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generally procure, who choose to have such for their curates, as will serve for the meanest salaries.

A seventh is, The preventing of dilapidations, especially where pluralists do not keep constant residence: towards which, frequent views of chancels, and parsonage and 5 vicarage-houses, by your archdeacon or archdeacons, or other officers, and reports made to you upon those views, will much conduce. And as for such, who upon any pretences whatsoever, desire a dispensation of non-residence, I entreat you not to grant it to any of them, without their 10 giving sufficient security to keep their chancels, and parsonage or vicarage-houses in good repair, if they be so already; or if not, to put them in good repair with all convenient speed, and to keep them so for the future.

The eighth is, Your causing the clergy to pursue very 15 carefully the end of the eighty-seventh canon, relating to terriers of glebe-lands and other possessions belonging to churches; for want of which, great controversies daily arise, and the rights of the church are often lost.

The ninth is, Your hindering (as much as in you lies) all 20 such from being surrogates, who are not qualified by the canon; and to see that none be instrumental in dispatching licenses of marriage, and solemnization of matrimony illegally, or in pronouncing the sentences of excommunication and absolution, without such solemnity as that 25 great and weighty affair requires.

Tenthly, When any minister removes out of your diocese into another, to any cure of souls, I desire you in a letter to the bishop into whose diocese he is going, to give a just character of him. Also when any such 30

minister comes into your diocese, not to admit him, but with the like letter from his former diocesan; or in a vacancy, from the guardian of the spiritualities.

Eleventhly, I beseech you to think of, and to use all proper methods for the time to come, for the preventing 35 of such from being admitted into holy orders, who are

not likely to pursue the sacred ends of them. Some such methods I here lay before you, desiring you to take them into your consideration.

1st, That you take all possible care that there be good 5 schoolmasters in the several public schools within your diocese, not licensing any but such as upon examination shall be found of sufficient ability, and do exhibit very satisfactory testimonials of their temper and good life; that so in the education of youth, especially such as are 10 designed for holy orders, there may not be an ill foundation laid.

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2ndly, That you ordain no man deacon or priest, who hath not taken some degree in school in one of the universities of this realm, unless in some extraordinary case.

3rdly, That you accept of no letters testimonial brought by persons to be ordained, unless there be a clause inserted in them by the testifiers to this effect: that they believe them to be qualified for that order, into which they desire to be admitted.

20 4thly, That as soon as any apply to you for holy orders, you give timely notice of this at the place where the person resides, or lately resided, that so the exceptions against him (if any such there be) may come timely to your knowledge.

25 5thly, That when any person comes to you to be or

dained, you lay it upon his conscience to observe such fasting as is prescribed upon Ember days, and to give himself in most serious manner to meditation and prayer.

After some competent time after every ordination, 30 whether intra or extra tempora, at least between Michaelmas or Christmas, I desire you to send a return under your hand, attested by the archdeacon, and such other clergymen as assisted at the ordination, containing the names and surnames of all the persons then ordained, the 35 place of their birth, their age, and college where they were educated, with the degree they have taken in the

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university, the title upon which they were ordained, and upon whose letters dimissory, if they came out of another diocese; and to subjoin a particular account of all such as then offered themselves to ordination, and were refused; as also of the reasons for which they were refused. 5 All which I undertake and promise to cause to be entered into a ledger book for that purpose. By this means counterfeit orders may be detected; men who come up for preferment may be the better understood and distinguished; and such who have had the misfortune either io to lose their orders, or to want them here, upon any emergent occasion, may be in some measure helped.

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And that the king may be the better enabled to give you his further assistance, in these and other affairs of the church, you are desired and required to comply with 15 his majesty's command to me signified, in giving me an account of what has been done in your diocese, in pursuance of his injunctions, when you come next to parliament; as also of the present state of it, in as particular manner as you well can; that such accounts may be laid 20 before him, in order to the supplying of what is wanting, and rectifying of what is amiss. Not doubting of your lordship's care and zeal in these weighty matters, I recommend you, and all your affairs to the blessing of God Almighty, and remain

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Your very loving

friend and brother,

THO. CANTUAR.

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Archiepisc. Cant.

THO. TENISON 2.

CLXVIII.

Anno Christi
1695.

Reg. Angliæ GUILIEL. III. 7.

Directions to our archbishops and bishops, for the preserving of unity in the church, and the purity of the Christian faith, concerning the holy Trinity.

WILLIAM R.

MOST reverend and right reverend fathers in God, we greet you well. Whereas we are given to understand, that there have of late been some differences among the clergy of this our realm about their ways of expressing themselves in their sermons and writings, con10 cerning the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, which may be

of dangerous consequence, if not timely prevented; we therefore out of our princely care and zeal for the pre

Directions to our archbishops] In the year 1691, Dr. William Sherlock, soon afterwards appointed to the deanery of St. Paul's, published 15 his "Vindication of the Doctrine of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity,” containing a new method of explaining that sacred mystery, and tending in one part of the argument to the establishment of a tritheism. This gave rise to a lengthened controversy, in which Dr. South and himself were the great antagonists, both of them bringing an impe20 tuous temper to the discussion, and calculated to do injury to the cause of religious inquiry by the intemperance with which they conducted it. Other writers took an earnest part in the dispute; but the case which attracted the greatest attention, owing to the solemn condemnation it met with, was a sermon preached in Michaelmas Term 1695, before 25 the university of Oxford; in which the preacher, in conformity with the sentiments of Dr. Sherlock, maintained that "There are three infinite distinct minds and substances in the Trinity," and that "The three persons in the Trinity are three distinct infinite minds or spirits, and three individual substances." These propositions were formally de30 clared by the board of heads of houses to be false, impious, and heretical,

servation of the peace and unity of the church, together with the purity of the Christian faith, have thought fit to send you these following directions, which we straitly charge and command you to publish, and to see that they be observed within your several dioceses.

I. That no preacher whatsoever, in his sermon or lecture, do presume to deliver any other doctrine concerning the blessed Trinity, than what is contained in the holy scriptures, and is agreeable to the three creeds and the thirty-nine articles of religion.

II. That in the explication of this doctrine they carefully avoid all new terms, and confine themselves to such ways of expression, as have been commonly used in the church.

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III. That care be taken in this matter, especially to 15 observe the fifty-third canon of this church, which forbids public opposition between preachers, and that above all things they abstain from bitter invectives and scurrilous language against all persons whatsoever.

and their decree was made so public through the medium of newspapers, 20 and attended with so many reflections on the author of the new heresy, that the controversy soon found fresh materials to feed upon, and a greater degree of acrimony to foment it. Dr. Sherlock published "A modest examination of the authority and reasons of the late decree," and was followed by other writers on both sides, who engaged so 25 fiercely in the contest, that at the request of the bishops the king interposed, and issued his directions on the subject on the 3rd of February 1696.

Bishop Burnet says, that the king's directions "put a stop to those debates, as the death of Mr. Firmin [in 1697, who was a most boun- 30 tiful man, but a great supporter of Socinian doctrines] put a stop to the printing and spreading of Socinian books." Doubtless the vehemence of the contest was much abated; but it appears that Dr. Sherlock still continued to publish tracts in defence of real, as opposed to nominal, Trinitarianism, and in opposition to the false views of the 35 Socinians. Burnet, O. T. vol. iv. p. 390. Baxter's Life, p. 549. Biog. Brit. artt. Sherlock and South. Calamy's Life, vol. i. p. 404.

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