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THE attention given to the decent and orderly performance of Divine Service in the English Church by Priests trained in the most opposite schools of theology, and the number of new churches built with all the requirements for Catholic ritual, edifices carefully adapted for the celebration of the most Holy Eucharist, for the recitation of Matins and Evensong, and for the other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, are cheering signs, and especially so when we see that in cathedral nave and country mission the Gospel is being preached to the poor with affectionate warmth and Apostolic energy. The balance of loving service towards our Blessed LORD is accurately adjusted. Love and Faith keep a right proportion in things pertaining to CHRIST on the one hand, and to His poor members on the other. They lavish their best—their “alabaster box of ointment very precious”—on the House and Worship of Almighty GOD, and yet ever remember that “the poor shall never cease out of the land.” The poor “are always with us,” and we must earnestly call them into His Church to hear the glad tidings which our Blessed LORD JESUS CHRIST still preaches by His Priests to “the common people.” CHRIST is still present in His Church, “verily and indeed” in the Sacrament of the Altar, Very GOD and very man, the centre of all Christian Worship. At such a time, and in such a hopeful aspect of the Church in this land, no apprehension can be felt, in publishing the present Manual, of a charge of over-exalting “the mint, and anise, and cummin,” of Ritual and Ceremonial, and of unduly depressing “the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” seeing that by preaching the word the masses are being “drawn by the cords of a man” into our churches, and by our ritual are being taught to feel “the beauty of holiness,” and to “worship GOD and report that GOD is in us of a truth.”

It has been sometimes alleged that the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer are in themselves a full and complete guide for the Priest in performing

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Divine Service, and also (with the Canons of 1603,) for “the ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof.” The Canons of 1603 and their bearing upon the Rubrics will be disposed of subsequently.* In regard to the “ornaments,” it is patent to every one that we are remanded back to a stated period in which the aforesaid “ornaments” were in use in this Church of England by authority of Parliament, viz., the second† year of the reign of Edward the Sixth.

As to the Rubrics being a complete code of ritual directions, the experience of every parish Priest attests that they are insufficient. Nor is any slight thrown upon our Service Book or upon its Revisers by this admission. The Rubrics are perfectly Efficient for the guidance of any clergyman moderately acquainted with the traditions of Catholic ritual and the real and ancient Use of the English Church. The Prayer Book was never meant to be a complete Directory; and in this respect it exactly follows the rule adopted by the old English Service Books, and also by the modern Roman Missal. The ancient rubrical directions were equally scanty and curt as our own, and yet they were quite sufficient, for, besides the traditional interpretation and the living commentary of daily practice, the Priest had other written directions for his guide which we unfortunately do not possess; in fact, in most churches the Priest was dependent on those other guides almost exclusively: the Missals being well nigh devoid of Rubrics. The printed Missals, which had such interpolations and additions as tended to make the rubrical directions more complete (naturally in the fewest words), had without doubt the imprimatur of the Bishops and Archbishops ere they were issued.

That the Rubrics of the Prayer Book were not at all designed to be, so to speak a full “Ceremonial according to the English rite,” will be apparent from the following extract from the portion of the Preface added at the final revision:—”Most of the alterations

* See infra p. xviii. note †.

† “The Statute and the Rubric prove the second year was ultimately selected to regulate the ornaments; in all probability because the majority of the reviewers (of 1559) or the Parliament, or both, felt that while there were important distinctions between the ornaments of the First year and those of the second (as I have already shown[1]), the standard of ornaments had, after the latter date, been reduced much lower than was consistent with the Ritual which they themselves wished to settle in the Church of England. Yet, in all this, there is no allusion whatever to Edward’s First Book—an allusion most natural, if that Book, and not the second Year, had been in the minds of these various witnesses, more especially as the Secretary Cecil’s questions had drawn the especial attention of the Reviewers to Edward’s two Books, and had referred to the later Book as taking away “Ceremonies” (not Ornaments) “the propriety of restoring which they were to consider.” Perry’s Lawful Church Ornaments, pp. 128, 129.

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were made, either first, for the better direction of them that are to officiate in any part of Divine Service: which is chiefly done in the Calendars and Rubrics.” As the Rubrics in the former book, that of 1604, are thus declared to be inefficient guidance for the clergy of 1662,—inefficient from the disuse of the Service Book of the Church, which had been superseded by the “Directory for the Publique Worship of GOD in the three Kingdomes,” from the desuetude of Catholic practices, and from the ignorance of the ancient ecclesiastical traditions, consequent thereupon—the present Book has additional and fuller rubrical directions, but still not sufficient to meet every case and each requirement, for that was not the intention of the Revisers, but to amplify them for “the better direction of them that are to officiate.”

Such a Manual as the clergy had for the better understanding and interpretation of the Rubrics of the Missal and other Office Books, and such a guide as Catholic tradition and knowledge of the old English Service Books afforded to the first Revisers of those books, and to the officiating Priests of that day, is now attempted to be given in the present volume. That such a work is necessary is only too well known to every clergyman. The recently-ordained Deacon and Priest have had generally no official training or example. The college chapel, and only too often the cathedral of the diocese, have with some favoured exceptions, worthy of all honour, been rather beacons to warn them off the rocks of irreverent slovenliness and ritual irregularity, than stars to guide them how to offer, or to assist in offering, acceptable Sacrifices in the Church of GOD. They have thus been forced to follow the mode of “conforming to the Liturgy,” as practised in some church which most approves itself to their partially-informed instincts, the selection probably being made from circumstances of proximity or from something else equally accidental.

The argument for a ritual is not within the scope of these remarks. We have a ritual, and must use it, whether we like it or not. It behoves us to use it aright, and not curtail and mar its fair proportion. Every part of the Church must have a ritual, and as there is but one Catholic Church, so the ritual of every portion thereof will have a family likeness, and be one in spirit, though diverse in details. Ritual and Ceremonial are the hieroglyphics of the Catholic religion, a language understanded of the faithful, a kind of parable in action, for as of old when He walked upon this earth, our Blessed LORD, still present in His Divine and human nature in the Holy Eucharist on the altars of His Church, still spiritually present at the Common Prayers, does not speak unto us “without a parable.” But as our LORD’s “visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men,” so has it fared, at least in His Church in this land,

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with the aspect of His worship on earth. For the last three hundred years, brief but brilliant periods excepted, our ritual has lost all unity or significance of expression. We have treated “The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church” much as if it were simply a collection of sundry Forms of Prayer, overlooking the fact that besides these there are acts to be done, and functions to be performed. And these* have been done infrequently, not to say imperfectly.

The old Puritan idea of Divine Service is confession of sin, prayer to GOD and intercession for our wants, bodily and spiritual. Another theological school, more perhaps in vogue, looks upon praise as the great element of worship,— praise, that is, apart from Eucharistia, itself, in one sense, a mighty Act of Praise. Hence one Priest with his form-of-prayer theory affects a bald, chilling and apparently indevout worship, whilst another lavishes all the splendour of his ritual upon his forms of prayer which are said in choir; and both depress, by defective teaching and a maimed ritual, the distinctive Service of Christianity. Matins and Evensong are performed with a severe simplicity by the one, in an ornate manner by the other. Both schools have elements of truth in them, both err after the same manner, viz., in undue exaltation of the Church’s ordinary Office, and in depreciation of the Sacramental system—at least the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is not with them the centre of Christian Worship. Yet surely the Communion Service is something more than a mere form of prayer in the opinion of even the laxest school of theology. The Zuinglian will admit it to be an acted sermon. If in the dreary eighteenth century a periodical writer† could recommend a Priest to preach the sermons of other divines in order to give more attention to a handsome elocution and an effective delivery; surely the fame pains ought to be bestowed on the performance of the acted sermon of the Church. Even the Calvinist will concede the Liturgy to be an Act, a ministerial Act, and not a bare Form of Prayer. But the Catholic Priest, who knows that this action is done in the Person of CHRIST, who knows his office to be to perpetuate on the altars of the Church Militant on earth the same Sacrifice which the Great High Priest consummated once on the Cross and perpetuates, not repeats, before the Mercy-seat in Heaven, will reverently handle such tremendous mysteries, will be greatly careful that no dishonour be thoughtlessly done unto his LORD, who vouchsafes to be present on our altars. How delicately will he approach even before consecration the elements which are thus to be so supernaturally honoured. How will he be exceeding urgent

* E.g., the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

† Addison, in the Spectator (No. 106).

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to do all things well as to matter and form, as to vestment and ritual, whether in his own person or by his assistants, in this wondrous Service. And if in the Sacrament of the altar some things strike the eye as graceful and beautiful, it is well; but this is not their object. The one aim is to offer the Holy Sacrifice in a worthy manner to Almighty GOD.

The order of the Offices in the Prayer Book has been adhered to in the DIRECTORIUM with this exception, that the directions for celebrating the Holy Eucharist, as being the centre of all Christian Worship, have been placed first. The Book of Common Prayer naturally puts the Ordinary Office before the Liturgy proper, as the Holy Eucharist is generally supposed to be preceded* by the recitation of the Divine Office. But in a work which interprets rubrics, and explains, however inadequately, the theory of Christian Worship, it seemed fitting to commence with what was in the earliest ages of Christianity the only distinctive Christian Worship,† and from which the Ordinary Office is an offshoot, a radius, not a substitute for it under any circumstances. To these considerations it may be added that there is one Book of Holy Scripture—the Apocalypse—which reveals to us the Ritual of Heaven. That Ritual is the normal form of the worship of the Christian Church. The full scope and burden of the Epistle to the Hebrews is this, that the law was a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, that in the law we have but a copy (υποδειγμα), but that in the Gospel we have the object itself as in a mirror, the very image, (αυτη η ειων), the express image or stamp. The Jewish ritual was therefore a type or shadow of the Ritual of Heaven, which would be hereafter; not as then existing, at least in the form it was to assume in the fulness of time. If the Jewish ritual had been a copy or pattern of things existing in Heaven at that time, it would have been an image thereof, not a shadow or type. But “coming events cast their shadows before,” and, it is written with reverence, the Worship of Heaven, always objective, became amplified, and, so to speak, ocularly objective, (as GOD could be seen of man,) when the Hypostatic Union took place; when bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, was worshipped by the Angelic host in the Session of the Incarnate Word in His glorified Humanity at the Right Hand of GOD the FATHER Almighty. Moses was admonished when he was about to make the tabernacle; “for see, saith

* See Principles of Divine Service. Introd. to Part II. p. 116, note f.

† In regard to the Worship of the Early Church, the “Breaking of Bread” (Acts ii. 42) is believed to be the real and only characteristic Christian Worship, and the “Prayers” to be at that time the Hour-Services of the Temple, which passed, on its destruction, into the adoption of similar Services by the Christian Church.

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He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the Mount.” The Jewish ritual was the shadow cast upon earth from the throne of GOD of the Worship which was to be in heaven after the Incarnation and Ascension of the GOD-Man, our LORD JESUS CHRIST, who pleads before the throne His Sacrifice, at once the Victim, the “Lamb as it had been slain,” and High Priest. The Ritual of Heaven is objective, and the principal worship of the Church on earth is equally so by reason of its being identical with the Normal and Apocalyptic ritual, and thus containing a great action, even the perpetuation of the Sacrifice made on the Cross, in an unbloody manner on the altar. Not that this great action, the most marvellous condescension of the creator to the creature since the Sacrifice, never to be repeated, was once offered on Calvary, excludes common prayer; not so, the prayers of the faithful form an appendage to the Holy Sacrifice of the altar. The Church in Heaven and on earth is indeed one, and the Holy Eucharist* as a Sacrifice is all one with the Memorial made by our High Priest Himself in the very Sanctuary of Heaven, where He is both Priest, after the order of Melchisedec, and Offering, by the perpetual presentation of His Body and Blood; therefore the Ritual of Heaven and earth must be one,—one, that is, in intention and signification, though under different conditions as to its expression.

A rationale has been given of Matins and Evensong, because the recitation of the Divine Office has been very grievously misunderstood. Matins and Evensong are the only Forms of Prayer without an action, and though not subjective, (for they are Common Prayers to one spiritually present;) they form from their Eucharistic analogy the only permissible Divine Service without celebration of the Holy Communion, the only Dry Service, so to speak, which is not an unreality.

As to the Service to be used on Sundays and Holydays if there is no Communion, it will be observed that in the earlier pages of this work it is spoken of as missa sicca: in the latter part as the Proanaphoral Service (see Par. 46, note †). Though our awful preference for a form of prayer, extracted from the order for the Administration of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, to the Celebration itself, renders the name of the mediæval corruption really applicable, yet doubtless the latter term is the correct one.

No rationale has been given of the Communion Service, nor of Holy Baptism, nor of the Sacramental and occasional Offices. These functions involve actions; and acts speak for themselves: but very minute Rubrical Directions are given, and much matter illustrative of what may be called “the secret history” of the Services will be found in the notes.

No where is the Catholic spirit of the Prayer Book more plainly set forth,

* See Keble on Eucharistical Adoration, p. 72.

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or in a more marked manner than in the Preface of 1662, which precedes the statement “Concerning the Service of the Church,”* and “Of Ceremonies, why some be abolished and some retained,”†) and those documents themselves. And yet these important have never had the attention bestowed upon them even by some of the most approved ritualists of the day, which their great value commands. It has been truly said that the statement “Concerning the Service of the Church” “is the most authoritative exposition anywhere to be found of the principles of the English Church, and of the relation in which she desires to stand towards other branches of the Church Catholic.§

The Directorium Anglicanum has been based upon the principles laid down in these unmistakable and authoritative manifestos of the spirit, usage, and ritual of the Church of England. A key is given in the Preface of 1662 to the then alterations. “If any man, who shall desire a more particular account of the several Alterations in any part of the Liturgy, shall take pains to compare the present Book with the former; we doubt not but the reason of the change may readily appear.” If the comparison of our present Service Book with its predecessors be needful for a perfect understanding of the Rubrics, it follows as a corollary that equally necessary is it to institute a comparison with the rubrical directions in the pre-reformation Service Books, (of which our Prayer Book is a revised collection,) especially in an age in which the careful performance of Divine Worship is a happy characteristic, and yet in which, from the laxity of former times, the old Catholic uses and traditions, which were household words to the revisers of 1549, and which were familiar to those of 1661, are in some sort lost sight of. Hence this attempt to read our Rubrics by the light of the pre-reformation Service Books and ancient ecclesiastical customs: and not only have the old English Missal and Breviary rubrics been so used in putting together the Directorium, but also the most ancient Liturgies, agreeable with the King’s warrant for the Conference at the Savoy, 25th of March, 1661. The terms of the commission, which are very important, are “To|| advise upon and renew 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.” It is, therefore, reasonable to refer to the Liturgies which the revisers of 1661 were to look

* The original Preface in the Book of 1549.

† First inserted after the Preface in the Book of 1552. In the First Book (1549) it is placed after the Service for the First Day of Lent (Commination Service.)

‡ Thus Mr. Procter, in his “History of the Book of Common Prayer,” omits all mention of this part of the Book.

§ “The Prayer Book; and how to use it.” Churchman’s Library, p. 4.

|| Card. Hift. Conf. p. 300.

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to for a guide in their review of the Ritual. And that such a course was expedient for them, and is so for us in order that we may rightly understand their alterations, and indeed the whole spirit of the Prayer Book, is also evident from the language of the Homily,* that the Holy Sacrament of the altar should be “in such wise done and administered as the good Fathers of the Primitive Church frequented it;” as well as from the injunction† that preachers in their sermons were to follow the consent of the Catholic Fathers and Doctors.

The ancient Liturgies, the mediæval Service Books, the present Uses of the East and West, have all been consulted to throw light upon and to interpret the Rubrics of our own Service Book in the Directorium, on the principle recognized by the last Revisers in their rejection of such proposed alterations ‡ “as were either of dangerous consequence (as secretly striking at some established doctrine or laudable practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholic Church of CHRIST) or else of no consequence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain.”

Ritualism is a science as well as theology, and is in point of fact closely connected therewith, seeing that Divine Service is composed of rites and ceremonies, which involve Ritual and Ceremonial in their performance, and as Liturgies contain and are conservators of doctrine, so the Rubrics—enjoining a certain amount of Ritual and Ceremonial, and supposing and permitting a greater development of it than is laid down nominatim—are the very language of dogma. Divine Service is also compacted of “Christian persons,” i.e., bodies redeemed by the SAVIOUR, and which therefore owe Him a dignified and honourable homage by prostration and gestures of adoration, humility, and the like.

The religious use and the science of Ceremonial and Ritual are fully recognized in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. In the statement “Of ceremonies, why some be abolished and some retained,” Ritual and Ceremonial are distinctly accepted as “pertaining to edification,” not§ only as serving “to a decent order and godly discipline,” but also as “apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to GOD by some notable and special signification.”

The Preface authoritatively declares that Ritual and Ceremonial conduce to

* Homil. B. ii.

† “But chiefly they (the preachers) shall take heed that they teach nothing in their preaching, which they would have the people religiously to observe and believe, but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old Testament and the New, and that which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered out of that doctrine.” Liber quorundam canonum disciplinæ Ecclesias Anglicanæ. Anno 1571.

‡ The Preface, Book of Common Prayer.

§ But a preference is given to what is ancient in comparison with what is new.

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“edification,” thus recognizing their theological use. What this consists of it may be well to state categorically. The science of Ritual and Ceremonial has a theological and a sacramental function. But the province of each function is intertwined with that of the other so as to be inseparable.

The primary use of Ritual and Ceremonial is founded on the claims of Almighty GOD upon the homage and love of His creatures. Hence it is that His Priest performs all Divine offices (and especially the celebration of the Holy Eucharist) with a minute and reverent care, perfectly without respect to the presence of worshippers, or to their absence. It is this that prompts him to use “the best member that he has” to the praise and glory of GOD, “Who made man’s mouth;” a function which must edify both Priest and people. But He who made man’s mouth, “made the eye” also, and seeing that we possess material bodies and are not limply spirits, which we shall only be in the intermediate state, He has been pleased to teach us in His Church through the visual organ, whilst we are praising Him with our lips out of the fulness of our hearts. Nor is this edification of the soul through the medium of the corporal eye, this objectivity in Divine Service, a mere concession to human weakness and infirmity, seeing that in the Church above we shall worship before the throne with spiritual bodies, and that the Divine ritual, as has been shown,* is of a purely objective character.

The ends to which Ritual and Ceremonial minister may be thus classified:—

I. They are the safeguards of Sacraments—that they may “be rightly and duly administered,” and not endangered either in respect: of “matter” or “form” by the chances of negligence or indevotion.

II. They are the expressions of doctrine, and witnesses to the Sacramental system of the Catholic religion.

III. They are habitual and minute acts of love to Him “Who so loved us,” for love is shown not only in “the doing of some great thing,” in the performance of some august rite in the very Presence of GOD, but also in an affectionate, reverent, and pious care in even the smallest details of the Service of the Sanctuary—marks of love to our Blessed LORD in the performance of Divine Service generally, and of dread and binding obligation in whatsoever concerns the essence of the Sacraments.

IV. They are securities for respect by promoting GOD’s glory in the eyes of men, and also in serving to put the Priest in remembrance of Him Whom he serves and Whose he is. This consideration has caused the giving of directions for the sacristy as well as the sanctuary; for as the sanctity of a church is not a quality inherent in the worshippers

* See pp. ix. x.

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according to the old Puritan idea, but in the building itself, the consecrated House of GOD; so the rules which guide the Priest and choir, when out of sight of the faithful, will be as religiously observed as the rubrics and traditional usages which govern their actions and deportment when in their presence. All clergymen probably kneel down in the sacristy and say a prayer before vesting, and also pray whilst putting on the vestments. It seems desirable for us to use the fame form of prayer, and that form appears most to commend itself which was used by the ancient clergy of England. Hence the selection of prayers for the sacristy which will be found in this Manual.

Thus it is evident that Ritual and Ceremonial tend to the “edification” of the Church, are “apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to GOD by some notable signification,” and conduce to the maintenance of “a decent order and godly discipline.”

It is now proper to state the statutable authority of the “Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof.” The Rubric before the “Order for Morning Prayer daily throughout the year,” which regulates the “ornaments,” directs that such ornaments “shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward the Sixth.” The authority of Parliament in the second year evidently refers to the statute of 25 Henry VIII. c. 19, § 7, which expressly enacts, “That such canons, constitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial, being already made, which be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws statutes, and customs of this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the King’s prerogative royal, shall now still be used and executed as they were before the passing of this Act, till such time as they be viewed, searched, or otherwise ordered and determined by the two and thirty persons authorized by the Act,* or the more part of them, according to the tenor, form, and effect of this present Act;”—an undertaking which was never accomplished, and therefore the ancient canons and provincial constitutions have still the force of statute law, subject to the limitations provided by the aforesaid Act of Parliament. It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that there is no statute of the second year of Edward VI. which contains any enactments respecting the Ornaments of the Church, and even the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., (which was authorized by the statute of the 2nd and 3rd of Edward VI. c. 1, but the use of which was not enjoined till the Feast of Pentecost then next coming, in other words till the third year of that King’s reign, though it is doubtless supplemental to the old canons and constitutions of the Church of England,” by the authority of Parliament in the

* The 35 of Henry VIII. c. 16, § 2, renewed this for life.

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second year of Edward VI.) does not describe the “Ornaments” of the Church, although it gives some directions for the Priest and his assistants for the celebration of the Holy Communion, thus following the order of the Missal, as of course the new Book, ostensibly a revised form of the old “Use,” would not deviate from the accustomed arrangement, viz., that the Rubrics of the Missal were not, except incidentally, the direction for the ornaments and utensils of Divine Service. The old English Missals mention nominatim in an incidental manner nearly the same* instrumenta as the First Book of Edward VI.† does, whilst the modern Roman Missal specifies by name even a smaller number of utensils and ornaments, those of the minister not being mentioned at all.‡ It has been a vexata quæstio with some whether the first Rubric in the Book of Common Prayer which regulates the ornaments of the church and of the

* The York use prescribes nominatim precisely the same things; the Sarum, Bangor, and Hereford uses are rather more full in this respect.

† Elizabeth’s Book (1559) only mentions the ornaments of the minister in the rubric which governs this department of Divine Service. But this book was Edward’s second book (1552) REVISED, and the rubric relating to “ornaments” was the revised rubric of that second book, the essential difference being—that now the minister was ordered to use the very ornaments which that second book had bidden him to disuse; but that rubric made no mention of the ornaments of the church, neither therefore did this.[2] However, Act 1 Eliz. c. 2, § 25, provides “that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI.” Our own rubric is the rubric of Elizabeth’s and James’ Books expanded in phraseology, taken from the Act of Elizabeth, and thus makes mention of both the ornaments of the church and of the ministers.

‡ In the Roman Missal the “ornaments of the ministers” are mentioned only in the Rubricæ generales Missalis [xix. De qualitate paramentorum]. In the First Book of Edward VI. they are mentioned in the third Rubric before “the Supper of the LORD, commonly called the Mass,” in the first Rubric after the Collects, printed at the conclusion of the Mass, and in “Certain Notes” at the end of the book.

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ministers, refers to the ancient laws of the English Church, which have the force of statute law by virtue of 25 Henry VIII., or to the First Book of Edward VI. The present Manual was compiled in the belief that “the authority of Parliament” in the Rubric was intended to apply only to those ancient canons and provincial constitutions made statutable by the Act of Parliament alluded to; but subsequent investigation of the subject has induced the editor to modify that opinion thus far, viz., that the Rubric refers not only to the canon law, but also that it includes the First Book (of 1549). And this conclusion is grounded on the express reference in the Act of 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 1, § 5, authorizing the Second Book (of 1552), which speaks of the Act of the 2 and 3 Edward VI., authorizing the First Book (of 1549, the third year), as the Act “made in the second year of the King’s Majesty’s reign. It is, therefore, reasonable to take the Rubric to refer primarily to the older canons and constitutions “which be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this realm,” &c., to our present Book, and also to the First Book (of 1549), containing the reformed Missal, Breviary, and other Offices, with whose structure the ornaments ordered by the ancient canon law were to be in harmony.

The recent Judgment of the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council in the case of the churches of SS. Paul and Barnabas, in the Appeal Liddell v. Westerton, delivered March 21st, 1857, has decided that the First Book of Edward VI. is referred to in the rubric; the question of Parliamentary sanction given to the old canons and provincial constitutions was not entered into, and was only referred to collaterally. Bishop Cosin, one of the chief of the Revisers of 1661, in several passages of his Notes* assumes that Edward’s First Book is included as part of the authority of Parliament in Edward’s second year, but he nowhere treats it as the exclusive authority. In addition to the ancient canon law and the book of 1549 he also cites the Injunctions of 1547† as a supplemental authority for altar lights. Now, though the First Book of Edward VI. was never intended to be our complete directory for the ornaments either of the ministers or of the church, yet it contains nominatim the Eucharistic vestments: whilst the Injunctions of 1547 order the lights on the altar, and the inventories‡ of church goods (taken in 1552) in the Record Office, at Carlton Ride, prove that they were retained by the Injunctions of 1547, and were in use by the authority of Parliament during the second year, and beyond

* See Cofin’s Works, Vol. V. pp. 227—30, 232, 233, 305, 436, 438, 440.

† Ibid. p. 231.

‡ Mr. Chambers, in his “Strictures Legal and Historical,” gives an analysis of these Inventories of the Ornaments which remained in 1552, in 415 churches; only eight of the number being of an earlier date, viz., 1549.

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it. These inventories give copious lifts of crosses, candlesticks, altar cloths and linen, vestments, frames for stone altars, lecterns, &c. &c. Therefore it makes no practical difference however interesting as a recondite legal question, whether we go to the old canons and provincial constitutions and to Edward’s Injunctions and First Book, or to the Injunctions and First Book alone (with the Carlton Ride Inventories) as authority for Lawful Church Ornaments.

But that the Book of 1549 was not referred to solely as the guide for “ornaments”—(it does not mention any church ornaments, though it does some utensils, instumenta, used in Divine Service), will be quite evident from the following remarkable passage in Cosin’s Notes,—”But* what the ornaments of the church and the ministers were is not here specified;” (the Eucharistic vestments are specified in the rubrics of Edward’s First Book; Cosin must, therefore, have been referring to other ornaments of the minister in use by authority of Parliament in the second year), “and they are so unknown to many, that by most they are neglected. Wherefore it were requisite that those ornaments used in the second year of King Edward, should be here particularly named and set forth, that there might be no difference about them.” Now, if in Edward’s First Book all “the ornaments of the church and of the ministers” were set forth nominatim, it would have been needless to specify what they were in a Rubric promulgated for that purpose, for there could be no possible difference of opinion upon this point. In addition to this, Mr. Perry (to whose labours the present writer is much indebted) in his learned and thoroughly exhaustive volume on “Lawful Church Ornaments,” cites Archdeacon Robert Booth’s (of Durham) Articles of Inquiry,† circa 1710—20, in which the provincial constitutions are referred to throughout, and spoken of as ecclesiastical laws now in force. Thus the statutable authority of the ancient canon law seems perfectly clear, and Edward’s First Book has been pronounced by the Court of Final Appeal to be the statutable authority for ornaments, and is to be regarded, as referred to in the Rubric “by the authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI.,” as the reformed exponent of the old canons and provincial constitutions.

To sum up—firstly—the Rubric remands us back to the old canons and constitutions, passed before the Reformation, to such of which it gives statutable authority, as are not “contrariant or repugnant” to subsequent enactments on the subject; and secondly, to Edward’s First Book, as has been shown at pp. xv. xvi., and determined by the Privy Council; and thirdly, to the Injunctions of 1547, which were in force by authority of Parliament in the second year.

* See Cosin’s Works, Vol. V. p. 507.

† Lawful Church Ornaments, p. 459.

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Bishop Cosin thought it convenient (see supra, p. xvii.) that an inventory of the ornaments, instrumenta, vestments, &c., of Edward’s celebrated second year should be drawn up. For it is not every parish Priest who is familiar with the ancient canon law; and in Cosin’s time, even the rubrics of Edward’s First Book, which, with the Injunction of 1547, ordering and retaining the two altar-lights, give all that is essential as far as ritual is concerned, were not accessible to the body of the clergy as they are now in reprints and other publications. Following out the suggestion of this eminent ritualist and divine, worthy of all attention from us as coming from the leading reviser of 1661, such an inventory is now for the first time supplied by the Directorium Anglicanum.

The ornaments of the Second Year must be fought for in that portion of the ancient English Canons and Provincial Constitutions which relates to Ornament, Ritual, and Ceremonial, with the following limitations, viz., such ornaments, &c. as were abolished before the second year of Edward VI., and all such as are inconsistent with the structure of the Book of Common Prayer. A complete lift of the titles of the several constitutions and canons bearing upon the subject is given at p. 466, in Mr. Perry’s valuable work so often referred to in this preface, and the whole of this portion of the ancient canon law is printed at length with its later practical modifications, and the statutable residuum is thereby plainly shown. Thus the ritualist, the parish Priest, and the inquiring churchwarden,* can see at a glance what the ornaments† of the Second Year really are from the list at p. 491, and also the canons and constitutions

* “It will be seen by a comparison of what each is to provide, that the parishioners were and are responsible for whatever was or is essential to Divine Service; the Priest for ‘other decent ornaments, in addition to his liability to maintain’ the principal chancel. This, then, seems a distinct answer to the prevalent notion, no less than to some deliberate statements which are to be met with, to the effect, that the clergyman has nothing whatever to do with ordering the ornaments of the church. So far is this from being true, that the canon says he ‘MAY BE COMPELLED’ by the ordinary to find them.” Lawful Church Ornaments, p. 488.

† A difficulty exists in the minds of some in reconciling the canons of 1603 with the rubric which governs the vestments. The XXIVth Canon orders copes to be worn in cathedral churches by those that administer the Sacrament of the lord’s Supper; and the LVIIIth Canon directs “ministers reading Divine Service and administering the Sacraments to wear hoods.” This would prescribe a quasi Eucharistic vestment in cathedrals, but no special Eucharistic vestment for parish churches. It should, however, be remembered that the Canons of 1603, (which though never confirmed by Parliament like the rubric, yet as sanctioned by Convocation are the law of ecclesiastics subsidiary to the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer) cannot, and especially since the final revision which gave us the present Book of 1662, govern, control, or limit the rubric, which is statutable, while the Canons (of 1603) are not. The reason for the apparent discrepancy of the Canons (of 1603) and the rubric will be found in the time the Canons were promulgated. It then seemed almost hopeless to enforce the statutable ornaments of the rubric, so the Bishops acquiesced in the lowest possible amount of “ornaments,” ritual and ceremonial under the pressure of Puritan necessity. The old canons and the rubrics were almost ignored—so the canons of 1603 were promulgated, to compass bare decency and order. We obey the spirit of the canons of 1603 in exact proportion as we adhere to the letter of the rubric. And here it may be noted in regard to the phrase “vestment or cope” in the first book of Edward VI., That the chasuble was always called “the vestment,” and it has been thought that the allowance of the cope refers to the cafe of a Missa sicca.[3]

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which order them, duly docketed as “unrepealed,” “partly repealed,” “unrepealed, but obsolete,” “wholly repealed,”—as the case may be. Besides this, the inventories* of church goods in the Record Office, at Carlton Ride, establish the fact: of these ornaments, viz., crucifixes, crosses, altar candlesticks, altar cloths, lecterns, altar-frames, corporals, Eucharistic and other vestments, (on this point, however, viz., the vestments being statutable, there was never any question,) and divers other ornaments and utensils, being in actual use in and after Edward’s second year. A complete inventory of these “ornaments of the church and of the ministers” is given in the Appendix to this Manual. It should be remembered that ornaments in use in the specified year are lawful ornaments; but even if they cannot be found among the statutable ornaments of the second year, as e.g., the white bands, black scarf, organs, hassocks, and the like, and these are certainly not found among the ornaments of the second year, they are equally lawful ornaments if not at variance with them, or with the Service-book. The first book of Edward VI. is the structure with which these ornaments must be in harmony. And, as has been already shown, since the Eucharistic vestments are given nominatim in that Book, the altar-lights secured by Injunctions of 1547, and the altar-cross, (or crucifix, if it be preferred,) proved to be lawful by the Carlton Ride inventories; all is given that is required for Catholic ritual, even were the old canon law not of statutable authority—and there is no doubt it is.

* These Inventories are accessible in r. Chambers’ Strictures, Legal and Historical; Mr. Perry’s Lawful Church Ornaments; the Ecclesiologist, Nos. cxiii. cxiv.; and Stephen’s edition of the Book of Common Prayer, Vol. I. foll. 352—61. A selection from Mr. Chambers’ Collection is given in the Appendix.

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It is now time to consider how far Ritual and Ceremonial not specified nominatim in the Rubrics of the Prayer Book are affected by the Aft of Uniformity, by the 2nd article of Canon XXXVI. to which subscription at Ordination is required, and by Canon XIV. equally binding upon spiritual persons.

The statute of 1 Eliz. c. 1, which enforces the Act of 2 and 3 of Edward VI. c. 1, orders, “That all ministers shall be bound to say and use the Matins, Evensong, Administration of each of the sacraments, and all other common and open prayer in men order and form, as is mentioned in the said Book so authorized by Parliament, and none other or otherwise.” And the statute 14 Charles II. enacts, “That the former good laws and statutes of this realm which have been formerly made, and are still in force for the uniformity of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, shall stand in full force and strength to all intents and purposes whatever, for the establishing and confirming the said Book … hereinafter mentioned, to be joined and annexed to this Act.”

The 2nd Article of Canon XXXVI. orders, “That he (the person to be ordained) will use the form in the said Book prescribed, in Public Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and none other.”

Canon XIV. provides, “That all ministers shall likewise observe the orders, rites, and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, as well in reading the Holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers, as in administration of the Sacraments, without either diminishing in regard of preaching, or in any other respect, or adding anything in the matter or form thereof.”

In regard to the Aft of Uniformity, it should be borne in mind that Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity was followed by Injunctions explanatory of the very Rubrics of the Book which the statute enforced. The Act is aimed against the practice of the Puritans who endeavoured to avoid everything the Book enjoined, but which they disliked, and failing this to get rid of the Book altogether. Hence the need to insist on the complete use of the Service-book. The Act which restored the furniture to the altar and the vestment to the Priest could never mean to forbid the details of Catholic Ritual and Ceremonial and to limit every gesture of reverence: it would not specifically enjoin them, for who would expect an Aft of Parliament to be a complete manual of directions for the performance of Divine Service? it was rather meant to exclude interpolated prayers; matters of Ritual and Ceremonial were not, strictly speaking, within its scope. The explanatory Injunctions of Elizabeth sufficiently prove that her Aft of Uniformity does not regard the Rubrics of the Prayer Book as a perfect

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directory for Divine Worship; and the unavoidable, but most important corollary is, that those Rubrics cannot be argued from negatively; they cannot be interpreted as forbidding what they do not enjoin.

The terms of Canon XXXVI. are precisely the fame, and when it is considered”That these Canons, being a hundred and forty-one, were collected by Bishop Bancroft out of the Articles, Injunctions, and Synodical Acts passed and published in the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth,” (Collier’s Ecc. Hift., Vol. II. p. 687,) the animus of them, and of the Article in question, must be self-evident: it was against the depravers of the Liturgy, not against the faithful and learned Priests who scrupulously carried out its Rubrics. In the words of Blomfield, Bishop of London:—”No* one who reads the history of those times with attention can doubt that the object of the legislature who imposed upon the Clergy a subscription to the above declaration, was the substitution of the Book of Common Prayer for the Missal of the Roman Catholics, or the Directory of the Puritans.”

Canon XIV. cautions the Puritan preacher not to diminish from the Service-Book by preaching doctrine inconsistent therewith, and not to add anything in respect of form or matter: thus admitting the Liturgy to be the conservator of doctrine, and Ritual and Ceremonial to be the safe-guards of Sacraments and teachers of dogma. For “matter” and “form” are well-known theological terms having a technical meaning,†and point mainly to the preservation and right administration of the Sacraments—which certainly were in danger at the time of the promulgation of these canons. These terms were probably also intended to check such irregularities as the omission of the cross in Baptism, the making the father answer questions with the godfathers and godmothers, the omission of the Absolution, Venite, Te Deum, Lessons, &c. a Sermon being substituted, the mutilation of the Communion Service and omission of the Prayer of Consecration‡—irregularities which not only affected the “order” of Divine Service, but in the cafe of the Sacrament of the Altar, entirely vitiate it, and that not by changing, but by omitting the “form” of

* Apud Robertson’s “How to Conform to the Liturgy,” p. 8.

† “With what matter was this child baptized?

“With what words (= form) was this child baptized?”—Ministration of Private Baptism of Children in houses. Book of Common Prayer.

Here “matter” and “form” (words) are technically used. It mould be remarked that till 1603 the passage stood—” With what thing, or what matter they did baptize the child?” It is noteworthy that the men who revised the Book of 1559, and put forth the canons of 1603, eliminated as unnecessary the word “thing” and used “matter” in its purely theological and technical meaning. The revision of the Prayer Book and collection of the canons were going on at the same time—the word is used in the same sense in the Canons of 1603 and the Book of 1604.

‡ See “Lawful Church Ornaments,” pp. 292, 293, 329, for historical proof that such depravation of the Prayer Book was not unfrequent at the period of the compilation of the canons of 1603.

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words. The Rites and Ceremonies of the canon mean exactly the same things as they do in the title of the Prayer Book: “The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church.” It is clear that Rites and Ceremonies are here used in distinction to Sacraments—meaning the Occasional Offices, and not what we term “Ritual and Ceremonial.” Had it been so, the title would have run something after this manner:—”The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments with the ceremonies and rites thereof.” However, Ritual and Ceremonial, (viz., such ancient uses of the Church of England as are consistent with the revised Service-Book, and needful for the right and due administration thereof,) are included in the canon under the words, Rites and Ceremonies, and indeed the former must, of necessity, be more or less elaborately employed in carrying out the latter.

*And if it be argued, for instance, that the Bishop’s or Priest’s consecrating of the oil for the anointing of a sick person is a fresh rite or office, that cannot be argued as a prohibition of such action to the Episcopate or Priesthood; for the consecration of churches is a parallel instance as far as any modern law goes; yet the Bishops continue a practice which would be illegal on the principle that silence is prohibition; and moreover, they use an office which can make no claim to authority such as the Prayer Book possesses. Custom is indeed a sort of ecclesiastical common law and sanctions this; but as desuetude does not repeal a law, so it would appear that any diocesan Bishop is free to act upon the ancient Canons and Provincial Constitutions. In regard to the “mixed chalice,” i.e., with wine and water, a custom enjoined and used by Bishop Andrewes; practised in Prince Charles’ chapel at Madrid; ordered by Laud;† authoritatively recommended by Cosin; pronounced lawful by Palmer in his Origines Liturgicæ; used by authority in the Church in Scotland; and by many learned and holy Priests down to the present day; is little likely to be a violation of the Act of Uniformity or of the canons of 1603.

It now only remains to thank those who have aided in the compilation of this Manual.

And first, the thanks of the editor are due to his friend, the Reverend Frederick George Lee, S.C.L., F.S.A., his fellow-labourer and joint-compiler, who, himself engaged on a like work, kindly and most liberally handed over

* See “Lawful Church Ornaments,” pp. 484, 485.

† “And the Presbyter shall then offer up and place the bread and wine prepared for the Sacrament upon the LORD’s Table, that it may be ready for that Service.” Rubric before the Church Militant Prayer in Archbishop Laud’s Prayer Book (1637).

“Prepared” is the technical epithet always applied to the chalice which contains the element of wine mingled with a small proportion of water, thus prepared to be consecrated by the Priest.

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to the editor the whole of his carefully-collected and valuable notes containing many important authorities not generally known; the whole of which notes have been incorporated into the volume.

To ensure correctness nearly every proof-sheet has been revised, amongst others, by the following eminent ritualists:—The Rev. Thomas Chamberlain, M.A., Student of Christ Church, and Vicar of S. Thomas the Martyr, Oxford; the Rev. Philip Freeman, M.A., Vicar of Thorverton, Devon; the Rev. F. G. Lee, F.S.A.; and the Rev. J. M. Neale, M.A., Warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead. Thanks are likewise due to John D. Chambers, Esq., MA, for permission to reprint his valuable letter on the legal effect of the “Judgment” of the Privy Council in the case of the churches of SS. Paul and Barnabas, Diocese of London, in the Appendix; and to the Rev. T. W. Perry, who has kindly allowed a liberal use in the way of extracts of his work on Lawful Church Ornaments.

The Commentary on the Daily Service is a resumé from the first volume of “The Principles of Divine Service.” The permission to make such extensive use of this erudite and noble work is here gratefully acknowledged by the editor; he would also express his gratitude for the elaborate corrections and important additions which the Directorium received from its author. But it must be distinctly understood that Mr. Freeman is not to be identified either as a ritualist or a theologian with every direction in this Manual. Nor is the editor committed to every statement in his book.

The admirable paper in the Appendix on the Music of “The English Church” has been contributed by the Rev. Thomas Helmore, MA, to whose kindness and courtesy the editor owes much.

The valuable paper on Floral Decorations was furnished for the Appendix by the Rev. John Oakley, B.A.

The editor must also express his obligations to the Rev. John Jebb, MA, Rector of Peterstow, for valuable information, and for permission (for which thanks are also due to Mr. Parker, his publisher,) to incorporate some extracts from his work on “The Choral Service of the Church” into the text. These passages occur in Parr. 133, 136.

Great use has been made of that well-known, correct, and most useful publication, “The Churchman’s Diary.” Indeed it has formed the basis of the Directorium, and the permission to make this use of it adds another obligation to many which are due to its editor.

And here it is proper to add an expression of thanks to J. W. Hallam, Esq., for the unwearied pains which he took in illustrating this Manual; it is needless for the editor to commend either the beauty or the ecclesiastical correctness of the drawings.

The illustration of the Priest veiled for “Holy Communion” is from a brass

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in the possession of the Rev. F. G. Lee, who is most anxious to restore it to the church, from which it has been severed, if such can be discovered.

The portion of the present English Rite, which the frontispiece is intended to illustrate, is the ascent of the Priest and Sacred Ministers to the midst of the Altar, before the celebrant takes up his position at the north-side of the Altar, and the Epistoler and Gospeller go to their respective steps,* immediately before the singing of the Introit.

The editor, on behalf of the compilers, of all and any who have aided in putting together these pages, and of himself, commends this Manual to the care of Almighty GOD, trusting He will deign to bless it to His glory, and to the edification of His Church.

+ DEO GRATIAS.

ORWELL RECTORY,

Monday in Easter Week, A.S. 1858.

P.S.—Since the compilation of the Directorium Anglicanum, the Judgment of the Privy Council in the matter of the Churches of S. Paul and S. Barnabas has been delivered (on March 21st, 1857,)—a decision for which we must all be grateful, not only as setting at rest a vexata quæstio but as securing to those who love “the beauty of holiness” the unmolested use of lawful church ornaments,—though far be it from the advocates of Ritual and Ceremonial according to the use of the Church of England, to force the maximum of statutable ornaments upon those who are contented to abide by the minimum, or to advise the revival of all the minutiæ of ritual detail which were practised in mediæval times. It would not have been right, however, to have omitted them in such a treatise as the present. And it is a source of great satisfaction to the editor to find that he has only one unimportant matter to alter in consequence of that Judgment, viz., that “the fair white linen cloth” put upon the altar at the Communion-time must not be edged with lace, or adorned with embroidery,† as it is directed to be at p. 25. The Judgment, however, does not prohibit lace, embroidery, and colour on the “linen cloth” used for covering what remains of the Blessed Sacrament after the communion of Priest and people.

J. P.

* See Appendix, p. 169, Directions for Deacon and Subdeacon.

† Embroidery is that particular kind of work which entirely covers the surface of the original material. Every kind of work is not embroidery.