been neglected. This is a mistake which ought not to be committed, yet they argue upon it, as though their position were indisputable. No Bishop can prevent a Clergyman from reading the Prayer for the Church Militant, from preaching in the Surplice, and from making a collection at the Offertory weekly. He may not enjoin these things, which he has the power to do: but he has no power to prohibit them. If therefore, a Bishop, who is as much confined by the law as the Clergy, makes any order, it must be an order for strict compliance with the letter of the Rubrics. He must do this, or he can do nothing. Were a Bishop to remain silent in such a diocese as London, for example, he would be reproached for pusillanimity: yet when he speaks, in obedience to the call of the Clergy, and delivers his judgment, as he necessarily must, in favour of strict compliance with the Rubrics, immediately his power is questioned, and an outcry is raised, from the mere circumstance of recommending obedience to the laws of the Church, as though some tremendous evil were impending. When, moreover, it is borne in mind, that the majority of those who raise the outcry, both Clergy and Laity, are not overscrupulous in complying with such Rubrics as have not fallen into disuse, an indifferent spectator can scarcely avoid the conclusion, that they cannot entertain any strong degree of attachment to other practices, which rest on precisely the same grounds, namely, the Rubrics, as those against which their hostility is directed. The objectors might be regarded as consistent, if they were scrupulous in other particulars; but it is notorious, that many of the Clergy, who object, are lax in conforming to Rubrics, which a Bishop must enforce, should the cases be brought before him: while some of the
