If they were identical, they were unnecessary; and if they differed, and imposed another test previous to examination, they were unlawful. Their Lordships had been unanimous in their condemnation of the learned Prelate, when this subject was agitated last Session; and yet he had still persisted in putting those questions, and denied their Lordships' jurisdiction. Their Lordships, however, must perceive that if this course was permitted in one diocese, it might be generalized. Every Bishop might have his particular set of questions, and their clergymen would be driven to study these papers, in order to discover to what diocese it would be most convenient for them to go. To act on such a system was nothing else than reéruiting for Dissenters. There would soon be an Episcopacy, with questions and articles, on one hand, and a Dissent ing population on the other. It was the boast of this country, that there was no wrong for which the law had not a remedy. Was this system of clerical interrogation to form an exception? If there was no remedy in the hands of their Lordships, they might at least be the means of procuring redress. The Crown might refer the case to the Convocation, or some other mode of settling the question might be found. Their Lordships ought, therefore, to agree to the address he intended to move after the petition was laid on the table. The purport of the address would be to request that his Majesty would be pleased to order an Inquiry to be made to ascertain whether any innovations had taken place in Church discipline. He hoped that nothing he had stated would be considered as arising from any personal objection on his part to the Right Reverend Prelate, whose learning and character he respected. He attributed the conduct of the Reverend Prelate solely to zeal in the adoption of one view of the subject. The noble Lord concluded by moving that the petition do lie on the table. The Bishop of Peterborough began by remarking, that the value of a petition, and the propriety of granting or refusing its prayer, must depend on the truth of the allegations on which it proceeded. He would examine the petition before the House by this test; but before he did sơ, he must beg leave to make some preliminary observations on the speech of the noble Lord by whom the petition was introduced. In the first place, it rather made against the petitioner that the noble Lord was not instructed by him to state to the House the circumstances in which his complaint originated. These circumstances the petitioner must have designed to conceal, and this wish for concealment was not consistent with a desire for a just and impartial decision. The person whom he (the Bishop of Peterborough) refused to ordain was nominated by the petitioner last autumn. Conceiving that it was not only his right but his duty, as Bishop of the diocese in which the cure was to be served, to examine the qualifications and doctrines of the candidate for orders, he (the Bishop of Peterborongh) required an answer to certain questions which he put to him. Now, if the right to examine existed, the examiner must be permitted to proceed in that mode of examination by which his mind could best be satisfied of the doctrines held by the person whom he subjected to examination. The ques tions which he put were not tests or arti cles of faith, they were merely designed to draw forth answers as to the candidate's faith, which might afterwards be tried by the Liturgy and the Thirty-nine Articles. Their conformity or non-conformity with the doctrines of the Church could then be decided. The Liturgy and Articles were therefore the test, and not the list of questions which he propounded. And had not he (the Bishop of Peterborough) a right to follow the dictates of his own judgment in framing such questions as in his opinion would best accomplish the object of an examination which his duty commanded him to institute? If the mode of examination was objected to, and if the House of Peers was to be called upon to interfere in every particular case in which a candidate for a license, or for orders, objected to the set questions put by Bishops, the applications to their Lordships would be endless, and the authority of the Episcopal order would cease to exist. Such an interference with the rights and duties of Bishops had not taken place since the Church was established ; nor would the Establishment long continue if motions like the present were agreed to. If their Lordships attended to the prayer of this petitioner, they might soon expect similar applications from every diocese of the kingdom. Every curate who was refused a license, and every candidate for orders whose claims were rejected, would declare themselves aggrieved-would complain of hard treatment, and petition the House for redress. All the other Bishops of the Church of England examined as well as he, (the Bishop of Peterborough,) and his questions could no more be called tests than theirs. In doing what in this instance was the subject of complaint, he had only performed a very important part of his duty, in the best manner he could. This brought him to state simply the facts of the case, on which a charge of harshness and severity had been founded. Last autumn the petitioner applied to him (the Reverend Prelate) to license a curate for a parish of which he is Rector. He required that, before license, the proposed curate should be examined as to the Articles; and as he resided in the bishopric of Norwich, he (the Bishop of Peterborough) transmitted him a list of questious to which he requested answers. If a bishop was not allowed to proceed thus far on his own discretion, it would be better to abolish Episcopacy at once, and, instead of the Episcopal order appointed, to establish another Assembly of Divines at Westminster. What did this curate do in consequence of his receiving these questions? He returned answers not plain, short, and direct as he ought, but intricate, controversial and unintelligible. When he was expected to be most explicit, he was most obscure, and one of his dissertations occupied ten folio pages closely written, where a few words would have best suited the purpose. Such a paper was no answer to his questionsit was an attempt rather to evade their object, and to insult their author, than to state the opinions of the writer, or to satisfy the mind of the examiner. If he (the Bishop of Peterborough) had a right to put any questions at all, he had a right to see that their purpose was not defeated by the use of evasive terms, or by wrap ping the answers in a mass of controversial matter, which rendered them unintelligible. Finding that the object of this person was to conceal and disguise his opinions rather than to express them, he (the Bishop of Peterborough) sent him another set of questions. (A laugh.) To these he sent no distinct answer, but referred to his former dissertations, saying, that he had already answered them. In these circumstances he could not do otherwise than refuse to license him. He could not certify the soundness of his doctrines without knowing what they were; and he could not know what they were when he would not give intelligible answers to the questions which were intended to ascertain them. He (the Reverend Prelate) came now to another point of the noble Lord's speech, in which he stated a circumstance that, without explanation, would place him in an invidious light with respect to his brethrenhe meant that in which it was said that he paid no attention to testimonials from another diocese. This was not correct: he paid all the attention to testimonials which could be required of him. These testimonials merely purported that he who signed them believed the person to whom they referred to possess a good character, and to entertain orthodox opinions. But there were so many different ideas about orthodoxy, (hear, hear,) that a bishop would not do his duty if he did not satisfy himself of the doctrines of those who applied to him for license. He therefore had resolved to judge for himself in this matter, through a direct examination by question and answer. He (the Bishop of Peterborough) came now to consider the allegations in the petition, on the truth or falsehood of which the application must stand or fall. The first allegation was, that he (the Bishop of Peterborough) had introduced new tests into the Church, and refused licenses or ordinations till he was satisfied that they were complied with. Now this he had no hesitation to say was false. He examined by question and answer. He had a right to do so, and when he put an intelligible question, he was entitled to an intelligible answer. If he examined with undue severity-if he made his own opinion the standard of truth-and allowed no difference even in matters on which the Articles did not decide, then he might justly incur the charge brought against him in the petition. But he denied that he had examined with severity: he only put questions and required intelligible answers, and he never rejected any application where the answers were intelligible, and the doctrine stated in them conformable to the Articles. The peti tioner had said that he had added thirtysix new articles to the former eightyseven. The fact was, that the thirty-six questions were a substitute for the eightyseven, instead of being an addition to them. The Reverend and learned Prelate said, that the best answer he could give to the charge of severity was, that in the course of five years, in an extensive diocese, only three applications had been rejected. He then went over all the other allegations of the petition, either denying their truth or explaining away their force. The point at issue was simply this-whether a bishop had a right to examine on the Articles in his own diocese. If this was admitted, then the mode of examination must be left to the examiner himself. That such a right existed was plain from the forty-eighth canon, which required every candidate for orders to give an account of his faith. Such an account could not be obtained by an examination of proficiency alone; therefore the bishop was authorized by this canon to examine in the Articles. The petition concluded by praying their Lordships to address the Crown to enforce the Royal declaration. That Royal declaration he (the Bishop of Peterborough) had been endeavouring to support in the conduct which was the subject of complaint. If, therefore, they were to address the Crown, it should be, not in a prayer to enforce the Royal declaration, but in a recommendation to issue the Royal mandate to prevent the Bishop of Peterborough from examining by question and answer. If such a mandate were issued, he should obey it; but the previous question was, should the Crown be petitioned to suspend the laws of the State? He (the Reverend Prelate) now examined in obedience to, and in conformity with, these laws, and a law could not be abrogated by one branch of the legislature only. He used no authority to which he was not fairly entitled; he was not conscious of having abused any of his rights, though, like other men, he was liable to errors. He had proved that the petition was founded ou false allegations, and he called upon the House to pause before they acquiesced in an application supported on sophistry and fallacy. He left the matter entirely in the hands of their Lordships; he had no personal interest to serve; he should suffer no personal loss by being debarred from a mode of examination of the propriety and utility of which an experience of five years had convinced him. (Hear, hear.) : Lord HOLLAND began by stating, that he disapproved of the language which the Right Reverend and Learned Prelate had employed in speaking of the petitioner such language was harsh in itself, and not becoming the quarter whence it proceeded. With regard to the defence of the Right Reverend Prelate to the charge of the petition, it was the most complete instance of ignorantia elenchi which he had ever heard. The question to be ultimately considered and decided was this-whether the Learned and Reverend Prelate was justified in putting his questions. If he had that right, no man could doubt that he had also the right to choose his own mode of examination; but it was first necessary to determine whether the matter, substance, object and principle of the examination were warranted by the law of the land, and by expediency and prudence. He (Lord Holland) would broadly assert, that it was ambiguous and doubtful, whether by law he had a right to do so; and whether he did or did not possess it, it had always been thought most imprudent and improper in the Right Reverend Prelate to assert it. With regard to the canons, when he heard the Right Reverend Prelate speak of them in a tone of such authority, he (Lord Holland) could not help at least hinting a doubt whether those canons were, in truth, any part of the law of the land, for they had never received the sanction of Parliament, like the Liturgy, the Articles or the Homilies. The 48th canon was the only one on which the claim now set up could be rested: but even this (and his Lordship read the words of it to illustrate his position) was liable to two interpretations. It was not to be disputed that the petitioner had subscribed the Thirtynine Articles, and that act hitherto had been considered a sufficient test. Looking at the history of these Thirty-nine Articles, he found that they had been put into their present shape at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, in the year 1562; and with reference to their doctrines, he must say, that from the period of the Reformation down to the time of that good man Hooker, and even of that bad man Laud, the principles of Arminianism were unknown to the Church of England. Before he sat down, he would undertake to prove that one of the greatest ornaments of the Bishops' Bench had said that those Thirty-nine Articles contained opinions on which a clergyman of the Church of Englaud ought not to be examined. Was the Right Reverend Prelate quite sure that such men as Parker and Sanderson could have satisfactorily answered his questions? Was he quite sure, even that all of those by whom he was now surrounded, scrupulous and conscientious men, if they chose to embody their opinions, and reply to his eighty-seven questions, thereby giving some four thousand odd hundred answers, could do so without offending against some doctrinal point, which the Right Reverend Prelate held so necessary to true religion and virtue? Was he quite sure that not one of the four thousand answers would be such as to have induced him, if any member of the Bench of Bishops had been a candidate for holy orders in his diocese, to have rejected his claim? It was not to be denied that the Thirty-nine Articles were drawn up by persons whose opinions tended more to Calvinism than to Arminianism; but, as Bishop Horsley had correctly said, they were intended to admit both within the pale of the church; they were articles of peace and union, and ob. served a perfect and judicious neutrality. Whitgift had endeavoured to add six articles wholly Calvinistic, but for the reason stated they were rejected. Down to the reign of William III., that "discreet Jaxity" of which Fuller spoke in his Church History, had always been allowed regarding the Articles. Coming down to a later date, he arrived at the great authority of Archbishop Wake upon this subject an authority to which he had before alluded. The injunctions he promulgated related solely to the testimonials and to the morality of the candidate for a curacy or for holy orders, but said not a syllable regarding rejection on points of doctrine. He had held correspondence with the Protestants of Geneva and Bern; and in one of his letters to the latter, he had thus spoken of the Thirty-nine Articles :-"I have never, to any man or men, given my opinions upon that subject, and I am determined never to do it," and further on, he had thus decisively expressed his opinions:-"It has always been the policy of the Church of England, and I trust in God it will always remain so, to require nothing more than the mere subscription of the Articles." Thus it was evident, that Archbp. Wake could never have entitled himself to a curacy in the diocese of the Right Reverend Prelate. He, one of the loftiest and ablest dignitaries of the church, must be abandoned by those who thought with the present Bishop of Peterborough, as a republican-as one who would be willing to bring his sovereign to the block, and as meriting all the reproaches and epithets which the Right Reverend Prelate, in his truly Christian spirit, had heaped upon the petitioner. He (Lord Holland) hoped that some of his learned brethren of the bench would favour the House with their opinions, and state the nature and object of their examinations. He had heard that some of the candidates to whom licenses were refused from the see of Peterborough had obtained them elsewhere in other dioceses, without the lengthy examinations now the subject of complaint. He had read the answers to the eighty-seven questions, and he could find no ground at least for the charge of artifice, brought forward by the Right Reverend Prelate. Had artifice been necessary, it would have been displayed in a different way; the object of the petitioner was to gain the curacy, and but for his honest scruples of conscience he might have obtained it. He (Lord Holland) now came to the topic of expediency, and he must observe that if the practice of the Right Reverend Prelate could be justified by strict law, it was in itself a tremendous grievance, and a most cruel power, the exercise of which ought to be controuled. The hardship in a case like that of the petitioner was extreme. By the resolutions in the case of Horne Tooke it had been settled, that when once a man was a deacon, he could look for advancement in no profession but the church. A man might be able to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles with the latitude hitherto allowed, and an opportunity of preferment in the diocese of Peterborough occurring, he might have reasonably expected that no obstacle would have been presented to his obtaining it. But no: the Bishop stepped in, and put him to a new test by his eighty-seven questions, some of them of no easy solution, and such as Archbishop Wake himself could not have answered. Still, answered they must be; and if it could not be done without it, the candidate must read over the Right Reverend Prelate's long controversial work for his instruction. He had no choice -extinctæ corpus non utile dextræ; and if he did not give satisfactory replies upon all the doctrinal points, he must be content to be a beggar all his life. It might be true that only three had been rejected by the Right Reverend Prelate, but could he say how many had been de terred from seeking advancement through such an ordeal? There was one remark which he (Lord Holland) would not have made but for the charge of artifice which had been made against the petitioner. He observed that the eighty-seven ques. tions were only propounded to young, inexperienced men-to candidates for cura cies or holy orders; but they were never put to beneficed clergymen who might be supposed to be more competent to reply. The truth was, that in such cases third persons were interested-the lay patron-perhaps the crown; and if objections were made to the interrogatories, the matter could be carried to another jurisdiction, He did not say that it was so, but it looked very much as if the Right Reverend Prelate was resolved to go so far as he could without (to use a familiar phrase) being hauled over the coals. By a practice like this, each separate diocese would be converted into a separate church, and divisions and sects would be endless. But since the Church of England was part of the law and constitution, Parliament was bound to interpose in cases of necessity to preserve its peace: he did not put it on the miserable ground of property, but for the sake |