minister of the Church of England avoid the Romish position, and quotes Gauden, and Nicholls and L'Estrange, but it simply states they were mistaken. On what grounds, or for what reasons, or on what contemporaneous evidence, it does not allege, nor does it offer even the semblance of an argument. It simply repudiates the idea with scorn, and using almost the only vigorous language in the whole Judgment, it says "their unhistorical idea of a protest against Rome guided their judgments in favour of standing at the north-end." Surely English Churchmen who know anything of their Prayer Book, to say nothing of the history of the Reformation of the Church of England, can only receive with amazement the authoritative pronouncement that such a thing as "protest against Rome" must be kept away from the interpretation of the history of the formularies. of the Church of England which were adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that such rubrics as the black rubric at the end of the Communion Office, and the 22nd, and 25th, and 28th, and 31st Articles of Religion, and the works of Latimer, and Cranmer, and Jewel, and Grindal, and Becon, are to be interpreted as having no reference whatsoever to the teaching and practice of the Church of Rome. Not only does the Court say that their idea of a rubric in the Church of England being framed as a protest against Rome was unhistorical, but it follows it by the assertion that “ their are fallacious," and the defences they set up "erroneous." Wherein their reasons were fallacious, or on what grounds their defences are erroneous, the Court again does not answer. These Churchmen lived in the times; their exposition has the strongest of all force, the force of contemporary exposition, and they were unanimous in giving as the reason for the north-side rubric the purposed avoidance of the Romish altar-ward position; yet the Court without the slightest allegation of counter-evidence, with an apparent reasons stet pro ratione voluntas brevity, declares a century or so of unanimous and authoritative Church opinion to be fallacious and erroneous. They complain, in the next place, that the Court in stating that "the north-end became the generally used position and is beyond question a true liturgical use formed, not by enactment, but by use," not only contradicts the statements of former Church authorities but cuts away from the very root the principles of rubrical interpretation. For if the north-side (in the language of the Court, the north-end) is only a true liturgical use, where are Churchmen to look for the other liturgical positions, and where is the enactment or enactments that define them? The Prayer Book, the Canons, and the Articles have no enactment with regard to the other true liturgical positions. And as to the north-end position, that is, standing on the north of the table facing southwards, not at the west-side, either in the middle or any part of it, with back to the people, the position of every Churchman, high or low (with two admitted exceptions), to the end of the seventeenth century, even so high a Churchman as Heylin, says that the reason of the enactment in 1552 was "Where should the minister stand to discharge his duty? Not in the middle of the altar, as was appointed in the Liturgy of King Edward, anno 1549. That was disliked, and altered in the service book of 1552."-Antidotum Lincolniense, I.-56. The unquestionable reason of the "use seems only to be found in the "enactment"; in other words, the Prayer Book said north-side, and the clergy obeyed. They complain, in the last place, that the Court should sustain its argument by the citation of a number of instances, more or less doubtful, from engravings of clergy celebrating the Holy Communion in a position other than on the north of the table facing southwards. In the first place, because those, regarding the position of the book, are of no value whatsoever, the book in some cases being the Bible; in the next place, because out of all the engravings mentioned only four show the officiating clergyman standing at any portion of the west-side of the table, and of these not one shows him standing altar-wards with his back to the people, and all of them have him so turning his body as to have his face to the people; and in the third place, and chiefly, because a few pictures from a stray book here and there can hardly be considered to prove anything.* The action or the private opinion of an individual, or a few individuals, or perhaps, for aught we know, an irresponsible printer or engraver, in this or any age, has nothing whatever to do with the correctness of any particular ritual, and still less with the legality of the ritual of the Church. Not a single engraving, it is alleged has yet been found which shows a celebrant facing eastward with his back to the people during the Ante-Communion Service, but even if there were a dozen or fifty such it would prove nothing whatever with regard to the law of the Church. The reasoning of the Court seems to be that the legality of a practice or position is secured by the fact of somebody or other having practised or taken it, and somebody else having made an engraving of the same. It is certain that the semi-Popish celebrations of the Holy Communion in gorgeous chasuble, and altar-wards postures, represent, in the English Church to-day, to use the language of the Court, no unknown manner of arrangement and celebrating"; it is equally certain that these Romish eucharistic practices are "tolerated by persons of such character" as prelates and dignitaries of the Church. 66 * See Tomlinson's “Examination of the 'historical grounds' of the Lambeth Judgment." J. F. Shaw & Co. Also his "New Light on the Eastward Position." 66 It is impossible, therefore, if we are to follow the line of reasoning established by the Court, to avoid the conclusion that any Ritualistic practice whatsoever is not illegal and is "A" true liturgical use of the Church if it can only be shown that certain bishops or ministers of the Church have indulged in it, or that certain service books and manuals contained pictures in which it was represented. Such, in brief, is their complaint as churchmen with regard to this most unsatisfactory deliverance. A plain positive enactment in good plain English-the north-side of the table is declared not to mean what it says, or, in fact, to mean anything in particular at all; a good plain reason, the unanimous reason of Churchmen of all sorts for generations —to avoid the Romish sacrificial position, is declared to be a fallacious, and erroneous and unhistorical idea; the departure from what was the universal practice of all English Churchmen, High Churchmen and Low Churchmen (with a couple of possible exceptions) up till the eighteenth century, is now declared to be "not illegal" because certain Churchmen about the year 1710 "introduced the whim of consecrating the Holy Eucharist with back turned to the people" along with the Romish doctrine of "the Holy Eucharist being a proper material sacrifice," and a few extreme Churchmen followed their example; and the belief of thousands and ten thousands of Church divines of all schools, and Churchmen of every kind for over three centuries, that the Eastward position was abolished by the Church of England to obliterate the Romish doctrine of the Mass sacrifice, and that adoption of the Eastward position was a sign of belief in the erroneous system of altar-wards worship is declared to be a mistake, because, in spite of the express statements of great Church writers, High and Low, and the traditions of the Church of England since the days of the Reformation, the Court declares that in its opinion none of the positions assumed (meaning chiefly, of course, the Eastward or altar-wards position) "convey any intrinsic error, or erroneous shade of doctrine." We may be wrong, but we think the day is coming which will show that the deliverance of the Lambeth Court of 1890, was not" the teaching of the English Church, but only the opinion of a school." 3. THE SO-CALLED ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. (CHAP. IV., P. 53.) This is perhaps the most difficult of all the difficulties in the Prayer Book, and I do not pretend for a moment to solve it completely. All that I can do is to endeavour to explain it as clearly as possible for the reader who cares to follow its rather involved history. There it stands in the very forefront of the Prayer Book, as a direction before the order for morning and evening prayer. 66 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 VI.” On the surface there appears to be only one conclusion. In the second year of the reign of King Edward VI., the ornaments of the minister, and of the Church were unquestionably of a Romish character, for there seems to be no manner of doubt as to the association of the wearing of the alb and chasuble with the Mass, and the use of these so-called sacrificial or specially eucharistic vestments was ordered or permitted by the First Prayer Book of Edward. Every minister of the Church of England, therefore, who does not at all times of ministering wear vestments like those |