Untitled - Electric Scotland

1863-67]
LORD LDURVS PROPOSAL
A few months after the House of Lords debate, Bishop
Tait delivered in St. Paul s Cathedral his second Diocesan
Charge, and referred, as was indeed inevitable, to the pre
vailing agitation.
> o
As to the declarations which the law of the land requires to
to be made at ordination," he said, "I should he ready myself,
even now, in spite of all temporary alarm as to unsound opinions,
to relax rather than to tighten the bond. I hold that in this
question of guarding the threshold of the ministry, as elsewhere
in dealing with the difficulties of an inquisitive age, the generous
confiding policy is the best and the most Christian. ... If
there be reason for the revision of the terms of subscription, the
subject certainly demands most grave consideration, and I doubt
not will I trust, soon receive it, both from the Bishops and
1
from other members of the Legislature."
It was on the strength of the support thus given that
Lord Ebury, on the very opening day of the Parliament
of 1863, reintroduced, in a somewhat different shape, his
dreaded Bill. He proposed to limit the clerical declaration
for the future to a simple promise
"
to conform to the
liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by law
established." With an historical sentiment unusual in Acts
of Parliament, his I^ill provided
begin to operate
"
that the relaxation should
upon the next ensuing
Feast of St.
Bartholomew." When the Bill came up for second read
ing, its rejection was moved by Archbishop Longley, who
objected in the strongest terms to any interference with
"
the detailed and definite promise of unfeigned assent and
consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in
and by the Book of Common Prayer." Bishop Tait, on
the other hand, approved Lord Ebury s proposal.
" He
had," he said,
"
carefully and anxiously pondered the
question, and it was only common honesty to avow the conclu
sion to which he had been led that the declaration which the
1
Charge of 1862, pp. 25 and 47.