the celebrant should wear a white albe plain with a vestment or cope; and further that a Bishop when celebrating should wear besides his rochet a surplice or albe and a cope or vestment. The last-mentioned rubric was swept away by the 2nd Prayer Book of Edwd. VI., which directed that neither alb, vestment, nor cope should be used. Stat. 1 Eliz. cap. 2, sec. 13, directed that the ornaments, &c., of the 2nd year of Edwd. VI. should be retained until other order be taken by the authority of the Queen. The question lately arose whether "other order" was taken by the Injunctions of 1559, the Advertisements of 1564-5, or the Canons; and this was considered at great length by the Final Court, on Mr. Ridsdale's appeal, and was decided in the affirmative.

In the case of Mr. Purchas the Dean of Arches held, having regard to the decisions in the cases of Mr. Liddell and Mr. Mackonochie, that the vestments referred to by the first Prayer Book of Edw. VI. were lawful, but that some other vestments worn by Mr. Purchas were not lawful. In the latter category were copes at morning or evening prayer, tippets, stoles, dalmatics, and maniples. This judgment was reversed by the Judicial Committee P. C. (Mr. Purchas not appearing), which held that the Statute of Elizabeth and the rubric of 1662 did not restore the use of the vestments of the first book of King Edw. VI., and that the directions of the Canons of 1603 were binding. The result was, that the cope was declared to be the lawful vestment of the celebrant in cathedrals and collegiate churches, and the surplice the only lawful vestment at all other services and in all other churches.

Thus stood the law when the case of Mr. Ridsdale came before Lord Penzance in the Court of Arches, and afterwards on appeal before the Final Court. The judgment of the Court below was adverse to Mr. Ridsdale on many points; but his appeal was brought in respect of four of the points only, one of them being the wearing during the Holy Communion ser

vice of the vestments known as alb and chasuble, and another being the "eastward position" while saying the Prayer of Consecration. As to these two charges Lord Penzance regarded himself as simply following the decisions of the Final Court in the case of Mr. Purchas. The Final Court, notwithstanding the last-mentioned decision, allowed these points to be re-opened and re-argued, on the ground that Mr. Purchas's case had not been presented to the Court which decided against him. As the judgment in Mr. Ridsdale's Case appears at the end of this volume, it is unnecessary to refer to it further than to say that it re-affirmed the conclusions previously arrived at, with this result, that excepting in cathedral and collegiate churches, where the cope should be used during the celebration, the surplice is the only legal vestment for all ministrations in the Church of England.

So far as the vestments were concerned, this judgment was but the re-affirmation of a rule laid down in the previous case. A second branch of the judgment, and on the whole one in which the clergy at large took a deeper interest, affected the position of the celebrant. Here the decision had also been adverse to Mr. Purchas; and here again, on the ground that no arguments had been addressed to the Final Court on his side of the case, the question was allowed to be re-opened. There was this evident distinction, so far as the historical retrospect was concerned, that while the vestments had been disused for a long series of years, the "eastward position" had always been adopted by many living clergymen, who in this had but followed the example of their predecessors. It was admitted on all hands that it was difficult, if not impossible, under existing circumstances, to put a rational construction on the terms "before the table" and "before the people." The result was, as in the cases of Mr. Gorham and Mr. Bennett, to give increased freedom to the clergy. The Final Court decided, after long argument and much consideration,

that the words of the rubric are not such as to exclude the "eastward position." Practically, a clergyman is free to adopt that position, so long as there is no design of keeping the "manual acts" out of the sight of the people. In other words, the communicants being entitled to see the manual acts, there must be no effort to render those acts invisible. With this qualification the eastward position is finally declared to be not contrary to law; while those of the clergy who stand on the north side of the Holy Table may have the satisfaction of feeling that theirs is the more exact and literal compliance with the law.

*

It was decided in the case of Mr Mackonochie that the celebrant is to say the whole of the Prayer of Consecration "standing before the table," that any change of posture during that prayer is contrary to law. "The directions contained in the Book of C. P. must be strictly observed: no omission and no addition can be permitted."

On this principle, the use of incense, whether during the service or as preparatory to it, was declared illegal by the Court of Arches, first in the case of Mr. Mackonochie, and afterwards in the case of Mr. Wix. Other ceremonies and usages, some of them “ancient, innocent, and pleasing," to use the words of Sir R. Phillimore, were also condemned in the case of Mr. Purchas.†

Amongst the charges against Mr. Mackonochie was that of elevating the elements after the consecration. It was proved that without turning round to the

*The term "north side seems to have been well understood in the last century, as it occurs frequently in the office for consecration of churches, the Coronation Service, and Communion office following.

66

†The details of the very elaborate ritual at St. James's, Brighton, which included the sign of the cross as a ceremony," kissing the book of the gospel, the ringing of a bell, the use of holy water or water previously blessed, etc., appear in the Reports, and in Phill. Eccl. Law, p. 985 et seq., also in the 'Churchwarden's Guide,' 9th edit. p. 71.

people he "elevated the paten and the cup respectively for an appreciable time." This practice was discontinued before the suit was instituted; but it was considered unlawful, and he was admonished not to recur to it. Art. 28 declares that the Sacrament was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

Can. 27 directs that the communicants shall kneel, the reason for which direction is given by the rubric at the end of the Communion Office.

The administration of the cup to the laity is directed by stat. I Edw. 6, cap. I, sec. 8; also by Article 30.

By the rubric, and also by Can. 21, it is prescribed that parishioners shall communicate thrice in the year, one occasion to be Easter.

Several cases of high importance on the construction of such of the Articles and rubrics as touch on the Holy Communion, have in late years come before the Courts. The case of Archdeacon Denison* is of small legal importance, as the ultimate decision did not turn on the merits of the case, but on a technical point, viz., that there had been a lapse of time sufficient to bar the investigation. Several years later, a litigation arose out of three publications by Rev. W. J. E. Bennett.† In the Court of Arches it was decided, that in the first edition of his pamphlet, Mr. Bennett, by his language as to the "visible presence," and the adoration of the elements, had contravened the law of the Church; but that certain other publications by him, describing the mode of presence as objective, real, actual, and ŝpiritual, were not contrary to the law. In these particulars, Mr. Bennett was

* Exp. Denison, 4 Ell. & B. 292; Denison v. Ditcher, Deane & Sw. Eccl. Rep. 334; Ditcher v. Denison, 11 Moo. P. C. Rep. 324.

† Sheppard v. Bennett, L. Rep. 3 A. & Eccl. 167 ; on appeal, L. Rep. 4 P. C. 350 and 371; Phill. Eccl. Law, 691, and Addenda, 70.

held not to have exceeded "the liberty accorded to clergymen in cases where the formularies are not express, imperative, and susceptible of but one interpretation." On appeal, the Judicial Committee P.C. rejected the proposition that the objective, actual, and real presence was the doctrine which the formularies of the Church intended to maintain; while it adopted the other proposition of Sir R. Phillimore, the Dean of Arches, that to describe the mode of presence as objective, real, actual, and spiritual, was not contrary to the law of the English Church. The result of this most important decision is that there is greater freedom of opinion and of teaching. It may be said, that there is liberty to the clergy to hold any view of the Sacrament, or of the Presence in the Sacrament, which falls short of the theory of transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of the elements. That is in terms excluded by Art. 28, which does not, however appear to be aimed against the Lutheran view of the presence in the Holy Communion.

Vide ALMS: ALTAR: CHALICE: LIGHTS: MI

NISTER.

Consecration.

There is some evidence that in the early centuries the piece of ground on which it was intended to build a church was consecrated by a special religious service (Phill. Eccl. Law, p. 1761): but there is no evidence that a service resembling our service for the "consecration of a church" was in ancient times performed; and the consecration of the old or ante-reformation church structures cannot in general be proved. That the “consecration of churches" is really a modern service appears from this, that the Ecclesiastical Law makes no provision whatever for it, the details of such service being wholly left to the discretion of the Bishop. In the year 1712 a form of consecration of churches, &c., was drawn up and agreed to by Convocation [of