Page:The Parson's Handbook - 2nd ed.djvu/28

12 of the Church of England, and hoping that in time newfangledness in apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do constitute and appoint, that the Archbishops and Bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degrees.’

The third preface, ‘Of Ceremonies, why some be retained, and some abolished,’ is also probably by Cranmer. In the First Book it was placed at the end, and was followed by ‘certain notes’ which ordered the use of certain vestments to be mentioned later, and, after the example of the old Missals, allowed of the omission of the Gloria, Creed, etc. on some occasions. The ceremonies it speaks of as abolished could not, at least, be the use of those vestments, nor such things as Unction and Mass for the dead, which were ordered in that Book; nor those which were allowed in that Book, ‘kneeling, crossing, holding up of the hands, knocking upon the breast, and other gestures.’

What ceremonies, then, were abolished? Clearly, it could be only those which were abolished by the authority of the Church. Mr. Perry long ago pointed out that those characteristic acts of Tudor tyranny, the Injunctions of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, ‘were grounded on the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown, a prerogative which did not in reality confer upon the sovereign a right to make laws for the Church, and which was not even by authority of Parliament.’ As to what ceremonies were abolished the preface is studiously vague. There is no hint of any revolutionary change in ritual, though there is a wholesome reminder of the fact that ‘Christ’s Gospel is not a ceremonial law.’ It is assumed throughout that only those ceremonies have been changed which the rubrics of the Book explicitly claim to have changed.