mer rector of our parish hangs in our vestry-room, painted in 1617, the 16th of James I. and he wears neither a band nor a scarf-but a quilled ruff instead of the former, and a fur tippet of sables, instead of the latter. The picture-galleries in episcopal houses and the Universities, would furnish a great deal of information on this subject. It is clear that the canons could not mention scarfs, if they were not invented when the canons were drawn up.

4. As to the most correct edition of the Bible-I really am at a loss which to prefer. I have seen none free from errors. My Kentish brother-Curate does not say whether he means folio, or other sized Bibles. I fancy he will find those published by Basket, of all sizes, the best. Field I dislike, because of the foul artifice in the Sixth of the Acts. I am equally at a loss relative to Prayer-books. I have collected a long list of Errata in Reeves's Prayerbook; and in the late splendid Folio edition of Oxford. I dislike, as many do, (although the sealed books authorize it) the alteration of the Lord's Prayer; not to say that a correspondent of your's, some time ago, pointed out other errors in it; if, after all, we are to call this an error, which is a matter of deliberate preference.

Permit me, now, by way of Postscript; if your excellent correspondent, Mr. Pearson, will pardon my noticing his letter, (which follows that of my brother-Curate) in a Postscript; to mention the mode of Churching of women, observed in our Church. We never church women on Sundays; and the custom is so well established, that we rarely are asked to deviate from it. On Wednesdays and Fridays we church our women, before the two final prayers of the Litany; always saying, before the general Thanksgiving is read, that certain women desire to return thanks for safe delivery;" and on holidays, we church them immediately after the prayer "for the whole State of Christ's Church Militant;" noticing them, as in the other instance, before, and of course in the body of the general Thanksgiving: but whether on Wednesdays or Fridays, or on holidays, we always read the service for churching at the altar, and the women kneel around the rails. We never use the churching service in private houses,

May 4, 1804.

I am, Gentlemen,
Your's sincerely,

A LONDON CURATE.
ANSWER

2

ANSWER TO QUESTIONS ON LITURGICAL
SUBJECTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

SIR,

YOU

MAGAZINE.

YOUR correspondent, "a Kentish Curate," has proposed some interesting questions in the last number of your entertaining and instructive Work. If you think the following lines, in which an answer is attempted to be given to them, not unworthy of a place in your Magazine, you will oblige ine by inserting them.

Your correspondent states the case of the festivals of Palm Sunday and the Annunciation happening on the same day, and asks "Which of those two holy days should have the preference, and whether any one is justified in blending the two services together? Wheatly," he adds,

is silent on the subject." In this assertion your correspondent is surely mistaken; for Wheatly instances the very same circumstance with that which gave rise to the Kentish Curate's question. See pp. 176, 177, edit. 1794, 8vo. On this particular case he certainly gives no decision; but he had before said, in the same section, "I cannot but esteem the general practice to be preferable; which is to make the lesser holy-day give way to the greater; as an ordinary Sunday, for instance, to a Saint'sday; a Saint's day to one of our Lord's festivals; and a lesser festival of our Lord to a greater." According to this judgment, it appears to me, that on the 25th of March last, the service for the Annunciation should have been read, adding, however, to the collect for that day, the collects for the Sunday next before Easter, and for the first day of Lent. Such, at least, was the method I adopted.

Your correspondent's next question is, "Is a minister legally justified in not registering an infant until it is brought to the Church for public baptism?" I, for my part, think he is legally justified, and I have always refused to register until the child has been brought to Church. I conceive the design of a parish register to be to ascertain to the congregation that the child is received among them. Now, although by private baptism a child

is entitled to the inestimable benefits conferred by that sacrament, yet our Rubric orders that, "the child, which is after this sort baptized, be brought into the church, to the intent that the congregation may be certified of the true form of baptism-privately before used." Until, therefore, this certification be thus publicly made, I conceive a minister is legally justified in refusing to enrol a child as a member of that particular congregation.

To his third question I am unable to give any answer; except that I believe even a chaplain to a nobleman has po right at the University to wear a scarf. I remember to have heard a story, for the authenticity of which I cannot vouch, of a Clergyman who was to preach at St. Mary's, Cambridge. He was chaplain to a nobleman, and as such, conceived himself entitled to wear a scarf, but as he was at the pulpit-stairs, the Esquire Beadle, who conducted him, gently drew back his scarf from his shoulders. Some of your Cambridge correspondents can perhaps say whether there is any foundation for this anecdote.

I believe the edition of the Bible in quarto, Oxford, 1769, is reckoned the standard edition. It is said that the press was corrected by the late Dr. Blayney. It is extremely rare, and when it can be procured, sells for about six guineas. It is, however, by no means so correct as is imagined. There is now printing a Bible, on which, I am told, great pains are employed, The text is to be reprinted from Dr. Blayney's edition, with corrections of its typographical errors. Of the best edition of the Common Prayer, I can say nothing-the worst is indisputably that of Oxford, 1799, folio,

N reply to one of the inquiries of a Kentish Curate, ins serted in your last Number, p. 242, I beg leave to ob

serve, that he is mistaken in supposing, as he seems to do, that Mr. Wheatly is silent on the subject of the concurrence of holy-days. In the 4th section of his 5th chap ter, entitled, Of the Festivals observed by the Church of England," he has discussed it pretty fully. Though this intelligence may be thought to preclude the necessity of my saying any thing further on the subject, I will go on to observe, that, as the design of a prescribed service is rather to prevent error and disorder in each particular congregation, than an exact uniformity in all, it does not seem to be of any great consequence, so long as the service actually performed is understood to have the sanction of authority, if a little departure from uniformity, in the particulars referred to, should happen to take place. I am, however, of opinion, that the practice of the gen tleman, who used the whole office for the feast of the Annunciation, is the least to be defended. In that case, the first lesson would be taken from Ecclesiasticus; whereas, it pretty clearly appears to be the intention of the compilers of the Liturgy, that no lesson, taken from the Apocryphal books, shall be used on a Sunday.

It is, I believe, a usual practice, and it is the practice which I follow, to read (once at least) the Collect both for the Sunday and for any other festival which may happen to concur with it, and (except with respect to the state-festivals) to take no other notice of the office appointed for the latter. This practice is different froin that, which Wheatly seems to prefer, and different, probably, from what was originally designed; but it may, I think, be defended on the following ground; i.e. that, generally speaking, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel appointed for the Sunday, were intended to be used on every day in the succeeding week. See Wheatly, chap. v. Sect. vii.-6. For, in that case, though they were omitted on the Sunday, they were sure to be used in the course of the week, and their omission on the Sunday was a matter of less consequence; whereas, according to the present custom, if they are not used on the Sunday, they have but little chance, in the generality of places, of being used at all.

Upon the whole, I am of opinion, that, in this matter, a minister is at liberty to make such a choice, as shall appear to be most for the edification of his particular congregation. On this ground there can be but little doubt, with respect to the case mentioned by the Kentish Curate,

that

an

that the office for the Sunday (Palm Sunday) which is so peculiarly important and interesting, ought to have had the preference. Besides, in this particular case, as epistle and gospel are provided for every day of the succeeding week, those which are appointed for the Sunday would not come into use at all, even where Communion service is performed every day, unless they were used on the Sunday.

Rempstone, May 4,

1804.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

E. PEARSON.

STYLE OF NEW TESTAMENT COMPARED WITH POLYBIUS.

I

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

GENTLEMEN,

MAGAZINE.

KNOW not, for I see very few books, whether any body has noticed the following co-incidences of style; -they struck me in reading Polybius, (Ernesti's edition) which my Rector obligingly lent me the other day.

John ix. 4. Εμε δεν εργαζεσθαι τα έργα το πεμψαντος με. 13. Acts, 41. Εργον έγω εργαζομαι εν ταις ἡμέραις ὑμῶν. 9. Tim. iv. 7. Tor Ayora Tov zahov nywлopas. Polybius, lib. 1. cap. 4. (Ernesti's Edition, p. 6.) Ουδέπω τοιόνδ' απλώς στ' ειργάσατο έργον, στ' ηγωνίσατο αγωνισμα, διον το καθ' ἡμας.

I believe the idiom of the Greek Testament, not to say of the Septuagint, will derive no small elucidation from being diligently compared with the diction of Polybius. Polybius seems to have set an example of a new style in the Greek tongue; followed by most of the later writers in that language. Ernesti says there can be no doubt but Josephus, Dionys. Hali carn. Diodorus Sic. & Dion Cassius, read him; and Philo modelled his direction not only after Plato and Demosthenes, but after Polybius too;-and so have "several of the older ecclesiastical writers, particularly Clemens Alexandrinus. However, it is not quite clear to me which Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ernesti means. There were three of that name; one of them, as lossius observes, contemporary with Polybius;

and