supporting the order could be found, either by superseding laymen as clerks, and introducing Deacons in their room (which the late Act permitting Curates to hold the office of Clerk would greatly promote), or by the Curates' Society and Pastoral Aid Society engaging, in future, only Deacons as assistants to the Clergy.

The second object which the proposed work will advocate, will be the Replacing the Chest for the Poor in all Churches, as ordered by the injunctions of Edward the Sixth and Elizabeth, and further enforced by the 84th Canon. The Editor believes that the laws of reason, humanity, and Scripture, demand that there should exist a different mode of treatment between the deserving and undeserving poor. The former should be provided for by the charity of the Church, the latter by the legal provision of the State. Previous to the Reformation, the needy were relieved by the alms of the Church, and though now plundered of a large portion of her property, it is evident that she is still anxious to provide for the poor, from the fact that she has made almsgiving an essential part of all her public services. The order of Deacon was expressly instituted to minister to the temporal wants of the poor, and the replacing the chest for the poor would afford the means to enable them to do 80. Nothing would more tend to reclaim the alienated affections of the poor to the Church, than our Deacons clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and sheltering the homeless, from the alms and oblations of the Church. The poor would regard the Deacons of the Church as heralds of mercy, sent to relieve the wants of suffering humanity; "and when the ear heard them, it would bless them--and when the eye saw them, it would give witness to them."

Such are the objects which the Editor seeks to accomplish, for the furtherance of which he now asks the mutual co-operation of both clergy and people. To all who aid him in restoring the order of Deacon, he would have them remember that they are, through the instrumentality of the Ministry, converting the sinner from the error of his way; and that the promise to those who save a soul from death is, that " they shall hide a multitude of sins."

(James v. 20.)

"the

To all who aid him in replacing the Chest for the Poor, he would remind them that they are performing an essential duty, in discharging which, blessing of those who are ready to perish will come upon them," for they will cause the heart of the widow and orphan to sing for joy, in exercising a charity, which "shall cover the multitude of sins." (1 Peter iv. 8.)

"Then the twelve called the multitude of disciples unto them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: whom they

set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith."-Acts vi. 2-7.

THEIR DUTIES.

"It appertaineth to the office of a Deacon, in the Church, where he shall be appointed to serve, to assist the priest in Divine service, and especially when he ministereth the holy communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof, and to read holy Scripture and homilies in the Church; and to instruct the youth in the Catechism; in the absence of the Priest to baptize infants, and to preach, if he be admitted thereto by the Bishop. And furthermore, it is his office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates, names, and places where they dwell unto the Curate, that by his exhortation they may be relieved with the alms of the parishioners or others."-From the form of ordaining Deacons in the book of Common Prayer.

"Whilst these sentences are in reading, the Deacons shall receive the alms for the poor, and other devotions of the people, in a decent basin, to be provided by the parish for that purpose; and reverently bring it to the Priest, who shall humbly present and place it upon the holy table."-From the order of the administration of the Lord's Supper, or the Holy Communion, in the book of Common Prayer.

THEIR QUALIFICATIONS.

Likewise must the Deacons be grave, not double tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also be first proved; and let them use the office of a Deacon, being found blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. Let the Deacons be the husband of one wife, ruling their children and their houses well. For they that have used the office of a Deacon well, purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus."-1 Tim. iii. 8-10.

"The Bishop, knowing either by himself or by sufficient testimony any person to be a man of virtuous conversation, and without crime; and after examination and trial, finding him learned in the Latin tongue, and sufficiently instructed in holy Scripture, may......admit him a Deacon."—From the preface to the Ordination Service.

“None should be made Minister, unless he first bring to the Bishop of the diocese, from men known to the Bishop to be of sound religion, a testimonial both of his honest life and of his professing the doctrine expressed in the said (39) Articles: nor unless he be able to answer and render to the ordinary an account of the faith and in Latin according to the said Articles, or have special gift or ability to be a preacher: nor shall he be admitted to the order of Deacon, unless he shall subscribe to the said Articles."-From an Act passed 13 Eliz. cap. 12, entitled An Act for the Ministers of the Church to be of sound religion."

No Bishop shall henceforth admit any person into sacred orders...... except at the least he be able to yield an account of his faith in Latin according to the Articles of religion approved in the synod of Bishops and Clergy, 1562, and to confirm the same by sufficient testimonies out of the holy Scriptures:

and except he moreover shall then exhibit letters testimonial of his good life and conversation, under the seal of......three or four grave Ministers; together with the subscription and testimony of other credible persons, who have known his life and behaviour for the space of three years next before."— From the 34th Canon.

TESTIMONY FROM THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

OF DEACONS.

DEACONS ALWAYS RECKONED ONE OF THE THREE SACRED ORDERS OF THE CHURCH.

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"The name Deacon is sometimes used in the New Testament, for any one that ministers in the service of God; in which large sense we sometimes find Bishops and Presbyters styled Deacons, not only in the New Testameut, but in ecclesiastical writers also. But here we take it in a more strict sense for the name of the third order of the clergy of the primitive Church. In treating of which it will be necessary in the first place to show the sense of antiquity concerning their original. The council of Trullo advances a very singular notion about this matter, asserting that the seven Deacons spoken of in the Acts, are not to be understood of such as ministered in divine service or the sacred mysteries, but only of such as served tables and attended the poor.' But the whole current of antiquity runs against this. Ignatius styles them expressly ministers of the mysteries of Christ,' adding, that they are not ministers of meats and drinks, but of the Church of God.' In another place he speaks of them as ministers of Jesus Christ, and gives them a sort of presidency over the people, together with the Bishops and Presbyters. Study to do all things,' says he, in divine concord, under your Bishop presiding in the place of God, and the Presbyters in the place of the apostolical senate, and the Deacons, most dear to me, as those to whom is committed the ministry of Jesus Christ. And in many other places he requires the people to be ‘subject to them, and reverence them as Jesus Christ,' that is, as his ministers attending on his service. Cyprian speaks of them in the same style, calling them ministers of episcopacy and the Church; withal referring their original to the place in the Acts of the Apostles, which the council of Trullo disputes about, at the same time that he asserts they were called, Ad Alteris Ministerium, to the ministry and service of the altar. Tertullian was so far from thinking them only ministers of meats and drinks, that he joins them with Bishops and Priests in the honourable titles of guides and leaders of the laity, and makes them in their degree pastors and overseers of the flock of Christ. And so St. Jerom, though he sometimes in an angry humour speaks contemptuously of them, styling them ministers of widows and tables;' yet in other places he treats them with greater respect, giving them the same honourable title as Tertullian does, and ranking them among the guides of the people. I showed before in the last chapter, that Optatus had so great an opinion of them, as to reckon their office a lower degree of the priesthood. And St. Austin seems to have had the same sentiments; for in one of his Epistles he gives Præsidius the title of Consacerdos, his fellow priest, whom Yet St. Jerom, in the next Epistle, calls a Deacon." From Bingham's Origines Ecclesiastica; or, Antiquities of the Church."

KING ON THE ORDER AND OFFICE OF DEACONS,

"NEXT to the Presbyters were the Deacons, concerning whose office and order I shall say very little, since there is no great controversy about it; and had it not been to have rendered this discourse complete and entire, I should in silence have passed it over.

"Briefly, therefore, their original institution, as in Acts vi, 2, was to serve tables, which includes these two things-a looking after the poor, and an at, tendance at the Lord's table. As for the care of the poor, Origen tells us that 'the Deacons dispensed to them the Church's money, being employed under the Bishop to inspect and relieve all the indigent within their diocese,' As for their attendance at the Lord's table, their office with respect to that consisted in preparing the bread and wine, in cleaning the sacramental cups, and other such like necessary things, whence they are called by Ignatius Deacons of meats and cups,' assisting also (in some places at least) the Bishops or Presbyters in the celebration of the Eucharist, delivering the elements to the communicants. They also preached, and in the absence of the Bishops and Presbyters baptized. In a word, according to the signification of their name, they were, as Ignatius calls them, the Church's servants,' set apart to serve God, and attend on their business, being constituted as Eusebius terms it for the service of the public." "-From "An Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, &c. &c. of the Primitive Church by an Impartial Hand," generally attributed to Lord Chancellor King.

PROPOSALS FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE DIACONATE,

FROM A CHARGE DELIVERED AT THE ORDINARY VISITATION OF THE ARCH, DEACON OF SURREY, NOVEMBER, 1844, BY SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, M.A, NOW LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD,

"The second act to which I referred, aims, also, in its most important clauses, at promoting an increase in the number of parochial clergymen. Its object is to regulate the offices of lecturers and parish clerks."

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"The Act allows the appointment of persons in the holy orders of Deacons, or Priests, to the office of Parish Clerks,' entitling them to receive all profits and emoluments belonging to the office, and making them liable in respect of their holding it to the performance of all such spiritual and ecclesiastical duties within the district, or parish, as the incumbent, with the sanction of the Bishop, may require; subjecting them, also, to removal on the same grounds as stipendiary curates.

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Wherever, therefore, the services of a Deacon can be secured by the Parish Clerk's salary, whether derived from fees or otherwise, at the next avoidance of that post, the service of another clergyman may, under this Act, be obtained for populous and ill-endowed parishes, without making any fresh deduction from the often scanty means of the incumbent,"

"What above all we need, is, to bring indeed to bear upon our people the power of Christ's everlasting Gospel. And for this end, we must have

within our body the instruments of more vigorous and united action, and we must gather into our communion more widely the spiritual life of this nation. These things we cannot effect by the other remedies above suggested, so neither by the mere multiplication of our churches. When we have built them, are they always filled? Is our difficulty then over? Or do we not, rather than churches, want labourers, men of unsparing self-devotion, through whom we may act with energy upon the mass of ignorance and vice around us? Do we not need true missions to our heathen at home? No one, I think, can have read the Reports of the City Mission, or the Metropolitan Visiting Societies, without being brought to this conclusion. No one can have looked for himself into the state of our towns without feeling this necessity. The sense of this pressing and aggraved evil has led our own Bishop, and the Bishop of London, to give their united sanction to a new scheme of lay visiting, which has been already carried into active operation, in some parishes within the borough of Southwark. To the importance and usefulness of this assistance, those amongst us will bear the strongest testimony, who know, by experience, its practical working in their own thickly-populated districts. Still, useful and important as it is, this can be esteemed only as a temporary substitute for some more complete action of the Church herself in this direction, through her own proper instruments. Possibly, our great need here might, in some measure, be supplied by a large increase of the number of Deacons, drawn also from other ranks of society, as well as from those which now almost exclusively supply them; who, not having passed through the discipline of our universities, should not, therefore, be altogether excluded from the priesthood, but should be admitted to it, according to the rule of the apostle, when, by faithful service for a term of years in the office of a Deacon, they shall have purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Jesus Christ.'

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Many benefits might flow from such a plan, which has been adopted, to a certain measure, in a neighbouring diocese. For thus might the office of the Deacon be restored amongst us to its proper character. The numbers of the clergy might be multiplied, by the addition to their ranks of zealous and devoted men, who now are wholly lost to us, being either thrust back in unto the world, or drawn into separation."

A VISITATION SERMON;

"THE FULLER RESTORATION OF THE DIACONATE, A MEANS OF STRENGTHENING THE CHURCH."

BY THE REV. HENRY MACKENZIE, M.A.
Perpetual Curate of Great Yarmouth.

Preached at the Visitation held at Great Yarmouth, on the 12th of April, 1845. Published by desire of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Norwich and the Reverend the Clergy attending the Visitation.

"It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word."—Acts vi. 2-4.

"Judging from the text, which records the institution of the order, it would appear to have been the primary intention of the Apostles that the Deacons were to be ministering servants to the order, or rather orders, over