| Registrar | ||||||
| Vicar | or other | Secretary of | During existing vested interests. | |||
| General | Officer | Archbishop | ||||
| or | by usage | or | Record | |||
| Chancellor. | performing | Bishop. | Apparitor | Sealer. | Keeper. | |
| the duty. | ||||||
| £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | |
| Collation to a benefice | 16 8 | 2 2 4 | 4 4 0 | 3 6 | 4 6 | 4 6 |
| Institution to a benefice | 16 8 | 2 2 4 | 4 4 0 | 3 6 | 4 6 | 2 6 |
| Licence to a perpetual curacy | 9 4 | 1 15 8 | 2 2 0 | 1 0 | 1 0 | |
| Arch- | Arch- | |||||
| deacon's | deacon's | |||||
| Official. | Registrar. | |||||
| Induction to a benefice | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | ||||
| (whether of one parish, or of two | 10 0 | 13 0 | 1 0 | 1 0 | 2 6 | |
| or more united praishes) | ||||||
[9]. Admission to a benefice confers the right and imposes the duty of the cure (Lat. cura) or care of souls within the parish attached to the benefice. The nature of this duty can be gathered from the Form of Ordering of Priests, the rubrics and provisions of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Canons of 1603. Every clergyman, at the time of his ordination as priest, solemnly promises (a) so to minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as the Lord has commanded, and as the Church and Realm of England have received the same, and to teach the people committed to his cure and charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same; (b) to be ready to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word, and to use both public and private exhortations, as well to the sick as to the whole, within his cure, as need requires and occasion is given; (c) to be diligent in prayers and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, laying aside the study of the world and the flesh; (d) to frame and fashion himself and his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both himself and them wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ; (e) to maintain and set forward quietness, peace, and love among all Christian people, and especially among those committed to his charge; and (f) reverently to obey his ordinary and other chief ministers, following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting himself to their godly judgments. While the cure of souls thus embraces the general care of the spiritual and moral welfare of the people, it includes the following particulars, which will be separately considered: (i.) Residence; (ii.) Performance of Divine Service, including the Administration of the Sacraments, Preaching and Catechising; (iii.) Solemnisation of Marriage; (iv.) Burial of the Dead; and (v.) Private Ministrations, including the Visitation of the Sick.
[10]. Speaking generally, and with the exceptions and under the restrictions to be presently mentioned, the incumbent and clergymen permitted by him have the sole right of ministering within his parish; and a clergyman who intrudes and performs any clerical function in it without his permission, commits an ecclesiastical offence.[70] But the bishop, as the chief pastor, has the right to officiate in any church and parish within his diocese whenever he pleases. And an incumbent cannot authorise another clergyman to officiate in his church or parish without the licence of the bishop; but this rule has been held not applicable in its absolute strictness to merely occasional and isolated acts of ministration.[71] The few cases in which two or more incumbents have had the cure of souls within the same parish, have been dealt with by recent legislation.[72] The 28th and 57th Canons prohibited the practice of persons leaving their own parish church and communicating or causing their children to be baptized elsewhere. But this prohibition is not now in force; and by a general understanding and comity, especially in towns subdivided into several ecclesiastical parishes, not only do Church people frequent at will the particular church which they prefer, but the incumbent of that church pays spiritual visits in sickness and at other times to regular members of his congregation who reside in another parish.
[11]. The ministrations of the incumbent himself are restricted by Canon 71, under which, except where a person is prevented from going to church by infirmity or sickness, no minister may preach or administer the Holy Communion in any private house in which there is not a chapel dedicated and allowed by the ecclesiastical law of the realm, nor, where there is such a chapel, in any other place but the chapel, and even there only seldom on Sundays and holy-days in order that the lord or master of the house and his family may at other times resort to their own parish church and there receive the Holy Communion at least once every year. An incumbent can perform Divine service in any consecrated building in his parish without a licence from the bishop; but, strictly speaking, he requires the bishop's licence to authorise him to do so in any unconsecrated building, whether within or outside his parish, or anywhere in another diocese; and a bishop can inhibit an incumbent of his diocese from officiating within the diocese elsewhere than in the consecrated buildings within his own parish. If an incumbent transgresses in any of these respects he is liable to be sued for an ecclesiastical offence.[73] Moreover, strangely enough, the Acts which legalised the worship of Dissenters not only withdrew them from the care of the incumbent of the parish but also restricted his action among Church people. For these Acts prohibited any meeting for Protestant religious worship of more than twenty persons, besides the family and servants of the house where it was held, except at a place duly certified for the purpose.[74] But in 1855 it was enacted that these prohibitions should not apply to any assembly for religious worship either (a) conducted by the incumbent or curate in charge of the parish or any person authorised by him, or (b) meeting in private premises, or (c) meeting occasionally in a building not usually appropriated to religious worship.[75]
[12]. There are also special cases in which the right of an incumbent to officiate and exercise the cure of souls is actually superseded in favour of a chaplain appointed without his consent. Where a nobleman has a chapel within or attached to his residence he has the right to appoint a chaplain to serve it.[76] The chapels of public and endowed schools under the Acts of 1868 and 1869 are free from the jurisdiction and control of the incumbent of the parish in which they are situate.[77] Moreover, a bishop may license a clergyman to administer the Lord's Supper and perform services other than the solemnisation of marriage, and, subject to the direction of the ordinary, to dispose of the offertory and collections, in the chapel of any college, school, hospital, asylum, or public or charitable institution within his diocese; and where this is done, the institution and chapel are withdrawn from the cure of souls and control of the incumbent of the parish.[78] During the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth century, before the Church Building and New Parishes Acts had afforded facilities for creating new parishes, unconsecrated proprietary chapels were built in various places, with the consent of the bishop of the diocese and incumbent of the parish, to meet the wants of overgrown town populations. These chapels can only be served by ministers acting under the licence of the bishop, (which he can at any time revoke),[79] and with the consent of the incumbent, which, though he cannot himself revoke it, is not binding on his successors.[80] Unless the incumbent waives the right to the alms collected in the chapel, they must be accounted for to him. The chapel is private property, and no one can claim to attend it as of right.[81]
[13]. The right to the cure of souls in a parish naturally carries with it the right of the incumbent to a voice in the erection of a new church in the parish and the severance of any portion of the parish from his benefice and its formation into a new ecclesiastical district or parish. The various modes in which these objects may be effected are mentioned in the note to Ch. I. § 6 above. The enactments on the subject provide opportunities for the incumbents of the existing parishes, which would be affected by any contemplated action in the matter, to lay their views and objections, if any, before the bishop and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; but their views need not necessarily be accepted and their objections may be overruled.
[14]. An incumbent cannot hold more than one benefice at the same time, except that upon a certificate of the bishop as to the facts, and with a licence or dispensation from the archbishop of the province (from the refusal of which there is an appeal to the King in Council), he may hold a second, the church of which is within four miles of that of the first by the nearest road, if the annual value of one of the benefices does not exceed the net sum of £200, after deducting rates, taxes, tenths, dues, and permanent charges, but not the stipend of a curate. But where the population of one of the parishes is over 3000, the joint holding will only be lawful if that of the other is under 500.[82]