14

priety.  For  whatever  be  the  nature  of  any  legal  enactment,  and
however  long  and  generally  it  may  have  been  neglected,  and  permitted
to  remain  in  abeyance  by  those  who  have  received  authority  to  see  it
carried  into  execution,  still  the  law  itself  remains  as  fully  and  com-
pletely in  force  as  ever,  and  may  at  any  moment,  until  it  is  formally
repealed,  be  proceeded  upon,  and  will  produce,  in  a  court  of  justice,
the  conviction  of  the  offender,  and  make  him  liable  to  the  penalties
attached  to  the  offence.  This  has  been  sufficiently  proved  by  those
ex  post-facto  Acts  of  Parliament  which,  from  time  to  time,  have
been  passed  for  the  very  purpose  of  remitting  fines  imposed  upon
individuals  under  statutes  so  entirely  fallen  into  disuse  that,  until
revived  by  the  cupidity  or  malice  of  informers,  their  very  existence
had  been  almost  forgotten.  Now  the  Canons  are  allowed  to  be
legal  enactments,  so  far  as  the  Clergy  are  concerned.  Whether,
therefore,  a  Canon  has  been  "  long  and  generally  neglected,"  or
carefully  and  uninteruptedly  observed  ;  whether  it  does  or  does  not
relate  to  "  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  the  Church,"  the  con-
nivance of  "  those  whose  duty  it  was  to  require  its  observance,  if
they  thought  it  necessary,''1  can  never  so  sanction  the  neglect  as  to
make  the  Canon  cease  to  be  in  force.  The  obligation  still  remains,
though  not  as  a  point  of  conscience,  yet  as  a  point  of  law ;  and
each  Clergyman  must  persevere  in  his  disobedience  at  his  own
peril.
