HOMILIES

(From ὁμιλία , a sermon or discourse , delivered in a plain manner, so as to be understood by the common people.) The Homilies of the Church of England are two books of plain discourses, composed at the time of the Reformation, and appointed to be read in churches, on “any Sunday or holy-day, when there is no sermon.” The first volume of them was set out in the beginning of King Edward the Sixth’s reign in 1547, having been composed (as it is thought) by Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Ridley and Latimer, when a competent number of ministers of sufficient abilities to preach in a public congregation was not to be found. It was reprinted in 1560. The second book appeared in 1563, having been printed the year before, (see Strype’s Life of Parker ,) in the reign of Elizabeth. Bishop Jewell is supposed to have had a great share in its composition. In the first book, the homily on “Salvation” was probably written by Cranmer, as also those on “Faith” and “Good Works.” The homilies on the “Fear of Death,” and on the “Reading of Scripture,” have likewise been ascribed to the archbishop. That on the “Misery of Mankind,” which has sometimes been attributed to him, appears in Bishop Bonner’s volume of Homilies, A. D. 1555, with the name of “Jo. Harpesfield” attached to it. The homilies on “the Pa ion,” and on “the Resurrection,” are from Taverner’s “Post ills,” published in 1540. Internal evidence arising out of certain homely expre ions, and peculiar forms of ejaculation, the like to which appear in Latimer’s sermons, pretty clearly betray the hand of the Bishop of Worcester to have been engaged in the homily against “Brawling and Contention;” the one against “Adultery” may be safely given to Thomas Becon, one of Cranmer’s chaplains, in whose works, published in 1564, it is still to be found; of the rest nothing is known, but by the merest conjecture. In the second book, no single homily of them all has been appropriated. All members of the Church of England agree that the Homilies “contain a godly and wholesome doctrine;” but they are not agreed as to the precise degree of authority to be attached to them. In them the authority of the Fathers, of the first six general Councils, and of the judgments of the Church generally, the holine of the primitive Church, the secondary inspiration of the Apocrypha, the sacramental character of marriage and other ordinances, regeneration in holy baptism, and the real presence in the eucharist, are a erted. To some of these a ertions ultra-Protestants of course demur. By this approbation of the two books of Homilies it is not meant that every pa age of Scripture, or argument that is made use of in them, is always convincing; or that every expre ion is so severely worded, that it may not need a little correction or explanation: all that we profe about them is only that they “contain a godly and wholesome doctrine.” This rather relates to the main importance and design of them, than to every pa age in them. Though this may be said concerning them, that, considering the age wherein they were written, the imperfection of our language, and some inferior defects, they are two very extraordinary books. Some of them are better writ than others, and are equal to anything that has been writ upon those subjects since that time. Upon the whole matter, every one, who subscribes the Articles, ought to read them, otherwise he subscribes a blank; he approves a book implicitly, and binds himself to read it, as he may be required, without knowing anything concerning it. This approbation is not to be stretched so far, as to carry in it a special a ent to every particular in that whole volume: but a man must be persuaded of the main of the doctrine that is taught in them.— Bp. Burnet. The Church requires our a ent and approbation to the Articles, and so in like manner to the Rubric, to be expre ed in a different degree and manner from that in which we expre our a ent to the Homilies and the Canons; the same degree of preference being given to the Articles of religion before the Homilies, in point of doctrine, and to the Rubric before the body of Canons, in point of practice. The Thirty-nine Articles, for instance, being the capital rule of our doctrine, as we are teachers in this Church; (they being this Church’s interpretation of the word of God in Scripture, so far as they go;) and designed as a bulwark against Popery and fanaticism; we are bound to a very full and explicit acknowledgment under our hands, that we do deliberately, and advisedly, and ex animo , a ent to every part and proposition contained in them. For this everybody knows to be the meaning of clerical subscriptions, both before ordination, and as often as the three articles of the thirty-sixth canon are subscribed by us. In the like manner the Rubric being the standard of uniformity of worship in our communion; the adding to which tends towards opening a gap to Popish superstitions, and the increase of human inventions in the service of God ; and the subtracting from which tends towards paving a way to a fanatical disuse and contempt of rites and ceremonies; therefore we are obliged, not only to declare our ex animo approbation, a ent, and consent, to the matter of the Rubric, but are laid under religious promises, that we will in every particular, prescribed in and by it, conform ourselves to it as the rule of our ministration. And, indeed, considering that both the Articles and the Rubric are statute as well as canon law, and have equally the sanction and authority both of the temporal and spiritual legislatures; and considering the condition upon which we are admitted to minister in this established Church, which is our solemn reception of them both as our rule; I do not see how any man can, with a good conscience, continue acting as a minister of our Church, who can allow himself either to depart from her doctrine as expre ed in her Articles, or from her rites and ceremonies as prescribed in the Service Book. Wherefore it is not without reason that the thirty-eighth canon, which is entitled “Revolters after subscription censured,” expre ly denounces, that “if any minister, after having subscribed the three articles of the 36th canon, shall omit to use any of the orders and ceremonies prescribed in the Communion Book, he shall be suspended; and if after one month he reform not, he shall be excommunicated; and if after the space of another month he submit not himself, he shall be deposed from the ministry.” But the case of Homilies and Canons is different from that of the Articles and Rubric. They are indeed equally set forth by authority. The one is as truly the doctrine, and the other is as truly the law, of the Church. But still the regard that we are supposed to pay to them is not equally the same. For, though we subscribe to the Homilies, yet this subscription amounts to no more than our acknowledgment, that “they contain a godly and wholesome doctrine nece ary for the times they were written in, and fitting to be publicly taught unto the people;” and not that we will maintain every particular doctrine, or argument, or a ertion, contained in them. In like manner we say as to the Canons. “We receive them in general as a good body of ecclesiastical laws. We acknowledge the wholesomene and fitne of them all for discipline, and order, and edification, and proper in every respect for the times in which they were drawn up. But we do not look upon every particular thereby enjoined as absolutely and indispensably requisite to be practised now by us in the manner it is enjoined, any more than we hold our approbation of every sentence or expre ion in the Book of Homilies to be nece ary.— Archdeacon Sharp. Were I asked the question, whether the clergymen of the Church of England subscribe to the doctrines of the Homilies, as well as to the Articles of Religion, I should, in sincerity and truth, be obliged to reply, most undoubtedly not . Neither at ordination, nor upon collation or institution to benefices, nor at any other period, is any such subscription required of the clergy. We cannot help remarking a broad distinction in the degree of authority attributed by our Church, to the Liturgy, the Articles, and the Books of Homilies, respectively. To the Liturgy, all beneficed clergymen are bound, within a limited period after institution or collation, open and publicly, before the congregation to which they have been appointed ministers, to declare their unfeigned a ent and consent. To the Articles, the clergy are obliged, at various times, and on different occasions, solemnly to subscribe. But, however venerable and valuable the Homilies unquestionably are, we do not find them treated with any such distinction; and, by the simple fact, that no provision is made for their being signed, subscribed, or solemnly a ented to, they are placed in an immeasurably lower grade than the other formularies. It is, indeed, a erted in the thirty-fifth Article, that “the Second Book of Homilies doth contain a goodly and wholesome doctrine, and nece ary for these times,” [the times in which it was prepared and published,] “as doth the former Book of Homilies:”—and, in subscribing to the Articles, every clergyman admits the truth of this a ertion. But the a ertion itself is both limited and guarded, and is very different from that full a urance and conviction expre ed by the Church, and demanded of her ministers, respecting both our Articles and Liturgy.... I conceive the framers of our Articles merely to have a erted, that the Homilies, generally speaking, contained religious and moral instruction, good, and salutary, and nece ary to be so administered under the peculiar circumstance of their own times.— Bishop Jebb: the Homilies considered. It seems the author of the Homilies wrote them in haste, and the Church did wisely to reserve this authority of correcting and setting forth others. (See Rubric before Offertory .) For they have many scapes in them in special, although they contain in general many wholesome le ons for the people; in which sense our ministers do subscribe unto them, and no other.— Bp. Overall. The authors of several of the Homilies are mentioned in Corry’s recent edition of them, who also shows how they were intended to bear upon the Antinomian as well as the Popish errors of the day.