In proof of the essential fact that "this Church " has a ritual law, and that that law is her Prayer Book, there need be no further evidence than the considerations already presented (in Lecture I) in treating of the word "use" on its title-page.

In the light of history and the established significance of that term in this connection, its presence there shows of itself that whatever services or offices are contained in that book are the law of "The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States" and must be performed, both as to language and ceremonial, in the mode which is there given, and no other or otherwise.

But so important a matter was not left to stand upon any single declaration, however conclusive that might be. The American Church has been careful to declare in several different forms and the most explicit manner that the Prayer Book is to be regarded as her law of doctrine and worship, and must be so accepted and obeyed by all who receive ordination at her hands, or are admitted to minister at her altars.

When the churches in the several States came together after the Revolutionary War to unite in a national organization, the General Convention, through which they acted, formed a Constitution which established the general principles on which they were willing to enter into this Union as the organic law of the whole body.

One of the Articles (Article 8) of this Constitution provided that "A Book of Common Prayer, administration of the Sacraments and other rites and cere"monies of the Church, articles of religion, etc., when

"established by this or a future General Convention, "shall be used in the Protestant Episcopal Church "'in those States which shall have adopted this Con(6 stitution."

Immediately after the consummation of the Union and the adoption of this Constitution the General Convention thus authorized proceeded to frame a "Book of Common Prayer," etc., and on its completion they gave it a title-page in accordance with the terms of the article and "set it forth" with a solemn RATIFICATION, which is incorporated into the book as an essential part of it, and which declares what they had done, and how they intended that their work should be regarded by the Church.

In this important document it is announced that "this Convention having in their present session (from "October 3d to October 18th, 1789) set forth a Book "of Common Prayer, etc., etc., do hereby establish said "book, and they declare it to be THE LITURGY of this "Church, and require that it be received as such by all "the members of the same."

This ratification of the Prayer Book thus sets it forth by the very authority that gave us our national organization as a Church and “establishes it as THE LITURGY of that Church;" and the Constitution, as our organic law, requires that such a book when so "established" shall be "used" in every portion of that Church.

The language of both Constitution and Ratification is clear and unequivocal, and their intention to make this book the law of worship for the Protestant Episco

pal Church in the United States is equally evident.1 The Article in the Constitution (8) under which the Prayer Book was "established" as "the use” in this Church contained at first no provision as to the mode by which amendments or alterations might be made in the book. But when all the offices and formulæ that were thought advisable had been prepared, a second clause was added (in 1811) which ordained, " That no "alteration or addition shall be made in the Book of Common Prayer, or in any of the offices of the Church (or the "Articles of Religion, 1829), unless the same shall be proposed in one General Convention, and by a resolve thereof "be made known to every diocese, and adopted at the subsequent General Convention."

So that the Constitution of the Church in the United States not only establishes the Prayer Book and all its offices and articles as the law of doctrine and of worship for that Church, but also provides that there shall be no "alteration or addition" in either the substance or appointed modes of performing "any of its offices," whether by the Church as a whole, or by individual ministers in their parishes, without the twice repeated sanction of the National Council of the Church, and after the change proposed had been made known to every diocese within its jurisdiction.

1 Much of the substance of Lectures IV and V, and portions of them in nearly or quite the same language, have previously appeared in two Articles by the lecturer in the American Church Review-one on "Ritual Law," in March, 1880, and the other on "The Clerical Subscription of Conformity," in June, 1883. In these, however, the questions involved were discussed from a somewhat different point of view, hence the present Lectures are in reality separate presentations of the same general subjects.

It has been maintained by some that the expression "ALTERATION or ADDITION" here applies only to changes in the forms as these are presented in the Prayer Book, hence cannot restrain the officiating priest from any modification he may choose to introduce into a service as he performs it in his own parish. But the language of the Article admits of no such construction; nor is there any ground in either reason or any portion of the book referred to for the assumption which this view implies, viz.: "that this provision of the Constitution forbids the whole Church in council to alter or add to any service until three years' delay, and yet allows each individual minister to add to or alter every service at his pleasure."

Upon the contrary, the prohibition was designed to guard alike and equally against suppression or intrusion, from whatever quarter, of either words or ceremonials in any of the formulæ or offices which "this Church" has established to "be received by all her members." They can be altered lawfully in but one way, and that is the one provided in the Constitution. To make any change in any other mode, it matters not whether in the printed volume or in the actual performance, nor whether made by presbyter or bishop, is equally to violate the fundamental Constitution of the Church, and to introduce confusion and disorder where she desires uniformity and stableness.

The provisions of the Constitution and the Prayer Book that have been given above are abundantly sufficient to show that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States has a ritual law, and that this law is embodied in the Book of Common Prayer with its accompanying offices and articles.

But while this general legislation is sufficient for the guidance of the body of its members, its laity, the Church imposes upon its ministers yet more definite and solemn obligations as to their duties in the performance of its services and the teaching of her doctrines; and so little does this Church desire or intend "entire liberty of ritual" for her clergy that she requires a personal and repeated promise of compliance with her forms of worship, and her mode of ministering the Sacraments, from every man who comes to receive ordination at her hands.

At the two most impressive periods of his ministerial life, immediately before he is made a deacon, and as a condition of his ordination to the priesthood, she demands of him a "solemn engagement," in the one case "to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States," and in the other, "always so to minister the Sacraments of Christ as THIS CHURCH hath received the same."

She has prepared as her form of admission to the several grades of the holy ministry a grand and profoundly significant Ordinal, every line of which is instinct with meaning and obligation, and every question in which calls for a careful weighing of all that it involves and all that it imposes.

This Ordinal is not a vague permission to minister in some branch of the Church unnamed and unknown, or in the Church at large, wholly unlimited and unpledged as to what we will minister, or how. It confers a definite commission to do and teach certain appointed and specific things, and to exercise certain other equally specific and limited prerogatives, and