cannot be regarded as binding upon the consciences of the clergy; and that the use of the surplice by the parochial clergy at all times of their ministration" is a sufficient compliance with the rule of the Church of England.' Of the Counsel whose opinions have been taken, while the four to whom the case of the bishops was referred are unanimous against the vestments, the nine on the other side are equally unanimous in thinking them legal.

On the whole, we cannot very confidently anticipate what the result of an appeal to law on this question may be ; but whatever may be decided as to cathedrals and collegiate churches, and even if the use of the vestments should be pronounced lawful for the parochial clergy, we do not believe that any court, or that any lawyer whose opinion is worth a straw, will agree with Mr. J. D. Chambers † in supposing that all the clergy are bound to wear them, whether willingly or otherwise.‡

(II.) In favour of lights on the altar, it has been attempted to show that they had authority of Parliament in the second year of. Edward, (1) by virtue of the Acts which confirmed the canon law until it should be revised; (2) by the Injunctions of Edward's first year (1547), which, under an Act (31 Hen. VIII. c. 8) soon after repealed, had the force of law. For these Injunctions, while forbidding the clergy to allow other lights in churches, except ' only two lights upon the high altar, before the sacrament, which, for the signification that Christ is the very true light of the world, they shall suffer to remain still.'§ But these circuitous lines of argument have both been cut off by the decision of the Privy Council as to the meaning of 'authority of Parliament;' ||

*This was the only point on which Sir Fitzroy Kelly had declared himself when his promotion to the Bench prevented his further consideration of the questions. tDirectorium,' p. 344.

The Rev. W. Milton, in his pamphlet on The Sacrificial Vestments' (London, 1866), supposes that the words authority of Parliament' refer to such things as were introduced for the first time by the Act and Prayer-book of Edward's second year; and that thus they relate to the cope, which, having before been used in processions, &c., was then, for the first time, prescribed for use at the altar. And he points out that the cope alone was revived by Laud. But unluckily for this theory, the author is not able to produce any evidence that the distinction between the parliamentary authority of the cope and the older authority of the sacrificial vestments,' was intended by the revisers either of 1559 or of 1662, or that it was apprehended by Laud as a reason for reviving the cope, and it alone.

§ Cardwell, Doc. Ann.,' i. 7. The retention of the lights on the high altar alone, and the interpretation given of their meaning were evidently intended by way of opposition to the system of saint-worship.

The Rev. James Skinner, however, tells us, with all the confidence of his party, that there never was any doubt about the legality of the lights; there is no doubt about it now.' (A Plea for our Threatened Ritual,' p. 46. London, 1866). And it appears that Mr. J. D. Chambers has published a pamphlet in behalf of lights, which we have not thought it necessary to inquire after.

and

and as the lights are not mentioned in the Prayer-book of Edward's second year, the question now is, whether they are to be reckoned among the things which were then allowed to continue.

In opposition to the lights it has been argued that the sanction of the Injunctions was given to them as being 'before the sacrament'-i.e. (according to the language of the time) in front of the consecrated host, which was then reserved in a tabernacle or other receptacle; and, consequently, that when the reservation was done away with, the attendant lights must have shared its fate. We have never seen this argument satisfactorily answered, but it is not necessary to insist on it. *

About six months after the time when the Prayer-book of 1549 came into use, Hooper (whom Dr. Littledale styles the notorious't) wrote to a foreign correspondent that a number of Romish ceremonies were still used, and, among other things, that candles were burnt on the altars; and this, as we have seen (p. 166), Mr. Perry regards as evidence that they had the authority of the new Book. It must, however, be clear to any reasonable person that Hooper's complaint was really directed, not against the Prayer-book, but against the devices of the Perrys and Lees and Littledales of that day; the reactionary faction which, under the countenance of the 'notorious' Bonner, endeavoured to keep up the Romish usages under the reformed Liturgy.

Shortly after this-we do not undertake to say exactly when, or under what immediate authority-came out certain ‘Articles,' which are to be found in Burnet's History of the Reformation,'

* The Ritualists generally content themselves with putting it aside; how little they can make of it in the way of reasoning may be seen by referring to Mr. Perry in The Church and the World,' p. 499, and to the Case of the Church Union,' pp. 68-9. The meaning which was then attached to the phrase 'before the sacrament' is quite certain. Thus Cardinal Pole enjoined ut perpetuo lampas vel cereus coram sanctissimo hoc sacramento ardeat,' and inquired whether there do burn a lamp or a candle before the sacrament.' (Cardwell, Doc. Ann.' i. 147, 174). In these places it is allowed that the reserved sacrament is meant; and in the very Injunction of 1547 the phrase 'before the sacrament' has a parallel in the prohibition of setting lights 'afore any image or picture.' Even Mr. Perry feels the force of this usage so strongly that he tries to escape from it by pleading that Cranmer's Articles of 1548, in speaking of two lights upon the high altar,' do not add 'before the sacrament.' But we need hardly say that this does not get clear of the words in the Injunction. The only real difficulty is, that one light was all that habitually burnt before the sacrament.' But since the difficulties on the other side are so very much greater, perhaps this may be got over by supposing that although only one candle or lamp was burnt perpetually, two may have been displayed for a short time after the enclosure of the sacrament in its tabernacle or pyx. We do not remember to have seen how the advocates of lights interpret the word 'before' with reference to the consecration-whether they suppose it to relate to time (and so to mean at) or to place-in which case it must mean behind!

+ North Side of the Altar,' p. 16.

'Orig. Letters, ed. Parker Soc.,' p. 72.

and

and in Cardwell's 'Documentary Annals.'* The first of these articles orders that the clergy should 'omit in the reading of the Injunctions all such as make mention of . . . candles upon the altar;' and with this agree the Injunctions which, in 1550, were issued by Bishop Ridley for the diocese of London.† To an unprejudiced person it must be clear that the Articles were not meant to introduce anything in addition to the Prayer-book (much less anything inconsistent with it), but to show how it was to be obeyed, in consequence of the divers doubts for the fashion and manner of the ministration of the same,' which had 'risen rather by the curiosity of the minister and mistakers, than of any other worthy cause.' In opposition to such persons, who had anticipated our modern Ritualists in the principle that whatever had not been expressly forbidden was lawful, the articles showed that the silence of the rubric, as to any ornament or ceremony, was to be interpreted as a prohibition.

We may now pass on to the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. (1559), when contemporaneously, as it would seem, with the new Prayer-book coming into use, the Queen issued fifty-three Injunctions, mostly the same as those published by King Edward' in 1547. Now,' continues Mr. Perry, from whom these words are borrowed, 'the very circumstance that these Injunctions were issued, in itself proves that some more exact directions than the Book or the Statutes gave were then thought to be needed in order to determine with precision what might be consistently used.'§ But Mr. Perry has missed an inference which seems to us unavoidable, viz., that the need of some such supplement to the rubric had been impressed on the Queen's advisers by the remembrance of the wilful mistakes which had been made as to the first Prayer-book ; that the Injunctions, therefore, were now issued simultaneously with the new Book, instead of being left until the old mischief should have been repeated; and, consequently, that this circumstance reflects a character of genuineness and authority on the

.

* The copy from which Burnet printed them is not now to be found, nor is any other copy known. Mr. Perry makes all that he can of this, suggesting that the document is not trustworthy evidence. It does not even pretend to possess any royal authority, for it is merely called "Articles to be followed and observed according to the King's Majesty's Injunctions and Proceedings."' And he supposes that these Articles may possibly have been the Injunctions of some bishop'-(The Church and the World,' p. 455.) But from whomsoever they may have come immediately, they claim to be based (at least) on royal authority, so that we may fairly use them as they are here used. The date was probably early in 1550. In behalf of these Articles, see the second of Mr. Shaw's excellent papers on Ritualism and the Ecclesiastical Law'-(Contemp. Review,' Nov., 1866, pp. 326-9). Act 5 & 6 Edw. VI., c. i. sect. 5. 'Articles'

† Cardwell, i. p. 81.

Lawful Church Ornaments,' pp. 138-9.

'Articles' of 1549 or 1550.* And this is confirmed when we look into Elizabeth's Injunctions, for there the paragraph which allowed lights on the altar has disappeared, exactly in accordance with the order given in those Articles. Now, then, it might be thought, everything is clear; the candles are gone, and the Articles of 1549 or 1550 seem to be virtually acknowledged by the Injunctions of Elizabeth. But Mr. Perry's inference is that "The entire omission of this Injunction [the Injunction of 1547 in favour of the two lights] from those given by Elizabeth is a most convincing proof that the "two lights upon the high altar, before the sacrament" were meant "to remain still"'-(p. 140).

If any reader (outside the ritualistic circle) should have supposed that we have spoken too disrespectfully of Mr. Perry's reasoning powers, we venture to think that, after this specimen, he will do so no longer.

But to go on with the story: There was in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a great agitation on the subject of lights, in consequence of her having set up a pair, together with a crucifix, in her own chapel. But, although the revival of the ornaments of Edward's second year had then been ordered by rubric and statute, it appears abundantly, from the history and the correspondence of the time, that the lights and the crucifix in the royal chapel were the only things of the kind in the whole realm; and that they did not claim authority from law, but were set up for the gratification of the Queen's personal tastes.† After a time, the candles were no longer lighted, but they were still retained; and, after the example of the royal chapel, candlesticks and candles were introduced into cathedrals, college-chapels, and the private chapels of noblemen and others. Under Laud's influence these ornaments were much used, but the candles were not lighted in the day-time.‡ And at the revision of 1662, when

*Mr. Perry, however, had not begun to question the genuineness of these when he wrote his book on 'Lawful Ornaments.'

The Bishop of Exeter, in his Letter to Dr. Lushington (1856), quotes Bishop Jewel (Zurich Letters,' i. 18) as evidence that Elizabeth would not do anything without the sanction of law. But Jewel speaks only of unwillingness to violate the law on account of pressure from others; and all the correspondence of the time shows that no pretence of law was set up in behalf of her chapel orna

ments.

A Puritan tract of 1660, quoted in the 'Hierurgia Anglicana,' p. 329, says. 'they must have all (except candles lighted) that are upon the popish altars.' The only instances of lighting that have been produced (and these not clear) are from Whitehall Chapel (Rushworth, ii. 279). Much has, indeed, been made of a passage in the Aberdeen chronicler, Spalding, who, according to one edition, describes the candles at Charles's Edinburgh coronation as on light,'-as if this meant a-light. But in Spalding's dialect on has a negative meaning, so that this reading comes to the same with those of the editions published by the Bannatyne Club (unlight,' i. p. 17) and by the Spalding Club (onlichtit,' i. p. 36).

the

the words of Elizabeth's statute were introduced into the rubric, it is certain that there was no intention of restoring lights, for otherwise they would have been a subject of episcopal inquiry.

In the case of St. Barnabas' Church, Dr. Lushington pronounced an opinion against the legality of the lights;* but as the incumbent made an affidavit that the altar candles were never used there except for the purpose of giving necessary light, no decree was pronounced against them. † The question, therefore, was not carried by appeal before the Court of Arches or the Judicial Committee; and the judgment of this last tribunal affects them only in so far as it disallows the parliamentary authority which was claimed for them. The four counsel to whom the case was referred in behalf of the bishops declare them to be illegal; of those who were consulted by the Church Union, six regard them as not unlawful,-one of the six goes so far as to say positively that they are legal;' while Sir W. Bovill and Mr. Coleridge hold that they are not now lawful.' The Committee of Convocation think that the instances which can be quoted of candles lighted during the celebration of the Holy Communion are few, and the evidence not beyond question;' that 'the use is not without precedent in the Church of England since the Reformation, although it is a use which has not been generally adopted at any period since the Reformation.' The chairman of the Committee, Dean Goodwin, in speaking on the presentation of the Report, seems to have been somewhat ashamed of this sentence. My own feeling,' he said, 'is that there was no such use, and I am against the use of such lights.' § But when we find that a learned doctor had proposed instead of it a resolution that the lights had in their favour the general principles of the Church Catholic; their retention as such by our own branch of it at the time of the Reformation; precedents of our own; possibly statute-law, certainly canon-law; definite direction from time to time by lawful authority; and prescriptive use,'—we apprehend the difficulties which the more reasonable members of the committee must have had to deal with in framing

* Moore's 'Report,' pp. 63-70.

† Yet we are told in the 'Directorium 'that the judgment in the Knightsbridge case decided their strict legality;' and this just after the writer had said that the two eucharistic lights must never be used, as mere candles, for lighting the sanctuary' (p. 43). And the falsehood of their having been sanctioned by the judgment is repeated on every possible occasion. Mr. Perry would rather have no candles at all than lumina cæca (p. 508); but Archdeacon Freeman sees in these a beautiful symbolism (p. 76). For ourselves, let us say that we object only to the attempt to force the lights on us by falsified history and unsound arguMoore, pp. 70, 151. § Debate, June 26. the

ment.