Neglect of Statutes.

5

October 29, 1729, was this: "Do all the members of the Church respectively hold and observe Bishop Alnwick's Laudum and the Novum Registrum as the Statutes and Ordinances by which they are to govern and be governed in all instances other than such as are contrary to the Word of God or the Laws of this land, or the subsequent ordinances of the Church solemnly settled by the express consent of the Bishop, Dean, and Chapter for the time being?"

Copies of these two works, the Laudum and Novum Registrum, are now in your hands; and let me earnestly desire you to make yourselves well acquainted with their contents.

The Roman poet2 said—

"Vir bonus est quis?

Qui consulta Patrum qui leges juraque servat"; and the truth of this saying may be illustrated from our own history.

One of the greatest misfortunes of Capitular Bodies has been that Chapters have not attended to their own Laws. For example-in the year 1853 our own Chapter, in their answers to the "Cathedral Commissioners," stated that "our Statutes, as embodied in the Novum Registrum, do not appear to have been altered or modified, except by the award or determination of Bishop Alnwick, Anno Domini 1440"; whereas the fact is, that the award of Bishop Alnwick preceded the Novum Registrum, which was confirmed by him in 1440.

2 Horat. I Epist. xvi. 41.

3 Cathedral Commission Report, p. 254.

If our Statutes had been duly studied and observed it would have been impossible that a Chapter Act (if a Chapter Act it could be called) should have been attempted in November, 1596, by which the Residentiaries tried to alter their own statutable term of residence of 243 days, so as to allow themselves to be non-resident for 261 days in the year. This was done in 1596. But a few years afterward a Bishop of Lincoln, Bishop William Barlow (Bishop A.D. 1608– 1614), at his Visitation, put the following question in his Articles of Enquiry, exhibited to the Dean and Chapter in this place:-"Do the Dean and Prebendaries keep their residences according to their oaths in every year 34 weeks and five days?"

Non-residence was the prima mali labes. No wonder that we hear of strange doings in the following periods of our history. Take one for example.

In October, 1729, Dr. Richard Reynolds, Bishop of Lincoln, held a Visitation in this Chapter House; and it was then reported to him, in a Presentment from the Chancellor of this Cathedral, that the Dean had been absent for many years; and that for more than six years the Precentor had not been in residence, and that consequently the Chapters of the Church were not held at any stated times, and the government and discipline of the Church were not statutably administered.

This example may suffice; and I gladly turn from it in another direction.

Chapters Councils of Bishops.

6

7

It has been truly said by wise and learned authors, from the days of St. Ignatius to those of St. Cyprian and St. Jerome, and from his age to the times of Lord Bacon,5 Bishop Stillingfleet, and our own,7 that Bishops ought not to act as autocrats, but that they ought to look to their Presbyters for advice; and it has been rightly asserted that their constitutional council is the Chapter of their Cathedral Church.

But if Residentiaries do not keep residence, and if Canons or Prebendaries are not supposed to form an integral part of the Chapter, at least for special "It is not to be denied," said Bishop House of Commons on Cathedrals, a.d. 1641), that Ignatius, Cyprian, Hierome, Austin, and other, have required that some grave and discreet Presbyters should be Senatus Episcopi."-See Cathedral Commissioners' Report, p. 53.

See Hooker, vii., vii. I. Hacket (in his speech to the

5 Lord Bacon, Peace of the Church, sect. ii.

6 Bishop Stillingfleet, Eccl. Cases, vol. ii., p. 564. Dr. John Inett, Precentor of Lincoln, in his History of the English Church, vol. ii, p. 27, published in 1710, says that "the Cathedrals of England were from the beginning intended as Colleges of Priests, who might serve both as council and assistants to their Bishops in all parts of their holy function."

7 Bishop of Truro, The Cathedral, p. 52–56. See also the excellent article on Cathedrals in the Church Quarterly Review, No. 16, p. 318. 8 The notion of Episcopal individualism is of modern growth, and at variance with ancient law and language. Bishops in ancient times, in legal documents, did not speak egotistically. They did not use the pronoun ',' but the plural pronoun, 'We'; and did not speak of 'My Cathedral,' 'My Diocese,' &c., but ‘Our Cathedral,' 'Our Diocese,' &c.

See the remarks of Bishop Sanderson in his excellent treatise on Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal power, written in 1647, and printed Lond., 1673, p. 62-64 (or in the edition of his works by Bishop Jacobson, vol. v., p. 166), where he observes that although "a Bishop in his private affairs writeth of himself in the singular number, yet in his public and politick capacity, being in the eye of the Law as a corporation, speaks in the plural number; and is so addressed by the Crown, e.g., 'vobis praesentamus'; 'vestra Dioecesis,' &c.

purposes, does the fault lie with Bishops if they do not consult a Synod which has almost abdicated its functions, and is a Bishop chargeable with an ambitious desire of arbitrary sway if he does not consult them in ecclesiastical matters ?

The fact is, that as to the conciliar functions of Cathedrals, the Church of England is much in the

9 In p. 28 we read thus-"the fifty-six Canons of the Church of St. Mary, Lincoln, with their head," the Bishop (see p. 4 and p. 95) "constitute the body and chapter and deliberate on the affairs of the Church."

"Let the Dean convoke the residentiaries for deliberation in common on the affairs of the Church as often as the utility or honour of the Church requires, and the non-residentiaries also as often as the Chapter consents. But let him not convene them frequently for no reasons or for frivolous causes (p. 12).

Again, the presence of non-residents is not to be required for matters which concern the residents only (p. 48).

Again (p. 51 and p. 52), the residents who do the duty of the Church are entitled to more remuneration than the non-residents who do not.

In pp. 82, 87, 89, 112, in the appeal against the Dean, John Macworth, ten persons are specified as Canons residentiary, and as constituting the Chapter of the Church; at the same time it appears that on the same occasion all the Prebendaries were cited to appear, on the ground that what concerns all ought to be treated of by all (p. 95).

The language of the Cathedral Act of 1840 (3 & 4 Vict., cap. 113) seems to be ambiguous and perplexing ::

By sect. I "All members of a Chapter, except the Dean, are to be called Canons." Compare sect. 93, where the term canon is limited to residentiaries, "in the construction of the Act" (not of local Statutes).

By sect. 33 "One of the Archdeacons is to be added to the Chapter of Lincoln, and to become a Canon of the Cathedral, and become a member of the Chapter."

By sect. 41 "Members of Chapters are distinguished from Prebendaries," and see sect. 44.

And yet in sect. 51 "All the rights and privileges whatsoever of Prebendaries are to be continued to them, except so far as such rights or privileges are affected by any provisions of the Act respecting the right of election now exercised by the Chapter."

Cathedrals and Convocation.

9

same state as it was with regard to her Convocations, which were in abeyance, for almost the whole of the eighteenth and during a great part of the nineteenth century. We have had a wakening up of Convocations; we need now an awakening of Chapters; and no one would rejoice more—no one ought to rejoice more— in such a resuscitation than the Bishops themselves.

In saying this I do not forget the great service rendered to a Bishop and the Diocese by the Archdeacons and Rural Deans, placed in all parts of the Diocese. But their functions for the most part are rather those of reporting and advising on local matters in their particular districts, than of general consultation; and from the fortunate circumstance that the Archdeacons and many of the Rural Deans in this Diocese are also members of the Capitular Body, we might expect greater advantages from Capitular meetings for purposes of counsel.

And now let me say with thankfulness that here in this Chapter of Lincoln all the principal dignitaries, namely, the Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, and Subdean are bonâ fide residentiaries; they keep the statutable residence of eight months in the year, and hold no benefice in plurality, but give themselves wholly to their work as members of the Capitular Body. An Archdeacon, either singly or jointly with any of the other Archdeacons,-was placed in a new relation to the Chapter by the Cathedral Act of 1840, and was invested by that Act (sect. 33) with the like rights, privileges, dignities, and emoluments as are