YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. LAWLESSNESS, SACERDOTALISM, RITUALISM. By the same Author. THE DAMNATORY CLAUSES OF THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED Rationally Explained, 6s. (Rivinqtons.) also, THE OBEE-AMMEEGAU PASSION-PLAY. Reprinted, by Permission, from The Timet. AN ESSAY ON THE ETEENITY OF PUNISHMENT. Dedicated, by Permission, to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Longley). (Masters.) v THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENG LAND : an Essay. (Rivinqtons.) LAWLESSNESS, SACERDOTALISM, AND RITUALISM DISCUSSED IN SIX LETTERS ADDRESSED, BY HIS PERMISSION, TO THE RIGHT HON, LORD SELBORNE, MALCOLM MacCOLL, M.A. SECOND EDITION. LONDON : J T HAYES, LYALL PLACE, EATON SQUARE ; AND 4, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1875. LONDON : 6WITT AND CO., NEWTON STREET, HIOII nOLBORN, W.C. CONTENTS. LETTER I. — Accusation of Lawlessness. Lawlessness denned 2 Mackintosh and Burke on Lawlessness 3 Lawlessness caused by Unjust Laws 4-8 Instances of Lawlessness ... 0-10 Jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee defined ... ... 11 It has no Jurisdiction in Matters of Faith 12 The Gorham Case 18-14 Original Sin and the Theory of Evolution 15-16 Gorham Judgment v. the Prayer Book ... ... ... 17 Blunders of Judicial Committee in Liddell v. Westerton 18-21 Appeal of Reformers to Antiquity ... 22 Testimonies in favour of Prayer Book of 1549 28 Origin of Second Prayer Book 24 " The Whip with Six Thongs" 25 Influence of Foreign Reformers 26 Second Prayer Book not approved by Convocation ... 27 Cranmer and Second Prayer Book 28 General Adoption of Second Prayer Book doubtful ... 29-80 Second Book no proof of Doctrinal Change 81 Omission ruled to be Prohibition 82-85 Absurd Consequences 86-87 Historical Refutation 88-89 Purchas Judgment 40 Protest against it 41 Real Question at issue 42 Principiis obsta ... 48 vi Content.1!. TAOE The Ornaments Rubric 44 Sir J. T. Coleridge on Purchas Judgment 45-46 Mr. Justice James on Purchas Judgment 47 Attempts to explain away the Ornaments Rubric ... 48-49 Testimony of Archbishop Sandys ... ••• ••• 50 Eucharistic Vestments to " remain for the Queen." ... 58 The Reason Why 62 Judicial Committee on Elizabeth's Advertisements ... 53 Archbishop Grindal's Visitation Articles prove too much 54-55 Intention ofthe Advertisements according to Dr. Cardwell 56-57 Cui bono the Advertisements ? ... ... ... ... 58 They were aimed at Puritanism ... ... ... ... 59 Advertisements could not repeal a Rubric ... ... 60 Advertisements had no legal force, but were directed against defects in Ritual ... ... ... ... 61-63 Were tbe Eucharistic Vestments abolished in fact by the Advertisements? ... ... ... ... ... 64-65 The Eucharistic Vestments in use after tbe Advertise ments 66-71 Church Ornaments Destroyed, but not by Legal Authority 72-73 Misquotation by Judicial Committee ... ... ... 74 A Minimum and Maximum of Ritual ... ... ... 75-76 Another Misquotation by the Court 77 Purchas Judgment proves too much 78-80 Case against Vestments summed up ... ... ... 81 Another Misquotation by the Court ... ... ... 82 Its Interpretation Examined ... ... ... ... 83 Contradictory Decisions ... ... ... ... ... 84-85 Puritans' objections at Savoy Conference ... ... 86 Purchas Judgment misses the point ... ... ... 87-88 Contemporary Evidence of this 89-90 House of Lords' Committee in 1641 on Advertisements and Ornaments Rubric ... ... ... ... ... 91-95 Answers of Judicial Committee gg Interpretation of Ornaments Rubric in 1641 ... ... 97-98 The Latin Prayer Book of 1560 90-100 The Rubrics of 1604 and 1662 Compared 101 Meaning of " Retain " ... ... ... ,,. _ iq2 Clergy Officiating in Horseman's Coat 103 Contents. vn PAOK Surplice not enforced after 1G62 104 Why Rubric of 1559 was altered 105-8 Interpretation by Purchas Judgment Untenable 109 State of the Church in 1661 110 Puritanism and its Consequences 111-15 Meaning of " At all times of Ministration" Il6 Reductio ad A.bsurdum of Purchas Judgment ... ... 117 Meaning of " At the time of the Communion" 118 Bancroft on lawlessness of Puritanism 119 Act of Uniformity sanctions the Doctrine of a Maximum and Minimum 121-28 " Expositio Contemporanea" ... ... ... 124-26 Wheatley on the Ornaments Rubric ... ... ... 126 Archdeacon Sharp on the Ornaments Rubric ... ... 127 Bishop Philpotts on the Ornaments Rubric ... 128-29 One Reason why Vestments fell into Desuetude ... 180-81 A Practical Refutation of Purchas Judgment ... ... 182 Fallacy of " Expositio Contemporanea" 188-84 " Lambeth Faire" 185 Ritualism and the Great Rebellion ... ... ... 136 The Question at issue then and now ... ... ... 187 Erastianism of Caroline Bishops ... ... ... 188 Lord Falkland on Bishops ... ... ... ... 199 Effigy of Archbishop Sandys ... ... ... 140-41 Jean Grancolas ... ... ... ... ... ... 142 " Abrege des Histoires," etc. ... ... ... ... 143 The Value of such Evidence ... ... ... ... 144 Sir Walter Scott on Ornaments Rubric 145 The Mixed Chalice 146 Animus of the Court 147 The Court gives the Prosecutor the Benefit of every Doubt 148-49 Duty of Exposing Judicial Errors 15o Wafer-Bread 151 Injunction and Rubric Contrasted 152 Hypercriticism ... ... ... ... ... ••¦ 153 " It shall Suffice" 154 Proper Remedy for Dissensions 155 " The Best and Purest Wheat Bread " 156 viii Content.". PAOffi "At the Table with other Meats" 157 History of the Question .". ... 158-59 Lawlessness of Puritanism ... ... ... ... 160 Archbishop Parker on Wafer Bread 161 Objectors a Small Minority 162 Evidence in favour of Wafer Bread ' 163 Mistake of the Court as to Wafer Bread 164 Inaccurate Quotation by the Court 165 Evidence of Zurich Liturgy 166-68 " Minute and Rigid" Decisions Condemned 169 Reasons for Unleavened Bread 170 Apparent Partiality of the Court ... ... ... ... 171 The Eastward Position 172 " Turning to the People " ... 178 Contradictory Directions ... ... ... ... ... 174 Lawlessness of Ridley ... ... ... ... ... 175 Why North- side 176 Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position 177-82 Value of his Testimony 183 Savoy Conference on Eastward Position 184-87 Further Evidence 188-89 " Standing before the Table " Explained away by Pur chas Judgment ... ... ... ... ... 190-91 " Break the Bread before the People " 192 Meaning of " Before the People " 193 A plain Rubric should explain a doubtful one 194 Bishop Williams on " North-side " ... ... ... 195 Common Sense View of the Matter 196 Charge of Superstition retorted 197-98 Bishop Wren's defence 199 His excuse true, but not the whole truth 200 Another Blunder of Purchas Judgment 201 Evidence of Sparrow's " Rationale " and other Books of Devotion 202-8 Consecration of Abbey Dore Church and other Forms of Consecration ... ... ... ... ... ... 204-7 Omission not Prohibition ... ... ... ... ... 208-9 Additional Evidence 210 Purchas and Mackonochie Decisions ... ... .,. 211-12 Coii tenia. ix PAGE Lord Cairns on Eastward Position 218 Partiality of the Court as to the Question of Costs ... 214-17 Denial of Justice to Mr. Purchas... 218 Lord Hatherley on Undefended Cases ... 219 Other Examples of Judicial Partiality 220-25 The Archbishops and The Church Association 226-83 Archbishop of Canterbury on High Church Appoint ments 284-87 Sir G. Cornewall Lewis on Unconscious Bias ... ... 238-39 Judges subject to Theological and Political Bias ... 240-41 Ritualism implies doctrine ... ... ... ... 242 The Principle of Sacerdotalism 243 LETTER II.— Sacerdotalism. Mr. Martineau on Sacerdotalism... 246 Appeal to Old Testament 247 Inspiration of the Bible involved in the question . . . 248-49 Aaronic and lay Priesthood ... ... ... ... 250 Appeal to New Testament 251 A special Priesthood implies Priesthood of the laity ... 262-53 Bishop Ewing on Episcopacy 254 Apostolical Succession 255 Arguments against it Fatal to Canon of Scripture ... 256-67 Evidence for Apostolical Succession compared with other Evidence 258-59 A Flaw in the Succession improbable 260 Proof to be suited to the Subject-matter 261 LETTER III.— Doctrine op the Eucharist. Calvinistic Doctrine of the Fall contrasted with the Catholic 264"65 S. Paul on the Incarnation 266-67 Christ's Discourse in S. John VI. ... 268 Its Meaning 269 x Contents. PAGE Our Lord's Resurrection Body 270 Dr. Swainson's Objection 271-72 Authorities against Dr. Swainson 278 Worship Due to Christ's Lifeless Body 274 Meaning of Fourth Article 275 What our Lord meant by Eating His Flesh and Drink ing His Blood 276-77 Doctrine of Real Presence opposed from Ignorance of its Meaning 278-79 Sacraments a Continuation ofthe Incarnation ... ... 280 False Views as to the Incarnation ... ... ... 281 Connection of Humanity with the two Adams ... ... 282-83 God's Self- Sacrifice Perpetual ... 284 How to become partakers of it ... ... ... ... 285 True Province of Faith 286 Dr. Thirlwall on the Real Presence 287 Testimony of Anglican Divines ... ... ... ... 288 The Papacy and Civilisation ... ... ... ... 289 All Reformers necessarily one-sided ... ... ... 290 SS. Paul and James on Faith and Works 291-92 Other Examples 293 Doctrine of Transubstantiation tolerated in the Sixteenth Century 294-96 Bacon and Walsingham on Puritanism 297-98 Anglican Divines on errors of Rome 299 Santa Clara on Thirty-nine Articles 800 Bramhall on differences with Rome 801-2 Baxter's Retractation of opinion on Popery ... ... 303 Reunion with Rome ... ... ... ... ... §04 Distinction between Church and Court of Rome ... 805 Puritans and Jesuits ... ... ... ... ... 806 Bramhall on Differences with Rome ... ... ,.. 807 Indifferent Opinions and Articles of Faith 808 Caroline Divines on the Real Presence 809 The Real Presence Objective ... ... ... 310 Bramhall on Eucharistic Sacrifice ... 311 Bramhall on Eucharistical Adoration ... ... 312 Meaning of " in the use of the Sacrament " 818 Case of Bishop Montague ... 314-19 Contents. xi PAGE Archbishop Wake on Eucharistic Sacrifice 820-21 Wake would tolerate Transubstantiati on ... ... 822 The word Consubstantiation Misapplied 323 Differentia of Anglican and Roman Doctrine ... ... 824 Objective and Subjective Presence 825 Physical Science and Revelation ... 826 Sir W. Palmer on the Reformation and the Real Pre sence 827-28 LETTER IV. — A Spiritual World Revealed by the Bible and Suggested by Physical Science. History of Elijah and Elisha 330 Illustrations from Christ's Life 331 Angelic Appearances at His Resurrection 882 S. Stephen's Vision and S. Paul's Conversion 833 Subject Illustrated from Physical Science 334-36 " Pall Mall Gazette " on Real Presence 337-38 Mysteries of Physical Science 839-41 Dean M'Neile on Real Presence and Christ's Resur rection 842-43 A Crushing Reply 844-47 True Cause of Rationalism 848 LETTER V.— Sacerdotalism. The two Primates on Confession 850-51 Teaching of the English Church 352 Dr. Newman's Challenge to Evangelicals 353 Roman and Anglican Absolution Compared 354 Authoritative Sanctions of Confession 355 The Bishops on Confession in a.d. 1696 ... ... ... 856 The Nineteenth Canon of the Irish Church 357 Practical Examples 358-61 Testimony of Cranmer 362 Of Parker and Hooker 363 xn Contents. Of Latimer and Donne Of Bishop Hall Of Bishop Overall Of Bishop Cosin Qf Jeremy Taylor Of Chillingworth Of Bishop Kenn Of Archbishop Wake Of Bishop Short ... Falsifications of History Merits of the Question Absolution compared with other Gifts ... One Mediator, yet Many Rationale of Sacerdotalism Quasi-sacerdotal power of laity allowed by Mediaeval Church Remarkable instances Alleged Evils of Confession Sir G. 0. Lewis on Confession Opinion of De Quincey and Hallam The Jesuits in the Confessional ... Origin and Success of Jesuitism Catholicism and Jesuitism Contrasted . . . Confession and Domestic Life Effect of Enforced Celibacy ... Confession and Direction ... The Proper Remedy Arguments in favour of Confession Confession and Self-examination... Goethe on Confession Meaning of "Discreet and Learned " An Instructive Anecdote Early PAGE ... 364 365 ... 366 ... 867 ... 368 ... 369 ... 370871 ... 372 ... 878 ... 874 ... 876-76 ... 377 ... 378-79 and ... 880-81 ... 882 ... 883 ... 384-85 ... 886 ... 887 ... 388 ... 889 ... 390 ... 391 ... 392 ... 893 ... 394-98 ... 399 ... 400-3 ... 404 ... 405 LETTER VL— The Rationale of Ritualism. Real Question at Stake Oral and Symbolical Teaching ... Distinction between Preaching and Symbolising tenr.ble Un- 408409 410-11 Contents. xiii It is a double-edged Argument 412 Intrinsic Merits of Ritualism ... 418 Question Viewed Practically 414 Ritualism in Physical Science ... 415 Ritualism in Civil Affairs 4J.6 Military Ritualism 417 Anti-Ritualism a breach with the Past 418 The Lingua Franca of Mankind 419-20 Cause of Dislike to Eastward Position 421 Two opposite ideas of Worship 422 Rationale of Eastward Position ... ... ... ... 423 "In Spirit and in Truth" 424 Ritualism in the Old Testament 425-27 Does God love " a Simple Worship ? " ... 428 All Created Life feeds upon God ... ... ... ... 429 God Loves Beauty for its own Sake ... ... ... 480 Mr. Gladstone on Love of the Beautiful 481-32 Ritualism in the New Testament 488-84 Mr. Ruskin on Ritualism... 435-37 Puritanism Fatal to the Beautiful 438 Ritualism and the Poor 489 Concordat between Parties Possible ... ... ... 440 A Remarkable Anecdote ... ... ... ... ... 441 There is no Distinctive Clerical Dress at present . . . 442 Archbishop Trench on Altar Lights 448 Political Aspect of the Question 444-48 Mr. W. R. Greg on Ritualism 449 Bishop Philpotts on Ritualism 450 Wrong to Proscribe without Inquiry 451 Bigotry of Puritanism the Cause of Dr. Newman's Seces sion 452-53 Mr. Robertson, of Brighton, and Coleridge on the Bishops 454 Recent Episcopal Pastoral 456 The Bishops and Tractarianism 456-59 Episcopal Pastoral of 1851 460 Quieta non mover c Policy of Bishops 461 The Press on Tractarianism 462 Ritualism in next Generation 463 xiv Contents. PAGE Refusal to obey Legitimate Authority 464 True and False " Idea of Episcopacy " 465-66 Secret Episcopal Conclaves unconstitutional 467 Estrangement between Clergy and Laity 468 Mr. Charles Kingsley's Opinion 469 Unfairness of Bishops, and Liberalism of Broad Church men 470-71 Parishioners versus Congregations ... ... ... 472 Conclusion ... ... ... ... ... ... ...473-74 Appendix 475-80 ERRATA. Page 89, line 21, for "Russell" read " Grueber." „ 102, head line, for " Certain " read "Retain." „ 166-168, head line, for " Evince" read " Evidence." „ 190, line 11, for " then" read "there." ,, 215, last line but two from bottom, for "though" read "through." „ 238, head line, for " Cornewell" read " Cornewall." „ 885, line 10, for " Skretchly's" read " Skertchly's." ,, 429, line 10, no comma after " beauty." PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. This work has now been for two months before the public, and has been extensively reviewed in the interval ; but no serious attempt has been made to shake any of its main arguments or to impeach its accuracy in its statement of facts. There has been no occasion therefore to make any alteration in the second edition which is now issued. If, indeed, my other engagements had permitted me to rewrite parts of the book, I believe I could have materially strengthened my argument against the Purchas Judgment. As it is, I can do no more than notice briefly in this Preface a few points which seem to invite further elucidation. Now, first of all, let us remember the broad facts of the case. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth the vast majority of the parish priests throughout England submitted to the new regime and retained their cures. " Of the nine thousand benefices then named in England," says Echard,* " fourteen Bishops, six Abbots, twelve Deans, twelve Arch- * Hist, of Engl. vol. i. bk. iii. p. 830. xvi Preface, to the Second Edition. deacons, fifteen Heads of Colleges, fifty Prebendaries, and eighty Rectors, was the whole number of those that were deprived." That is to say, all the parish priests in England, with the exception of about one hundred, kept possession of their parishes. This is a remarkable and significant fact on the one side. On the other is the well-known anxiety of the Queen to make as few changes as possible either in the substance or the exterior garb of religion. She was anxious to restore the Prayer Book of 1549 in its integrity. Overruled on that point, she took care that the ephemeral Book of 1552 should not be sanctioned without important changes. Among these changes was the restoration of the Eu charistic Vestments, which the Book of 1552 had explicitly forbidden. The Rubric of 1552 prescribed as follows : — " And here is to be noted that the Minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his Ministration, shall use neither alb, vestment, nor cope ; but being Archbishop or Bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet ; and being a priest, or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only." For this was substituted, in 1559, the following Rubric : — "And here is to be noted that the Minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the ERRATA. Page 20, line 6, for " Patterson " read " Patteson." 28, line 1, for " Crammer " read " Cranmer." 93, line 19, for " both " read " hath." 95, line 20, for " by Edward VI. " read " 2 Edward VI.' 131, line 18, for " choice " read " choir." 140, line 5, for " preterit " read " peperit." 143, line 28, for " du Nicee " read " de Niece." 107, line 28, for " five " read " six." 1G9, line 26, for " or " read " for." 176, line 17, for " 1664 » read " 1604." 203, line 4, dele " 1622." 273, line 6, after " xotichs " insert a colon. 314, line 7, for " 1662" read " 1622." 318, lino 21, /or " it " read " is." 348, lino 14,/or " sm" read "am." 3CG, line 13, for " York" read "Sharp." 438, line 5, for " asthetic " read " sesthetic." ,, for " Imaginations " read " Imagination." 448, line 2, for " had has " read "has had." Preface lo the Second Edition. xvn Sixth, according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this book." It is admitted on all hands that the Prayer Book of 1559 restored the vestments prescribed by the Book of 1549. But an attempt has been made, in the Purchas Judgment and elsewhere, to neutralise the force of this admission by laying stress on an expression in the 13th* Clause of the Act of Uni formity which accompanied the Prayer Book of 1559. The clause runs as follows : — " Provided always, and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall bo retained and bo in use, as was in this Church of England by the authority of Parlia ment in the second year of the reign of King Edward ,the Sixth, until other order shall be therein taken by authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of Her Commissioners appointed and authorized under the Great Seal of England for causes Ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm. So far the Purchas Judgment quotes, and then it stops and argues as follows : — " The Prayer Book, therefore, refers to the Act, and the Act clearly contemplated further directions to be given by the Queen, with the advice of Com missioners or of the Metropolitan. It was not, ¦;¦ In the Purchas Judgment it is called " the 25th Clause." Whether this is an error, or whether my copy of the Act is wrongly numbered, I cannot tell. b 2 xviii Preface to the Second Edition. apparently, thought desirable to effect an immediate outward change of ceremonies, although the adop tion of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. , in lieu of the first, had effected a great change in the very substance of the Communion Service, with which the theory of the peculiar Vestments (the Alb and Chasuble) was closely connected."* What their Lordships meant by the " great change in the very substance of the Communion Service " which the Prayer Book of 1552 " effected " I am unable to guess, and I think they would find it hard to explain. But I have a more serious charge to bring against the Court than mere inaccuracy of theo logical statement. If, instead of substituting a full stop for the colon of the original, they had proceeded with their quotation to the end of the clause, the inference which they have drawn from it would have been impossible — at least for the readers of the Judgment. The reader will see this at once by continuing the quotation as follows: — "And also, That if there shall happen any contempt or irrever ence to be used in the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church, by the misusing of the Orders appointed in this Book, the Queen's Majesty may by the like advice of the said Commissioners, or Metropolitan, ordain and publish such further Ceremonies or Rites as may be most for the advancement of God's Glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's Holy Mysteries and Sacraments." * Brooke's Priv. Council Judgments, pp. 1(18-9. Preface to the Second Edition. xix It is plain, therefore, that the " other order " con templated by the Act of Uniformity was intended to enlarge, not to curtail the ritual prescribed by the Rubric. And this was the interpretation put upon the clause at the time. " But the ceremonies," says George Withers, "which, as was above stated,* were retained in the Church at the first reformation of Edward, are restored under the same name. Power, moreover, was given to the Queen and the Arch bishop to introduce whatever additional ceremonies they might think proper ; and they immediately afterwards both discontinued the ordinary bread heretofore used in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and for the sake of a newer reformation adopted the round wafer, after the pattern of that used by the papists."! In another letter, written by George Withers and John Barthelot to Bullinger and Rudolph Gualter in 15G7, they say, " Moreover, there is power given by Act of Parliament to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever ceremonies they please into every Church in the kingdom."]: Whenever I have had occasion in this volume to * The reference is to a previous part of the letter, where Withers says that " altars, organs, theatrical dresses of the papists, and other things of the like kind, were retained under the name of ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof." \ Letter of George Withers to the Prince Elector Palatine, Zurich Letters, Second Series, p. 101. ' Zurich Letters, Second Scries, p 150. xx Preface to the Second Edition. point out misquotations or suppressiones veri in the Purchas Judgement, I have been careful to acquit the Court of any intentional fraud. But I cannot acquit it of misrepresentation of facts so gross and culpable as to render belief in its impartiality simply impossible. In the Case before us, the Court founded an important argument upon a garbled quotation. It stopped at a colon, and left out a passage which would have destroyed its argument. But to proceed : — A number of Puritans, who had lived on the Continent during the reign of Mary, returned to England on the accession of Elizabeth, and used all their power to reduce the doctrine, ritual, and discipline of the Church of England to the model of the Calvinistic worship to which they had been accustomed abroad. They Avere but a mere handful as compared with the clergy at large ;* but they were very energetic and noisy, had powerful friends at Court, and some of them got installed in prominent and influential positions. They set all law and order at defiance. They refused to wear any ecclesiastical Vestments, to * " There is crept and brought into the Church, by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses than wisdome, and delighting in singularities and changes, an open and manifest disorder, and offence to the godly, wise, and obedient persons, by diversity of opinions, and specially in tho external, decent, and useful rites and ceremonies to be used in the Churches." Letter of Queen Elizabeth to the two Metropolitans in January, 1561. (Strype's Parker, Append, xxiv. 66.) Preface to the Second Edition. xxi kneel at the reception of the Blessed Sacrament, or to use, without curtailment or addition, the new Prayer Book. This state of lawlessness reached such a pass at last, that the Queen and some of the Bishops felt the necessity of dealing with it in a peremptory manner. In the beginning of 1564 Her Majesty wrote in strong terms to the two Archbishops, requiring them to take measures for suppressing the irre gularities of the Puritans. The well-known Adver tisements were the result. There is not a scintilla of evidence to connect these Advertisements with the " other order" of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, and that they were aimed at the Puritans exclusively — that is, at defect, not excess, in ritual — is one of the most patent facts in the history of that time. I have given, as I believe, sufficient evidence of this fact in the body of the work. But erroneous im pressions are sometimes hard to dislodge, and there fore it may be as well to adduce some additional evidence here. Oldmixon,* writing under the date of 1564, says,— " The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Ely, Winchester, and Lincoln, framed several articles to enforce the habits, which were styled Advertisements . The Archbishop carried them to the Court ; but the Queen as yet refused to give them her sanction. The Archbishop chafed at the disappointment, said the Court had put them upon * History of England, p. 840. xxii Preface to the Second Edition. framing them, and if they would not go on and give •them the royal sanction they had better never have done anything ; nay, if the Council would not lend them helping hand against Nonconformists, as they had done heretofore in Hooper's days, they should be but laughed at for what they had done. But still the Queen was so cold that when the Bishop of London came to Court she spoke not a word to him about the redressing the neglect of Noncon formity in the City of London, where it was most disregarded ; upon which the Archbishop went to the Secretary desiring another Letter from the Queen to back up their endeavours for conformity ; adding, in some heat, ' If you remedy it not by Letter, I will no more strive against the stream, fume or chide who will ;' which shows us that the Bishops incited the same measures against the Puritans, and that the statesmen did not care to meddle in the matter, since it must be their back wardness which made the Queen cool in an affair she had put the Bishops upon." Carter* says, — " The exiles, returned from Geneva, had already begun disputes about the cap, surplice, and other ecclesiastical habits, not daring as yet to attack either the liturgy or the bishops. Their aversion to the habits of the Clergy was founded on their having been worn by the Papists ; though they had most * History of England, vol. iii. pp. 420-1. Preface to the Second Edition. xxiii of them been in use before any of the corruptions of Popery were known in the world, and had not been derived from any pope, but indulged to the bishops and clergy by the Emperor Constantine the Great, being really parts of the imperial ornaments, and as such worn by emperors and kings, particu larly by those of England, at their coronations to this day, from the time that those ceremonials were instituted." It is evident from this extract that Carter under stood other ecclesiastical vestments besides the surplice to have been in dispute ; for the surplice, as distinct from the alb, was not worn by sovereigns at their coronation, but the alb, the dalmatic, the amice, and in some cases the chasuble, were. But let us hear what Carter has to say about the Advertise ments. After mentioning the Queen's Letter of January 25th to the two Primates, "expressly re quiring them " to restrain the lawlessness of the Puritan Clergy, he says : — " But the business went on heavily, especially in London, where the greatest number of the irregular men were ; well knowing that, as they had hitherto been connived at by their bishop, Grindal, they should on this occasion be supported by Sir Francis Knolles (who had been one of their congregation in London, and was now vice-chamberlain, allied to the Queen by his marriage with Cary, and much in her favour) by Dudley Earl of Leicester, who had lately 'put , himself at the head of the party, and by others of xxiv Preface to the Second Edition. their friends in the Court and Council.* These courtiers had influence enough to prevent the Queen's authorizing some orders [i.e., the Advertise ments] drawn up by the bishops for all Ministers to subscribe." Bullinger also and his correspon dent George Withers condemn the Advertisements on the very ground that their purpose was to pull the Puritans up, not to pull down the " papistarum Sacrificuli," as Withers scornfully calls the great body of the English Clergy. A dispassionate review of all the facts of the case will, I believe, satisfy any impartial inquirer that the condition of ecclesiastical affairs in England, on the appearance of the Advertisements, was as follows. The nine thousand and odd priests who remained in possession of their benefices on the accession of Queen Elizabeth went on quietly with their work, most of them probably making no change in the wonted ritual of their churches. It is probable indeed that in many parishes, especially in the country, the new Prayer Book was little, if at all, used or known. In opposition to this view I may be reminded of the stringent terms of the Act of Uniformity. But that is no answer at all. For, in the first place, it is an undoubted fact that the Puritan Clergy disregarded the Prayer Book, * Among those other friends of the Puritans "in the Court and Council" were Sir Francis Walsingham, the Earl of Bedford, and the Earl of Warwick.— See Oldmixon, p. 840. Preface to the Second Edition. xxv the Act of Uniformity notwithstanding, during the first seven years of Elizabeth's reign. And, in the second place, it is on record that neither the Prayer Book of 1549 nor that of 1552 was ever used at all over a large part of England. Yet the enact- - ments of Edward the Sixth's reign, in favour of uniformity, were quite as stringent as those of Queen Elizabeth's. In the diocese of Durham certainly, and probably throughout all the northern counties, the reformed Liturgy was never used during the whole of Edward the Sixth's reign.* There is very little doubt that the same state of things prevailed in several dioceses for a long time after Elizabeth's accession. It is quite unsafe to assume, in the absence of direct proof, that edicts, whether Royal or Episcopal, were implicitly obeyed. There is a passage bearing on this point, which is worth quoting, in the letter of George Withers to the Elector Palatine. After complaining bitterly of the restoration, under Elizabeth, of the Vest ments and other ornaments prescribed by the Prayer Book of 1559, he proceeds :— "Then on the expulsion of the popish bishops new ones were to be appointed in their room ; and most of these were of the number of those who had been exiles. These at first began to oppose the ceremonies; but afterwards, when there was no hope otherwise of obtaining a bishopric, they yielded, * See "John Knox and the Church of England," by Professor Lorimer, pp. 29, 107. xxvi Preface to the Second Edition. and, as one of them openly acknowledged, under took the office against their conscience. In the meanwhile they comforted their brethren, whom they perceived to be still struggling against these things, by promising them free liberty in the government of their churches ; and for some years they kept this promise. On the obtaining of which liberty they diligently purified their churches from all the blemishes and defilements of popery. Others, who had at first yielded, incited by their example, began to . reform their churches in the like manner. But when the bishops saw the number and influence of these parties increasing among the people, they thought their dignity was at stake, unless they compelled the inferior clergy to adopt the same usages as they did themselves. They took up the matter therefore at the Queen's command." Then, after referring to the deprivation of Sampson, the summary proceedings against the recusant clergy of London, " the royal injunctions, and the admonitions, or (as they call them) advertisements of the bishops," he bewails " the wretched aspect of the Church of England," and especially the pre valence of popery among the clergy. " What must we say," he exclaims, "when most of them are popish priestlings, set apart to' perform Mass (plerique sunt papistarum sacrinculi missae con- secrati), while the vast majority of the rest are most ignorant men, appointed at the will of the people, not to the ministry of the Word, but to repeat the Preface to the Second Edition. xxvii office of the day or festival, which almost any boy might do without difficulty." This letter, let it be remembered, is a sketch of the English Reformation from the time of Henry VIII. to the date of the letter, and it reveals the following state of facts as existing when the letter was written : — 1. The restoration of the Vestments and other Ornaments which were in use in the second year of Edward VI. These things, Withers says, " are restored under the same name (sub eodem nomine restituuntur)." 2. Most of the clergy were " popish priestlings set apart for the Mass," and the rest were ignorant men who could do nothing except repeat the office of the day or festival. Is it not a fair inference from this that the great majority of the clergy went on pretty much as they had been accustomed to do, celebra ting the Holy Communion (which, no doubt, they continued to call the Mass) in the usual Vestments and with the usual ceremonies, and saying their daily office in the . old fashion? By "the office of the day or festival " Withers can hardly have meant the Matins and Evensong of the Prayer Book. 3. The utter lawlessness of the handful of noisy Puritans caused a reaction on the part of the Bishops who had at first patronised them, and a determined effort was accordingly xxviii Preface to the Second Edition. made, by means of the Advertisements, to compel the recusants to adopt at least a minimum of decent ritual. And, indeed, it was high time, for during the " some years " in which these Puritans had " free liberty in the government of their Churches " they " diligently purified their Churches" with a vengeance, embezzling or destroying sacred vessels and vestments whenever they could lay their hands upon them. There is no date to this letter of Withers, but there is internal evidence that it was written after the year 1566, for it refers to events that took place in that year. It therefore demonstrates three things : first, that the Rubric prescribing the Eucharistic Vestments was then in full force, for Withers refers to them specifically as then actually "restored ;" secondly, that the Advertisements were not aimed at those who obeyed the Ornaments Rubric, and were not intended to modify that Rubric, but were, on the contrary, directed exclusively against those who did not obey the Rubric, so as to bring them up to at least a partial obedience to it; thirdly, that the " other order," contemplated by the Act of Uniformity did not mean the Adver tisements, but rather additional ceremonies, like the wafer-bread ordered by the Injunctions of 1559. It does not matter to my argument whether the Advertisements had or had not the force of law. I believe that they had not, and I have given some Preface, to the Second Edition. xxix evidence in support of that opinion. George Withers and other Puritans of the time speak of them invariably as "the Bishops' admonitions, or (as they call them) Advertisements," and carefully and pointedly distinguish them from the " royal Injunctions." Mr. Droop, in a recently published pamphlet, states his belief that the Advertisements were not published at all till 1566. But for this belief he has produced no evidence that can stand a moment's cross-examination. There can be no doubt that the Advertisements were published in 1564. They were not rigorously enforced till 1566, because the Queen, under the influence of Leicester and other patrons of the Puritans, could not be prevailed upon to lend what Archbishop Parker called " a helping hand " in the matter. In 1566, however, she was induced to issue a proclamation " requiring conformity to the habit ; and thus," adds Collier, " the bishops' Articles or Advertisements were in some measure ratified."* Yes, " in some measure ratified ; " that is to say, the Queen never signed the Advertisements, and never sanctioned in any way the belief that they were hers; but she issued a proclamation which had, " in some measure," the same end in view as the Advertise ments. Her own feelings being strongly in favour of putting down the Puritans with a high hand,f she * Collier vi. p. 419. . f " The Queen could not satisfy her conscience without xxx Preface to the Second Edition. was very glad to let the Bishops proceed against them under the aegis of her name ; but the Puritans had powerful friends at Court who took care that the Queen should not be legally committed to any sanction of the Advertisements. Thus Cecil, immediately after the Queen's proclamation, encouraged Parker to enforce tho Advertisements, and told him " that the Lord-Keeper Bacon, the Marquess of North ampton, and himself intended to be " at the meeting, in which the London clergy were required to conform. " But none of them came : it seems they recollected themselves, and declined having a share in such unacceptable business."* Tho exact value of the Advertisements in point of law is however, I repeat, a matter which does not touch my argument, inasmuch as they were aimed, beyond all possibility of doubt, at the Puritans ex clusively. They were intended to enforce a mininum of ritual ; but there is not the shadow of a shade of evidence to show . that they were meant to abolish anything sanctioned by the Rubric and Statute of 1559 The partisans of the Purchas Judgment must really be called upon to face and answer plain historical facts. They insist that the Advertise ments were not intended to enforce a minimum of rubrical observance while permitting a maximum. I have already (pp. 75-6) disposed of this assertion, crushing the Puritans."— Speech of the Lord Treasurer. Oldmixon, Hist, of Engl. p. 451. ,;: Collier, vi. p. 419. 1 Preface to the Second Edition. xxxi and it is surely not unreasonable to demand that it be not repeated till my facts are proved to be fictions. But now let us see what the Advertisements really do say on the question of the Vestments : — " In the ministration of the Holy Communion in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches the principal Minister shall wear a cope, with Gospeller and Epistoler agreeably, and at all other prayers to be said at the Communion table to use no copes but surplices. That the Dean and Prebendaries wear a surplice with a silk hood in the choir, and when they preach in the Cathedral or Collegiate Church, to wear their hood. That every Minister saying any public prayers, or ministering of the Sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves, to be provided at the charges of the parish." Commenting on this order, the Judges in the case of Mr. Purchas "think that in prescribing the surplices only, the Advertisements meant what they said, tho surnlioos only." Tho reader will observe that the Court has quietly interpolated the word " only," which completely changes the whole mean ing of the passage. But let us proceed : — " If the Minister," says the Purchas Judgment, " is ordered to wear a surplice at all times of his ministration, he cannot wear an alb and tunicle when assisting at the Holy Communion ; if he is to celebrate the Holy Communion in a chasuble, he cannot celebrate in a surplice." xxxii Preface to the Second Edition. That is a plain unambiguous statement. The use of the surplice precludes the use at the same time of either alb or chasuble, and also, I presume, the use of the cope. The Court gave no reason for this assertion. It appealed to no authority. It laid down its dictum as an historical axiom so clear and self-evident as to supersede the necessity of argument. Unfortunately for the credit of the Court, however, it is one of those cases in which bold assertion is the child of ingenuous ignorance. A few examples will suffice to show this. The following Rubric is from the York Missal : " Haec lectio sequens in medio Chori ab aliquo Vicario seniori in superpellicio et eapa rubea serica."* The old statutes of St. Paul's enjoined the canons to wear " colobium aut superpelliceum album " under the Mass Vestment. f In the Roman Missal the secular priest is en joined, if it can be conveniently managed, to put on a surplice first, and over that the amice, alb, etc. The Canons of Rouen always wore chasubles over their surplices on the Feast of Pentecost at Tierce.]: * Surtees Society's Edition, vol. i. p. 10. t Dr. Eock's " Church of Our Fathers," ii. 16 ; and Mr. J. D. Chambers' "Comment and Confutation of Priv. Council Dec. p. 71. t " Le jour de la Pentecote a Tierces Sept Chanoines Pretres revetus de chasubles pardessus lews surplis, accompagnez du Diacre et du Soiidiacre pareillement Chanoines revetus de Preface to the Second Edition. xxxiii " Durandus commends the practice of some in wearing a surplice over their own clothes under the amice ; next was the alb embroidered, made of fine linen, or byssus ; it was straight, without any surples, and had straight sleeves; it had a head stall, and covered the whole body. Then the girdle ; next was the stole or scarf .... over this was the chesible, or planet, which was a surpled garment."* The Rubric of Edward VI. 's first Prayer Book ordered the celebrant to wear " a white albe plain, with a vestment or cope." A Rubric at the end of the Communion Office says : " The Priest shall put upon him a plain albe or surplice, with a cope." Two Rubrics at the end of the Book of 1549 prescribe as follows : — 1. "In the saying or singing of Matins and Evensong, Baptizing and Burying, the Minister in parish churches and chapels annexed to the same shall use a Surplice. And in all Cathedral Churches and Colleges, the Archdeacons, Deans, Provosts, Masters, Prebendaries, and Fellows, being graduates, may use in the choir, besides their Surplices, such hoods as pertaineth to their several degrees, which they have taken in any university within this realm." 2. And wheresoever the Bishop shall celebrate dalmatique et de tunique." Voyages Liturgiques de France, p. 327. Paris, 1718. * Johnson's Canons, a.d. 1400. Note E. c 2 xxxiv Preface to the Second Edition. the Holy Communion in the Church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, besides his rochette, a surplice or albe* and a cope or vestment." So much for the confident dictum of the Purchas Judgment. It is directly the reverse of the truth. And it is for disregarding a judgment thus honey combed with grotesque blunders that a large section of the Clergy of England have been held up to public odium as "lawless" and "revolutionary." Considering that a Draconic law has been passed against them on this plea, they have surely a right to demand that their Judges in the last Court of Appeal shall be men who are acquainted with at least the alphabet of the questions likely to come before them for adjudication. A man does not acquire an intuitive knowledge of matters which he has never studied by becoming a Judge. Legal training is useful enough in its way; but legal training will no more make a man a good theologian or ritualistf than it will make him a good cricketer or boatman. An elementary knowledge of the questions in dispute would have saved the Court in * The surplice and alb differed very little from each other, and either name was sometimes, though not generally, used for both. " Le surplis," says an author already quoted, " qui n'est que l'aube racourcie." (Voyage Lit. de France, p. 125.) So also Pascal (Origines de la Liturgie, p. 91) says that the surplice " est identifie avec l'aube." f I use the word in its proper sense, as one learned in the history and meaning of religious rites. Preface to the Second Edition. xxxv the Purchas Case from supposing that an order to wear a surplice necessarily meant an order not to Avear an alb or chasuble. Numbers of pre-Reforma- tion canons order the surplice without mentioning any other vestment. One of the canons in Arch bishop Reynolds' Constitutions (a.d. 1322), for example, says, "Let no clerk be permitted to minister in the office of the altar without a surplice ; and let two candles, or one at least, be lighted at the time of High Mass." Here we see the rule of .minimum and maximum even before the Refor mation. Another argument of the Purchas Judgment, into which I did not think it necessary to enter in the body of my book, is founded upon "the various Visitation Articles ... as showing that the surplice alone was to be used, and that deviations from that rule were on the side of defect, and not in the direction of returning to the Vestments of the Mass. Some of these Articles were published by Bishop Cosin and others, who took part in the revision of the Prayer Book. In the Sixth Article Bishop Cosin inquires, ' Have you a large and decent surplice (one or more) for the Minister to wear at all times of his public ministration in the Church ?' The repetition of the words ' at all times ' of his ministration, the exact words of the Rubric, is very significant as a con temporaneous exposition of it by one of its framers."* * Brooke's Six Privy Council Judgments, p. 175. xxxvi Preface to the Second Edition. This is one of the many instances in which the Court, in the plenitude of its ignorance, founds conclusions upon arguments which are simply fatal to them. It is true that Cosin, in his Visitation Articles, makes no mention of the Eucharistic Vest ments, but inquires particularly about the surplice. And for this there was a very good reason. Cosin's diocese had been ruled by a number of violent Puritans since the time of Cuthbert Tunstall, and the Great Rebellion, following on the iconoclasm of these men, had denuded it of all the decencies of public worship. It is on record that numbers of parishes were without a surplice, and were too poor to buy one. To inquire therefore, under such cir cumstances, whether the parishes possessed rich and costly vestments would have been cruel irony. But Cosin's own opinion on the subject is not a matter of inference or conjecture, but of absolute certainty. He has recorded his judgment, Adver tisements and Canons notwithstanding, that " the Vestments were prescribed by law."* So much for the " contemporaneous exposition of the Rubric by one of its framers. ' ' By what fatality is it that the Court in the Purchas Case has so obligingly supplied its adversaries with weapons wherewith to destroy its Judgment ? That these Visitation Articles insist upon a minimum of rubrical observ ance is plain from another fact. Several of them inquire, "Whether you have a convenient and * See Cosin's Works, vol. v. pp. 42, 230, 418, 489. Preface to the Second Edition. xxxvii decent communion table with a carpet of silk or some other decent stuff continually laid upon the table at time of Divine Service." But not one, so far as I know, makes any inquiry about altar frontals with a sequence of colours proper for different fes tivals. Yet these have been declared legal by the Judicial Committee. They were very valuable, in most cases, like copes and chasubles, and were simply stolen, sometimes under the plea of putting down superstition, sometimes under no plea at all. I have seen something of the same kind in Sicily within the last few years : churches robbed of valu able vestments by the rapacity of greedy laymen, and not infrequently by the clergy themselves. I have often been stealthily offered most valuable vestments at a great bargain. We must, however, distinguish between these Visitation Articles. In dioceses which were ruled by Puritans — and they were the majority during the reign of Elizabeth — any sort of excess and lawless ness was encouraged by the Bishops till, as George Withers tells us, they found " their own dignity " at stake. Jewel, for instance, writing to Peter Martyr in the year 1562, expresses an ardent wish that "that linen surplice" could be "removed together with the rubbish " which had already been got rid of.* And Grindal and Horn, writing to Rudolph Gualter in 1567, express themselves thus in re ference to the Vestments then in use:— "We call * Zurich Letters, vol. i. p. 100. xxxviii Preface to the Second Edition. Almighty God to witness that the dissension has not been occasioned by any fault of ours, nor is it owing to us that Vestments of this kind have not been altogether done away with : so far from it, that we most solemnly make oath that we have hitherto laboured with all earnestness, fidelity, and diligence, to effect what our brethren require, and what we ourselves wish."* Bishop Sandys says : — " The Queen's Majesty considered it not contrary to the word of God, nay, rather for the advantage of the Church, that the image of Christ crucified, together with Mary and John, should be placed, as heretofore, in some conspicuous part of the church, where they might more readily be seen by all the people. Some of us [Bishops] thought far other wise, and more especially as all images of every kind were at our last visitation not only taken down, but also burnt, and that too by public authority. . . As to myself, because I was rather vehement in this matter, and could by no means consent that an occasion of stumbling should be afforded to the Church of Christ, I was very near being deposed from my office, and incurring the displeasure of the Queen. "f In a list of Visitation Articles of the year 1559, I find the following inquiries, "Whether in these churches and chapels all images, shrines, all tables, candlesticks, . . . pictures, paintings, ... be removed, * Zurich Letters, vol. i. p. 177. f Ibid. pp. 73-4. Preface to the Second Edition. xxxix abolished, or destroyed." "Whether they do not every holy-day, when they have no sermon, im mediately after the Gospel, openly, plainly, and distinctly recite to their parishioners in the pulpit the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and the Ten Com mandments in English."* The second inquiry is based on the Injunctions of 1559. So that if these Injunctions are now binding in law, a great many of our clergy are in bad case. The first inquiry has been disposed of by the Ju dicial Committee, which declared the legality of candlesticks in churches. These are the sort of men whose Visitation Articles are quoted in the Purchas Judgment as evidence of legal proceedings. The Judges refer to the Zurich Letters, which certainly supply evidence enough of the lawlessness of these Visitation Articles. The Puritan Bishops told their friends, in their private correspondence, that their proceedings in their respective dioceses, so far from being a carrying out of the law, "in curred the displeasure of the Queen," and "very nearly " caused them to be deposed from their office. The " Acts and Proceedings " in the Convocation of 1586 show the result of Puritanical rule in the diocese of Norwich. Among the complaints from that diocese are the following :— " That there was no observation of the canons, that unworthy persons * Cardwell, Doc. Ann. vol. i. pp. 242-3. xl Preface to the Second Edition. were ordained and instituted." " The Communion not at all, or but in part, used and observed. The wearing of the surplice refused. Holy days not observed. The Communion was received by many sitting, and those that conformed to the church called ' Time Servers'."* The Purchas Judgment lays great stress upon the evidence supplied, as they think, against Vestments by Mr. Peacock's " Church Furniture." Here is their argument : — " An inventory of the ornaments of 150 parishes in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1565 — 1566, has been published by Mr. Edward Peacock ; and it shows that the chasubles, or vestments, and the albs, were systematically defaced, destroyed, or put to other uses, and a precise account was ren dered of the mode of their destruction. . . There is no reason to doubt that all through the country commissions were issued to enforce the observanco of the Advertisements, within a few years after they were drawn up." That is to say, the Court quotes Mr. Peacock's book as containing a record of Church Ornaments destroyed in virtue of the Advertisements. The fact is, however, that the shocking record of robbery and sacrilege which Mr. Peacock's book contains has nothing to do with Queen Elizabeth's Advertise ments. It is confined to 150 parishes in one diocese which happened to be distinguished for its Puritanical excesses. Some of the ruin which the * Cardwell'B Synodalia, vol. ii. p. 565. Preface to the Second Edition. xii inventory relates took place before the reign of Elizabeth; most of it was perpetrated before the Advertisements appeared, and there is not a scrap of evidence that any of it was in the slightest degree connected with the Advertisements at all. It was partly due to the merest vulgar pillage, and partly to the unreasoning fanaticism of Puritanism. But what is certain is that it had no legal basis what ever. Surely a Court of Final Appeal ought to read its authorities with sufficient care to save it from misrepresenting them in this culpable fashion. The Court appears to have forgotten, too, that both in the Lincolnshire inventory and in the Visitation Articles of Grindal and others the destruction of crosses, candlesticks, and altar- frontals was as ruth less and as systematic as the destruction of chasubles. Yet the former have all been declared legal by the Judicial Committee. It is really not fair, it is scarcely honest, to play fast and loose with argu ments in this manner. After the review of my book in the Guardian, the Rev. William Milton addressed a letter to that paper, which the Editor, not being able then to afford space for a controversy on the subject, sent to me. Mr. Milton is, I believe, considered a representative champion on the side of the Church Association, and has, I am told, written a pamphlet on the Vestment question, which, however, I have not had tlie advantage of reading. It is due to him therefore that I should notice so much of his xiii Preface to the Second Edition. criticism as appears to me to be material to tho argument. "It is astonishing," he says, " that Mr. MacColl can believe that in that year 1571 the Sacrificial Vestments were retained, when he must know that one of the Canons of that same year condemned the use of the grey amice as contaminated with super stition, and commanded Deans, Archdeacons, and others ' to wear only the linen Vestment still retained by the Royal mandate, and the scholastic hood in their churches.' " (Cardwell, Synod i. 116.) It is astonishing, I reply, that Mr. Milton should found any argument at all upon the Canons of 1571 ; still more astonishing that he should consider the passage which he has quoted as relevant to the point in debate. The heading of the chapter from which he has quoted is "Decani ecclesiarum cathedralium," and the sentence which he has quoted prescribes the use of the " linen vestment only." But this would be as fatal to the cope as to the chasuble. Yet, even by the admission of the Purchas Judg ment, the cope was lawful in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches both before and after 1571 . The argument proves too much ; which means that it is irrelevant. The truth is, however, that the Canons of 1571 had no force whatever. The Lower House of Con vocation would have nothing to do with them ; the Queen refused to sanction them ; and even Grindal " stood in doubt whether they had vigorem legis," and declined to put them in force for fear of Preface to the Second Edition. xliii Praemunire. All this is related in Cardwell, to whom Mr. Milton has referred mc. In fact the Injunctions and Advertisements of that period had, for the most part, an ephemeral purpose. They were remedies against pressing evils, and were never intended to have a perennial force, still less to abrogate an Act of Parliament. One of the Injunctions of 1559, for example, dooms to destruction " all tables, candlesticks, .... pictures, paintings, .... so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass-windows, or elsewhere within their churches and houses." Yet when George Withers, acting on this Injunction, set about destroying painted windows in the chapels of Cambridge, in 1565, he was severely punished for his pains. The only other point in Mr. Milton's letter which seems to me deserving of notice is the following : — " But Mr. MacColl finds his novel deductions from the letter of Zanchius confirmed in express word by Beza in his letter of Sept. 3rd, 1566. Hero he has made the discovery that the translation in the Parker Society's volume is unfaithful, the word ' hoods ' being substituted for ' chasuble,' as the word Beza used was ' casulis.' This is a serious charge, if it can be substantiated. But if Mr. MacColl had consulted so common a work as Du Cange's Glossarium, he would have found that that learned writer gives to ' casula ' the meaning of 'hood,' even in precedence to that of 'chasuble.' xliv Preface to the Second Edition. ' Casula pro habitu monachico saepe sumitur atque adeo pro ipsa cuculla. Theod. Abb. ' cucullam nos esse dicimus, quam alio nomine casulam vo- camus.' And in Beza's letter the meaning ' chasuble ' is wholly impossible ; for he says in the passage quoted by Mr. MacColl, that ministers were deprived and imprisoned if they would not wear the square cap, bands, surplice, and 'casulam.' Now Mr. MacColl knows very well that no minister was deprived or imprisoned because he would not wear a chasuble — he himself says that that Vestment was never enforced. It is evident, therefore, that ' hood ' is the right translation, and Mr. MacColl's discovery and argument collapse together." Mr. Milton has misunderstood Du Cange; who is, no doubt, an eminent authority. It is not true " that that learned writer gives to ' casula ' the meaning of 'hood,' even in preference to that of ' chasuble.' " On the contrary, he begins his description of casula by quoting with approbation the description of Isidore Hispalensis (Etymol. Lib. xix. c. 24, sec. 17.) which is as follows : — " Casula est vestis cucullata dicta per diminu- tionem a casa, quod totum hominem tcgat quasi minor casa. Unde et cuculla, quasi minor celia." Then, in another paragraph, comes the passage quoted by Mr. Milton, and the meaning of which he has entirely missed. What it says is that the casula was sometimes applied to the monkish habit, and so to the cowl itself. But what sort of garment was the Preface to the Second Edition. xiv cuculla ? An older authority than Du Cange, and in some respects superior to him, shall tell us : " Cuculla Monachorum sumpta est a Colobio Apostolorum ; illorum vero tunica formatur, ut Dalmatica. Hae duae vestes formam Cruris praeferunt . . . . : duae vero partes Cucullae in ante, et retro duae alae sunt, quibus corpus protegunt Cucullae nomine habitum longum et amplum, sed manicas non habentem . . . nos intelligimus."* The old shape of the cuculla was, in fact, as nearly as possible that of the Roman casula. Mr. Milton has confounded the cuculla with the modern English notion of a " hood." Indeed, if he had read with a little more care " so common a work as Du Cange's Glossarium," he would have found that his interpretation of the passage on which he fastens is quite untenable. For Du Cange quotes the following passage from the Life of Fulgentius : " Casulam vel superbi coloris nee ipse habuit, nee monachos habere permisit. Subtus casulam nigello vel lactineo pallio circum- datus incessit." Jean Grancolasf places the mean ing of this passage beyond a doubt. After describing the chasuble in accordance with all the authorities, he says : " Monachorum etiam pallium casula dicitur in regula S. Macarii, cap. 27 ; in vita S. Gregorii, 1. ii. c. 45; et in vita S. Fulgentii." And then he gives from the Life of S. Fulgentius the passage * Dom. Maori, Hierolexicon. Editio octava. Venetiis, 1788, p. 300. \ Comment. Hist, in Horn. Breviarium, pp. 155-G. xlvi Preface to the Second Edition. quoted above. The monkish cuculla was, in short, a chasuble of coarser material and plainer colour than that in common use. Mr. Milton is apparently not aware that the chasuble was at one time the ordinary out-door dress of the clergy. In a Synod held under Charlemagne in Germany, in the year 742, the following canon was passed : " Decrevimus quoque, ut Presbyteri non sagis laicorum more ; sed casulis utantur ritu servorum Dei."* Those whose curiosity is lively enough to pursue the object further may, in addition to the authorities already referred to, consult Sicardi's Mitrale, lib. ii., column 77 ; Joannes de Janua's Catholicon, in loc ; Durandus's Rationale, lib. iii. c. vii. ; Martene ; to say nothing of Pontificals innumerable. Mr. Milton will now see that " a little learning is a dangerous thing," and that a cursory dip into " so common a work as Du Cange's Glossarium " will not save a man from blundering egregiously on questions which he has never thoroughly studied. Beza was far too good a scholar to use the word " casula " in the sense which Mr. Milton attributes to him. There is more plausibility in Mr. Milton's next objection, namely, that Beza cannot have meant the chasuble, because that vestment, even on my own * Cf. Fleury, Hist. Eccl. torn ix. p. 305 : " Le pretres et les diacres ne porfceront point des manteaux semblables a ceaux des laiques, mais des chasubles. C'etoit done encore l'habit ordi naire des ecclesiastiques." P'reface to the Second Edition. xlvii admission, was not forced upon the Puritans. The answer, however, is simple enough. Beza was writing at a distance. He had heard that Sampson and others had been deprived and imprisoned for refusing to wear what Sampson himself described as "the Golden Vestments of the Papacy" (aureis vestibus papisticis) ;* he knew that the Rubric, sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, enjoined the chasuble among other vestments ; and he wrote accordingly. Beza's testimony is therefore valuable. Coming as it does, after the publication of the Advertisements, it negatives the idea that the Advertisements were understood at the time as prohibiting the chasuble. In the body of this work I have adduced some evidence from Nonconformist sources against the interpretation put upon the Ornaments' Rubric by the Purchas Judgment. Let me add some further evidence here, for which I am indebted partly to Mr. Fuller Russell and partly to Mr. J. D. Chambers. The first is from a book published in 1566, and entitled " An Answer for the time to the examina tion put in print without tho Author's name, pro tending to maintain the Apparel prescribed against the Declaration of the Ministers of London." On pp. 29-30 occurs the following passage :— " You reject the vestment, and retain the cope ; you reject the alb, and retain the surplice; you reject the stole, and retain the tippet ; you reject * Zurich Lett. vol. i. p. 8G. d xlviii Preface to the Second Edition. the shaven crown, and retain the square cap. And yet these, and such like, are in one predicament ; why you should keep the one and refuse the other, we lcnoio not, but by this rule, Quod volumus sanctum est." And on page 54 the author says distinctly that " by authority of Parliament albs, altars, vest ments,"* were then prescribed by law. This testi mony is most valuable. Here is one of the actors in the scene reproaching the Bishops for what seemed to him very inconsistent and arbitrary con duct. The law prescribes, he says, the vestment, the alb, and the stole ; just as much as it does the cope, the surplice, and the tippet. Yet here are you Bishops picking and choosing among things equally binding in law, with no better authority than your own arbitrary will. Would this language have been possible for one who believed that the Advertise ments had abolished the alb and chasuble ? Is it not, on the contrary, clear that the writer regarded the Advertisements as a mere arbitrary exercise of authority on the part of the Bishops ? In fact, he puts his meaning beyond a doubt on p. 115, where he says : "By the former Book of King Edward (whither the Act of Parliament referreth us) an alb is appointed with a vestment for (? or) a cope for the administration of the Sacrament ; and in some places tbe priest at this day weareth an alb." London was at this time the stronghold of the Puritan Clergy, of whom this writer was probably * A term which always included the chasuble. Preface to the Second Edition. xlix one. Altars and vestments had been destroyed with indiscriminate fury under Ridley when there was no question as to their legality; and Grindal, as we have seen, confessed that he did his best, in the teeth of the law, to get rid of the vestments, in cluding the surplice. Parker, moreover, tells us that the clergy whom he sent to officiate in the City were sometimes obliged to forego Divine Service because no surplice could be found. The wonder therefore is, not that it is difficult to procure positive evidence as to the use of the chasuble, but that "in some places the Priest at this day weareth an alb." The other piece of evidence supplied to me by Mr. Fuller Russell is contained in a book bearing the following title : "A Scholastical Discourse against Symbolising with Antichrist in Ceremonies, especially in the Sign of the Cross." The author was Robert Parker, and the folio edition from which I quote bears the date of 1607. He, too, taunts the bishops of his day with their inconsistency in en forcing the cross and surplice, but not " the Alba, the Cappa, the Casula, the Baculus Pastoralis, all tohich are enjoined by law as well as the cross and surplice, because named in King Edward's Communion Booh, to which our Law and Rubric sendeth us. (Pt. 1. pp. 150, 151.) Opposite the word "Law " is an asterisk referring to the following side-note : " Eliz. i. c. 2 ; rubric in init. leiturg." From Mr. J. D. Chambers I have received the d 2 1 Preface to the Second Edition. following piece of evidence. " In De Laune's ' Plea for the Nonconformists,' (p. 45, London : Marshall, 1712) the author, after drawing an ingenious parallel between the English and Latin offices, maintaining them to be in substance the same, adds, " Have they (i.e. the Romans) habits for their clergy, and particular vestments for their holy minis tration, as albes, surplices, chasubles, amicts, gowns, copes, maniples, zones, etc. ? So have we." In truth, so strong and overwhelming is the evidence for the legality of the Eucharistic Vest ments that my respect for the purity and con scientiousness of our Judges forbids me to doubt that the Purchas Judgment will be upset on the first opportunity for a fair trial. And now let me say a word or two on the question of ritual in general in the time of Arch bishop Laud. In the year of 1636 was published a book, entitled " For God and King. The Summe of Two Sermons preached on Fifth of November last in St. Mat- thewes, Friday Street. By Henry Burton, Minister of God's Word there and then.", The two sermons in question reach the portentous length of 194 pages, and are, in fact, a furious tirade against the Popish practices, as the author deemed them, then prevalent in the Church of England. Here are some specimens of his indictment : " Praying with the face towards the East, where the altar standeth ; placing of images in churches ; Preface to the Second Edition. li erecting of crucifixes over the altars." These Popish practices, he declares, have found their way from the cathedrals into parish churches. " These [cathedrals] bee those nests and nurseries of Super stition and Idolatry, wherein the old Beldame of Rome hath muzzled up her brood of Popelings, and so preserved her Usum Sarum in life to this very day For these Mother Churches, to which the Daughter Churches must conforme, are they not the natural Daughters of Rome ? Do they not from top to toe exactly resemble her? Her pompous Service, her Altars, Palls, Copes, Crucifixes, Images, super stitious gestures and postures ?" He specifies, among other things, "new Images of Saints and Angels, new rites on Candlemas Day, with their hundreds of tapers and candles What Prescrip tion can that Cathedrall Church at Wolverhampton in Staffordshire plead for her goodly costly new Altar, with the Dedication thereof within these 2 or 3 yeares last past, in which Dedication all the Roman rites were observed, as Censings, washing [the hands at the celebration of the Holy Communion,] bowings, Copes (though borrowed from Lichfield) ? .... The like may be said of many "other Ca thedrals, if not all, which within these few yeares, yea but yesterday, have been strangely metamor phosed into a Curtizan-like garbe ; and now must be, Like Mother, Like Daughter." He goes on to say that these "Bomish fashions" had been introduced into the college chapels at the Iii Preface to the Second Edition. universities, and into parish churches. He in veighs against the hardship of compelling other churches to " have Organs, Singing Quires, Altars, Images, Crucifixes, Tapers, Copes, and the like, because such is the guise of Cathedralls." (pp. 198, 163.) To this attack Archbishop Laud replied in a set speech before the Council in the Star Chamber. He published the speech immediately afterwards with a dedication to the King, and. I have the first edition of it now lying before me. Does Laud dispute the accuracy of Burton's statement of facts in respect to any of the particulars which I have quoted ? So far from it, he says explicitly, "Whether there be not more reason the Parish Churches should be made conformable to the Cathedral and Mother Churches than the Cathedral to them, I leave to any reasonable man to judge." Heylin, too, wrote an elaborate reply to Burton ; but neither does he dispute the specific charges as to matters of fact which I have quoted from Burton. This is most remarkable. Images, crucifixes, altars, tapers and candles, palls, copes, " all the Roman rites " in fact, according to the Sarum Use, are now, says Burton, the rule of our Cathedrals ; and Parish Churches are expected to conform to the usages of the Mother Churches. Such is the charge, and Laud and his Chaplain tacitly admit it. Yet, in the teeth of all this, the Judicial Committee tell us that all these things have been strictly illegal and obsolete from Preface to the Second Edition. Iiii the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign to our own time, save and except the cope, which may be worn in Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches on certain high festivals ! It is evident that the Caroline divines knew nothing of such law. In fact, the authorities in one of the City Churches (" St. Gregories by Paules ") claimed the liberty of not being obliged to conform to the ritual of the Cathedral, and the claim was disallowed by Royal Injunction. Before I conclude, I must quote some important passages from Laud's speech, bearing on the posi tion of the altar. One of the innovations charged against him by Burton was the positon of the Holy Table Altar-wise against the east wall of the Church. Laud denies point blank that this in an innovation at all. " And this," he says, " appears both by the practice and by the command and Canon of the Church of England. First, by the practice of the Church of England. For in the King's Royall Chappels, and divers Cathedrals, the Holy Table hath ever since the Reformation stood at the upper end of the quire, with the large or full side toward the people." He admits that "it stood in most parish Churches the other way," but argues that the parish churches should follow the example of the Cathedrals, not vice versa. He mentions, in particular, St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey as churches in the metropolis which had always preserved the altar- wise position. " May the liv Preface to the Second Edition. Holy Table," he asks pertinently, " stand this way in the King's Chappel or Cathedrals, or Bishops' Chappels, and not elsewhere ? Surely if it be decent and fit in God's Service, it may stand so (if authority please) in any Church. But if it advance or usher in any superstition and Popery, it ought to stand so in none." " Secondly, this appears by the Canon or Rule of the Church of England too, for it is plain in the last Injunction of the Queen : That the Holy Table ought to stand at the upper end of the quire, north and south, or Altar-wise. For the words of the Queen's Injunctions are these : — " ' The Holy Table in every Church (mark it, I pray you, not in the Royal Chappel, or Cathedrals only, but in every Church), shall be decently made and set in the place where the Altar stood.' " Now the Altar stood at the upper end of the Quire, North and South, as appeares before by the practice of the Church. And there to set it other wise is to set it crosse the place, not in the place where the Altar stood These words of the Injunction are so plaine as that they can admit of no shift. And give me leave to tell you that a very learned Prelate of this Church, and one whom I think these men will not accuse as a man like to advance or usher in Popery, is of the same opinion : 'tis my Lord the Bishop of Salisbury." Laud then gives the particulars of a dispute upon this question in a parish church in the diocese of Preface to the Second Edition. Iv Salisbury, and the following order of the Bishop, when called in to settle the matter : — " By the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth and by Canon 82, under King James, the Communion Table should ordinarily be set and stand with the side to the East wall of the Chancell." Laud concludes the matter as follows: — "It follows in the same Injunction, that when the Altai- is taken down, the Holy Table shall bee set in (not crosse) the place where the Altar stood ; which (as is aforesaid) must needs be Altar- wise." To conclude. I have very little doubt, I repeat, that the Purchas Judgment will be reversed when the questions ruled by it have been fairly argued before a competent tribunal. And then see what follows. Many of the Bishops and the leading organs of public opinion have propagated the belief that disobedience to the Purchas Judgment means law lessness. The Church Association has expressed its intention accordingly to enter upon a campaign of prosecutions " with a light heart," like the French when they began the campaign of 1870. And I venture to predict, to compare great things with small, that the results will not be dissimilar. The army which left Paris, shouting "a Berlin !" found itself indeed on the other side of the Rhine ere long ; not as victors, however, but as prisoners of war. And such is the fate, as I believe, which is in store for the Church Association in the campaign against Ritualism on which it is about to enter. It declares lvi Preface to the Second Edition. war " with a light heart," because it is ignorant alike of the weakness of its own case and of the strength of its adversary's. But what will happen when it has fought and lost its Sedan ? How will it fare with us when the Purchas Judgment has been reversed ? Unless we come to an understand ing beforehand, we shall probably have a repetition of what is now going on in Ireland. The aggressive party will agitate violently for a revision of the Prayer Book, and whether the agitation succeed or fail, the too probable end will be disruption and disestablishment. Such, then, being the probable result of putting the Public Worship Regulation Act in force, would it not be well to come to some understanding on the subject before hostilities are fairly begun ? How stand the facts ? Roughly speaking, there are three parties in the Church of England ; and, for my part, I should be very sorry to see any of them suppressed, for I believe that each brings into prominence some truth or truths which the others possibly leave too much in the background. I am not an admirer of a cast-iron system of uniformity in doctrine or ritual. Unity in doctrine indeed there must be. But a healthy unity should leave ample elbow-room for intellectual liberty outside the limits of the Christian credenda. Any one who possesses even a moderate acquaintance with the great lights of patristic theology, S. Augustine, for example, in the West, Clement of Alexandria and even Athanasius in the Preface to the Second Edition. lvii East, must know the bold yet devout spirit of their speculation in matters which did not touch the essence of the Catholic creed. Many of theif theological excursions would, I fear, be denounced heterodox, if not heretical, by impatient partisans, not confined to one School, among ourselves — I am persuaded that the expulsion of any one of the three parties of which the Church of England consists would be an irreparable loss to the whole body. Grant even that they do not all hold the Catholic Faith with an equal clearness of intellectual vision, or with an equal appreciation of its para mount importance in the sphere of human conduct ; it does not at all follow that those whose vision of the truth is thus imperfect should be cast out, so long as they have a willing mind and loyally accept the Church's creed. "Where there's a will there's a way " in matters of faith as well as of action ; and in the midst of our dissensions I console myself with the thought that we are like travellers scaling a lofty mountain partially veiled in mist. It is not till we have passed the region of mist and emerged on the sun-gilt summit of the mountain that we shall know how close to each other we have often been, without knowing it, during the toil and weari ness of the ascent. LETTER I. ACCUSATION OF LAWLESSNESS. My Lord, We have heard a great deal of late about the " lawlessness " of certain of the English clergy. So long as this cry was confined to the newspapers, or to irresponsible speakers on public platforms, it was perhaps better, on the whole, to disregard it. But it assumes a very different aspect when it is echoed, as it was on the third reading of the Public Worship Regulation Bill, by a Peer of your Lordship's emi nence in his place in Parliament. It becomes neces sary at once therefore for all who are implicated — and every clergyman of the Church of England who is not specially excepted is implicated — to examine the charge, in order to see whether, and how far, he is himself amenable to it. For, my Lord, to call a man "lawless" is no light accusation; it is one of the most serious that can be made against any one. Now " lawlessness " is a word which admits of various meanings, and our estimate of it, from a moral point of view, must accordingly depend on the B 2 Lawlessness Defined. [letter specific meaning which we attach to it. Speaking broadly, it means either — 1. Materially, the violation of some particular law; or, 2. Formally, an inward disposition or habit of mind antagonistic to lawful authority in general. It is evident, of course, that a man may belong to No. 1 without necessarily belonging to No. 2 ; and vice versa. In other words, to break a law is not necessarily and formally to be a lawless person. For one may break a law ignorantly, or accidentally, or because he thinks that obedience to the law in question may involve disobedience to some higher law which binds his conscience. In none of these cases would it be fair to call a man lawless. He might be an object of pity, or even of punishment, but hardly of moral blame ; for he who obeys the wrong dictates of an ill-informed conscience is mo rally a better man than he who does what really is right while believing it to be wrong. Mere dis obedience to law, therefore, does not of itself prove a man morally lawless. There may be circumstances in the case which exonerate him from any kind of blame, or which may actually make his disobedience a virtue. "What glory," says Sir James Mackin tosh,* " is not due to those who, like Wallace, are ready, for their country, to commit even their good name to fortune; who, for the sake of justice, wear the * " History of England," vol. i. p. 265. I.] Mackintosh and Burke on Lawlessness. 3 garb of offenders against law, with a full knowledge that nothing but signal success will save them from the reproaches of a posterity as base as their con temporaries." " It would be hard," says Burke, " to point out any error more truly subversive of all the order and beauty, of all the peace and happiness of human society, than the position that any body of men have a right to make what laws they please ; or that laws can derive any authority from their institu tion merely and independent of the quality of the subject-matter. ... In reality there are two, and only two, foundations of law ; and they are both of them conditions without which nothing can give it any force ; I mean equity and utility."* The history of the United Kingdom, my Lord, is full of illustrations of the positions here laid down by two such distinguished authorities as Burke and Mackintosh. For something like seven centuries England imposed upon Ireland laws which violated the first principles of equity. She first made the Irish Papists at the point of the sword, and then she tried to make them Protestants by a liberal use of the same convincing weapon; and failed. "No country, I believe, since the world began," says Burke, " has suffered so much on account of religion as Ireland ; or has been so variously harassed both for Popery and Protestantism. "f And what is the * "Tracts on the Popery Laws." Works, vol. vi. pp. 16, 17. \ Works, vol. vi. p. 30. B 2 4 Lawlessness Caused by Unjust Laws, [letter result ¦? Why, that one of the most loyal and most law-abiding people on the face of the earth has become one of the most disloyal and lawless. En forced obedience to unjust laws has been avenged by a terrible Nemesis. On the evening of August, 1833, Lord Suffield, in a speech in the House of Lords, made the following portentous statement : — " I hold in my hand a list of five hundred and fifty-five perjured verdicts, delivered at the Old Bailey, in fifteen years, for the single offence of stealing from dwelling-houses ; the value stolen being, in these cases, sworn above forty shillings [the legal capital offence], but the verdicts returned being to the value of thirty-nine shillings only. If required, I will produce the name of every one of the five hundred and fifty-five convicts, and show the value proved to have been stolen." My Lord, I do not scruple to say that I honour tbe humane jurors who gave these " perjured verdicts" far more highly than I do the legislators who could enact, or the judges who could administer and defend, laws which violated the first principles of natural justice, and from the atrocious cruelty of which nothing but perjury could save their victims. Let me give a few examples. In the year 1777 a young woman, named Mary Jones, was hanged at Tyburn under the following circumstances. " She was very young (under nine teen), and remarkably handsome. She went into a linen-draper's shop in Ludgate Street, took some I.J Lawlessness Caused by Unjust Laws. 5 coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak. The shopman saw her, and she laid it down. For this she teas hanged. Her defence was, ' that she had lived in credit, and wanted for nothing, till the press-gang came and stole her husband from her; but since then she had no bed to lie on, nothing to give her children to eat, and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might have done something wrong ; for she scarcely knew what she did.' Tlu parish officer testified to the truth of this story." It was a plea in bar of judgment sufficient, one should have thought, to move the stoniest heart. An enlightened legislature having legalised the forcible kidnapping of the husband of this young girl, it might be supposed that the ministers of justice would view leniently an attempt on her part to pilfer a piece of " coarse linen," in order to cover the nakedness of her starving children. But no. She was "lawless," and the majesty of the law must be vindicated. And so Mary Jones was hanged ! " When brought to receive sentence she behaved in such a frantic manner as proved her mind to be in a desponding and distracted state ; and the child was sucking at her breast when she set out for Tyburn."* Well might Sir William Meredith exclaim, in calling the attention of the House of Commons to this case : " I do not believe that a fouler murder * See " The People's Blue Book," Second Edition, p. 519. 6 Lawlessness Caused by Unjust Laivs. [letter was ever committed against law than the murder of this woman by law." In the year 1814 a man called Edward Polio was hanged at Chelmsford for cutting down a young cherry-tree in a neighbouring plantation. The pre siding judge was Mr. Justice Heath, who, in passing sentence, declared solemnly, that "a man who would cut down a young cherry-tree would take away a man's life." An appeal for mercy was made to George the Fourth, then Prince Regent ; but he regarded the " lawlessness " of Edward Polio as clearly established, and the law was accordingly allowed to take its course and stifle its victim. A Recorder of London, soon afterwards, preached a homily on this incident, and declared it to be the determination of the Prince Regent to make a stern example of any who should dare to steal from a shop or from the person; and he supplied the moral of his homily by the condemnation to death of a child ten years old for stealing a pocket-handkerchief. By the Act 9th George I., it was declared that any one disguised and in possession of a weapon, " appearing in any warren or place where hares or conies have been, or shall be usually kept, and being thereof duly convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy." But your Lordship is, perhaps, mentally wondering what all this has to do with the purpose of this letter. It has a great deal to do with it, I venture i.J Lawlessness Caused by Unjust Laws. 7 to think ; for I am endeavouring to discover, by an inductive process, what some distinguished members of the House of Lords mean by the word " lawless ness." The first man who made a serious attempt to repeal the atrocious laws to which I have referred was Sir Samuel Romilly. He began modestly with a Bill to repeal the statute of William, which made a theft in a shop to the amount of five shillings punishable with death. The Bill passed the Commons, and was defeated in the House of Lords by a ma jority of twenty, including all the lawyers in the House, with one Archbishop and six Bishops ! " I trust," said Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough in the debate on the subject, " your Lordships will pause before you assent to a measure pregnant with danger to the security of property. The learned judges are unanimously agreed that the expediency of justice and the public security require there should not be a remission of capital punishment in this part of the criminal law. My Lords, if we suffer this Bill to pass we shall not know where to stand, — we shall not know whether we are on our heads or on our feet. My Lords, I think this, above all others, is a law on which so much of the security of man kind depends in its execution, that I should deem myself neglectful of my duty to the public if I failed to let the law take its course." If such a Bill were suffered to take its place on the Statute Book, said Lord Wynford, another law 8 Lawlessness Caused by Unjust Laws, [letter peer, "the people of England could not sleep in safety in their beds." And so, my Lord, within the memory of men still living a humane proposal to save boys and girls of the tender age of ten from the gallows, for the crime of "lawlessness" up to the value of five shillings, was defeated repeatedly by the combined opposition of the Episcopal and law members of the House of Lords. I do not suppose that the leading bishops and lawyers of that day, any more than the leading bishops and lawyers of our own, were less humane than other men. But it is the natural tendency of close attention to any single pursuit, or to any habitual mode of life, to exaggerate the importance of its requirements relatively to other duties. A man who has spent his life in the study and administration of the law is naturally more impressed by breaches of the law than by considerations of extenuating cir cumstances ; and one accustomed to rule is similarly tempted to fix his attention too exclusively on out ward disobedience. But the juries who were sworn to administer the laws of the land under the old cruel penal code were under no such bias, and their sense of natural justice constrained them to defeat the very laws which they had sworn to enforce. They were "lawless," my Lord, in strictness of speech. But it was their profound respect for eternal justice that made them disobedient to the obligations of positive enactments which violated the first principles of morality. And it is to their "lawlessness" we i-J Instances of Lawlessness. 9 owe the purification of our Statute Book. The correction or abrogation of bad laws has, in fact, generally been brought about by men who, " for the sake of justice," have been brave enough to incur the risk and odium of " lawlessness." To .say, then, that disobedience to the mere letter of a law does not always and necessarily prove a lawless temper is to express a simple truism. It all depends on the circumstances of each particular case. A northern Dean lately denounced the doctrine of Absolution from the pulpit of his Cathedral, and declared that nothing would induce him to obey the plain rubrics of the Prayer Book on that subject. Numbers of clergymen have not only denounced the Athanasian Creed as heterodox and immoral, but have publicly declared that they will on no account obey the rubric which positively enjoins its use. Conduct like this, my Lord, is not only lawless in fact, but indicates a distinctly lawless temper. There is no pretence here that the law is of doubtful interpretation, or is in conflict with other laws, or is imposed by an authority not acknowledged as bind ing on the conscience. The law is admitted to be capable of only one interpretation, it reposes on the united authority of ecclesiastical sanction and Parlia mentary statute, and it has never become obsolete. It would be hard to produce clearer evidence of " lawlessness" in act and disposition. And yet I should be sorry to see these lawless persons prosecuted, as they may be under the Public Wor- 10 Instances of Lawlessness. [letter ship Regulation Bill, by any three nominal English Churchmen, not one of whom need live within a thousand miles of the place in which the alleged offence is committed. Surely, my Lord, these cases of "lawlessness" stand on a different footing altogether from that of those who do not conform in their practice to some of the rulings of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. Let us take the most unpopular view of the conduct of these latter, namely, that which represents them as disregarding those decisions because they emanate from a tribunal whose authority, in matters ecclesiastical, they feel themselves conscientiously obliged to disown. Grant that they are in error as to the matter of fact ; still they do not proclaim them selves "lawless," that is, independent of all authority ; on the contrary, their very objection to a particular Court on the ground of defective jurisdiction implies a willing submission to a Court not tainted with such defect. This is very different from saying : " The law is very plain, and I acknowledge the validity of its source. Nevertheless I refuse to obey, simply because I dislike it." The former plea is perfectly consistent with the utmost submission to law as such : the latter is simply subversive of the essential idea of allegiance, for it repudiates all external authority whatsoever and takes refuge in self-will. But many object to the ecclesiastical decisions of the Judicial Committee on other grounds than that of defective jurisdiction. For myself, I do not I.] Jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee Defined. 11 see how any religious community can emancipate itself from the control of the Civil Courts in matters which involve temporal rights. It is not a question of establishment or non-establishment, as was clearly proved by the Saurin and O'Keefie Cases, where we saw the decisions of the highest ecclesias tical authorities in the Roman Communion over hauled and reviewed by the civil tribunals. As a clergyman of the Church of England, I have no objection to the Civil Courts sitting in judgment on the legal interpretation of certain documents, pro vided they restrict themselves rigorously to their legal functions ; and provided also the Church shall have liberty to amend the law whenever its legal interpretation appears to differ from her real intention. In the Gorham case the Court laid down the follow ing specific rules for its own guidance : — " It is not for the Court to decide whether opinions are theologically sound or unsound, but whether such opinions are contrary or repugnant to the doctrines which the Church of England, by its Articles, Formularies, and Rubrics requires to be held by its Ministers. "The Court will apply to the construction of the Articles and Liturgy the same rules which have been long established, and are by Law ap plicable to the construction of all written instru ments, assisted only by the consideration of such rational or historical facts as may be necessary for the understanding of tne subject-matter to 12 It has no Jurisdiction in Matters of Faith, [letter which the instruments relate, and the meaning of the words employed. " In all cases in which the Articles, considered as a test admit of different interpretations : Held, that any sense of which the words fairly admit may be allowed, if that sense be not contradictory to some thing which the Church has elsewhere allowed or required ; and if there be any doctrine on which the Articles are silent or ambiguously expressed, so as to be capable of two meanings: Held, that it was intended to leave that doctrine to private judgment, unless the Rubrics and Formularies clearly and dis tinctly decide it. . i . . "The Court has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England ; its duty extends only to the consideration of that which is by Law established to be the doc trine of the Church of England, upon the true and legal construction of the Articles and Formularies." Again : " This Court, constituted for the purpose of advising Her Majesty in matters which come within its competency, has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England. Its duty extends only to the considera tion of that which is by Law established to be the doctrine of the Church of England, upon the true and legal consideration of her Articles and Formu laries ; and we consider that it is not the duty of I.] The Gorham Case. 13 any Court to be minute and rigid in cases of this sort. We agree with Sir William Scott in the opinion which he expressed in Stone's Case, in the Consistory Court of London, — ' That if any Article is really a subject of dubious interpretation, it would be highly improper that this Court, should fix on one mean ing, and prosecute all those ivho hold a contrary opinion regarding its interpretation.' "* Admirable rules ! How far the Court adhered to them may be shown by a few examples out of many. The Court, in Mr. Gorham's case, affirmed of him that, " he explicitly and expressly denied that he either held, or persisted in holding, that infants are not made in Baptism, ' members of Christ and the children of God.' " What Mr. Gorham really did hold is given in his own language as follows, in the late Bishop of Exeter's Pastoral Letter (p. 13) : — " As infants are by nature unworthy recipients, being bom in sin and the children of wrath, they cannot receive any benefit from Baptism, except there shall have been a prevenient act of grace to make them worthy." "This statement," adds Bishop Philpotts, "when his attention was specially called to it, in order that, if he thought fit, he might correct it, he solemnly re affirmed." And he goes on to quote the following sentence from Mr. Gorham's Answers : — "That filial state" (meaning adoption to be the sons of God), " though clearly to be ascribed to God, * Brooke's " Privy Council Judgments," pp. 1, 2, 35. 14 The Gorham Case. [letter was given to the worthy recipient before Baptism, and not in Baptism." But I am not concerned to reconcile Mr. Gorham's doctrine with the representation of it given in the judgment of the Judicial Committee. Both are equally repugnant to the plain grammar of the "Articles, Formularies, and Rubrics," to the con struction of which the Court professed its in tention of applying "the same rules which have been long established, and are by law applicable to the construction of all written instruments." The doctrine, whether it be Mr. Gorham's or not, which the Court affirmed to be in harmony with the language of the Baptismal Office, is as follows: — That children in general are really regenerated, but that this can never be affirmed of any child in par ticular, because it is impossible to know what child in particular may chance to present an obstacle to the admission of that "prevenient grace" which Mr. Gorham declared a conditio sine qua non of Baptismal grace. The Court quite admitted that in Baptism "our Lord Jesus Christ grants" to children in general "that thing which by nature they cannot Have;" only it is impossible to say as much of " this present infant." It allowed that infants in general, " coming to His Holy Baptism, may receive remis sion of sins by spiritual regeneration :" only to some infants unknown, and possibly therefore to "this present infant," original sin, of which the infant is simply unconscious, offers a fatal obstacle to God's i.J Original Sin and the Theory of Evolution. 15 remedial grace. It is not denied that in Baptism some infants are "regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church;" but we can never be cer tain that this is true of any infant in particular. It is a cruel and repulsive doctrine. I can under stand a man declaring his opinion jauntily, like Lord Palmerston, that all men are born equally good, there being no such thing as original sin ;* and I can under- * Lord Palmerston's opinion is not more opposed to the Bible than it is to the latest and, as it seems to me, best accredited speculation of physical science as to the genesis of man : I mean the theory of Evolution. That theory asserts the trans mission from ancestral acts to remote generations of mental and moral, as well as physical, qualities. For myself, I see no objection theologically to the theory of Evolution rightly understood. The accepted doctrine in theology as to the origin of individual men is that of Creationism, which traces each separate soul to a distinct act of immediate Divine creation, leaving the genesis of the human body to the physiological laws which regulate the processes of natural generation. I am quite content to leave the discussion of these laws to physiologists. Lot Mr. Darwin prove the descent of my material frame from tho Ascidians, and I shall accept as a fact what is now only an unproved hypothesis, without the smallest perturbation of my faith in any of the Articles of the Christian faith. " I cannot for a moment admit that the theory of Evolution will alter our theological views. That theory embraces several laws or uni formities which are observed to be true in the production of living forms ; but these laws do not detcrmino tho sizo and figure of living creatures, any more than the law of gravitation determines the magnitudes and distances of the planets. Sup pose that Darwin is correct in saying that man is descended from the Ascidians ; yet the precise form of the human body 16 Original Sin and the Theory of Evolution, [letter stand a man believing that we are all born into the world under the blighted influence of some abo- must have been influenced by an infinite train of circumstances affecting the reproduction, growth, and health of the whole chain of intermediate beings." Organized beings, even in then- lowest forms, are separated by an impassable gulf from the products of physical agents. The latter are always and every where on our planet the same ; the former " are everywhere different, and have differed in all ages ;" and therefore " between two such series of phenomena there can be no casual or genetic connection." " Living forms, as we now regard them, are essentially variable. Now from constant mechanical causes constant effects would ensue. If the original life-germ of each creature is a simple particle of protoplasm, unendowed with any distinctive fqrces, then the whole of the complex phenomena of animal and vegetable life are effects without causes. Proto plasm may be chemically the same substance, and the germ-cell of a man and of a fish may be apparently the same, so far as the microscope can decide ; but if certain cells produce men and others as uniformly produce a given species of fish, there must be a hidden constitution determining the extremely different results. If this were not so, the generation of every living creature from the uniform germ would have to be re garded as a distinct act of arbitrary creation." — " The Prin ciples of Science," vol. ii. pp. 461-463. By Professor Jevons. " Essay on Classification," p. 75. By the late lamented Professor Agassiz. I do not see how any Evolutionist can escape from the dilemma suggested above. Either the primordial life-cell was endowed by a presiding Creative Mind with the capacity of developing an endless variety of products; or each separate product is " a distinct act of arbitrary creation." Otherwise we must resign ourselves to the contemplation of " effects without causes." I.] Gorham Judgment v. the Prayer Book. 17 riginal calamity, and that God has provided a remedy available alike, and without respect of persons, to all who come within reach of it. But that God should have ordained Baptism for the remission of sins, and yet that only those infants should receive the gift to whom He had previously granted " prevenient grace," — this appears to me a doctrine as dishonour ing to Almighty God as it is abhorrent to the moral sense of man. But let that pass. What I am now concerned to show is not the objectionable character of the doc trine shielded by the Judicial Committee, but its flat contradiction to the language of the Prayer Book. The Court admitted the gift of regene ration to baptized infants in the abstract, but denied its certainty to every baptized infant in the concrete. Now the Baptismal Office speaks in the concrete throughout. It predicates regeneration, absolutely and certainly, of " this infant," " this present infant." In plain language, my Lord, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in order to save the Evangelical party, solemnly and deliberately declared that black was white.* "Those words" (of the Baptismal Office), says an unexceptionable witness, Lord Macaulay, "to all minds not sophisticated appear * And yet I do not see in what way the Evangelical party, as such, could have been affected one way or the other by the Gorham Judgment. For Mr. Gorham's doc trine, as I understand it, is not the doctrine of the Evan gelical party. 18 Blunders of Judicial Committee [letter to assert the regenerating virtue of the Sacra ment."* In the case of Liddell v. Westerton the judgment of the Judicial Committee declares that, "At the date of the First Prayer Book of Edward VL, the doctrine of the English Church as to the Real Presence and the nature of the Holy Communion was undecided; the Book therefore enjoined no change in the form of the Altar, but spoke of the rite itself as the Lord's Supper, commonly called the High Mass, and of the structure indifferently by the names of the Altar and the Lord's Table. It contains a prayer for the consecration of the sacred elements, in which the sign of the Cross is to be used. The bread is to be unleavened and round as it was aforetime. The corporas, the paten, the chalice, the vestments, are all articles directed to be used in the Roman Catholic Ritual, and spoken of by those names in the Missal. But by the time when the Second Book was introduced a great change had taken place in the opinion of the English Church, and the consequence was that, on the re vision of the Service, these several matters were completely altered ; the use of a surplice was sub stituted for the several vestments previously enjoined; the prayer for consecration of the elements ivas omitted, though in the present Prayer Book it is restored ; the bread and wine delivered to the communicants were no longer described as the Body and Blood of * "History of England," vol. iii. p. 473. !•] in Liddell v. Westerton. 19 Christ, as was the case in the First Prayer Book; the Table was no longer spoken of as the Altar, but as the Lord's Table, or as God's Board ; and the Table is to have at the time of the Communion a fair white linen cloth upon it, and is to stand in the body of the Church, or in the Chancel, where morn ing and evening prayer are appointed to be said. And it is declared by the Rubric that, ' to take away the superstition which any person hath, or might have, in the bread and wine, it shall suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten at the table with other meals,* but the best and purest wheaten bread that conveniently may be gotten. And if any of the bread and wine remain, the curate shall have it to his own use.' "f I have quoted this passage at length as a fair illustration of the sort of scholarship which has usually presided over the ecclesiastical deliberations of the Judicial Committee. And I do not hesitate to say that an examining chaplain who did his duty would refuse to pass a candidate for Holy Orders who displayed such gross ignorance of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, and of Liturgiology generally, as is here displayed in a judgment which English Churchmen, who do know something of these things, are expected to treat with unquestion ing reverence and awe. * Their Lordships did not take the trouble to be even verbally correct. The word in the original is not meals but meats. -!¦ Brooke's " Privy Council Judgments," pp. 68, 69. c2 20 Blunders of Judicial Committee [letter The judgment is evidently a piece of patchwork. Such portions of it as deal with strictly legal construc tion are luminous and masterly, as indeed became the reputation of such men as Lords Cranworth and Wensleydale, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Sir John Pat terson, and Sir W. H. Maule. But I suppose the law members of the Court left their episcopal colleagues to deal with the theology and ecclesiastical history of the case. Anyhow these portions of the judgment revel in ignorant assumptions. Let me mark a few of them. The First Prayer Book of Edward VL, says the Judgment, "spoke of the rite itself as the Lord's Supper, commonly called the High Mass." The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. did nothing of the kind. It spoke of " the Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." The compilers of the First Prayer Book, whatever else we may think of them, were certainly theologians, and possessed a competent knowledge of theological and liturgical language. The Holy Communion never was, and never is, " commonly called the High Mass," and to make such an assertion is to betray an ignorance of the whole subject so complete as utterly to discredit the authority of the person who is guilty of it, or the Court which sanctions the blunder. In itself it is a small matter. But in theology and ecclesiastical history, just as in classical scholarship, or in the naval or military profession, a man's total unacquaintance with the subject is tested !•] in Liddell v. Westerton. 21 by his ignorance of some unimportant detail, much more than by an error on a larger scale. But it is not only in matters of unimportant details that the judgment in the Case of Liddell v. Westerton goes astray. Its blunders in matters of the gravest import are equally extraordinary. "The prayer for consecration of the elements," says the Court, " was omitted, though in the present Prayer Book it is restored." The Court — I presume under the instruction of its episcopal assessors — actually thought that the prayer of consecration was omitted in the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. , and only restored at the last revision in 1661 ! This marvellous specimen of their Lordships' knowledge of the subject on which they were gravely adjudicating was im mediately and mercilessly exposed in the public press ; and so, in the authorised Report of the Judgment, the blunder is amended as follows: — " Material alterations were introduced in the prayer of consecration." Nota word of regret or acknow ledgment that their Lordships had been misled into a gross error of fact. But my objection to. the passage which I have quoted from the Judgment does not rest on points of mere detail, important or unimportant; I object to the whole argument which that passage was adduced to support, because it isfounded on allegations which are historically untrue. It is not true that " at the date of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. the doctrine of the English Church as to the Real 22 Appeal of Reformers to Antiquity. [letter Presence and the nature of the Holy Communion was undecided." And still less true is it to affirm that "by the time when the Second Prayer Book was introduced a great change had taken place in the opinion of the English Church" on the subject of the Holy Eucharist. Appeals are sometimes made to "the principles of the Reformation" by persons who, it seems to me, either know exceedingly little about "the principles of the Reformation," or only value them so far as an ad captandum reference to them may help to raise an unfair prejudice against a theological opponent. If there was one principle of the Reformation which was asserted, and dwelt upon, and reiterated in every variety of form, it was the solemn asseveration that, in casting off the accumulated corruptions of ages, the Church of England had no intention at all to separate herself from Catholic antiquity, or even from the existing Churches of Christendom, except on those points in which they had departed from the standard, whether of doctrine or ritual, of the undivided Church of Christ.* And, in matter of fact, the * See the declaration of the 80th Canon of 1604 that " So far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like Churches, in all things which they held and practised, that, as the Apology of the Church of England con fessed, it doth with reverence retain those Ceremonies which do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men : and only departed from them in those particular points, wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their 1-3 Testimonies in favour of Prayer Book of 1549. 23' Act of Parliament which ratified the Second Book of King Edward negatives absolutely their Lord ships' positive and unhesitating assertion that the substitution of the Second Prayer Book for the First proved that " a great change had taken place in the opinion of the English Church." The Act states distinctly that there was nothing in the First Book but what was " agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation, and most agreeable to the state of this Realm;" and secondly, "that such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise thereof proceeded rather from the curiosity of the minister and mis- takers than from any other cause." The first Act of Uniformity of Edward, moreover, affirmed of the First Book that, "by the aid of the Holy Ghost it was with one uniform agreement concluded." Arch bishop Cranmer bears a similar testimony. " The manner of the Holy Communion," he says, "which is now" (in the First Prayer Book) "set forth within this realm is agreeable with the institution of Christ, with S. Paul, and the old primitive Apostolic Church, and with the right faith of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross."* ancient integrity, and from the Apostolic Churches which were their first Founders." * "Defence of the Catholic Doctrine ofthe Sacrament." Bk. v. chap. 18. See Bulley's " Variations of the Communion and Baptismal Offices," p. 9. 24 Origin of Second Prayer Book. [letter The Protector Somerset also wrote to Cardinal Pole that there was " a common agreement of all the chief learned men of the Realm " in favour of " the form and rite of service " prescribed by the First Book.* These strong testimonials in favour of the First Book, on the part of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the day, do not appear to me to bear out the allegation of the Judicial Committee that " at the date of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. , the doctrine of the English Church as to the Real Presence and the nature of the Holy Com munion was undecided." The truth is that the Second Prayer Book owed its existence, not to any change of opinion on the part of the English Church, but to the accidental influence then exercised on English legislation by " a revolutionary and aggressive party," to quote your Lordship's language in the House of Lords a few days ago ; a party which, besides being " revolutionary and aggressive," was alien from the English Church in language, nationality, doctrine, sympathies, and respect for law. At the head of that party was a triumvirate consisting of Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer (placed by the Protector in the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge respectively), and John a Lasco, a Polish refugee, who for a time enjoyed the hospitality of Cranmer, and then started a conventicle * See " State Papers " quoted in Annotated Book of Common Prayer," p. xxx. I.] " The Whip with Six Thongs.*' 25 in London. The loyalty of these foreigners to the principles of the English Reformation and to the authority of the Church, into whose high places they were thrust by Somerset, is illustrated by the fact that during the whole period of his residence in the university as Regius Professor and Canon of Christ Church Martyr obstinately refused to wear the surplice. Those meddlesome foreigners received the support of a few native Churchmen, who were more unrea sonable and intolerant than themselves, but whose unreasonableness had an excuse which cannot be pleaded on behalf of Bucer and his confederates. Henry VIII., as is well known, had conceived a thorough detestation of the doctrines of the foreign Reformers, and had himself broken a lance with Luther. Being determined to exclude these doc trines from England, he had an Act framed, in the year 1539, "for abolishing of diversity of opinions in certain articles concerning religion." This Act consisted of six articles, in favour of transubstantia- tion in its grossest form, communion in one kind, celibacy of the clergy, vows of chastity, private masses, and compulsory auricular confession. The Act further decreed that offenders against the doc trine of transubstantiation should be burnt, with forfeiture of their goods, as in cases of high treason ; while offenders against any of the other five articles should suffer and forfeit as in cases of felony. It is worthy of remark that this draconic instrument for 26 Pnfluence of Foreign Reformers. [letter putting down unpopular opinions encountered no serious opposition from the lay members of the legisla ture in either House of Parliament. But several of the Bishops opposed it strenuously. Cranmer, with that facility of conviction in the direction of self- interest which ever distinguished him, separated himself from his brethren, and supported the Bill through all its stages. Having undergone some slight amendment in the House of Commons, the Act received the Royal Assent on June 24, 1539, and was popularly known under the sobriquet of "the whip with six strings." It was repealed on the accession of Edward VI. , and the attempt of the Commons to revive it in the reign of Mary was defeated by the Bishops in the House of Lords. The effect of this atrocious Act was to banish to the Continent a number of zealous Churchmen, who, partly by the force of the recoil, and partly by their association with the Swiss Reformers during their exile, were driven to the opposite extreme, and re turned to England in the xeign of Edward, bent on overthrowing the constitution of the Church and reconstructing it in all respects on the model of the democratic religious bodies with which they had become familiarised abroad. In this enterprise the foreign Reformers proved powerful auxiliaries. Two of the most active of them, as already stated, had been placed in the first chairs of theology in the kingdom; and Calvin, in addition, plied Edward assiduously with letters in support of the schemes of i.J Second Prayer Book not approved by Convocation. 27 the revolutionary party. His recommendations were backed up by some influential persons at Court, who probably calculated that a reformation on the Swiss pattern would be certain to relieve the Church' of much property, which nobody could use so profitably as themselves. The mind of the pedantic boy who occupied the throne of the Tudors was completely turned by the artful flatteries of these men. He was persuaded to regard himself as a second good Josiah, whose name would be. blessed by future generations as a great Reformer.* But the Bishops set their faces against the revolutionary proposals suggested to them, and the King, finding himself balked in that quarter, told Sir John Cheke that when Parlia ment met he should effect his purpose by the exercise of his Royal authority.f This threat he appears to have executed — at least partially. There is no re cord of the Second Prayer Book of Edward having ever been submitted to Convocation. Cardwell sur mises that " the Convocation was induced to delegate its authority to a commission appointed by the King ;"$ but of this there is no proof in the records of Convocation. * Strype's " Memorials of Cranmer," vol. ii. p. 9. ¦\ " Hoc non me parum recreat quod mihi D. Checus indi> cavit : si noluerint ipsi [episcopi] ait, efficere ut quas mutanda sint mutentur, rex per seipsum id faciet ; et cum ad parlia- mentum ventum fuerit ipse suaa Majestatis authoritatem in- terponet."— See Peter Martyr's Letter to Bucer, in Strype's " Memorials of Cranmer," vol. ii; p. 663. % The " Two Liturgies of King Edward VL," p. xviih 28 Cranmer and Second Prayer-Book. [letter Crammer, as usual, seems to have played a double game. He solicited the criticism of Bucer and Martyr on the First Book, and professed, according to their own accounts, to pay much deference to their opinions. There is some evidence also, I think, that he endeavoured unsuccessfully to per suade Convocation to fall in with the King's wishes. His real opinion, however, as to the aims and cha racter of the new Reformers, may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to the King's Council, in reply to a Royal mandate that he should peruse and report upon the Second Prayer Book. One sentence will suffice : — "I know your Lordship's wisdom to be such as that I trust ye will not be moved with these glorious and unquiet spirits which can like nothing but that is after their oiun fancy ; and cease not to make trouble when things be most quiet and in good order. Pf such men should be heard, although the Book were made every year anew, yet it should not lack faults in their opinion."* This is a pregnant comment on the declaration of the Act of Parliament which ratified the Second Book, that " such doubts as had been raised in the use and exercise" of the First Book proceeded rather from "the curiosity of the Ministers and mistakers than from any other worthy cause." The Act of Uniformity which sanctioned the Second Book, and which was passed on April 6th, 1552, enjoined that the new Book was to come into * " State Papers, Domestic." Edward VI. xv., 15. I.] General Adoption of Second Book doubtful. 29 use on the 1st of the ensuing November. The copies of the Book which were printed in the in terval, however, were so full of errors, that — partly for this reason, and partly, as it seems, because the King was anxious to have the Book revised still further in theinterest of the Puritans — an Order in Council was issued on the 27th of September condemning them, and forbidding the issue of any more. On the 6th day of the following July the boy-king, who had been ailing for some months previously, died ; and his Second Book of Common Prayer died with him. It seems tolerably clear that its adoption was very irregular and partial, and of questionable legality.* Its use would have been illegal before the Feast of All Saints, 1552. But all the copies printed up to the end of September in that year had been suppressed by the Order in Council already referred to. There is not a frag ment of proof, that I know of, to show that any other edition had been printed in the meantime, and there is a very strong probability the other way. It was pretty evident before the end of 1552 that * See Letter of George Withers to the Prince Elector Pala tine (Zurich Letters, Second Series, pp. 159, 160.) Speaking of the suppressed edition of the Second Prayer Book he says :— "But the King, who truly feared God, not being yet satisfied with these improvements, was about to put the last finish to this work, and appointed a day for the assembling of both Houses of Parliament. All were full of hope and expectation ; but in the meantime our most excellent King was taken away by an untimely death." 30 General Adoption of Second Book doubtful, [letter the King was dying, and the perilous uncertainty as to the succession filled the minds of those in authority with apprehensions which were not likely to leave much room for deliberations about the new Prayer Book. The King himself too, knowing that his ill ness was incurable, had to think of other matters than the disputatious letters of Calvin and the flat teries of self-seeking courtiers. The Duke of Nor thumberland, who after the death of the Protector really ruled the kingdom, was bent on securing the sceptre for his daughter-in-law, the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, and had actually persuaded the King to appoint her his successor by Letters Patent. The partisans of Mary were equally resolute on the other side ; and in the prospect of a struggle which pro mised to be as desolating as the Wars of the Roses, the small knot* of Puritanical Reformers and their nostrums were forgotten. So much for the " great change " which their Lordships of the Judicial Committee have assured us " had taken place in the opinion of the English Church " in the period between the introduction of * " There is crept and brought into the Church, by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses than wisdom would, and delighting in singularities and changes, in open- and manifest disorder and offence to the godly, wise, and obedient persons by diversity of opinion, and especially in the external, decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in the Churches. So as except the same should be speedily withstanded, stayed, and reformed, the inconvenience thereof were like to grow from place to place, as it were by an infection" Strype's Parker. Append, xxiv. 66. i.J Second Book no proof of Doctrinal Change. 31 the First Book of Edward and "the time when the Second Prayer Book was introduced." This "great change" during the period in question is a pure imagination ; and the argument built upon the Second Prayer Book falls to the ground when we consider the circumstances to which it owed its existence, and the brief period during which its irregular, if not strictly illegal, use prevailed in the dioceses of such Bishops as approved of it. And upon this erroneous assumption the Court built an elaborate argument which necessarily vanishes with the mythical foundation on which it rests. There was no change of opinion, the Second Prayer Book did not receive the sanction of Convocation, and it never came into common use. But even if their Lordships' fictions were facts, they ought in fairness to have gone on to add that the next edition of the Prayer Book on Queen Elizabeth's accession expunged the " material altera tions" made in the Second Book of Edward, and reversed others. If the omission of the order to use wafer-bread in the celebration of the Holy Com munion proved " a great change " in a Puritanical direction, surely any other logic than that of the Privy Council would teach us that the restoration of wafer-bread by the Injunctions of Elizabeth indicated an equally " great change " in a Catholic direction. It is not my intention to criticise seriatim all the inaccuracies, mutual contradictions, and unfairness of the ecclesiastical decisions of the Judicial Committee, 32 Omission ruled to be Prohibition. [letter for that would compel me to make this letter so long that it would be quite unreasonable to ask your Lordship to read it even in good type. I confine myself to the endeavour of proving that objections may be urged and sustained of such kind as not only to vitiate the judgments in question in the court of conscience but, in addition, to make obedience to them all round simply impossible. I shall, therefore, proceed with some more examples. The Court decided, in Martin v. Mackonbchie, that omission is prohibition ; in other words, that which the law does not command it forbids. Now I appeal to your Lordship whether this is not in contradiction to one of the fundamental principles of English law. It is indeed in literal agreement with Greek law, which was founded on the maxim stated by Aris totle :* Qum lex nonjubet vetat. But our law rests on the Roman, of which the maxim was : Qua lex non jubet permittit.f But not only is their Lordships' ruling, as I take it, inconsistent with one of the cardinal principles of the law of the land, but it involves consequences which give it, in fact, a practical refutation. " The *" A Be fir) iceXevei [6 v6fj,oi\ aircvyopevei. Eth. Bk. v. ch. 11. \ Cum apud Grcecos leges non juris tantum, sed virtutis causa ferrentur, legibus preecepta continebantur quibus magis trates edicebant quas fieri vellent. Apud nos autem, stricto jure inter Eomanos jam orto, lex nihil jubet, sed quaa fieri nolit, edicit, ita ut contraria Aristoteli jam nunc obtineat regula : quce lex non jubet permittit." Michelet, " Commentar. ad Aristot- Ethic. Nicom," p. 195. !•] Omission ruled to be Prohibition. 33 Prayer Book in the Preface," they say, "divides all ceremonies into these two classes : those which are retained are specified, whereas none are abolished especially, or by name ; but it is assumed that all are abolished which are not expressly retained."* Further on their Lordships profess to be guided by the rules laid down by the same Court in the Case of Liddell v, Westerton — which, by the way, then Lord ships both here and in the Purchas Case persist in calling erroneously " the case of Westerton v. LiddelV'f In that Case their Lordships were " not prepared to hold that the use of all articles not expressly men tioned in the Rubrics, although quite consistent with, and even subsidiary to, the service is forbidden." And they mention "organs," "pews, cushions to kneel upon, pulpit-cloths, hassocks, seats by the Communion Table,"]; as falling under the shelter of this defini tion. The Judges in the Mackonochie Case quote this part of their predecessors' judgment quite accurately, and add : " In these conclusions and in this construc tion of the Rubric their Lordships entirely concur, and they go far, in their Lordships' opinion, to decide this part of the case." And then, having thus clearly and accurately laid out their ground of argument and established their premisses, they come to the extraordinary conclusion that lights at the celebration * Brooke's " Privy Council Judgments," p. 125. t Ibid. pp. 124-127. t Ibid. p. 74. D 34 Omission ruled to be Prohibition. [letter of the Holy Communion " are clearly " forbidden by the Ornaments Rubric, because " they are not sub sidiary to the service, for they do not aid or facilitate, much less are they necessary to the Service." Now the "construction of the Rubric," in which their Lordships professed to " entirely concur," and which they quoted correctly, admitted the legitimacy of " articles which are consistent with, and even subsidiary to, the Services." What right had their Lordships to disregard the words which I have printed in italics I I could have understood their ignoring the case of Liddell v. Westerton altogether. But to refer to it pointedly and repeatedly by way of precedent, to quote its construction of the Rubric accurately, to declare their intention of abiding strictly by that construction, and then to decide in utter violation of one of its saving clauses ! Surely, my Lord, this is very strange. If they had adhered to their premisses, what they had to consider was not merely whether " lighted candles " are "subsidiary to the service," but whether they are " consistent with " it. Yet they condemned them entirely on the former ground, and completely ignored the latter ! " The authorities cited, ' their Lordships admit, " show beyond all doubt the very ancient and general use in the Church of these symbolical lights," and their prescribed use in the Church of England in particular within a certain period after the Reformation. The evident inference, therefore, would seem to be that they be long to the category of "articles which are consistent !•] Omission ruled to be Prohibition. 35 with," if not "subsidiary to, the services." I have seen pews which, so far from being " subsidiary to the service," required a very wide latitude of con struction to make them even " consistent with " it. All parishioners have equally a right to a seat in their parish church, and a system which Usurps those rights by making the seats the private property of certain persons can hardly be considered " consistent with the service." And as to " cushions to kneel upon, pulpit-cloths, hassocks," I fancy that in many churches they would be considered as anything but " subsidiary to the service." So that the rule, in fact, remands the question to the common sense and requirements of different congregations; and I have little doubt that the Judicial Committee in the Case of Liddell v. Westerton would have thus dealt with what are called altar lights if the question had been before them. You will observe, my Lord, that I am not at present arguing either for or against the legality or advisability of altar lights on general grounds; I am merely pointing out some of the arbitrary and illogical reasons by which the Court in the Mackonochie case justified their condemnation. First they appeal to and discuss a previous ruling of the Court ; then they declare their "entire concurrence in this con struction," and give it as their opinion that it "goes far to decide this part of the case ;" and then they fling away one half of the rule which they had professed to follow, and condemn the defendant d2 36 Absurd Consequences. [letter under the other half! After this achievement it was natural enough and consistent that they should immediately revert to their old maxim, and add: "Nor can a separate and independent ornament previously in use be said to be consistent with a Rubric which is silent as to it, and which, by necessary implication, abolishes ivhat it does not retain," As if, forsooth, this were not as fatal to organs, credence-tables, "pulpit-cloths," and "cushions to kneel upon," as to lighted candles! But, in truth, my Lord, if we are to hold that " a Rubric which is silent as to" any article of clerical dress or ornament of the fabric "by necessary implication abolishes what it does not retain," we shall not only find ourselves landed in sundry absurd conclusions, but we shall, moreover, be running our heads against the stonewalls of historical facts ; and I venture to think that, in the long run, our heads will get the worst of it. The first Rubric of the Hereford Missal, for example, runs as follows : — " Ad introitum Missse postquam sacerdos induerit se amictum et album, stans ante altare incipiat Antiphonam."* Are we to infer from this that the chasuble was forbidden by the Hereford Use, and that the only legal vestments for the priest during the celebration of the Holy Communion were the amice and alb ] That is the inevitable conclusion from the maxim laid down by the Court in the Mackonochie * Maskell's " Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England," p. 3, I.] Absurd Consequences. 37 Case. But it is a conclusion directly in the teeth of historical facts. And the opening Rubric in the York Missal supplies a still more ludicrous illustration. " Quando presbyter lavat manus suas," says that Rubric, "ante Missam dicat hanc orationem."* Does omission mean prohibition here! If it does, we must conclude that in the diocese of York, before the Reformation, the celebrant wore no vestments at all, the only adornment imperative upon him by the Rubric being the washing of his hands. It would be easy, my Lord, to multiply instances of the extraordinary results which would necessarily follow from a strict adherence to the Rubrical law laid down in the Mackonochie Judgment ; but I shall conclude this part of my argument with one more illustration. In the case of Sheppard v. Bennett Dr. Stephens argued that the "Second Prayer Book . . . prohibited all manual acts in the Prayer of Consecration." This was rather too much for the Court, and gave rise to the following instructive interpellation : — "Lord Justice Mellish: Was there no direction to break the bread1? "Mr. Stephens: There was no direction. " Archbishop of York : Your argument would prove too much. "Lord Chancellor: There must, ex necessitate, here be some manual acts. * " Missale ad Usum insignis Ecclesire Eboracensis," i. 165. (Surtees Society's Publications.) 38 Historical Refutation. [letter "Mr. Stephens: My contention is, there were none; and your Lordships have already ruled that ' omission is prohibition.' " Archbishop op York : Then in 1552 the minister could not take the paten or the chalice in his hand 1 "Mr. Stephens: No." If the Mackonochie Judgment is good law, Dr. Stephens's argument is unanswerable, and the Arch bishop of York, who sat as one of the judges in that Court, ought to have known so. His Grace has written a book on logic, and it ought not therefore to be necessary to remind him that it is a fundamental rule in logic that a disputant cannot take as much of an argument as he pleases. He must take it with all its consequences, or he must just leave it alone. Dr. Stephens's argument is of course merely a reductio ad absurdum of Privy Council Law, and Mr. Grueber has furnished the following remarkable historical illustration of it : — " The case occurred a.d. 1573. It was heard before Queen Elizabeth's High Commissioners. The Com missioners were Dr. Sandys, Bishop of London ; the Lord Chief Justice; Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster; and others. The party accused was Robert Johnson, Chaplain to the Lord Keeper Bacon. The charge laid against him was the omitting " to repeat the Words of Institution " when in the Administration of the Sacrament more *•] Historical Refutation. 39 wine was required than had been previously con secrated. " It must be borne in mind that there was at that time no Rubric, as there is now, prescribing the form or manner of consecrating more Bread and Wine, when that which had been consecrated was ' all spent.' " Johnson's Defence was as follows : — ' I answer under protestation, that at no time in the cele brating of the Communion have I omitted any prayer or words of Institution whioh the order of the Book prescribeth, but have used them in as full and ample manner as they are appointed ; but sometimes upon occasion, when the wine failed, I sent for more, which I dehvered to the people with the words appointed in the Book to be said at the delivery of the Sacra ment, not again repeating the words of Institution, partly for that, it being one entire action and one Supper, the words of Institution spoken were sufficient, as I do take it ; and partly for that in the Book of Common Prayer there is no such order appointed, unto which in this case I do refer myself.' " What follows," Mr. Russell says, " is copied verbatim from Johnson's report of his trial, the spelling only being modernized : — ' The Bishop of London : The Consecration of the Sacra ment ; for, in that it had not the word, it was no Sacrament, and so the people were mocked. — Eobert Johnson : My Lord, I did not mock the people, for it was a Sacrament. — Dean of Westminster : — Saint Augustine saith, ' Accedat verbum ad elementum, et fit Sacramentum.' Now you lacked the word, therefore it was no Sacrament. —Eobert Johnson : I had the word. — Bishop of London : How had you the word, when you confess that you recited not the Institution 1 — Eobert Johnson : I had recited the Institution afore, and that was sufficient.— 40 Purchas Judgment. [letter Dean of Westminster : Yea, for that bread and wine that was present, but when you did send for more bread and wine you should have again rehearsed the words of Institution. — Eobert Johnson : The Book appointed no such order. — Bishop of London : Yes, sir, the Book sayeth you shall have there sufficient bread and wine, and then the prayer of Institution must be recited ; for as much as you had not sufficient, therefore you should have repeated the Institution. — Eobert Johnson : There is no such caveat nor proviso appointed in the Book. — Bishop of London : But what is the meaning of the Book? — Eobert Johnson : Men may make what meaning they list, but I refer myself to the Boole, whether it be so appointed or no.' "* It only remains to add that the Rev. Robert John son was found guilty, and imprisoned for pre maturely anticipating one of the many singular dicta of the Judical Committee of the Privy Council. Upon the whole, then, I humbly venture to think that a decision built upon a maxim which is a direct contradictory of one of the acknowledged canons of English law, and which leads to a reductio ad absurdum in addition, is not well calculated to command the respect and loyalty of law-loving subjects. And now, my Lord, I come to the fons et origo malorum — the notorious Purchas Judgment. Till that most unfortunate " outrage upon law, logic, and history," as I heard one of the most distinguished laymen of the day characterize it on the morrow of its delivery, the great majority even of the Ritualists submitted to the ruling of the previous judgments of the Judicial Committee. Altar lights and incense were generally discontinued even by those who * " Omission not Prohibition." By Rev. C. S. Grueber.pp. 81,82. !•] Protest against iL 4i thought the Judicial interpretation of the law bearing on these points an erroneous one. I verily believe that if matters had been allowed to rest there the progress of Ritualism would have been seriously checked. But when the excitement in the Mackonochie Case was beginning to calm down, out came that marvellous exhibition of everything which a judicial decision should not be. In short, my Lord, the Purchas Judgment was generally accepted, by friends and foes, as a declaration of war against the whole High Church party ; and it was imme diately met by a Protest, combining in one phalanx of opposition such names as the Dean of Chichester, Dean of Durham, Dean of St. Paul's, Dean of York, Mr. Golightly, Dr. Pusey, Dr. Liddon, Mr. Charles Kingsley, and the late Mr. Maurice. I saw moreover, at the time, a letter from one of our leading Evan gelical Bishops in which he said that he thought the Judgment so unfair and such a misconstruction of the Rubric, that he wrote at once to such of his clergy as he knew would be affected by it, to assure them that if they chose to disregard it he should not interfere with them. It was instinctively felt by all parties in the Church alike, except by the narrow clique of fanatics on whom the Bishop of Peterborough bestowed the sobriquet of "The Pro secution Company Limited," that a crisis had been reached, and that a firm stand must at last be made against the decisions, miscalled " lawful," of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was 42 Real Question at issue. [letter in no spirit of <* lawlessness," my Lord, that this attitude was assumed towards the Judicial Com mittee ; the combination of the representative names which I have mentioned is a guarantee against any such assumption. On the contrary, it was because men, to many of whom Ritualism was indifferent or even distasteful, were driven to the conclusion that the law had been misinterpreted, in order to put down an unpopular party, and that Justice must accord ingly be vindicated in this particular against the mistakes of her ministers. The character and mag nitude of these mistakes I shall now endeavour to place before your Lordship. And let me add, that the question which I am at present discussing is not whether Ritualism is a good or bad, a wise or an unwise thing in itself. Considerations of that sort are entirely irrelevant, and my argument would not be affected in the least if the practices in dispute were as detestable as those of the Indian Thugee. For I hold — what, indeed, is no more than a cardinal principle of English justice — that it is a thousand times better that the most atrocious crime that can be imagined should be acquitted according to law, than that it should be condemned contrary to the law. We have lately seen the usual course of Eng lish justice deranged, and the country put to enormous expense, in order to ensure a fair trial to a criminal whose guilt, after the preliminary trial, none but fools or knaves could controvert. I have seen the Purchas Judgment pooh-poohed as of no !•] Principiis obsta. 43 consequence one way or the other, because the matters sub judice belonged to the category of " the infinitely little." But this is a superficial fallacy. It is because men despise " the infinitely little," that errors are usually allowed to accumulate into a system. Neglect of the "infinitely little" produced the False Decretals, and the False Decretals have culminated in the portentous propositions of the "Syllabus " and the gigantic dogma of the Vatican. Hampden's resistance to ship-money was materially a very small matter — the question of only twenty shillings; and the law had declared against him. But in the womb of that controversy were struggling two antagonistic principles of civil government, the conflict of which deluged England with blood. The only safe rule in all such cases is : Principiis obsta. It is no small matter, in my humble judgment, that the laws of England should be administered in an impartial spirit, and with strict regard to historical truth. How far the Purchas Judgment fulfils these conditions shall now be shown. I am not, of course, going to enter upon anything like an exhaustive scrutiny of it. To test it in a few typical instances will sufficiently answer my purpose, and will enable me, at the same time, to make as little demand as possible on your Lordship's patience. Let us begin, then, with the question of the Eu* charistic Vestments. The battle-field of the dispute is of course the Ornaments Rubric, in the beginning of the 44 The Ornaments Rubric. [letter last Edition of the Prayer Book, and which runs as follows : — " And here is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth." I believe, my Lord, that a judge unimbued with ecclesiastical prejudices — let us say a Jew or a Parsee — but possessing a competent knowledge of the English language, and of the principles of Eng lish law, would have no difficulty whatever in inter preting this Rubric. It being conceded that the word "ornaments" includes the vestments of the clergy as well as the furniture of the fabric, he would set himself to discover what ornaments were actually in use " by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth," and he would conclude that whatever ornament was then legally in use in any of the religious offices of the Church- was by this Rubric prescribed anew. He would not trouble himself to examine any interme diate legislation, rightly believing that any such examination would simply be an irrelevant digres sion. He would assume that the authors of the Rubric were men of ordinary intelligence, who meant what they said. But, in any case, he would consider himself bound by the grammatical construction of the Rubric, which necessarily limited the scope of I.] Sir J. T. Coleridge on Purchas Judgment. 45 his inquiries to the definite period of time mentioned therein. He would refuse to be led astray by such ¦jrdpepya as the Advertisements of Elizabeth or the Canons of King James, feeling that the discussion of such topics would be as little ad rem as a dissertation on the Laws of the Twelve Tables, or on the Institu tions of Lycurgus. If, instead of dealing with home polemics, the Purchas Case had to do with some dispute about Hindoo or Mohammedan ritual, I have no sort of doubt that this is the view which their Lordships would have taken of their duties as judicial inter preters. Nor, my Lord, is this merely the opinion of persons of no repute like myself. It is the opinion of lawyers whose names carry as much weight at least as that of any of the distinguished persons who tried Mr. Purchas. Let one or two quotations suffice. " The Act of Uniformity [of which the Ornaments Rubric is a partj is to be construed," says Sir J. T. Coleridge, himself erewhile a distinguished ornament of the Judicial Committee, "by the same rules exactly as any Act passed in the last Session of Parliament. The Clause in question (by which I mean the Rubric in question) is perfectly un ambiguous in language, free from all difficulty as to construction ; it therefore lets in no argument as to intention other than that which the words themselves import. There might be a seeming difficulty in fact, because it might not be known 46 Sir J. T. Coleridge on Purchas Judgment, [letter what vestments were in use by authority of Parliament in the Second Year of King Edward VI. ; but this difficulty has been removed. It is conceded in the Report that the Vestments, the use of which is now condemned, were in use by authority of Parliament in that year. Having that fact, you are bound to construe the Rubric as if those Vestments were specifically named in it, instead of being only referred to. If an Act should be passed to-morrow that the uniform of the Guards should henceforth be such as was ordered for them by authority, and used by them in the 1st Geo. I., you would first ascertain what that uniform was; and, having ascertained it, you would not inquire into the changes which may have been made, many or few, with or without lawful authority, between the 1st Geo. I. and the new Act 1 All these that Act, specifying the certain date, would have made wholly immaterial. It would have seemed strange, I .suppose, if a commanding officer, disobeying the statute, had said in his defence — ' There have been many changes since the . reign of George I. ; and as to " retaining," we put a gloss on that, and thought it might mean only retaining to the Queen's use ; so we have put the uniforms safely in store.' But, I think, it would have seemed more strange to punish and mulct him severely if he had obeyed the law, and put no gloss on plain words."* I suppose the opinion of Mr. Justice James would * "Remarks on Report of Judicial Committee," pp. 7, 8. i.J Mr. Justice James on Purchas Judgment. 47 be considered at the Bar equal to that of any member of the Court in the case of Mr. Purchas ; and this is what he says : — "I have read the Case printed as a Case sub mitted on the part of the ' several Archbishops and Bishops' to Counsel, and the opinion of Counsel thereon; and, with the most unfeigned respect for the Counsel whose names appear as subscribing the opinion [your Lordship was one of them], I am really unable to bring my mind to entertain a doubt upon the subject" of the Ornaments Rubric. " I could easily understand the case and the reason of the opinion if the question were the converse of that which is the actual question to be determined ; viz., if the question were whether any proceedings could be successfully taken against clergymen not using the Ornaments which ' were in use in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. ' But the disuse, which may be suggested as an excuse in a penal proceeding for not strictly following a pre scribed rule, because it has become obsolete, does not seem to me to afford the slightest ground for imputing illegality to those who obey the very letter of the rule, and .decline to avail themselves of such excuse. To say,* as appears to me to have been said, that the words ' shall be retained and be in use ' did, in the Rubric at the time when the Rubric was made, mean ' there is only to be a retainer of things which, being then prescribed, have since been and continue to 48 Attempts to explain away [letter be in use at this day, and that the use of things then prescribed and now fallen into disuse is forbidden ' — seems to me to be a most unnatural interpretation, and the most violent implication. If they did not at the time mean so, of course no subsequent desue tude can make obedience to the prescribed rule now illegal. But if at the time they meant so, it cer tainly is a most singular form of expression, hot used by ignorant men, not used by a parlia- mentum indoctum, but used by learned theologians — men acquainted with and fully alive to all the controversies which had in the. interval disturbed the country and a large part of Christendom on this very subject."* So much as to the grammatical and logical — and I will presume to add the legal — meaning of the Orna ments Rubric. But since the Court, as I humbly venture to think, chose to travel out of the record, and to import into the argument matters which eminent lawyers consider extraneous to the case, it becomes necessary to follow it in this irrelevant digression. Their Lordships, finding it impossible to evade the plain meaning of the Rubric, had recourse to various expedients for explaining it away. And very re markable some of these expedients are. Referring to Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book which repealed the Rubric of the Second Book forbidding the Eu charistic Vestments, and to Elizabeth's Act of Uni- * First Report of Rit. Comm., pp. 155-6. I.J the Ornaments Rubric. 49 formity which brought back the ritual of the First Book of Edward, their Lordships say, — " It was not, apparently, thought desirable to effect an immediate outward change of ceremonies, although the adoption of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. , in lieu of the First, had effected a great change in the very substance of the Communion Service, with which the theory of the peculiar Vestments (the albe and chasuble) was closely connected." What " great change in the very substance of the Communion Service " did their Lordships mean ? Were they, too, under the impression that the Second Prayer Book abolished the Consecration Prayer! However that may be, the assertion that " the adop tion of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VL, in lieu of the first, had effected a great change" in the doctrinal attitude of the Church of England rests, as I have already shown, on no solid founda tion. "The Rubric and the proviso together," their Lordships go on to argue, "seem to restore for the pre sent the Ornaments of the Minister which the Second Prayer Book of King Edward had taken away." " Seem to restore !" my Lord. Is this the language of men bent upon " applying to the construction of the Articles and Liturgy the same rules which have been long established, and are by law applicable to the construction of all written instruments :"* Or is it the language of men who are determined to find * Gorham Judgment, Brooke's Report, p. 1. 50 Testimony of Archbishop Sandys, [letter arguments to support a foregone conclusion1? But let us proceed with the quotation: — "But Sandys, afterwards Archbishop of York, who assisted at the revision of the Prayer Book, gives to Archbishop Parker a different suggestion. ' Our gloss upon this text,' he says, ' is that we shall not be forced to use them (the Ornaments) but that others in the meantime shall not convey them away, but that they shall remain for the Queen.' " Now, assuming the validity of Bishop Sandys's gloss, what is the plain inference 1 Surely that, in the opinion of Sandys and the Puritans for whom he spoke, "the Rubric and the proviso together" not only " seemed to restore," but actually did restore, the legality of the Vestments abolished by the Se cond Prayer Book ; the only question being whether the Puritans " should be forced to use them ;" or whether, on the contrary, the "other order" pro mised by the Act of Uniformity should sanction, for their benefit, the use of a lower type of ritual. In other words, the "gloss" of Bishop Sandys proves that the contemporaneous interpretation put by the Puritans on the Rubric of Elizabeth's Prayer Book and on the twenty-fifth clause [some mysterious fatality seems to lurk in twenty-fifth clauses] of the Act of Uniformity was, that they legalised the Eucharistic Vestments as a maximum of ritual, but promised a minimum by way of relaxation to the Puritans, who meanwhile should "not be forced to use them." That is to say, Sandys proves the contradictory of I, J Eucharistic Vestments to "remain for the Queen." 51 the conclusion in support of which their Lordships quoted him. You will observe further, my Lord, that the Eucharistic Vestments were not to be destroyed, were not to be "conveyed away;" in the opinion even of the Puritans of the day, they were to "remain for the Queen." A most incomprehensible provision if it was intended to abolish them alto gether. What on earth was the Queen to do with them1? Was she to convert them into dresses for herself or for her courtiers % Did she purpose to replenish her exchequer by a public sale of them 1 Their Lordships should really have offered some explanation, or at least hazarded some conjecture on this point. But since they have failed to do so, I must take the liberty of suggesting what appears to me to be the common-sense view of the matter. "As the reformation of abuses in religion," says Strype, " went forward under such a King [Edward VL] and such an Archbishop [Cranmer], so there wanted not for evils accompanying it, as there do commonly the best things ; the profaneness of some, and the covetousness of others, giving occasion thereunto." And he quotes from a proclamation put forth by the King, in which it was said that these profane and covetous persons were "making the same [churches], which were properly appointed to God's service and common- prayer, like a stable or common inn, or rather a den or sink of all un- christiness." " Besides the profanation of churches," 52 The Reason Why. [letter Strype goes on to say, " there prevailed now another evil, relating also to churches, viz., that the utensils and ornaments of these sacred places were spoiled, embezzled, and made away, partly by the church wardens and partly by other parishioners."* This was in the year 1548, that is, even before the First Prayer Book of Edward was put forth, and while the pre-Reformation ritual remained in all re spects intact. It is easy to understand how these disorders would be aggravated on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and how necessary it was to pre vent the embezzlement of Eucharistic Vestments and other goods. But why should strict inventories be made of these things'? And why should they "remain for the Queen1?" Not for her own personal use un questionably: but in order that there should be a legal record of them, and that they should "be retained" till better times, even in those churches in which it was not intended, according to the gloss of Sandys, to " enforce their use." This is clearly the meaning of the XLVIIth of Queen Elizabeth's In junctions : " That the churchwardens of every parish shall deliver unto our visitors the inventories of vestments, copes, and other ornaments . . . apper taining to the church." They were not to be re moved from the church, but to be " retained " there, and the churchwardens were made responsible for their safe custody. * " Mem. of Cranmer," vol. ii. p. 89. I.) Judicial Committee on Elizabeth's Advertisements. 53 But, their Lordships argue, the Act of Uni formity of Elizabeth, which " seemed to restore for the present" the Eucharistic Vestments, did so, at all events, only " until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's Majesty." That "other order" appeared when the Advertisements of 1564 were published ; and these Advertisements "make order for the Vesture of the Minister in these words — ' In the ministration of the Holy Communion in Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches the principal Minister shall wear a cope, with Gospeler and Epistoler agreeably, and at all other prayers to be said at the Communion Table to use no copes but surplices.' " ' That any Minister saying any public prayers or ministering the Sacraments or other rites of the Church shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves, to be provided at the charge of the parish.' "* In their Lordships' judgment, therefore, the Advertisements made the cope in Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches and the surplice in all other Churches the only permissible Vestments in all religious services. And they attempt to support this opinion by such arguments as the following :— " These Advertisements were very actively enforced within a few years of their publication." And what they mean by enforced is " that the chasubles, or vestments, and the albs, were systematically defaced, destroyed, or put to other uses." To prove this * " Brooke's Report," p. 169. 54 Archbishop Grindal' s Visitation Articles [letter they quote from the Visitation Articles of Archbishop Grindal and Archbishop Parker. I shall deal with Archbishop Parker presently. Meanwhile let us see what Grindal's inquiries prove, if they are to be accepted as evidence in settling the intention of the Advertisements. He inquired "whether all vestments, albs, stoles, phanons, pixes, paxes, hand-bells, sacring-bells, censers, crismatories, crosses, candle-sticks, holy water, stocks,* images, and such other reliques and monuments of super stition and idolatrie be utterly defaced, broken, and destroyed." I make this quotation from the Purchas Judgment, and I solicit your Lordship's particular attention to its importance. It proves too much, or it proves nothing at all. For if we are to conclude that all things which happened to be destroyed under the Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth are now illegal, or that at least as many of them are illegal as were destroyed by the authority of those " Archbishops and Bishops" who were charged to put the Ad vertisements in force, it follows that crosses and candlesticks are now illegal. But crosses and candle sticks have been declared legal by previous decisions of this very same Court. Nor can their Lordships urge here what I must really call the wretched plea * I quote this verbatim from the Report ofthe Purchas Judg ment. But if I had the original to refer to I have no doubt that, instead of " holy water, stocks," I should find " holy water stoups." l.J Prove too much. hb by which they endeavoured to evade the inter pretation of the Ornaments Rubric by the Court of Appeal fin Liddell v. Westerton, viz., " that this question of the Vestments was not before the Court." The question of the cross and candlesticks was before the Court, and they were ruled to be legal under the Ornaments Rubric, the Advertisements of Elizabeth notwithstanding. If therefore the Eucharistic Vest. ments are illegal because "the chasuble, alb, and tunicle, wer^ swept away with severe exactness,"* under the operation of Queen Elizabeth's Ad vertisements, the cross and candles must be illegal for the same reason. Their Lordships have thus placed themselves in a dilemma, and I leave them to impale themselves on whichever horn of it they may consider most compatible with their dignity. Either the Eucharistic Vestments are not condemned by the Advertisements of Elizabeth ; or the decision of the Judicial Committee in favour of the legality of crosses is bad in law. I might add embroidered altar cloths, which were declared legal by the Judicial Committee in Liddell v. Westerton, but which were also " swept away with severe exactness in the time of Queen Elizabeth." I really think, my Lord, that I might stop here, for I have destroyed the keystone of the arch on which the Purchas Judgment reposes. But the admirers of that Judgment are like the Russian soldiers of whom Napoleon said, that " it was not * Purchas Judgment. " Brooke's Report," p. 182. 56 Intention of the Advertisements [letter enough to kill them ; you must knock them down." So I proceed with my criticism. Not only is their Lordships' inference against the Vestments from the Advertisements of Elizabeth exploded by the fact of its proving too much, but it is positively inconsistent with the facts of the case. Cardwell studied this question with a thoroughness to which of course the Judges in the Purchas Case can make no pretension, and this is his deliberate verdict on the meaning of the Rubric of 1559 and the Advertisements of 1564: — "But the Rubric of 1559, that restored* the Ornaments and Vestments of the second year of King Edward, was extremely galling to the exiles, and would probably have prevented the greater number of them from becoming Ministers of the Church, had not the Act of Uniformity furnished them with a plea for complying. It had been enacted that the Queen, with the advice of her Commissioners or the Metropolitan, might make such changes in the Rubrics as might after wards be found requisite. The Reformers there fore were not without some reason for hoping that their brethren who might be advanced to high stations in the Church would maintain their present spirit of moderation, and exercise a salu tary influence on the future proceedings of the * He knew too much of the subject, and understood English grammar better than to affirm, with their Lordships, that the Rubric "seemed to restore." *•] according to Dr. Cardwell. 57 Court.* But the clauses in question, however available for such purposes, were probably intro duced with very different designs. It appears that they were added to the Bill at the express direction of the Queen, and were intended to assist her in carrying forward the high views of doctrine and authority which she was known to entertain." f It appears, therefore, on the high authority of Dr. Cardwell, that the intention of the Advertisements was to insist on the use of the surplice as a minimum, and to pave the way for the gradual introduction of the Vestments, which were to " be retained" in all Churches meanwhile. And this is the only con clusion which will suit the facts. Can we really believe that so astute a person as Queen Ehzabeth, aided by those sagacious counsellors, on whose co operation in the matter Sir W. Vernon Harcourt discoursed the other evening in his vapid de clamation, J would wantonly have "restored the Ornaments and Vestments of the second year of King Edward" merely for the purpose of declaring, in the Act of Uniformity which sanctioned them, that they were to be presently repealed by some " other order1?" I take the liberty of suggesting that the Queen and her advisers — notwithstanding the * He quotes in a note the passage from the letter of Sandys which has been commented on above. -(¦ Cardwell's " Conferences," pp. 36, 87. I Speech on Second Reading of Public Worship Regulation Bill, July 9th. 58 Cui bono the Advertisements ? [letter superior knowledge of history, of which Sir William Harcourt claims a monopoly, and notwithstanding the decision of the Purchas Judgment — were neither drivelling idiots nor petulant mischief-makers. And either of these they must have been if they had deliberately revived vestments in 1559, not with the intention that they should be used, but, on the con trary, that they should befinally abolishedinl564, after they had stirred up all the Puritan blood in the land to fever heat meanwhile. History has its doctrine of probabilities as well as mathematical science, and a theory which violates all the probabilities of the case may be dismissed at once without further con sideration. There was a valuable maxim in the Roman law, which is applicable to this point, and which, by the way, is usually misinterpreted in common parlance. When a Roman judge wished to find a clue to the intention of an act, he asked Cui bono? to whose advantage1? who would benefit by it? Test my interpretation of Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity and Advertisements and that of the Judicial Committee by this maxim. Who would benefit by their interpretation? Nobody in the world. It would breed mischief all round, without an atom of compensating advantage. According to my theory, on the other hand, Queen Elizabeth had a definite purpose, and expected to reap a definite ad vantage. The stringent enforcement of the surplice on all would help to curb the unbridled anarchy ofthe Puritan party; while the re-enactment of the vest- I-J They were aimed at Puritanism. 59 ments, and the clause enjoining their retention, even where it would not be prudent under the circum stances to enforce their use, would leave a door open for their assumption wherever it might be possible. We are apt to think that the Puritanical disorders of that time were something of the same kind as the rubrical irregularities of our own day. This is quite an error. It was the rule of the Puritans, in the early part of Elizabeth's reign, to use no vestments of any sort, but to perform all their religious minis trations in their ordinary dress. This explains why such a point was made by those in authority of insisting on the surplice. Cardwell, speaking of Archbishop Parker's Articles of Visitation in 1567 — three years, that is, after the publication of the Advertisements — says : " The Articles themselves, although intended primarily for the diocese of Nor wich, were strictly applicable to the general condi tion of the Church, and afford evidence of the following facts connected with the progress of its history ; that Puritanism and not Popery was now the opponent to be dreaded ; that the contest with Puritanism was now no longer respecting forms and ceremonies, but principles and doctrines ; that opinions were inculcated adverse to good morals and destructive to Church authority ; and lastly, that the disorders existing in the Church had seriously affected the duties owing to the State."* * Doc. Ann. i. 838. The Bishop of Norwich, to whom these Artioles were addressed, was John Parkhurst, and the following 60 Advertisements could not repeal Rubric. [letter To argue that because, in such a condition of things, the authorities in Church and State did not attempt the impossible task of enforcing the full measure of lawful ritual, and contented themselves with a minimum, therefore the maximum became ipso facto unlawful, is surely a singular specimen of historical logic. The Rubric of 1559, which re- enacted the ritual of the First Book of Edward, and which had the force of a Parliamentary Statute, remained intact ; and we are calmly asked by a Court of Final Appeal in England, in the year of grace 1871, to believe that this statutory enactment, still retaining its place in the Prayer Book, was repealed by certain Episcopal admonitions which insisted on the enforcement of part of it; these admonitions, moreover, being themselves entirely without force of law ! Really, my Lord, to ask reasonable beings to accept a dictum like this, even on the august authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, is extract from a letter of his to Bullinger will show what manner of man he was, and to what a length the iconoclastic fury of the Puritans could go : — " After I had written this, lo I good news was brought me, namely, that the crucifix and candlesticks in the Queen's Chapel are broken in pieces, and, as some one has brought me word, reduced to ashes. A good riddance of such a cross as that I" — Zurich Letters ; First Series; p. 122. If Puritanism could break into the Queen's private chapel and commit outrages like this, is it so very certain that the vest ments and crosses, which " were swept away with severe exaotness in the time of Queen Ehzabeth," were swept away by authority of her Advertisements ? l.J Advertisements had no legal force. 61 to ask them to abdicate their reason altogether and take refuge in credulity. It might be argued with just as much reason that because the Advertisements ordered that, " If the parson be able, he shall preach in his own person every three months,"* therefore it was unlawful to preach oftener. Or because he was commanded to "read daily at the least one chapter of the Old Testament, and another of the New,"f therefore he was forbidden to obey, if he chose, the Rubric which plainly commands the read ing of two chapters daily from each Testament. I presume that no lawyer would dispute my asser tion that the Advertisements of Elizabeth had no force in law — at least before the Canons of 1603, if then. But since this Letter will probably find its way into the hands of men who are not lawyers, it may be well to refer to one or two authorities. Mr. Stephens writes of them thus :— " Which other order (at least in the way prescribed in this Act) was never made ; and therefore, legally, the Ornaments of Ministers in performing Divine Service are the same now as they were in the 2nd of Edward VI."J Dr. Burn saya : « Which other order as to this matter was never taken."§ "Which other order," says Bishop Gibson, "(at least in the method prescribed by this Act) was never yet made ; and therefore legally the Ornaments of Ministers in performing Divine Service * Cardwell Doc. Ann., i. 325. t Cardwell i. 331. Collier Eccl. Hist. vi. 391. X Eccl. Stat. i. 870. § Eccl. Law, iii. 437. 62 But were directed [letter are the same now as they were in 2nd Edward VI."* And Secretary Cecil, whose testimony on this point may be considered decisive, declared in writing at the time of their publication that the Advertisements had no legal authority. He described them as " Ordinances ac corded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, etc., in his Province." And he adds emphatically; " these were not authorised nor published."-}- Lastly, Collier tells us that "the Queen, as was observed, refused to confirm these ' Advertisements,' though drawn at her direction." J And he adds that "the 'Advertisements' were checked at present by the interposing of the Earl of Leicester, of Knolles, and some other Court patrons of the Dissenters." This clearly shows, what indeed is indisputable from other sources, that the Advertisements were aimed exclusively at defects in ritual. Let one contemporary witness suffice. George Withers, in a long letter to the Prince Elector Pala tine, gives a sketch of the English Reformation down to the issuing of the Advertisements. On the acces sion of Elizabeth, he says, "the second form of prayers, which Edward left behind him at his death, was restored to the Church. But the ceremonies which, as was above stated, were retained in the Church at the first Reformation of Edward, are re stored under the same name. Power, moreover, was * Codex, Vol. I., p. 297. t Strype's Life of Parker, p. 158. " Published " is used by Cecil in a technical sense, meaning legally published. | Eccl. Hist. vi. 891, 392. l.J against defects in Ritual. 63 given to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever additional ceremonies they might think proper ; and they immediately afterwards both dis continued the ordinary bread heretofore used in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and for the sake of a newer reformation adopted the round wafer, after the manner of that used by the Papists."* George Withers was one of the chief Puritan leaders of the time, and his testimony is therefore valuable, as showing the sense in which the Puritans under stood the Advertisements. They knew, in fact, that they were aimed at them ; and that, so far from in tending to curtail or repress the Ritual of the First Prayer Book in any way, the authors of the Adver tisements wished to bring about its gradual re-intro duction. And this is Collier's view of the matter. "The application" of the Puritan party, he says, for toleration in their nonconformity to the Rubric of 1559 (which re-;imposed the Ritual of the First Prayer Book) was "well received by the Earl of Leicester," and " was not without its effect : for now the Queen seemed not unwilling to relax in the discipline of the Church, and come towards an in dulgence for the Dissenters. But the Bishops, receiving no countermand to their former directions, drew up several Articles, entitled ' Advertisements.' They were first styled ' Ordinances 'f accorded by * Zurich Letters, Second Series, p. 161. f This is the name by which they are mentioned by Cecil. See p. 62, 64 Were the Eucharistic Vestments [letter the Archbishop of Canterbury, etc., in his Province.' But the Queen's zeal growing cool, and refusing to enforce the book [i.e., the Advertisements] with the authority of the Privy Council, — for this reason, I say, — it is probable the title was altered from ' Or dinances ' to ' Advertisements.' " It seems evident then, first, that the Advertise ments had no legal authority, and therefore could neither repeal nor modify the Rubric of 1559, which had the force of a Parliamentary Statute ; secondly, that the Queen refused to give legal sanction to the Advertisements because, under the influence of Leicester, she did not wish the Rubric to be enforced too rigidly against the Puritans. She left the Bishops therefore to enforce, by means of the Advertisements, as much of the Ritual of the First Prayer Book of Edward as they could. I can hardly conceive the possibility of any unprejudiced person, who has mastered the facts, arriving at any other conclusion, But it is very hard to overthrow deep-seated pre judices, and I must crave your Lordship's patience therefore while I support my view of the matter with a few more proofs. The argument of the Judicial Committee, which I am at present engaged in refuting, is this : — The Ad vertisements, they contend, were meant to impose the surplice as the exclusive clerical vestment in all religious services, except in cathedrals and collegiate churches, where the cope was prescribed on certain occasions; and the Visitation Articles of the time l.J abolished in fact by the Advertisements ? 65 show that, under the legitimate operation of the Ad vertisements, " the chasuble, albe and tunicle were swept away with severe exactness." I have already proved to demonstration, as I believe, that the Ad vertisements were not issued with any such intention, and that the argument of their Lordships cannot be accepted without manifest absurdity. But is it true that the legitimate effect of the Advertisements was, in matter of fact, to destroy the Eucharistic Vest ments "with severe exactness V I say " legitimate effect," for that the Ornaments of the Church and of the minister were ruthlessly and indiscriminately destroyed in many churches is only too true. But if the Advertisements had been intended to suppress the vestments summarily, it is hardly possible that they would have been used openly and commonly some years after the publication of the Advertise ments. That they were so used is, I think, capable of proof, as I shall now endeavour to'show. Among the Zurich Letters is a long one from Jerome Zanchius to Queen Elizabeth, remonstrating against what he considers the Popish enactments of her reign, and especially against " the restoration of the Popish Vestments."* But, argue the Judges in the Purchas Judgment, by " Popish Vestments " the Puritans of that day meant the surplice. And there is some plausibility in this argument. It is quite true that in the Puritan tirades against " Popish Vestments " the surplice is almost always the only * Zurich Letters, Second Series, p. 339. F 66 The Eucharistic Vestments in use [letter vestment specifically objected to. In this very letter of Zanchius he says, — "The dispute itself teaches us that they [Puritans] are disturbed beyond measure by the order about wearing the linen surplice. For their complaints are so vehement that their querulous lamentations and groans penetrate into and are heard even in Germany." The cope also is occasionally mentioned by name. Now what is the proper inference from this 1 My inference is that the Vestments generally were allowed even after the Advertisements ; but that the surplice in particular was so furiously attacked by the Puritans because its use was made compulsory, while the other vestments remained optional in practice, though statutably binding. The letter of Zanchius, from which I have just quoted a passage against the surplice, says on a previous page : " The most holy and consecrated vestments of the clergy are now resumed." Now the Eucharistic Vestments — that is, the chasuble, albe and tunicle — were always consecrated ; the surplice, as such, was not. There fore the reference here cannot be to the surplice, and must be to the Eucharistic Vestments. And this conclusion is rendered still more certain, if that be possible, by some other expressions used by Zanchius. "What else is it then," he says, "to re-introduce at this time those filthy vest ments and the other rubbish of the Popish Church into the Church of Christ than to afford an op portunity to the Papists, and that a most excellent I.] after tlie Advertisements. 67 one, of confirming themselves and their people in then superstitions ; and indeed to lend them, as it were, assistance towards this very object?" Else where he calls the vestments "the habits of the ungodly mass-priests," " the ridiculous and execrable garments of the ungodly mass-priests," "the sacer dotal vestments.*" The facts disclosed in this letter, therefore, are as follows : — 1. At the period when it was written, " the most holy and consecrated vestments of the clergy" had been "resumed." But this description is not applicable to the surplice, and is applicable to the Eucharistic Vestments. 2. These vestments had been "re-introduced." But the surplice had never been abolished; on the contrary, it was prescribed as the " only" garment in the Second Prayer Book of Edward. Therefore it is not the surplice that is meant, but some vestments which had been abolished. 3. The surplice cannot be meant by " the habits of the ungodly mass-priests;" "the ridiculous and execrable garments of the ungodly mass- priests." For the Mass was never celebrated in a surplice, but almost invariably in the chasuble, etc., especially when the celebrant was a priest, as distinct from bishop; and the mass-priests were priests simply, not bishops, f2 68 The Eucharistic Vestments in use [letter But perhaps I may be told that the phraseology of Zanchius, though not applicable to the surplice, is applicable to the cope, which was prescribed for the office of the Holy Communion in cathedrals and collegiate churches. The reply to such an objection is, that Zanchius speaks of the vestments of the Mass specifically, which the cope is not, and the chasuble is. According to the English pre-Reformation ritual the chasuble was the only priestly vestment which priests could not use except in the Mass. It was therefore, as Zanchius calls it, a peculiarly "sacer dotal vestment." And this opinion is confirmed by Neal, who says that the Queen "was desirous to retain . . . all the old Popish garments," and that, "in short, the service performed in the Queen's Chapel and in sundry cathedrals was so splendid and showy, that foreigners could not distinguish it from the Roman, except that it ivas performed in the English tongue."* We are not, however, left to mere inference in the matter, irresistible as that inference is. There is proof positive and demonstrative that not only the cope and surplice but the chasuble also survived the Elizabethan Advertisements. In a letter from Beza to Bullinger, dated " Geneva, September 3rd, 1566," he vents his anger against the religious condition of England in the following strain :—" What must we say when not only the Papists are left in possession of the revenues of their benefices, but even of their * " Hist, of Puritans," Edition of 1793, i. pp, 129, 144, I#J after ihe Advertisements. 69 ecclesiastical offices, upon merely taking an oath to maintain the Reformation ; so that godly brethren are for the most part placed under the authority, and compelled to submit to the jurisdiction of those who are in general both unlearned and in their hearts the most bitter enemies of true religion V Here is one proof among many which might be adduced that the great body of the clergy, in dioceses not governed by fanatical Puritans, went on quietly as they had done Under Mary; using the English Prayer Book, but retaining the old ritual observances. This is made tolerably clear by another passage in Beza's letter. He complains bitterly that of the " very few teachers of the pure Gospel some are turned out of their offices, and others even thrust into prison, unless they will swear that they will so inviolably approve all these things as not to impugn them by word or writing ; and will resemble also the priests of Baal in their square caps, bands, surplices, hoods, and other things of the like kind."* I have followed the English translation of the Parker Society's edition. But if your Lordship will look at the original Latin you will find that the word rendered " hoods " by the Parker Society edition is "casulis," that is, " chasubles." Here, then, we find indisputable evidence that chasubles were in use two years after the publication of the Advertisements which are supposed to have abolished and swept them away. Does not this one fact show how unsafe it is * Zurich Letters, Second Series, p 180. 70 The Eucharistic Vestments in use [letter to infer the disuse of a thing because it may be diffi cult to produce positive evidence of its use after an interval of three centuries? The burden of proof surely rests on those who, in defiance of all probability and ofthe plainest facts, assume that Queen Elizabeth, whose policy it was to conciliate the clergy in posses sion, was so reckless as to violently revolutionise the ceremonial of Divine Service in every parish in England. It would require strong evidence indeed to prove that she made any such attempt. But the evidence is, in fact, all the other way In a letter of Thomas Lever to Bullinger, in 1560, he says: "The same order of public prayer, and of other ceremonies in the Church, which existed under Edward the Sixth, is now restored among us by the authority of the Queen and Parliament." And then he adds : " there are prescribed to the clergy some ornaments, such as the mass-priests had and still retain. A great number of the clergy, all of whom had heretofore laid them aside, are now resuming similar habits, and wear them, as they say, for the sake of obedience." It is quite clear from this pas sage that the writer was not thinking of the clergy of cathedral and collegiate churches, but of the clergy generally. And, in fact, he places the matter beyond a doubt by the three sentences which follow my quotation : " There are, indeed, but few of us who hold such garments in the same abhorrence as the soldier mentioned by Tertullian did the crown. But we are not ignorant what occasion the Pa* !•] after the Advertisements. 71 pists will take from thence as a cause of stum bling to^ the weak. For the prebendaries in the cathedrals, and the priests in the other churches, re taining the outward habits and inward feeling of Popery, so fascinate the ears and eyes of the mul titude, that they are unable to believe but that either the Popish doctrine is still retained, or at least that it will shortly be restored."* This affords demonstrative proof that "the out ward habits ... of Popery," "such as the mass- priests formerly had and still retain," were restored under Elizabeth in ordinary parish churches, as well as in cathedrals and collegiate churches. And the conclusion is inevitable, that " the most holy and consecrated vestments," of which Zanchius com plains in his letter to Queen Elizabeth, were the Eucharistic Vestments, properly so called. Now, when was the letter of Zanchius written 1 It is dated " Sept, 10, 1571 ;" that is, seven years and seven months after the issuing of Queen Elizabeth's Advertisements. And now, my Lord, what becomes of the confident assertion made in the Purchas Judg ment, that " there is abundant evidence, that, within a few years after the Advertisements were issued, the vestments used in the Mass entirely disap peared1?'^ Really, my Lord, it is hard to speak with patience of some passages in this extraordinary Judgment. * Zurich Letters, First Series, pp. 84, 85. f Brooke'8 Reports, p. 170. 72 Church Ornaments destroyed, [letter Take the following : " Their Lordships think that the defacing and destroying, and converting to pro fane and other uses of all the vestments now in question, as described in the Lincoln MS., published by Mr. Peacock, show a determination to remove utterly these ornaments, and not to leave them to be used hereafter when higher Ritual might become possible."* Undoubtedly this vandalism " shows a determina tion to remove utterly these ornaments ;" but a determination on the part of whom1? On the part of Queen Elizabeth and the Bishops charged with enforcing the Advertisements ? Why, it was but a few pages before that their Lordships had quoted with approbation the opinion of Sandys, that the Queen's intention with respect to the ornaments was, " that others in the meantime shall not convey them away, but that they shall remain for the Queen." And Queen Elizabeth fulfilled this intention, in their Lordship's opinion, by having these ornaments " de faced and destroyed, and converted to profane and other uses ! !" How is it possible to treat respect fully the decisions of a Court which commits itself to statements like this? Despite, however, the sur prising ignorance of the whole subject which every page of the Judgment betrays, still the ordinary instincts of common sense ought to have saved the judges from the folly of supposing that the indis criminate destruction of church ornaments took place * Brooke's Reports, pp. 177, 178. !«J but not by Legal Authority. 73 by the authority of Queen Elizabeth. How it really did take place is related in the following passage from a letter of George Withers, already quoted: " Then on the expulsion of the Popish bishops new ones were to be appointed in their room ; and most of these were of the number of those who had been exiles. These at first began to oppose the ceremo nies ; but afterwards, when there was no hope other wise of obtaining a bishoprick, they yielded, and, as one of them openly acknowledged, undertook the office against their conscience. In the meanwhile they comforted their brethren, whom they perceived to be still struggling against these things, by pro mising them free liberty in the government of their churches ; and for some years they kept their promise. On the obtaining of which liberty they diligently purified their churches from all the blemishes and defilements of Popery. Others, who had at first yielded, incited by their example, began to reform the churches in like manner. But when the bishops perceived that the numbers and influence of these parties was increasing among the people, they thought their dignity would come to nought unless they compelled the inferior clergy to adopt the same usages as they did themselves. They took up the matter, therefore, at the Queen's command." This is too plain to require any ingenious Privy Council theories to interpret it. In those dioceses, which were presided over by the zealots who returned from exile, the destruction of Church monuments 74 Misquotation by Judicial Committee, [letter went on in such a wholesale manner that the Queen, when it came to her ears, interposed to put a stop to it. But in the dioceses which were under the management of more prudent Bishops that state of things prevailed which extorted the remonstrance of Zanchius to Elizabeth. But the Court was not satisfied with grossly misrepresenting — not intentionally, I am sure — the Advertisements of Elizabeth ; it flagrantly mis quoted them in one important particular. "They think that in prescribing the surplice only the Ad vertisements meant what they said, the surplice only."* But the Advertisements do not say anything of the kind. The adverb " only" is an interpolation of their Lordships, and it alters essentially the meaning of the original, which is as follows: — " That every minister saying any public prayers, ir ministering of the Sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves, to be provided at the charges of the parish."*!* ^7 Lord, this is simply scandalous. I do not, of course, accuse the Court of wilfully garbling its authorities. But I do seriously ac cuse it of having been so set on condemning Mr. Purchas that it adopted with careless avidity and with scant examination anything that promised to help it to the end it had in view. And carelessness of this sort in a Court of Justice, * " Brooke's Reports," p. 178. t CardweU's " Doo. Ann.," i. p. 826. h] A Minimum and Maximum of Ritual. 75 and in a Court of Final Appeal especially, is a crime. One other point I must notice, and then I think we may take our leave of Queen Elizabeth's Advertisements. " Their Lordships remark further that the doctrine of a minimum of Ritual represented by the surplice, with a maximum represented by a return to the mediaeval* vestments, is inconsistent with the fact that the Rubric is a positive order, under a penal statute, accepted by each clergyman in a remarkably strong expression of 'assent and consent,' and capable of being enforced with severe penalties. It is not to be assumed, without proof, that such a statute was framed, so as to leave a choice between contrary interpretations, in a question that had ever been regarded as momentous." This looks plausible; but solviturambulando. The fol lowing Rubric occurs in the Prayer Books of 1559 and 1604, and is substantially repeated in that of 1662: "The Table and Calendar expressing the Order * Why " mediaeval ?" The Eucharistic Vestments are just as much or just as little medieval as the surplice. They existed centuries before the period bounded by the Middle Ages ; and they exist now not only in the Church of Rome, but in all the Churches of the East, and in the Lutheran Communion. Their Lordships seem to think that these vestments were a supersti tious invention of the Middle Ages. Or, perhaps, they meant nothing at all except to give, according to the proverb, " a bad name " to something which they had made up their minds to get rid of. 76 A Minimum and Maximum of Ritual, [letter of the Psalms and Lessons, to be said at morning and evening prayer throughout the year, except certain proper feasts, as the rules following more plainly declare." "The rules following" enjoin the reading daily of two chapters from the Old Testament and two from the New. Yet concurrently with this Rubric the Advertisements sanctioned a minimum which fell short of it in the express permission granted to the parochial and other clergy to "read daily at the least one chapter of the Old Testa ment, and another of the New." It is not, there fore, as their Lordships allege, "assumed, without proof, that such a statute was framed so as to leave a choice between contrary interpretations." There is positive proof against their Lordships' argu ment, and it is inexcusable in them not to have known it. " If the minister is to wear a surplice at all times of his ministration," their Lordships continue, "he cannot wear an alb and tunicle when assisting at the Holy Communion ; if he is to celebrate the Holy Communion in a chasuble, he cannot celebrate in a surplice." Good :* but the argument is as fatal to the black gown in the pulpit as to the chasuble at the * I make their Lordships a present of their assumption for the sake of argument. But, in matter of fact, the assumption is purely gratuitous. "Surplice" and "Alb" are but two names for one and the same vestment, which the Priest was not only permitted, but required, to wear under the Chasuble at the celebration of the Holy Communion. l.J Another Misquotation by the Court, 77 altar. Yet the black gown has maintained for itself a continuity of usage in the pulpit, the "severe penalties" of "a penal statute" notwithstanding. The cope, on the other hand, has not been used in some cathedrals and collegiate churches for two centuries. How often must I remind their Lord ships that they cannot take as much of an argu ment as they please; that logic is an exacting mistress, whose behests, like those of Vivien in the "Idylls of the King," must be obeyed, "not at all or all in all." But the plain truth is, my Lord, if I must speak my mind plainly, the argument of the Court on this part of the case is nothing but superficial trifling with historical facts. The Advertisements were aimed at the Rubrical irregularities of the Puritans, and at nothing else. And here I must notice another specimen of the habitual inaccuracy which pervades the Purchas judgment. "If the minister is ordered," say their Lordships, " to wear a surplice at all times of his ministration " he cannot wear any other Vestment at the celebration of the Holy Com munion. This order is contained in the famous Ornaments Rubric ; and in that Rubric there is absolutely nothing about the surplice ; on the contrary, Ministers are therein ordered to use " at all times of their ministration " the vestments prescribed by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. That is the standing statutable order of the Church of England. The Advertisements, on the other hand, which were 78 Purchas Judgment proves too much. [letter merely an episcopal admonition to the Puritans, dispensed them from the strict requirement of the Rubric, but fixed a standard on the side of defect beyond which they must not fall : namely, the surplice in all parish churches in all ministrations, and the reading daily of one lesson at least from the Old and New Testaments respectively. No more gratuitous assumption can be imagined, none more opposed to plain facts, than that of their Lordships, when they say, that " the Advertisements had taken away" the Ornaments prescribed by the Rubric of 1559. Besides, my Lord, if we adopt the outrageous paradox, that a series of episcopal admonitions, which had no legal sanction,* tacitly repealed a clause in * On the 1st of March, 1641, the House of Lords appointed a Committee to " take into consideration all innovations in the Church respecting roligion." The Committee consistod of ten earls, ten bishops, and ten lay barons, with power to associate with them as many learned divines as they pleased. Among the names on the Committee may be mentioned Archbishop Usher ; Drs. Prideaux, Hacket, Calamy ; Bishops Montague, Moreton, Sanderson, and White. The innovations into which the members of the Committee were to inquire were in a High Church direction, and the Committee stated that some clergymen " pretended for their innovations the Injunctions and Ad vertisements of Queen Elizabeth, which are not in force, but by way of commentary and imposition." This proves two things : first, that the High Church party understood that the Ad vertisements were in the interest of Laudian doctrines and ceremonies ; secondly, that a Committee of the leading peers and divines as late as 1641 considered that the Advertisements >' were not in force." There is no pretence that they ever i.J Purchas Judgment proves too much. 79 a Parliamentary Statute, and are now legally binding, in spite of a subsequent statute which re-enacted the clause in question, I wish to know whether the following orders are still binding : — "That all deans of Cathedral Churches, masters of Colleges, all archdeacons, and other dignitaries in Cathedral Churches, doctors, bachelors of divinity and law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear in their common apparel abroad a side-gown with sleeves straight at the hand, without any cuts ; and that also without any falling cape, and to wear tippets of sarcenet, as is lawful for them by the Act of Parliament, Anno. xxiv. Hen. Octavi. " That they and all ecclesiastical persons or other, having any ecclesiastical living, do wear the cap appointed by the Injunctions. And they to wear no hats but in their journeying. "That they in their journeying do wear their cloaks with sleeves put on, and like in fashion to their gowns without guards, welts, or cuts.* "That in their private houses and studies they use their own liberty of comely apparel. " That all inferior ecclesiastical persons shall wear long gowns of the fashion aforesaid, and caps as before is prescribed. acquired any additional force after that date ; and therefore this piece of evidence is alone sufficient to dispose of the argument of the Purchas Judgment on this point. — Cardwell's Conferences, p. 273. * These orders about the private apparel of the Clergy are repeated in the 74th Canon of 1604. 80 Purchas Judgment proves too much, [letter " That the bishop do call home once in the year any prebendary in his church, or beneficed in the diocese, which studieth at the universities, to know how he profiteth in learning, and that he be not suffered to be a serving or waiting man dissolutely. " That at the archdeacon's visitation the arch deacon shall appoint the curates to certain texts of the New Testament to be conned without book. And in their next Synod to exact a rehearsal of them."* Now, my Lord, of two things one. Either the Advertisements are now legally binding, or they are not. If they are not, the whole superstructure of the Purchas Judgment tumbles to the ground at once. If, on the other hand, they are binding, all the clergy in the Church of England, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the poorest curate in his diocese, is in a state of "lawlessness." I must again protest against the habit of taking just as much of an argument as suits the exigencies of the moment, leaving out those parts of it which prove its irrelevancy to the point at issue. And I must further remind the Judicial Committee that the Advertisements recognise the legality of the ecclesias tical legislation of "Anno xxiv. Hen. Octavi;" a fact which the admirers of the Purchas Judgment might find somewhat inconvenient if the Advertise ments are binding in law. * Cardwell's "Doc. Ann.," i. pp. 328, 829. Here and else where I have modernised the spelling. T.J Case against Vestments summed up. 81 I now come to their Lordships' argument at close quarters against the obvious meaning of the Rubric of 1662, which is now binding on the clergy. The Rubric is as follows: — " And here is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth." The obvious and grammatical meaning of this Rubric, as Sir John T. Coleridge has shown, is to legalise all Ornaments, whether of the fabric or the minister, " as were in this Church of England" at the period specified. Let us now see how the Court in the Purchas Case interpreted it. After some ex traordinary argumentation, which I shall examine presently, their Lordships sum up the case thus : — "The vestment, or cope, alb, and tunicle, were ordered by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. They were abolished by the Prayer Book of 1552, and the surplice was substituted. They were pro visionally restored by the Statute of Elizabeth, and by her Prayer Book of 1559. But the Injunctions and Advertisements of Elizabeth established a new order within a few years from the passing of the Statute, under which chasuble, alb, and tunicle, dis appeared. The Canons of 1603-4, adopting anew the reference to the Rubric of Edward VL, sanctioned in express terms all that the Advertise- 82 Another Misquotation by the Court, [letter ments had done in the matter of the vestments, and ordered the surplice only to be used in parish churches. The revisers of our present Prayer Book, under another form of words, repeated the reference to the second year of Edward VL, and they did so advisedly, after attention had been called to the possibility of a return to the vestments." Before grappling with their Lordships' general argument, I must remark on two or three inaccuracies in this summary statement of the case. I claim to have proved that the Eucharistic Vestments were restored absolutely, under Elizabeth, and not " pro visionally ;" and also that the Injunctions and Advertisements did not " establish a new order. . . . under which chasuble, alb, and tunicle disappeared." But what I particularly invite attention to is another specimen of their Lordships' inveterate habit of mis quotation. " The Canons of 1603-4. . . . ordered the surplice only to be used in parish churches." This implies that the word " only" is in the Canon ; but it is not, and I again protest against the im portation into an argument of an important word which is not in the authority referred to, and which changes essentially the meaning of the passage. It is unnecessary of course to disclaim all intention of imputing any fraudulent intention to the Court. T mean no more, here or elsewhere, than that the members of the Court were so possessed by then- own non-natural interpretation of the Rubric that through some inscrutable process of "unconscious *•] Its Interpretation Examined. 83 cerebration" they read that interpretation in all the documents bearing on the subject. And now let us consider the interpretation itself. The Rubric in the Prayer Book of 1559 ordered that " the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use such Ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VL, according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book." The Act of Uni formity which enforced this Rubric enjoins " that such Ornaments of the Church and the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of Edward VI. , and until other order shall be therein taken by the au thority of the Queen's Majesty," etc. The present Rubric, it will be observed, is a com bination of the language of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity and Rubric ; and the question is whether they mean the same thing, or whether the slight variation of language indicates a fundamental differ ence of meaning. The Court in the Purchas Case took the latter view. The Court in Liddell v. Wes terton adopted the former. After quoting the twenty- fifth Clause of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, the Judgment in the Liddell Case declares that "the Rubric, to the new Prayer Book " was " framed to express the meaning of this proviso." And, to place the matter beyond a doubt, the judgment goes on to G2 84 Contradictory Decisions. [letter say : — " It will be observed that this Rubric does not adopt precisely the language of the Statute, but ex presses the same thing in other ivords. The Statute says ' such Ornaments of the Church and of the ministers shall be retained and be in use ; ' the Rubric, ' that the minister shall use such Ornaments in the Church.' " The Rubric to the Prayer Book of January 1, 1604, adopts the language of the Rubric of Elizabeth. The Bubric to the present Prayer Book adopts the language of the Statute of Elizabeth; but they all obviously mean the same thing, that the same dresses and the same utensils or articles which were used under the First Prayer Book of Edtvard VI. may still be used." This was the solemn decision, in 1857, of Lord Cranworth, Lord Wensleydale, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Sir John Patteson, Sir William Maule, Archbishop Sumner, and Dr. Tait, now Archbishop of Canter bury. In the year 1871, my Lords Chelmsford and Hatherley, the present Archbishop of York and the present Bishop of London affirmed the direct con tradictory of the above decision. For they ruled that the twenty-fifth Clause of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, the Rubric of 1559, the Rubric of 1604, and the Rubric of 1662, " obviously" do not " mean the same thing;" and they punished Mr. Purchas heavily for hav.ng been so very simple as to believe that the same Court, in the year 1857, really meant what it so plain y said. They had evidently some '•] Contradictory Decisions. 85 misgivings, however, and felt that conduct so extra ordinary demanded an extraordinary justification; which they proceeded accordingly to offer as follows : — " In Westerton v. Liddell the question which their Lordships had to decide was, whether the Rubric which included all use of crosses in the service affected crosses not used in the service, but employed for decoration only, and they determined that these were unaffected by the Rubric. ... In construing the expressions made use of in that judgment, it should be borne in mind that this question of the Vestments was not before the Court." As if that had anything on earth to do with the point in dispute ! The question is not what was before the Court in the Case of Liddell v. Westerton, but the grounds on which the Judges arrived at their judgment. Those grounds are utterly anni hilated, and therefore the judgment based on them is utterly annihilated, by the Purchas Judgment. The two judgments are direct logical contradictories one of another, and like the pots in the fable which went sailing down the stream they crack and sink each other. Of all this, however, the Court in the Purchai Case confessed itself simply unconscious. " Their Lordships feel quite free to adopt both the positive and the negative conclusions thus arrived at." A piece of very superfluous information ; for it is hardly possible to read two consecutive pages of their judg ment and not perceive that they were utterly at 86 Puritans' objection at Savoy Conference, [letter sea on the subject on which they were adjudicating. Otherwise they would scarcely have felt themselves quite so " free to adopt " " positive and negative conclusions," which to ordinary intellects appear mutually destructive. But let us proceed. "The learned Judge in the Court below," say their Lordships, " assumes that the Puritan party at the Savoy Conference objected to this Rubric, whereas it was the Rubric of James that they were discuss ing." But both Rubrics " obviously mean the same thing" according to the judgment of the same Court in 1857. Let that pass, however, and let us see what really is involved in the objections of the Puritans to the Ornaments Rubric at the Savoy Conference. That objection is as follows : — " Forasmuch as this Rubric seemeth to bring back the cope, alb, etc., and other vestments forbidden by the Common Prayer Book, 5 and 6 Edward VL, and so our reason alleged against ceremonies under our eighteenth general exception, we desire it may be wholly left out."* Now if the Bishops had intended not only not to restore the Eucharistic Vestments, but positively to forbid them, and to prescribe the surplice only, their * "An Accompt of all the Proceedings of the Commission of both Persuasions," p. 12. A rare Pamphlet published im mediately after the Savoy Conference by the Nonconformists, and containing the " Rejoinder" of the latter, which Cardwell does not give. This part of the proceedings, however, has lately been published in full in " Documents Relating to the Act of Uniformity, 1662," pp. 201-315. l.J Purchas Judgment misses the Point. 87 answer to the Puritans' objection would have been a simple and straightforward one. They would have said : " Our intention is not to bring back these vest ments to which you object. On the contrary, we are anxious to forbid them, and to make the surplice the only legal vestment in all ministrations in parish churches. And to place the matter beyond possibility of doubt, we will substitute for the Rubric, to which you object, another which shall express our meaning in plain and unambiguous language." But this was emphatically not the answer, nor anything like it, which the divines at the Savoy Conference made. Mr. Purchas's judges, indeed, assure us that "the Bishops in their answer show that they understood the surplice to be in question, and not the vestments." My Lord, I hardly know how to deal with such an assertion in becoming language. The Judicial Com mittee cannot have realized the gravity of the imputation which they here make on the common sense — I had almost said the sanity — of the eminent divines who took part in the Savoy Conference. The Puritans objected specifically and by name to the " cope, alb, etc., and other vestments prescribed in the First Book of Edward," and which "seemed to be brought back" under the Rubric. But " the Bishops," according to the Purchas Judgment, "in their answer show that they understood the surplice to be in question, and not the vestments!" Really, my Lord, this seems to me equivalent to saying that the Bishops were fools ; and that is an accusation 88 Purchas Judgment misses the Point, [letter which can hardly be sustained against men like Sheldon and Cosin, Heylin and Hacket, Pearson, Sparrow and Thorndike. The fact is, the Judicial Committee have mixed up together two questions which are quite distinct. Under the eighteenth general head of their ex ceptions against the Prayer Book the Nonconformists attack, at considerable length, the whole principle of ceremonialism in religion, and they take special exception to the obligation of wearing the surplice, to the sign of the cross, and to the kneeling at the reception of the Holy Communion. The Bishops deal very briefly with these three things, but they enter into a long and elaborate defence of the rationale of ceremonialism. The question of the Eucharistic Vestments was not then before them; but the general principles which they lay down are just as applicable to the vestments as to the surplice. It is not till some pages further on that the Non conformists object to the Ornaments Rubric, as " seeming to bring back" the full ritual of 1549 ; and they " desire it may be wholly left out" for the "reasons alleged against ceremonies under our eighteenth general exception." The Bishops reply briefly:—" For the reasons given in our answer to the 18th general, whither you refer us, we think it fit that the Rubric continue as it is." Not a word here to give the faintest colour to the suggestion of the Judicial Committee that " the Bishops in their answer show that they understand the surplice to be *•] Contemporary Evidence of this. 89 in question, and not the vestments." The Non conformists say, in effect : " We desire this Rubric to be wholly left out because it revives all the Vestments and other Ornaments of 1549; and for our reasons we refer you to our general argument against the whole principle of ritualism." The Bishops reply:— "We have given already a full reply to your general attack on the principle of ritualism ; and for the reasons there given we think it fit that the Rubric continue as it is." This is simply equivalent to saying : — " We are quite aware that this Rubric will legalise the use of the Eucha ristic vestments, and we have justified their use in the general answer which we have given you." And this is the interpretation which the Noncon formists put upon the Bishop's answer. " We have given you reason enough," they say in their Re joinder, " against the imposition of the usual ceremo nies ; and would you draw forth those absolute (sic) ones to increase the burden ?"* But, say the Judicial Committee, the Bishops, after declaring they would not alter the Rubric, did, as a matter of fact, alter it in the interest of the Nonconformists in such a way as to preclude the revival of the vestments. I venture to think, however, that the Nonconformists themselves are the best judges in this matter, and they certainly did not think that the changes which the Convocation of * " An Accompt of the Proceedings," etc., p. 98. The italics in the passage quoted are in the original. 90 Contemporary Evidence of this. [letter 1661 had made in the Rubrics were in the direction of a lower ritual. On the contrary, they complained bitterly that all the Rubrical changes were in favour of a more advanced ritual. " So strongly did they feel this, that it was proposed on their behalf in the House of Lords that the existing Liturgy should be continued, and all the corrections made in Convocation should be abandoned."* And in the course of Tillot son's abortive schemes of comprehension a few years later, Baxter and the Nonconformists insisted " that the Rubric for the old Ornaments which were in use in the second year of King Edward VI. be put out." And this they regarded as "among the most neces sary alterations in the Liturgy."f In short, it is quite evident that the interpretation put upon the Orna ments Rubric of 1661 in the Purchas Judgment is not the interpretation put upon it either by the Churchmen or Nonconformists of that time. Both parties regarded the 58th Canon as prescribing a minimum of ritual, while the Ornaments Rubric left a door open for the gradual introduction of a maximum. The slight alteration in the wording of the Rubric which was then made, and on which the Judicial Committee lay so much stress, was considered of no significance by those immediately concerned. Among tbe many statements in the Purchas Judg ment which have greatly surprised me, is the following :— * " Cardwell's Conferences," p. 887. t See Sylvester's Reliquee Baasterianas, pt. iii. p. 89* i-J House of Lords' Committee in 1641. 91 "With regard to the suggestion attributed to the House of Lords, ' Whether the Rubric should not be mended where all vestments in time of Divine Ser vice are not commanded which were used by Ed ward VI. (Cardwell, Conferences, p. 274),' the learned judge has overlooked the fact that this applies to the earlier Rubric ; and the suggestion did not emanate from the House of Lords, nor was it ever adopted by that body."* Whether the Court or the Editor of the Judgment is responsible for this pretended quotation from Cardwell I know not; but it is grossly and even ludicrously inaccurate. I never heard or read be fore that the Eucharistic Vestments " were used by Edward VI.;" and by the substitution of "not" for "now," before "commanded," the meaning of the quotation is exactly reversed. 1 pass this by, how ever, as it may be a clerical error ; nor need I notice again their Lordship's pet, but untenable, theory as to the difference between the present and " the earlier Rubric." But what is one to say of their assertion that " the suggestion did not emanate from the House of Lords, nor was it ever adopted by that body V I am sure they would not deliberately mis represent the facts ; but, viewing the assertion itself on its simple merits, I must characterise it as both a suppressio veri and a suggestio falsi. What are the facts 1 When the premonitory mutterings of the storm, which eventually overthrew the Monarchy and * " Brooke's Reports," p. 175. 92 House of Lords* Committee in 1641. [letter the Church, had become menacingly audible in the ears of those in authority, they sought to save the ship by cutting down some of its rigging, and throw ing part of its cargo overboard. In March, 1641, accordingly the House of Lords appointed a Com mittee, consisting of ten Earls, ten Bishops, and ten lay Barons, to " take into consideration all innova tions in the Church concerning religion." Ten days later the members of this Committee " were em powered to associate with them as many learned divines as they pleased, and Archbishop Usher, and Drs. Prideaux, Warde, Twisse, and Hacket are par ticularly mentioned as selected for the purpose."* The object for which the Committee was ostensibly appointed, however, was far more contracted than its real object. In the language of Cardwell, there was "an understanding on all sides that they were to carry their inquiries into the whole field of doctrine and discipline, and suggest such measures as might tend to allay the great and general feeling of discon tent." And the Report of the " Proceedings of the Committee" fully justifies the description of Card- well. It is a document of seven octavo pages, and it reveals a state of something like anarchy in the doc trine, ritual, and discipline of the English Church at that time. Nor need we wonder. The triumph of Puritanism was even then all but complete. The Monarchy was virtually destroyed, and the use of the Prayer Book was very soon forbidden even in private. * " Cardwell's Conferences," p. 288. i.J House of Lords' Committee in 1641. 93 Among the doctrines and practices reported are the following :- — "Some have preached that private confession by particular enumeration of sins is necessary to salva tion, ' necessitate medii.' " "Some have published that there is a proper sacrifice in the Lord's Supper, to exhibit Christ's death in the postfact, as there was a sacrifice to pre figure in the old law in the antefact, and therefore that we have a true altar." " Some have introduced prayers for the dead, as Mr. Brown in his printed sermon, and some have coloured the use of it with questions in Cambridge, and disputed that ' preces pro defunctis non suppo- nunt purgatorium.' " " Some have defended universal grace, as imparted as much to reprobates as to the elect, and have pro ceeded ' usque ad salutem ethnicorum,' which the Church of England both anathematised."* " Some have defended the whole gross substance of Arminianism, that 'electioest ex fide prsevisa,' that the act of conversion depends upon the concur rence of man's free will ; that the justified man may fall finally and totally from grace." With respect to matters of discipline the Com mittee's Report mentions : — " The turning of the holy table altar-wise, and most commonly calling it an altar. Bowing towards * I know not where the Church of England has done this, 94 House of Lords' Committee in 1641 [letter it, or towards the east, many times, with three congees, but usually in every motion, access, or recess in the Church." " Advancing candlesticks in many churches upon the altar so called. In making canopies over the altar so called, with traverses and curtains on each side, and before it. Tn compelling communicants to come up before the rails and there receive. In advancing crucifixes and images upon the parafront or altar so called. . . By the minister's turning his back to the west and his face to the east when he pronounceth the Creed, or reads prayers. By reading the Litany in the midst of the Church in many of the parochial churches. . . By offering of bread and wine by the hand of the Churchwardens or others before the con secration of the elements. By having a credentia, or side-table, besides the Lord's table, for divers' uses in the Lord's Supper. By introducing an offertory before the Communion, distinct from the giving of alms to the poor. . . by prohibiting a direct prayer before sermon, and bidding of prayer. . . By intro ducing Latin-service in the communion of late in Oxford, or into some colleges at Cambridge, at Morning and Evening Prayer, so that some young students, and the servants of the college, do not understand their prayers. By standing up at the hymns in the Church, and always at Gloria Patri. By carrying children from the baptism to the altar so called, there to offer them up to God. By taking down galleries in churches, or restraining the build- i.J on Advertisements and Ornaments Rubrics. 95 ing of such galleries where the parishes are very populous."* The upholders of these doctrines and practices, the Committee report, appeal to the Injunctions and Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth, "which are not in force, but by way of commentary and imposition ; and by putting to the Liturgy printed ' secundo, tertio Edwardi Sexti,' which the Parliament hath reformed and laid aside." It is clear from this, as I have already observed, that in 1641 the Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth were held to possess no legal force, and were considered, both by the High Church men and Puritans of that day, to encourage instead of repressing the ritual of Edward's First Prayer Book. This point is, in fact, placed beyond all possibility of doubt by one of the suggestions of the Lords' Committee. They suggest "whether the Rubric should not be mended where all vestments in time of Divine Service are now commanded which were used by Edward VI."f My Lord, this little incident shatters the Purchas Judgment in pieces. That judgment is based on the assumption that the Advertisements of Elizabeth, issued in 1564, repealed the Rubric of 1559, and rendered the Eucharistic Vestments illegal. But in 1641 — that is seventy-four years after the publication of the Advertisements — we find the leading peers and bishops of the day * " Cardwell's Conferences," pp. 270-74. f Ibid' P- 2I74- 96 Answer of Judicial Committee. [letter suggesting that the Rubric of 1559* should "be amended" because it still "commanded" the very vestments which, according to the Judicial Com mittee, it ceased to command in the beginning of 1564. And let it be observed that the Lords' Com mittee state the matter as if there were no sort of doubt about it. They assume that their interpre tation of the Rubric is the universally accepted interpretation. And no doubt it was so. The in terpretation of the Judicial Committee is as novel as it is non-natural. It is an interpretation forced into the Rubric in support of a foregone conclusion, and in violation alike of the rules of grammar and the facts of history. Now how do their Lordships get over the awkward obstacle placed in their path by this authoritative interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric ? " The suggestion," they say, " did not emanate from the House of Lords, nor was it ever adopted by that body." I wish to speak with all possible respect of the Judicial Committee; but truth compels me to say that their Lordships have here taken refuge in a quibble. The suggestion "emanated" from a most influential Committee appointed by the House of Lords to inquire, inter alia, into this very matter. * I assume, with the Judicial Committee in Liddell v. Wester ton, that the Rubrics of Elizabeth and of James " obviously mean the same thing." The pet theory of the Purchas judg ment on that point, viewed apart from the authority of the Court, is too absurd to require serious refutation. l.J Interpretation of Ornaments Rubric; in 1641. 97 And the suggestion was not adopted by the House of Lords because the attitude of the Commons had in the meantime become so hostile to the Church that no concessions which stopped short of organic changes — of a revolution in fact — would satisfy it. But what matters it, after all, whether the sugges tion did or did not come from the House of Lords % Put the lay members of the Lords' Committee aside altogether, and then the Court will be obliged to account for the fact that, in the year 1641, the Ornaments Rubric was interpreted in a sense directly contrary to the Purchas Judgment by the follow ing eminent divines : — Archbishop Usher, Bishops Williams, Moreton and Montague ; Drs. Warde, Prideaux, Sandeman, Featley, Brownrigg, Holds- worth, Hacket, Twisse, Burgess, White, Calamy, Marshall, and Hill. Are we to conclude that these men, some of whom rank among the most illustrious names in the annals of the Church of England for learning and acuteness, and all of whom were coeval with the Rubric which they were considering, were less competent to interpret that Rubric than the four distinguished persons who are responsible for the Purchas Judgment % I feel sure that these persons themselves would be the last to suggest such a comparison. I must again call attention to the remarkable circumstance that the Committee of 1641 assumed, as a fact, notorious and undisputed, that the full ritual of the second year of King Edward was at that H 98 Interpretation of Ornaments Rubric in 1641. [letter time— not permissible, but— " commanded." And yet that ritual, according to the Purchas Judgment, had been forbidden and had "ceased to exist" seventy-seven years previously. Here, then, is another positive and demonstrative disproof of their Lordships' assertion, " that the doctrine of a mini mum of Ritual represented by the Surplice, with a maximum represented by a return to the mediaeval Vestments, is inconsistent with the fact that the Rubric is a positive order, under a formal statute, accepted by each clergyman in a remarkably strong expression of 'assent and consent,' and capable of being enforced with severe penalties." Solvitur amhdando. Everybody understood in 1641 that the use of the Vestments was "commanded" "under a formal statute ; " but it was notorious that this command was not enforced. In other words, a maximum of ritual was theoretically binding, and a minimum was generally, but by no means universally, enforced. And if theory and practice were thus in conflict from 1564 — it would be more correct to say from 1548 — to 1641, there seems to be no violent impossibility against their continuing in conflict from 1662 to 1871 • Why, moreover, should it be so very impossible to disobey "a positive order, under a penal statute," which prevents the use of a chasuble, and be so very innocent and easy to disobey another "positive order, under a penal statute," which prescribes daily matins and evensong, or the recitation of the Atha- l.J The Latin Prayer Book of 1560. 99 nasian Creed on certain occasions ? I cannot suggest an answer; and I seriously doubt whether Mr. Purchas's judges could suggest one either. Yet the question is vital, or rather fatal, to their argument. The Rubric of 1604, be it remembered, admitted " preaching " or " studying of divinity " as valid excuses for neglecting to say the daily office ; and by pointedly expelling these from the category of " sick ness or some other urgent cause," the revisionists of 1662 have barred the door against all excuses less urgent than a disabling illness. As a further proof that neither the Rubrics of the Prayer Book, nor the Thirty-nine Articles were in tended to be a hard and fast line beyond which no latitude of omission or commission was to be on any plea allowed, I may refer to the Latin Prayer Book of 1560, put forth by royal authority, with the ap probation of the Church, for the use of Universities and Public Schools. In this Book there are other variations from the English edition of the Prayer Book, besides the fact of its being in "a tongue not understanded of the people ;" such, for instance, as the restoration from the Book of 1549 of the Rubric commanding the reservation of the Blessed Sacra ment in the following words: — "Quod si contigat eodem die Ccenam Domini in Ecclesia celebrari, tuno sacerdos in ccena tantum Sacramenti servabit quantum sufficit asgroto ; et non finita ccena una cum aliquot ex his qui intersunt ibit ad segrotum, et primo com- municabit cum illis qui assistunt, et interfuerunt H 2 100 The Latin Prayer Book of 1560. [letter ccena?, et postremo cum infirmo. Sed primo fiat generalis confessio et absolutio cum collecta, ut supra est prasscriptum. Sed si infirmus illo die petat communionem, quo non celebratur ccena, tunc sacerdos in loco decenti in domo segroti cele- brabit ccenam hoc modo." A form was likewise added for the commemoration of founders, and an office for Communion at burials was inserted from the First Book of Edward. Surely we may regard this as a proof that those who were in authority in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign were by no means averse to an encouragement, wherever it was possible, of a higher ritual and a higher expression of doctrine than it was possible to enforce upon the whole body of the Clergy. Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, like her Advertisements, was evidently intended to secure compliance with a minimum of ceremonial, while leaving diversities above that level to approach as nearly as possible towards the requirements of the Book of 1549. I have supplied evidence of this in the preceding pages ; and the following passage in the Proclamation which legalised the Prayer Book of 1560 is a further indication in the same direction ; " Peculiaria quaedam in Christianorum funebribus et exequiis decantanda adjungi pracipimus, statu to de Ritu Publicarum precum anno primo Regni nostri promulgato in contrarium non obstante." The judges in the Purchas Case make a great point of an argument for which they are indebted to I.J The Rubrics of 1604 and 1662 Compared. 101 Mr. Robertson's " How shall we conform to the Liturgy V namely, that there is an essential dif ference between the Rubric of James and the Rubric of 1662. Now let us forget, for a moment, what I have already urged on that point, as well as the distinctly contradictory decision of the Court in Liddell v. Westerton, and let us see whether their Lordships' argument will yield even a plausible conclusion when it is closely examined. " The Bishops " (at the Savoy Conference), they say, " determined that the Rubric ' should continue as it is.' But after this they did, in fact, recast it entirely. It must not be assumed that alterations made under such circumstances were made without thought, and are of no importance. The Rubric had directed the Minister to ' use at the time of the Communion, and at all other times of his minis trations '* the ornaments in question. The statute of Elizabeth did not direct such use, nor refer to any special times of ministration, but it ordered simply the retaining of the ornaments till further order made by the Queen. The Bishops threw aside the form of the old Rubric, and adopted that of the statute of Elizabeth, but added the words 'at all times of their ministration,' without the words which had in all former Rubrics distinguished the Holy Communion from other ministrations ; a mode of expression more suitable to a state of things wherein the vestments for all ministrations had * The Rubric uses the singular—" ministration." 102 Meaning of " Certain." [letter become the same. The change also brought in the word 'retained,' which, it has been argued, would not include things already obsolete." And further on they observe: — "Both in the Statute of Elizabeth and in the Rubric in question the word ' retain ' seems to mean that things should remain as they were at the time of the enactment. . . To retain means, in common parlance, to continue something now in existence." They forget altogether the crucial fact that in 1662 the Church of England was legislating on a tabula rasa. She had been swept off the face of the land for twenty years, and during that period not only was the surplice abolished, but it was highly penal to use the Prayer Book at all, even in private. If, therefore, the insertion into the Rubric of 1662 of the words "shall be retained " means " that things should remain as they were at the time of the enactment," this certainly is fatal to the chasuble ; but it is equally fatal to the surplice. For no surplice had been seen in England for twenty years previous to this enactment. Their Lordships' argument proves too much. Do they really suppose that the Convocation of 1662 was dealing with a state of things similar to that with which the Con vocation of 1875 will have to deal ? Did it make no difference that all the parishes in England were then in possession of men who had never used a surplice or a Prayer Book for upwards of twenty years — most of whom, indeed, had never used them at all % Yet their Lordships tell us that the Ornaments Rubric, Clergy Officiating in Horseman's Coat. 103 as altered in 1662, meant "that things should remain as they were at the time of the enactment!" Un fortunately things did "remain as they were" in many parishes in England long after " the time of the enactment." The Bishops were by no means successful in their laudable endeavours to enforce the use of the surplice in any of the ministrations of the Church, much less in all. Even before the great Rebellion we find Bishop Montague (a.d. 1638) inquiring, in one of his Visitations :—" Doth your minister officiate Divine Service in due place, upon set times, in the habit and apparel of his order, with a surplice, an hood, a gown, a tippet; not in a cloak, or sleeveless jacquet, or horseman's coat 1 for such I have known." If such extraordinary laxity as this could prevail in the reign of Charles 1. under the primacy of Laud, and in the diocese of a very High Church prelate like Montague, is it a great marvel that the Rubric of 1662 should pre scribe a higher ritual than it was possible to enforce ? According to the Purchas Judgment the surplice has been the only legal vestment in parish churches since 1564. Yet here we have positive proof that a "jacquet or horseman's coat " was worn by the officiating minister during Divine Service instead of the surplice, and this, too, seventy-four years after the surplice was prescribed, in their Lordships' opinion, as the only legal vestment, and under the sanction of a penal statute. If these things might be done in the green tree, what might not be done 104 Surplice not Enforced after 1662. [letter in the dry ? If a clergyman in the time of Laud could celebrate the Holy Communion in a " horse man's coat," is it incredible that immediately after the desolation of the Commonwealth the divines of the English Church should lay down a standard of ritual which it might be possible to realize in better times, but to which it was quite hopeless to aspire in their own generation1? They made the obligation of the daily service, for example, much more stringent than it was before ; yet there is no record of their attempting to enforce it. It does not figure among their Visitation inquiries. When it was so hard to get the clergy to wear the surplice it would have been sheer madness to make any inquiry about the wearing of the chasuble. That Charles II. 's Act of Uniformity did not secure the use of the surplice is, I imagine, incon testable ; and I need not trouble your Lordship therefore with any detailed proof. Let one witness suffice. In a book published in 1669 by one of the king's chaplains, and bearing the imprimatur of the Primate of the day, I find the following curious incident. The author is replying to some "fables," as he calls them, of a Presbyterian controversialist; and one of those fables is as follows. "By some accident" the surplice happened to be lost in a certain parish in the diocese of Durham, whereupon, according to the fable, the Ordinary, Bishop Cosin, ordered that there should be no divine service in the parish for two Sundays — that is, I suppose, till a new surplice I.] Why Rubric o/l559 was Altered. 105 could be got. How did the Church of England champion meet this raillery of the adversaries of the surplice 1 He replies to it very angrily, but quite seriously. "Esto," he says, "quod ejusmodi querela ad Ordinarium delata fuerit, quis credat eum propter talem casum paucis aut forte nemini impu- tandum, toti parochise maximam partem, si non universam, prorsus innocenti pcenam adeo gravem inflixisse ? Quid opus erat tanto strepitu propter superpelliceum casu amissum cum remedium ubique ad manum fit, nempe si aliud conficiatur. Ad luce norunt omnes qui Angliam norunt, m plurimis Ecclesiis, non solum ante promulgatum decretum pro uniformitate cultus divini, sed diu post, absque linea veste, cum nondum comparata esset, Sacra celebrata ab ipsis Ecclesiae Anglicance Ministris." * Here, then, my Lord, is contemporary evidence, under the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Canter bury of the day, that "not only before, but long after" the publication of the last Act of Uniformity, the surplice was not used " in very many churches " during the celebration of divine service. The author appeals to it as a notorious fact, " known to every body who knew England ;" and the Primate of all England seals the assertion with his voucher. But did the revisionists of 1661 mean anything at all by their slight variation from the Rubrics of 1559 and 1604 % That they did not mean to lay down a different rule of ritual either as regards the fabric or * Vindiciffi Eccles. Anglicanas, p. 89. 106 Why Rubric of 1559 tvas Altered. [lftter the officiating clergy .must, I believe, be as evident to any one who will dispassionately survey all the facts as it was to the Final Court in Liddell v. Wester ton, and Martin v. Mackonochie. But the verbal changes in the Rubric, slight as they are, seem to me to have introduced into it just that amount of relaxa tion from the previous stringency of its obligation which would enable the Bishops, while retaining the higher standard theoretically, to dispense with it in practice, and even to restore the minimum of require ment gradually, Both the Rubric of 1559 and that of 1604 have the expression, " the Minister . . . shall use." • This is absolute and imperative. It imposes the obligation on every Minister without exception. We know indeed, as a matter of fact, that it was impossible to enforce the obligation in practice though it remained legally binding. But it is, no doubt, a bad thing to have a positive law laid down in plain and rigorous language which nevertheless is openly disregarded. Looking at the question, then, from the point of view of common sense, what would be the natural and probable conduct of men placed in the circumstances in which the divines of 1601 were placed. It is unquestionable that their own inclination, or at least the inclination of the large majority, including all the leading men, was in the direction of high ritual. Their bearing in the Savoy Conference shows this. The Nonconformists com plained bitterly that every suggestion they made in favour of a low ritual was summarily rejected. l.J Why Rubric of 1559 tvas Altered. 107 Moreover, the Warrant under which the Conference was held enjoined its members " to advise upon and review the said Book of Common Prayer, comparing the same with the most ancient Liturgies which have been used in the Church in the primitive and purest times." In any alterations which they thought good to make, therefore, they were to go back, not forward ; to a Catholic, not to a Puritan standard of appeal. It was in this sense, and with these objects, that the revision of 1661 was undertaken. But, on the other hand, the Church had just returned from a Babylonish captivity of twenty years; and in the interval her temples had been rifled and desecrated, and " the ornaments of the Church and of j the Ministers thereof," for the most part, had been ruth lessly destroyed. This being the condition of things, it was obviously hopeless to attempt to enforce at once more than the partial use even of the surplice. Everything had been destroyed ; no surplices existed, and many parishes were too poor to buy any. What did Convocation do under the circumstances? It followed the statute of Elizabeth by changing the Ornaments Rubric from the active to the passive form, and by inserting the expression, "shall be retained." Instead of saying : — " The Minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such Ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VL, 108 Why Rubric of 1559 ivas Altered. [letter according to the Act of Parliament set in the begin ning of this Book;" it said: — "Such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI." Now what is the grammatical and legal value of this variation from the Rubrics of 1559 and 1604 % I submit that it amounts to this. By the former Rubrics the ornaments prescribed were, in point of strict law, obligatory ipso facto and without exception. But the obligation of the Rubric of 1662 would be fulfilled if only partial obedience was rendered. Not to dwell on the difference in respect to stringency between saying that certain ornaments " shall be in use," and saying that the Minister " shall use " them, the " words shall be retained " was a distinct caveat against any future attempt to bar the legal assumption of such ornaments as could not during those troublous times " be in use." It was a pub lic and perpetual advertisement of a right of way to the full ritual which was in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI. I quite agree with the Court in the Purchas Case in the opinion that " it is reasonable to presume that the alteration was not made without some purpose." But when they add that " the words of the Rubric strictly construed would not suffice to revive orna ments which had been lawfully set aside," I can l.J Interpretation by Purchas Judgment Untenable. 109 only refer your Lordship to the evidence which I have already adduced to prove that the ornaments in question had not been "lawfully set aside." I shall produce more evidence on that point presently. But, meanwhile, I shall take the liberty of observing that the words " shall be retained " are, on their Lordships' interpretation, tautological and meaning less. There was some colour for that interpretation as it occurred in the statute of Elizabeth — that is, provided their Lordships' view of the force and effect of Queen Elizabeth's Advertisements were as correct as it is manifestly the reverse. If it was the inscru table intention of that statute to "retain" the Eucharistic vestments in order that they might be " swept away with severe exactness " a few years afterwards, there would certainly in that case be some meaning in the words " shall be retained," though it would seem to be the meaning of madmen. In their Lordships' opinion no Eucharistic vestments were in use when the restoration . of the Monarchy took place. True, but there were no surplices in use either. If the revisionists in 1661 intended to prescribe the use of the surplice to the ex clusion of any other vestment, why did they not say so in plain and unambiguous language, especially after the distinct warning of the Nonconformists? Surely that is a question which the upholders of the Purchas Judgment are bound to answer. But even supposing that the revisionists, instead of using the straightforward language of common sense, chose to 110 State of the Church in 1661. [letter wrap up their meaning in a form of speech which was admirably calculated to mislead, and which even Mr. Purchas's judges are feign to characterise as " obscurely framed," why should they have gone back all the way to the statute of Elizabeth in order to import the phrase " shall be retained and be in use " instead of the simple and more familiar phrase, " the Minister shall use 1" I submit that the only rational explanation ofthe phraseology of the Rubric is, that it was intended to cover the legality of the whole ritual of the second year of Edward VL, and to restore its use as circum stances permitted. We know, as a matter of fact, that even the surplice was restored very gradually. Can we feel surprise, I ask again, that the restoration of the chasuble, was a matter of much greater diffi culty ] Picture to yourself, my Lord, a civil war in England at this moment. Suppose that after some years of internecine struggle the Sovereign of England had been publicly executed, the royal family exiled, the monarchy abolished, the Church swept off the face of the land so completely that it was highly penal to use her offices even in private. Suppose, further, that this state of things lasted for twenty years ; that there was then a restoration ; that the revolutionary party, however, was still in posses sion, and that it was necessary to come to terms with it if possible ; that the sanctuaries of public worship were bare of all the ornaments, whether of the Minister or the fabric, appertaining to the decent l.J Puritanism and its Consequences. Ill celebration of Divine Service, and that their restora tion could only be a work of time. What would be the conduct, under such circumstances, of the divines ofthe day, most of them being, as the majority of the revisionists of 1661 were, decided High Church men who were known to be in favour of high ritual ? If they wished to restore the ritual of the first years of Edward VL, and were prudent men into the bargain, I venture to say that they would have drawn up just such a Rubric as that which the Court in the case of Mr. Purchas interpreted with such elaborate mal-adroitness. But the picture which I have supposed your Lordship to sketch in imagination falls, in reality, far short of what took place under the Common wealth. It is indeed difficult to realize at this distance of time, even in imagination, the iconoclastic fury with which the Puritanism of the Cromwellian era declared a war of extermination against all that was beautiful in the twin regions of literature and art. Whatever may be said against the political capacity or character of Charles I., no one will deny that he was a munificent patron of all that tends to encourage learning and literature, and to promote and purify the arts. Himself a prince of consider able learning, and of a refined and elevated taste, he did his best to diffuse among his people an apprecia tion of the beautiful in secular as well as in religious matters. It was his delight to make the sacrifice of praise which man offers to the Maker of all that is 112 Puritanism and its Consequences. [letter beautiful in earth, and sea, and sky "exceeding magnifical; "* an offering which can never pretend indeed to be worthy of Him Who dwelleth not in temples made with hands, but which, nevertheless, He deigns to accept when presented as the sincere homage of grateful hearts. But it was not in the service of the Sanctuary alone that Charles wished to enlist the best achievements of human genius. To him the nation is indebted for the Cartoons of Raphael. He invited Vandyke, Rubens, Bernini, and other foreign artists into this country; he was the liberal patron of Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and other native poets and artists; and among the crimes laid to his charge by his triumphant enemies was one for which posterity has certainly forgiven him, namely, that the works of Shakespeare were his inseparable companions. Had circumstances permitted him to reign in peace there can be little doubt that literature and the arts, but especially the latter, would have made great progress in England. This progress was rudely arrested by a Common wealth which, whatever good it may have affected for the country in other respects, gave a blow to the arts from which they are even now, in some depart ments, but slowly recovering. The austere tyranny of Puritanism almost succeeded, as it seems, in crushing all true appreciation of the beautiful out of the * "And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnifical." — 1 Chron, xx, 5, l.J Puritanism and its Consequences. 113 nation. And no wonder when one reads the edicts which went forth against all that appealed to man's native love of harmony and beauty. The theatres were all closed ; for all stage plays, without exception, m were considered impious and profane. Altar-pieces of inestimable value were pulled down and destroyed, and precious statues were broken in Cathedrals and parish Churches innumerable as images worshipped by priests of Baal — that is, by the clergy of the Church of England. Music was ruthlessly banished from the temples of Almighty God as an abomination of Popery, and some of the masterpieces of our native composers perished in the universal ruin. Poetry,* * How the spirit of Milton groaned under the tyranny of the Puritan regime is plain from his Sonnet " On the New Forces of Conscience under the Long Parliament :" — "Because you have thrown off your Prelate-lord, And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy, To seize the widowed whore plurality, From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred, Dare yo for this adjure the civil sword To force our consciences that Christ set free ? And ride us with a classic hierarchy, Taught ye by mere A. 9. and Rotherford? Men whose life, learning, faith and pure intent Would have been held in high esteem with Paul, Must now be held and printed heretics By shallow Edwards and Scotch What— d'ye— call. But we hope to find out all your tricks, Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent, That so the Parliament May, with their wholesome and preventive shears, Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears, And succour our just fears. • When they shall read this clearly in your charge- New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." The last line, by the way, is often quoted in a sense the very I 114 Puritanism and its Consequences. [letter too, shared the fate of her twin-sister ; and Chaucer, Spenser and Shakespeare were banished from the libraries of the orthodox. The King's private collection of paintings was sold for a mere song, and went to enrich half the collections of Europe. And, but for the tact and management of Selden, the library and medals of St. James's would have been put up to auction in order to pay the arrears of some regiments of Cavalry quartered near London. Several Cathe drals on the Continent are at this moment enriched by the spoils, in Ornaments of the Church and Vest ments of the Clergy, which were appropriated by Cromwell's soldiers. The symbol of the Crucified was a special object of abhorrence ; indeed, if we may credit the assertion of an old author, it was held in such detestation that tailors were actually forbidden to sit cross-legged ! And the eminent persons who sat in judgment on Mr. Purchas are so ingenuous as to suppose that after twenty years of this Puritanical tornado the Convoca tion of the Church of England could at once have restored the full ritual of 1549, had it been anxious to do so, by a short Rubric sanctioned by an Act of Uniformity! Convocation knew better, and so it passed a Rubric, deliberately and with its attention called loudly and directly to the fact, opposite of that in which Milton uses it. His argument is that in using the word Presbyter instead of Priest the Puritans transferred to the former word all the meaning contained in the latter. l.J Puritanism and its Consequences. 115 which established the legality of the Eucharistic Vestments, as the Nonconformists then and some years afterwards bitterly complained, but which there was no intention to enforce. In other words, a maximum standard of ritual was established as the ideal to be aimed at; but such was the state of deplorable neglect and slovenliness into which every thing connected with Divine Service had degenerated, that the Bishops found it hard enough to force their clergy up to the barest minimum of decency. Yet the Court which condemned Mr. Purchas actually makes this the foundation of an argument against Eucharistic Vestments. " Their Lordships may refer to the various Visitation Articles, published in the second Report of the Ritual Commission and else where, as showing that the surplice alone was to be used, and that deviations from that rule were on the side of defect, and not in the direction of returning to the Vestments of the Mass."* A more transparent non sequitur it would be difficult to imagine. Certainly "the surplice alone was to be used " as against " a cloak, or sleeveless jacquet, or horseman's coat." But how does that prove that the surplice was intended to be enforced as against a vestment which, in the language of Sir J. T. Coleridge, is as absolutely prescribed by the * Brooke's Eeport, p. 175. The italics in this and other quotations are in the original. i 2 116 Meaning of "At all times of Ministration." [letter Rubric as if it "were specifically named in it instead of being only referred to1?"* Their Lordships appear to have thought that, if all other arguments failed, their conclusion against the Eucharistic Vestments could at all events be sustained by that clause in the Rubric which prescribes the ornaments of the Church and the clergy, "at all times of their ministration." " If the Minister is ordered to wear a Surplice at all times of his minis tration, . he cannot wear an Alb or Tunicle when assisting at the Holy Communion ; if he is to cele brate the Holy Communion in a Chasuble, he cannot celebrate in a Surplice."f T have already shown that this argument is based on their Lordships' ignorance that surplice and alb are interchangeable terms, and that the alb or sur plice was, in fact, ordered to be worn under the chasuble. But even if this were not so, and if their Lordships were correct in supposing that the surplice and chasuble could not be worn at the same time, it would not help them one step to their conclusion. The Rubric, be it remembered, applies to the " orna ments of the Church " as well as to the " ornaments of the Ministers thereof." If, therefore, their Lord ships' argument is valid in the case of the latter, is must be equally valid in the case of the former. In other words, if "at all times of their ministra tion" means that the clergy are to wear on their * "Bejnarks on Eeport of Judicial Committee,'' p. 7. t Brooke's Eeport, p. 178. i.J Rcductio ad absurdum of Purchas Judgment. 117 persons the same "ornaments" in all the ministrations of Divine Service, it follows, of course, that they are bound to use precisely the same " ornaments of the Church " " at all times of then ministration." The result would be that altar-frontals of different colours, sanctioned by the Judicial Committee in Liddell v. Westerton, would be forbidden by the same Court in Hebbert v. Purchas. The argument would run : "If the Minister is ordered to vest the Holy Table with a red altar-frontal at all times of his ministration, he cannot vest it with an altar-frontal of white or any other colour on certain occasions." But perhaps it may be objected that the Rubric says nothing about any particular colour in altar- frontal cloths. No ; and it says just as little about any particular vestment to be worn by the Minister. "The Minister" is not ordered by the Rubric "to wear a surplice at all times of his ministration " any more than he is ordered to wear a cope or chasuble." The insertion of the word "surplice" into the Rubric is simply one of their Lordships' careless interpola tions. But the invalidity of the argument is capable of further illustration. Its necessary corollaries would by no means stop at the prohibition of the ecclesi astical sequence of colours in the case of altar-cloths. For if the Rubric means that the same ornaments are to be used alike in all ministrations, it follows inevitably that the chalice and paten are to be used in the Office of Baptism as well as in the administration 118 Meaning of "At the time of the Communion." [letter of the Holy Communion. Such is the logical result of their Lordships' argumentation! But I humbly venture to think that an argument which leads, when tested, to a reductio ad absurdum is not good for much. The meaning of "at all times of their ministra tion " seems to me plain enough. And I cannot help thinking that it would have been equally plain to their Lordships if they had not read between the lines of the Rubric and unconsciously interpolated the word " surplice " as an equivalent for " such ornaments ofthe Minister as were in use " in the second year of King Edward. A reader not hampered by any arriere-pensee would understand the Rubric to mean that in all the ministrations of Divine Service the ornaments of the Church and of the Minister which were lawful in the second year of Edward VI. are lawful still. And he would certainly never dream of the strange interpretation on which the Judicial Committee based their judgment, namely, that every one of these ornaments is to be used in every ministration. I do not forget that great stress has been laid on the omission from our present Rubric of the expres sion, " at the time of the Communion," which occurs in the Rubric of 1559. But the explanation seems to me obvious enough. The earlier Rubric ordered " that the Minister, at the time of the Communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use such Ornaments in the Church" as are there pre- I.] Bancroft on lawlessness of Puritanism. 119 scribed. "At the time of the Communion," and "in the Church," were both omitted at the last revision. Why \ Because it was found exceedingly hard to get the Puritan Clergy to wear even the surplice "in the Church," and quite impossible to get them to wear it out of Church — at funerals for example. Now the phrase, " in the Church," gave the Puritans a certain plausible excuse for discarding all ecclesiastical vestments out of Church. This loophole was accordingly shut up at the last revision by wording the Rubric so as to cover all ministra tions of the Clergy, whether in the Church or Churchyard. The Court in the Purchas Case has gone astray on many points from not remembering that from the time of Edward VI. to our own the lawless party has always been the Puritan. The difficulty has always been to bring that party up within sight of even a distant approximation towards rubrical observance ; and therefore it would be fair to assume, even if there were no direct evidence of the fact, that rubrical changes in the matter of dress were intended to correct negligence and defect. Bancroft was a man of no extreme views, yet the utter lawlessness of the Puritans of his day extorted from him more than one outburst of indignation like the following : — " How carelessly subscription is exacted in England, I am ashamed to report. Such is the retchlessness of many of our bishops on the one side, and their desire to be at ease and quietness to think upon their own affairs ; and on the other •120 Act of Uniformity Sanctions [letter side, such is the obstinacy and intolerable pride of that factious sort, as that betwixt both sides either subscription is not at all required, or if it be, the bishops admit them (Puritans) so to qualifie it that it were better to be omitted altogether. . . . There is no Church established in Christendome so remisse in this point as the Church of England : for in effect every man useth and refuseth what he listeth. Some few of late have been restrained, who had almost raised the land into an open sedition. But else they follow their own fancies, and may not be dealt withal (forsooth) for fear of disquietness." — Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline. P. 249. Their Lordships scout as improbable the suggestion of the Dean of Arches, that the Ornaments Rubric prescribes a maximum of ritual, while a minimum was nevertheless practically allowed. " It is not to be assumed, without proof," they say, " that such a statute was framed so as to leave a choice between contrary interpretations." I have already traversed this statement by some opposing facts, and I shall now quote a direct confutation of it from the very statute which is the subject of their Lordships' hasty criticism. As a matter of fact, the Uniformity Act of 1662 does leave in express terms "a choice between contrary interpretations " in the case of a plain Rubric. What can be more explicit than the following order ? — " And all Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer, either privately or openly, not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause. " And the Curate that ministereth in every Parish i.J the Doctrine of a Maximum and Minimum. 121 Church or Chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the Parish Church or Chapel where he ministereth, and shall cause a bell to be tolled thereunto a con venient time before he begin, that the people may come to hear God's word, and pray with him." I have already noticed the fact, that preaching and the study of divinity were admitted in the Rubric of 1604 as a valid excuse for disobedience ; the effect of excluding such excuse from the present Rubric being, of course, to make its obligation proportionately more stringent. But whatever be the character of the "urgent cause " or "reasonable hindrance," it was evidently intended to dispense the parish priest, pro hue vice, from the obligation of saying the Morning 'and Evening Prayers daily, and from that alone. But in the second clause of the Act of Uniformity no excuse at all is allowed. The order is absolute and unconditional. " Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, and by the advice and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that all and singular Ministers in any Cathedral, Collegiate, or Parish Church or Chapel, or other place of public worship within this Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon- Tweed, shall be bound to say and use the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, celebration and administra tion of both the Sacraments, and all other the public 122 Act of Uniformity Sanctions [letter and Common Prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book annexed and joined to this present Act, and entitled, The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of England ; together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung or said in Churches ; and the form or manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; and that the Morning and Evening Prayers therein contained shall, upon every Lord's Day, and upon all other days and occa sions, and at the times therein appointed, be openly and solemnly read by all and every Minister or Curate in every Church, Chapel, or other place of. Public Worship, with in this Realm of England, and places aforesaid." In the Seventh Clause of the Act, indeed, some relaxation of this imperative rule is allowed in the following terms: — " And be it further enacted, by the authority afore said, that in all places where the proper incumbent of any parsonage, or vicarage, or benefice with cure, doth reside on his living and keep a curate, the incumbent himself in person (not having some lawful impediment, to be allowed by the ordinary of the place), shall once (at the least) in every month, openly and publicly, read the common prayers and service, in and by the said Book prescribed, and (if there be occasion) administer each of the Sacraments, and other rites of the Church, in the parish Church i.J the Doctrine of a Maximum and Minimum. 1^3 or Chapel of, or belonging to, the same parsonage, vicarage, or benefice, in such order, manner, and form, as in and by the said Book is appointed ; upon pain to forfeit the sum of five pounds to the use of the poor of the parish for every offence, upon con viction by confession, or proof of two credible witnesses upon oath, before two justices of the peace of the county, city, or town corporate where the offence shall be committed (which oath the said justices are hereby empowered to administer), and in default of payment within ten days, to be levied by distress and sale of the goods and chattels of the offender by the warrant of the said justices, by the churchwardens or overseers of the poor of the said parish, rendering the surplusage to the party." Jf then the Rubric which prescribes Daily Service is to be interpreted by the Act of Uniformity, no excuse at all for any omission is permitted except in the case of incumbents who happen to have curates ; and these are bound, under easily-enforced penalties, "to read," "in person," "at the least in every month," " the Common Prayers and Service, in and by the said Book prescribed, and (if there be occasion) administer each of the Sacraments and other Rites of the Church in the Parish Church or Chapel belonging " to them. It is notorious, how ever, that Daily Service and the Observance of Saints' Days were as rare in Parish Churches at the commencement of the Oxford Movement as the daily celebration of the Holy Communion is now; 124 " Expositio Contemporanea." [letter and I could easily point out more than one Church in which it would be easy to convict the incumbent "before two justices of the peace " for violation of the Seventh Clause of the Act of Uniformity. It is evident that those who have clamoured for some easier method by which the Ritualists may be delivered over to the secular arm are not aware of the means of retaliation which the Ritualists possess under the present law, to say nothing of the fresh weapons which the Act of last Session has placed in their hands, if they choose in self-defence to avail themselves of them. But however that may be, it is a patent fact that the Act of Uniformity makes a strict observance of the Rubric which orders Daily Service more stringent than observance of the Orna ments Rubric ; and it is equally clear that the former Rubric has been systematically disregarded, till lately almost universally disregarded, with the most entire impunity, " capable " though it be " of being enforced with severe penalties " " under a penal statute." One of the reasons given in the Purchas Judgment for the condemnation of the Eucharistic Vestments is, that " a clear and abundant expositio contemporanea has been " supplied against them. By this phrase their Lordships, I suppose, mean that their researches have not enabled them to trace the use. of the Eucharistic Vestments in the English Church from the date of Queen Elizabeth's Advertisements " to about 1840." If they had continued their researches I have reason to think that they would have come to i.J "Expositio Contemporanea." 125 a different conclusion. I cannot, however, allow the argument to pass without objecting to it both as irrelevant, and as proving too much. It is irre levant because the mere fact of a law being in abeyance does not abrogate the law. If, indeed, their Lordships had meant by the expression, expositio contemporanea, that the stream of commentators understood the Ornaments Rubric in the sense of the Purchas Judgment, there would have been some force in the appeal provided that facts were forthcoming to substantiate it. But to declare that the statute does not mean what it plainly says, merely because circumstances prevented its being put rigorously in force, is surely a somewhat violent specimen of judicial exegesis. The expositio contemporanea argu ment moreover, proves too much, as I have already pointed out, inasmuch as it would be fatal to a number of other things which have in recent times been legally revived from a long desuetude. But if expositio contemporanea means the sense in which the Ornaments Rubric has been understood " from the days of Elizabeth to about 1840," there is at once an end of the Purchas Judgment ; for hardly a respectable writer can be produced in the interval named by their Lordships who does not interpret the Rubric in the sense condemned by the Court. It would be easy to produce a catena of authorities in support of this statement, but I shall content myself with three ecclesiastics, two of whom will carry weight by their reputation for moderation and learn- 126 Wheatley on the Ornaments Rubric, [letter ing, and the third by his acknowledged mastery of legal knowledge. Commenting on the Ornaments Rubric Wheatley says : — '• The second part of this Rubric is concerning the " Ornaments of the Church and the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministrations :" and to know what they are, we must have recourse to the Act of Parlia ment here mentioned, viz : in the second year of the reign of King Edivard VI. ; which enacts, that all and singular ministers, in any cathedral or parish church, etc., shall, after the Feast of Pentecost next coming, be bounden to say the mattins, evensong, etc., and the ad ministrations of the Sacraments, and all the common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book, (viz. first book of Edward VI.,) and not other or othenvise. So that by this Act we are again referred to the First Common Prayer Book of King Edward VL, for the habits in which Ministers are to officiate; where there are two Rubrics relating to them, one prescribing what habits shall be worn in all public ministrations whatsoever, the other re lating to the habits that are to be used at the Communion." And then, after enumerating the several orna ments which were prescribed under the First Prayer Book of Edward, he observes: "These are the ministerial ornaments enjoined by our present Rubric." Archdeacon Sharp, in a Series of Charges pub- i.J Archdeacon Sharp on the Ornaments Rubric. 127 li3hed in 1753, after quoting the 14th Canon, writes as follows : — "And upon the 58th Canon, which enjoins Ministers reading Divine Service, and administering the Sacraments, to wear surplices, and graduates their withal hoods, I need say the less, because it is superseded by the Rubric before the Common Prayer in 1661, which is statute law, and determines that all the ornaments ofthe Ministers at all times of their ministration shall be the same as they were by authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI. So that the Injunction concerning the habits and ornaments of Ministers which is at the end of Edward VI. 's First Service Book, with its explanation in the Act of Uniformity by Queen Elizabeth, is the legal or statutable rule of our Church habits to this day, and is so far from being explained by this Canon that it rather serves to explain the Canon itself, as I shall show in an instance or two. For, first, this Injunction of King Edward's referred to in our present Rubric, though it requires the sur plice to be used in all parish churches and chapels annexed to the same, yet doth in express words give liberty to the clergy to use or not use the surplice in their ministrations in other places, which is an indulgence that the Canon doth not expressly give, and it may be, I even question, whether it can be fairly inferred from it. "And the other thing that I would observe in the said Injunction is, that no order is given therein 128 Bishop Philpotts on the Ornaments Rubric, [letter concerning the use of the hood with the surplice in parish churches, though the same is allowed to be used by dignitaries in Cathedral Churches and in College Chapels. Therefore, as I take it, the clause in this Canon, which enjoins graduates to wear the hoods of their respective degrees in parish churches is not strictly binding, forasmuch as the present Rubric, which is of later date and decisive of all questions about the habits in ministration, refers us to a rule by which the said practice is not required." My third authority is the late Bishop Philpotts of Exeter, in his well-known answer to the parish ioners of Helston, when they desired him to prohibit the use of the surplice in the pulpit. " On this particular," he says, "I have no diffi culty in saying that Mr.' Blunt has been right since he has preached in his surplice. The Sermon is part of the Communion Service, and whatever be the proper garb of the Minister in the one part of that service, the same ought to be worn by him through out. The rubric and canons recognise no difference whatever. The rubric at the commencement of 'The Order for Morning and Evening Prayer,' says, 'That such ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. ' —in other words, ' a white alb plain, with a vest ment or cope.' These were forbidden in King I.J Bishop Philpotts on the Ornaments Rubric 129 Edward VI. 's Second Book, which ordered that ' The Minister at the times of the Communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use neither alb, vestment, nor cope, but being an archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet; and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only.' This was a triumph of the party most opposed to the Church of Rome, and most anxious to carry reformation to the very furthest point. But their triumph was brief. Within a few months Queen Mary restored Popery; and when the accession of Queen Elizabeth brought back the Reformation, she and the Convocation, and the Parliament, delibe rately rejected the simpler direction of Edward's Second Book, and revived the ornaments of the First. This decision was followed again by the Crown, Convocation, and Parliament, at the Restoration of Charles II., when the existing Act of Uniformity established the Book of Common Prayer, with its rubricks, in the form in which they now stand. "From this statement it will be seen that the surplice may be objected to with some reason: but then it must be because the law requires ' the alb and the vestment or cope.' " Why have these been disused ? Because the parishioners — that is, the churchwardens who repre sent the parishioners — have neglected their duty to provide them : for such is the duty of the parishioners by the plain and express Canon law of England (Gibson, 200). True it would be a very costly duty, 130 One Reason why Vestments [letter and for that reason, most probably, churchwardens have neglected it, and archdeacons have connived at the neglect. I have no wish that it should be other wise. But be this as it may, if the churchwardens of Helston shall perform this duty, at the charge of the parish, providing an alb, a vestment, and a cope, as they might in strictness be required to do (Gibson, 201), I shall enjoin the minister, be he who he may, to use them. But until these ornaments are provided by the parishioners, it is the duty of the minister to use the garment actually provided by them for him, which is the surplice. The parishioners never provide a gown ; nor, if they did, would he have a right to wear it in any part of his ministrations. For the gown is nowhere mentioned nor alluded to in any of the rubricks." This decision is valuable not only on account of the great ability and legal acumen of Bishop Phil potts, but for two other reasons. Tn the first place it points to one main cause why the Eucharistic Vestments fell into desuetude, namely, the unwilling ness of the parishioners to go to the expense of providing them. Centuries before the Reformation we have evidence of constant disputes between parishioners and incumbents as to the legal share of each in providing the necessary ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers, One of Archbishop Walter Gray's constitutions (a.d. 1250), for example, ordains as follows : * — * I give the translation in Johnson's Version. !•] fell into Desuetude. 131 " Wheras great Controversy often ariseth between the Rectors, or Vicars of Churches, within the Province of York, and their Parishioners concerning divers Ornaments, and things belonging to the Church; therefore that it may be known what the Rectors, or Vicars, are concern'd to uphold, and repair, and what things and Ornaments of the Church are to be repair'd by the Parishioners; we ordain that all our Parishioners be so well informed in the following Particulars, as that they do all in every respect observe them, that is the Chalice, the principal Mass-vestment of the Church, with the Chesible, the Alb, the Amyt, the Stole, the Maniple, the Girdle, with three Towels, and Corporals, and other decent Vestments for the Deacon [and Subdeacon] according . to the Condition of the Parishioners and the Church, with a Silk Cope for the principal Festivals, and two others for presiding in the choice at the Feasts aforesaid, a Cross for Processions, and another lesser Cross for the dead, a Bier for the dead, a Vessel for the holy Water, an Osculatory, a Candlestick for the Paschal Taper, a Cense-pot, a Lanthorn with a little bell, a Lenten Vail, two Candlesticks for the Collets ; the Legend, the Antiphonar, the Grail, the Psalter, the Proper, the Ordinal, the Missal, the Manual, which are the Books ; the Frontal for the high Altar, three Surplices, a decent Pix for the Body of Christ, Banners for the Rogation-days, great Bells with their Ropes, the holy Font with a Lock and Key, the Chris- matory, the Images in the Churches, the principal k 2 132 A Practical Refutation of Purchas Judgment, [letter Image (in the Chancel) of the Saint, to which the Church is dedicated ; the repair of the Books and Vestments, with all the things aforesaid, as occasion shall be ; the Beam-light in the Church, the repair of the Body of the Church, and building of it, with the Steeple within and without, the Glass- windows, the Fence of the Churchyards, with the Wings of the Body of the Church, and everything which is known to belong to the Parishioners. " All other things shall belong to the Rectors, or Vicars, according to their several Ordinations ; that is the principal Chancel, with the Reparations thereof, as to the Walls, and Roofs, and Glass-windows, with Desks and Benches, and other decent Ornaments, that they may sing with the Prophet, Lord, I have loved the comeliness of thy House, together with the Manse of the Rectory, and the Reparation thereof from time to time. And let Rectors or Vicars know, that they may be compelled to these, and other things not written in this Book by the Ordinaries of the Places, according to this and other Constitutions approved in this respect." Bishop Philpotts' s decision is valuable, in the second place, because it gives proleptically a practical refu tation to an assumption which underlies the whole of the Purchas Judgment, namely, that it is incon ceivable that the rulers of the Church should have allowed the Eucharistic Vestments to remain in abeyance if they had really believed that they were statutably binding. But here we have, in our own I.J " Fallacy of " Expositio Contemporanea." 133 generation, an eminent and fearless prelate insisting on the strictly binding force of the Rubric as regards the full Eucharistic Vestments, yet declaring his intention to rest satisfied with the use of the surplice, unless indeed the parishioners should provide the obsolete vestments ; in which case the Bishop would put the law in force and compel their use. Why should it be thought incredible that bishops in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries should take the same view of their duty in this respect as the late Bishop of Exeter % I do not feel sure that I rightly understand what the Court meant by the assertion that " a clear and abundant expositio contemporanea has been " supplied against Eucharistic Vestments from the year 1564 " to about 1840." The phrase implies that decisive evidence exists to prove that the Vestments were not used within the period designated. But assuming the correctness of the facts on which their Lordships relied, and putting their evidence at the very best, it only amounts to this : that it is impossible to prove with certainty that the Eucharistic Vestments were used. This is a very different thing from proving that they were not used ; and the latter proposition is the one which the Court was logically bound to establish. But I have already shown that some of the essential premisses on which the conclusion of the Court rests are based on data which are historically inaccurate. I have produced positive historical 134 Fallacy of " Expositio contemporanea," [letter evidence of the use of the full Eucharistic Vestments long after the date at which the Court has fixed their abolition, and the impugners of the Vestments are therefore bound to show that they were abolished at any other date down to the Great Rebellion. They were abolished then certainly in common with many other things, such as the Surplice, Prayer Book, and Episcopate. Those twenty years of devastation effaced many landmarks, and destroyed much valu able evidence. At this moment there are many churches scattered all over the kingdom in which the highest ritual is in constant use, but as to which contemporary literature bears no record. How much more must this have been the case in days when there was no daily press, no telegraph, no Church Association. If the Eucharistic Vestments were positively forbidden by the Rubric, then indeed it would be reasonable enough to demand proof of their being in use. But since they are positively enjoined — that is to say, if the Rubric is interpreted in the " dry light " of an unprejudiced understand ing — it is as unfair as it is irrelevant to lay upon a man who obeys the plain meaning of the Rubric the burden of proving that it ever had been obeyed from 1 564 " to about 1840 ;" and this on pain of being branded as "lawless," reduced to beggary, and worried, as Mr. Purchas was worried, into an early grave. Unreasonable, however, as the demand of the Judicial Committee is, it so happens that it is *•] " Lambeth Faire." I35 capable of being satisfied. I have proved that the Eucharistic Vestments were in use some years after the date assigned by the Purchas Judgment for their extinction. I will now produce some evidence to show that the Eucharistic Vestments, and many other things which the Great Rebellion swept away, were in use down to the very eve of the overthrow of the Church and Monarchy. I have a curious and very rare tract now lying before me, bearing the following title :— "Lambeth Faire, wherein you have all the Bishops Trinkets set to sale. Printed Anno Dom. 1641." It is a satirical description, in rhyme, of a public sale of " the ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof" then in use. The Bishops, having been " put downe " by Parliament, are supposed to preside at the sale of the now useless " trinkets." Let us see what sort of " trinkets " they were : — " This being done of Bishops, all the Crew Began with speed their wearing Eobes to shew, And with extended voyce they all did cry, Come, Customers, see what you lack, and buy ; Here's Vestments Consecrate, all sorts and sizes." Here we have two facts stated : first that " Vest ments consecrate " were then among the ornaments of the Church of England ; secondly, that they were then in use, for they are offered for sale as " wearing Robes," not as antiquarian relics. Now the only " Vestments consecrate " being the Eucharistic Vest ments properly so called, this reference to them as 136 Ritualism and the Great Rebellion, [letter "wearing robes " seems to me conclusive, at least so far as this, that they were then considered by the Puritans as among the chief grievances to be got rid of. But, according to the Purchas Judgment, they had been " swept away with severe exactness " more than seventy years previously. Among other " trinkets " described in " Lambeth Faire," are the following : " a crucifix," " crosier staffe," "crosses," "high altars," "sacred fonts," "guilt (sic) cherubims," "bellowing organs," "curious hymnes," "mitres," "bells baptized," "golden slip pers consecrated," and " emboss'd with Holines Divine." The following passage, moreover, seems to show conclusively that what are called altar lights were then in use : — " Wax Candles, Tapors, another cries and calls, These brought I with me from Cathedrall Paules ; They'l scare the Divele, and put him unto flight, When he perceives a consecrated light ; When we at Mattens and at Even-song were, We had them by us then devoid of feare ; They'l bring delight unto your eyes and nose, They burn so cleare and smell so like a Eose, And when you think that it hath burnt enough, Then blow it out, you shall not smell the snuffe, Or else you may on whom you will bestow it ; They'l joy to think a Bishop once did owe it." " Yes," I hear some one say, "and you see the end of it all. Ritualism ruined the Church of England in the seventeenth century, and it may ruin it now unless it is put down." The objection, however i.J The Question at Issue Then and $ow. 137 would prove too much ; for the party who got the upper hand then, after nearly a century of implacable strife, opposed Ritualism, even in the mild form of surplice and square cap, because it symbolised the ancient constitution and doctrine of the Church as distinguished from the republican ecclesiasticism of Geneva. It is impossible to read carefully the polemical writings of that period without perceiving that questions much deeper than that of dress lay at the bottom of this controversy. Is the Church a divine organism founded by the Son of God more than eighteen centuries ago and endowed with the attribute of unceasing life ? Or is she merely a human institution or school of opinions which men may remodel at their will, or for which they may sub stitute some different polity or philosophy that may appear to them preferable] That was the question implied or avowed in the Ritual Con troversy of the seventeenth century; and as soon as Puritanism obtained the upper hand it imme diately reduced its theory to practice by the aboli tion of the Episcopate and the estabhshment of the republican theory of Church government on its ruins. The same question is latent in the Ritual Controversy of our own day. The attack on "the sacerdotal principle " means nothing less than this, however confused may be the ideas — and they are very confused indeed — of those who engage in the attack. But more of that anon. It is tolerably certain, however, that the -Puritan 138 Erastianism of Caroline Bishops. [letter party would never have carried the majority of the nation with them against the Church in the seven teenth century if the Bishops had attended to their spiritual duties more and interfered in politics less. It was the introduction into the spiritual realm of the arbitrary maxims and despotic practices of secular politics which alienated the sympathies of the masses from the Episcopate. The Bishops showed themselves prone to lose sight of their spiritual character and functions amid the trappings of their political position and the schemes of party manoeuvres. If they had been less Erastian, less political, less ambitious of Court favour, and more devoted to the proper duties of their office, the Church, which they dragged through the mire of earthly politics, and themselves with it, would probably have been spared the twenty years' captivity of which we still feel some of the disastrous effects. Laud's connection with the Star Chamber and with the policy of " Thorough " did more to ruin himself and his Church than all his ritualistic proclivities. It was the memory of Roman despotism more than aversion to Roman theology that drove the mass of the nation to arms against the Stuart dynasty. It was the " Popery " of the Bishops in the art of government and in their manner of life, much more than their views of purely theological questions, which tended to make them unpopular. Such, at all events, was the deliberate opinion of some of the leading men of the time. The great Lord I.J Lord Falkland on Bishops. 139 Falkland, for example, while defending prelacy in the abstract, was very frank in his criticism on the con crete representation of it which he saw around him. In a speech which he delivered in Parliament in the year 1641 he is reported to have spoken as follows : — " He is a great stranger in Israel who knows not this kingdom hath long laboured under many and great oppressions, both in religion and liberty ; and his acquaintance here is not great, or his ingenuity less, who doth not know and acknowledge that a great, if not a principal; cause of both these have been some bishops and their adherents." They " have opposed the Papacy beyond the seas, that they might settle one beyond the waters." And he suggests accordingly such reforms as these : — " I am content to take away aR those things from them which, to any considerable degree of probability, may again beget the like mischiefs if they be not taken away. If their temporal title, . power, and employment appear likely to distract them from the care of, or make them look down with contempt upon, their spiritual duty, and the too great distance between them and those they govern will hinder the free and fit recourse of their inferiors to them, and occasion insolence from them to their inferiors, let that be considered and cared for. I am sure neither their lordships, their judging of tythes, wills, and marriages, etc., nor their voices in parliament, are jure divino ; and I am sure that these titles and this power are not necessary to their authority, as appears 140 Effigy of Archbishop Sandys. [letter by the little they have had with us by them, and the much that others have had without them. ... If their revenues shall appear likely to produce the same effects, for it hath been anciently observed that Religio preferit divitias et filia devoravit matrem : ' let so much of that as was in all probability intended for an attendant upon their temporal dignities wait upon them out of the doors. Let us only take care to leave them such proportions as may seem in some good degree to the dignity of learning and the encouragement of students."* Absit omen ! But I shall not be surprised if the first effect of the recent violent, and I must add unreasoning, attempt " to put down Ritualism," be to put down the bishops from the position of temporal dignity which they occupy at present. Before I leave the question of the use of the Eucharistic Vestments during the period between the Advertisements of Elizabeth and the Great Rebellion, it may be interesting to mention that there is in the north transept of Southwell Church a recumbent effigy of Archbishop Sandys (who died in 1588) wearing the following vestments : — a long tunic with tight sleeves, somewhat like an alb, but falling over the feet; a chasuble; a doctor's hood, with good- sized tippet ; and a small ruff round the neck. The chasuble is a peculiar one. It reaches to about the middle of the leg in front, and is cut square. On * Eushworth, Pari. Hist. iv. pp. 184, 185. The italics are in the original. L] Effigy of Archbishop Sandys. 141 the arms it comes about as far as the elbows ; and it is so long behind that it would trail on the ground, and is turned back under the figure. It has no orphreys, and is fringed all round.* Now the question is, Does this represent the dress actually worn by Sandys? Prima facie I should be inclined to say No. Sandys was a Puritan, and took part with those who opposed the Vestments. But his opposition was not violent, like that of Hooper and others, and his promotion affords evidence that he knew how to temper his Puritanical proclivities with discretion. One thing, at all events, seems clear. The effigy cannot be a copy of the ordinary Eucharistic Vestments, for those on Sandys's tomb are by no means ordinary. Not only is the shape of the chasuble peculiar, but the collocation of Vestments is such as no sculptor would have employed if he had not seen them in actual use at the time. On the other hand, it is such a melange as a man like Sandys might be likely to invent for himself. Any how, if the dress depicted on his effigy was not worn by him, it must have been worn by some one at the time; for the sculptor would hardly have invented it, and there was certainly no ancient model of which it could be a copy. So much as to the evidence in favour of the Eucharistic Vestments previous to the Great Rebellion. Have we any evidence of their use after the Restoration1? * My attention was called to this interesting effigy by Mr. T. A. Lacey, of Balliol College. 142 Jean Grancolas. [letter Considering the circumstances of the case and of the time the probabilities are all against their use, as I have shown some pages back. Nevertheless I am able to produce some evidence which it appears to me difficult to explain except on the supposition that the ritual condemned by the Purchas Judgment was in use after the Restoration, at least in some Churches. Your Lordship is perhaps acquainted with some of the liturgical works of Jean Grancolas, Chaplain to Monsieur the brother of Louis XIV. He was born in 1660, and died in 1732. Among other works he wrote an "Historical Commentary on the Roman Breviary," which was written originally in French, and published in Paris in 1727. I have not a copy of the French Edition, but I am indebted to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould for the following extract from the Latin translation, published at Venice in 1734 : — " Post schisma novum sibi officii corpus Angli digessere, Psalmorum liber semel per mensem legitur; Psalmi sunt juxta Hebraicum textum, non juxta Vulgatum interpre- tationem. Vetus Testamentum legitur in prima lectione precum matutinarum, et vespertinarum, Novum autem in secunda. Vetus Testamentum semel per annum perlegitur, Novum ter. Isaias legitur post Adventus initium usque ad Septuagesimam ; tunc vero incipit Genesis usque ad V.Dominicam Quadragesima}, qua leguntur Exodus, Numeri, et Deuteronomius usque ad Dominicam Trinitatis. Inde Josue leguntur, Judices, Libri Eegum, Hieremias, Ezechiel, Daniel, et prophetaa minores usque ad Adventum. Sunt etiam lectiones singularum per annum Dominicarum propria?, Ascensionis proeterea, et Ferise secunda^ et tertian Paschales, et Pentecostes, atque ceterorum Pestorum. Pesta vero hsec sunt. Januario : Circumcisio, Epiphania, S. Lucianus, S. Hilarius, S. Priscilla, S. Pabianus, S. Agnes, S. Vincentius, Conversio S. Pauli," and so on I.J " Ahrege des Histoires," etc. 143 throughout the year. " Licet autem Sancti hi omnes sunt in ipsorum calendario, officia tamen non peragurit, nisi Festorum D.N. et B.V., ut Purificationis et Annunciationis, Assumptio vero ne in Calendario quidem ipsorum invenitur. Pro FestiB aliis nullum Officium est, si duodecem Apostolorum Festa excipias, conversionis S. Pauli, S. Barnabse, S. Marci, S. LuctB, S. Stephani, et S. Joannis Baptists. Quare Eeformata hfeo Eeligio ex septem Horis Canonicis Matutinas tantum et Vespertinas preces servat. Multa ex Eomanis Eitibus sumsere, atque Anglice interpretati sunt, Collectos, Litanias, Bine invocatione Sanctorum tamen, distributionem epistolarum, et Evangeliorum per anni cursum, Preces, Versiculos, Te Deum, Benedictus, Magnificat, Pater, Kyrie Eleison, Domine labia mea aperies, Gloria in excelsis, Prrefationes, Quicunque. Quod Collectas Sanctorum spectat quorum officia celebrant, eas dumtaxat servaverunt, qure mera constant historia, quibusque nulla sit intercesBionis, aut invocationis mentio, quales sunt S. Stephani, S. Petri, etc. Presbyteri hmc omnia in Templis decantant per anni cursum, superpelliceo, pluviali et casulis induti. Puerorum choros quoque habent, cantores, et organa." — Lib. I. c. xii., pp. 25-26. Another French writer, for my acquaintance with whom I am also indebted to Mr. Baring-Gould, says : — * " L'Eglise Anglicane, en abolissant la Messe, a retenu une Ceremonie qui en aproche, qui a ete traduite des Offices Eomains, et dans laquelle on observe l'ordre des Epitres, des Evangeles, le symbole du Nicee, le Prone, et les Prefaces, qui sont ordinairement un petit eloge du Saint dont on fait la Fete, et une exortation au peuple de l'imiter, mais sans adresser leurs Prieres a autre* qu'a Dieu. Ils communient dans cette ceremonie, et le font avec respect et a genoux. Ils chantant ou recitent Matines, les autres Heures canoniales avec les Lecons, Collectes, Pseaumes, et autres Offices propredu * Abrege des Histoires des plus fameux Heresiarques qui ont paru en Europe depuis l'anne 1040, et au precis historique des causes du sohisma de l'Eglise Anglicane. Eouen, 1699. Pt, ii. p. 55. 144 The Value of such Evidence. [letter terns ; et tout cet Office et la Liturgie mume est fait, recite et chante en langue vulgaire." " On se sert des habits et des Ornemens a la Romaine, ou a l'usage des Orgues, les instrumens de musique, et des cloohes. Ou observe dans les Baptemes, et autres Benedictions le signe de la croix, et on a quantite de ceremonies dans leurs Offices et Services retenues ou imitees des ceremonies Eomains," etc. etc. The Abbe De Commanville, in his " Tables Geo- grophiques de tous les Archeveschez et Eveschez," published at Rouen, in 1700 says (p. 117), of the English Church : — " Elizabeth, etant montee sur le Trone, y etablit une refor mation a sa mode. Elle suprima le Dogme...de la Transsub- stanciation, l'lnvocation des Saints, le Purgatoire, le Celibat des Pretres ; mais elle laissa la Liturgie, les Ceremonies, les Habits Sacerdotaux, le Chant," etc. Both these writers concur in asserting that the old Vestments were retained and used in the English Church after the rupture between Queen Elizabeth and the Pope ; and Grancolas, in particular, is so accurate in the circumstantial account which he gives of other matters that it is hard to believe that he took no pains to inform himself on the subject ofthe Vest ments. It is much more probable that he consulted some of the crowd of Englishmen who resided in France at the time he wrote ; and it is hardly probable that, writing about the year 1727, he would have asserted that the cope and chasuble, as well as the sur plice, were worn by the cleigy, if no chasuble had ever been seen after the first few years of Elizabeth's reign, or cope either except in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, and even these only on high festivals.* * This, by the way, is one of the numerous blunders of the I.] Sir W. Scott on Ornaments Rubric. 145 The following passage, too, is interesting as showing Sir Walter Scott's opinion. It is evident that he, at all events, believed that " copes and vestments " were part of the legal heritage of the Church of England after the Restoration : — " I trow, gin ye were not blinded wi' the graces and favours, and services and enjoyments, and em ployments and inheritances of this wicked world, I could prove to you by the Scriptures in what a filthy rag ye put your trust ; and that your surplices, and your copes and vestments, are but cast-off garments of the muckle harlot that sitteth upon seven hills." — Speech of Gilfillan the Comer onian in " Waverley," ch. 36. I think I may now dismiss the question of the Vestments ; and in doing so I must repeat that the historical discussion into which I have been led by the extraordinary reasoning of the Judicial Com mittee in Hebbert v. Purchas is entirely irrelevant to the point at issue. The Ornaments Rubric pre scribes in plain language the Vestments which were legally in use in the second year of King Edward VI. ; and with all that happened in the interval between that date and the year 1662 we have nothing whatever to do. That this will be the view taken by the new Court of Appeal, when the ques- Court in the Case of Mr. Purchas. The XXIVth Canon does not say that the cope shall be used "on solemn festivals " only, but that on solemn festivals the highest dignitary present, being dressed in a cope, shall celebrate the Holy Communion. L 146 The Mixed Chalice. [letter tion is fully argued, as it was the view of the Judicial Committee in Liddell v. Westerton, I cannot allow myself to doubt. The controversy about the mixed chalice is one into which it is not necessary for me to enter. It has been sufficiently discussed by abler pens than mine; and the practice is, moreover, so innocent in itself and, as one of the most moderate of our bishops remarked to me lately, " so beautiful in its symbolism," that the new Court of Appeal will leave it, as I venture to hope, in the list of optional ceremonial. The Dean of the Arches Court, for reasons which I own appear to me insufficient, prohibited the mixing of water with the Sacramental wine during Divine Service, but permitted it if done in the vestry or elsewhere before the Service. A very superfluous sanction surely. It is the duty of the priest who is responsible for the due celebration of the Holy Communion to see that real bread and real wine are used, and so long as he does this in a manner which cannot possibly be offensive to anybody, neither courts ff law, nor Ordinary, nor the three " aggrieved parishioners " of the Public Worship Act, have any more right to interfere than they have to dictate the particular vintage to which the Sacramental Avine is to belong. There is, in fact, more or less of water in all wine, and a small addition at the celebration of the Holy Communion, while it is in harmony with immemorial custom, can be no grievance to any one. Practically, therefore, it is a matter of complete indifference i.J Animus of the Court. 147 whether the practice of mixing water with the wine in the vestry is forbidden. Those who like the practice will continue it, all legal decisions notwith standing, for they will regard the matter as ultra vires of any Court whatsoever. And a decision against it moreover, could never be enforced, inasmuch as no evidence sufficient to sustain a conviction could ever be produced. One should have thought that considerations like these might have occurred to the distinguished persons who sat in judgment on Mr. Purchas. But with what really looks like a pragmatical disposition to be needlessly vexatious they condemned the very superfluous permission given by the inferior Court to mix a little water with the wine in the Vestry. And their Lordships' reasoning is even more re markable than the decision to which it leads them. After glancing at some of the arguments in support of the mixed chalice they remark: — "Their Lord ships gladly leave these niceties of examination to observe, that they doubt whether this part of the Article is of much importance. As the learned Judge has decided the act of mingling the water with the wine in the Service to be illegal, the private mingling of the wine is not likely to find favour with any." Surely if the matter was so unimportant, the wise exercise of judicial discretion would have been to leave it in the category of things indifferent and therefore optional. But one very singular character- L 2 148 The Court gives the Prosecutor [letter istic pervades the Purchas Judgment. Confessions of doubt, uncertainty, and perplexity, or declarations that the matter in dispute is of little or no impor tance, are invariably the prelude to a sentence of conviction. "Not proven" is in the mind of the Court always equivalent to the verdict of " Guilty," and it is the accuser not the accused who system atically receives the benefit of every doubt. "They do not disguise from themselves that the task " of interpreting the Ornaments Rubric, "is a difficult one," and the question of wafer-bread presents similar difficulty to their Lordships' mind. I venture re spectfully to think that these difficulties are not inherent in the Rubrics themselves but in the subjective prepossessions of their judicial inter preters. But granting, for argument's sake, that there are " difficulties^' one might at least hope that they would serve, as " extenuating circum stances," to mitigate the offence of- the accused. The inference would be as rash as it is certainly natural. The " difficulties " being confessed, " their Lordships are therefore inclined to think " that Mr. Purchas ought to have had no difficulties ; and they condemn him accordingly. And so with regard to wafer-bread. "Upon this Sixteenth Article, however," says the Court, " whether it be more or less important, their Lordships allow the appeal, and will advise that a monition should issue against the Re spondent." My Lord, I endeavour to restrain my indignation ; but it is hard to feel respect for the I.] the Benefit of every Doubt. 149 decisions of a Court which travesties after this fashion the elementary axioms of English law and the primary principles of eternal justice. The spec tacle of a Court of last resort inflicting a ruinous sentence on a man of blameless moral character, because in a balance of "difficulties" his judges are "inclined to think" that the "difficulties" in question led him, as they led the learned Judge of the inferior Court, to an erroneous conclusion, is a scandal which I trust will never again be witnessed in England. "We consider," says the Judgment of the same Court in the Gorham Case, " that it is not the duty of any Court to be minute and rigid in cases of this sort. We agree with Sir William Scott in the opinion which he expressed in Stone's case, in the Consistory Court of London : ' That if any Article is really a subject of dubious interpretation, it would be highly improper that this Court should fix on one meaning, and prosecute all those who hold a contrary opinion regarding its interpretation.' " It is no exaggeration to say that the Purchas Judgment is an outrageous parody on this excellent maxim. But Mr. Gorham was supposed to represent an influential party, and he had the support of that public opinion which is represented by the news papers. Mr. Purchas, on the other hand, was supposed to represent only himself and possibly a score or two of wrong-headed clergymen, and the press was dead against him. Mr. Gorham was 150 Duty of Exposing Judicial Errors, [letter accordingly acquitted in violation of the plainest language, and Mr. Purchas was condemned in spite of it. When such applications of the "Lesbian rule " are seen in the practice of foreign Courts of Justice the public opinion of England is not slow to denounce them. But is justice " a geographical expression," changing its complexion and essential features according to the degree of latitude in which it is administered % It is from no disloyalty to the law of the land, nor from any disrespect towards those on whom is imposed the arduous task of administering it, that I feel constrained to express myself thus frankly. On the contrary, it is because I am jealous of the purity and integrity of our Courts of Justice, and wish to bear myself loyally towards them, that I consider it part of my duty as a good citizen to protest against a glaring miscarriage of justice like the Purchas Judgment. The way to make men lawless is to attempt to force upon their consciences an interpre tation of the law which they know to be as untrue historically as it is radically unjust. This very matter of the mixed chalice is disposed of by the Court in the compass of little more than two octavo pages; yet within that brief space it contrives to commit itself to a blunder which would have been discreditable to the merest tyro in ecclesiastical history. "But neither Eastern or* Western Church, * It is sufficiently evident that the Court acted as if it were making the law, not declaring it. Did it consider itself super- !•] Wafer-Bread. 151 so far as the Committee is aware, has any customof mixing the water with wine, apart from and before the Services." And further on they assert that this "practice has not prevailed at all." What the Court here declares to be no custom either in the Eastern or Western Church is, in fact, the rule of the former. I now come to the question of wafer-bread. The statement of the question by the Court is as follows : — "The Twentieth Article charges the Respondent with using on divers occasions ' wafer-bread, being bread made in the special shape and fashion of circular wafers, instead of bread such as is usual to be eaten,' and with administering the same to the communicants. The Rubric of the Prayer Book now in force runs thus: — 'And to take away all occasion of dissension and superstition, which any person hath or might have concerning the bread and wine, it shall suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten ; but the best and purest wheat bread that conveniently may be gotten.' This is the same with the Rubrics of 1552, 1559, and 1604, with two exceptions. The present Rubric omits after ' eaten ' the words ' at the table with other meats,' and it introduces words which have been prominent in the argu ment in this case. Instead of 'to take away the superstition,' it reads 'to take away all occasion grammaticus also? I was taught at school that "neither" ought to be followed by " nor." 152 Injunction and Rubric Contrasted, [letter of dissension and superstition.' In the First Book of Edward VI. the direction is different: — 'For avoiding all matter and occasion of dissension, it is meet that the bread prepared for the Communion be made through all this realm after one sort or fashion ; that is to say, unleavened and round, as it was afore, but without all manner of print, and something more larger and thicker than it was, so that it may be aptly divided in divers pieces; and every one shall be divided in two pieces at the least, or more, by the discretion of the Minister, and so distributed.' One of the Elizabethan Injunc tions (of 1559) is at variance with the Elizabethan Rubric continued from the Second Book of King Edward, and provides as follows :—' Where also it was in the time of King Edward VI. used to have the Sacramental Bread of common fine bread, it is ordered for the more reverence to be given to these holy mysteries, being the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that this same Sacramental Bread be made and formed plain, without any figure thereupon, of the same fineness and fashion round, though somewhat bigger in compass and thickness, as the usual bread and wafer heretofore named Singing Cakes, which served for the use of the private Mass. . . .' The learned Judge calls this Injunction a contemporanea expositio of the Rubric, but it is in fact a superseding of the Rubric, nor can it be regarded as at all reconcileable with it. Upon these facts the learned Judge decides i.J Hypercriticism. 153 as follows:— 'It appears, therefore, that while the first Rubric prescribed an uniformity of size and material, the later and the present Rubric are contented with the order that the purest wheaten flour shall suffice, and the bread may be leavened according to the use of the Eastern, or unleavened according to the use of the Western Church.' " "Their Lordships," continues the Purchas Judg ment, " do not find any mention of flour, and apart from this slight inadvertence, their Lordships are unable to accept this view of the passages that have been quoted." The rebuke here administered to Sir R. Phillimore for his "slight inadvertence" is certainly a refine ment of hypercriticism, and comes with an ill grace from a tribunal of which, to speak mildly, accuracy is assuredly not a distinguishing feature. " Their Lord ships," forsooth ! " do not find any mention of flour." But they find mention of " the best and purest wheat bread," and " wheat bread," 1 imagine, is " wheaten flour " in a baked condition. But let that pass, and let us examine the process of reasoning by which the Court arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Purchas transgressed the law in using wafer-bread. It is as follows : — The First Prayer Book of Edward aimed at unh formity in the matter of wafer bread. The Second Book "is not so positive ih form, for the words ' it shall suffice ' are used ; but it produced uniformity and not diversity, for the Injunction of 1559 says : 154 " It shall Suffice." [letter ' It was in the time of King Edward VI. used to have the Sacramental Bread of common fine bread.' " Then came the Injunction of 1559, which ordered the wafer brea,d, but without any figure on it ; and this again was meant to be imperative and to " super sede " the Rubric. Lastly— for the Rubric of 1604 adopted that of Elizabeth — came our present Rubric, in which there is a slight alteration. Instead of " to take away the superstition which any person hath or might have," it says : " to take away all oc casion of dissension and superstition." And instead of " such as is usually to be eaten at the table with other meats," it says : "such as is usual to be eaten," omitting "at the table with other meats." From this state of facts the Court concludes that the object all through was to enforce uniformity ; nor are they staggered by the permissive form of the phrase, " it shall suffice." " If these words left the whole matter open," says the Court, " and only pro vided that the usual bread should be sufficient when it happened to be used, it is difficult to see how either dissension or superstition would be taken away." It is, of course, hard to enter into the difficulties of other minds, especially when they happen to be very superior to one's own ; but to my humble under standing there is no difficulty at all in the matter. The dissension and superstition had arisen all along from the attempt to enforce a rigid uniformity. To insist on the wafer-bread, to the absolute exclusion of I.J Proper Remedy for Dissensions. 155 the ordinary bread, might with reason be considered superstitious, and would be certain to breed dissension, as in fact it did. To insist on the exclusion of the wafer-bread would have a similar result. And there fore "to take away all occasion of dissension and superstition " " it shall suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten." That is to say, the prefer ence is to be given to the wafer-bread, but it is not forced on those who object to it ; and by this means all fear of superstition and cause of dissension would be removed. The Rubric is as clear and transparent as a mountain stream. Dissensions are not removed by a Procrustean uniformity but by a reasonable liberty. The word "dissension" ordinarily implies, not an agreement to differ, but an altercation more or less violent. "Debates, dissensions, uproars, are thy joys," says Dryden. The word is used in a similar sense in Acts xv. 2: When Paul and Barnabas "had no small dissension and disputation (orac-eco? ical o-vtyjTyo-ecos) with the Judaizing sticklers for uniformity, they ap pealed to the Apostolic College, and the Council of Jerusalem ruled the point as the Convocation of 1662 ruled that under consideration. It shall suffice, they said, that, in respect to the Law of Moses, " ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornica tion." And it is added that this decision brought " consolation " to the dissentients. ' The Judicial Committee's mode of laying dissensions in matters indifferent is the antithesis of this. They "put 156 " The Best and Purest Wheat Bread." [letter a yoke upon the neck " of the party which has the fewest friends, and therefore naturally exasperate instead of giving " consolation." Throughout the Purchas Judgment the Court eagerly presses against the defendant any alteration in Rubric or Statute which can at all have a hostile interpretation ; but alterations which would tell in his favour are quietly ignored. The addition of the word " dissension " in the Rubric of 1662 is with perverse ingenuity made the basis of an argument against him;* while the omission of the words, "at the table with other meats," is put aside without a remark. But is it not fair to infer from the omission that the bread, " such as is usually to be eaten at the table with other meats," is no longer intended by the Rubric, " but the best and purest wheat bread?" Now "the best and purest wheat-bread" is unquestionably unleavened bread. It must be remembered that when the Rubric was written home-baked bread was very common even in towns,' and universal in the country, and the ordinary home- baked bread was unleavened. In great houses the domestic baker prepared several kinds and qualities of bread suitable to the various departments of the * I beg to repeat here, what I have said more than once already, that I am not imputing any deliberate or conscious unfairness to the Court. That it was conscientiously under the influence of a domineering bias every page of the Judgment seems to me to prove. I have some observations to offer on this part of the subject further on. I.] " At the Table with other Meats." 157 household: for the master's table the "manchet loaf;" for the side tables the fine " cherte," and for the board's end, or domestics, the brown bread, made of a mixture of flour and rye-meal, called mystelon or maslin. This brown bread was that generally used in the houses of the middle class. The poor seldom tasted wheat ; they ate bread made of rye, lentils, and oatmeal. The manchet loaf was made of fine wheat flour, passed through a sieve or boulting cloth, and sometimes called boulted bread. The cherte was made of unboulted flour. In well-to- do households, moreover, various fancy breads were usually put on "the table with other meats." It is necessary to bear these facts in mind when interpreting the Rubric. Even if the direction as to " the purest wheat bread " were imperative and ex clusive, as the Court ruled, or only permissive as I contend, Mr. Purchas had a right to claim acquittal. The Rubric says nothing about the shape of the bread; and the quality of that which he used assuredly corresponded better to the description of " the purest wheat bread " than the concoction of flour, alum, potatoes, and yeast which is now usually set on " the table with other meats." In the Middle Ages, and certainly down to the time of Queen Elizabeth, the wafer-bread was frequently made of fine wheat flour, sugar and almonds. It was called masspane (mass-bread) ; but, under the name of payne-mayne, it came to be considered a great delicacy at the tables of the rich. We read in an 158 History of the Question. [letter old Romance that Myldore the Bryzth, when enter taining Sir Degrevant, " Payne-mayne prevayly, Sche brought from the pantry."* It was no doubt the intention of the Reformers to banish this as well as other composite breads from Sacramental use, and to secure the use of unleavened bread, or of the nearest approach to it "that con veniently may be gotten." Let us now glance at the history of the question. The First Prayer Book of Edward prescribed bread " unleavened and round as it was afore, but without all manner of print, and something more larger and thicker than it was, so that it may be aptly divided in divers pieces." The Second Book, " to take away the superstition which any person hath or might have," ruled that it should " suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten at the table with other meats, but the best and purest wheat . bread that conveniently may be gotten." This was clearly a permissive direction which left an option between the wafer-bread " and the best and purest wheat-bread " that could be got ; and it was so understood by the moderate party. But the Puritans, as usual, thought they could not go far enough from ancient custom, and accord ingly they used " ordinary bread," without troubling themselves to consider whether it was " the best and purest wheat bread " or not. * Thornton Eomances, p. 235. i.J History of the Question. 159 Then came the Prayer Book of 1559, leaving the Rubric of 1552 unchanged, but supplementing it with the Injunction already quoted. The intention of that Injunction undoubtedly was to restore gene rally the use of wafer-bread. And the Puritans understood it in that sense. In a letter from Miles Coverdale, Lawrence Humphrey, and Thomas Sampson to William Farell, Peter Viret, Theodore Beza, and others, they enumerate various points in which " our affairs are not altered for the better but, alas ! are sadly become worse (in deterius prolapsa; sunt.)" And among the changes for the worse of which they complain as " settled and determined (acta et transacta)," is the obligation to use "an unleavened cake instead of common bread (panis vidgaris)."* George Withers, Percival Wiburn, and others make similar complaints ; and there is little doubt that both Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker made a strong effort to enforce the Injunction about wafer-bread. In a letter of Parker to Secretary Cecil, April 12th, 1566, he relates the following instructive incident : — " My Lord of London can best answer for his own jurisdiction ; but this I can say, that where I have sent, divers days, three and four of my Chaplains to serve in the greatest parishes, what for lack of surplice and wafer-bread, they did mostly but preach. And one of my chaplains serving last Sunday (7th of April, the Sixth Sunday in Lent) at a parish, and * Zurich Letters, Second Series, Lett. 50, 160 Lawlessness of Puritanism. [letter being informed that divers communicants would have received, the table made ready accordingly, while he was reading the Passion, one man of the parish drew from the table both cup and the wafer-bread, because the bread was not common, and so the Minister derided and the people disappointed."* I call this incident instructive, because it shows the utter lawlessness of the Puritans of that time. The Purchas Judgment innocently assumes that the intention of Elizabeth's Advertisements was to cur tail high ceremonial, and that, in matter of fact, all the Clergy officiated in surplices after the year 1564. Yet here we find, two years after this date, that "three and four" of the Primate's own chaplains, " divers days," and "in the greatest parishes " in the metropolis, could not celebrate the Holy Com munion "for lack of surplice " as well as of "wafer- bread," and therefore " did mostly but preach ; " the inference being that they preached in their ordinary dress. The rest of the story shows that the reverence of these fanatics for sacred things was as conspicuous by its absence as their respect for episcopal and royal authority. Yet the Judicial Committee thought it the easiest thing in the world to enforce the use of the full ritual of 1549 in the midst of this saturnalia of Puritan lawlessness, if Queen Elizabeth and her counsellors had been anxious to do so! And they could not conceive the possibility of orders to that effect being successively and derisively dis- * Parker Correspondence, p. 278, I.J Archbishop Parker on Wafer Bread. 161 obeyed ! This really shows the absolute necessity of having men sitting in these Courts who have more than a superficial acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But let us proceed with the question of the wafer- bread. Though Parker did his best to restore the use of the wafer-bread, he did not by any means read the Injunction in the rigid sense in which the Purchas Judgment regards it. This is evident from the following passage in a letter of his to Sir William Cecil, on January 8th, 1571: — The question of the sacramental bread, he says, — "... is matter of much contention in the realme, where most part of Protestants think it most meet to be in wafer-bread, as the Injunction prescribeth; divers others, I cannot tell of what spirit, would have the loaf-bread. . . . They that like not the Injunction force much the statute in the Book. I tell them that they do evil to make odious comparisons betwixt Statute and Injunction, and yet I say and hold that the Injunction hath authority by proviso of the statute. » And whereas it is said in the note, that to take away the superstition which any person hath or might have in the bread and wine, it shall suffice that the bread be such as is usual to be eaten at the table with other meats, etc.; 'it shall suffice,' I expound, where either there wanteth such fine usual bread, or superstition be feared in the wafer-bread, they may have the Communion in fine usual bread, M 162 Objectors a Small Minority. [letter which is rather a toleration in these two necessities than is in plain ordering, as in the Injunction." * We learn from this letter that the Puritans who objected to the wafer-bread were but a small minority of those who accepted the Reformation. But they were noisy and unscrupulous, and London being their stronghold and its Bishop their patron, their voices were heard and trouble us still; while the vast majority of clergy and laity lived quietly, " thinking at most " to have divine service performed after the manner of the First Book of Edward. Your Lordship will observe that Parker's explanation of " it shall suffice " is that which grammar and common sense suggest, and is in flat contradiction t° that of the Purchas Judgment. It had been well, too, if the Court which delivered that Judgment had been mindful of his warning, that " they do evil to make odious comparisons betwixt Statute and In junction." The next piece of evidence to Avhich I wish to call your Lordship's attention is from a curious and rare little book called " A Counter-poyson, modestly written for the time, to make answere to the objec tions and reproches, wherewith the aunswerer to the Abstract would disgrace the holy Discipline of Christ." It is printed " at London " " by Robert Waldegrave," but without date. It is supposed by some to have been written by Henry Jacob, founder of the first Independent or Congregational sect in England; * Parker Correspondence, p. 875. I.] Evidence for Wafer Bread. 163 while others attribute it to Dudley Fenner, who certainly wrote "A Defence of the Reasons of the Counter-poyson," published in 1586. Both these pieces are reprinted in the quarto volume of Puritan tracts known as " A Parte of a Register." The author, whoever he was, appears, in the title-page which I have quoted, to own the authorship of a some what libellous attack on the Church of England, called " An Abstract of certain Acts of Parliament." Arch bishop Whitgift published "An Answer to the Abstract," and the Counter-poyson is the rejoinder. This fixes the date of the volume as not earlier than about the year 1584. !• And now let us see what evidence the author furnishes on the subject of wafer-bread. On p. 187 he says, — " As for unleavened bread, it is but proper to Geneva, and now our Church hath allowed the other : why should we then make any difference or strife about it]" And on p. 195, "It is not lawfull for one to be thrust out of the Ministry for showing modestly in his sermons the inconvenience of un leavened bread in the Lord's Supper." From these two quotations two inferences are in evitable: first, that twenty-five years after Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions common loaf bread was allowed in the administration of the Holy Communion ; secondly, that the use of wafer-bread was so much the rule that those who preached against it " modestly in their sermons " were "thrust out of the ministry;" in other words, the Puritans were not forced to use it, M 2 164 Mistake of the Court as to Wafer Bread, [letter fhelnjunction notwithstanding ; but such as attempted a dog-in-the-manger policy were punished. " But their Lordships," says the Purchas Judgment, " attach greater weight to the exposition of this Rubric furnished by the history of the question. From a large collection of Visitation Articles, from the time of Charles II., it is clear that the best and purest wheat bread was to be provided for the Holy Communion, and no other kind of bread." What do their Lordships suppose wafer-bread to be made of1? Evidently they think that it is something quite different from " the best and purest wheat bread ;" whereas it corresponds with that description more exactly a great deal than ordinary baker's bread. It is called wafer-bread by reason of its shape and not of its material. The same mistake runs through the argument which the Court founds upon the XXth Canon : — " The words of the XXth Canon, to which the Visitation Articles refer, point the same way. The Churchwardens are bound to supply ' wheaten bread,' and this alone is mentioned. If wafer-bread is equally permitted, or the special cakes of Edward VI.'s First Book, and of the Injunctions, it is hard to see why the parish is to supply wheaten bread, in cases where wafers are to be supplied by the Minister, or from some other source." But their Lordships forget that the XXth Canon is substantially a repetition of the Rubric of 1559, which is as follows : — I.] Inaccurate Quotation by the Court. 165 " The bread and wine for the Communion shall be provided by the Curate and the Churchwardens, at the charges of the parish." What their Lordships' crude acquaintance with these unfamiliar subjects made it " hard " for them " to see " was nevertheless the literal fact. The parish was " to supply wheaten bread " contempo raneously with the Injunction which ordered the celebrant to use wafer-bread. The foundation of their Lordships' argument being thus removed, the superstructure built upon it tumbles of course to the ground. I -am sorry, however, to be obliged once more to call attention to their invincible habit of careless quotation. According to the XXth Canon, they say, " the Churchwardens are bound to supply wheaten bread." But the words of the Canon are : — "The Churchwardens of every parish against the time of every Communion shall, at the charge of the parish, with the advice and direction of the Minister, provide a sufficient quantity of fine white bread " (Lat. " idoneam pro numero communicantium, panis siliginei . . . quantitatem.") The words which I have marked in italics give a very different com plexion to the Canon from that conveyed by their Lordships' representation of it. The Churchwardens were simply to carry out the instructions of the Minister, and the only condition imposed upon the latter was that the material of the bread should be the finest and purest wheat flour. Do their Lordships leally mean to tell us that this condition was violated 166 Evince of Zurich Liturgy. [letter because the flour was baked in a particular shape, and without any admixture of a foreign element like yeast ? They seem possessed wuth some occult suspicion that wafer-bread is not bread at all. But are they not aware that the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. , which enjoins the use of wafer-bread, orders " the pastors and curates " to find " sufficient bread and wine for the Holy Communion." The confusion in their Lordships' minds results from their strange assumption that unleavened bread is not wheaten bread. On the contrary, the "purest wheat bread," if we are to interpret language strictly, must be unleavened. Their Lordships' conclusion, therefore, is a marvellous specimen of judicial paralogism : — " Upon the whole, their Lordships think that the law of the Church has directed the use of pure wheat-bread, and they must so advise her Majesty." Precisely so. But then, why did they suspend and fine Mr. Purchas for doing what " the law of the Church has directed V The question seems to me so plain that I shall trouble your Lordship with only one more authority. I happen to possess a copy of the Zurich Liturgy, " faithfully translated out of the Helvetian," as the title-page bears witness, " by John Conrad Werndly, formerly Minister of the French and Dutch Congre gation of Santoff, in the Isle of Axholme, in the County of Lincoln : and now Minister of Wraisbury- cum-Langley, in the County of Bucks." The book !•] Evince of Zurich Liturgy. 167 was published in 1693, and is dedicated to Queen Mary, and it bears on its frontispiece the following imprimatur :— "November 25, 1692. " We do approve of this, as a work that may be of " very good Satisfaction and Use. " H. London. "W. Cov. and Lich. "H. Bangok. " J. NoEWIH. " EOB. ClOESTEENS. " Eich. Petriburg." Now in this Liturgy the Minister is ordered to use " unleavened bread, made in the form of a broad square cake or wafer." It is to be " of the finest flour, almost as thin as paper, and as white as snow. . . . And the breaking thereof maketh a noise, or crack, which is easily heard throughout the whole Church, to express and represent the better the breaking of our Saviour's Body on the Cross." The translator adds, however, with unconscious pre vision of the Purchas Judgment, that though the Zurich Protestants " use no Common Bread, yet it is really bread, and made of the best and whitest Flour of Meal." I have no wish to attach more importance to this book than it deserves. But I think it significant that five English bishops in 1692 should have publicly recommended, as " of very good satisfaction and use " a book which contains a dissertation in 168 Evince of Zurich Liturgy. [letter defence of wafer-bread, as well as strict directions for its use. The translator, be it remembered, was at the time the book was published a beneficed clergyman in England, and he tells us that he "administered the Blessed Sacrament to one of His Majesty's Regiments of Horse Guards " at Windsor, Slough, and Colebrook, " according to this Tiguriue Form." It was not in a mere literary point of view, therefore, that the five bishops gave their imprimatur to the volume as " of very good satisfaction and use." They intended the word " use " to be understood literally. It seems a little strange then that what eminent bishops recommended for "use" in 1692 should subject a clergyman to penal consequences involving utter ruin in 1871, the law remaining unchanged meanwhile. The truth is, the eminent persons who sat in judgment on Mr. Purchas have evolved a great part of the ecclesiastical history of England out of their own imagination. They seem to have an idea that Rubrics had only to be made in order to be obeyed, and that all the Bishops of the English Church, from the time of Queen Eliza beth to the magic date of " about 1840," were imbued with the spirit and temper of Sir William Harcourt. That the Church of England is now in existence is a sufficient refutation of such a belief. I do not hesitate to say that there has been more conformity to the letter and spirit of the Rubric since " about 1840 " than at any other period since the Reforma tion. The generation of clergy who are denounced i.J " Minute and Rigid " Decisions Condemned. 169 as " lawless " by bishops, and journalists, and mem bers of Parliament, are unquestionably the most law- abiding, take them all in all, of any generation that can be named during the last three centuries ; and they are certainly the most hardworking. But let us assume that there is some doubt as to the legality of unleavened bread — in my humble opinion there is none — what then1? Surely this, if anything, ought to come under the protection of the rule laid down by the Judicial Committee in the Gorham Case: "that it is not the duty of any Court to be minute and rigid in cases of this sort." So that " if any Article is really a subject of dubious interpretation it would be highly improper that this Court should fix on one meaning, and prosecute all those who hold a contrary opinion regarding its interpretation." Assuming, for argument's sake, the historical accuracy and validity of reasoning of the Purchas Judgment on this point, can any one whose judgment is not perverted by prejudice deny that, even on the show ing of the Court, it " is really a subject of dubious interpretation'! And if this be so, is there any hidden peril in the thing itself which could justify the Court in taking it out of the category of things with respect to which no Court ought to be " minute and rigid V Are the reasons alleged or the preference of unleavened bread in the administration of the Holy Communion such as to justify a decree of pains and penalties against them 1 I can hardly persuade myself that anybody whose good opinion it 170 Reasons for Unleavened Bread. [letter would be worth having would say so. Let us consider what the reasons are. I suppose it will be admitted that our Lord used unleavened bread at the first institution of the Blessed Sacrament ; nor can it be denied, I think, that S. Paul assumes the use of it in the following reference to the Holy Communion: "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us ; therefore let us keep the feast ; not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." It does seem to me strange that a piece of symbolism, which S. Paul not only thought innocent but recommended as edifying, should be considered a high crime and misdemeanour by a Christian Court of justice in the nineteenth century. The second reason alleged for the preference of unleavened over leavened bread arises from a feeling of reverence for the Sacrament. With ordinary baker's bread and the careless habit of receiving the consecrated element between the finger and thumb it is scarcely possible but that some crumbs will fall on the communicant's dress or on the floor ; and I feel certain that pious Evangelicals would agree with High Churchmen in thinking it right to obviate accidents of that kind. Too much reverence for sacred things is certainly not the besetting sin of our day. Moreover, the Prayer Book directs that what ever portion of the consecrated elements remains after communion shall be " reverently " consumed ; and I.] Apparent Partiality of the Court. 171 to leave crumbs lying about, on the floor or dresses of Communicants is clearly an infraction of this direction: an infraction, however, which it is scarcely possible to avoid with* the ordinary bread, but which it is scarcely possible to commit with the use of that condemned by the Purchas Judgment. Still, however, I am not pleading for the enforce ment of unleavened bread; I merely advocate toleration for a practice which is certainly, to say the least, harmless, and which many among the laity as well as clergy find edifying It is impossible to read what the Judicial Com mittee Say on this part of the indictment against Mr. Purchas without being struck with the re markable difference in the degree of importance which arguments assume according as they tell for or against the accused. A Rubric, sanctioned by Act of Parliament, is set aside by the authority of an Admonition published a century previously on no authority at all, except that of the Episcopal bench, with the tacit concurrence of Queen Elizabeth. On the other hand, one of Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions which distinctly orders wafer-bread is set aside by a forced construction of one of the Rubrics of 1662. That is to say, a Statutory Enactment of the year 1662 is ruled to have been repealed by an Episcopal Admo nition ofthe year 1564, because it prescribes vestments which Mr. Purchas's Judges don't like. But a Royal Injunction of the year 1559 is impotent against another Statutory Enactment of 1662, because the 172 The Eastward Position. [letter latter is made. by a forced interpretation to forbid a certain usage prescribed by the Injunction, but of which their Lordships disapprove. And yet it is thought passing strange that the decisions of the Judicial Committee do not command the loyalty and respect of English Churchmen ! And now I come to the last Article of accusation against Mr. Purchas — the position of the celebrant while addressing Almighty God in the office of the Holy Communion. Now, first of all, let us see what the patent facts of the case are. The whole difficulty arises from the ambiguous wording of the Rubrics in the revisions after 1549; for the Rubrics of the First Prayer Book are clear enough : they order the Priest to stand in front of the Altar. Let us examine then all the Rubrics in the subsequent revisions which bear on the point in dispute. The first direction given to the celebrant in all the revisions after 1549 is as follows : — " And the Priest standing at the North-side of the Table shall say the Lord's Prayer with this Collect following." The only addition to this direction in the last revision are the words, "the people kneeling." The next Rubric which touches the question is the following : — " Then shall the Priest rehearse distinctly all the Ten Commandments; and the people kneeling Bhall, after every commandment, ask God's mercy i.J " Turning to the People." 173 for their transgressions of the same, after this sort;" etc. >v ' This remained unchanged fall the revision of 1662, when it was altered as follows : — " Then shall the Priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly all the Ten Commandments ; and the people, still kneeling, shall after every command ment ask God's mercy for their transgression thereof for the past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come, as followeth;" etc. Here, for the first time since 1549, the celebrant is directed to "turn to the people." In a sub sequent Rubric indeed — that preceding the Abso lution — the direction to "turn to the people" remained unchanged through all the revisions of Edward and Elizabeth, James and Charles I. The Book of 1552 no less than that of 1549 orders the Priest to " turn to the people " when he pronounces the Absolution. This is somewhat perplexing; for if the revisionists of 1552 expected that the previous Rubric, which ordered the holy table to be placed in the midst of the communicants, was likely to be enforced and obeyed, why did they direct the celebrant to "turn to the people" in pronouncing the Absolution ? If the altar stood table-wise and the celebrant was on the north side of it, he was already facing the people, or at least a portion of them. How then could he turn himself to them ? The probable explanation is that the meddlesome " mistakers," whom the Act of Uni- 174 Contradictory Directions. [letteij formity blames for the revision of 1552, either overlooked the discrepancy between the two Rubrics ; or, feeling certain that in most dioceses both altar and celebrant would still retain their old positions, they left substantially unaltered the old Rubric which ordered the celebrant to "turn to the people" when pronouncing the absolution. These contradictory directions were in* fact necessary, because two different modes of celebrating the Holy Communion prevailed side by side. Those who in our day are so impatient ofthe least appearance of "lawlessness " have but little notion of the "lawlessness" of that Reformation period to whose "principles " they are so fond of appealing. It was easy at that time to make laws for the regulation of public worship, but not so easy to enforce them. And no wonder, when the Bishops themselves were not seldom the most notorious offenders. I have already given reasons to suggest a doubt whether the Prayer Book of 1552 came into use at all outside the neighbourhood of the Metropolis, or even there in strict accordance with law. Even the far more moderate Book of 1549 — far more moderate, I mean, in the estimation of the vast majority of the people of England at that time — came into use very gradually, and probably never universally. Men like Bonner disregarded it because it went too far; and zealots imbued with Con tinental ideas of Reformation disregarded it because it did not go far enough. In a letter addressed to Bonner by the King and his Council, he is blamed I.J Lawlessness of Ridley. 175 because "our said book [of 1549] so much travelled for, and also sincerely set forth (as is aforesaid) remaineth in many places of this our realm either not known at all, or not used, or at least, if it be used, very seldom." * Ridley, on the other hand, ordered on his own sole authority the demolition of the altars throughout • his diocese. \ This was a flagrant infraction of the Rubrics of the Prayer Book, though it was soon afterwards confirmed by an Order in Council. These Orders in Council and Royal Injunctions, modifying or setting aside Parliamentary Statutes, would be impossible in these constitutional days. But in the sixteenth century a Bishop had only to get the ear of a royal favourite, and he could without difficulty procure an Injunction authorizing him to override any Rubric in the Prayer Book. Now let us remember that the " mistakers " who are responsible for the Prayer Book of 1552 lived for the most part in London or its neighbourhood ; and let us further remember that as early as 1550 the altars throughout the diocese of London had been pulled down, and tables, placed in the choir or in the body of the Church, substituted for them. It is evident that the Rubric of 1549, which ordered the Priest to " stand humbly afore the midst of the altar," would be inapplicable to such a state of things. When the altar was placed against the * Cardwell, Doc. Ann. i. p. 78. + Ibid. i. p. 94. 176 Why North-side. [letter east end of the Church there could be no doubt as to what was meant by " standing afore the midst " of it : it meant standing on the west side of it, mid way between the north and south ends, and could mean nothing else. But when, instead of an altar at the east end, there was an oblong table down among the congregation, it became necessary to give a new direction as to the position of the celebrant, and he was ordered accordingly to stand " at the north side of the Table." Thus his position was still "afore the midst" of the table, the only difference being that he was looking towards the south, instead of towards the east. There was no occasion therefore to bid him "turn to the people," since he was facing them, or at least a large portion of them, already. Accordingly in the Rubrics of 1552, 1559, 1664 there is no direction to the Priest to turn to the people when he is reciting the Commandments. He is ordered to do so, indeed, in all these Rubrics when he pronounces the absolution, probably because, as I have already suggested, the position of the altar and celebrant remained unchanged in the great majority of parishes throughout England. Laud and the other divines of his school made a strong effort, as is well known, to restore the altars to their old position; and their success in this respect was one of the chief accusations made against them by the Puritans. To suppose that the eastward position of the celebrant is a -modern I.] Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position. 177 innovation of extreme Ritualists, and that the High Church party generally have never regarded it as a matter of great importance, is an error which is excusable enough in an ordinary layman, but which is not excusable in a Court of Final Appeal adjudi cating on this very point. Jeremy Taylor is one of our strongest anti-Romanists, as well as one of the most liberal of our High Church divines, and therefore I shall summon him as a witness, in preference to any other, on this question. He touches on it in various passages scattered up and down his writings ; but he has devoted one essay to it entirely, and my quotations shall be taken from that essay exclu sively. After some observations on worship in general, and on the reverence due to the Altar in particular, he goes on to say : — " The next step to the Altar is, that God is there specially to be worshipped where He is most presential. For, although God be present in all places alike in respect of His essence, yet He exhibits the issues and effects of His presence more in some than in others. And that thither the addresses of our adorations must be where God is specially present nature teaches us. We look men in the face when we speak to them ; and if we may anywhere pray to God, and adore Him because He is everywhere present and hears us, then by the same reason we must specially adore Him where He is specially present, (because His presence is the N 178 Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position. [letter determination of our address), that is in heaven and in all holy places." He illustrates this argument by copious references to the Old Testament, and then supposes an objector to exclaim : " Oh ! but what's all this to us ? The Jews might well do according to the exigence of the Ceremonial Law, but we must not. This was Judaical." "Sic obgannire solent" is the comment which this objection draws from him, and then he meets the objection seriously as follows : — " Though we had no particular caution for this, we should not be much troubled with this objection. Firstly : Because there is enough in nature and reason to satisfy, because all this is no more than what the Patriarchs by the Law and Light of Nature did, as Jacob at Bethel. Secondly : God gave commands and rules for this whole business before the Ceremo nial Law was taught, as to Moses, to Joshua, or at least to one of them. Thirdly: These commands were not peremptory, but reasonable; grounded upon the equity of the thing : and when Moses did discalceate, he did it by virtue of the reason ; for either God commanded that veneration because it was essential reason it should be so, or else Moses did it for that reason, for else it was unreasonable to urge a reason to command an action if the reason were not sufficient of itself to enforce either the command or the action. Fourthly: Where did God command adoration towards the holy or consecrate places in the Ceremonial Law ? I.] Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position. 179 And yet David did it, and Solomon prayed for a blessing upon such addresses; and yet none of these men loved a curse so well as to add anything to Moses' Law ; therefore they did it by the dictate of the Law of Nature. "But (thank God) we are sufficiently instructed in the New Testament for this particular ; for the Law of Nature runs always through the veins of all true religions ; only in the Church of the Jews this was the more explicate, because their Liturgy was much upon the external ; and this also is as expli cate in this particular in the Gospel, because it is an act of holiness." After two pages of argument to prove this he says : — " This worshipping or adoration in Churches was not so indefinite but that it was instantly limited to be towards the east, or the place of the Altar, inso much that, amongst the first blossoms of heresies, that of the Osseni was reckoned by Epiphanius, of whom Alxai the false Jew was a Coryphaeus : prohibet enim (saith the Fathers) orare ad orientes, asscrens non oportere sic intendere, saying we ought not to address our devotions or adorations that way. That was his heresy." After admitting that " the reasons of determina tion of Christian worship are diversely given by the Fathers according to their various conceptions," Jeremy Taylor says for himself : — " But this I know, that our adoration thitherward n 2 180 Jeremy Taijlor on Eastward Position, [letter and the placing of the Altar there were coaetaneous for aught appears, and if I may have leave to conjecture, I think that this was the true reason of the address of our worship, even because the Altar was Positum in Orients. My reason is this : — "Firstly; Because I find in antiquity — irpoo-Kweiv 7TjOO? draroXa?, and efi-rrpoo-dev tov OvataaT'qpiov used pro miscuously ; and, Secondly, because I find in antiquity the prerogative of holiness not given to the oriental part of heaven, but to the site of the Altar in the Church I do ; which two things put together methinks say, that therefore the adoration was always that way, because the Altar or Holy Table (for the difference is but nominal) being always, like the tree of Paradise, planted in the east, and being more holy than the other parts of tho Church, I mean by a relative holiness, did best determine our worship, as having God there the most presential." Jeremy Taylor then proceeds to draw his argu ment out under five heads, which are well worth reading. I must content myself with a few sentences quoted from each head to show the drift of his argument : — "Firstly: The Altar was always the place of Priests in the Christian Church; the Priest's peculiar, for none but he was to enter in thither, in somuch that S. Ambrose would not permit the Emperor Theodosius to enter vapit Thn KiX\l8a<;, as I.] Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position. 181 Theodoret reports, within the cancells of the Altar to make his oblation there." Etc., etc. " Secondly: In proportion to this were the degrees of prerogative severally indulged to several people ; the Altar being the terminus of reconciliation, the several stations of penitents were the degrees of approximation to it : the KXaLovres in the Church- porch, the aicpoa>uevoi by the reading-place, the iiroTriTTTovTe? at the chancel door, the fideles up to the very rails — that was their height." " Thirdly : The Altars had always in all religions, as if by the Law of Nature, and so also by the same analogy in the Gospel, a Jus Asyli ; it was a Sanctuary. Our Altars are therefore a mercy-seat, not only because Christ is on them, Who is our i\ao-Tiipiov (Rom. iii. 25), or mercy-seat, but also because offenders that fled thither were defended from death or violence." Etc., etc. " Fourthly : Altars were the places where the Christians always performed their most solemn devotions, and in cases of afflictions went thither to impetrate God's favour. Thus Gorgonia went to the Altar to be cured of her fever, and was miraculously delivered ; Alexander, Bishop of Con stantinople, being persecuted by the Arians ad altare progressus in faciem coram Sacra Mcnsa se prostravit, et cum lachrymis oravit : saith Epiphanius." Etc., etc. " Fifthly : And lastly (which contains the reason of the former, and of its holiness), the Altar or Holy Table is Sedes Corporis et Sanguinis Christi. . . . 182 Jeremy Taylor on Eastward Position^ [letter And if the Altars and the Ark and the Temple in the Law of Nature and Moses were holy, because they were God's memorials, as I showed above, then by the same reason shall the Altar be l-n-epdjiov, highly holy, because it is Christ's memorial : there we commemorate His Death and Passion in the dreadful and mysterious way that Himself, with greatest mysteriousness, appointed : rdvro iroiene ek rfv e^v avdp.vncnv, Do this for My memorial. Here are all the Christian Sacrifices presented. Panem accepit, et calicem similiter, et Suum Sanguinem confessus est et novi Testamenti novam docuit oblationem quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens in Universo Mundo offert Deo, saith that Apostolical man, S. Irenseus. We do believe that Christ is there really present in the Sacrament ; there is the Body and Blood of Christ which are ' verily and indeed ' taken and received by the faithful, saith our Church in the Catechism. Now if places became holy at the presence of an angel, as it did in Joshua's case, to whom the Captain of the Lord's Host appeared, and in Jacob's case at Bethel, and in all the old Law, for God always appeared by angels, shall not the Christian Altar be most holy where is present the blessed Body and Blood of the Son of God ?" Etc., etc. These quotations will suffice to show the import ance which Jeremy Taylor attached to the eastward position. And that he was not arguing in this matter for argument's sake is evident from the deep feeling expressed in the following words : " Well ! i.J Value of his Testimony. 183 Sit anima mea cum Christianis. I pray God I may go into the lot of the Christians : this is, and always hath been Christianity, to speak highly of the sanctity of Altars."* I do not discuss here either the value of Jeremy Taylor's opinions on this subject or the cogency of his reasoning. Nor do I cite him merely because he is the most eloquent and popular of our High Church divines, and one of whom the Church of England is justly proud, though five thousand of her clergy have lately signed a petition, which, if successful, would have the effect of compelling thousands of clergymen, who certainly do not go beyond Jeremy Taylor, either to forswear convictions which are dearer to them than aught this world can give, or to retire from positions which an ignorant bigotry had made untenable. I have quoted Jeremy Taylor to show the value set upon the eastward position by one of the most moderate divines of the Laudian school. That school was dominant at the last revision of the Prayer Book ; and we may be quite sure therefore that any alterations, bearing on this question, which the revisionists of 1662 have made in the Rubrics must have been made in the direction of Jeremy Taylor's argument. Nor are we left in any doubt in the matter. Up to that date the only Rubric in the Communion Office which * Jeremy Taylor's work ; Vol. V., pp. 819, 820, 827, 828, 829, 880, 881. Eden's Edition. I have taken the hberty of modernizing the spelling. 184 Savoy Conference on Eastward Position, [letter directed the celebrant to turn to the people is the one preceding the Absolution. On that Rubric accordingly the Puritans at the Savoy Conference fastened at once. " The Minister turning himself to the people," they said, " is most convenient throughout the whole ministration."* To which the Bishops replied: "The Minister's turning to the people is not most convenient throughout the whole ministration. When he speaks to them, as in Lessons, Absolution, and Benedictions, it is con venient that he turn to them. When he speaks for them to God it is fit that they should all turn another way, as the ancient Church ever did ; the reasons of which you may see, Aug. Lib. 2. de Ser. Dom. in monte." The significance of this answer will be better understood if I quote the passage in S. Augustine to which the Bishops refer. After explaining the sense in which he understands the phrase Qui es in Cadis in the Lord's Prayer, S. Augustine proceeds as follows : — " Cujus rei significandas gratia, cum ad oratiohem stamus, ad orientem convertimur, unde ccelum surgit : non tanquam ibi habitet et Deus, quasi mundi caeteras mundi partes deseruerit Qui ubique praasens est, non locorum spatiis, sed majestatis potentia ; sed ut admoneatur animus ad naturam excellentiorem se convertere, id est ad Deum, cum ipsum Corpus ejus quod est terrenum ad Corpus * Cardwell's History of Conf. p.820. i.J Savoy Conference on Eastward Position. 185 excellentius, id est ad Corpus cceleste, convertitur. Convenit etiam gradibus religionis, et plurimum expedit, ut omnium sensibus et parvulorum et magnorum bene sentiatur de Deo."* Here then we have a broad and explicit general principle laid down by the divines to whom we owe the last revision of our Prayer Book. Their attention was pointedly challenged to the question. The Puri tans objected then, as their representatives object now, to the celebrant facing in the same direction as the congregation ; and the Bishops repelled the objec tion and declared that when the Minister addresses God on behalf of his congregation " it is fit that they should all " face one way, that is, towards the altar. There is no ambiguity here, no loophole for any evasion. " In Lessons, Absolution, and Benedic tions " — whenever, that is, the Minister is ad dressing the congregation — he is to " turn to them." Whenever " he speaks for them to God," on the other hand, they are to look ad orientem, that is, towards the altar, as Jeremy Taylor explains it. If this does not, to put it mildly, sanction the eastward position all through the Communion Office, exceptis excipiendis, then I submit that it is impossible for human language to sanction anything whatsoever. The proposition that two and two make four is not more plain than the proposition laid down by the Anglican divines at the Savoy Conference in favour * Augustini Opera Omnia, torn. iii. p. 1553, Apud Gaume Fratres. 186 Savoy Conference on Easlivard Position, [letter of the eastward position of the celebrant during the Eucharistic Office. And the Puritans, too, had no doubt on the subject. They understood perfectly what the Bishops meant. In their rejoinder they say : — •' It is not yet understood by us why the Ministers or people (for which you meant by [they all] we know not) should turn another way in Prayer ; for we think the people should hear the prayers of the Ministers : if not, Latin prayers may serve, and then you need not except against extemporary prayers, because the people cannot own them, for how can most of them own what they hear not, whatever it be. As for Augustine's reason for looking toward the east when we pray, \itt ad moveatur animus ad [sic] moveatur animus ad naturam excellentiorem se convertere, id est ad Dominum, cum ipsum Corpus ejus quod est terrenum ad Corpus excellentius, id est ad Corpus ccdcste convertitur :] we suppose you will not suspect we should be much moved by it. If we should, why should we not worship towards any of the creatures visible when we can pretend such reasons for it, as minding us of superior things ? And why should we not look southward when the sun is in the south ? And we fear the worshipping towards the sun, as representing or minding us of Christ's Heavenly Body, is too like to the prohibited worshipping before an image, and too like to that worshipping before the Host of Heaven, in which the old idolatry con sisted, or at least which was the introduction of it ; of which our Protestant writers treat at large I.] Savoy Conference on Eastward Position. 187 against the Papists on the point of image wor ship."* At the end of the Savoy Conference the Bishops offered the Puritans certain concessions which, in my humble judgment, were nearly all improvements, and most of which are embodied in our present Prayer Book. But no concession was offered in respect to the eastward position ; so that the rule laid down by the Bishops still remains in its inflexible rigour. Now it seems to me simply incon ceivable that the Bishops should have given the Puritans the answer which they did give, and stuck to it, if they intended all the while that the cele brant should stand at the north end of the altar. Certainly it would not be true of him, in that position, that the. congregation and himself were looking one way, namely, ad orientem, " as the ancient Church ever did." In short, my Lord, justice to the great men who represented the Church of England at the Savoy Conference must force us to the conclusion that they meant what they said when they declared that the proper position of the celebrant is to stand in front of the altar in those parts of the Communion Office in which he is addressing Almighty God * An Aooompt of the Proceedings of the Commissioners of both Persuasions. Appointed by His Sacred Majesty, according to Letters Patent, for the Eeview of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 105. All the Italics in the passage quoted above are in the original. 188 Further Evidence. [letter on behalf of the congregation. Here, too, we have the explanation of the direction inserted for the first time in 1662 in the Rubric before the Ten Commandments, that the celebrant should "turn to the people." The authors of that insertion ac knowledged, as we have seen,, but two positions for the officiating Priest — one facing the congregation, the other facing the east — that is, towards tho altar., The direction, therefore, to "turn to the people " implies that the celebrant was facing east ward before. I do not say that the direction, taken simply by itself, would necessarily prove this; for a clergyman standing at the north end might be said, in a sense, to turn to the people when he faced westward. But if you take the direction with the explanation given to it by the Bishops in the Savoy Conference, the inference seems to me irresistible that strict obedience to the Rubrics necessitates the eastward position of the celebrant. Another significant addition made in the revision of 1662 is the Rubric which follows the versicles after the " Comfortable Words." The celebrant, let us remember, had been directed to "turn to the people " in pronouncing the Absolution, and in that position " he speaks to them " in the " Comfortable Words " and the couple of suffrages which follow ; after which " he speaks for them to God." Accord ingly in the Rubric which follows the " Comfortable Words" in the Prayer Book of 1549 the Priest is directed to "turn him to God's board." But in I.J Further Evidence. 189 the Rubrics of 1552, 1559 and 1604, no direction is given before "It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty," etc. Before the Prayer beginning " We do not presume " the Priest is directed in the Rubrics of 1552, 1559, and 1604 to "kneel down at God's Board," and in that of 1662 to "kneel down at the Lord's Table." But the three former Rubrics leave us to conjecture in what direction he is looking while "kneeling down at God's board." He had been ordered to "turn to the people," and he has not been ordered to turn in any other direction. This ambiguity was cleared away at the last revision. As soon as the celebrant has ceased to address the people, and when he is about to " speak for them to God," he is directed to change his posi tion in the following words : — " Then shall the priest turn to the Lord's Table, and say," etc. Is it possible to doubt that the Bishops who inserted this Rubric did so in the sense which they took pains to explain so clearly to the Puritan objectors ? Surely it is not. The next Rubric which claims our attention is the one before the Consecration Prayer. In the revi sions of 1552, 1559, and 1604, it is as follows : — " Then the priest, standing up, shall say as fol loweth." For this Rubric the following was substituted in 1662 :— " When the priest, standing before the Table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine that he may 190 " Standing before the Table " [letter with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the people, and take the cup into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecration as followeth." The priest had been previously directed to " turn to the people," then to " turn to the Lord's Table," then to " kneel down at the Lord's Table." And now, "standing before the Table," he is directed to do certain things. Does not this imply that he had been kneeling "before the Table?" Where is then the faintest scintilla of an indication that he is to change his place ? Nowhere, my Lord, but in the imagination of persons whose judgments are warped by traditional prejudices, and who look at these questions through the coloured medium of early prepossessions and preconceived theories. The following is the interpretation put upon this Rubric by the Court in the Purchas Case : — " The words are intended to set the Minister free for the moment from the general direction to stand at the north side, for the special purpose of ordering the elements ; but whether for this purpose he would have to change the side or not is not determined, as it would depend upon the position of the Table in the church or chancel, and on the position in which the elements were placed on the Table at first. They think that the main object of this part of the Rubric is the ordering of the ele ments ; and that the words 'before the Table,' do not necessarily mean ' between the Table and the I.] Explained away by Purchas Judgment. 191 people,' and are not intended to limit to any side."* This is marvellous. "The words 'before the Table,'" forsooth, "do not necessarily mean 'be tween the Table and the people,' and are not in tended to limit to any side !" In that case " before the Table" may mean " behind the Table !" And if "'before the Table' does not necessarily mean ' between the Table and the people,' " how are we to understand the direction to the priest to "turn to the people" at one time, and to "the Table" at another ? Their Lordships' interpretation seems to me to make nonsense of very plain language. " The words," they tell us, "are intended to set the Mi nister free for the moment from the general direc tion to stand at the north side, for the special purpose of ordering the elements." But where did they get this information ? Not in the words them selves, for they explicitly "set the Minister free" from kneeling, and from nothing else. Not from the authors of the words, for those have left us an interpretation of the Rubric which is diametrically the reverse of that given in the Purchas Judgment. Since the Court took the trouble to quote authori ties at all, why did they omit the decisive authority of the framers of the Rubric ? The previous Ru brics, up to 1552, simply said, " Then the priest, standing up, shall say," etc. Will anybody pretend that any motion is implied here beyond the motion * Brooke's Eeport, p. 197. 192 " Break the Bread before the People." [letter from kneeling to standing? At the last revision, however, the Rubric was enlarged ; partly in order, by the introduction of the word "before," to em phasise the eastward position, on which the Bishops had insisted against the objections of the Puritans ; and partly in order to make provision for the manual acts, all directions as to which had been omitted since the Book of 1549. But it is urged, on the other hand, that if the priest is to consecrate with his face eastward, he cannot " break the bread before the people." The objection implies that the intention of this part of the Rubric is to insist on the fraction of the bread being made in the sight of the people. Are we, then, to suppose that the eminent divines who revised the Prayer Book in 1662 went out of their way to frame a Rubric which would come in collision with the Article which says, that " the Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon." According to the Purchas Judgment, intending communicants, instead of attending to their devotions, are to gaze with curious and critical eyes on what the priest is doing ! And what, pray, can be the object of such scrutiny ? Why is it of such vital importance that the people should see the fraction of the bread ? Is it because such value is set on priestly consecra tion, that the whole congregation must be on the watch to see that the celebrant omits none of the ceremonies which pertain to the rite ? If such ob jection came from extreme sacerdotalists it would be I.J Meaning of "Before the People." 193 intelligible enough ; but that it should be pressed by those who regard sacerdotalism as a deadly sin is indeed surprising. The plain truth, however, is, that "before the poople" does not necessarily mean " in the sight of tho poople." It means coram populo, in the presence of the congregation. That is to say, the bread is not (as was sometimes the case) to be broken in the parsonage or vestry, but on the altar, and in the presence of the people during the Prayer of Con secration. That the phrase "before the people" admits of this interpretation may be proved by one of the Rubrics in the Marriage Service. When the man and the woman have been married, the Mi nister is directed to declare "unto the people" as follows : — " Forasmuch as M. and N. have con sented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company ; and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring and by joining of hands ; I pronounce," etc. Now the bridal pair had their " backs to the people," to quote the slang phrase, all through the service, and yet the giving and receiving ofthe ring and the joining of hands are said to be " before . . . this company." Here it is evident that "before" means in the pre sence, not in the sight, of the congregation. Why should its meaning be different in the Rubric before the Prayer of Consecration, especially since that difference would make nonsense of the Rubric ? 194 A plain Rubric shoidd explain a doubtful, [letter But of course I shall be told to reconcile my interpretation of the Rubric before the Prayer of Consecration with the Rubric which orders the priest to stand " at the north side of the Table." Now I hold that in the case of two directions, which appear to be in conflict with each other, the plain should interpret the ambiguous, and not vice versa. The direction before the Prayer of Consecra tion is so plain that there can be no reasonable doubt as to its construction. So much cannot be said of the direction to stand " at the north side of the Table." Two interpretations have been sug gested. One is, that the north side means the coruu Evangelii,* or north corner of the west side. This interpretation is not to be treated with contempt, for much may be said in favour of it. But the more probable interpretation is that which, I believe, is now generally accepted ; namely, that the direction to stand " at the north side of the Table" is due to the practice, introduced by Ridley and others, of having the Holy Table in the midst of the congrega tion, with its ends to the east and west, and its sides to the north and south. Strictly speaking, the altars in nearly all our churches now have no " north side," unless we understand by that expression the * The comu Evangelii of the old English Uses was called the left side ; and so it was in the Eoman Office up to the end of the fifteenth century, when it was ruled that the right hand and the left were to be taken from the crucifix looking west ward, and not from the celebrant looking eastward. i.J Bishop Williams on " North-side." 195 cornu Evangelii. They have a north and south end, and an east and west side ; and literal obedience to the Rubric is therefore impossible. To reply to this objection by quoting the definition of a parallelo gram is mere trifling. We may be sure that the compilers of the Prayer Book of 1552, when they prescribed the north side, were thinking in the ordinary language of the day, and not in' the lan guage of mathematical definitions. And the ordi nary language of their day, as of ours, recognizes two sides and two ends in an oblong table. But, in truth, this point has already been in a manner authoritatively decided. Peter Smart, in 1628, thus argues : — " Neither must the Table be placed along from north to south, as the Altar is set (that in Durham Cathedral), but from east to west, as the custom is of all Reformed Churches ; other wise the Minister cannot stand at the north side, there being neither side toward the north. And I trow there be but ttvo sides of a long table and two ends : make it square, and then it will have four sides and no end, or four ends and no side, at which any Minister can stand to celebrate." (Acts of High Com. Court, Com. Dunelm., p. 216, N.) Later, Bishop Williams ruled that " north side could not mean the same as north end, but that the phrase had a refer ence to the custom which prevailed in the latter part of the reign of King Edward VI. , of placing the Holy Table (not altar-wise, but) table-wise, that is longitudinally, with its ends east and west." o 2 196 Common sense view of the Matter, [letter He decrees that " this table (without some new Canon) is not to stand altar-wise, but table-wise, and you must officiate on the north side of the same." (Wilson on the Lord's Supper, Additional Notes, p. 155.)* The state of the case then, as regards the re visionists of 1662, was as follows. They were quite clear, as their answer to the Puritans shows, that the right position for the altar was at the east end of the church, and that the priest ought to be in front of it. But on this question, as on vestments, Puritanism was then in possession. The altars were all table-wise in the body of the church, and their restoration to the ancient position would have to be a work of time. The Bishops, therefore, left the " north side" Rubric untouched, but they made alterations in other Rubrics which clearly implied the eastward position of altar and priest. While the altars were in the body of the church the north side was still the front; and the Bishops, being sensible men, probably thought that when the front was turned to the west instead of to the north the common sense of the officiating priest would teach him to follow the front, instead of placing himself at the end — a position which is extremely incon venient, and which has nothing to recommend it but an unreasoning prejudice. Set anybody to do anything whatsoever on a table placed and shaped * Mr, Humble's Letter to the Bishop of S. Andrew's, p, 55, i.J Charge of Superstition Retorted. 197 like an , altar ; let it be a baker to knead bread, or a butcher to cut meat, or a tailor to cut cloth, or a laundry-maid to iron linen ; and who can doubt that the front position will at once be chosen ? The light of nature will forbid the north end, and refute the Purchas Judgment. And is the highest and most solemn service which mortal man can offer to his Maker the only service in which the Apostolic precept is to be reversed, and everything is not " to be done decently and in order ?" For I do not hesitate to say that the practice of consecrating at the north end is inconsistent with convenience, with common sense, with grammar, with logic, and with history. Talk of superstition, my Lord! What superstition can be greater than that of those who first place the elements upon the middle of the altar, and leave them there till the Prayer of Con secration; then walk deliberately round from the north end to the middle of the table, and remove the elements from the middle to the north end? If the north end is the place at which the celebrant ought to begin and end the whole service, why should not the elements be placed there at once ? And if they arc placed there, what can be the meaning of directing the priest to order the bread and wine while " standing before the Table" ? No possible construction of the English language will suffer us to admit that a priest standing at the north end of a table placed against the east wall can be legitimately described as "standing before 198 Charge of Superstition Retorted. [letter the Table." And therefore I repeat that a Rubric which is plain in its meaning must govern the sense of one which is unquestionably ambiguous. The phrase "standing before the Table" is historical. It occurs repeatedly (coram altari or ante altare) in the Uses of Sarum, Bangor, Hereford, and York; and it means invariably in front of the altar. There can be no auestion, therefore, as to the meaning of " standing before the Table." The only ambiguity lies in the words "north side;" and the ambiguity is easily explained when we remember that it refers to a state of things which has passed clean away. There was a time when the north side was the front of the Holy Table, and the celebrant standing at the north side might then be fitly described as "standing before the Table." But that time exists no longer. What was formerly the north side of the Table has now become the west, and therefore to stand "before the Table"' must necessarily mean to stand facing eastward. The odious charge of superstition and formalism is sometimes made against those who claim for themselves the liberty of using the eastward posi tion, while freely conceding to others a different usage which, at the same time, they consider less in harmony both with the letter and spirit of the Rubrics. But this charge recoils, in fact, on those who make it. For what can be more meaningless, and therefore more obnoxious to the accusation of formalism, than the general practice of those who LJ Bishop Wren's Defence. 199 celebrate at the north end? The priest, first of all, places the elements on the centre of the Table, and leaves them there till the Prayer of Consecration. Then he walks solemnly round to the front, removes the chalice and paten to the north end, and then resumes his place and pro ceeds with the service. Does any one suppose that this is the natural construction of the Rubric ? Yet it is the construction sanctioned by the high authority of the Judicial Committee in the Purchas Case. The Purchas Judgment makes a point of the excuse made by Bishop Wren when he was com mitted to the Tower and impeached before the House of Lords for idolatry and superstition, one of the proofs being his custom of consecrating on the west side of the altar. Wren repudiated any super stitious intention, and excused himself on the ground that, being short of stature, the eastward position was the more convenient. I believe that Wren was here practising an " economy." The reason which he gave was a true reason, no doubt. It is very inconvenient for a man of short stature to consecrate at the north end. But that Wren had other reasons for his practice can hardly be questioned. Look, for instance, at the " Particular Orders, Directions, and Remembrances," which he issued to the clergy of Norwich at his primary visitation in 1636. In the XXth of these he orders, " that the Minister's reading-desk do not stand with the back towards the 200 His excuse true, but not the whole truth, [letter chancel, nor too remote or far from it."* Here we see his animus on the subject: he prohibited the practice of the Minister facing the congregation when addressing God on their behalf. But did he encourage the eastward position of the priest at the altar? His XVIIIth Direction, which is as follows, appears to me not only to encourage, but to order it:— " That the holy oblations, in such places where it pleaseth God at any time to put into the hearts of His people by that holy action to acknowledge His gift of all they have to Him, and their tenure of all from Him, and their debt of all to Him, be received by the Minister standing before the Tabic at their coming up to make the said oblation, and then by him to be reverently presented before the Lord, and set upon the Table till the service be ended."'!* It seems to me impossible to understand this di rection in any other sense than that of prescribing the eastward position. But are we to conclude, therefore, that Wren was dishonest, because the ex cuse which he made in the House of Lords, though true as far as it went, was not his only or even his principal reason for consecrating in front of the altar1? Surely not. A man on his defence before his enemies, and standing possibly in jeopardy of his life, is not bound to criminate himself, is not bound to put weapons in the hands of his enemies that they may slay him. Wren was charged with idolatry * Cardwell's Doc. Ann. ii., p. 257. -f Ibid. p. 250. I.] Another Blunder of Purchas Judgment. 201 and superstition, because he celebrated with his face turned towards the east. To attempt to defend his practice on theological and liturgical grounds would simply have had the effect of intensifying the igno rance of his enemies, and exposing sacred things to ridicule. He would have been " casting pearls be fore swine," and provoking the fate divinely pre dicted for such folly. He fell back, therefore, on a line of defence true in itself, and which his accusers could understand and appreciate, but which was far in arrear of that which he would have occupied under happier circumstances. On offering this plea on. behalf of Wren. I am not, I think, indulging in an illegitimate exercise of casuistry. Our Lord Himself on one occasion (S. John x. 34-36), seeing that His adversaries were incapable of understanding the truth about His Person, retreated from the claim which He had just made to one which they could not gainsay. The Purchas Judgment, with that habitual in accuracy which characterises it throughout, has con trived to veil the serious peril in which Wren stood on this occasion. It places his impeachment in the year 1636, when his friend Laud was at the height of his power, the Star Chamber in full activity, and the shadows of approaching doom had not yet fallen athwart the path of the King. An impeachment of a friend of Laud's at that date would have been likely to prove more perilous to the impeachers than to the impeached. But matters were very different 202 Evidence of Sparrow's " Rationale." [Letter in the summer of 1641, when the impeachment of Wren really took place. Laud had been impeached six months previously, the King was powerless, and the House of Commons, which ordered the impeach ment of Wren and had him committed to the Tower, was already supreme. That under such circum stances Wren should have observed great caution in defending himself, and used only such arguments as were likely not to exasperate his foes, is surely not surprising. " Their Lordships entertain no doubt whatever," says the Purchas Judgment, " that when the Table was set at the east end, the direction to stand at the north side was understood to apply to the north end, and that this was the practice of the Church." This is a bold assertion, and I am sorry their Lordships did not deign to offer some evidence in support of it. That in very many churches the facts were as they allege, I admit. That they were so universally, or in any ratio approaching to univer sality, I utterly deny, for there is positive evidence the other way. I have now lying before me an edition of Sparrow's " Rationale," published in the year 1684. It contains several engravings by Hollar, and among them a frontispiece of a priest saying the Liturgy at a faldstool, and in front of him an altar vested with a linen covering fringed with lace, and having a book open in such a position as shows that the priest was intended to face eastward. There are editions of !•] And other Books of Devotion. 203 the "Rationale" later than my copy, and I believe this engraving appears in all. It certainly appears in all the previous editions, namely, those of 1676, 1668, 1661, 1657, 1655, 1643, and 1622. In Sparke's "Scintilla Altaris" is a similar engraving. My copy is the sixth edition, and bears the date of 1678. Another book of devotions, which had obtained great popularity, bears the following title: "The whole duty of receiving worthily the Blessed Sacra ment : laid down in six days' preparation, consisting of prayers, meditations, soliloquies, before, at, and after the Lord's Supper. By the Author of The Whole Duty of Man. Necessary for all Communi cants. The Fifth Edition. London : printed by and for Thos. Norris, at the Looking-glass on London Bridge. 1717." In this little book there is a frontispiece repre senting the act of Communion. A number of people are kneeling in front of the altar, and the celebrant is in the act of administering the chalice. In the middle of the altar are two flagons, and between them an open Prayer Book, in a position which clearly shows that the priest celebrated in front of the altar, and with his back to the congregation. Evidence of this kind, I know, is only inferential, and does not amount to positive proof. But if we can produce positive evidence that the eastward position was not only permitted but prescribed, aud not in one diocese alone but in several, when 204 Consecration of Abbey Dore Church, [letter these books were published, then I venture to assert that the pictorial representation of it in successive editions of the most popular books of devotion of the time shatters the ruling of the Court in the Purchas Case to pieces. Now it so happens that the Rev. J. Fuller Russell has lately unearthed and published a document which is decisive on this as on some other points condemned in recent Judgments of the First Court of Appeal. It is "The Form and Order of the Consecration and Dedication of the Parish Church of Abbey Dore, upon Palm Sunday, 1634, By the Right Reverend Father in God Theophilus Field, Lord Bishop of St. David's." The form of service is a long one, and is most carefully and minutely rubri cated. In order to appreciate the cumulative force of the evidence, it is necessary to read the whole of Mr. Fuller Russell's pamphlet, which is published by Pickering. The following Rubrics must here suffice by way of specimen. The persons who took the leading part in the ceremony were the Bishop, attended by the parish priest and chaplain as Gos peller and Epistoler, and the Founder (Lord Scuda- more) ; and the Rubrics which I am about to quote refer to their respective positions : — "Then goeth he [Bishop] up to the Communion Table, which is to stand at the east end of the church," etc. "Then turning about and there kneeling east ward (upon a pesse [hassock] before the Table), the i.J Consecration of Abbey Dore Church. 205 Founder on his left and the other two behind him, he saith," etc. " After this, the Bishop beckoneth to the people to take their seats, and placing the Founder in the chancel with himself, and the Parish Priest in the reading-desk, the Bishop's Chaplain cometh forth, and kneeling in the midst of the chancel, eastward, he beginneth audibly, " If we say we have no sin," etc. " Dearly beloved Brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry," etc. Here we have evidence that the eastward position was not restricted to the Communion Service. But let us proceed with our quotations : — " As soon as the sermon is finished, the Bishop cometh from his seat, kneeleth down again before the Table, there where he kneeled before, and saith," etc. The following Rubric is important, as suggest ing that in the minds of the Caroline divines north side did not, after all, necessarily mean north end : — "Then was there set before the Table, not full in the middle, but towards the north end, and at a con venient distance from that, a chair with a stool on either side : the Bishop seating himself in the chair calleth to him the Chancellor, and sets him at his right hand, and Mr. Thomas Manfield clrs [clericus], Mr. of Arts, in the absence of Mr. Archdeacon, on his left hand; and the Register delivering to his 206 Consecration of Abbey Dore Church, [letter Lordship an Act in parchment, the Bishop putteth on his cap and readeth it," etc. "As soon as the Act is pronounced, the Chan cellor and Mr. Thomas Manfield return to their seats; but the Bishop, kneeling down eastward, saith," etc. "Then cometh the Bishop, and worshipping be fore the Table," etc. Other Rubrics follow, which make it clear that the positions of the clergy at the altar were as follows: — the Bishop, as celebrant, stood in medio altaris, facing east; while the Epistoler and Gos peller were on his right and left, but "behind" him. Compare with this explicit direction the confident dictum of the Judicial Committee : — " Their Lordships entertain no doubt whatever that when the Table was set at the east end the direction to stand at the north side was understood to apply to the north end, and that this was the practice of the Church." Comment is unnecessary. But the evidence in favour of the eastward position does not end here. In an Appendix, Mr. Fuller Russell gives the Con secration Service of three other parish churches: that of Fulmer, Bucks, by Barlow, Bishop of Lin coln, on All Saints' Day, a.d. 1610 ; that of S. John's Church, Leeds, by Archbishop Neile of York, a.d. 1634; and that of the chapel of S. Peter's College, Cambridge, by White, Bishop of Ely, March 17th, I.] And other Forms of Consecration, 207 1632. In all cases the position of the Bishop, as celebrant, is described as before the altar. Let a few extracts suffice. " Then the Bishop, going into the middle of the church or chapel, shall there kneel down with his face towards the Communion Table, and say," etc. " Post concionem Dominus Episcopus, sede sua egressus, coram sanctissima mensa sese pro vol vit, et ait," etc. The following is from the Consecration Service used by Bishop Andrewes :< — " Epistolam Secundus Sacellanus, ante sacram mensam stans, legit," etc. Mr. Russell also pertinently refers to "A copy of the Form used by the Lord Bishop of Ely (Andrewes) in consecrating the new church plate of the Cathedral Church of Worcester." This Form contains the following Rubric : — " The said Precentor taketh in his hands first the paten, and (after obeisance) cometh up to the Bishop, standing before the midst of the altar, and kneeling down, saith," etc. My attention has been called by the Rev. Mac kenzie E. C. Walcott to the second volume of Oughton's "Ordo Judiciorum," where a good deal of additional evidence in favour of the eastward posi tion may be found in the Forms of consecrating churches in several other dioceses besides those which I have mentioned. And these old Forms of occasional Services are also very important for ano- 208 Omission not Prohibition. [letter ther reason. The Judicial Committee ruled, in the Mackonochie Case, that omission was prohibition ; that whatever was not prescribed in the Rubrics of the Prayer Book, unless it was a necessary adjunct to the service, was unlawful. Now, we find in these old Forms of consecrating churches the existence of various customs and ceremonies which have been recently revived, and which the Final Court of Ap peal has declared illegal. In the consecration of the parish church of Abbey Dore, for example, thero is the following Rubric : — " Then the Bishop standeth up, and setteth ready to his hand the bread and wine, with the paten and chalice ; but first washeth his fingers with the end of the napkin besprinkled with water. Then layeth he the bread on the paten, and poureth of the Avine into the chalice, and a little water into it, and standing with his face to the Table, about the midst of it, he saith the Collect of Consecration." There is a similar Rubric in the Consecration Ser vice used by Bishop Andrewes: — "[The Priest standing up shall say the Prayer of Consecration.] Here the Priest, having made adora tion, poureth water upon the napkin ready for that purpose, and cleanseth his hands : mysticc respicicns illud Psalmi, Lavabo in innoccntia mauus meas, et sic iutroibo ad Altare Dei, ut annunciem vocem evxapio-rlas. Ps. xxvi. 6. Moraliter et decor e, uti cum magnatibus accubituri sumus. Postea panes e canistro in patinam ponit; dein vinum e doliolo, ad instar sanguinis i.J Omission not Prohibition. 209 erumpentis in calicem haurit ; turn aquam e trico- nali scypho immiscet; postremo omnibus rite, et quam fieri potest decentissime atque aptissime com- postis, stans pergit et peragit." The following Rubric also supplies a curious comment on the law laid down by the Judicial Com mittee : — » "Then the Bishop ascends [to the altarj with treble adoration, and lastly kneels down at the altar. " Into his hands the priest, from a by-standing table on the south side, reaches first the wafer- bread, in a canister close covered and lined with linen." The truth is, as I have already observed, the Great Rebellion and the Revolution of 1688 ob literated many customs and ceremonies in the public worship of the Church of England which had existed since the Reformation, though no provision was made for them in the Rubrics of the Prayer Book. For instance, I find, in a book already quoted, that fasting communion was the rule of the Church of England in the days of Queen Elizabeth ; that no body, from the Queen downwards, could eat flesh in Lent, or on Fridays and other fast days, without a dispensation from the Primate ; and that a like dis pensation was necessary for a marriage in Lent.* I am afraid, too, that some of the following direc tions would be considered extreme if published by a * A Counter-Poyson, pp. 3, 106, 194-6. P 210 Additional Evidence. [letter "Ritualist" of our day. Yet they are in a book of devotions which was very popular in the eighteenth century, apd which was composed by the Author of "The Whole Duty of Man :" I mean "The Whole Duty of receiving worthily the Blessed Sacrament." Among the "necessary instructions" given in the book are the following : — "The precepts of the Church, according to the Rubric or Kalcnder. (The italics are in the original.) "1. To observe the Festivals and Holy-Days ap pointed. " 2. To keep the Fasting Days with Devotion and Abstinence. " 3. To repair unto the public Service of the Church for Morning and Evening, also to hear Sermons, and other holy Offices at Times appointed, unless there be a just and an unfeigned Cause to the contrary. " 4. To receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ with fervent Devotion, and three times a year at least, of which times Easter to be always one, and for better preparation therefore as occasion is, to disburthen and quit our Consciences of those Sins that may grieve us, or Scruples that may trouble us, to a learned and dis creet Priest, and from him to receive Advice, and the Benefit of Absolution." (p. 14.) "At the Time of receiving." " When you are come to the Altar, kneel down prostrate before it, and say." I.] Purchas and Mackonochie Decisions. 211 Then follows an ascription of praise and thanks giving to God. (p. 155.) On p. 157 the communicant is directed to say the Agnus Dei " whilst the Minister and others are com municating." It is evident from some of the directions in the book, that those intending to communicate went up into the chancel before receiving, and remained there till the end of the service ; showing that there were non-communicants present. I now come to the conflict between the Purchas Judgment and the Mackonochie Judgment in respect to the position of the celebrant. So much has already been said and written on this point, that it is unnecessary for me to dilate upon it. But it is as well to place the facts on record, as an additional indication of the bias of the Court, and its determi nation to press every doubt against the accused. In the Judgment which Lord Cairns delivered in the Mackonochie Case, just before the Christmas of 1808, we have the following deliverance on the Rubric before the Prayer of Consecration : — " Their Lordships entertain no doubt on the con struction of this Rubric, that the priest is intended to continue in one posture during the prayer, and not to change from standing to kneeling, or vice versa ; and it appears to them, equally certain that the priest is intended to stand, and not to kneel. They think that the words, 'standing before the Table,' apply to the whole sentence ; and they think p 2 212 Purchas and Mackonochie Decisions, [letter this is made more apparent, by the consideration that acts are to be done by the priest before the people as the prayer proceeds (such as taking the paten and chalice into his hands, breaking the bread, and laying his hands on the various vessels), which could only be done in the attitude of standing." Surely, if " the words, ' standing before the Table,' apply to the whole sentence," the eastward position is secure ; for " standing before the Table," when the altar is placed lengthwise against the east wall, cannot possible mean "standing at the north end of the Table." And this is the interpreta tion which the general verdict of common sense put upoii this part of the Mackonochie Judgment. Many who had been in the habit till then of celebrating at the north end, the late Bishop of Winchester among them, conformed, as they be lieved, to the ruling of the Mackonochie Judgment, by at once adopting the eastward position. This, also, was the opinion of the Dean of the Court of Arches ; so much so, indeed, that he considered himself absolved from the duty of arguing the point, as being one which had been already decided by the superior Court. " The question," he said, "appears to me to have been settled in the Case of Martin v. Mackonochie." The Judicial Committee, however, came to an opposite conclusion in the Case of Mr. Purchas. "The question before their Lordships in that (the Mackonochie) Case was as to the posture, and not as i.J Lord Cairns on Eastward Position. 213 to the position, of the Minister." So says the Purchas Judgment ; and their Lordships, after quoting the passage of the Mackonochie Judgment which is in dispute, argue as follows : — "This passage refers to posture or attitude from beginning to end, and not to position with reference to the sides of the Table. And it could not be construed to justify Mr. Purchas in standing with his back to the people, unless a material addition were made to it. The learned Judge reads it as if it ran, ' They think that the words, "standing before the Table," apply to the whole sentence, and that before the Table means between the Table and the people on the west side.' " Now, in the name of common sense and English grammar, what can the words in question mean if they do not mean what the Court suggests Lord Cairns ought to have said if he meant it? Lord Cairns, being a master of the English tongue, probably did not see the necessity of adding an absurd pleonasm to language which, to ordinary minds, was already sufficiently plain. Fortunately he is still alive, and he has publicly expressed his opinion of this part of the Purchas Judgment in words of which the meaning is not doubtful, in spite of the decorous drapery with which it is thinly veiled. In one of his speeches on the Public Wor ship Regulation Bill in the House of Lords last summer, he used these words — "Upon that subject (of the eastward position) 214 Partiality of the Court [letter there have been two decisions more or less final by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I do not desire to say one word as to the law on the question ; but every one knows how extremely diffi cult it is for any person — for any layman, perhaps for any lawyer — to be satisfied that those two deci sions are reconcileable with each other. In one of those cases no defence was made, and only one side was heard. Those decisions, I think, cannot be re garded as final."* Yet denunciations of "lawlessness" and "dis loyalty" have been fulminated in Parliament and newspapers, from platforms and from pulpits, against men who have been guilty of no more serious offence than taking the same view of a certain legal deci sion, which has been expressed in Parliament by the Lord High Chancellor of England. I have now gone through all the leading points of the Purchas Judgment, and I must leave your Lord ship and others, who may do me the honour to read my pages, to estimate the value of the facts and arguments which I have suggested for consideration. But there is an aspect of that Judgment which, I humbly think, has not received the attention which is due to it : I mean that part of it which ordered Mr. Purchas to pay the costs of both sides, not only in the Final Court, but in the Court below. Men's memories are apt to be very short in matters of this sort, and it is necessary therefore to recall the facts. * See Guardian of June 10, 1874, p. 729. !•] As to the Question of Costs. 215 Mr. Purchas has been accused of contumacy for having declined to plead. But he did not decline to plead. On the contrary, he pleaded poverty as an excuse for not employing Counsel, and ill health as a reason why he could not conduct his own case. But he offered to defend himself if the Court would only supply him with professional assistance. The Court declined to do so. Nevertheless Mr. Purchas, undefended and unaided, was acquitted in the Court of Arches on all essential points. His adversaries appealed to the Judicial Committee, and Mr. Purchas was again arraigned, and again was undefended, though anxious to defend himself. The Court had to listen to an ex parte statement, elaborated against him by all the skill of practised and able advocates. There was no one to criticise, none to question, any of the evidence arrayed against him. Nevertheless his Judges appear to have found it very difficult to make up their minds. I infer this from the language of their Judgment, which is halting and hesitating almost throughout. On every point of importance they make confessions of difficulties and doubts, and are only "inclined to think" that the balance of evidence is against Mr. Purchas. And then, at the end of it all, they pass on the accused a sentence which could only be justified on the ground that Mr. Purchas was an incorrigible offender, whose con duct was all though utterly indefensible and inex cusable. His Judges might indulge in doubts and difficulties as to the points in dispute, but Mr. 216 Partiality of the Court t ' [letter Purchas must have none. True, that in the opinion of the Court below, and in that of most men who have gone carefully into the question, Mr. Purchas "had simply acted in conformity with two previous decisions of this very Court. If ever there was a case in which the accused might plead extenuating circumstances ; if ever there was a case in which the defendant was led astray, if astray he was, by the law itself; if ever there was a case in which the costs ought to have been shared, that case was surely the trial of Mr. Purchas. But the tribunal of Final Appeal thought differently. It passed on Mr. Pur chas a sentence which — it is better to say the truth frankly — looks much more like vindictiveness than like justice. Still the Court was afforded a means of escape out of the difficulties which it so profusely confessed, though indeed most of them were of its own creation. An opportunity was offered it of rehearing the Case before the Judgment of the Court had yet become law, and with the advantage of having it fully argued on both sides. After judgment had been delivered by the Judicial Committee, but before their report and recommendation had been presented, or any order made thereon by Her Majesty in Council, Mr. Purchas presented two Petitions addressed to Her Majesty in Council, of which Mr. Brooke* gives the following correct summary : — The Petitioner stated that he " was disabled, by * Privy Council Judgments, p. 201. !•] As to the Question of Costs. 217 want of necessary pecuniary means, from incurring the expense of a defence by Counsel on the hearing of such appeal ; and that the state of his health and his own incompetency to cope with Counsel prevented him from venturing personally to undertake to sustain the judgment of the Dean of Arches ; that the appeal was thus heard without any opposing arguments on the various important points raised; and therefore that the report of the Judicial Committee on those important points, from the necessity of the case, must be submitted to Her Majesty upon an ex parte hearing only. That, as he stated, the result of these circumstances was, that the opinion of the Judicial Committee had been pronounced, with regard to the main particulars, in favour of the Appellant, in con tradiction, as he, the Petitioner, was advised, in one essential point to the decision of the Judicial Com mittee in the Case of Westerton v. Liddell. That so grave are the consequences of the decision in the Case to which the Petitioner was a party, and so deep and painful an interest had, as he submitted, it excited amongst a very large body of clergy and laity of the Church of England, that, being now unexpectedly enabled to take upon himself the expense of employ ing Counsel on his behalf, which at the time of the hearing he was unable to do, and being, as he alleged, most anxious for the sake of himself and others that a full and complete discussion should be had of the several points raised by the appeal, he prayed that Her Majesty would not adopt the recom- 2 18 Denial of Justice to Mr. Purchas. [letter mendation of the Lords of the Judicial Committee in the Case until an opportunity had been afforded to the Petitioner of having the Case re-heard, in order that he might be duly represented by Counsel upon such hearing, and a full and satisfactory discussion might be had on the several points raised by the Appeal. These Petitions were specially referred by Her Majesty to the Judicial Committee, and after hearing arguments on both sides, the Solicitor-General (Lord Coleridge) representing Mr. Purchas, the Court de cided as follows : — " Their Lordships are of opinion, in respect to the two Petitions addressed to the Crown, that no further proceedings should be taken therein. Having care fully weighed the arguments, and considering the great public mischief which would arise on any doubt being thrown on the finality of the decisions of the Judicial Committee, their Lordships are of opinion that expediency requires that the prayer of the Peti tion should not be acceded to, and that they should be refused with costs." It was ordered accordingly " that the Petition of the said John Purchas ought not to be granted, and that no further steps ought to be taken in regard thereto." That is to say, their Lordships deliberately refused to hear both sides of the question in dispute, because, forsooth ! the dignity of the Court might suffer thereby; and then a cry of "lawlessness" is raised i.J Lord Hatherley on Undefended Cases. 219 against thousands of clergymen who thus find them selves suddenly and capriciously placed in the position of lawbreakers without any opportunity of self-defence. Your Lordship probably remembers the speech of Lord Hatherley in the House of Lords on the second reading of the Public Worship Regulation Bill. It was very meagrely reported ; but I heard it, and I am not likely to forget it. In reply to the argument that the Purchas Judgment, having been delivered in an undefended case, could not be considered final, his Lordship censured severely what he was pleased to consider the unfair tactics of the Ritualists, who, he said, first refused to defend themselves, and then, when judgment went against them, refused to submit to it because it was given in an undefended case. Now I am one of those who think that even the Ritualists ought to have justice done to them, and that the flames of popular passions ought not to be fanned against them by means of accusations which have no foundation whatever in fact. Nobody cher ishes a sincerer respect than I do for Lord Hatherley's piety and simplicity of character ; but this charge of his against the Ritualists is absolutely unfounded. How stand the facts 1 The cardinal Ritual cases have been the prosecutions of Mr. Liddell, Mr. Mackonochie, and Mr. Purchas. The two former defended themselves, and submitted, with the bulk of the party, to the decisions of the Judicial Com mittee. The latter asked to be allowed to defend himself, and was refused. And this is what Lord 220 Other Examples of [letter Hatherley calls first refusing to plead, and then re fusing to submit to the judgment because the case was undefended. It is of course quite unnecessary for me to express my conviction that Lord Hatherley believed every word of what he said. But it was his own lips which refused a re-hearing to Mr. Purchas ; and therefore, if theological prejudice against an unpopular party can so bias the mind of a man like Lord Hatherley as to make him turn the history of his own judicial deliverances upside down, those may be excused, I think, who distrust his version of facts which are seen through the haze of centuries. But I have not yet exhausted what I have to say on the question of costs in the case of Mr. Purchas. I accuse the Court deliberately and before the public of gross partiality and injustice in this matter. It is a grave charge ; but the facts are not less grave. To fine Mr. Purchas in the full amount of the whole costs throughout can only be defended on the ground that his interpretation of the Rubrics was altogether unjustifiable and frivolous. Yet that interpretation was not only upheld by the Dean of Arches, who probably knew more about the facts than all Mr. Purchas's Judges put together, but to ordinary minds it seems to be the only interpretation which har monises with the previous decisions of the Supreme Court. If, however, the Judicial Committee had always acted on a uniform system of impartial harshness, I should not complain. It is the partiality of the l.J Judicial Partiality. 221 Court to which I object; and that it has adminis tered justice in a partial manner .the following facts will, I venture to think, prove. In the Case of Liddell v. Westerton, the judgment of the Court below Was reversed in favour of Mr. Liddell on all material points. Yet the Final Court ruled that " each party must bear their own costs " in both Courts. In the case of Ditcher v. Denison, the Court of Arches sustained the objection raised by Archdeacon Denison against the validity of the sentence pro nounced against him by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mr. Ditcher thereupon appealed to the Judicial Com mittee ; and their Lordships decided " that, in their judgment, the present appeal should be dismissed, but without costs." Mr. Bennett was acquitted in the Court of Arches, and also by the Judicial Committee, though his language was censured as rash. But there was no order as to costs. Here, then, we have four prosecutions against High Churchmen. In the first of them the Respon dent, having no means of defending himself, was acquitted in the Court below, but condemned by the Court of Appeal and refused an opportunity of de fending himself when means had been provided for that purpose. In spite of these extenuating circum stances ; in spite, too, of the fact that his interpreta tion of the disputed Rubrics appeared, in the opinion of competent judges, to be in agreement with pre- 222 Other Examples of [letter vious decisions of the Judicial Committee ; in spite of repeated confessions on the part of the. Court of Appeal that the case was full of difficulties— in spite of all these considerations, Mr. Purchas was not only punished by a severe sentence, but he was charged with the costs on both sides throughout. In the second case Archdeacon Denison's cause was sustained both in the Court of Arches and in the Final Court. Yet he had to bear his own costs. In the third case Mr. Liddell, having been con demned in the Court of Arches, appealed to the Judicial Committee. His appeal was sustained, but he was ordered to bear his own costs. In the fourth case Mr. Bennett was acquitted in both Courts ; but no order was made as to costs, I will add a further case, which is, perhaps, the most glaring of all. Mr. Liddell was attacked a second time before the Judicial Committee on the charge of having neglected to comply with the previous judg ment, and he was acquitted in the following emphatic language : — "Then Lordships are of opinion, therefore, that no disobedience, no impropriety, no irregularity has been established; and that the present application therefore fails." After so triumphant an acquittal Mr. Liddell was so simple-minded as to pray to be allowed the costs of his defence. But the Court refused to make any such order. The prosecution, it said, "has been con ducted temperately and properly, and their Lord-. !¦] Judicial Partiality. 223 ships do not think it necessary to give any directions as to costs." So much as to the question of costs before the Judicial Committee in cases where High Churchmen have been concerned. Let us now see how the Court dealt with tho matter in cases where the criminated parties were not High Churchmen. And let us begin with the case of Mr. Head.* This clergyman, having received the usual Epis copal Circular announcing the days and places of his diocesan's confirmations, wrote a letter to the Western Times, entitled "A View of the Duplicity of the present system of Episcopal Administration, in a Letter addressed to the Parishioners of Feniton, occasioned by the Bishop of Exeter's Circular on Confirmation." This Letter was a most violent attack both on the Episcopate of the English Church and also on the Prayer Book. The following extract will serve as a specimen of its tone and substance : — " As reformation in this respect is not hopeless, and as I also am pledged, by my ordination vows, as a Minister of the Church of England, to banish and drive away all erroneous doctrme, I do hereby decline and refuse to give any countenance whatever to the office of Confirmation, as it is now used by their Lordships the Bishops ; and, instead of recommend ing, in compliance with the Episcopal Circular, the * See Ecclesiastical Judgments of the Privy Council, by Brodrick and Fremantle, pp. 80-88. 224 Other Examples of [letter perusal and reperusal of that service to the young persons of this parish, I warn them all, young, old, and middle-aged, to beware, in the name of God, of the erroneous and strange doctrine which it contains." Mr. Head was arraigned before the Court of Arches, whose jurisdiction he disputed, but without success. He then appealed to the Judicial Committee, which affirmed the Judgment of the Court below, "but without costs." The particulars in the Cases of Mr. Gorham and the Essays and Reviews are, no doubt, fresh in the memory of the reader. It will suffice, therefore, to say that Mr. Gorham was condemned absolutely, and Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson on all material points, in the Court of Arches. The Judicial Committee reversed the Judgments in both cases, and allowed the accused parties the costs of the appeal. "Look here, upon this picture and on that," and say whether Justice has held even scales. For lati- tudinarianism in any direction the tender mercies of the Judicial Committee are unbounded; but it is safer for a clergyman to be guilty of the grossest immorality than to wear a chasuble or worship his Maker with his face turned towards the East. This is not the language of excited rhetoric, but of sober fact. A beneficed clergyman in the diocese of London, with a wife and several children, was, in the year 1861, tried before the Court of Arches for immorality of the most frightful description, and deprived. He appealed to the Judicial Committee I.] Judicial Partiality. 225 of Privy CouncU, and conducted his defence in person ; with the result that the sentence of the Court below was confirmed. The character of the offender's guilt may be inferred from the following extract from the Judgment of the Court of Appeal : — "Their Lordships are at this stage to draw the in ference of reasonable minds from the evidence before them ; it satisfies them that they have to deal with a Sentence pronounced on guilt of rare occurrence. They have been shocked to hear the appellant's re marks on Miss ; remarks, be it observed, resting exclusively on the poor foundation of his own statement — remarks which, even if true, should never have proceeded from his mouth . . . But this is only to give him his own case. The real facts show him deliberately and systematically availing himself of his being supposed to be in a condition to offer honourable love, and so invading the security of respectable families " (then follow details which are too shocking to be quoted). " Of all who have heard his case he seems the only one who is insensible to its real character ; ... he has come here in no spirit of repentance, apparently solely actuated by the miserable desire for restoration to the profits of his incumbency." From first to last there is absolutely not one extenuating fact in favour of this hoary-headed criminal. Yet the Court was too pitiful to mulct him in the costs. "The Appellant having been admitted to appeal in forma pauperis, the confir- Q 226 The Archbishops and [letter mation of the sentence will be, therefore, without costs."* Mr. Purchas was also in forma pauperis, and was a clergyman of unblemished life into the bargain. But in his case — not the "confirmation," but — the reversal of the sentence of the inferior Court was with costs. Is this justice 1 When we see the Judicial Committee administer ing justice after this fashion it is no wonder that some of its individual members should, out of Court, forget the restraints and responsibilities which their judicial functions impose upon them. On the 5th of May, 1873, "a numerous and influential deputation waited on the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by appointment at Lambeth Palace, to present the Memorial prepared by the Council of the Church Association against Romish teaching in the Church of England."f Of this Memorial and the speeches which introduced it I will only say that they abound in that kind of learning and charity which have become proverbially characteristic of Exeter Hall polemics. Suffice it to say, that the Archbishops were peremptorily recommended, " in the Admission of Candidates to Holy Orders, in the licensing of Curates, and also in the distribution of patronage," to proscribe the whole High Church party. Two * Ecclesiastical Judgments ofthe Privy Council, by Brodrick and Fremantle, pp. 210, 211. t See the " Church Association Monthly Intelligencer " for Juue, 1873, p. 182. i.J The Church Association. 227 gentlemen, indeed, Mr. Andrews, the Chairman of the Church Association, and Lord Fitzwalter, one of its leading members, went so far as to tell their Graces that they * were bound to enforce, not the letter of the Bennett Judgment, but its "spirit." And by its " spirit " Lord Fitzwalter explained that the Church Association meant " the opinions of the Judges." " It is not only the spirit of the Bennett Judgment, but the opinions of the Judges, that we want to have carried out."* To this calumnious indictment of the whole High Church party, and to these insolent and iniquitous suggestions, the two Primates of all England were pleased to listen graciously. Not a hint escaped them that the High Church party might possibly not be altogether so black as it had been painted, or that, oven if it were, the gentlemen of the Church Associ ation were not exactly the fittest persons to cast the first stone at Rubric-breakers. On the contrary, their Graces assumed the immaculate accuracy of all the accusations; accepted the representatives of that Association as the only faithful exponents of Church of England doctrine, all others being characterised, by the Archbishop of York, as " those whose hearts are not so true ; " and then delivered, each of them a speech of the most thorough-going partisan cha racter. The Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, favoured the Church Association with the following inflammatory advice : — * " Church Association Monthly Intelligencer," p. 186. Q 2 228 The Archbishops and [letter "Now I must say that I have thought the laity are not sufficiently attentive to their duty in re ference to the office of Churchwarden. What is the real state of the case with regard to these newly- formed districts'? — and it is almost always in these that the difficulties you are bringing before me to-day arise. A gentleman of extreme opinions, supported by a few friends, builds a church in a district assigned to it, and the law makes it impera tive that there should be a vestry assembled in that district, and that that vestry should, as in the old parishes, elect churchwardens to represent their opinions. But what almost invariably takes place? No one pays any attention to the new vestry. The gentleman, who wishes the service to be conducted in a particular way, nominates one of his own friends; and in the only case which has recently occurred in my diocese that is exactly what has been done. Certain practices are represented to me as being such as I ought not to allow. I immedi ately .take steps to prevent these practices from being continued, and thereon I receive a representation from the two churchwardens representing the laity, stating that, whatever I do, they beg I will not interfere with the practice and ritual that is carried on. This is not a solitary instance. It is the rule to be found throughout the whole country ; and as we are met to instruct each other, and in the pre sence of such a large body of the laity, I beg to ask them to carefully consider their liabilities in the i.J The Church Association. 229 newly formed districts in which almost all these practices originate." Could partisanship go farther ? Here is the Pri mate of All England, in a speech addressed to a persecuting Association, gravely impugning the good faith of all those munificent High Churchmen who, during the last forty years, have done so much in the way of building and endowing new schools and churches. The founders of All Saints', Margaret Street ; of S. Alban's, Holborn ; of S. Barnabas', Pim- lico, and of hundreds of similar churches all over the land, are, in the opinion of the Archbishop of Can terbury, " gentlemen of extreme opinions, supported by a few friends, who build churches in which un lawful usages may be practised." He makes no reservation. It is not " a solitary instance" that he has in his mind. "It is the rule to be found throughout the whole country." And because " the two churchwardens, representing the laity," beg that the Bishop " will not interfere with the practice and ritual that is carried on," his Grace chooses to con sider that the churchwardens in all these districts are improperly elected ; and so he makes what I am sincerely sorry to say I can only understand as an appeal to the mob. Nor was the partisanship of the Archbishop of York a whit less pronounced. He caught eagerly at the suggestion that " the opinions of the Judges " in the Bennett Case, and not the Judgment of the Court, ought to be the rule of Faith to the Church of 230 The Archbishops and [letter England. " I hope," he said, " we shall not adopt a cowardly policy, because, on account of the Bennett Judgment, certain persons have left the Church of England. Do they not see in the Bennett Judgment a declaration of the Church of England far more valuable on the one side than the failure of justice against an individual on the other ? " So, then, the Bennett Judgment is, in the opinion of the Arch bishop of York, whose own mouth pronounced it, "a failure of justice," because it acquitted the accused ! Eleven days afterwards the two Primates sent to the Chairman of the Church Association a written reply, in which, among other things, they say : — "There can be no doubt that the danger you ap prehend of a considerable minority, both of clergy and laity, among us desiring to subvert the prin ciples of the Reformation is real ; and it is not un natural that you should appeal to us for counsel and support. Since we had the honour of receiving your deputation, our attention has been directed to a petition presented by upwards of four hundred clergymen to the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury in favour of what they designate as Sacramental Confession. We believe that through the system of the Confessional great evil has been wrought in the Church of Rome, and that our Re formers acted wisely in allowing it no place in our Reformed Church ; and we take this opportunity of expressing our entire disapproval of any such inno vation, and our firm determination - to do all in our Lj The Church Association. 231 power to discourage it. We feel justified in appeal ing to all reasonable men to consider whether the very existence of our national institutions for the mainte nance of religion is not imperilled by the evils of which you complain. In your memorial, you ask us — first, whether we are ready ' to exercise all the authority vested in us for the entire suppression of ceremonies and practices adjudged to be illegal ; and, in the event of that authority proving insufficient, to afford all other needful facilities for the due enforce ment of the law.' We answer that we can have no doubt that it is our bounden duty to use our best endeavours to see that the law is obeyed, and to afford all needful facilities for its enforcement, when we are duly called upon so to do. Secondly, you appeal to us to take ' especial care ' to guard against such ' architectural arrangements and ornaments in our Churches as may facilitate the introduction of superstitious practices and erroneous doctrines.' We answer that in the administration of our dioceses we have ever been watchful on this point. Thirdly, you ask us, in the admission of candidates for holy orders, and in other ways, to be careful lest persons be entrusted with the ministerial office who teach doc trines subversive of those ' truths to which our Pro testant Church, as keeper and witness of holy writ, has ever borne its faithful testimony.' We answer that Ave consider ourselves bound to this duty by our consecration vows." On receipt of this Reply the Church Association 232 The Archbishops and [letter passed the following Resolutions, which it circulated far and wide : — "14, Buckingham Street, Strand, W. C. London, 7th July, 1873. " (Extract from the Minutes of the Council ofthe Church Association, under date the ith of July, 1873. " Read the reply of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, dated June 16th, to the Memorial pre sented at Lambeth on the 5 th of May last. "After careful and anxious consideration, " Resolved : "That the reply of the Archbishops to the Me morial of 60,200 lay members of the Church, pre sented to them through the Church Association at Lambeth on the 5th of May, having naturally excited much attention and observation throughout the country, the Council feel that they may with pro priety express their opinion on the subject-matter of that reply. "The Council assume that their Graces' reply expresses the opinion not of the Archbishops alone, but of the whole Episcopal bench, and in that point of view no part of it has produced such painful anxiety as that which expresses their conviction of the existence of 'a considerable minority both of Clergy and Laity amongst us desiring to subvert the principles of the Reformation;' whereupon they appeal 'to all reasonable men to consider whether the very existence of our national institutions for the i.J The Church Association. 233 maintenance of religion is not imperilled by the evils of which you complain.' It was this conviction in the minds of others which called the Church Asso ciation into existence eight years ago ; and it is well that those in highest authority have at last arrived at the same conclusion, if it be not now too late to avert the threatened danger. " It is obvious that a body of persons in the Church banded together, as this minority is, in close union to accomplish its overthrow, is in fact engaged in a conspiracy, which, if it related to the State instead of the Church, would be justly branded as treason. " It seems inconceivable that, when the fact of such a conspiracy is known to the guardians and leaders of the Church, they should not feel irresistibly constrained without a moment's delay or hesitation to adopt the most effective measures in their power for the removal of those conspirators, whose presence within the walls of the citadel necessarily increases the danger day by day." Now, my Lord, I ask you to consider the serious import of these proceedings. The Church Association has been the real prosecutor in all the so-called Ritualistic suits, and the two Archbishops are among the most eminent members of the Final Court of Appeal. That is to say, two of the Judges in the Court of last resort receive a visit from the prose cutor, listen to his wholesale accusations, express their entire approval of them, denounce the defendant, Suggest means of worrying him, and virtually pass 234 Archbishop of Canterbury on [letter judgment beforehand on every point likely to come before them in their judicial capacity! And yet people wonder that the Ritualists treat with scant re spect the decisions of a Court, two of whose members set at nought not merely the substance, but even the outward forms and decencies of justice. I venture to say that if in civil matters any two Judges in the land were to act as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have acted in this matter, the voice of public indignation would speedily compel their re moval from the bench. But unfortunately the British public will put up with almost any outrage on justice provided the victim belongs to an un popular theological party. But I have not yet done with my illustrations of the kind of justice which, not the Ritualists only, but the whole High Church party have been taught to expect from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In a speech delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the House of Lords on July 15th, ' 1873, he characterised a certain petition addressed to Convocation as having "a dangerous aspect;" and then he indulged in the following reflections : — " It was one from undergraduates at Oxford, and was signed by four out of six Professors of Theology. When I see men whose duty it is to teach the doctrines of the Reformed Church to young men who are to be her ministers encourage such a petition as that, I am led to ask who is responsible for the appointment of those Professors ? I do not mean to I-J High Church Appointments. 235 say that those who advise Her Majesty now, or who may have done so at any other time, have not exercised a conscientious judgment in selecting those Professors to be trainers of young men about to enter the Church ; but as we are in times of great difficulty and danger, I may express a hope that in future more thought will be given to such selections — that there may be more consultation with those who are in a position to know what are the qualifications requisite for Professors appointed to such positions." The four Professors who are thus held up to the reprobation of the British public, without an oppor tunity of self-defence, were Dr. Pusey, Dr. Bright, Dr. Liddon and Dr. King ; and they were appointed respectively by the late Duke of Wellington, Mr. Disraeli, all the Heads of Houses in the University, and by Mr. Gladstone. These are the eminent persons whom the Archbishop of Canterbury deemed it his. duty to censure for having presumed to ex ercise their right of selection without consulting " those " whoever they may be, " who are in a position to know what are the qualifications requisite for Professors appointed to such positions." The Petition of " dangerous aspect " which called forth these severe strictures on the part of his Grace is as follows : — " We, the undersigned clergy and lay communi cants of the Church of England, being members of the University of Oxford, humbly entreat your Right 236 Archbishop of Canterbury on [letter Reverend House not to pass the New Rubric proposed by the Lower House of the Convocation of Canter bury, to discourage the attendance throughout the Communion Office of worshippers who do not then intend to communicate, because such a Rubric would be an inroad on the liberties of the faithful laity, and would interfere with their devotions without being necessary to afford relief for a grievance to any other persons." A very innocent petition surely. What right has Convocation or any other authority to forbid the pre sence, during the celebration of the Holy Communion, of devout persons who receive edification from the service, though they may not intend to communicate, having probably done so at a previous service ¦? The proposed Rubric was a distinct innovation, and those who respectfully petition against the innovation are denounced by the Primate of All England as persons who are unfaithful to " the doctrines ofthe Reformed Church," and therefore unfit to be the instructors of "young men." His Grace then went on to make a special attack on Dr. Liddon, Canon Gregory, and the Dean of St. Paul's, in the following lan guage :— "I consider it also a great misfortune that the central Cathedral of this Metropolis should exhibit violations of the law of the Church. I consider that in appointing persons to such posts the greatest responsibility rests upon those who are called upon to make the selection to see that they appoint persons i.J High Church Appointments. 237 who are perfectly loyal, not only to the general prin ciples of the Church of England, but also to the law of the land and of the Church, as interpreted by the highest Courts in the land." Now it so happens that all the principal points involved in the Purchas Judgment are again before the Courts of law, and will in all probability come before the Judicial Committee. Whether the two Archbishops will then take their places on the Judg ment-seat, I know not. But if they do, and the Purchas Judgment should be confirmed, it is quite impossible that the decision can command either obedience or respect. It is no pleasure to me, my Lord, but much the reverse, to criticise in this manner the acts and say ings of one of our high Courts of Law. But we have confessedly reached a crisis, and the conviction has been irresistibly forced upon a large body of the clergy and laity of the Church of England that the law has been strained in order to include the schools denominated as Broad and Low, and contracted, in violation of justice, in order to exclude the High Church party. How far this conviction is well- founded I leave the readers of the preceding pages to determine. For myself, I confess that my tastes do not lie in the direction of elaborate ritual. I never saw Mr. Purchas, and I own to having felt deeply annoyed at the reports of his doings which reached me through the newspapers. But the treatment which he received from the Judicial Committee 238 Sir G. Cornewell Lewis [letter changed my indignation into sympathy; and I felt the necessity of making a stand against the Purchas Judgment, not in the interest of this party or that, but in the interest of English justice. Let me not be misunderstood, however: I make no imputation on the good faith and perfect integrity of any member of the Final Court of Appeal. My own diocesan was one of those who sat in judgment on Mr. Purchas, and I know enough of him to feel assured that he is utterly incapable not only of in justice, but of unkindness. I accuse him of nothing worse than the non-possession of superhuman facul ties ; for without superhuman faculties it is impos sible that a Bishop of London, who conscientiously strives to do his duty, should find time to master questions which involve careful and elaborate re search. He must, of necessity, leave to his col leagues the task of investigation, and must simply take on trust the accuracy of the conclusions at which they may arrive. Nor have I any doubt at all that the other members of the Court acted with the most entire conscientiousness. But conscien tiousness is a word of elastic meaning, and it is quite possible that the very conscientiousness of a judge may tempt him unconsciously to bend the law from the straight line of justice in the direction of some interest which he conceives to be of paramount im portance. So that his conscientiousness, instead of being a protection to him, is a snare. The late Sir George Cornewall Lewis has some observations on !-J on Unconscious Bias. 239 this subject, which are so pertinent that I shall take the liberty of quoting them : — " It is universally admitted that no man ought to be a judge in his own case. But, if the case were not his own, his competency to form a judgment upon it might be indisputable. So if any political measure be proposed which affects the interest of a profession, it may happen that persons belonging to that profession, though peculiarly competent to form an opinion respecting it, on account of their experi ence and knowledge, are disqualified on account of the probable bias of their judgment by personal considerations ; and that the requisite indifference is only to be found among those who do not belong to the profession. Such out-lying persons may be the only impartial judges in the matter. . . . The opera tion of a personal interest in perverting the judgment is so insidious, that great honesty, combined with perpetual vigilance, is necessary in order to guard against its influence. Men utterly incapable of telling a deliberate untruth, or deliberately ex pressing an insincere opinion, are nevertheless liable to be warped by personal interest in the deliberate formation of opinions. When a strong bias of this sort exists, their minds, ready to receive every tittle of evidence on one side of a question, are utterly impervious to arguments on the other. Hence we see opinions, founded on a belief (and often a radi cally erroneous belief) of self-interest, pervade whole classes of persons, Frequently the great majority of 240 Judges subject to Theological [letter a profession, or trade, or other body, adopt some opinion in which they have, or think they have, a common interest, and urge it with almost unani mous vehemence against the public advantage. On occasions of this kind, the persons interested doubt less convince themselves of the reasonableness of the view which they put forward ; they are guilty of no hypocrisy or insincerity ; but their judgment is warped by their belief as to their interest in the question."* But the bias of self-interest is not always the most powerful bias. Many a man who knows himself too well to suffer the promptings of self-interest to bias him is readily influenced by the interest which he feels in a great cause or institution. Take, by way of illustration, the case of Bishops trying ecclesiastical causes in the Final Court of Appeal. It is hardly possible that they can possess what Sir George Lewis calls " the requisite indifference." They have their dioceses ever before them, and the House of Lords and the newspaper press. A certain decision, they think, will break up the peace of the Church and imperil the Establishment; whereas a contrary decision will give general satisfaction, and put down an insig nificant minority who, even though they may possibly have the rigid letter of the law on their side, cannot be tolerated without danger to higher interests. And so, by this sophistry of the intellect, strong * " Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion," pp. 84-86 ; cf. " Mill's Logic," ii. pp. 280-7. Third Edition. !¦] and Political Bias. 241 evidence is overborne by weak, and a judgment is delivered on grounds of expediency rather than of strict law. Nor is it bishops only who are exposed to this kind of temptation; lay judges also have their prejudices which, upon occasion, they may allow to colour their interpretations of the law. That the perfect impar tiality of our Judges cannot always be trusted in matters political has been admitted, in the following language, and by an eminent authority whom your Lordship will respect : — "Judges, like other men, have their politics ; but at present cases in which political bias might be supposed to affect their minds were rare, although in those cases they frequently gave their Judgments according to their politics."* "Judges, like other men," have their theology also, and I see no more security in the one case than in the other against the intrusion of the Judge's private opinions into his public declarations of the law. It is, indeed, the wide-spread conviction that the ecclesiastical decisions of the Judicial Committee have been tainted in this manner which has destroyed the confidence of Churchmen in its interpretations of the law, and which, partly at least, explains the fact that sentence of death was passed upon it with all but the unanimous approbation of Parlia ment, the two Primates being the only persons in * Speech by Sir Boundell Palmer on Mr. Disraeli's Bribery Bill. See Hansard, Third Series, vol. 192, pp. 286-7. R 242 Ritualism implies doctrine. [letter either House who had a good word to say for it. The Bishop of London pointedly declined to defend the Court when appealed to by the Marquis of Salisbury. I trust that the New Court of Appeal will establish for itself a better reputation. Let it show no respect for persons or for parties. Let it declare what the law is, and not what it is expedient it should be. In short, let justice be done regardless of consequences, and I venture to predict that even the Ritualists will forget their aversion to a purely secular tribunal in the confidence which an impartial administration of justice never fails to inspire. They would much rather, I believe, that the law should be constitu tionally altered to their prejudice than that it should be judicially misconstrued in order to put them down. When I asked your Lordship's permission to ad dress you publicly on the question of " lawlessness," it was not my intention to trouble you with more than a short pamphlet. But I found it impossible to do justice to the subject within such narrow limits, and my pamphlet has consequently grown into a book. For this I do not hold myself altogether responsible. The truth is, that the more the question of Ritualism was discussed the more it was seen that it was not a mere matter of ceremonial observances, but, on the contrary, involved principles and doctrines which went down to the very foundations of the Christian Religion. With an instinct, which was true though ill-informed, the popular dislike to Ritualism con- i.J The Principle of Sacerdotalism, 243 centrated itself upon one word — Sacerdotalism. Ritualism was declared to be intolerable, not for its own sake, but as the visible and moving representa tion of " the principle of Sacerdotalism." Now, for myself, I always consider it a .great point gained in any controversy when the parties engaged join issue on first principles. And I admit that the whole question of Ritualism hangs on the further question whether the principle of Sacerdotalism is, or is not, one of the first principles of Christianity. It is labour lost to have established the legality of certain ceremonial observances if the doctrine more or less symbolised by that ceremonial is, as has been alleged, a pernicious corruption of Christianity. The truth is, however, that those who clamour against Sacerdotalism have no clear conception of what is meant by the word. Sacerdotalism, in some sense, is unquestionably taught in our Book of Common Prayer; nay more, it is unquestionably taught in the New Testament. It becomes necessary to examine, therefore, what Sacerdotalism really means, and I propose accordingly to submit to your Lordship some observations in explanation of what I understand by it. But it will be more convenient that I should do this in the form of another Letter. For the present, then, I have the honour to remain, My Lord, Your Lordship's obedient servant, Malcolm MacColl, r2 LETTER II. SACERDOTALISM. My Lord, It is a pity that those who denounce the doc trine of Sacerdotalism do not take the trouble to explain what it is precisely that they wish to condemn under cover of that unpopular word. I read carefully the debates on Ritualism in both Houses of Parlia ment last summer, but I could discover nothing very definite beyond the general opinion that Sacerdotalism was an abominable doctrine which ought to be sum marily put down. I take it, however, that what the opponents of Sacerdotalism wish to repudiate is that aspect of the Christian religion which has been con demned in the following language by an able and cultivated writer of the day : — "So long as its Sacramental principle remains the Established Church rests upon a theory of religion utterly at variance with all the residuary varieties of Puritan faith, and amounting, as many of us conceive, to a reversal of the very essence of Christianity, for it reverses that immediatcness of relation between the 246 Mr. Martineau on Sacerdotalism. [letter human Spirit and the Divine which is the distinctive boon of Jesus to the world, and it reinstates that resort to mediation, and " channels of grace," and magically endowed men, which it was His special aim to sweep away and render impossible."* It is therefore the Sacramental principle and the doctrine of mediation which are in question. I do not mean that all who declaim against Sacerdotalism would go quite so far as Mr. Martineau ; but that is only because they are not so clear-headed as he, and do not perceive the conclusion necessarily involved in their premisses. Mr. Martineau admits, as indeed every candid and unprejudiced person must, that " the Established Church rests upon " the doctrine of Sacerdotalism, which, however, he thinks it was the " special aim " of our Lord " to sweep away and render impossible." Of that more anon. Meanwhile let us see what the Old Testament has to say upon the subject. It seems to me quite impossible for any one who is not committed to the defence of a foregone con clusion, to read the Old Testament without acknow ledging that the principle of Sacerdotalism runs all through it from Genesis to Malachi. A few instances may suffice by way of illustration. When ^Abimelech took Abraham's wife, thinking her to be his, sister, and pleaded afterwards that he had done it " in the integrity of his heart and inno cency of his hands," God is represented as saying,— * Why Dissent ?" By James Martineau, p. 14. n.J Appeal to Old Testament, 247 " Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart. . . . Now therefore restore the man his wife ; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live ; and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, and all that are thine."* Abraham's intercession for the doomed Cities of the Plain is another instance in point. In the Twelfth Chapter of the Book of Numbers we have an account of an outburst of rebellion against the authority of Moses on the part of Miriam ; her consequent punishment by the infliction of leprosy; and her subsequent cure at the prayer of Moses. In the last chapter of the Book of Job I read as follows : — " And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends : for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering ; and My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of Me the thing which is right, like My servant Job." • Here then are a few typical illustrations, which might be multiplied indefinitely, of the doctrine that God bestows His benefits on man, not immediately, * Gen. xx. 5-7. 248 . Inspiration of the Bible [letter but through the intervention of human agents or dained for that end. And what is the Mosaic dis pensation but a development, through rite and sacri fice, of the same idea ? One family is set apart and endowed with the exclusive right to act mediatorially between God and His people ; and when Korah and his company, relying on the fact that the whole congregation of Israel was holy, as being, in some sort, "a royal priesthood," attempted to usurp the office of the priesthood, Almighty God is represented as vindicating by a terrible punishment the exclu sive priesthood of the family of Aaron. To parry the force of this argument the opponents of Sacerdotalism are wont to decry the Mosaic dis pensation not merely as a system of ordinances which has been superseded by the Christian dispensation, but as involving doctrines which are essentially an tagonistic to Christianity. Mr. Martineau says dis tinctly that the sacramental principle and the doctrine of mediation " amount to a reversal of the very essence of Christianity." Mr. Martineau is a Unitarian; but on this question he is in full agreement with the great mass of anti-Sacerdotalists. What authority he would be willing to concede to the Mosaic legis lation, and whether he considers the Old Testament inspired, I know not. But the Evangelical party, who in this matter are in the same boat with Mr. Martineau, hold very stringent views indeed as to the unqualified Divine inspiration of all the Books of the Old Testament. I beg them, therefore, to consider n.J involved in Sacerdotalism. 249 seriously whither their attack on the principle of Sacerdotalism leads them. They condemn it as something essentially wrong in itself. It is certain, however, if the Old Testament is Divinely inspired, that Sacerdotalism is a doctrine not only sanctioned but peremptorily enjoined by Almighty God Himself. But can God enjoin what is essentially wrong 1 And let it be considered, moreover, that our Lord has expressly declared that he came "not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it." The Law was developed into the Gospel. But development implies the conserva tion of the norm or radical idea. Now the radical idea underlying the Sacrificial system of the Old Testament was man's need of expiation, combined with his perso nal unworthiness to make an atonement for himself. It is remarkable that the immediate occasion of the appointment of the Aaronic priesthood seems to have been the public acknowledgment of un worthiness made by the general congregation. During the patriarchal period the head of the family was also its priest ; and even when the Law was delivered to the Israelites from Mount Sinai there was no regular priesthood to stand between God and His people. They were all regarded as a nation of priests until their own sense of unworthiness caused them to shrink back aghast from the awful privilege. The circumstance is related by Moses as follows: — " And it came to pass when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness (for the mountain did burn with fire), that ye came near unto me, even all the 250 Aaronic and lay Priesthood, [letter heads of your tribes, and your elders ; and ye said, Behold, the Lord our God hath shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out ofthe midst ofthe fire : we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now there fore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us ; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that hath heard the voice ofthe living God speaking out of the mid3t of the fire, as we have, and lived 1 Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say : and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee ; and we will hear it and do it. And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me ; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee : they have well said all that they have spoken." Accordingly Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the office of the priesthood soon after this incident, and they became the appointed mediators between Jehovah and the general congregation. Still the people were not suffered to rest in this as a final and unchangeable arrangement. Their true ideal was always kept before them. They were reminded that, in spite of the Aaronic priesthood, they still continued ideally "a kingdom of priests, a holy nation." They were unworthy now to realize that high ideal ; but they were not to lose sight of it, and to keep them in perpetual remembrance of it there "•J Appealto New Testament. 25l were several rites of a sacerdotal character, such as the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, in which the people at large were allowed to participate. So much as to the teaching of the Old Testament on the subject of Sacerdotalism. Where is the evi dence that it was our Lord's " special aim to sweep away and render impossible " such teaching ? On the contrary, if we are to believe the Gospel narra tive, He ordained a certain order of men to occupy in the Christian Church a position and to fulfil func tions analogous to those of the Aaronic priesthood. Once before his death, and once after, He charged them with the following commission — "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this He breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." I cannot imagine a stronger sanction of *the Sacer dotal principle than these words imply ; and it is clear that our Lord's Apostles understood them in a sacerdotal sense. Why was Philip bidden to " go near " the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch and instruct and baptize him ? Why was Ananias sent to Saul the persecutor, that he might " put his hands on him," in order that he "might receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost 1 " Why was Cor nelius directed to "send men to Joppa" to fetch Peter that he might receive the pious centurion into the Christian Church % — Why all this, if it was one 252 A special Priesthood implies [letter of the special designs of Christianity to abolish the sacerdotal principle and to forbid all "resort to mediation, and ' channels of grace,' and magically endowed men % " It is undeniable that the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles supply abundant evi dence of a public ministry during the period which they embrace. And that ministry is represented, not as a human institution, but as of Divine appointment. Candidates are set apart with solemn rites, by means of which spiritual powers are supposed to be conferred upon them for the discharge of their new duties. And with this agrees the language by which the ministerial office is designated. S. Paul speaks of himself and his colleagues as "ministers and stewards of Divine mysteries," and as " ambassadors " accredited from God to men. Surely the Sacerdotal principle could not be asserted in stronger language than this ; and therefore, for the Church of England to repudiate the sacerdotal principle would be to repudiate all connection with the Christian ministry of the Apostolic age. And yet it must be admitted, on the other hand, that there is a sense in which it is as true now as it was under the Mosaic dispensation, that all Chris tians are in some way priests, and are charged with Sacerdotal functions. S. Peter addresses the whole congregation of Christians in his day in the language in which Moses described the priestly character of ancient Israel. He calls them "a royal priesthood ;" an ideal of Christian perfection which S. John saw "•] Priesthood ofthe laity. 253 realized when he heard the saints in bliss giving thanks for having been made "kings and priests unto ,God." A layman can validly baptize, and he has his share in the offering up of the Eucharistic Sacrifice— a fact which was symbolised in ancient times by the custom of the faithful laity formally offering their oblation of the Sacramental elements to their repre sentative, the officiating priest, who then consecrated them to God, in order that Christ, the true Priest, might make them, according to his own promise, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. We are all intended, laity as well as clergy, to be " kings and priests unto God." If man had never fallen there would have been no need of a special priesthood. All would have been alike worthy to offer God an acceptable service, as all will be here after in Heaven. This is the ideal towards which we are to strive ; and in order to keep our .unworthiness always before us, and thus help us to fulfil our Christian calling, it has pleased God to ordain an order of men, personally as unworthy as the rest, to be His "ambassadors" on earth, and the "ministers and stewards of His mysteries." To characterise such a doctrine as implying a caste of " magically- endowed men" is to substitute offensive caricature for serious argument. Mr. Martineau may, indeed, be excused for not understanding a doctrine which it has probably never fallen to his lot to study seriously. But what shall we say when we find even Bishops surpassing Mr, Martineau in his ignorance of what is 254 Bishop Ewing on Episcopacy. [letter really meant by the grace of Orders. The late amiable Bishop of Argyll, whom I had not the honour of knowing, but who had the ear of a considerable number of thoughtful men, gravely assured the readers of the Contemporary Review, in an Essay on '-Anglo-Catholicism," that Episcopal Ordination "presumes that a materialistic process akin to physical vaccination will produce spiritual results." " Orders alone," he thought, " have no intrinsic life, and they cannot give it to others." So that the only true Bishops are they who show by their work that they have been consecrated by God ; " such as Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox, Wesley, Chalmers, Irving . . . Who can refuse to these the titles of great Bishops of the Lord ?" I am not quite clear as to what the goodBishop meant by "Orders alone having no intrinsiclife." Undoubtedly the act of ordination has in itself "no intrinsic life." But what has? Absolutely nothing except the un created Source of all life, and the question is whether "the Lord and Giver of Life," as the Nicene Creed speaks, can impart that life how and when He pleases. In truth, the objection which I am considering implies a confusion between two things which are totally distinct: individual merit and official com mission. To affirm that every man who shows eminent capacity for the Episcopal office is in fact a bishop is as reasonable as it would be to argue that every good strategist is ipso facto a general, or every good financier ipso facto Chancellor of the Exchequer, Of course it ii. J Apostolical Succession. 255 would be much better if the men best fitted for the office were appointed bishops, just as it would be much better if the best men were appointed Com manders-in-Chief, Ambassadors, and Prime Ministers. To be qualified for an office, however, is one thing : to be appointed to it is quite another. Men see this well enough in secular matters. How is it that so obvious a truth offends them when the sphere of its operation is spiritual ? I believe the reason is to be found in man's natural reluctance to believe in the reality of powers whose source and mode of action are invisible. Unless he sees signs and wonders he finds it hard to believe that God has founded in the midst of men a spiritual polity, the administration of whose laws and powers He has committed to a hierarchy of mortal men, the validity of whose cre dentials can be tested by the methods of ordinary evi dence. Assuming that the Christian Church is a Divine and not a human creation — I am not arguing here against those who deny that assumption — I do not see anything more unreasonable in supposing that He should transmit spiritual life through the instrumentality of a sacramental and sacerdotal agency than in believing that he propagates natural life through the process of natural generation. No antecedent objection can be urged against the one which is not equally valid against the other. But it is said that the doctrine of Apostolical suc cession, which is of the essence of Sacerdotalism, cannot be maintained because it is incapable of 256 Arguments against it. [letter proof. That depends, however, on the kind of proof which the objector demands. If he insists on such proof as shall preclude all doubt, I admit at once that no bishop in Christendom can produce valid credentials. But, in that case, the belief in Apos tolical Succession is not the only belief which must be surrendered at the summons of an inexorable criticism. Dr. Ewing, from whom I have quoted already, does not hesitate, however, to assert emphatically that "it is impossible to prove the existence" of Apostolical Succession. " At all events, it is impos sible to prove it for the purpose in view, and for this its existence must be absolutely certain." So far, however, from there being any such certainty, "forgeries of documents in after times," may have been perpetrated. And so, he thinks, " it will be felt how unequal is the chain to the weight which it sustains ; and besides that, even were it not so, how unlikely and incredible it should be that God would hang the whole work and benefit of redemption on such a hair ! " Be it so, for the sake of argument. But how will the Canon of Scripture stand such a test ? If "absolute certainty" in such matters is necessary, how many of the Books of either the Old or New Testament can be traced back to their reputed authors? Not one. The Bible nowhere asserts its own inspi ration; and though habit has accustomed us to regard it as one book, it is in fact a collection of n.J Fatal to Canon of Scripture. 257 writings marked by every variety of time and place, subject and authorship. They consist of poems, histories, proverbs, biographies, religious discourses, songs and hymns, letters both on public and private affairs, a code of civil and religious laws, prophecies. And the authors of these belonged to every class of human society, and were separated from each other, in some cases, by a thousand years. They were kings and warriors, priests and prophets, legisla tors, herdsmen, fishermen, tax-gatherers, physicians. Some of them did not even belong to the Common wealth of Israel — such as Balaam, whose discourses are part of inspired Scripture, and the author of the Book of Job. The several books, moreover, are nearly all anonymous, and the authorship of some of them is absolutely unknown. As far as internal evidence alone goes, the Bible is nothing more than a haphazard collection of writings, which the art of the binder has made into one book ; nor did it exist as we have it for several generations after the death of the latest of its reputed authors. Then, again, on what principle were some books admitted into the Canon and others rejected1? The Book of Ecclesias- ticus and Wisdom appear more edifying than those of Ecclesiastes and Esther. And then the evidence for the Canonical authority of more than one Book of the New Testament is far from strong. And as regards "forgeries of documents" in support of Apostolical Succession, the possibility of such a thing falls to zero when compared with the facility 258 Evidence for Apostolical Succession [letter which existed for forgery in the case of Holy Scrip ture. In short, a person reasoning from the pre misses of the objection which I am criticising would be bound to dispute the genuineness of every page of the Bible ; for he must deny that it is the Word of God unless he can trace out its genealogy, verse by verse, in print and manuscript, through all the editions up to the. autographs of all the writers from Moses to S. John. Indeed, there are no limits to the havoc which the demand for " absolute certainty " would make among the cherished beliefs of mankind. It would under mine the foundations of society, and throw all human institutions into chaos. Any one would be entitled to question the authority of Queen Victoria, and to call upon her to demonstrate, not only her own legi timacy, but the legitimacy of all her ancestors, back to him from whom she inherits her title. Nay more; there is not a peer in the realm, or a proprietor in the United Kingdom, whose title and title-deeds would not be invalidated by the kind of evidence which is usually demanded on behalf of Apostolical Succession. In fact, the possibility of a flaw in the chain of Apostolical Succession is indefinitely remote as com pared with the possibility of bastardy in the case of succession to an earthly inheritance. For, after all, on what does the proof of legitimate birth ultimately rest1? Simply on the veracity of a single witness, who has the strongest possible inducement to conceal n.J Compared with other Evidence. 259 the fraud, if there be any. While it must be ad mitted, then, that Apostolical Succession cannot be established in any given case with the rigorous accuracy of a mathematical demonstration, it must be added that it shares this disability with number less other facts as to which no one entertains any reasonable doubt. But the evidence in favour of Apostolical Succession is as strong as any historical evidence can be. How stand the facts ? Dr. Light foot admits, in his "Dissertation on the Christian Ministry," that "unless we have recourse to a sweep ing condemnation of received documents, it seems vain to deny that early in the second century the Episcopal office was firmly and widely established. Thus, during the last three decades of the first century, and consequently during the lifetime of the latest surviving Apostle, this change must have been brought about"— the change, that is, from the Apos- tolate to the Episcopate. To admit as much as this is surely to admit everything. For if Episcopacy "was firmly and widely established" "during the lifetime of the latest surviving Apostle," it can hardly be disputed that it is the form of Church Govern ment which is according to the mind of Christ. " The latest surviving Apostle," — "the disciple whom Jesus loved," — must have known the mind of his Master, and it is inconceivable that he should have sanctioned any ecclesiastical polity which was not in full harmony with his Lord's instructions during the interval between His Resurrection and Ascension. s2 260 A Flaw in the Succession improbable, [letter Granting then — what indeed no well-informed and candid student of ecclesiastical history can deny — that Episcopacy is coeval with the Apostolic age, it may be affirmed with confidence that the chances of a break in Episcopal succession are mathematically so impro bable as to amount positively to moral certainty in its favour. Consecration by one bishop is perfectly valid. But to ensure certainty, three have always been required to take part in every consecration ; and it is so highly improbable that three spurious bishops should have succeeded in foisting a fourth impostor on any diocese, that those who make the objection are bound to produce a positive case before they can be admitted to have established even a prima facie claim on our attention. And even so the fraud would die with the impostor without tainting in the smallest degree the general line of Episcopal suc cession. The plain truth is, that there is not a single article of the Christian faith with respect to which we have evidence enough to preclude doubt, if we choose to be captious. It was so in the case of the Jews of old. The entire validity of their religious system depended on the untainted descent of their priest hood from the family of Aaron. Yet every link in the chain hung on the unsupported testimony of a fal lible woman. There was much in the writings of the Prophets, too, that was actually calculated to mislead the people of Israel, both as to the character of the Mosaic dispensation and as to the real nature of H.] Proof to be suited to the Subject-matter. 261 the Messiah's kingdom. And when Christ appeared His contemporaries complained, and not altogether without reason, that He was " keeping them in sus pense." He resolutely refused to give additional evidence to those who were not satisfied with what they ?aw and heard. They who refused to "hear Moses and the Prophets " were not to be persuaded by evidence of an extraordinary character. And as then, so now. He who demands evidence of a kind which shall overwhelm every objection must seek it in vain, alike for Apostolic succession and for the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture. So much by way of general answer to a vague objection. I have no doubt, however, that the popular aversion to the principle of Sacerdotalism is due to the claims made on behalf of the Christian priesthood in the sphere of the Christian Sacraments, and in the direction of the individual conscience. How far such claims are in agreement with right reason and with the teaching of the Church of England, I shall now, according to my lights, en deavour to show. But this must form the subject of another Letter ; and in the mean time, I ask leave to subscribe myself, My Lord, Your Lordship's obedient Servant, Malcolm MacColl. LETTER III. DOCTRINE OF THE EUCHARIST. My Lord, It is admitted on all hands that there need be little or no objection to Ritualism viewed merely as a matter of aesthetics : it is condemned because it is supposed to symbolize erroneous doctrine. And the particular doctrines which are alleged to be sym bolized by it are the Real Presence and the Eucha ristic Sacrifice. I am persuaded, however, that those who assail these doctrines mean by them something very different from that which they convey to the minds of those who believe in them ; and I have for a long time been of opinion that the true remedy for our dissensions is not to be found in repressive Acts of Parliament, but in a better understanding between the different parties in the Church. I am not so sanguine or so conceited as to think that I shall contribute much to that happy result. But it is the duty of every one to do what he can, be it much or little, in so blessed a work ; and it is in this spirit 264 ' Calvinistic Doctrine of the Fall [letter that I submit the following observations to your Lordship's kind attention. My appeal is addressed chiefly, if not exclusively, to persons who accept the primary facts of the Christian Faith, and therefore I do not argue, I assume, the doctrine of man's Fall and of his Redemp tion through Christ. It was the teaching of Calvinism, and, with certain qualifications, of Lutheranism, that the Fall of Man involved the total ruin of the race. The image of God in man was not merely marred, it was abso lutely extinguished, and human nature was vitiated at its core. Luther maintained that " man, as he is born of his father and mother, together with his whole nature and essence, is not only a sinner, but sin itself."* But this view of the Fall has much more in common with Manicheism than with Chris tianity. It is utterly alien to the Sacramental system, and consequently it has never been able to take root inside the Catholic Church. According to her invariable teaching, his Fall entailed upon man the loss of those supernatural endowments, which resulted from the free and intimate union of his will with that of God, and as a consequence of that loss a certain bias towards evil. He " became subject to vanity." His affections strayed from their proper objects, and had not strength sufficient to resist the earthward attraction of the senses. In a word, * Moehler's " Symbolism," p. 78 : Robertson's Transla tion. in. j Contrasted with the Catholic. ^65 human nature was sorely wounded ; but it remained human nature still — subject, indeed, to the possi bility of utter ruin by self-determination of the will to evil, but equally capable of working out its own salvation by the aid of Divine grace. * It is the doctrine of the Church then, as of Holy Scripture, that Christ the Son of God became Incarnate for the purpose of reversing this downward attraction of fallen humanity. He came to be " the Way, the Truth, and the Life," that is, to place humanity in connection with new objects, and in communication with a new Source and Principle of life. The old channels had been dammed up by man's sin ; the old trunk had become well nigh sapless, and was hastening to decay. Therefore a New Head of our race appeared as the True Vine on which the members of the Old Man might be engrafted, and from which they might derive spiritual nourishment. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." How did all men die in Adam ? Was it not by deriving from him a perverted life ? How are they to be made alive in Christ % Is it not by receiving from Him the germ of a perfect life, which, if they do not resist its influence, will so leaven then old nature that it shall become gradually transformed into the image of the Second Adam? The remedy must cover the disease; the Redemption in Christ must * A good deal of what follows on the next few pages has appeared already in my book on the Athanasian Creed. 266 S. Paul on the Incarnation. [letter be commensurate with the Fall in Adam ; else the Gospel is a fiction and Christianity a dream. From the First Adam we inherited a depraved life: the fact must be admitted even by those who refuse to admit its cause. It is with no heritage of imputed ills that we are bom, but with a very real perversion of our natural faculties ; and it is by no figment of an imputed righteousness that we are to be saved, but by a veritable participation in the Redeemed Humanity of our Incarnate Lord. We are to be made, and not merely accounted, righteous. Unless we admit that we are really and actually partakers of Christ's Humanity, partakers in a sense as real as our participation in the corrupt humanity of Adam, a great deal of the language of the New Testament becomes irrelevant and misleading rhetoric. What is the meaning of the antithesis, which runs through S. Paul's Epistles, between the First Adam and the Second, the Old Man and the New, unless we are to understand that each is a fountain-head of humanity — the one, of the humanity which fell in Eden, the other, of the humanity which triumphed on the Cross % Now our connection with fallen humanity is an organic connection; the First Adam has passed on his own injured nature to all his descendants. If, then, the Son of God became incarnate that He might be the Second Head of our race and infuse a supply of new life into our impoverished nature, does it not follow that our connection with him must be organic in.] S. Paul on the Incarnation. 267 too? How else could we be "members of Christ," as our Catechism says all Christians are % And the Catechism merely follows the still stronger language of S. Paul, who compares the connection between Christ and His members with that between Adam and his wife, who was made " bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh." The baptized, he says, are " limbs of Christ's Body, (growing) out of His flesh and of His bones." He asserts the same doctrine in another way in his great chapter on the Resurrection of the body. "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a life-giving (faoiroiovv) spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the Second Man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." S. Peter does not hesitate to say that Christians are made "partakers of the Divine Nature;" and our Lord Himself conveys the same idea under the image of the Vine and its branches, and still more empha tically in that wonderful Sacramental discourse recorded in the sixth chapter of S. John's Gospel. He calls Himself "the Bread of life," "the living Bread which came down from heaven." And then more plainly, "The Bread that I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 268 Christ's Discourse in S. John VI. [letter And when His hearers questioned the possibility of such a gift, He repeated His assertion with a solemn asseveration: "Verily, verily I say unto you/'Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the Last Day." I dare not explain away these solemn words. 1 must believe that they contain some deep meaning ; for it is incredible that our loving Saviour permitted Himself to indulge in language which if not true in some real sense, is misleading and mischievous. He saw that His very strong and solemn language was liable to be misunderstood— that, in fact, it was mis understood by the bulk of those whom He was addressing. But he had not to think of them alone. Numberless generations yet unborn were in His thought, in whose ears those words would sound as the glad tidings of a life from the dead. Like His own Incarnation, it was the lot of the doctrine on which He was insisting to be " set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which should be spoken against." But not one jot or tittle of that doctrine would He explain away. Rather than do so He was willing to risk not merely the desertion of the offended multitude but of His own small band of disciples. "Will ye also go away?" They did not, for they acknowledged that His words were "the words of eternal life." But the question clearly implies that he would have preferred their in.J Its Meaning. 269 forsaking Him to the alternative of watering down the " hard saying" which had offended and repelled the multitude. With such an example before me I dare not trifle with our Lord's emphatic words. I will not presume to say that they are metaphorical, seeing that Him self pointedly declined to admit any such interpre tation of them when the people of Capernaum challenged them. But if not metaphorical, what are they "? Our reason revolts against their apparent meaning, and we may be tempted to ask, with the puzzled multitude, — " How can this man give us His flesh to eat1?" Our Lord Himself has supplied the answer. His words were true, and had a most real meaning. But they were not to be understood in any gross materialistic sense. " It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." In other words, when He spoke of giving His Flesh and Blood as the food of His people, He did not mean by flesh and blood anything that the bodily senses could apprehend or a chemist could analyze into its elements. In that sense our Lord's Flesh and Blood are certainly not present either in the Eucharist or elsewhere. It is true that He called on His disciples to testify to the reality of His "Flesh and Bones" after His Resurrection. True also, that the Fourth Article asserts that "Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again His Body, with flesh, bones, and all things pertaining 270 Our Lord's Resurrection Body. [letter to the perfection of man's nature; wherewith He ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth until He re turn to judge all men at the Last Day." But it is evident that whatever is meant by the Flesh and Bones of our Lord's Resurrection Body they are very different from flesh and bones in the ordinary sense, What we call flesh and bone is simply a consolidation of certain gases which may be resolved into their original elements ; and then they cease to be flesh and bone. But while they remain flesh and bone they are subject to decay, and the ceaseless waste of tissue requires to be repaired by the assimilation of congenial nutriment. Therefore a body of such flesh and bone as we have any experience of cannot subsist without food; nor can it pass through material substances, such as a closed door, nor mount up in the air contrary to the law of gravity, nor be come visible and invisible without apparent cause. But our Lord's Body did all this. It is incorruptible, and therefore needs no food. It passed repeatedly through a closed door.* It ascended through the air * Dr. Vogan ("The Doctrine ofthe Eucharist," pp. 658-560) denies this. He admits that our Lord's sudden appearance, " the doors being shut," and His sudden invisibility, were miraculous ; but he maintains that in each case the subject of the miracle was not our Lord's Body, but in the first case the material substance of wood, and in the other the circumambient air. "We can suppose that by His divine power the doors opened of their own accord for his admission." "A body will disappear to one if the rays of light from it be intercepted, or if he will even close his eyes. And He who could ' still the raging of the sea ' could also change or suspend the properties of the in.] Dr. Swainson' s Objection. 271 in a manner contrary to all the known properties of a human body. It appeared suddenly, and as sud denly vanished out of sight. Even before His Resur rection our Lord's Body exhibited properties which ours do not possess, or possess only in germ. He walked upon the waves, and gave Peter power to do so till his faith failed him. He made Himself in visible on more than one occasion when His enemies were about to seize Him; and He was transfigured on Mount Tabor. This seems to show that His Body was in Its essence always a spiritual body; so that It could be emancipated at will from the laws of matter, and could retire within the sphere of spiritual laws.* air, so as to prevent his person from being seen through it." Such reasoning appears to one to be a rationalistic explaining away of the sacred narrative. * Dr. Swainson has, on the strength of this passage, in my book on the Athanasian Creed, publicly accused me of teaching "a modified Eutychianism," and says, in fact, that I "have almost avowed that I am a Docetic," and would "three hun dred years ago and more have been in danger of being burnt as a heretic." * I am not sure that the " danger of being burnt as a heretic, three hundred years and more ago," is a sufficient proof of heterodox opinions, and I have a shrewd sus picion, moreover, that in this matter Dr. Swainson has at least as good reason as I to be duly grateful for the recent date of his birth. But the charge which he has made against me is a serious one, and shall be seriously met. A few words will suffice to show how utterly groundless it is. My assertion is, that our Lord's Humanity was, in an essen tial point which carries a number of important consequences, always different from ours. Dr. Swainson stigmatises this as * Formation of the Athanasian Creed, p. 25. 272 Dr. Swainson' s Objection. [letter Of course His absolute sinlessness, and the union of His Sacred Humanity with His Divine Person, must " a modified Eutychianism," and " almost an avowal of Doce- tism." Let us test the matter. According to the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, every Christian is bound to believe that our Lord had no human per sonality. He had a human body and a human soul, with all the essential properties belonging to each, including a human will ; but He had no human person. To affirm that He had is to be an avowed Nestorian. A human personality, on the other hand, belongs necessarily to the definition of all other members of the human race. In other words, it is of the essence of a right belief in the Incarnation to deny a human personality of our Lord, and to affirm it of all other men. Does not this constitute a " generic difference " between our Lord's Humanity and ours ? I am surprised that a Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge should have written so loosely as Dr. Swainson has done on this subject. To be a Docetio is to affirm that our Lord's Humanity was but a phantom, with out substantial reality. To be a Eutychian is to affirm that His Human Nature was absorbed and effaced by commixture with the Divine. Where have I said anything that looks like an expres sion, " modified " or otherwise, of either heresy ? I assert that the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union constitutes an essential difference between our Lord's Humanity and ours, inasmuch as it affirms of ours, while it denies to His, a human personality. I assert, as a consequence of this, that His Body was in its essence always a spiritual Body, and that its submission to the laws of the physical creation, though a fact, was in virtue of His condescension and not from any inherent necessity ; whereas our bodies, on the other hand, belong to the natural sphere, but with the promise of being hereafter changed into spiritual bodies. And this is the teaching of S. Paul in the following classical passage : — "Eo-n o-(bfia fv^t-icbv, ica\ ean atopa 7rvevfianKov, ovtoo ku\ in.] Authorities against Dr. Sivainson, 273 always have made a certain difference between His Body and those of ordinary men. Sin, however, with yeypcnrrai, 'Eyivero 6 irp&TO? dvGpwiro? 'ASa/s, ek -fvxhv t,5iaav 6 eaxaTd'ASap, ek Trvevfia faoiroiovv. *J\X' oiiirpasTov to TrvevfiUTiKov, aXKa to ^frvxticbv, eireiTa to vvevfiaTiKov. 'O 7T/3WTO? av0poyjro] Case of Bishop Montague: 817 friends, that Parliament misrepresented his teaching in any material degree. I will add two or three quotations from his writings, which are not given in the indictment : — " A figure is but a phantom. He (Christ) gave substance and really subsisting essence, Who said, This is My Body," etc. " A Protestant (of the Church of England) is as real and substantial as any Pajnst, (i.e., holds the Real and Substantial Presence as truly.)"* He adopts as his own words "verissime," "re- alissime," and " substantially," as descriptive of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist ; and tells his Roman Catholic opponent : "The Devil bred you in a faction, and brought you up in a faction, and sent you abroad to do him service in maintaining a faction; otherwise acknowledge, there is, there need be no difference (between us) in the point of the Real Presence. "f The indictment of the House of Commons con cludes as follows : " The scope and end ofthe said Richard Montague, in the books aforementioned, is to give encourage ment to Popery, and to withdraw his Majesty's sub jects from the true religion established to the Roman superstition; and, consequently, to be reconciled to the See of Rome. All which he laboureth by subtle * Answer to the late Gagger of Protestants, ch, 86. » -(- Ibid, ch. 86, and Appeal to Csesar, ch. 80. 318 Case of Bishop Montague. [letter and cunning ways ; whereby God's true religion has been much scandalized " All which offences being to the high dishonour of Almighty God,, and of most mischievous effect and consequence against the good of His Church and common weal of England, and all of his Majesty's realms and dominions ; the Commons assembled in Parliament do hereby pray, that the said Richard Montague may be punished according to his demerits, in that exemplary manner as may deter others from attempting so presumptuously to disturb the peace of Church and State, and that the books aforesaid may be suppressed and burnt." The King, at the instance of the House of Com mons, laid the whole matter before a Committee of the Bishops, consisting of the following : — George Montaigne, Bishop of London; Richard Neyle, Bishop of Durham; Launcelot Andrewes, Bishop of Win chester; John Buckeridge, Bishop of Rochester; William Laud, Bishop of S. David's (afterwards Lord Primate.) Their Judgment it as follows : — " To the Right Honourable, our very good Lord, the Duke of Buckingham, his Grace, " May it please your Grace, " Upon your late Letters, directed to the Bishop of Winchester, signifying His Majesty's pleasure, and taking to him the Bishops of London, Durham, Rochester, Oxford, and St. David's, or some of them, he and they should take into consideration the busi ness concerning Mr. Montague's late book, and deliver in.] Case of Bishop Montague. 319 their opinions touching the same for the preservation of the truth and the peace of the Church of England, together with the safety of Mr. Montague's person ; we have met and considered, and for our particulars do think that Mr. Montague in his ,book, hath not affirmed anything to be the doctrine of the Church of England, but that which in our opinions is the doctrine of the Church of England, or agreeable there unto " Your Grace's faithful and humble servants, ' ' (Signed) Geo. London. "R. DUNELM. " La. Winton. " Jo. Rofpens. " Guil. Meneve. " From Winchester House, " January 16, 1625." It only remains to add that on the death of Dr. George Carleton, Bishop of Chichester, and one of Montague's most bitter opponents, Montague was appointed to the vacant See, and translated to Norwich ten years afterwards. So much as to the testimony of the Caroline divines, who would be universally recognised as fit representatives of that " great historic school of High Churchmen," for whom even the fiercest anti- Ritualists profess to claim toleration. Then came the Great Rebellion, and after it the profligate orthodoxy of the Restoration, to be succeeded by the chilling latitudinarianism of the Revolution, which 320 Archbishop Wake on Eucharistic Sacrifice, [letter reduced the Church of England to a state of religious catalepsy from which the Wesleyan first, and then the Oxford Movement, aroused her. Yet I venture to assert, that even during that frigid period the highest doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist short of transubstantiation might have been taught with impunity. It is certainly remarkable that the Lower House of Convocation, in the end of the seventeenth century, peremptorily rejected the latitu- dinarian alterations of the Prayer Book which were recommended by the Royal Commissioners, and backed by the Erastian Upper House.* And it is no less remarkable that the only man who was put on his trial in the eighteenth century for erroneous Sacramental doctrine was tried and condemned by the Lower House of Convocation for teaching low views. But I am afraid of wearying your Lordship with extracts, and I shall therefore dismiss this part of my subject with the evidence of Archbishop Wake, who, if a High Churchman at all, was certainly a very mild and moderate specimen. Writing on the subject of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Bossuet had explained that Romanists "understand the word 'offer,' when they apply it to the Mass, in * Among those alterations were the omission of the " verily and indeed " applied to our Lord's Eucharistic Presence in the Church Catechism. It was proposed to say that what was " verily and indeed " received was the benefit of Christ's Sacri, fice, and that His Body and Blood were only " signified," in.] Archbishop Wake on Eucharistic Sacrifice. 321 a larger signification than what the Apostle (in the Epistle to the Hebrews) gives it; as when we are said to offer up to God whatever we present before Him; and that it is thus they pretend to offer up the Blessed Jesus to His Father in the Mass, in which He vouchsafes to render Himself present before Him." " That this," the Archbishop retorted, " is to pre varicate the meaning of that phrase, the doctrine of the foregoing Article (of the Council of Trent) plainly shows. If Christ be in the Mass a true and proper Sacrifice,* as was there said, it will necessarily follow that then He must be truly and properly sacri ficed : and one essential property (of Sacrifice) being the true and real destruction of what is offered; inso much, that where there is not a true and proper destruction, neither can there be, as they them selves acknowledge, a true and proper Sacrifice : it must be evidently false in these men to pretend, that by offering in this matter is meant only a presenting of Christ before God, and not a real change and destruction of His Body offered by them." " Though Christ be acknowledged to be really present, after a divine and heavenly manner, in this Holy Eucharist, yet will not this warrant the adoration of the Host, which is still only bread and wine, nor will such a real presenting of our Blessed Lord to His Father, to render Him propitious to us, make the Eucharist * The italics, here and throughout, are Wake's. y 322 Wake ivould tolerate Transubstantiation. [letter any more than a metaphorical, not a true and proper propitiatory Sacrifice."* With Wake's charge of prevarication against Bossuet I have nothing to do. What we have to do with are the following points : — 1. That Wake objected to a true and proper Sacri fice of Christ in the Eucharist. 2. That by a true and proper Sacrifice he meant the true and real destruction of the Victim. 3. That he believed in a " metaphorical " offering in the Eucharist. 4. That by a " metaphorical offering " he meant " a real presenting of our Blessed Lord to His Father, to render Him propitious to us." Is this language consistent with a belief in a mere offering of bread and wine in the Eucharist! And does not the whole passage supply a key to the meaning of those seventeenth century, and some of the Nonjuring, divines who insisted on a " metaphorical," or " figurative " Sacrifice in the Eucharist, in contrast to a " true and proper oneT' Again, in his correspondence with the French ecclesiastics about a union with the Gallican Church, Wake expresses a wish to get both Churches "to agree to communicate in everything we can with each other .... and yet leave one another in the free liberty of believing Transubstantiation or not, so long as * Wake's Exposition, pp. 69, 70. hi.] Consubstantiation Misapplied. 323 we do not require anything to be done by either in pursuance of that opinion." * To this I may add, since it is short, the following passage from a " Discourse on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper," by Dr. Edward Pelling, who lived between the latter half of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, and held a canonry in Westminster Abbey besides other impor tant preferment : — " Though there may be no grounds in the world for the opinion of transubstantiation, yet we must not conceive that Christ is not verily, really, and of a truth, in the Sacrament ; He may be really present, though there may be no reason to believe that He is present after a corporal manner. For two different substances and natures may be joined and go together, though they remain distinct in themselves and in their properties ; as the soul and flesh of a man are united in the same person, and as the humanity and divinity of Christ were joined together in the same Lord." The doctrine here stated by Dr. Pelling is some times, but erroneously, called "consubstantiation." But the meaning of consubstantiation, as applied to the Eucharist, would be that the Humanity of Christ is of the same substance with the Sacramental bread and wine ; just as we say that, as God, He is consub- stantial with the Father, and, as Man, consubstantial with us. I am not aware that any school or party in * Mosheim, Hist. vol. ii. p. 558. t2 324 Differentia of Anglican and Roman Doctrine, [letter the Church of England holds such a monstrous opi nion as that. The word, " consubstantiation" was originally applied to the Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist ; but the Lutherans have always rejected it as a term invented by their adversaries. I have now, I think, produced sufficient evidence to show that Dr. Thirlwall is more than justified when he says, "that apart from the express admission of Transubstantiation, or of the gross carnal notions to which it gave rise .... there can hardly be any description of the Real Presence . . . that would not be found to be authorized by tbe language of eminent divines of our Church;" and that " he is not aware, and does not believe, that our most ad vanced Ritualists have in fact overstepped those very ample bounds." Our divines do not condemn Roman writers on the Eucharist en masse, vaguely and indiscriminately, as making too much of the Sa crament. They do not warn the Anglican off from all entrance upon Roman Catholic ground ; on the con trary, they tell him that the ground is common to both up to a certain point. He is not to define the manner of the Presence ; but, with that single reser vation, he is to consider himself at one with the Roman Catholics. He is to believe in the Presence as "real," "true," "substantial," "actual,"— in a word, objective ; that is, subsisting by the power of God, independently of man's faith or unbelief. To say that the Presence is objective is not to define the manner, but merely to assert the reality of it. On Hi.] Objective and Subjective Presence. 325 the other hand, to deny that the Presence is objec tive is in fact to deny that there is any Presence at all except by a figure of speech. For how can there be a merely subjective Presence of Christ to the soul of the communicant % If the Presence is there at all, it must have a separate and independent existence ; it must have come into the soul, and the question is whether the Sacrament is the medium of its com munication, Our representative divines teach that it is ; and this is also the doctrine of the Catechism and of the Twenty-eighth Article. If "the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received," if they are " given, taken, and eaten," they must be objective to the recipient before he makes them subjectively his own by means of faith, and, of course, "only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." Nor is it a valid objection to say that this is to localise the Presence. For the truth is, that it is impossible to express these high mysteries in human language at all without clothing them in forms which are more or less inadequate. The words, "Body and Blood" themselves, have an earthly colouring and imply local conditions and limitations ; yet we believe that the mystery which they represent in the Eucharist is not thus condi tioned. Indeed, those who insist on a simply sub jective Presence are quite as amenable as their opponents to the charge of localising the mystery ; for a Presence in the soul of the communicant is just as local as a Presence on the altar ; unless embodied 326 Physical Science and Revelation. [letteS spirits are supposed to have no relation to space at all — a notion which is not likely to find many supporters. The fact is, my Lord, we live in an age in which, for various reasons, the minds of men, and of our most popular intellectual guides not the least, are so fixed on the visible and the tangible, that they find it hard to realize any existences which elude the scru tiny of the senses. Arid yet those very discoveries of physical science, which are supposed to be fatal to the old belief in a spiritual world underlying and in terpenetrating this, seem to me, on the contrary, to confirm that belief in a wonderful manner. But this will more fitly form the subject of another Letter, and, therefore, I remain for the present, My Lord, Your Lordship's obedient Servant, Malcolm MacColl. P.S. Lest I should be considered presumptuous in the view of Anglican doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist, which I have taken in the preceding pages, I beg leave to quote some extracts from a writer who holds an acknowledged position in modern Anglican theology. Sir W. Palmer, in his "Trea tise on the Church of Christ," says (vol. i. pp. 508, 518):— " It is a fact that no new formulary of doctrine In.] Postscript. 327 whatever " (the italics are not mine) "was published by authority of the Church during the whole reign of Edward VI. . . . That no new doctrine was esta blished in the Church of England during this reign appears from Burnet, who observes with reference to the above articles: 'It seemed to be a great want that this was so long delayed, since the old doctrine had still the legal authority on its side ; yet these articles (of 1552), ' as we have seen, were never actually in force. It seems plain that during the whole reign of Edward VI. tlie doctrine of ihe Church of England was most authentically represented by the formulary of instruction formally approved by the Convocation in the reign of Henry VIII., a.d. 1543, entitled " The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition," a book which was most assuredly quite opposed to the Zuinglian doctrines Not only does Cranmer disclaim the notion that Gardiner had been brought to trial for his doctrine on the Eucharist, but none of the Bishops of the Popish party, who were expelled from their sees in Edward's reign, were deprived on pre tence of holding doctrines contrary to those of the Church, but for disobedience to the royal council, or for treason. Thus it. appears that the authorized doctrine of the Church of England, during the whole of Edward VI.'s reign, was that of the Real Pre sence, in the strongest and most decided sense." There is, of course, no pretence for saying that the Church of England has changed or modified her doctrine on this subject since the reign of Edward 32& Postscript. [letter ill. VI. ; on the contrary, all the alterations in her formularies since then have been in a Catholic direction. Palmer states as follows the authorized doctrine of the Church of England : — " She believes that the Eucharist is not the sign of an absent body, and that those who partake of it receive not merely the figure, or shadow, or sign of Christ's Body, but the reality itself. And as Christ's Divine and Human Natures are inseparably united, so she believes that we receive in the Eucharist, not only the Flesh and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself, both God and Man." — Treatise on the Church, i. p. 527, 528. LETTER IV. A SPIRITUAL WORLD REVEALED BY THE BIBLE AND SUGGESTED BY PHYSICAL SCIENCE. My Lord, I concluded my last letter with the observa tion that the discoveries of physical science, so far from invalidating the doctrine of a spiritual world lying behind the veil of material phenomena, seemed to me to confirm it. I shall now give my reasons for that opinion. And, first of all, let us see what Holy Scripture has to say upon the subject. If we are to believe the Bible, the spiritual world is not a region far away in space, but close to us ; and we do not see its sights or hear its sounds simply because our present organs are too dull to apprehend them. We are thus in the condition of a man born deaf and blind into this world of sense. He is in the midst of two worlds, of which, however, he knows next to nothing. For hirii the abounding beauties of nature in the sphere of sight and sound are as if they were not. Let his eyes be opened, and he finds himself at once in the midst of a world of which before he had no conception — nothing but the vaguest notion from the report of those who had 330 History of Elijah and Elisha. [letter eyes to see. Open his ears, and another world is disclosed to him which his want of hearing had till then concealed from him. This is the sort of relation in which Holy Scripture represents us as standing towards the spiritual world. Let us take a few instances. When Elijah was about to leave the earth, and Elisha prayed for "a double portion of the spirit" of his departing master, the latter answered, " Thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so." What did the prophet mean by " if thou see me when I am taken from thee'?" Surely this: that if Elisha was able to see the spiritual transformation which his master was about to undergo, that would in itself be a sufficient proof to him that spiritual organs were opened within him which placed him in communication with the spiritual world. Elisha did see the translation of his master, and found himself at once endowed with the gift of seership, which enabled him to reveal the secret counsels ofthe Syrian King, who consequently sent an army to arrest him. "And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host encompassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do ! And he answered, Fear not : for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. IV.] Illustrations from Christ's Life. 33l And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw ; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." It is evident that the "eyes" which the prophet prayed might be opened were not the bodily eyes of the young man. These were open before, and saw nothing but the Syrian host. A new sense was opened which revealed to the youth the agencies of Divine Providence invisible to mortal sight, which protect the servants of God. In S. Luke's Gospel (iii. 21, 22) we read :— " Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that, Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son ; in Thee I am well pleased." In S. Matthew's account the expression is, "The heavens were opened unto Him." The meaning evidently is that prayer on the part of Jesus was in fact the opening of His sinless soul to that spiritual world which the gross environment of the mortal body hides from the multitude. Another incident of similar import in our Lord's life is related in S. John's Gospel (xii. 27-29) :— "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I sayl Father, save Me from this hour ; but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. The people, 332 Angelic Appearances at His Resurrection, [letter therefore, that stood by and heard it said that it thundered : others said, An angel spake to Him." That is to say, the heavenly voice which fell in articulate accents on the sensitive ear of our Saviour sounded like the rumbling of distant thunder on the duller organs of those who were about Him. I believe that several of the discrepancies in the Gospel record of our Lord's Resurrection may be ex plained in the same way. Woman's more refined and delicate organisation is probably more sensitive to spiritual influences than man's, and this is probably the reason why the devout women who visited the tomb of the risen Saviour saw more of the spiritual world than Peter and John. Mary, whose absorbing love and intense grief had, no doubt, quickened her spiritual perceptions, saw two angels ; the other women saw only one ; Peter and John saw none. In fact, each saw more or less according as the spiritual organs were in each case rendered more or less sensi tive to spiritual influences. My next illustration shall be from an incident in the account of the martyrdom of S. Stephen, re corded in Acts vii. 55-57 : — "Being full of the Holy Ghost, he looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Now where was the heaven into which the dying martyr gazed ] Millions of miles away, beyond the iv.] S. Stephen's Vision and S. Raid's Conversion. 333 starry firmament 1 Was his mortal sight miraculously endowed with a telescopic power of traversing in a moment the planetary spaces and looking into a world of supersensuous glories behind them'? Is it not plain, on the contrary, that a new sense was opened in himself, which enabled him to see through the integuments of the natural life into the world of unseen realities which lie above it, not in space, but in altitude of being % The " everlasting doors " were " lifted up," and the proto-martyr was vouchsafed a glimpse into a world of unearthly splendours close to him, where his Divine Master was standing ready to receive His faithful servant. But the persecutors of S. Stephen saw nothing but the rapt gaze of their victim ; for the world which was revealed to him is "spiritually discerned," and they lacked that spiritual insight. Another illustration in point is the narrative of the conversion of S. Paul. The account given in Acts ix. says that "the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." S. Paul himself, on the other hand, says, " And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me." (Acts xxii. 9.) And cavils against the inspiration of the Acts are sometimes founded upon this seeming discrepancy. What is the explanation \ Evidently, that S. Paul's companions heard the sound, while his ear alone caught its articulate language : tcl vnevTa o-vv&rom. 334 Subject Illustrated from Physical Science, [letter These examples will suffice to show the general teaching of the Bible touching the relation between the world of sense and that of spirit. And now let us see what physical science has to say upon the subject. We talk of five bodily senses ; but in strictness of speech we have only one sense — that of touch. Our vision of external objects is nothing else but sensa tions made on the retina of the eye by contact with the vibrations of an external substance. To produce the sensation of scarlet, 477 billions of vibrations break upon the retina every second, while a ray of violet is caused by no fewer than 700 billions of vibrations. Waves of light above or below these limits in number are invisible to the human eye ; that is, they move too rapidly or too slowly to make any impression on the optic nerve. This is but another way of saying that objects innumerable may exist in the midst of us which are of so subtile a nature as to elude our visual organs. " Myriads of organised beings may exist imperceptible to our vision, even if we were among them.* And the same observation is applicable to the phenomena of sound. Notes above or below a certain pitch, though the air be resonant with them to more delicate organisations, are inaudible to the human ear. In his interesting book on the Glaciers of the Alps Dr. Tyndall tells the following anecdote : — * Grove's " Correlation of Physical Forces," p. 161. Fourth Edition, IV.] Subject Illustrated from Physical Science. 335 "I once crossed a Swiss mountain in company with a friend ; a donkey wras in advance of us, and the dull tramp of the animal was heard by my com panion ; but to me this sound was almost masked by the shrill chirruping of innumerable insects, which thronged the adjacent grass. My friend heard nothing of this ; it lay quite beyond his range of hearing." Another illustration of this fact is given in Mr. Skretchly's " Dahomey as it is."* Speaking of the large bats of that region, he says : — " They utter a sharp chirrup, something like the squeak of a rat, but very much higher in pitch, so high, indeed, that I have frequently come across individuals whose acoustic powers had not sufficient range to permit of their hearing the note ; and on more thon one occasion I have said to Buchan" (his half-caste servant), 'What a noise these bats are making V Upon which he has observed to me, ' Bats have no mouths for talking,' he being perfectly unconscious of their vocal powers." The following letter appeared lately in the Times in the course of an interesting correspondence on the superior power of hearing possessed by insects : — " Sir, — Adapting the concluding sentences of the letter of the Rev. F. O. Morris, in the Times of Saturday, it may be observed that there are doubtless more sounds uttered on the earth and in the air than can reach our ears. It is well known that to many f Pp. 50, 51. 336 Subject Illustrated from Physical Science, [letter persons both the grasshopper and the bat are dumb, and it is probable that moths and other insects attract each other by calls inaudible to us, rather than by scent. " One night, a few years ago, I had a female tiger-moth in a gauze cage, in a room opening into a garden. I had reared the moth from a caterpillar myself. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the garden was in the middle of a town ; yet in less than two hours no less than five male tiger-moths flew to the cage. Though I have sat in the same room hundreds of nights with the window open and a light burning, I never before or since knew a tiger- moth to be attracted thither. It seems almost im possible that these moths could have been led to the spot from other walled in, and in some cases distant, gardens, in any other way but by a call in the still ness of the night. But the captive mother made no perceptible noise, even with its wings. " I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "C. J. G." " November 12th, 1874." There is nothing unreasonable, therefore, in believing that persons in a state of spiritual tension may be cognisant of sights and sounds which make no impression, or only a vague and meaningless impression, on the multitude. When we reflect, to quote the words of an eloquent writer, '• that there are waves of light and sound of which our dull senses take no cognisance, that there is a great difference iv.J « Pall Mall Gazette " on Real Presence. 337 even in human perceptivity, and that some men, more gifted than others, can see colours or hear sounds which are invisible or inaudible to the great bulk of mankind, you will appreciate how possible it is that there may be a world of spiritual existence around us — inhabiting this same globe, enjoying the same nature — of which we have no perception ; that, in fact, the wonders of the New Jerusalem may be in our midst, and the songs of the angelic hosts filling the air with their celestial harmony, although unheard and unseen by us."* Truly "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." All this, I know, will sound supremely foolish to some of the robust critics of the day. A well known writer, for example, contributed lately to the Fall Mall Gazette,^ a long and most scornful attack on the doctrine of Sacramentalism. His argument brought him naturally into collision with the scholastic dis tinctions between matter and form, substance and accident ; and here is the sort of criticism to which his superficial study of the question tempted him : — " I suppose it requires no argument to show that far the greater part of this is nonsense. ' Virtual con tact' and forms without matter, for instance, are unmeaning expressions and make nonsense of the propositions in which they occur. The whole specula- * Eeligion and Chemistry, p. 107. By Professor J. P. Cooke. f Letter signed " S," in Pall Mall Gazette of Jan. 26, 1875, Z 338 " Pall Mall Gazette " on Real Presence, [letter tion is spun out of the very distinction about matter and form, substance and accident, which is essential to the controversy about the Sacraments. So much of the theory as is not nonsense is simply a play of fancy, resting on no foundation at all, and which an in genious person might twist into any shape he pleased. I quote this partly in order to show the character of what is called scientific theology and the silliness of the results which its method of procedure produces, and partly because it shows how of two doctrines, the intrinsic value of which is identical, one falls into neglect and contempt because it does not interest mankind, while the other lives and flourishes because it relates to specific tangible objects upon which people can gratify the longing for idolatry, which lies so deep in the human heart, and which serves as a foundation for the most exalted ideas of priestly power I think it may furnish matter of re flection to some of the clergy to hear the undisguised expression of a layman's opinion on this matter. Others probably think as I do. Well, then, I for one look upon these doctrines not merely as being in tellectually absurd, but as being morally injurious in the highest degree. I would as soon see my son or daughter lie or steal as I would see them bow to the Host or believe that the Communion is anything but a bare figure or symbol." In contrast with this supercilious sciolism I have much pleasure in quoting the following passage from one of the ablest philosophical treatises ofthe day : — IV.] Mysteries of Physical Science, 339 " Provided that there be no clear and absolute conflict with known laws of nature, there is nothing so improbable or apparently inconceivable that it may not be rendered highly probable, or even approxi mately certain, by a sufficient number of concordances. In fact the two best founded and most conspicuously successful theories in the whole range of physical science involve the most absurd suppositions. Gravity is a force which appears to act between bodies through vacuous space ; it is in positive con tradiction to the old dictum that nothing could act but through some intervening medium or substance. It is even more puzzling that the force acts in perfect indifference to all intervening obstacles. Light, in spite of its extreme velocity, shows much respect to matter, for it is almost instantaneously stopped by opaque substances, and to a considerable extent absorbed and deflected by transparent ones. But to gravity all media are, as it were, absolutely trans parent, nay non-existent; and two particles at opposite points of the earth affect each other exactly as if the globe were not between. To complete the apparent impossibility, the action is, so far as we can observe, absolutely instantaneous, so that every particle of the universe is at every moment in separate cognizance, as it were, of the relative position of every other particle throughout the universe at that same moment of absolute time. Compared with such imcompre- hensible conditions, the theory of vortices dt ais with common-place realities, Newton's celebrated saying, z2 340 Mysteries of Physical Science. [letter hypotheses non fingo, bears the appearance of pure irony ; and it was not without apparent grounds that Leibnitz and the greatest continental nhilosophers charged Newton with re-introducing occult powers and qualities. "The undulatory theory of light presents almost equal difficulties of conception. . We are asked by physical philosophers to give up all our ordinary pre possessions, and believe that the interstellar space which seemed so empty is not empty at all, but filled with something immensely more solid and elastic than steel. As Dr. Young himself remarked, ' the lumi- niferous ether, pervading all space, and penetrating almost all substances, is not only highly elastic, but absolutely solid ! ! ! ' Sir John Herschel has cal culated the amount of force which may be supposed, according to the undulatory theory of light, to be exerted at each point in space, and finds it to be 1,148,000,000,000 times the elastic force of ordinary air at the earth's surface, so that the pressure of the ether upon a square inch of surface must be about 17,000,000,000,000, or seventeen billions of pounds. Yet we live and move without appreciable resistance in this medium, indefinitely harder and more elastic than adamant. All our ordinary notions must be laid aside in contemplating such an hypothesis ; yet they are no more than the observed phenomena of light and heat force us to accept. We cannot deny even the strange suggestion of Dr. Young, that there may be independent worlds, some possibly existing in iv.] Mysteries of Physical Science. 341 different parts of space, but others perhaps pervading each other unseen and unknown in the same space. For if we are bound to admit the conception of this adamantine firmament, it is equally easy to admit a plurality of such. We see, then, that mere diffi culties of conception must not in the least discredit a theory which otherwise agrees with facts, and we must only reject hypotheses which are inconceivable in the sense of breaking distinctly the primary laws of thought and nature." Again : — " Scientific method leads us to the inevitable con ception of an infinite series of successive orders of infinitely small quantities. If so, there is nothing impossible in the existence of a myriad universes within the compass of a needle's point, each with its stellar systems, and its suns and planets, in number and variety unlimited. Science does nothing to re duce the number of strange things that we may believe. When fairly pursued it makes large drafts upon our powers of comprehension and belief."* Leibnitz was a man who was not only master of all the knowledge of his time, but who, moreover, occupies intellectually a place hardly inferior to any philosopher of ancient or modern times. And this is what he says on the doctrine of the Real Presence in one of his letters to Arnauld : — "As I have been the first to discover that the * The Principles of Science-, vol. ii. pp. 144, 145, 467. By W. S. Jevons. 342 Dean M*Neile on Real Presence [letter essence of a body does not consist in extension, but in motion, and honce, that the substance or nature of a body, even according to Aristotle's definition, is the principle of motion (eWeXt'^e/a) and that this principle or substance of the body has no extension, — I have made it plain how God can be clearly and distinctly understood to cause the substance of the same body to exist in many different places."* The athletic theologian of the Pall Mall Gazette " thinks it may furnish matter of reflection to some of the clergy to hear the undisguised expression of a layman's opinion on this matter." And he accord. ingly treats us to his own, which, I confess, has undoubtedly " furnished matter of reflection " to me at least ; but I fear that if I were to reciprocate my " undisguised" impression "of a layman's opinion," he would not consider it complimentary. Suffice it to say, that when a writer, however vigorous his in tellect may be within the domain of his knowledge, ventures to characterize, as " intellectually absurd," doctrines which are sheltered under the segis of the most eminent names in philosophy and science, he invites comparisons which literary courtesy would fain avoid. I cannot dismiss this part of my subject without calling attention to an extraordinary letter written by the present Dean of Ripon to the Times of June 27 th, 1872. In criticising the Bennett Judgment, the * Compare bis " System of Theology," pp. 99, 100 ; also Sir W. Hamilton's "Discussions in Philosophy," pp. 604-7. iv.] and Christ's Resurrection. 343 Dean committed himself to the following startling propositions. Referring to the evidence in favour of our Lord's Resurrection, Dr. M'Neile writes as follows : — " All such proofs were addressed to the senses of the Apostles, and the result was a process of clear and conclusive reasoning. The human mind is not capable of clearer proof on any practical subject than that which is derived from the testimony of the senses, and the consequent deductions of the reason. Such was the proof, satisfactory, and, as far as human consciousness is concerned, infallible, which was given of the Resurrection of Christ. Before His death, His flesh was similar to ours. ' Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same' (