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 rubric of 1559, had no idea of legalizing any vestments other than those in customary use under the Advertisements, and the canons (cf. Report of sub-committee of Convocation, pp. 48, 49). The law, then, is perfectly clear, so far as two decisions of the highest court in the realm can make it so. But apart from the fact that the authority of the Privy Council, as not being a “spiritual” court, is denied by many of the clergy, no one claims that its decisions are irreversible in the light of fresh evidence.

Thirty years after the Ridsdale judgment, the ritual confusion in the Church of England was worse than ever, and the old ideal expressed in the Acts of Uniformity had given place to a desire to sanctify with some sort of authority the parochial “uses” which had grown up. In this respect the dominant opinion in the Church, intent on compromise, seems to have been expressed in the Report presented in 1908 to the convocation of the province of Canterbury by the sub-committee of five bishops appointed to investigate the matter, namely, that under the Ornaments Rubric the vestments prescribed in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. are permitted, if not enjoined. Even if this be so, the question arises, what vestments were prescribed in the Prayer Book of 1549? It has been commonly assumed, and the assumption has been translated into practice, that the rubrics of 1549 prescribed the use of all the old “mass vestments.” This, however, is not the case. In the short rubric before the communion service the celebrating priest is directed to “put upon him a white alb plain with a vestment or cope,” while the assisting priests or deacons are to wear “albs with tunicles.” In the additional explanatory notes at the end of the book, after directions as to the wearing of surplice and hood in quire, in cathedral and collegiate churches (they are not made obligatory elsewhere), bishops are directed to wear, besides the rochet, a surplice or alb, and a cope or vestment, with a pastoral staff borne either by themselves or their chaplains. Thus the alternative use of cope or chasuble (vestment) is allowed at the celebration of Holy Communion—an obvious compromise; of the amice, girdle (cingulum), maniple and stole there is not a word, and the inference to be drawn is that these were now disused. The cingulum, indeed, which symbolized chastity (i.e. celibacy), would naturally have been discarded now that the clergy were allowed to marry, while the stole had become intimately associated with the doctrine of holy orders elaborated by the medieval schoolmen and rejected by the Reformers (see ). If this be so, the case is exactly parallel with that of the Lutheran Churches which, about the same time, had discarded all the “mass vestments” except the alb and chasuble. It becomes, then, a question whether the present-day practice of many of the clergy, ostensibly based on the rubric of 1549, is in fact covered by this. The revived use of the stole is the most curious problem involved; for this, originally due to a confusion of. this vestment with the traditional Anglican black scarf, has now become all but universal among the clergy of all schools of thought (see ).

The five bishops in their Report, tracing the various vestments to their origins, conclude that they are meaningless in themselves, and therefore things indifferent. This appears gravely to misread history. The chasuble and the rest, whatever their origin, had become associated during the middle ages with certain doctrines the rejection of which at the Reformation was symbolized by their disuse. Their revival has proceeded pari passu with that of the doctrines with which they have long since become associated. With the truth or falsehood of these doctrines we are not here concerned; but that the revived vestments are chiefly valued because of their doctrinal significance the clergy who use them would be the last to deny. Nor is the argument that they are a visible manifestation of the continuity of the Church anything but a double-edged weapon; for, as Father Braun pertinently asks, if these be their symbolism, Of what was their disuse in the Church of England for nigh on 300 years a symbol?

In 1910 the question of the “permissive use of vestments,” in connexion with that of the revision of the Prayer Book generally, was still under discussion in the convocations of the two provinces. But there was little chance that any change in the rubric, even in the improbable event of its receiving the sanction of parliament, would produce any appreciable effect. It is often forgotten that “extreme” ritual is no longer an “ innovation ” in the English Church; it has become the norm in a large number of parishes, and whole generations of Church people have grown up to whom it is the only familiar type of Christian worship. To attempt to “ enforce the law ” (whatever the law may be) would, therefore, seriously wound the consciences of a large number of people who are quite unconscious of having broken it. Formally to legalize the minimum enjoined by the rubrics of 1549 would, on the other hand, offend the “Protestant” section of the Church, without reconciling those who would be content with nothing short of the Catholic maximum.