[14]. Priests, at their ordination, are reminded of their duty to forsake and set aside, as much as possible, all worldly cares and studies, and are exhorted to apply themselves wholly to their sacred office, and draw all their cares and studies that way; and they promise, among other things, to lay aside the study of the world and the flesh. No similar expressions occur in the form for the making of deacons; but our law recognises no distinction between the two orders of clergy in respect of their civil privileges and disabilities.
[15]. A clergyman, whether priest or deacon, is not compellable to serve on a jury, though it is not illegal for him to do so. He may be appointed a justice of the peace or guardian of the poor, may be a member of a parish or district council, and may act as chairman, alderman, or councillor of a county council, and as mayor, alderman, or councillor of any of the Metropolitan boroughs. But he is disqualified from being mayor, alderman, or councillor of any other municipal borough;[25] and he cannot be elected a member of the House of Commons;[26] though, if he is a peer, he may sit in the House of Lords.
[16]. Canon 75 not only forbids ecclesiastical persons to resort, except for their honest necessities, to taverns or alehouses, or to board or lodge therein, or to spend their time in drinking or riot or playing at dice, cards, or tables, or any other unlawful games, but also prohibits them from engaging in any base or servile labour. And a clergyman who holds any cathedral preferment, benefice, curacy, or lectureship, or is licensed or is otherwise allowed to perform the duties of any ecclesiastical office, is subject to certain specific legal restrictions as to engaging in business or trade. (a) He may not acquire for occupation, use, or cultivation more than eighty acres of land without the written permission of the bishop, which must be restricted to a specified number of years not exceeding seven. (b) He may not engage in any trade or dealing for profit except where it is carried on by more than six partners, or by a company, or where the concern, or a share in it, has devolved on him under a will or settlement, or by inheritance or marriage or bankruptcy; and in none of the excepted cases may he act as a director or managing partner, or carry on the concern in person. These restrictions, however, do not extend to keeping a school or seminary, or being employed as a schoolmaster or tutor, or being concerned in education for profit, or buying or selling or otherwise acting in relation to such school, seminary, or employment. Nor of course do they prevent an incumbent from farming, if he pleases, his own glebe lands. Nor do they interfere with the sale, even at an enhanced price, of goods which a clergyman actually buys for the use of his household, but afterwards does not want to keep, nor with the sale of books to or through a bookseller or publisher. He may also be a manager, director, partner, or shareholder in any benefit society, or fire or life assurance society, and may sell minerals from mines on his own lands, and also (provided he do not do so in person at a market or other public sale) may buy and resell for profit cattle, corn, and other things required for the occupation, cultivation, and improvement of glebe or other lands lawfully held by him. The penalties for unlawfully trading are, for the first offence, suspension for not exceeding one year, for the second offence suspension for a longer period, and for the third offence deprivation ab officio et beneficio.[27]
[17]. Both clergymen and other ministers of religion are specially protected in the performance of religious rites, including rites of burial, in a church or other place of worship, or a churchyard or burial-place. It is a misdemeanour punishable by imprisonment with or without hard labour, to offer violence to them or arrest them upon any civil process while engaged in or going to or returning from the performance of these rites, or to obstruct or endeavour to obstruct them in the performance.[28] The maintenance of order in a church or other place of worship, whether Divine service is being performed or not, and in a churchyard or burial-place, is also provided for by the Act against brawling passed in 1860.[29]
[18]. A clergyman cannot divest himself of his orders;[30] and Canon 76 prohibited him from forsaking his calling or conducting himself as a layman under pain of excommunication. But now, by statute, after resigning all preferments held by him, he can surrender all clerical rights and powers, and free himself from all clerical disabilities, if he executes a deed of relinquishment in the prescribed form, and causes it to be enrolled in the Central Office of the Supreme Court of Judicature, and delivers an office copy of the enrolment to the bishop of the diocese in which he last held preferment, or (if he has never held preferment) in which he resides, and gives notice of having done so to the archbishop of the province in which the diocese is situate. And a clergyman who takes this course is relieved from all censures or other proceedings for so doing, but is rendered incapable of afterwards officiating or acting as a minister of the Church of England or taking or holding any preferment therein.[31]
CHAPTER II
BENEFICED CLERGY
[1]. In the case of all benefices, admission is granted by the bishop, as primarily charged with the cure of souls throughout his diocese; but, unless there is good legal reason to the contrary, he is bound to admit the clerk who is presented by the patron of the benefice, if the presentation is made within six calendar months after the benefice became vacant. If that period passes without a presentation being made, the right of appointment lapses to the bishop. If he does not appoint within a further like period, it goes to the archbishop of the province, and if he fails to appoint within another period of six calendar months, it devolves finally on the Crown.[32] The period for lapse dates from the day of the vacation of the benefice if it occurred by death or acceptance of another living.[33] But if the vacancy was created by resignation or deprivation or avoidance of the benefice for non-residence, or if a clerk who is presented is rejected for want of ability or moral character, the period will only begin to run from the time when notice of the fact is given by the bishop to the patron,[34] except in the case of an ecclesiastical patron who (unless the case comes under the Benefices Act, 1898, ss. 2, 3) is not entitled to such notice.[35] Moreover, in reckoning the period for lapse, no account is to be taken, in the case of the first and second presentations by a patron in respect of the same vacancy, of the time between a presentation and the bishop's refusal to admit the presentee, or of the period between that refusal and a decision of a court upon it, nor, in the case of a collation by the bishop, of the time between the service of the prescribed notice on the churchwardens and the expiration of a month from that service.[36]