The inquiries are these that follow: First, What number of persons, or at least families, are by common account and estimation inhabiting within each parish subject unto them ? Secondly, What number of popish recusants, or such 5 as are suspected for recusancy, are there among such the inhabitants aforesaid? Thirdly, What number of other dissenters are resident in such parishes, which either obstinately refuse, or wholly absent themselves from the communion of the 10 church of England at such times, as by law they are required? It cannot be unknown unto your lordship, and the rest of my brethren the bishops, by what artifices and insinuations the established doctrine and discipline of the 15 church of England hath been both heretofore and now lately impugned; and amongst other specious pretences, the consideration of the number of dissenters hath been an argument much insisted upon, as if their party were either too formidable to be suppressed, or that the com- 20 bination of the several factions being infinite, it were but lost labour to re-enforce the censure and execution of the laws provided against them. For manifestation of which groundless and untrue assertion, and other important reasons me thereunto moving, I have thought fit at this 25 time to pray and require your lordship.... And so soon as I shall receive satisfaction as to the particulars, I shall be able from the fact itself to unmask and lay open the prejudices and misapprehensions, wherewith some unwary persons are abused by the designs of our adversaries. I shall I hope justify the diligence, zeal, and integrity of 30 both myself and brethren, in the management of the charge committed to our care. And lastly, having done this, I do not doubt but the pretended increase of schism and superstition will no longer be imputed to our easiness or inadvertency, and the just number of dissenters being known, their suppression will be a work very practicable, if they be not emboldened by the countenance of other 5 authority than ourselves. CLVII. ΤΟ Archiepisc. Cant. Anno Christi Reg. Angliæ Directions from the archbishop of Cant. to his suffragans, concerning testimonials to be granted unto candidates for holy orders, dated from Lambeth house Aug. 23. 66 MDCLXXVIII. SALUTE ALUTEM in Christo." My lord. Whereas the easy and promiscuous granting of letters testimonial (which is in itself a sacred thing, and in the first intention of great and very weighty importance) is by the lapse of time and the corruption which by insensible degrees is crept into the best institutions, come to be both in the universities and elsewhere abroad in the dioceses a matter of mere formality, and piece of common civility, scarce denied to any that asked it, and many times, 15 upon the credit of the first subscriber, attested by the rest, who have otherwise no knowledge of the person so adorned; or else, where more conscience is made of bearing false witness even for a neighbour, is done so perfunctorily, and in so low and dilute terms, as ought to signify nothing at all to the great end, for which it is designed to serve, and yet is sometimes with a like 20 Directions from the archbishop] D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, vol. i. p. 182. easiness and remissness, received and proceeded upon; whereby great mischiefs in the church and scandals daily ensue, persons altogether undeserving, or at least not duly qualified, being too often, upon the credit of such papers, admitted into holy orders, and in consequence 5 thereupon thrusting themselves into employments of high trust, and dignity, and advantage in the church, and by their numerous instructions preventing and excluding others of greater modesty and merit: concerning all which, your lordship cannot but remember, how many 10 and how great complaints we met with both from our brethren the bishops, and others, during the late session of parliament, and what expedients for remedy thereof were then under debate and consideration among us. Now, as the result of those counsels, and for the effectual 15 redressing of those inconveniences, and preventing the like for the future, (though it would be abundantly sufficient to call all persons concerned, on both sides, to the serious perusal of, and exact compliance with those excellent constitutions and canons ecclesiastical, made in 20 the year MDCIII. which have most wisely and fully provided to obviate all these evils,) yet because in the modern practice they seem not duly to be attended to, it is thought fit and necessary again to limit and regulate the grant, the matter, and the form of testimonials as fol- 25 loweth : "videlicet," That no letters testimonial be granted only upon the credit of others, or out of a judgment of charity, which believes all things, and hopes all things, but from immediate and personal knowledge, and that owned and ex- 30 pressed in the letters themselves. That (as to the form of these letters) every such testimonial have the date, both as to time and place, expressly mentioned in the body of it, before it be subscribed by any, and pass also (as the canon requires) under hand and 35 seal; those namely from the universities, under the com ΤΟ mon seal of their respective colleges, attested by the subscription of the master, head, or principal person there, and those from other places, under the hands and seals of three priests at the least, of known integrity, gravity, and 5 prudence, who are of the voisinage, where the person testified of resides, or have otherwise known his life and behaviour by the space of three years next before the date of the said letters. And as to the matter of them, that they particularly To express the present condition of the person, in whose behalf the testimony is given; his standing and degree in the university; his place of present abode, and course of life; his end and design, for which he would make use of the said testimonial; whether for obtaining the order 15 of deacon or priest, or the employment of a parson, vicar, curate, or schoolmaster; and that the subscribers know him to be worthy, and in regard of learning, prudence, and holy life, duly qualified for the same respectively; and if he desires holy orders, his age too, if the sub20 scribers know it, or else that they admonish him to bring it otherwise credibly and sufficiently attested. Lastly, if such testimonial be to be made use of in another diocese, than that, where it is given; that it be by no means received without the letters dimissory of the bishop, or 25 other ordinary of the place, attesting in writing the ability, honesty, and good conversation of the person commended, in the place from whence he came. My lord, this is (I think) the sum of what was discoursed and resolved between us, when we were last 30 together. I therefore desire you, with all convenient speed, to cause copies thereof to be transcribed and transmitted to the several bishops of this province, and vice-chancellors of the universities respectively, and to be by them communicated (as soon as may well be) to as 35 many as are herein concerned, that they may not be disappointed by coming furnished with such testimonials only, as will not, nor ought to be received to such great purposes, for which they are so often made use of. Commending your lordship and your great affairs to the blessing of God Almighty, I remain, The archbishop of Canterbury's letter to the bishop of London about the augmentation of vicarages and curacies.-Ex autographo penes Tho. episc. Assaven. MY LORD, THE patrimony of the church (especially in the smaller vicarages) hath been so long and so often by unjust 10 customs and otherwise invaded, and by degrees daily more and mored iminished, and the little that is left of the old endowment, so likely by the same arts to be swallowed up and lost, that we have reason to bless God, who at the king's happy restoration put it into his heart 15 by his letters to command us, upon the renewing of church leases, to make further reservations beyond the The archbishop of Canterbury's letter] See No. CXLVII. D'Oyly's Sancroft, vol. i. p. 188. This letter is taken from the copy in the archbishop's handwriting preserved in the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian, 20 vol. cclxxxii. p. 115. |