But let this law be repealed, and all these blessings are gone-gone for ever. The morrow after its repeal, the sisters of wives in England, and the wives also who have sisters, and the husbands of such wives, and the children of such husbands and wives, will find their position changed. The husband will have lost the sister whom he had gained by marriage. The wife will have lost the sister whom she had by blood. The wife's sister will have ceased to be a sister, and have become almost a stranger. She can no longer enter the house with the same freedom and familiarity as before. Or, if she does, what jealousies and heartburnings may arise! The wife may be less fair than her sister, she may be growing old and feeble, her sister may be young and beautiful; then comes the Tempter and whispers in the ear of frail and fallen man that Divorce has now become easy in England; and we may follow the Jews and those other nations' whose example is so earnestly commended to us by some for our imitation, and make Divorce easier still. The husband may be unfaithful: estrangement may ensue, and a separation take place, and the wife's sister may supplant the wife, and may be set up in her sister's house, at her sister's table, and in her sister's place, and the wife's children may loathe their own home, and may hate their mother's sister, and

7 Who consider incompatibility of temper as a sufficient ground for divorce. Already a woman divorced "a vinculo" is regarded by English law as dead, and her husband may marry another. If marriage with a deceased wife's sister is legalized, then marriage with a divorced wife's sister will soon be lawful also.

Rights and duties of the Clergy.

III

their own father, as the authors of their mother's misery and of their mother's disgrace.

Nor let us forget the rights of those who minister in our churches and at our altars. What is the faithful Parish Priest to do, if a man or a woman who has contracted one of these marriages present himself or herself at the Lord's Table? Can he administer to them those holy mysteries? Would he not be a traitor to God and to His Church, whose law is clear on this point, if he ventured to do so? And if the Civil Power should legalize such marriages by its authority, would he not be charged with disloyalty to his Sovereign, and to the Government of his country, if he refused to do so? He would be placed in a painful dilemma; but his course is plain. He must obey God rather than men. But it will be an evil day for England when the Civil Power engages in a conflict with the Church of God, and proclaims war against the Ministers of God.

8

If there be any here who desire to contract such marriages as these, or to rescind the law which forbids them, let them be exhorted to pause, before they proceed further.

If, as our forefathers believed, these marriages are unlawful; if, as all Christendom testified for fourteen centuries after Christ, they are forbidden by God's Word, let us not begin a course of which we cannot

8 Acts iv. 19; v. 29.

see the end. If we tamper with His Law in one point, we may soon be led on to violate the whole.

Then

He will fight against us.
The vials of His wrath and
indignation, which were discharged on the nations of
Canaan, will be poured out on our heads.

Rather let us make fresh endeavours to vindicate the purity of Marriage, and to defend its sanctity.

Marriage was instituted by God, in order to diffuse the blessings of society, and to colonize the world. Let us not allow its healthful streams to be pent up and putrify in the sterile and stagnant pools of consanguinity and affinity; but let them flow far and wide, in free and fruitful freshness, to evangelize earth, and to people heaven.

Then we may cherish the hope, that when He, Who is the Divine Bridegroom, and Who has espoused our Nature, and has joined it for ever to the Nature of God, and Who beautified Marriage, and has consecrated it to such an excellent mystery that in it is represented and signified the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Himself and the Church,1 shall appear again in glory to receive to Himself the Bride, whom He loves and cherishes as His own flesh,2 we may be invited to sit down at the marriage feast of the Lamb in heaven, and to taste that unalloyed and everlasting bliss which is promised to the pure in heart, who "will see God."3

9 In one of the Bills (1849) for legalizing the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister, it was proposed that he should also be allowed to marry her niece.

3 Matt. v. 8.

EIGHTH ADDRESS.

THE destinies of England, religious and secular, depend mainly on the Education which the rising generation receives; and our institutions of Education are now passing through a critical period of existence.

An Act was passed in 1877, entitled "The University of Oxford and Cambridge Act," (40 ̊ & 41 Victoria, chapter 48,) empowering certain Commissioners to frame new Statutes for our Colleges in those Universities; and what those new Statutes may be is a question of deep interest.

Two Colleges in the University of Oxford, Brasenose and Lincoln, were founded by Bishops of Lincoln, and were entrusted to the care of their successors as Visitors. It is right that you should know how I have endeavoured to discharge my duty in that capacity, and therefore I request your attention for a few minutes to the representations made by me on this subject to the Commissioners.

"Those two Colleges, as appears from their Statutes,were designed by their respective Founders to be Seminaries of Religion, and to be Schools of the Church of England. They were erected and endowed by Bishops of the Church

I

for the encouragement of Sacred Literature and of Theological Learning; and for the training and maintenance of persons, either in Holy Orders, or destined for Holy Orders, in the Church.

"In the original Statutes of Brasenose College, it is ordered, that all the Fellows should be in Holy Orders within seven years after their admission to their Master's Degree, or else resign their Fellowships.

"The Statutes of Lincoln College (even as revised in the year 1855) enjoin that all the Fellows, except two, should be in Holy Orders within ten years after their admission to a Fellowship.

"The Statutes of both these Colleges prescribe that there Heads should be in Holy Orders.

"The Endowments formerly provided for the encouragement of Sacred Learning and Theological Study in the Church of England have been much diminished in late years by the sequestration of more than half the revenues of our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches.

"From this and other causes, the Church of England is in danger of declining from the high position which she has held among the Churches of Christendom, as possessing a learned Clergy, well-trained and qualified to refute erroneous opinions, and to defend the Christian Faith, and to contribute largely to the advancement of Literature and Science.

"The Bishops of the Church have reason to regret, from personal experience, that our two ancient Universities do not now supply a due proportion of Candidates for Holy Orders, and that the average attainments in sound scholarship and theological learning of our future Clergy will probably be below what is to be desired.

"This is the more to be lamented, because, at the present time, our national Institutions and our domestic peace and happiness are exposed to peril from the spread of Unbelief, and from the growth of Romanism.

"It would therefore be a public calamity to the Church and Nation, if the endowments of our Universities and Colleges were to be more largely abstracted, than is already unhappily the case, from the purposes to which their Founders assigned them, namely, the maintenance of the Christian Faith, and the promotion of Theological