the evil which Dean Prideaux foreboded, as the result of a different form of concession to lay spiritual democracy, is accomplished :—

"Yet the least mischief we can expect will be totally to extinguish all convocations for the future, and resolve the whole power of the Church into the two Houses of Parliament”.Card. "Hist. Conf.", 420.

We promised at the outset of our argument to show how friendly is the common-law to the spiritual prerogative of the Crown: now we ask, with confidence, whether our opponents, or ourselves, are the more devoted to this pillar of our Church? That the Royal supremacy in spirituals may be a doctrine inherent in the common-law, we are not at all inclined to dispute; but, that the said law cherishes in its capacious bosom a most deadly hostility to its offspring is sufficiently manifest.

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Are we to assent to this, and by Oath ?

Again we have ascertained certain well-established popular doctrines on ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction; with these we have contrasted Elizabethan doctrines, and this contrast presents ultra-antagonism. The matter stands thus-The Parliament and the common-law have taught resistance to the spiritual supremacy of the Crown; pleading the authority of the Crown, they have usurped that which they had taught others to resist; and to this, we are told, the clergy must render "absolute and implicit obedience"; and this, it is said, is the true notion of the Union of Church and State, and the true notion also of the Spiritual Supremacy of the Crown! Now comes the question, shall we adopt these notions of ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction in explanation of the re-imposed oath of non-supremacy? They are not appended to the oath, it is true, by the letter of the statute; but they are the principles which those who secured its re-enactment declare to be its original sense: those advocates differed on the details of practical operation; but they agreed in these final views of jurisdiction. Nor should it be overlooked, that the doctrines received their highest development when the oath was not the subject of argument: a clear proof that these are views professionally inherent; that without concert such advocates are unanimous in holding this supposed sensus imponentis. We have not assumed the office of Vicar-general, and presumed to lay down ecclesiastical law: we were compelled to enter on the subject for the satisfaction of conscience; and in discharge of the same duty publish the result. We think that we have demonstrated that our duty to the Royal supremacy imposes resistance to this spiritual democratic policy; that to tamper with the true sense of the oath and to accept it in this non-natural sense, bears with it a fearful vindication of violated truth; that the very explanations which have been given as proof that this oath may, and ought, still to be accepted, form most cogent reasons why it ought to be unhesitatingly rejected.

Ir our pamphlet of 1857 could elicit that verdict which opens Part III. of this argument, much rather should the first two portions of this one win a similar assent. The true sense of the oath has been proven, by an unanswerable demonstration; and the now absolute falsity of this sense, by equally unassailable evidence: the most ordinary candour must admit, that the Pope does exercise within this realm that ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction which we are yet required to swear he has not. Now, therefore, it is established, that for more than a quarter of a century the clergy have been accepting a violated oath. Conceding that ignorance, and not presumption, has been the cause of this, yet it cannot exculpate from guilt: and, should acceptance of the oath be still continued, what form is the guilt of swearing it to assume? Such perseverance will necessitate this alternative—either, to incur the guilt of perjury; or, that of recourse to some nonnatural expedient, which may be even greater iniquity.

The very statute of re-imposition involves perjurious obligation. Every limitation of the terms of the oath was excluded from the Act, under plea that it ought to be re-imposed and accepted secundum sensum imponentis ; and, although the supposed original sense cannot be found in the ancient statutes, yet this is no prejudice to the assertion of the principle of re-imposition. The Act being destitute of positive limitation, the sense of the original imponents must be determined by construction; and, according to the preceding principle, the mode of construction is this-The new statute merely copies the oath from its original imponent 1 Will. & Mary, c. 8; therefore, the oath must be taken according to the spirit and intent of that statute: but, this sense having been demonstrated to be false, it follows that, in doing homage to truth, perjury has been laid upon the clergy by Act of Parliament. There is another mode, indeed, by which a constructive sense having reference to the statutes may be affixed to the oath, and which may serve to avert the charge of perjurious guilt; of this mode we will

presently speak: but, the one which we have exhibited is that one which the avowed principle of re-imposition renders strictly correct. It is scarcely possible to trace the details of God's moral government:" His ways are past finding out": yet, may not this mode of re-imposing the oath have been overruled, in order to force on our Church the long-neglected vindication of violated truth? Is there nothing worthy of note in the fact, that when a simple positive definition would have precluded future objection, the legislature should be left to re-enact the oath according to a principle most certainly false? God preserved Abimelech from sin (Gen. xx.), because he had acted in the integrity of his heart: must there not, then, be some special cause why in this juncture he has left our Church exposed to the sin we indicate? And what cause can be so probable as our hypothesis?

The mere demonstration of this position stirs up, it may be, indignation: and deliberate commission of the sin will be shrunk from with abhorrence: what, then, is to be done? Either, the oath must be rejected; or, some compromising expedient be adopted. The first is most undoubtedly the path of duty, but the flesh is weak; and the second may be supported by so many plausible arguments, that we will attempt to delineate the actual results, and the moral nature, of such conduct.

First, all compromising expedients must be illegal. We recite the legal axiom quoted, at page 11, from Mr. Napier, viz., “It is not competent for any private person to put his own interpretation on the oath. It must be taken secundum sensum imponentis, without any peculiar interpretation to suit the views of those who take it". There is no ambiguity in this doctrine. The style of the legal profession in applying it would be-Neither administrator can offer, nor can jurant accept, this oath in a private sense; they are held in law to do that which the law beforehand has said must be done. Not to plead, therefore, that it is impossible for a jurant to escape from the legal perjury, we may rest content with saying, that an attempt to do so bý any expedient must involve contempt of well-known law, and be a presumptuous illegality.

Again, the clergy subscribe to the Articles; what is the principle which should govern their subscription? We read in their preface" His Majesty's Declaration":

"No man hereafter shall print or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammati

cal sense.'

This law applies to the entire code, as to principle; as much to the 37th Art. as to the 17th: the oath has been proven to deny the Pope's power de facto: so collaterally the 3rd clause of the 37th Art.: now, are the

clergy prepared to accept the latter in one sense, but the oath in another? Or, will they set the above law and their subscriptions ex animo at nought, and in a second instance resort to a non-natural sense?

Further, not only are the clergy held to be bound by the entire code of the Canons of 1603, but specific subscription to the XXXVIth is a preliminary condition both of ordination and of ministration; this subscription embraces the very terms of our oath; and, the general bond includes the spirit and intent of all the anti-Papal statutes; in accepting these obligations, as we have argued at page 121, it will not avail to ask the State for an interpretation, because the Canons are simply the language of the Church: Will the clergy, then, accept the language of the oath according to the corrupt sense of the modern exposition, and that of the Canons in its true intent? Will they bind themselves ex animo by the Canons to the spirit of the anti-Papal statutes, but yet qualify the oath so as to adapt it to the pro-Papal policy of the State? Or, since the State neither cares, nor is able, to trifle with the terms of the Canons, will they first accept the oath in some non-natural sense, and then voluntarily tamper with the parallel terms of their Canons by their own sole act and deed ?

Lastly, God is a party to our conduct; we make the appeal-" So help me God". Shall the teachers and champions of truth, they who preach"Let your conversation be Yea, yea, and Nay, nay"; who expose the Jesuitical doctrine of mental reservation-shall such appeal for help to the God of all truth, in terms designedly adopted in a non-natural sense?

Such are the Scylla and Charybdis which await those who in this matter would flee the obvious path of duty: their choice will lie between perjury and non-natural interpretation: we can but leave them to ponder on which hand is the more fearful fate. For ourselves, as a bounden duty to our Lord Jesus Christ, we unhesitatingly reject the oath. An oath of civil allegiance, it is equally our duty to accept whenever and wherever it may be lawfully demanded: but, while ever ready "to render unto Cæsar the things which be Cæsar's we will also, by divine aid, "render unto God the things which be God's". The true sense of the oath has been absolutely falsified; we refuse to strip its terms, or those of the Article or Canons, of their proper intent; and, may we never dare to appeal to JEHOVAH in words adopted in any non-natural sense.

So much for the immorality of the bare fact of accepting the oath; but, this fact would involve momentous results to which our attention must now be turned. The oath is imposed as a mean to the preservation of the present Constitution; of this Constitution the Papist, as such, is a recognized member; whoever accepts such oath signifies thereby his adhesion to the polity; and if to such polity there attaches guilt, of such guilt he becomes

a participant. This would be the case were the oath one newly devised and in itself true; but the fact that it is the ancient oath may involve an additional point of culpability. First, let it be supposed that, in the absence of expressed legislative construction, recourse be had to a mode of construction at which we hinted above, viz., In ascertaining the intent of this re-imposed oath you are bound to consider the pro-Papal legislation which preceded the statute of re-imposition, and therefore qualified the Act, 1 Will. and Mary, c. 8: this would be to ask, in direct terms, a direct and express consent to the State's recognition and support of Popery. Or, secondly, let us suppose, that no attempt is made to add to the already existing twelve nonnatural modes of interpretation; but, that the present state of the Papists within the realm is thought to be constitutionally normal; that so long as we do not enforce the Pope's dicta by law the realm is quit of guilt; and that the oath is offered in the popular de jure sense; in this case the administrator of the oath is supposed to offer it under error: but the jurant is now supposed to be in full possession of the facts of the case; the positions of the adjurer and of the adjured are diametrically opposite; the one may be said to err in the integrity of his heart, but the other must deliberately qualify the oath in his own mind in order to adapt it to his knowledge of the facts. It will be found, therefore, that while no man can accept this oath without becoming an adherent to, and a partaker of the guilt of, the polity; so no man acquainted with the facts now published in respect of the oath can accept it without being guilty of presumptuously becoming a partaker of such guilt―he adds another element to his delinquency.

Our Reformers delighted to exhibit Judah, under the reigns of godly monarchs, as their ideal of the religious Constitution. They longed, and they laboured, that the terms Nation and Church should be convertible— but two titles of the same community fulfilling two correlative functions. Their views so took effect that England may be said to have spontaneously entered into covenant with God. Well has our Reformation been defined as "The national adoption of primitive Christianity rescued and purified from the corruptions of Romanism ”. The very title, "The Church of England", and specially the recent days of fasting and of thanksgiving, fully recognise the position: thus we have set our seal to the doctrines of national obligations and of national guilt, as they may be demonstrated after the analogy of the Jewish polity. By reference to this standard, we will endeavour to trace that guilt of which some may presumptuously become participants.

England has violated her Constitution and her covenant, by conceding impunity and free exercise to the Pope's jurisdiction within her realm. This was to sanction and suffer the accumulated, and accumulating, guilt of