Page:The Parson's Handbook - 2nd ed.djvu/35

Rh time also with changes in the services themselves of a strongly Catholic character. So far from its being inserted carelessly, or from a mere regard for its antiquity, the Puritans formally objected to it at the Savoy Conference—


 * ‘Forasmuch as this Rubric seemeth to bring back the Cope, Albe, etc., and other vestments forbidden by the Common Prayer Book, 5 and 6 Edw. vi. [that of 1552, which was cancelled in 1553], and so our reasons alleged against ceremonies under our eighteenth general exception, we desire that it may be wholly left out.’

To this the Bishops replied, ‘We think it fit that the Rubric continue as it is.’ And they issued it most conspicuously with a page to itself, an arrangement which the printers have tampered with.

Thus, then, the fact that the ornaments had not in fact been ‘retained’ (for the churches had been spoiled, and the remnants of their ornaments abolished during the Commonwealth ) was not regarded as in the least preventing them being revived so that they should be ‘in use.’ Yet it has been sometimes urged, with more ingenuity than ingenuousness, that we ought not now to use those of the ornaments which became obsolete, because obsolete things cannot be retained. The Revisers deliberately referred back to the year 1548, because they considered that by that year enough had been abolished, and that those ornaments which remained were not incongruous with the reformed service. They must, too, have known that the times were not yet ripe for this complete restoration, for they did not try to enforce more than the former minimum of decency required. They therefore insisted on inserting the Rubric, because they felt the importance of preserving to the Church her ancient heritage of beauty and splendour, and