This act (3 & 4 Vict. c. 86, commonly called the Church Discipline Act) was passed in 1840, " for better enforcing Church Discipline," and it repeals the old statute (1 Henry VII. c. 4) under which bishops were enabled to proceed against their clergy and sentence them Before this act was the mode of procedure against spiritual persons for ecclesiastical offences was " by articles in the diocesan or pecu liar court, or by letters of request to the court of the metropolitan." (Philli more's Burn, iii. 365.) Dr. Phillimore states, that " any person, it has been held, may prosecute a clergyman for neglect of his clerical duty." The 3 & 4 Vict. c. 86, enacts, "that no criminal suit or proceed ing against a clerk in holy orders of the United Church of England and Ireland, for any offence against the laws ecclesias tical, shall be instituted in any ecclesias tical court otherwise than is hereinbefore enacted or provided," nor in any other mode than that pointed out by the act (§ 3). The act provides, " that in every case of any clerk in holy orders in the United Church of England and Ireland, who may be charged with any offence against the laws ecclesiastical, or con cerning whom there may exist scandal or evil report, as having offended against the said laws, it shall be lawful for the bishop of the diocese within which the offence is alleged or reported to have been committed, on the application of any party complaining thereof, or if he shall think fit, of his own mere motion, to issue a commission under his hand or seal to five persons, of whom one shall be his vicar-general, or an archdeacon or rural dean within the diocese, for the purpose of making inquiry as to the grounds of such charge or report : pro-, vided always, that notice of the intention to issue such commission under the hand of the bishop, containing an intimation of the nature of the offence, together with the names, addition, and residence of the party on whose application or motion such commission shall be about to issue, shall be sent by the bishop to the party accused fourteen days at least before such commission shall issue." The bishop may pronounce sentence without further pro ceedings, by consent of the clerk ; and such sentence is good and effectual in law. If he refuse or neglect to appear and make answer to the articles alleged, other than an unqualified admission of the truth thereof, "the bishop shall pro ceed to hear the cause, with the assistance of three assessors, to be nominated by the bishop, one of whom shall be an advocate who shall have practised not less than five years in the court of the archbishop of the province, or a serjeant-at-law, or a bar rister of not less than seven years' stand ing; and another shall be dean of his cathedral church, or of one of his cathe dral churches, or one of his archdeacons, or his chancellor ; and upon the hearing of such cause the bishop shall determine the same, and pronounce sentence there upon, according to the ecclesiastical law." When the charge is under investigation the bishop may inhibit the party accused from performing any services of the church within his diocese until sentence has been passed ; but if the person accused be the incumbent of a benefice, he may nomi nate any person or persons to perform such services during his inhibition, and such persons are to be licensed by the bishop, if they are approved of by him.
Appeals under the act are to the arch bishop, and are to be heard before the judge of the court of appeal of his pro vince ; but if the cause has been heard and determined in the first instance in the court of the archbishop, the appeal is then to the queen in council, and is to be heard before the judicial committee of Privy Council ; and at least one arch bishop or bishop, who is a member of the Privy Council, must be present.
In the Constitutions and Canons Eccle siastical of 1603, canons 31 to 76 inclu sive relate to " Ministers ; their Ordina tion, Function, and Charge." By the 76th canon "no man, being admitted a deacon or minister, shall from thence forth voluntarily relinquish the same, nor afterwards use himself in the course of his life as a layman, upon pain of excom munication." The clergy meet by delegates in con vocation at the beginning of every new parliament, but this is now merely a form ; the king, as supreme head of the Church of England, invariably dissolves the convocation before they can proceed to any business. They have however still courts in which jurisdiction is exercised touching ecclesiastical affairs, and causes matrimonial, and testamentary so far as concerns the granting of probates and letters of administration, and where the church's censures are directed against particular classes of offenders. To them also belongs the whole ecclesiastical re venue in the Established Church of Eng land, with divers fees or customary pay ments, and to them also the whole regu lation of the terms of admission to their order.
The three great classes of the English clergy are the bishops, priests, and dea cons. To be admitted into each of those classes requires a peculiar ordination. This distinction is of' an entirely different kind from that which arises out of office or appointment. Of this kind of dis tinction there is in the English clergy the archbishop, the bishop, the dean and canons of a conventual or collegiate church (some of the canons being in many instances invested with particular characters, as precentors, succentors, and the like), the archdeacon, the rural dean, the dean of some church whose cousti ution is peculiar, the rector, the vicar, the curate in some chapels called pa •ochial, the minister in some newly ,banded chapel, whether a chapel of ease or what is called a proprietary chapel, assistant ministers to aid the vicar or the rector in some churches of antient foundation, and, finally, a body of persons called curates, who are engaged by the incumbents of benefices to assist them in the performance of their duties, but who are not dismissable at the caprice of the incumbent, nor left by law without a claim upon a certain portion of the profits of the benefice.
England is divided into 10,780 dis tricts, varying in extent, called pa rishes. Each of these parishes must be regarded as having its church, and one person (or in some instances more than one) who ministers divine ordinances in that church. This person, whose proper designation is persona ecclesice, enjoys of common right the tithe of the parish, and has usually a house and glebe belonging to his benefice. When this, the original arrangement, is 'undisturbed, we have a parish and its rector ; and in other cases the vicar and perpetual curate. [BENE FICE, pp. 341-343.