[333] Lords' Journals, May 7.
[334] Lords' Journals, May 8. Cardwell's Synodalia, 672.
[335] There is an anecdote touching the same rubric related by Kennet (643). "Archbishop Tenison told me, by his bedside, on Monday, February 12, 1710, that the Convocation Book, intended to be the copy confirmed by the Act of Uniformity, had a rash blunder in the rubric after baptism which should have run 'It is certain, by God's word, that children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.' But the words 'which are baptized' were left out till, Sir Cyril Wyche coming to see the Lord Chancellor Hyde, found the Book brought home by His Lordship, and lying in his parlour window, even after it had passed the two Houses, and happening to cast his eye upon that place, told the Lord Chancellor of that gross omission, who supplied it with his own hand." No sign of this particular error occurs in the authorized text attached to the Act. Probably Tenison had heard a story of the alteration which I have noticed, and related it inaccurately.
[336] The entry in the Lords' Journals runs thus—"Whereas it was signified by the House of Commons, at the Conference yesterday, 'that they found one mistake in the rubric of baptism, which they conceived was a mistake of the writer [persons] being put instead of [children,] the Lord Bishop of Durham acquainted the House that himself, and the Lord Bishop of St. Asaph, and the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, had authority from the Convocation to mend the said word, averring it was only a mistake of the scribe; and accordingly they came to the Clerks' table, and amended the same!" This was on the 8th of May, but on the previous 21st of April the rectification of the error is recorded in the proceedings of Convocation.—Synodalia, 670. That the Commons detected the clerical error in the copy of the Book which they had received and examined, as noticed in their Journals, the 16th of April; and that they called the attention of the Lords to it, appears from a loose paper in the House of Lords, in which it is said—"That the Lords be made acquainted that this House hath observed a mistake in the rubric after public baptism of infants [persons] being inserted instead of [children,] which they take to be but vitium scriptoris, and desire the Lords will consider of a way how the same may be amended."
[337] An account of these books will be found in the Appendix to the next volume.
[338] Lords' Journals, May 19.
[339] It is evident from the 13th of Elizabeth, cap. xii., "An Act for the Ministers of the Church to be of Sound Religion," that a particular form of ordination was not then requisite for ministration in the Establishment. The words of the Act are, "That every person under the degree of a Bishop, which doth or shall pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy word and sacraments by reason of any other form of institution, consecration, or ordering, than the form set forth by Parliament, in the time of the late King of most worthy memory King Edward VI., or now used in the reign of our most gracious Sovereign Lady before the Feast of the Nativity of Christ next following, shall, in the presence of the Bishop or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese where he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion," &c. This was the law till 1662.
[340] It is not meant that these men actually performed the work of revision, but they were the guiding spirits of the Church; therefore the character of the Book issued at the different periods may be considered as reflecting their opinions.
[341] I have already noticed that the Puritans, in their exceptions against the Prayer Book, at the Savoy Conference, urged on their opponents the comprehensive policy of the Reformers.—Baxter, ii. 317; Cardwell's Conferences, 305.
[342] Clarendon's Continuation, 1078.