XVI. CHAP. case," and that he had acted hastily. But he had not the sense and spirit to restrain his Comptroller, Mr. Rowe, from asking as before the insolent question, Whether the Bishop knew the meaning of stat mutus? On that same 27th of April the man Stole, excommunicated for adultery, appeared by petition as a penitent, which resulted in his absolution, after a course of penance, Aug. 25. And early in May the Bishop had the satisfaction of receiving a note very welcome to him, from one who had been wronged, the wrongdoer being under censure at the time for grievous sin in another way, and having performed some part of his penance; whereupon the Bishop, "in hopes that the discipline of the Church, by the grace of God, has had its just effects upon this person, and that a charitable indulgence may be a better measure of [? for] perfecting his repentance than the rigour of the law," had suspended the remainder of his censure for that sin, but added:— "Forasmuch as he is in a former censure for an offence against his neighbour which we cannot dispense with, when he shall have submitted to that, and reconciled himself to his brother, let him be received into the peace of the Church, according to the Constitution." This was written March 26. The offender seems to have taken some time before he could make up his mind to this concession, but at length, May 1, he had done so, and received in return this letter to carry to the Bishop: "My Lord,-Mr. Kelley having applied himself to me, and in a Christian manner offered to submit to the censure of the Church if I so required, which being a motive of persuasion to me that my easiness in the matter may be a foundation of a better understanding betwixt him and I, as I have reasons to believe it may, and that I have no pleasure in anybody's punishment, I humbly certify to your Lordship that I remit the said censure as far as in me lieth, and that he and I are reconciled, which I hope God will long continue. "I am, "Your Lordship's most obedient and humble Servant, THO, CHRISTIAN." 66 The Bishop sends the penitent on to the Parson of the parish: "Sir,-Let the bearer be received into the peace of the Church XVI. on Sunday next according to the Form for Receiving Penitents; CHAP. and let this letter and order, together with your certificate, be returned to me, that it may be put upon record as a standing testimony and example of that forgiving temper, which we wish might be found more frequently amongst Christians.-Dated May 4, 1722. "THO. SODOR and Man." "To the Reverend Mr. Bridson, Vicar of Kirk Marown." Perhaps the Bishop judged the letter the more worthy to be preserved, for the little confusion and imperfection in its grammar. It is to be hoped the reader will agree with him, and will not think it overstraining, if I remark that such little passages are no small portion of the comfort which God provides for His servants in trying times, interchanging them as it were with the disappointments which they must needs incur from the Evil One, and those whom he misleads. cation Upon this state of things came on the Whitsun week, and Convothe annual Convocation; and as might be expected it proved Charge, a momentous one. Until within the last week the Bishop 1722. had hoped for a peaceable settlement of the main cause of disturbance by the submission of the Archdeacon. But that wilful and very ordinary person, whose way seems to have been to commit himself offhand on the most serious subjects, without any notion of their real importance-to be extremely angry when he was at all interfered with, and equally obstinate as long as he thought he could have effectual support from great people-had in the meantime taken a fresh step which it was impossible to pass over; and the Bishop, waiting till the last moment, on Whitsun Monday ordered him to be formally summoned. He himself having preached at Ballaugh on Whitsunday, from Rom. viii. 14,-throwing himself as at other times into the great doctrine of the Day, without a word of present controversies, and confirming fiftythree persons,-met his clergy at Kirk Michael on the following Thursday, May 17, when he also preached another of his plain and practical but very energetic sermons-that which in his works is numbered 64; only changing the text from Hebrews xii. 1, to St. Matt. v. 29. After service, as the manner was and is, he delivered his Charge, seventeen of his XVI. CHA P. clergy being present, besides the Archdeacon and the two Vicars-General. Portions of the Charge have been preserved by Cruttwell. It was unavoidably taken up in good measure with the late and present troubles. First he spoke of the "Independent Whig:" "My Brethren,-It is now two years ago that I gave you notice of several pernicious books brought into this diocese, in order to pervert the Gospel of Christ, and to undermine the discipline of this Church. I since gave you notice of a most pestilent book, which contains the poison of all the rest, being, as it were, an abstract of blasphemy and libertinism; ridiculing the clergy of all religions, the Sacraments, the Holy Scriptures, and all God's ordinances. "But because I did not in my letter set down the pages to which my censure of that book referred, I have been reproached by some evil spirits, as if I had imposed upon you my own sentiments instead of the authors'. Why now, my brethren, I was very confident I had not lost my credit with you, whatever such children of Belial have suggested. Ye who have known me so long as most of you have done, I did hope, and do so still, would believe that I had judgment to discern, and veracity to report to you, the baneful contents of a book, which I knew was not like to come into any hands but such as were already or were like to be corrupted. I shall now therefore so far trespass upon your patience, as to give you the very words of that wicked book, as far as concerns my letter and censure. "And now I will venture to say, that for the most part you will agree with me, that whoever is pleased with this book, or takes pains to recommend it, cannot be under the conduct of the Holy Spirit of God, no more than the authors that wrote it; who, as we are assured by a certain pious peer of Great Britain, are a club consisting of Atheists," &c. "Thus much for that wicked book, The Independent Whig,' against which it is the joy of my soul that I have borne public testimony. "There is another affair which I have referred to this meeting. and in which I want your advice and testimony. It is a matter of great grief to us, that we should have any sort of difference with the civil magistrate, who is God's ordinance, and must be obeyed at the peril of our souls, either by an active or passive obedience. On the other side, we have laws and rules to go by, which, being established by lawful authority, are as much the ordinance of God, CHAP. and are not lightly to be receded from or transgressed. "Now it has been the unhappiness of two of our brethren [Mr. Woods and Mr. Makon] to fall into this dilemma, either to transgress their rule, or to disoblige the civil power. The Rubric saith expressly, 'That nothing shall be published in the church during the time of divine service but what is prescribed by the rules of that book, or enjoined by the King, or by the Ordinary of the place.' Pursuant to this law, all briefs in England, and all other things to be published in the church, are evermore directed by the King himself to the Archbishops and Bishops, as well as to the inferior clergy. "Whether in your time this has been the practice of this diocese, when a Bishop has been resident, I desire to be informed by every one of you; for no man can foresee the evil consequences of departing from a rule established by so good an authority." It seems as if at this point the Bishop had broken off his Charge in order to collect the testimonies of the clergy as to the traditionary practice of the island. They stand in the Convocation Book thus:: "At our Annual Convocation, &c., May 17, 1722, &c. "This day the clergy present being asked by the Lord Bishop after what manner briefs have been recommended in their time, have answered, That whenever the Lord Bishop of this Diocese was within the island, the Governor, under his hand, desired his Lordship to recommend the same to the clergy, excepting within these two years, or thereabouts. And Mr. Curghy, Vicar-General, who has been in Holy Orders about forty-two years, declares further that the late Bishop Bridgman did (in his time) by his own authority grant briefs in all parts of this diocese. Mr. Archdeacon, who has lived here but about two years, was not asked the question. Mr. Henry Allen declares as the rest of the clergy; and that his uncle, Mr. Tho. Allen, averred to him some time ago, (being fiftyfive years Vicar of Kirk Maughold,) that the late Governors Heywood and Kenyon, in their time, desired the Lord Bishop to recommend briefs to the clergy." This matter being disposed of, it appears, though not mentioned in the Charge, that they next addressed themselves to the case of Bridson of Kirk Marown, which had stood first XVI. CHAP. in the list of grievances alleged by the Council against the spiritual officers :— XVI. Horrobin before the "This day the Lord Bishop taking notice of a scandalous libel exhibited by the Attorney General in the Temporal Court against his Lordship and the Vicars-General, the 9th of February last, one Article whereof was an arraignment of their proceedings in the case of Mr. Bridson's suspension; the said Mr. Bridson solemnly affirmed, and offered to make oath, that he was no way concerned in that accusation, and that he never made any complaint to occasion the same." The Bishop then addressing himself to Mr. Horrobin, Convoca- said, tion. "And now, Mr. Archdeacon, forasmuch as you have more than once called upon me to give my judgment touching your complaint against Mr. Harley for charging you with false doctrine, I have thus long deferred it, in hopes either that you yourself would ere this have seen the evil tendency of some of those things which were excepted against in several of your sermons; or if otherwise, that I might, if I judge right, have the concurrent testimonies of my brethren, that the things I condemn are not defensible by Scripture and the sense of our Church. What my judgment is, you will find in this paper," [i. e. in the judgment presently to be inserted, part of which the Bishop appears to have then and there read, and so to have proceeded]: "You see, my brethren, my thoughts of this cause, which was brought before me by Mr. Archdeacon himself; but what sentence to pass is not so easy to determine; for so many irregularities have of late been committed, that we could no sooner think of applying a proper remedy to one, but our time and thoughts and trouble have been taken up with another; so that we must censure them together, or not at all. "You have all heard that we were obliged, at the instance of Sir James Poole and Mrs. Puller, to require Madam Horne to ask their pardon for the injury we judged she had done them. If we had erred in our judgment, our laws have provided a remedy by a legal appeal. But despising that and our censure, an account is given me, that she has been admitted to the Lord's Supper by Mr. Archdeacon, not only in contempt of our authority, but of the rubric, the canon, and the peculiar laws of this Church;-an attempt which I do not remember to have heard of before in any Christian society; and which if permitted to pass unnoticed would |