PREFACE.

HEN we open the Prayer Book at the beginning of Morning Prayer we are met by two paragraphs on the left hand page, full fronting us

and the service, headed :

THE ORDER FOR

MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER,

DAILY TO BE SAID AND USED THROUGHOUT

THE YEAR.

The Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in the accustomed Place of the Church, Chapel, or Chancel; except it fhall be otherwife determined by the Ordinary of the Place. And the Chancels fhall remain as they have done in times past.

And here is to be noted, that fuch Ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers

B

thereof, at all times of their Ministration, fhall be retained, and be in ufe, as were in this Church of England, by the Authority of Parliament, in the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth.

A very plain and fimple note, fo plain that he may run that readeth it: fo fimple that a child who has heard of Edward the Sixth may underftand it-encumbered by no reservation, watered down by no qualification or alternative: clear, precife, diftinct, authoritative; affirmative, as the last commandment of the Firft Table, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day;" pofitive as the first commandment of the Laft Table, "Honour thy father and thy mother;' brief, pithy, and prudent, confirming the past, directing for the future. As was the Church ornamented, furnished, and provided with inftruments and utenfils for fervice, and as were the minifters vefted in their habits and other appointments in the SECOND year of King Edward the Sixth, which was the year ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT, fo are the churches to be ornamented and the ministers "dreffed" in this prefent year, one thoufand eight hundred and feventy-feven, by STATUTE XIV. CAROL. II. in other words, by confent of Con

vocation and by Act of Parliament, in the fourteenth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, being the year of our Lord one thousand fix hundred and fixty-two.

What was Church Law as to ornaments of churches and ornaments of the minifters thereof in 1548, is and is to be Church Law in England in 1877 and the years to come, until, with confent of Convocation, and by Act of Parliament, the Statute of Uniformity in general, and this special enactment in particular, be altered, waived, or repealed. More frequently published for the last two hundred and fifteen years, and better known than any portion of any other statute in the whole range of enactments, there ftands, and for centuries has ftood, that brief paragraph of five lines in the fealed book ordering the whole scheme of objective Service in the Church of England, and pointing to the SECOND YEAR of King Edward the Sixth, the year 1548, as exhibiting its exemplar in those particulars, and its authority for their obfervance. What your forefathers did in 1548 you are to do now; what was re-enacted for the laft time, and with plenary authority in 1662, is in full vigour as law and ftatute now.

Where is there one word, fyllable, or hint throughout the whole act, where, in any fection, paragraph, or rubric, in ftatute, or book, from

the first leaf to the last, one semblance of direction to the contrary? To the year 1548, the second of King Edward the Sixth, all point as to the law and to the testimony.

Nor was 1548, the fecond year of King Edward, marked out or taken as a teft at haphazard, nor by chance and idle fancy. The refolve of Convocation and Parliament to make the ornament standard of that especial year the current and ever-continuing standard for the outward adorning of the church and its ministers, was a refolution of grave importance, that reached them by a written tradition of above a hundred years ftanding, renewed and repeated from time to time, framed by the niceft judgment for the beft of reafons.

For in that year, 1548, the fecond year of King Edward the Sixth, was first felt and witneffed the effect of the King's injunctions of the foregoing year, 1547, in removing from churches, and chancels as parts of churches, whatever was held to be wrong or objectionable, and therefore, as was thought, no ornament but the contrary; and in retaining all ornaments deemed decent and proper for worfhip; as, for example, by fpecial commandment, the two lights to burn before the bleffed Sacrament, and the ornaments or veftments of the minifters. In this there was a fitnefs which

approved itself to their common sense, and on this they founded their rubrick, or rule of direction, affirming their deliberate choice of year by act of Parliament, and fo confirming it by statute for ever. Hence and thenceforth its republication a thousand thousand times (for furely all this printing and reprinting could not be intended to prove after all but a hollow and wordy farce); and hence, too, its continuance for 215 years in the forefront of the Order of Common Prayer, where we find it now as at the firft, with its finger on 1548, the fecond year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, as a rule of Church order paramount.

But ftrong as it was, this injunction of ornament was by no means the only reason for their deliberate election of 1548 as the ftandard year for ornament from 1559 downward to 1662, and from 1662 to our day. I find it as in the copy of the fealed book fo alfo in the latest Prayer Book with the newest Lesson Table. Why this unanimous consent in favour of the chofen year 1548? For the strong reason above stated, and for one little lefs operative upon the mind of Convocation and of Parliament.

The fecond year of King Edward the Sixth was fignalized not only by the ordering of the ornaments, the main point no doubt of the queftion to them of 1662 in a matter concerning orna