'1 ,1 I'P' J,, I i' J, ,, I,, I I 1 II I •i\'':yv^uLt}'tir< t., BOUGHT WITH THE INCOMK FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W, Sage 1891 ^..ilJ.XlJ ot6.fx|.^t- 3777 BR758 LsT*" ""'™''*">' "-'""^ ^"^iiMiiiiimiMHi!? ''■°'" •''« restoration olin 3 1924 029 263 047 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029263047 ENGLISH CHURCH LIFE FROM 1660 TO 1833 BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE POPULAR USE OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED An Examination of some Prevalent Opinions Crown 8vo, paper covers, is. net ; cloth, is. 6d. net. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA S-rricyvfUJaUl^ Qh,. . fJlohcrl . \cbvii S'rcrmy the l^mi nlt'nq bn (Jir(j.Jtt-ieU.eritt flip .Si^il lri,in J^-rn rii.C :i-:'ri~tl ENGLISH CHURCH LIFE FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS NEGLECTED OR FORGOTTEN FEATURES BY T. WICKHAM LEGG FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE CANTERBURY HOUSE OF LAYMEN VIXERE FORTES ANTE AGAMEMNONA WITH FRONTISPIECE LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA I914 TO THE HONOURED MEMORY OF THE REVEREND ALBERT BARFF, M.A. Vicar of St. Giles' Cripplegate AND Prebendary of St. Paul's THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED IN GRATITUDE FOR THE SUGGESTION THAT THIS RESEARCH SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF A LONG AND DELIGHTFUL FRIENDSHIP. PREFACE. In the following chapters it is not intended to present to the reader a complete history of the Church of England from 1660 to 1833. The aim in view is rather to draw attention to points that have been hitherto but little dealt with by writers, and thus remain unnoticed, and out of mind ; and especially to emphasize the existence in the period of practices and ideas in which it has been often assumed that the time was most wanting, but of which a great part of the period shows a marked persistence. The school of Hammond and Thorndike, Pearson and Wheatly, was influential over a far greater extent of time than is commonly thought. It is hoped that as a result of the investigation set out in these pages, reason may be seen for a revision of many of the popular opinions concerning our period, and the judgements that have come from many and very different quarters may prove in some cases to have been pronounced without sufficient historical foundation, and to be, perhaps, overbold and unbalanced. Few things in history are more striking than the una- nimity of writers in denunciation of our period. We are told that the eighteenth century was a time of "general decay of religion," of " a poisoning of the blood," or " a black spot on the shining history of England ". The least in- jurious reproaches are accusations of slovenliness, sloth, "marasmus," and on the part of the clergy of attention only to fees and preferment. Some of these attacks have been made by men belonging to the Church of England, made, vm PREFACE. most likely, in good faith, but of late to be traced to a mere following of the multitude and of the prejudices and fashion of the day. Perhaps there was a leaning on the part of the writers of the nineteenth century and of the Victorian epoch to plume themselves on the supposed excellency of their own age, as an age of "progress," "enlightenment," etc. The lustre of the age in which they wrote would be heightened by darkening the age which went immediately before. The friends of the Church of England thus combining to blacken its history, it is not to be looked for that the Roman Catholic controversialist should be slow to take advantage of so promising a situation. The supporters of the Anglican establishment, he cries, "are just able here and there to lay their finger upon a single thread of orthodox testimony which absolutely invisible in the storm of the Reformation shines out for a moment among the Caroline divines, and then once again under Victoria "} Attacked thus by his hereditary enemies,^ the churchman may be glad of assistance in showing that something more than "a single thread" of orthodox testimony "shone out" for a moment in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, or that something better than a complete indifference to duties, or a gross neglect of them, prevailed from 1660 to 1833. It may prove a hard saying to those who hug themselves in the belief that all virtue began in the nine- teenth century, but it may still be true that men did their duty before the days of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Such an attempt as this, to upset opinions widely held, must show good reason for its being. In the following pages, therefore, the writers of the period have been allowed 1 H. Ignatius DudJey Ryder, Catholic Controversy, Burns and Oates, no date, tenth edition, conclusion, p. 256, 2 " It had to confront the Roman authority, now turned into the most implacable and aggressive of deadly enemies." (R. W. Church, on Bishop Andrewes, in Pascal and other Sermons, Macmillan, 1896, p. 71.) PREFACE. ix to speak for themselves, and to express their own opinions and to give their own facts. This may be but a dull way of writing history ; it gives no opportunity for brilliant general- izations, for drawing insecure deductions, or for showing off the fine style. The reader must be prepared for disjointed and clumsy work. Moreover, the work is frankly an attack on certain positions almost generally admitted, and thus not unnaturally a feeling of annoyance will arise, if Dr. Johnson's dictum be true that most men are unwilling to be tauofht. But a cold way of dealing with this subject may possibly be more satisfying and attractive to scholars than the eloquence of an advocate determined to see in the matter before him nothing but the view in which he has been brought up. It will perhaps be noticed that not only the influential authors of the period have been brought forward, but also the lesser, the almost forgotten writers and pamphleteers of the time, have been quoted ; even the evidence of play- wrights and novelists has not been neglected. These latter writers bear witness to the spread of opinions below the leaders, and to their permanence and vogue among the people. All the material met with has not been presented. Con- siderations of space have constantly been held in view ; but it is hoped that enough will have been placed before the reader to justify the position taken up at the beginning of this preface : that the influence of the school of Thorndike and Hammond lasted much longer into our period than is commonly allowed. It may be proper perhaps to say something of the causes which led me to take up what churchmen have so often been told is for them an unattractive field of study. By some chance there fell under my notice a copy of Paterson's Pietas Londinensis, a book which gives a record of the services in London churches in 17 14. I remember then (it was before the end of the last century) being exhorted by X PREFACE. the Rev. Albert Barff, whose parish of St. Giles' Cripple- gate is now mourning the loss of a devoted pastor, to look more closely into the history of the eighteenth century, where I might find something that would repay attention. Next, by the kindness of the Vicar of Bledlow, then the Rev. Stephen Pritchett, I became acquainted with the manuscript Inventory of the Parish Church of Bledlow, drawn up in 1783. This proved indeed worthy of attention and it was published about 1905 in the Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society. It confirmed Mr. Barfif's opinion that the history of the eighteenth century was worth looking into by churchmen, in spite of all that Mr. Mark Pattison and many others may have said of it. But unless I had been encouraged to go on with this study by a dear friend, the Right Reverend William Edward Collins, Bishop of Gibraltar, now with God, I doubt if the grace of perseverance would have been given me. Had I not received his commendation for what I had begun I might easily have been dissuaded from continuing in the work by the greatness of the task and the feebleness of my own powers. The Rev. Dr. B. J. Kidd has added to his many acts of kindness another ; and he has given himself the more than usually troublesome work of reading and correcting some of the chapters in manuscript. Further, I have en- joyed the immense advantage of the advice of the Rev. Henry Austin Wilson, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who undertook the laborious task of reading through the proofs, and has thus saved me from many an error and misjudgement. And Mr. T. Gambier-Parry, who daily gives me help in the Bodleian Library, has increased the obligations of the readers of this book to him by furnishing the elaborate index which I do not doubt they will find invaluable. With loan of books, help in libraries, and in many other ways, I have been encouraged by the Venerable the Archdeacon of Northamp- ton ; the Rev. Douglas Macleane, Prebendary of Sarum ; the Rev. George Horner; the Rev. Herbert Salter; and PREFACE. XI the Rev. Claude Jenkins ; to all of whom I am glad of this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness. Lastly, I would offer my sincere thanks to Bodley's Librarian, Mr. Falconer Madan, for the facilities afforded in the reproduction of the portrait of Robert Nelson which forms the frontispiece to this present work. J. WICKHAM LEGG. Oxford, J^eb. 20, 1914. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Preface Symbols Editions CHAPTER I. PAGE vii xviii xix Introduction . . . i Piety and Morality amongst the People . . .4 The Old High Church School . . 10 The Nonjurors ... . . 16 CHAPTER II. The Eucharist . . . .21 Frequency of Eucharist 22 Daily Celebration . . 25 Weekly Celebration . . . -30 Monthly Communion . . 35 Number of Communicants . . 37 Non-communicating Attendance . 41 Ceremonies in Worship . .41 Appendix on Use of Unexpected Words . . . . 45 CHAPTER III. The Eucharist {continued) . 48 Early Celebrations ..... 48 Communion while Fasting ... -So Mode of Communion . 56 Devotional Use oi Agnus Dei, etc. . 57 .<4w2^« at Moment of Communion . . . . 61 Mutual Salutation of Communicants ..... 63 Reverence to Altar after Service ... .64 Reservation of Eucharist . ....... 65 XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Opinions held as to Eucharist . . . . .66 The Eucharistic Sacrifice ...... -69 Value of " Table Prayers " -75 CHAPTER IV. Observance of the Dutv of Daily Service . . 77 As Recommended by Authority . . 79 As Offered by the Clergy . . 87 As Attended by the People . 94 Tables showing the Hours of Daily Prayer in London and Westminster 108 Appendix : Letter from a Gentleman of the Inns of Court complaining of the Mutilations of the Daily Service . . . . .111 CHAPTER V. The Church Building, Its Furniture and Decoration 119 Return of Decency after 1660 . 120 The Altar and its Furniture 126 Material of Altar 134 Altar Frontals 136 Altar Candlesticks •39 Branches . . . • 144 Use of Crosses, Pictures, etc. ... 14s Seats about Altar . ... 147 Litany Desk 149 Chancel Screens 149 Separation of Sexes . 150 Church Building 15' Free and Open Churches . • 154 Domestic Chapels 155 Oratories . ... 156 Appendix : Inventory of Bledlow at the Visitation in 1783 160 CHAPTER VI. Manners and Customs at Church and at Home . 164 Baptism 164 Respect to Betters . 168 Baring the Head in Church ■ 171 Exchange of Salutations . . . 172 Reverence made to the Altar • '73 Bowing at the Sacred Name • 177 Turning to the East at the Creed ■ 178 Turning to the East at Gloria Patri • 177 Gloria tibi Domine . . . 180 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE i8i 183 184 185 187 189 189 193 ■95 Appendix : Children's Service at Bath 202 Standing at the Gospel Kneeling at Prayers . Voluntaries during Service Organs Music Disturbing the Minister Sermons .... Unusual Practices . Funerals .... 211 221 227 228 CHAPTER VII. Observance of Church Seasons . . 203 Christmas . . . 203 Epiphany. . . . 209 Candlemas . 211 Lent . . Holy Week Maundy Thursday . . 223 Good Friday 224 Easter Rogations Keeping of Sunday . . 232 Appendices : The King's Maundy .... . . 247 Rogation Processions . -349 CHAPTER VIII. Discipline and Penance . . . 252 Discipline at the Beginning of Lent . 252 Degradation of Clergymen . 254 Excommunication . . . . 257 Public Penance before 1813 . . . -259 Private Confession practised by Individuals . 263 Private Confession recommended in Books of Devotion 267 Private Confession recommended by Divines . 270 Confessor to the King's Household . . 276 Appendix : Cases of Public Penance . . 278 CHAPTER IX. Church Societies . .281 Life in Community . . . . . 281 Guilds . . . 291 The Oxford Methodists . . . 297 The Truro Religious Society . 299 XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Societies for the Reformation of Manners . 301 S.P.C.K. and S.P.G., etc. . . -303 Theological Colleges ...... 304 Appendix : Rules of Dr. Horneck's Religious Society . . 308 Rules of the Religious Society at St. Giles' Cripplegate . 309 CHAPTER X. Prayers for the Faithful Departed and Invocation of Saints AND Angels . . 315 Invocation of Saints and Angels . 333 CHAPTER XI. Books of Prayer and Spiritual Reading : Adaptations 338 Popular Books of Prayer . 338 Prayers in Manuscript 342 Practice of adapting Roman Catholic Prayer Books 345 CHAPTER XII. Opinions in our Period on the Meaning of the Ornaments Rubric : with Some Account of the Vestments Actually Worn . 351 Dr. Theophilus Leigh's "Distinctive Vestment" 361 The Cope . . 369 The Alb 373 The Surplice 374 Outdoor Dress . 378 CHAPTER XIII. The Apostolical Succession and Constitution of the Church 382 Constitution of the Church 390 CHAPTER XIV. Attempts at a Better Understanding with some Continental Christians . . . 393 Attempted Reconciliation with Greeks 394 Correspondence with Calvinists . , 402 Correspondence with Lutherans . . 404 Attempts at Reunion with the West 406 Index 420 FRONTISPIECE. Robert Nelson From the pa.inti7ig by Sir G. Kneller in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. SYMBOLS. 1683 = [T. Seymour] Advice to the Readers of the Common Prayer, second edition, 1683. 1692 = A single sheet folio, second edition, Samuel Keble, 1692. Press Mark in the British Museum : 491, k. 4. (11). 1708 = A New View of London, published in two volumes in 1708, said to have been edited by Edward Hatton. The first volume was printed for R. Chis- well, A. and J. Churchill, T. Home, J. Nicholson, and R. Knaplock. The second volume for John Nicholson and R. Knaplock. 1714 = James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Joseph Downing for William Taylor, 1 714. 1824 = London Parishes, London, Jeffery, 1824. D.N.B. = Leslie Stephen, Dictionary of National Biography, London, Smith Elder, 1885. Epitome = Dictionary of National Biography, Index and Epitome, edited by Sidney Lee, London, Smith Elder, 1906. N.E.D. = A new English Dictionary on historical principles, ed. by James A. H. Murray, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888 — An obelus (+) after a word indicates that it is reproduced exactly as written or printed. EDITIONS. Catalogue (spoken of chiefly in Chapter IX.) = Either British Museum or Bod- leian catalogue of printed books, as now in use. Canons of 1604 = Edward Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. i. pp. 164 and 248. Evelyn (John), Diary of John Evelyn, Esq., ed. W. Brag and Henry B. Wheatley, London, Bickers, 1879, in four volumes. Fielding (Henry), Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, in ten volumes. Goldsmith (Oliver), Works, Globe ed., Macmillan, i86g. Johnson (Samuel), BoswelVs Life of Johnson and Tour to the Hebrides, ed. by George Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1887, in six volumes. Works, in fifteen volumes, Edinburgh, 1806. Lake (Edward), Officium Eucharisticum a preparatory service to a Devout and Worthy Reception of the Lord's Supper, Sixth Edition, London, Chr. Wilkinson, 1681. Imprimatur '\s AaX^d 1673. Paterson (James), Pietas Lo?idinensis : or, the present ecclesiastical state of London, London, W. Taylor, 17 14. Pope (Alexander), Poetical Works, Globe ed., A. W. Ward, 1869. Pepys = Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, ed. Braybrooke and Mynors Bright, London, Bickers, 1875, '" six volumes. The references are in most cases to the dates of the diary. Sparrow (Anthony), A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, London, Garthwait, i66i. 16°. Spectator = The Spectator, London, Tonson and Draper, 1747, in eight volumes, 80. Swift (Jonathan), Works, ed. Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 18 14, in nineteen volumes. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Mr. Mark Pattison opens his essay on the tendency of relig- ious thought in England from 1688 to 1750 with a quotation from Hallam. Material prosperity, says this latter writer, had never been greater in England than in the first years of the eighteenth century. Upon this Mr. Pattison remarks : This is the aspect which that period of history wears to the political philosopher. The historian of moral and religious progress, on the other hand, is under the necessity of depicting the same period as one of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of lang- uage — a day of ' rebuke and blasphemy '. Even those who look with suspi- cion on the contemporary complaints from the Jacobite clergy of ' decay of religion ' will not hesitate to say that it was an age destitute of depth or earnestness ; an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy was without insight, and whose public men were without character ; an age of ' light without love,' whose ' very merits were of the earth, earthy '. In this estimate the followers of Mill and Carlyle will agree with those of Dr. Newman. » ♦ * It is especially since the High Church movement commenced that the theology of the i8th century has become a byeword. The genuine Anglican omits that period from the history of the Church altogether. ^ It is satisfactory to find that material prosperity is not the very guide of life ; but it must be owned that a careful reading of Mr. Mark Pattison's essay does not discover the grounds which he had for attributing to the first half of the eighteenth century " decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of language''. It is unlucky that Deism, Socinianism, what is called Latitudinarianism, should have been also during this period, accord- ing to Mr. Pattison, equally predominant. A rash speculator upon Mr. Pattison's premises might be tempted to see cause and effect in Latitudinarianism and a low state of morals. iMark Pattison, Essays and Reviews, London, John W. Parker, i86o, p. 254. I 3 I NT ROD UC TION. We must then look elsewhere than in Mr. Mark Pattison's essay for the evidence which has led so many to declare our period to be the age of irreligion. He makes indeed a confession towards the end of his essay which does much to nullify his charge of decay of religion or rejection of Christianity. Outside the circle of ministers and privy councillors, politicians and parliament-men, he owns that Christianity had still a firm hold upon people. However a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of fashionable circles, it is clear that distinct disbelief of Christianity was by no means the general state of the public mind. The leaders of the Low-church and Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstanding the universal complaints of the High-church party of the prevalence of infidelity, it is obvious that this mode of thinking was confined to a very small section of society. ^ Agreeable to this view is the following passage from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. At this very minute there is a bill cooking up at a hunting seat in Norfolk to have not taken out of the commandments and clapped into the creed, the ensuing season of parliament. This bold attempt for the liberty of the subject is wholly projected by Mr. Walpole, who proposed it to the secret committee in his parlour. William Yonge seconded it, and answered for all his acquaintance voting right to a man. Dodington very gravely objected, that the obstinacy of human nature was such that he feared when they had positive commands to do so, perhaps people would not commit adultery and bear false witness against their neighbours with the readiness and cheerfulness they do at present.^ Montesquieu has been claimed as a witness for the entire dis- appearance of religion ; but it must be remembered that when in England he associated only with politicians. His companion in England was Lord Chesterfield, who is not likely to have led him into the classes outside politicians. Indeed his remarks seem to deal only with members of parliament. Thus he says : Point de religion en Angleterre ; quatre ou cinq de la Chambre des communes vont a la messe ou au sermon de la chambre, excepte dans les grandes occasions, oti Ton arrive de bonne heure. Si quelqu' un parle de religion, tout le monde se met a rire.^ His evidence must be received with a considerable amount of doubt whether he had a deep or thorough acquaintance with the 1 Mark Pattison, Essays and Reviews, p. 313. "^Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her times, London, Methuen, 1907, p. 315. 2 Montesquieu, Oeuvres completes, ed. Ed. Laboulaye, Paris, 1879, t. vii. Notes sur I'Angleterre, p. 195. INTRODUCTION. 3 opinions of the great majority of Englishmen ; and it may be re- garded accordingly. It is not fair to an age to take its politicians as its repre- sentatives in morals. Politicians are but ill examples of the better sort of men. The history of Athens and Rome may teach us that an Aristides or a Cato cannot be looked for in every generation, while characters like Sir Robert Walpole, or Lord Chesterfield, or inventors of "terminological inexactitudes" abound in all times. Politics must be like pitch, not to be handled without defilement. Mr. Huxley, with something of the self-satisfaction of the nineteenth century, has remarked its superiority to the eighteenth, so that nowadays Women of good repute do not gamble, and talk modelled upon Dean Swift's "Art of Polite Conversation" would be tolerated in no decent kitchen. Members of the legislature are not to be bought. ^ Mr. Huxley did not live into the twentieth century, or he would not have affirmed the first sentence of this paragraph ; and an almost exact reproduction of Swift's Polite Conversation was heard at the moment that Mr. Huxley was writing his address. I trust it is true that members of the legislature are not to be bought ; but ' a Political Agent ' has let us into some of the secrets of electioneering ; both political parties, he tells us, are so deeply involved that neither dares accuse the other. ^ Varying views may be taken in different ages. Some may see decivilisation where others see progress. In the present age, thought and action flow in an anti-christian stream. A distinguished Oxford historian has told us that he has not the heart to continue the history of his country after the battle of Waterloo ; and a Chancellor of a University, who has also held great offices under the Crown, laments the rusticity and want of manners prevalent in the present day. In fact it is hopeless to look for certainty or finality in human affairs. Human opinion is like a huge pendulum, which swings slowly backwards and forwards, but never continues in one stay. A hundred years ago who would have thought that the proof of the proposition that the three internal angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles could be shown to be unsatisfactory? or that the doctrine of gravitation required to be "restated" ? ' T. H. Huxley, Science and Culture, Macmillan, 1882, p. 124. '^Somc Experiences of a Political Agent, Mills & Boon, 1910. I * 4 INTRODUCTION. Piety and Morality amongst the People. Perhaps we may be allowed to suspect that things between 1688 and 1750 were not so wholly bad as the morbid mind of the chief founder of thought in modern Oxford has suggested. Fielding does not look upon the world from precisely the same point of view as Richardson, yet Fielding and Richardson bear testimony as follows. Fielding says : I am convinced there never was less of love intrigue carried on among persons of condition than now.^ And Richardson in a Rambler (No. 97) often attributed to him and which bears internal evidence of this suggestion, praises the age of the Spectator for virtue in both sexes. Churches, he says, were then almost the only places where single women were to be seen by strangers. In the time of the Spectator, excepting sometimes an appearance in the Ring, sometimes at a good and chosen play, sometimes on a visit at the house of a grave relation, the young ladies contented themselves to be found employed in domestick duties ; for then routs, drums, balls, assem- blies, and such like markets for women, were not known. If we pass into the latter half of the eighteenth century, Mr. Pattison describes the years from 1750 to 1830 as "an age whose literature consisted in writing Latin hexameters".^ But we have heard of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and later on, of Charles Lamb and Sir Walter Scott. There must be few indeed who would not be proud to have written as these writers have done, and to have left behind them so clear a record, free from all charge of encourag- ing evil. A strict moralist could find in them little or nothing to blame, and yet they were welcomed by an age which could hardly have been depraved if it found recreation and delight in writings so wholesome and innocent. Again, the Essayists in the Spectator claim that they have given " no fashionable Touches of Infidelity, no obscene Ideas, no Satires upon Priesthood, Marriage, and the like popular Topicks of Ridicule "? And yet the sale of the Spectator was very great. So with the Guardian. Johnson's essays in the Rambler, the Idler, the Adventurer were greeted at the time of 1 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book XIV. ch. i. Works, ed. Murphy & Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. vii. p. 263. ''Mark Pattison, op, cit. p. 261. ' Spectator, No. 262, Monday, December 31, 1711, PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. S their appearance for possessing the impress of a great teacher of morals. They also had a large circulation, and were widely read. At the end of the last Rambler Johnson makes much the same claim as the Spectator to innocence of language and thought. Is this consistent with the statement that the eighteenth century is " one of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of language," ^ more than in those times which went be- fore it or came after it ? Evidence in the same direction is given by the large number of books of devotion printed in the early part of our period and throughout the eighteenth century ; edition after edition comes out of such works as the Whole Duty of Man, a Week's Preparation, Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, Lake's Officium Eucharisticum, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, William Law's Serious Call} Booksellers do not risk their money on such publications unless there be a fair chance of a return. If, as Mr. Pattison would have us believe, the age were irredeem- ably bad, why did Tillotson's Sermons which dealt chiefly with morals have so great a sale ? An age which spends its money upon the purchase of prayer books and collections of sermons is not likely to be so lost to all sense of shame and decency as Mr. Pattison would represent. And at the present time if we had a literary dictator like Dr. Johnson, is it likely that he would be able to criticise off-hand, as Johnson did,^ the best Sermons of his time? He held them to be "a considerable branch of English literature so that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous col- lection of sermons ".* Private libraries are not formed nowadays ; and if they were, how many sermons would be found in the cata- logue ? And a writer of the present age bids us note that Every one who looks at an English country-house library is struck by the abundant provision of sermons, mainly collected, like everything else in- deed, in the eighteenth century. And every reader of Boswell's Johnson has been impressed by the frequent recurrence of devotional and religious books in the literary talk of the day, and, what is perhaps more remarkable, by the fact that wherever Boswell and Johnson go they constantly find volumes of sermons lying about, not only in the private houses, but also in the inns where they stay.^ ^ See Mark Pattison, above, p. i. " See below in chapter xi. for an account of those most in vogue. ^Boswell's Life of Johnson, April 7, 1778. ^Ibid. May 8, 1781. ''John Bailey, Dr. jfohnson and his circle, Home University Library [? 1913], p. 27, ch. i. 6 PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. But if the support given to good writers and to books of piety be not sufficient testimony to the character of the age, it may per- haps be allowed to point to the work done in the cause of popular education throughout the eighteenth century. Mr. Pattison might very well be expected to join in approval of this attempt to edu- cate and thus to raise the lower classes. It is quite fair to suppose that education would have been to him a sacred cause. It is true that the charity schools of the period only taught as best they could the rudiments of education, to read, write, and cypher. It does not matter if the motives attributed to the founders of these charity schools be misunderstood and that " there is in all alike evinced more of patronage than of sympathy".^ The main aim certainly was to bring up the children in the practice of the Christian Religion, and thus to diminish vice and immorality in the land, a result which might not be displeasing even to a writer in the Westminster Review, though the founders of charity schools certainly did not look forward to the time when the name of God should never be mentioned in their schools, as the practice is in the State-supported schools of France at the present day. It was indeed a great work, a credit to any century, to have built up out of nothing a system of elementary schools stretching into very nearly every parish in England and Wales, and not merely to have spread this network over the land but to have kept it working throughout the century, and beyond. There is another claim that may be made in favour of the eigh- teenth century : the establishment of the two great Church Societies, the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign Parts. These two Societies were founded one immediately before, the other immedi- ately after, the year 1700. And once set on foot, they continued their work all through the eighteenth century, so that they neither wanted funds nor men with which to carry on what was begun. An age steeped in vice and indifference would never have steadfastly gone on with the charity schools and the great societies, even if perchance it had found them ready to its hand. There can be little doubt that Walpole and the Whigs did do ' W estminster Review , 1873, vol. xliii. N.S. p. 454, in an article on Charity Schools. The Religious Societies in England were great supporters of charity schools. A glance at the occupations of members in ch. ix. p. 295, will show that they came from the same class that charity schools were to benefit. PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. 7 the best by their appointments to the higher offices of the Church, intentionally or by force of circumstances, to propote a degradation of faith and morals. Their bishops were so taken up with proclaim- ing the Whig dogma of civil and religious liberty that they had no time for preaching the Gospel. Had the Apostles been Broad- Churchmen the world would never have been converted. The hope of accumulating a great fortune, and leaving a fine estate, as in the notorious case of Watson, also filled their minds. This design to injure Christianity was perceived by the public in Hoadly's promotions. A journalist writes : I believe, the best Method that could be found, to plant Infidelity in a Nation, would be to bring immoral Men into the upper Dignities of a National Church. If we should see a Prelate grasping after Pluralities, spend his Time in cringing to the Great, in Hopes of a good Translation, and resigning all his Interest in Heaven, in order to get an exorbitant Interest for his Money here upon Earth, if we should see him entring into Projects with Usurers and Stockjobbers, and mount into a pulpit, perhaps, once a Year, to preach, and use these Words of our Saviour, My Kingdom is not of this World, would not the Indignation of the People be provoked against so impudent an Impostor ? ^ Hoadly was not respected even by those who gave him pro- motion, such as King George the Second.^ The antagonism between the Whig and the Churchman is dis- closed by the Spectator who makes the Hen-peck't husband com- plain that tho' I am one of the warmest Churchmen in the Kingdom, I am forced to rail at the Times, because she [the wife] is a violent Whig.^ The gluttony at the Whig episcopal tables must have been disgusting. Thomas Pyle has left us some account of Hoadly's manner of living in 1752 at Winchester House, Chelsea. Such easiness, such plenty, & treatment so liberal, was never my lot before, and if God gives me health you can't think of a happier man. The danger I apprehend most is from the table, which is both plenti- ful & elegant. But I think I shall by use, not be in more peril from my Lord's ten dishes than I was formerly from my own two, for I begin 1 Select Letters taken from Fog's Weekly jfournal, London, 1732, vol. ii. p. 182. 2 See the savage opinion of him expressed by the King in 1735. (John, Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II. London, John Murray, 1848, ed. J. W. Croker, vol. ii. p. 47.) ^ Spectator, No. 176, Friday, September 21, 1711. 8 PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. already to find that a fine dinner every day is not such a perpetual tempta- tion as I thought it would be.'- Mrs. Montagu says of the sumptuous fare of an Archbishop of York, Dr. John Gilbert, who died in 176 1, that he " feeds more like a pig of Epicurus than the head of a Christian Church "} For this gluttony they had not even the excuse of being teeto- tallers, who are commonly gross feeders, by way of compensation for the loss of other stimulant. An unenviable memory of both Hoadly and Gilbert has been preserved in the Dunciad, the former directly, the latter from the explanation of the commentators. Hoadly has a couple of lines to himself, as receiving the homage of two notorious freethinkers : Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer, Yet silent bow'd to Christ's No Kingdom here? While Gilbert is complimented on the extreme dulness of his sermons which compels a yawn : Churches and Chapels instantly it reached ; St. James's first, for leaden Gilbert preach'd.* It is admitted that Gilbert had few or no qualifications for his high office.'' The complete indifference to religion, which some writers would have us believe was spread over all England in the first half of the eighteenth century, is tested by what is known as the Bangorian controversy. This resistance to Hoadly has left an indelible mark upon English letters. Against Hoadly the wrath of Church- men burst forth in a flood of pamphlets,^ eagerly bought up. The pamphlet of Dr. Andrew Snape went through some fifteen editions at least on its first appearance. Above all others, William Law up- held Church principles in such a way that Hoadly durst not attempt to answer him. Dr. Thomas Sherlock suggests that there can be 1 Albert Hartshorne, Memoirs of a Royal Chaplain, London, John Lane, 1905, Letter lix. p. 178. The whole letter may be read as giving some idea of the tone of the circle in which it is written. ''Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson, Murray, igo6, vol. ii. p. 191. 2 A. Pope, Dunciad, Book ii. line 400. ■• ibid. Book iv. line 608. '' See D.N.B. under yohn Gilbert. <■ There is an enormous bibliography in the folio edition of Benjamin Hoadly's Works. (London, Horsfield, 1773, vol. ii. p. 379.) PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. 9 but one good reason why Hoadly did not answer Law : because that he could not. When the controversy was at its height the excitement in the City was so great that it is said business was at a standstill.^ This should be noticed, for it is inconsistent with the assumption that the age in which such strong feeling was expressed was an age of indifference to all religious opinions and practices. The present age would hardly feel so much upon a matter of doctrine. White Kennett, the friend and champion of Hoadly, writing in 1 716 soon after the accession of King George the First to some correspondent in America, confesses that Church principles were extraordinarily widespread. He complains that : before those civil Wars, none ran into those Notions but some of the warmer and ambitious Clergy ; whereas now the common People and the very Women had their Heads full of them.^ Herring, Archbishop of York and later of Canterbury, belongs to the same class as Hoadly and Kennett. Swift speaks of him in these words : " so stupid, so injudicious, and so prostitute a divine " ? Dom Prosper Gu6ranger says of Antoine Malvin de Montazet, that with him heresy sat in the metropolitical chair of Lyons ; * it may also be said that with Herring heresy sat in the primatial chair of Canterbury. The following letter of his to the Dean of Canterbury may enable us to form some judgement of the character of the man. i. Archbishop Herri?ig to the Dean of Canterbury. Dear Mr Dean. I had a Request communicated to me to Day of a very singular Nature : and it comes from the Ambassador of a great Catholic Prince. Arch Bishop Anselm, it seems, lies buried in our Cathedral and the King of Sardinia has a great Desire to be possess'd of his Bones, or Dust & Coffin. It seems he was of the Country of Oost, \read Aosta] the Bishop of which has put this Desire into the King's Head, who, by the by, is a most pro- digious Bigot, and in a late Dispute with Geneva gave up Territory to redeem an old Church. You will please to consider this Request with your Friends 1 Leslie Stephen, History of English Tho%ight in the Eighteenth Century, *. 31, Smith Elder & Co., 1902, 3rd ed. vol. ii. p. 156. ^ The life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, Billingsley, 1730, p. 125. 3 Jonathan Swift, Intelligencer , No. IIL in Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ix. p. 298. *P. Gu^ranger, Institutions liturgiques, ch. xxiii. Le Mans and Paris, 1841, t. ii. p. 569. 10 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. but not yet capitularly. You will believe I have no great Scruples on this Head, but if I had I would get rid of them all if the parting with the rotten Remains of a rebel to his King, a Slave to the Popedom & an Enemy to the married Clergy (all this Anselm was) would purchase Ease and Indul- gence to one living Protestant. It is believed, that a Condescension in this Business may facilitate the way of doing it to thousands. I thmk it is worth the Experiment, & really for this End, I should make no Con- science of palming on the Simpletons any other old Bishop with the Name of Anselm. I pray God send you and yours many happy new Years . . . Your affectionate Friend. [T. Cant.] Lambeth House Dec"". 23, 1752.1 But England had no monopoly of indifferent bishops. If we look across the Channel, the eighteenth century bishops in France were not all of them models of sanctity. There are Cardinal Dubois, Archbishop of Cambray; Francis de Harlay, Archbishop of Paris ; Arthur Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne ; Maurice de Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun ; though it is our duty to remember " Marseille's good bishop," Monseigneur de Belsunce, and his de- votion to his flock in the plague-stricken city. The Old High Church School. That there were bad clergymen in the eighteenth century no one is prepared to deny. That they were all bad is another proposition which can be readily refuted. But it is, nevertheless, a welcome change to turn from the consideration of characters like Burnet,^ or Hoadly, or Herring, or Watson, and to speak of the more admir- able characters among the clergy and laity of our period. Some will be remembered as long as the English Church shall last. Such were Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, the confessor fined and imprisoned by the civil power for his maintenance of Church discipline, though it is only fair to add that King George the First ordered his release, offered him the Bishopric of Exeter 1 Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vol. i. Historical Manuscripts Commission, igoi, p. 226. 2 Burnet's inaccuracy was detected in his own time. He is coupled with another unsatisfactory Episcopal character, the Coadjutor of Paris. " I leave those ecclesiastical heroes of their own romances — De Retz and Burnet." (John, Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II., edited by J. W. Croker, London, John Murray, 1848, vol. i. P-3.) THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 1 1 as compensation, and wished to pay his law expenses from his privy purse. ^ Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, the philosopher who beat back the attacks of the Deists upon the Christian position, will be remembered so long as man is a rational animal. George Berkeley was another Christian philosopher, Bishop ot Cloyne in Ireland, of whom Atterbury said : So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, ' 'till I saw this gentleman.^ Pope says of Berkeley, in the epilogue to his Satires when he would not, it might be supposed, be in a complimentary humour : Manners with Candour are to Benson giv'n. To Berkeley, ev'ry Virtue under Heav'n.^ While Swift speaks of him as indifferent to all that the common man holds most dear : He is an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power.* Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, one of our very best Church historians, is not to be forgotten. With him, though not a bishop, deserves to be commemorated that wonderful young man, Henry Wharton, whose early death deprived the Church of Eng- land of so much knowledge. But of course the High Churchmen were called names. Hor- ace Walpole talks of " Seeker, the Jesuitical bishop of Oxford," and compares him with "Sherlock who has much better sense, and much less of the popish confessor".^ And to show how very like the abuse of one century is to that of another, it may be well to quote the following lines which might be readily equalled from the speeches or pamphlets delivered against the Tractarians in their early days. For this. Seditious Spirits in disguise Swarm in the Church, tho' they that Church despise : ' Thomas Wilson, Works, ed. C. Cruttwell, and ed. 1782, London, Dilly, vol. i. pp. 29, 32. ^See a note in John Hughes, Letters by Several Eminent Persons deceased, London, J. Johnson, 1772, vol. ii. p. 3, note. ^A. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue H. line 72. * Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Fraser, Oxford, igoi, vol. iv. p. 344. ^Letters of Horace Walpole . . . to Sir Horace Mann, London, 1833, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 353, April 2, 1750. 12 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. Loudly they boast her Ancient Rights and Fame, Whilst underhand they play a Popish Game. The Seed of Loyola with Artful Pains First fixt this High-Church Poyson in our Veins, Infecting too, too many of our Youth, Who, blindly led, fell from the Cause of Truth. i William Jones of Nayland who died in 1 8oo, William Stevens, a layman, who died in 1807, and Dr. George Home, Bishop of Norwich, who died in 1792, form a group of eminent Churchmen who should always be remembered for their maintenance of Church principles. Jones of Nayland was most active in his en- deavour to diffuse Church teaching through the press. His works, collected after his death by his friend William Stevens, run to twelve volumes octavo. About 1792 he formed a short-lived Society for the Reformation of Principles by appropriate literature. Its only results were the foundation of the ' British Critic,' of which, however, Jones was neither editor nor con- tributor, and the publication of a collection of tracts called ' The Scholar Armed against the Errors of the Time' (1792) which is still of use to young students of divinity.^ It passed through several editions and it contained Law's un- answerable letters to Hoadly, Charles Leslie's tracts, and other valuable matter. Much at the same time we may notice the activities of Dr. Samuel Horsley, Bishop successively of St. David's, Rochester, and St. Asaph. His churchmanship is well known and he warmly com- mended the Scottish Liturgy of 1764 which has the reputation of being the best liturgy in the English language. There is also con- temporary with the Bishop, Dr. Charles Daubeny, Archdeacon of Salisbury in 1803, who was much interested in the prosperity of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He maintained the doctrine that the Church was a society founded by Our Lord and possessed all his authority. Protesting against a book of the Evangelical Calvin- istic School he says that Mr. Overton should have called his book An Apology for those Regular Clergy of the Establishment, who main- tain the Articles of the Church of England to be Calvinistic, in opposition to the great body of the Clergy who do not see them in that light. ^ 1 The Seditious Insects : or, the Levellers assembled in Convocation, London, Bragg, 1708, p. 7. ''D.N.B. under William Jones of Nayland. ^Charles Daubeny, Vindicia Ecclesice Anglicans, London, 1803, p. viii. THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 13 He claims that the bulk of the English Clergy are not Calvinists. John Randolph, Bishop of London, did a great service to the Church by his assistance in founding the National Society in 181 1. Dr. Thomas Sikes, who took his degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1788, was brought over from Evangelicalism by the study of Thorndike and was " especially regarded by Pusey as a precursor of the Oxford movement "} With Sikes, Norris of Hack- ney should be associated, and be remembered for his share in founding the National Society. Charles Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, who died in 1829, laid the foundation of the liturgical school which is now so flourishing in the Church of England. I have been sometimes tempted to think that he was the editor of the 1 8 1 8 reprint of the first Edwardine Communion Office. It might have been put out for the use of his pupils. In 1829 it is suggested by William Dealtry that Liturgies being so ancient in the Church of Christ it is highly probable that the original forms were delivered to the several churches by the apostles.^ And as early as 1795 the sources of the Prayer Book in the ancient Liturgies were well understood. The first edition of Sir William Palmer's book, Origines Litur- gies, was published during our period, in 1832, and its influence was immediately felt, for it is perceptible in Montagu Robert Melville's project for a reformed book of Common Prayer, published in 1834. This latter recommends the revival of oil for the sick, non-communi- cating attendance, preaching in the surplice, copes in parish churches, and he gives other directions on unimportant points, that might perhaps have been spared. Of the laymen of our period, we may well be proud. We can count up Hamon L'estrange, John Evelyn, Robert Boyle, Robert Nelson, John Byrom, Samuel Johnson, William Stevens, Alexander Knox, Joshua Watson, William Wordsworth. There are two works, distinctly orthodox and catholic, which from the moment of their appearance have been welcomed by Churchmen as conveying the true teaching of the Church of England on Divinity and Liturgy. One is Pearson on the Creed, the other is Wheatly's Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer. These have gone through edition after edition, which fact is no ^ H. P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Longmans, 1893, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 257. ^ William Dealtry, The Excellence of the Liturgy, London, Hatchard, 1829, p. 22. 14 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. small testimony to their value in the eyes of Church people. Should anyone deny that the tone prevailing in the Church of England was orthodox, he can be answered by pointing to the insistence by bishops on the study of these manuals as preparation for orders. Pearson on the Creed was issued in 1659 and from the day of its publication it has been reckoned the soundest exposition of the faith of the Church of England. It has been the manual which ex- aminers have placed in the hands of candidates for the priesthood throughout our period. In the same way, Wheatly was the text- book recommended on the Book of Common Prayer and Liturgies. Besides the British Critic, the periodicals supported by Church- men at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries were not wanting in a good tone. The Orthodox Church- mans Magazine will be quoted below as approving of prayers for the faithful departed, the keeping of Lent and of Fridays, the arrange- ment of churches as followed in ancient times,'^ and the like. The Anti-jacobin Review praises a writer because His ideas of Church government are founded on the ecclesiastical polity of Hooker ; and his belief in the Saviour of the World corresponds with the catholic faith of George Bull.^ And a preacher who at the consecration of a church warned his hearers against any superstitious reverence for places of worship is criticised thus : If this could be proved, we presume that, by parity of reason, it could also be proved, that the consecration of the elements in our two sacra- ments, the imposition of the Bishop's hands in confirmation and ordin- ation, the deep and interesting circumstances of absolution and benediction, whatever was the case formerly, now pretend to no more than being merely the suggestions of human prudence.^ Much later than these was the British Magazine, which first began as a periodical with a Church bias in 1832. Almost the last of the sound divines of our period was Martin Joseph Routh, who was president of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1 791 till his death in 1854. To him Cardinal Newman, early in the Tractarian Movement and while he was still fierce against Rome, dedicated a book as to one " Who has been reserved to report to a forgetful generation what was the theology of their fathers".^ ' See below, pp. 331, 220, 148. '■Anti-jacobin Review and Magazine, 1799, vol. i. p. 398. 'iizrf. 1799, vol. ii. p. 411. M. H. Newman, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, Rivingtons, 1837, Dedication. THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 15 Yet he was hardly separated by a generation from divines like Horsley, Home, Daubeny, and Jones of Nayland, and laymen like Joshua Watson and William Stevens, though their teaching seemed all forgotten by the officials in 1837. Very well could it be said that Routh was reserved "to a forgetful generation " It was indeed a forgetful age, if not an ignorant one. Mr. Lathbury, dealing with the pronouncements made by the bishops during the Tractarian Movement, points out the disasters which their forgetfulness or worse, made them bring upon the Church. Unhappily, ignorance is a great provocative of speech, and the Bishops went on for three whole years delivering Charges which showed that they knew nothing of the great Anglican Divines, and very little of the Anglican Prayer Book.^ Of the state of the Church party as it was called at the end of our period we have the evidence of Dr. Church, the late Dean of St. Paul's, that in it was nothing effeminate, nothing fanatical, nothing foolish ; but it was manly. He writes : At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly re- cognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober Anglicanism, claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line of English divines from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of devotion in Bishop Wilson, Bishop Home, and the " Whole Duty of Man," but not forgetful of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken — preaching, without passion or ex- citement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often vigorously reasoned discourses on the capital points of faith and morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who were many and important, all the varieties of a great and far-descended school, which claimed for itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fana- tical ; there was nothing extreme or foolish about it ; it was a manly school.^ * * * The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up more widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence.^ Thus we come to the last years of our period, of which we have been so often told that it was the dark age of the Church of Eng- land. Yet the outline drawn by the late Dean of St. Paul's is not ' D. C. Lathbury, Dean Church, 1905, ch. iv. p. 53. 2R. W. Church, The Oxford Movement, Macmillan, 1891, ch. i. p. 8. ^ihid. p. g. 1 6 THE NONJURORS. so gloomy. And there must have been, hidden away in manor houses and country rectories, much of the teaching of the divines of the Restoration. Thus we read that Of Keble himself it has been said that the highest praise which he seemed able to give to any theological statement was, " It seems to me just what my father taught me " } And Pusey wrote : I was educated in the teaching of the Prayer Book. . . . The doct- rine of the Real Presence I learnt from my mother's explanation of the Catechism, which she had learned to understand from older clergy.^ The Nonjurors. Amongst those who helped to carry on the teaching of the school of Thorndike and Hammond the Nonjurors must not be for- gotten. They, and those who sympathised with them, may be reckoned under several headings. The great bulk of the people, as Dr. Johnson testifies,^ were at heart with the King over the water, until the accession of King George the Third extinguished Jaco- bitism. But the people had not to take the oaths ; and so long as they lived peaceably and sought no office, they were not troubled. They attended the services of the Church of England without scruple. Some of the local newspapers contain announcements such as the following : On Sunday the 8th of last Month [1745] died, after a lingering illness, at his House in Oxford, Mr. Leake, a Gentleman of Nonjuring Principles, but a constant Attendant upon the Service of the Church of England.* He would be a specimen of a class loyal to the Church of Eng- land, but unable to swallow the extravagant oath of 171 5. But those who were more active may be divided thus : i. A class who shamelessly took the oaths of allegiance to the Government, and then began immediately to practise against it. Of this Atterbury is a notorious example. ii. A class who refused the oaths, but continued to communicate at the altars of the Church of England. Such were Frampton, 1 Walter Lock, John Keble, Methuen, 1893, p. 81. 2 H. P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Longmans, 1893, 2nd ed vol i. p. 7. ^Bosmell's Life of Johnson, September 17, 1777. *Bath Journal, 1745, vol. ii. 115. THE NONJURORS. 17 Ambrose Bonwicke, William Law. These I would call conforming Nonjurors. iii. A class who refused the oaths and formed a separate com- munion. These I have ventured to call Dissenting Nonjurors. Such were Hickes, Leslie, Spinckes, Collier, and Deacon. These must not be cited as witnesses to the teaching of the Church of England. But their writings and their practices had great influence on churchmen down to, and even beyond, the end of the century. For example, in the Orthodox Churchman' s Magazine, Charles Leslie's works are warmly recommended, and the writer is happy to see that the works of Hickes and Leslie "are daily rising in value and are sought after with the greatest avidity "} And in 1832, just before the end of our period, the University of Oxford, then an integral part of the Church of England, republished the Theological Works of Charles Leslie, in seven volumes octavo. They were evidently highly thought of; for Dr. Home, Bishop of Norwich, is ready to allow that Leslie is said to have brought more persons, from other persuasions, into the Church of England, than any man ever did.^ And recommending books the same bishop says : The first shall be, the inimitable Mr. Leslie's Short and easy Method with the Deists? And Jones of Nayland speaks in much the same way : Many years ago, that excellent Controversialist, Mr. Charles Leslie, published his Short Method with the Deists.'^ In the same strain a Dissenting Nonjuror asserts that Leslie's writings against the Quakers and Deists had brought many of these into the Church of England. And in that very Year was born the Reverend Mr. Charles Lesley, whom God was pleased to make His Instrument, immediately and mediately of Converting above 20,000 of them from Quakerism, Arianism, and Socin- ianism? '^Orthodox Churchman's Magazine, 1804, vol. vii. p. 37. 2 George Home, The Duty of Contending for the Faith, S.P.C.K. 1787, new ed. p. 18, note. 2 George Home, An Apology for certain Gentlemen in the University of Oxford, in Works, ed. by William Jones, London, Rivingtons, 1818, vol. iv. p. 179. ■* William Jones of Nayland, A short way to truth : or the Christian Doctrine of a Trinity in Unity, in Works, Rivingtons, 1801, vol. i. p. 335. * A letter . . . concerning the validity of Lay-Baptism, London, Minors, 1738, p. 47, by Philalethes, [who seems to be the Hon. Archibald Campbell]. 2 1 8 THE NONJURORS. This statement must be meant to apply to conversion to the Established Church ; for the members of the Dissenting Nonjuring communities, all added together, would not have reached anything like 20,000 in number. Deacon's congregation at Manchester was reckoned by Thomas Percival at •' about twenty before the late Hurry," that is the rising of 1745, "and now perhaps not above sixty".' Also a sympathetic writer thinks it certain that it "never exceeded a few score "} Like his brother Bishop, Dr. Samuel Horsley recommends the works of "the celebrated Charles Leslie," * whom he classes with Hooker. Hickes' Devotions passed through many editions until 1765, and the editor says he did not intend them for use in his own small community only. They must have been used largely by members of the Church of England. The same may be said of Spinckes' Sick Mafi Visited, the sixth edition of which appeared in 1775. It is at Manchester that we see at its highest the influence of the Dissenting Nonjuror upon the members of the Church of Eng- land. We shall notice below * how Dr. Deacon, the Bishop among the Nonjurors, secured the support of the clergy of the Collegiate Church and of their people. Naturally the Whig Presbyterians took advantage of such an opportunity, and they ridiculed the clergy in the following dialogue between True-blew who appears to be a layman, a member of the Established Church of England, not a Dissenting 'Nonjuror, and Whiglove, who, assuming that True-blew is a Protestant, is met thus : Mr. T^^rue-blew.] A Protestant, Sir ; no Sir, I disdain the Name ; Christian is my Name, and Catholick my Sirname.* I am neither Papist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, nor Low-Churchman ; but I am of the pure Church of England, as it stands in her Liturgies ; and would have her Discipline kept up, as in the four first Centuries. Mr. fF[higlove.] What, Sir, are you a Deaconist. Mr. T. A Deaconist — no — I can't say — quite — a Deaconist — neither, — but I think Dr. Deacon a very worthy, religious, pious Man ; and I think if we took in some, or indeed most Part, of his Alteradons in 1 [Thomas Percival,] Manchester Politics, London, Robinson, 1748, p. 12. ''Henry Broxap, A Biography of Thomas Deacon, Manchester, 1911, p. 100. 8 Samuel Horsley, Charge . . . in the year 1790, Gloucester, Robson, 1791, p. 38. ^ See chapter vi. p. 179. 'This is a quotation from Thomas Deacon's Reply to Conyers Middleton, but Percival apparently does not know that the saying comes from the Fathers. (Pacianus, Epistola I. § iv. ; Migne, P.L. XUI. 1055.) THE NONJURORS. 19 Principles, Discipline, and Practice, it would not be amiss ; and I daresay the stanchest Part of the Clergy of the Church of England would be of my Mind.^ Thomas Percival writes to the Clergy of the Collegiate Church thus : But instead of preaching and writing against this Man's [Deacon's] Doctrines, and defending your Church, you keep Company with him, publicly praise him, as a good worthy Man, recommend him to all your friends as a Physician, nay some of you, if the World does not greatly bely you, had a hand in this very Catechism. * * Are you not convinced that above one half of your own Congregation have the Doctor s Catechism and Prayer-Book in their Houses ? * * * " 'Tis pious and religious to have decent Ceremonies in the Church, and I could wish we might borrow so far of the Armenians, (for I would not be said to borrow of the Doctor) as to have the Kiss of Peace and the noble and grand Habits of the Priests introduced into our Church. . ." ^ Then Colley Cibber in his play, written expressly to attack the Nonjurors, yet gives testimony, unwittingly, to their character and teaching : it is not at all clear whether he is writing of the con- forming, or of the dissenting, Nonjuror; or of both. It is very likely that Colley Cibber did not distinguish between the two wings of the Nonjurors. 'Tis true, name to himibut Rome or Popery, he startles, as at a Monster : but gild its grossest Doctrines with the Stile of English Catholic, he swallows down the Poison, like a Cordial.^ In another place he makes the Nonjuror claim that He is a true stanch Member of the English Catholic church.* Nor does he make them out to be hypocrites : Most of your Non-jurors now are generally People of a free and open Disposition, mighty Pretenders to a Conscience of Honour indeed ; but you seldom see them put on the least Shew of Religion.* Many have blamed the Nonjurors for an over-scrupulous con- science. It does not become us in the present age to blame them, when the trouble with us is to find among ecclesiastics any rudi- ments of a conscience forbidding their taking any oaths or engage- ^ Manchester Politics. A Dialogue between Mr. True-blew and Mr. Whiglove, London, Robinson, 1748, p. 17. This is attributed to Thomas Percival, the Antiquary. 2 [Thomas Percival,] Letter to the . . . Clergy of . . . Manchester, London, 1748, pp. 7, 9, 24. 8 Colley Cibber, The Nonjuror, Act v. Sc. i. Dramatic Works, London, 1760, vol. iii. p. 359. * ibid. Act ii. p. 302. " ibid. p. 305. 20 THE NONJURORS. ments whatever ; and when obedience to authority has become nearly everywhere an extinct virtue. Further it must be remem- bered what the oath was that the Nonjurors were required to take. It is as follows : I do solemnly and sincerely Declare, That I ido believe in my Con- science, that the Person pretended to be Prince of Wales . . . hath not any Right or Title whatsoever to the Crown of this Realm, or any other the Dominions thereto belonging.^ There must be many persons, even in the present day, who could not possibly take such an oath as this : men ready to swear a joyful allegiance to the present Royal Family and Government, but who could not aver that the son of a father had no right to his throne ; still less that in the bottom of his heart he believed no such right to exist. And so a cry went up against the tyranny of the Whigs : My Lord, if it must be so, let us submit to the Will of God ! but let us rather chuse to be Starv'd, then to be Damn'd. He adds that their enemies cast it in their teeth that "... the Clergy, rather than keep up to their Old Doctrines which they taught us ; rather than they will suffer any Thing themselves, they will swear that they Believe that Snow is black, and there cannot be an Oath invented, that the Clergy will not take." And from hence it is, that we are thus despised in the World.^ The position of the Nonjurors was indeed a most difficult one. To refuse the oath was financial ruin to most of them. But unless one believed in the right of Parliament ^ to insist on any oath, how- ever contrary to fact, how could the oath be taken ? The character of the Dissenting Nonjurors, who have been accused of peculiarly vile and detestable offences against morals, is now at last being cleared. A Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, in the nineteenth century writes : Perhaps too the time has come when one may venture, without offence or loss of intellectual caste, to challenge the vulgar verdict upon the non- jurors ; and may at least call on their censors to name any English sect as eminent, in proportion to its numbers, alike for solid learning, and for public as well as private virtues.* 1 lo Geo. I. Sess. 2. cap. xiii. in Enactments in Parliament, ed. by L. L. Shadwell, Oxford Historical Society, lix. igiz, vol. ii. p. 2. 2 The Clergy's Tears : or, a Cry against Persecution . . . in our present great Dis- tress and Danger, 1715, pp. 8 and 11. s It is not easy to explain why Milton, who was so strong a Parliamentarian, should have told us that the first Parliament of all was held in Pandemonium. * Preface by John E. B. Mayor, p. viii. to the Life of Ambrose Bonwicke by his father, Cambridge, 1870. CHAPTER II. THE EUCHARIST. During the evil days of the Great Rebellion, it was part of the policy of those in power to discourage the celebration of the Eucharist. It is said that during this time communion had been discontinued for years in many parishes in England. A Fellow of Magdalen, preaching before the University of Oxford in 1679, before an audience which would from personal knowledge be able to check an inexact statement, spoke as follows : Those Intruders, who called themselves the University of Oxon. from the bloudy and fatal year of 1648, to the King's happy restoration, did not think fit so much as once to celebrate the communion together in this Church, [St. Mary's] and a publick Sacrament was not seen in several College Chapels during the same space of time. 1 And another witness. Dr. Thomas Comber, afterwards Dean of Durham, writes about the same time : if we consider how terribly this Sacrament was represented, {i.e. put before the people] and how generally it was layd aside in the late times, we might wonder how Monthly Communions should be so well attended on by the people as they are.^ Thus at the Restoration, with a population unaccustomed to approach the Holy Table, even at Easter, it was exceedingly uphill work to carry out the Church's intention of a celebration on every day for which a collect, epistle, and gospel were provided. But in spite of this, there is evidence that in some parishes in large towns there was not only a monthly, but even a weekly, cele- bration immediately after the Restoration. Annand is giving advice to the communicant to receive Holy Communion " as often as pro- vidence shall put a fair opportunity in thy hand ". But he adds : ^Thomas Smith, A Sermon about Frequent Communion, Preached before the Uni- versity of Oxford, August the 17th 1679. London, S. Smith, 1685, p. 33. 2 The Remains of Denis Granville, etc., Surtees Society,>|i865, vol. xlvii, p. 86. The letter is dated October 15, 1681. 2 2 FREQUENCY OF THE EUCHARIST. " This case alwayes holds not in great Parishes where possibly the Communion may be celebrated every Sabbath [? every week] or every moneth ".^ Thus immediately after the Restoration there would seem to have been a possibility, or more, in large parishes, of the Eucharist being celebrated once a week. So doubtless by way of encouragement of more frequent Com- munion the Convocation of York decided in 1661 to address this question to the Convocation of Canterbury : Were it not expedient that the holy eucharist were celebrated upon all such dales as it is required ? ^ By " required " may be meant required by the Book of Common Prayer, or required by a group of the faithful who desired to com- municate.^ In the Northern Province one of the most active of the clergy in promoting a weekly celebration of the Eucharist in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches was Dr. Denis Granville, Archdeacon and afterwards Dean of Durham. But he had all the dead weight of years of puritan neglect to overcome, before people could be brought to consider Communion as an ordinary Christian duty. He did his best to induce the authorities in Cathedral and Colle- giate Churches to establish at least a weekly Eucharist in accordance with the rubric. This he urges upon Dr. Fell, the Bishop of Oxford ; '' and Dr. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; ^ and he rejoices when his plan succeeds at Canterbury^' and York, and in Dr. Beveridge's Parish Church.^ This was St. Peter's Cornhill, where the weekly celebration lasted till well into the coming century. It is said that Dr. Beveridge his devout practice and order in his church, doth ex- ceedingly edify the city, and his congregation encreases every week : he ' William Annand, Fides Catholica, London, Brewster, 1661, p. 448. 2 The Records of the Northern Convocation, Surtees Society, 1907, vol. cxiii. p. 320. ' Private communions were asked for. At Stepney in 1605 it was agreed that the vicar should provide bread and wine for the communion, " Except any private persons shall request an extraordinary Comunion at an extraordinary tyme, as when they go to sea or otherwise, for which at their owne proper chardges they are to fynd bread and wyne "- (G. W. Hill and W. H. Frere, Memorials of Stepncv Parish, Guildford, 1890-91, p. 52.) ■i Miscellanea : comprising the works and letters tf Dennis Granville, etc., Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171. 'ibid. pp. 174, 211. 56, 59, 60, 71, 79, 85, 90, 108, 125. 24 FREQUENCY OF THE EUCHARIST. every Sunday seems to have met with a certain amount of success, if not complete. Weekly Communion, before the Revolution, was habitual with some. We are told by Dr. Thomas Comber, as follows : For some of the Laity (particularly the Duchess of Monmouth) do receive weekly, when they can have the opportunity already. ^ Mrs. Godolphin also rarely missed a Sunday throughout the whole Year, wherein she did not re- ceive the holy Sacrament, if she were in towne and tollerable health ^ . . . not seldome on the weeke days assisting at one poore creature's or other ; and when sometymes, being in the Country, or on a Journey, she had not these oppertunityes, she made use of a devout meditation upon that sacred Mistery, byway of mentall Communion, soe as she was in a continuall state of pre- paration. And O, with what unspeakable care and niceness did she use to dress and trim her soul against this Heavenly Banquett ; with what flagrant devotion at the Altar. The word ' flagrant ' has here the meaning of ' burning ' And we may note the expression ' mental ' instead of ' spiritual ' com- munion. It may be seen that Evelyn used the name of viaticum. for the last communion. Mrs. Godolphin had " received the heavenly viaticum ' but the Sunday before," * he says in his Diary. Attempts were not wanting after the Restoration to establish right teachings upon the place which the Eucharist should hold in Christian Assemblies, with a more frequent celebration of the Eucharist, at least once a week. Thorndike, speaking of the Protestant Reformation, whether in Scotland or abroad does not appear, says that the Reformation is thought to be as much characterised by the putting down of the Eucharist and the setting up of a sermon in its place, as by restoring communion in both kinds and the use of the vulgar language. Not so the Church of England : the reformation whereof consisteth in an order, as well for the celebration of and communion in the eucharist all Lord's days and festival days, as in putting the service into our mother- English.5 John Johnson insists upon the Eucharist as the chief act of ' The Remains of Denis Granville, etc., Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 86. 2 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn, London, 1888, p. 167. ^ For other instances of the use of this word in our period, see Appendix to this Chapter, p. 45. ■" The Diary of John Evelyn, 1678, Sept. 9, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879, vol. ii. p. 342. " Herbert Thorndike, Of the haws of the Church, Book III. ch, xxv. § 2 in Theological Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1853, Vol. IV. part ii. p. 581. BAIL Y CELEBRA TION. 2 5 Christian worship. In the second chapter of the second part of the Unbloody Sacrifice, he treats of the Eucharist as the proper Christian Worship, and the necessity of a frequent Eucharist, and the duty of private Christians frequently to join the celebrating and receiving it} Daily Celebration. Then as to the frequency of celebration. It seems to have been the belief throughout our period that in primitive times the Eucharist was everywhere celebrated every day. This is now known to be a mistaken opinion. For example, in the church of Jerusalem at the time of the visit of Sylvia, or Etheria, there was no daily celebration.^ So in the Orthodox Church of the East the Euchar- ist is not now invariably celebrated daily. The late Bishop of Gibraltar, Dr. W. E. Collins, informed me that even in the great theological school of the Halke, near Constantinople, there was not a daily celebration. Mr. Faminski told me that in Russia, the larger number of parish churches in the country have not a daily celebration ; but a daily celebration is the usual practice in towns and cities. And the monks of the Charterhouse, it may be re- membered, had in the middle ages no celebration on week days, but only on Sundays and holidays.^ This is most likely the earliest practice of the Christian community. But it may be desirable to give some evidence of the widespread existence of the opinion, even if mistaken. Dr. Brevint, afterwards Dean of Lincoln, seems to have thought that the Eucharist was to be celebrated daily : Nevertheless this Sacrifice which by a real Oblation was not to be offered more than once, is by an Eucharistical and devout Commemoration to be offered up every day.* Dr. Comber, later on to be Dean of Durham, says of the primi- tive Christians : 'John Johnson, The Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar, London, Knaplock, 1718, Part II. ch. ii. p. 93. "^S. Sylviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio, Romae, 1888, ex typis Vaticanis, ed. J. F. Gamurrini, p. 45. ^ C. le Couteulx, Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis, Monstrolii, 1888, t. i. p. 293 ; t. ii. p. 515- ^Dan. Brevint, The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, Section VI. § 3, Oxford, i673> P- 74- 26 DAILY CELEBRA TION. their daily or Weekly Communions made it known that there was then, no solemn Assembly of Christians without it, [the Eucharist] and every one not under censure was expected to Communicate.^ Dr. Symon Patrick while still a priest writes thus : After the people contented themselves with receiving every Sunday, at least ; still the Priests and the Deacons, and such, as were not entangled in secular business, continued the ancient custom of receiving the Communion every day.^ and a little later on : The Church of Rome hath thus far preserved a right notion of the holy Communion, as to conceive it to be a part of the daily Service : upon which the people as you have heard, attended, more or less, for some Ages.' Inett, who was precentor of Lincoln, and the author of many popular books of devotion, writes : Let them remember that the Apostles communicated daily, the Primi- tive Christians weekly.* Dr. William Lowth, Prebendary of Winchester, and parson of Buriton with Petersfield, who died in 1732, the father of Robert Lowth, Bishop of London, wrote quite a sound Tractarian essay on the Church, in which he says : As St. Jerome speaks, the Celebration of the Lord's Supper was look'd upon as a necessary Part of the. Christian Worship, which they performed daily, as we read ver. 46 of this Chapter.* [Acts ii.] The frequent if not daily administration of the Eucharist in the primitive Church was known to the deist Herring, who was Arch- bishop of Canterbury from 1747 to 1757- He says : In the Beginning of Christianity it was very frequently, if not daily administered.^ Dr. Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, urging a more frequent celebration of the Eucharist than prevailed in his time, says : ^ Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Altar, London, Martyn, 1675, p. io2. ^ Symon Patrick, A Treatise of the Necessity and Frequency of receiving the Holy Communion, Discourse IT. § vi. fourth edition, London, Meredith, i6g6, p. 68. ^ibid. Discourse II. § viii. p. 73. * John Inett, A guide to the Devout Christian, sec. ed. i6gi, p. 263. The first edition was most likely, judging from the date of the Imprimatur, published in 1687. •> William Lowth, The Characters of an Apostolical Church fulfilled in the Church of England, sec. ed. London, Bonwicke, 1722, p. 15. "A new form of Common-Prayer, London, Griffiths, 1753, p. 113. DAIL Y CELEBRA TION. 2 7 In the three first Centuries the Eucharist was everywhere celebrated weekly, and in many places almost daily. ^ It would seem that this really expresses the historical facts. The opinion is most likely based upon Bingham's statement as to the frequency of Communion. But we are assured farther, that in some Places they received the Communion every Day. ... In the greater Churches probably they had it every Day, in the lesser only once or twice a week. Carthage seems to have been one of those Churches which had it every Day from the Time of Cyprian. For Cyprian and Austin after him speak of it as the custom of that Church to receive it Daily, unless they were under some such grievous Sin as separated them.^ Samuel Hardy, whose writings on the Eucharist should not be forgotten, for he was one of the strongest supporters of the doctrine of the Eucharist as a material sacrifice in the latter half of the eighteenth century, says : There was, however, a Tradition in the Church, that a Daily Celebra- tion of the Eucharist was the Positive Command of Christ ; and we can trace this through several Centuries — from the Days of Clement to the Council of Aix la Chapelle? and in another work : Many of our learned Men have shown, that the Eucharist made a part of the Daily Service of the Primitive Church . . there are not wanting those who affirm that our Lord commanded a Daily Celebration^ Francis Fox, whose book passed through numerous editions in the eighteenth century, teaches children thus : Q. Does our Church intend that the Sacrament should be administered as often as the Communion-service is read? A. I think so, if there be a competent number of devout persons at Church, desirous to receive it.^ And again : ' Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, 1771, p. 62, in the Second Charge, 1741. ^Joseph Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book XV. Chapter ix. § iv. in Works, London, Knaplock, 1726, vol. i. p. 826. 'Samuel Hardy, The Scripture account of the Nature and Ends of the Holy Eucharist, London, Benj. White, 1784, p. 481. ■* Samuel Hardy, A new, plain, and scriptural Account of the nature and ends of the holy Eucharist, London, 1763, p. [xii]. ' Francis Fox, The duty of Public Worship Proved, Section VIH. fifteenth edition, reprinted, London, Rivingtons, 1806, p. 43. z8 BAIL V CELEBRA TION. Q. Is preaching the principal part of public worship ? A. No ; for the principal parts of public worship are, Confession of our Sins, Praying to God, Praising Him, and commemorating the Sacrifice of Christ's death. We ought therefore to go to church as well when there is no Sermon, as when there is one.^ This edition has been slightly altered from the earlier ; but it shows that even in the early part of the nineteenth century, the Eucharistic sacrifice was taught to be a principal part of public worship, and the teaching thereon strengthened rather than weakened. William Law, the Nonjuror who yet did not secede from the Church of England, teaches us that we are most of all to desire Prayers, which are offered up at the Altar, where the Body and Blood of Christ are joined with them.^ A little catechism for children, without date, but printed by Jacobs, Halifax, and judging by the type, of the latter half of the eighteenth century, has these questions and answers : 3. What are the chief means of grace ? The Lord's Supper, Prayer, searching the Scriptures, and Fasting. 4. How often did the first Christians receive the Lord's Supper ? Every day : it was their daily bread. 5. How often did they join in public prayer ? Twice a day, as many of them as could.^ When the primitive practice of daily celebration was thus dog- matically taught to children it must have been very firmly believed. Thus it was recognised that a frequent celebration of the Eucharist, daily or weekly, was to be aimed at if we followed primi- tive custom. But unhappily neither daily nor weekly celebration was carried out on any very large scale. The attempts at daily com- munion, it will be regretted, were wholly unsatisfactory. The first instance in our period of a daily celebration is to be met with about the year 1694. It was at St. Giles' Cripplegate, the Vicar of which was then Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, who allowed the use of the church to one Edward Stephens. He gath- ered together a little band of daily communicants, which Dr. Thomas Smith tells us was made up "of five or six women".* This daily ' Francis Fox, op. cit. p. g. ^William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ed. by J. J. Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, 1902, ch. xii. p. 322. ^Instructions for children, Jacobs, Halifax, no date, p. 5. ■•T. a&a.ine, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 188. See below in chapter ix. for details of Stephens' society. DAILY CELEBRATION. 29 celebration began on the Epiphany 1694 and seems to have gone on for some four years or so; but in 1698 Stephens desired to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, on his own terms, which were of course refused. He was very fierce against Popery in 1704, but his theological position after 1698 is by no means clear. A life of Stephens, with a full survey of his inconsistencies, changeableness, and waywardness, has yet to be written.^ Sir George Wheler, the Prebendary of Durham, speaking of the services in a chapel in a nobleman's house and the duty of the chaplain daily to recite morning and evening prayers, says : To which would he add the Communion Service daily at Noon, as the Church allows, the Worship of God would be daily performed there, almost entire, according to our Liturgy ; which is the best Form extant.'^ A horrible misuse of the practice of daily communion appears later on. A young Jacobite, named Sheppard, was in 171 8 ready to kill King George the First, and suffer death for it, " the best preparation for which, he thought, would be the reception of the Sacrament daily from the hands of a Priest, ignorant of his de- sign".' Possibly Sheppard was a papist. Not wholly unlike Edward Stephens is John Henley, of whose " gilt tub " and pretensions to a primitive Eucharist we are re- minded in the Dunciad} He, too, was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England ; but his eloquence not being sufficiently appreciated by his superiors, he set up a schismatical meeting house which he called an Oratory, and for which in 1726 he composed a liturgy which certainly passed through as many as five editions. The first rubric is : Let the Eucharist be, if possible, celebrated daily, as was the primitive custom? Whitefield writes on October 11, 1750 describing life at Lady Huntingdon's : ^ Dr. Philip Bliss gives a list of Stephens' printed works in his edition of Hearne's Diaries. {Reliquice HearniancB, Oxford, 1857, pp. 59-64.) See also the Cherry and Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library. ^ [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery : or, Christian Oeconomicks. Con- taining directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family, 1698, p. 154. 'John Doran, London in jfacobite Times, London, Bentley, 1877, vol. i. p. 302. ' A. Pope, Dunciad, Book IL line 2 and note. ° The Primitive Liturgy and Eucharist . . . for the use of the Oratory, London, 1727, fifth edition, p. 119. The newspapers of the time, e.g. Fog's jfournal, contain advertisements of the services in the Oratory. 30 WEEKL y CELEBRA TION. We have the sacrament every morning, heavenly consolation all day, and preaching at night. ^ It would seem, at this time of his life, that he was not living in schism. John Wesley records, as on the Christmas day of 1774. though the entry must have been added later for he speaks of the Twelve Days of Christmas which end on January 6th, that During the twelve festival days, we had the Lord's-Supper daily; a little emblem of the Primitive Church. May we be followers of them in all things, as they were of Christ ! ^ The allusion to the Primitive Church is no doubt caused by the belief then so prevalent that the Eucharist in the first centuries was everywhere celebrated daily, which has been spoken of above. Weekly Celebration. It should be noticed that these attempts at establishing a daily celebration in the eighteenth century were connected with schism from the beginning, and thus doomed to failure. But the efforts to establish a weekly Eucharist were not so entirely unfruitful. We have seen the well-meant struggle of Denis Granville at Durham to procure some observance of the Church's rule that the Eucharist should be celebrated weekly in cathedral and collegiate churches. A year or two later after his flight, some scheme for establishing weekly celebrations in the parish churches of London was evidently set on foot. There is an interesting single sheet folio in the British Museum, the price of which, " the second Impression Corrected and Enlarged," was in 1692 a halfpenny ; one of its purposes was to point out "Where you may, in Imitation of the Apostles of our Lord, Every Lords day partake of the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper ". The churches with a weekly celebration of the Eucharist were only 10 in number: All Hallows Barking, St. Andrew's Holborn, St. Giles' Cripplegate, St. Vedast's Foster Lane, St. James' Chapel, St. Michael's Wood Street, St. Peter's Cornhill, and St. Swithun's London Stone. All these, with the exception of St. James' Chapel, were at noon. That at St. James' was at 8 ; and at St. Lawrence 1 L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitejield, Hodder and Stoughton, 1877, vol. ii. p. 265. ''An extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's jfournal, London, Hawes, 1779, xvii. p. 48. WEEKL V CELEBRA TION. 3 1 Guildhall, except the first Sunday in the month, the celebration was at 6. At St. Martin's in the Fields, except the second Sunday, it was also at 6, but on the first it was at noon. The rest of the parish churches had celebration the first Sunday in the month at noon, while at St. Mary le Savoy they had two celebrations on that Sunday, one at 7, the other at noon. At St. James' Westminster they had celebration only on the second Sunday in the month. The pious author of this single sheet adds below his tables : If this Paper have its desired Effect, I trust Almighty God will open the hearts of his faithful Labourers, to set up Daily Prayer and Weekly Communion in many of their own Churches, where at present it is not.^ To follow into the next century the account of the weekly Eucharist. In 1704 there was Holy Communion every Sunday at St. Andrew's Holborn, All Hallows Barking, St. James' Chapel, St. Lawrence Jewry, St. Martin's in the Fields, St. Peter's Cornhill, St. Swithun's London Stone,^ fewer it may be feared than in 1692. In 1728 there was a celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday at these churches and these hours, as follows : St. Andrew's Hol- born at 9 ; St. Anne's Aldersgate at 6 ; All Hallows Barking, hour not given ; St. Dunstan's in the West at 9 ; St. George's Chapel, in Ormond Street at 10 ; St. Giles' Cripplegate at 9, and some Sundays at 6 ; St. James' Chapel at 8 ; St. Lawrence Jewry at 6, except on the first Sunday in the month when it was at 10; St. Martin's in the Fields at 6, except on the second Sunday in the month ; St. Peter's Cornhill at 9 ; St. Swithun's London Stone at g? Paterson's Pietas Londinensis , published in 1714, names the following churches as having a weekly celebration : All Hallows Barking at noon ; St. Andrew's Holborn, after fore- noon sermon, and on Easter Day at 7 and 12; St. Clement Danes at 12; Chapel, Story's Gate, St. James' Park, at 12 ; St. Dunstan's West at 1 2 ; St. George's Queen Square at 1 2 ; Chapel Royal St. James' at 8 and 12 if the Queen be present; St. Lawrence Jewry, ' The Shelf Mark in the British Museum is 491. k. 4 (11). It begins with : In the parable of the Marriage Feast. It was sold by Samuel Keble at the Turk's Head in Fleet Street. '^ Rules for our more Devout Behamour In the time of Divine Service, tenth ed. London, Keble, 1704. ^ibid. fourteenth edition, London, Hazard, 1728, last leaves. 3 2 WEEKL V CELEBRA TION. the first Sunday of the month at 12 and the others at 6; St. Martin's in the Fields at 12, but on the first Sunday in the month at 6 or 7 and again at 1 2 ; St. Peter's Cornhill, every Sunday at 1 1 after Sermon ; St. Stephen's Coleman Street at 12. This agrees in many particulars with lists given in the tables of the edition of Stow published in 1720.^ The lists in Stow pub- lished in 1755 agree so closely with those of 1720 that a suspi- cion is raised that the editor of 1755 has merely copied those of 1720. The Pious Country Parishioner is told that : In many great towns in England, we have Monthly Communions ; nay, in many Churches, every Lord's Day.^ And another writer of the same date points out : But now, when every Church, and every Festival, when every Priest and almost every Lord's Day exhibits this delicious Food and offers it to as many ^ . . . It may be taken for granted that in all the other parish churches spoken of by Paterson the Eucharist was celebrated once a month, often the first Sunday in the month. But, though the Eucharist was not weekly, yet in some it was celebrated oftener than once a month, of which the following are instances from Paterson. At St. Anne's Soho there was communion every first and third Sunday of the month, and Good Friday at 1 2, but on Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Whitsunday at 7 and 12. At St. Dunstan's Stepney, the first and second Sunday of the month at 1 2 ; St. Dun- stan's in the West, every " holy day at twelve and every day in the Octaves * of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday at 8 after morning prayers ". At St. Giles' in the Fields, every second Sunday in the month after morning prayers at 7. At St. James' Piccadilly, "every second Sunday in the month, and every Sunday from Palm-Sunday to Trinity Sunday, and on New Year's Day at twelve o'clock only; and on Christmas Day, Palm Sunday, Easter Day, and Whitsunday, 'John Stow, A. Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. Strype, London, 1720, vol. ii. p. ig of Book V. 'Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, sixth ed. 1732, p. 147. This note appears in all editions that I have seen down to that of 1836. ^ James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, p. 26. ■•Octave is an expression used by A. Sparrow {Rationale, London, Garthwait, 1661, p. 179) in his paragraph on Trinity Sunday, which is "lookt upon as an Octave of Pentecost ". See also the Appendix to this chapter, p. 47. WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION. 3 3 twice, viz. at seven and twelve ". At St. Mary le Bow, every holy day immediately after morning prayers. At St. Mary Magdalen Bermondsey, "twice on all Holy Days that fall on the first Sunday of the Month, and on Christmas Day, Easter Day, Whit- sunday, etc., at seven and twelve ". At St. Mary le Strand, every first Sunday in the month, at seven and twelve. At St. Matthew Friday Street, the first Sunday in the month, twice, at six after morning prayers and sermon, and again at 12. At St. Olave Hart Street, it is said "The Holy Sacrament is administered on every Sunday, after the first Thursday of the Month, and on all solemn Occasions". At St. Paul's Covent Garden, the first Sunday at 12, the third at 7. At St. Sepulchre's, besides every first Sunday of the month, every Sunday from Easter to Trinity Sunday after fore- noon sermon. To leave the London churches and treat of what is more parti- cular. Mrs. Astell's community was to have a celebration of the holy Eucharist every Lord's day and holy day.^ There was weekly communion at Christ Church Oxford towards the end of the seventeenth and in the first third of the eighteenth cen- tury ; for Hearne tells us that Francis Fox when at Edmund Hall "went every Sunday to Christ Church Prayers in the Morning, to re- ceive the Sacrament," ^ and speaking of the death of Dr. Henry Aldrich, the Dean of Christ Church, on Dec. 14, 1710, the same diarist says ; He constantly receiv'd the Sacrament every Sunday, rose to five a Clock Prayers in the Morning Summer and Winter.^ Also the Oxford Methodists, as they were called, bound them- selves by a rule to receive Communion weekly because the place afforded opportunities of this. Also they were to observe strictly the fasts of the Church.* Swift in his exile in Ireland restored weekly communion in his collegiate church. At least so Johnson says in his Life of Swift} ' Mary Astell, A serious proposal to the Ladies, London, 1696, p. 60. First edition was in 1694 ; the fourth in 1701. 2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. C. E. Doble, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 34. ^ ibid. 1889, vol. iii. p. 89. * The Oxford Methodists : being some account of a Society of Young Gentlemen in that City, so denominated, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 9- ' Samuel Johnson, Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xiii. p. 38. 3 3 4 WEEKL V CELEBRA TION. Though a weekly communion, or even a monthly, might not be possible from the apathy of the laity, yet the least expected was that there should be means that every parishioner should be able to com- municate at least three times a year. Also that the parish priest should be ready to celebrate the Eucharist whenever the necessary number to make a synaxis could be got together. We see this urged in the Visitation articles of a Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. William Fleet- wood, esteemed, perhaps unjustly, a Whig and Low Churchman ; yet in 1710 he put these questions at a Visitation touching the curate of the place : 10. Doth he Administer the Sacrament of the Lord's- Supper so often, that all his Parishioners may Receive at least three times in the Year? 11. Is he always ready to Administer it when there is a sufficient Number of his Parishioners duly prepared and desirous to Communicate with him ? ^ On the other hand we may note the hindrances which other Whig prelates tried to throw in the way of the keeping of the Church's rule about weekly communion in Collegiate Churches. John Byrom, the sturdy churchman of Manchester, is perhaps best known to this age as the author of the Christmas hymn, Christians awake, salute the happy tnorn. He was a Manchester man, and Dr. Peploe, Bishop of Chester, visited the " Old Church," then only collegiate, with a view to crushing certain practices which were but in accordance with the law. The visitation was finished on Monday, April 18, 1743, and a correspondent of John Byrom thus ironically describes the utterances of the Bishop : The weekly communion is likewise a great and grievous innovation, and an heavy charge upon the parishioners. No matter for primitive practice or ancient canons. They are all Popish. The Church of England enjoins her members to receive but three times in the year. * * * I intended to give you more and merrier, but my vein of mirth, you see, is exhausted, and that I am almost at the end of my tether.^ The rubric at the end of the Communion Service in the Book of ^ Articles of Enquiry exhibited hy the Right Reverend Father in God, William [Fleetwood] . . . at his primary Visitation, no printer's name or place, 1710, p. 22. ^Richard Parkinson, The Private journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, Chetham Society, 1857, Vol. II. part ii. p. 357. It is unfortunate that we have no other account of this Visitation. By the kindness of the Dean of Chester, the Episcopal Register at Chester has been examined, but the record of the Visitation at Manchester deals chiefly with the question of leases. MONTHL V COMMUNION. 35 Common Prayer contains a plain direction that in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colleges, where there are many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every Sunday at the least. The law of the Church was nothing to Dr. Peploe. A desire for a weekly celebration of the Eucharist is to be found expressed in the middle of the eighteenth century. There can be no solid Reason given why weekly Communions should not be everywhere established ; and why the People should not receive the Sacrament as regularly as they come to the Prayers and Sermon.^ A page or two before the author pleads for communion on week days, and wishes that a celebration every Sunday had been made a matter of necessity, not of liberty, and that whenever a review of the Liturgy shall be considered expedient such a rule shall be con- sidered. Monthly Communion. It was the usual practice with pious people of this time to re- ceive communion only once a month. Swift tells us this of Queen Anne : The queen has the gout, and did not come to chapel, nor stir out from her chamber, but received the sacrament there : as she always does the first Sunday in the month.^ The Rector of St. James' Piccadilly, taking leave of his parish on his promotion to the See of Norwich, speaks of " those Multi- tudes, that without Superstition or Tumult, every month crowd up to the Altar ".= Still, on the other hand, a few years after, during Dr. Clarke's incumbency, there is something noted not quite so much to the credit of St. James' Church : there is one great Fault in the Churches here, which we no where meet with abroad, and that is, that a Stranger cannot have a convenient Seat without paying for it ; and particularly at this St. James's, where it costs one almost ^ An Essay on the Lord's Supper, London, J. Mechell, 1747, p. 27. '']. Swift, journal to Stella, Sept. 2, 1711, in Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ii. p. 338. ' A Sermon preached at the Parish-Church of St. yames's Westminster on Sunday the 30th of January, 1708 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Charles [Trimnell] Lord Bishop of Norwich. At his taking his Leave of the said Parish, London, Chap- man, 1709, p. 25. 3* 36 MONTHL Y COMMUNION. as dear as to see a Play. It is a pity that the Worship of God should be put to Sale, and that so venerable a Devotion as that of this Church, should be accompany'd with Expence ; however, on Week-Days they have the Prayers in most Churches at certain Hours in the Morning, as the Roman Catholicks have their Masses, where a Stranger may join in them for nothing. 1 In the Religious Society of St. Giles' Cripplegate, whose mem- bers evidently aimed at a high standard of life, the communion of the Society was only to be once a month at six o'clock in the morning at St. Lawrence Jew^ry.^ But the difficulty in establishing more frequent communion was with the ordinary lay folk : there was the old mediaeval tradition of communion only once a year, at Easter ; and nearer to the time, the Puritan tradition of none at all. Dr. Johnson's piety is un- doubted ; yet we find no evidence of his communicating oftener than once a year, at Easter.' So, too, the custom of Kettlewell, thought a considerable High Churchman, was as follows. He took possession of his parish in 1682 and this was his practice until he was deprived : He always Administered the Holy Communion on Christmas-Day, Good-Friday, Easter-Day, the Sunday after, and Whit-Sunday ; and several Times of the year besides. But because the greatest part of his Parishioners had been very negligent in the Performance of that Duty, he took a great deal of Pains to make them sensible of their Fault, both from the Pulpit, and in Conversation ; and had Success in convincing several.* This seems to us nowadays seldom enough. It is not unlike the practice at Clayworth.^ If we glance over the books of devotion published in France in the eighteenth century, we may very likely come to the conclusion that, with the French, communion once a month was the rule for the average person of piety. In England the increase of the number of communions during the nineteenth century is almost the only unmixed good that we can point to as arising in that time. 1 A Journey through England in familiar letters, London, Roberts and Caldecott, 1714, vol. i. p. 202. 2 See Appendix to Chapter ix. below, p. 312. 3 In 1779, on his birthday he notes at Epsom : " My purpose is to communicate at least thrice a year " ; but there is no evidence that he carried this purpose out. (Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. George Strahan, London, Cadell, 1785, P- I75-) ■• Memoirs of the Life of Mr. John Kettlewell compiled from the collections of Dr. George Hickes and Robert Nelson, Esq. London, 1718, p. 65. ' See below, p. 38. number of communicants. 37 Number of Communicants. It must be acknowledged that throughout our period the laity received communion with a melancholy infrequency. Yet though celebrations were so rare, the number of communicants in propor- tion to the population of parishes will bear comparison with that in our day. No doubt to-day the total number of communions is much greater, for the same person, who in the eighteenth century only approached the Holy Table once a month, now receives com- munion once or twice a week, or even oftener. Dr. Symon Patrick, when at St. Paul's Covent Garden, says that he had often great Communions, and sometimes large offerings.^ This was about 1680. Crowds would approach the Holy Table on certain occasions. Evelyn tells us on Oct. 7, 1688, only a month before the Revolution, when people's minds were full of the danger of the bringing back of popery : Dr. Tenison preach'd at St. Martina's. . . . After which neere 1000 devout persons partook of the communion. That a large number of people did approach the Altar in Queen Anne's time we learn from the expressions used by Nelson : " Where Communions are large we may want some Exercises for the Em- ploying our devout Affections "} In 171 2 Lord Willoughby de Broke says: never were our Churches so well filled ; never our Communions so fre- quented ; never more holy Zeal, more humble Devotion ; never larger Charities, than what are constantly offered up at the Holy Table in every Church of this great City.^ At Manchester in 1738 Whitefield visited the chaplain of the " Old Church " and even took duty in his chapel of ease. Here he spent Sunday, December 3 [Advent Sunday] and preached twice in Clayton's church, \i.e. chapel of ease] to thronged and attentive congregations, and assisted six more clergymen in administering the sacra- ment to three hundred communicants.^ Later in 1748 he writes : ^ The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Oxford, Parker, 1839, p. 88. 2 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London, Churchill, 1706, p. 136. 2 George, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Blessedness of doing good, London, Joseph Downing, 1712, p. 13. * L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Hodder and Stoughton, 1876, vol. i. 148. 38 NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS. I have preached twice in St. Bartholomew's Church, and helped to administer the sacrament once. I believe, on Sunday last, we had a thou- sand communicants.^ Clayton, be it noticed, was the chaplain who was attacked by the Whigs at Manchester for high church practices. In 174S as the young Chevalier passed, he knelt in the streets and prayed for his success. And it should be observed that the churches where these large numbers of communicants were found, were not the churches or chapels served by Whitefield himself, but by their regular incumbents. Of Romaine, the rector of St. Andrew's, Baynard Castle, in the city of London, it is said : The popular enthusiasm in favour of the new rector was such, that the papers of April 1767 assert, that he administered the .sacrament to more than 500 persons on the Good Friday of that year, and to 300 on the fol- lowing Sunday.^ But the figures which have just been given are in round numbers, taken from parishes in London or other large towns where even if we had exact figures given it would not be an easy matter to infer the proportion of communicants to the rest of the population. Yet if it be allowed us to judge from such figures of the period as are at hand, it would seem that the proportion of communicants to the population at large is not much higher nowadays than it was in the eighteenth century. In the first set of figures given below, that set out in 1676 by the Rector of Clayworth, the proportion would seem to be higher than is usual in the early part of the twentieth century. In reply to queries from the Archbishop of York as to the number of persons of age to receive the Communion, the Rector of Clayworth in 1676 replies: That the number of Persons Young and Old within the Parish of Cla- worth being under 400, there are of them of age to communicate (according to the Canon) 236, and these did actually communicate at our Easter Com- munion 200 ; that is to say on Palm Sunday, Good-friday and Easter-day.^ The numbers were divided as follows : Palm Sunday 50, Good Friday 37, Easter Day 113: in all, 200 as stated.* 1 L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Hodder and Stoughton, 1876, vol. ii. p. 186. *J. P. Malcolm, Londinittm Redivivum, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 364. 3 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth Notts, Nott- ingham, Saxton, 1910, p. 18. * ibid. p. 14. lyUMBKK C/- COMMUNICANTS. 39 Later on the Rector attempted three Celebrations at each of the great festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide; but these extra celebrations appear to have been given up ; the communicants sank to 7, 4, and 3 only.^ A few years later we have figures from the Diocese of London. JUllingdon, Middlesex. 1682 This year on Easter Day was [? and] Low Sunday 300 persons received the communion, alarmed to their duty by an order from Henry [Compton], Lord Bishop of London.^ Mr. Messiter has published a very valuable account of the Church life in the small parish of Epworth in the eighteenth cent- ury. From the parish documents he has compiled a table of the number of communicants from 1742 to 1762. The lowest average is 34, the highest 70. Commenting upon this and the amount of money collected during the offertory, Mr. Messiter says : Thus, for example, it will be seen that in 1 746 there was an average attendance of seventy at each Communion, and the total amount collected in the year was ^4. 19s. 6d. ; that in 1755 the average attendance was only thirty five, and the total amount collected jQti- 4S- sd.^ He adds that the largest attendance at any one Communion was on Christmas Day : "Dec. 25, 1744: 135 Communicants." On Easter Day, March 22, 1761, there were eighty-six com- municants.* I have not been able to make out any certain data for the num- bers of the inhabitants of Epworth in the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1801, the first English census, the population was 1434. In 1 90 1, it was 1856, having thus risen over 400 in the century. If it be allowed to make a guess at 1200 for the popula- tion in the mid-eighteenth century, and deducting a third for those not yet old enough to be communicants, we have some 800 possible communicants, and of these eighty-six communicated at Easter 1761 : 135 at Christmas 1744. To pass on to the very verge of the nineteenth century. 1 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth Notts, Nott- ingham, Saxton, 1910, pp. 66, 74, 77, 91, 98, etc. ^J. S. Burn, The History of Parish Registers in England, sec. ed. London, J. R. Smith, 1862, p. 186. ^ A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the eighteenth century, Elliot Stock, 1912, p. 50. • Op. cit. p. S3. 40 NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS. In the year 1 800 a sort of census is taken in the diocese of Lincoln and the clergy wring their hands over the results : In seventy-nine of those parishes returns have been made of the pro- portion which the number of attendants on public worship and of the Lord's Supper bears to their population. The aggregate result of these returns stands thus : ' The number of inhabitants is estimated at 15042 Adults above fourteen years of age 11 282 In 79 Parishes -{ Average number in the ordinary congregations 4933 Average number of communicants at each sacrament 1808 So that the ordinary number of attendants on divine service does not amount to one-third part of the number of inhabitants, and the communicants are not one-sixth part of the adults. 1 The records of the diocese of St. Asaph for the year 1 806 have been examined by Mr. Jebb. He tells us that he has taken the returns "at haphazard," and this is the varying result : In the parish of Llanfair Caereinion, with a population of 2,537, there were 750 communicants at Easter. Of Dissenters there were in the parish only 25 Methodists, and " 9 to 12 " persons who attended the Presbyterian meeting-house. In the parish of Llanfyllin, with a populadon of from 400 to 500, there were from 200 to 300 communicants at Easter. In the parish of Castle Caereinion, with a population of 635, there was "only one family of Calvinisdc Methodists who do not receive the Holy Communion ". In the parish of Darwen, with 800 souls, there were no Dissenters of any denomination, and no meeting-house, and the monthly Communion was attended by from 72 to 84 persons. In the parish of Machynlleth, with a population of 2,154, there were from 50 to 60 Dissenters and 300 communicants.^ To compare the number of Easter communicants at the begin- ning of the nineteenth century with those in recent years. In 191 1- 1 2 in the diocese of Lincoln there was roughly speaking a population of 560,000, the communicants at Easter 46,000. Deducting a third from the population as not yet come to years of discretion, we get 380,000 as of age to receive communion and thus only an eighth part approached the Holy Table at Easter. Things are no better if we take the whole population of England. It was over 36 millions, from ^Report from the Clergy of a district in the diocese of Lincoln, etc. London, Rivington, 1800, p. 6. ^ H. H. Jebb, A great bishop of one hundred years ago, London, Arnold, 1909, p. 177. CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. 41 which a third deducted leaves 24 millions ; yet only two and a half millions communicated at Easter, something like a tenth of what was possible.^ Thus there is no room for self-congratulation in the twentieth century over past times. We must say with Elijah : " I am not better than my fathers ". Non-communicating Attendance. A writer who claims to be "late of the University of Oxford" in a preface to a revised book of Common Prayer, after directing the Eucharist to be celebrated at evening service, though " it is now generally celebrated in the morning," passes on to recommend non- communicating attendance : It appears, that we have not only lost sight of the time of the day in which this ordinance should be celebrated, but we have lost sight of the ancient practice, of celebrating it in the presence of the whole congregation, after the manner of the Catholics. For, instead of this, those that will not receive it, are now ordered to depart, that the doors may be closed : thus they appear to be ashamed of the Lord, at the very time they are about to partake of his supper ! ^ Evidently this member of the University of Oxford had never heard of the expulsion of the catechumens. And fourteen years afterwards, another writer, though much better informed, suggests a Canon ordering non-Communicants not to leave their seats till the whole service be concluded. He objects to the premature departure of baptized non-communicants directly after the sermon.^ Ceremonies in Worship. The ceremonies of Anglican worship in this period were doubtless simple enough ; but, given a will to see evil in them, they could no doubt be misrepresented and exaggerated, and a decent pomp be held up to scorn as theatrical. Thus one Easter Day, April 15, 1666, Mr. Pepys goes to the King's Chapel at Whitehall : I staid till the King went down to receive the Sacrament, and stood in his closett with a great many others, and there saw him receive it, which I 1 Official Year-Book of the Church of England, 1913, London, S.P.C.K. p. xxviii. '^ A new arrangement of the Liturgy, London, Baynes, 1820, p. iv. by a Gentleman late of the University of Oxford. ' Montagu Robert Melville, Esq., Reform not subversion I A Proposed Booh of Common Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. 94, Canon xxviii. 42 CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. did never see the manner of before. But I do see very little difference between the degree of the ceremonies used by our people in the admmis- tration thereof, and that in the Roman Church, saving that methought, our Chappell was not so fine, nor the manner of doing it so glorious, as it was m the Queene's chappell. He had before, on July 29, 1660, expressed his dislike of what he sawr at Whitehall. To White Hall Chappell, where I heard a cold sermon of the Bishop of Salisbury's, Duppa's, and the ceremonies did not please me, they do so overdo them. Again Mr. Pepys shows his dislike of the Anglican ceremonies, for on April 22, 1666 he goes to the Queen's Chapel and there saw a little mayde baptized ; many parts and words whereof are the same with that of our Liturgy, and little that is more ceremonious than ours. On October 18, 1666 he is godfather at a Roman Catholic private baptism. But it was pretty, that, being a Protestant, a man stood by and was my Proxy to answer for me. A priest christened it and the boy's name is Samuel. The ceremonies many, and some foolish. Not altogether unlike in sentiment but less polite in speech is the following. Speaking of clergymen, Hickeringill advises : consequently handle him, as if he really were a Popish Priest ; his Cope, his Hood his Surplice, his Cringing Worship, his Altar with Candles on it (most Nonsensically unlighted too) his Bag-Pipes or Organs, and in some places Viols and Violins, singing Men and singing Boys &c. are all so very like Popery, (and all but the Vestments illegal) that I protest when I came in 1660, first from beyond Sea to Pauls, and White-Hall, I could scarce think my self to be in England, but in Spain or Portugal again, I saw so little Difference, but that their Service was in Latine and ours in English} This writer from his language seems to be a sour puritan ; for he dislikes Hood, Surplice, Organs or other musical instruments, and singing men and boys : and accordingly he proves to have been chaplain in a regicide's regiment, later a baptist, a quaker, and a deist ; after these, a soldier in foreign service, then fined for slander against Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, and finally convicted of forgery in 1707. But his evidence, as well as that of Pepys, shows ' Edm. Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger, London, 1689, p. 18. CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. 43 how decency in divine worship, for it may well have been nothing more, presents itself to those who are unused to it. Following in the steps of Hickeringill, White Kennett, who is less excusable, for he must have known better, attempts to throw not merely derision on the devotion of the people, but suspicion upon their Churchmanship. He is writing in the reign of King George the First, about 1717, to a correspondent in America, and speaks thus of the practices in the English churches of his time. Some wou'd not go to their Seats in the Church till they had kneel'd and pray'd at the Rails of the Communion Table ; they wou'd not be con- tent to receive the Sacrament there kneeling, but with Prostration and Striking of the Breast, and Kissing of the Ground, as if there were an Host to be ador'd ; they began to think the Common Prayer without a Sermon (at least Afternoon) to be the best way of serving God ; and Churches without Organs had the thinner Congregations ; bidding of Prayer was thought better than praying to God, and even Pictures about the Altar began to be the Books of the Vulgar ; the Meeting-Houses of Protestant Dissenters were thought to be more defiled Places than Popish Chapels : In short, the Herd of People were running towards Rome without any Foresight, or Power of looking backward. ^ The same hatred of decent ceremonies is to be found in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. It is some evidence, moreover, that these ceremonies were kept up in the Church. With others, Name of Church doth signify A mere misplaced Zeal and Bigotry For Rites and Ceremonies, and these too The very worst and meanest of the Crew ; Such as perhaps the Church might better spare. And more her Blemish than her Beauty are. Live as you list, this Man doth not regard ; Infringe her Doctrines too, he is not stirr'd ; But touch a Surplice, or an Eastern Nod, You wound his Darling, and blaspheme his God. Ask him but whence unlighted Candles came ? And streight the Man himself is on a Flame : Speak but against the Cross, he'l read your doom, That you deserve to hang in Gismas Room : He'd rather have two Easters in a year, Than to disturb the sacred Calendar. What most is scrupled, that he values most ; And rather would have all Dissenters lost 1 The Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, S. Billingsley, 1730, p. 126. 44 CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. Than old Translation should be refitted, Or Tobit and his Dog should be omitted. He joys when Service in the Chancel's read, Though half the People hear not what is sed. Adores an Organ, though he needs must know, That when the Heav'nly Boreas doth blow, The sense too oft is murder'd by the Sound, And many a Y^iSm feloniously is drown'd.^ And a writer who can hardly be other than Hoadly himself, in 1735 attacks some acts of devotion, doubtless harmless enough in themselves. I have frequently, at the Celebration of this holy Supper, seen Per- sons bow down, in the humblest Posture of Adoration (according to the Directions above cited) as the Minister, officiating, drew near to them with the Bread, or Wine. And, I doubt not, but others, in other Places may have seen the same.^ Hoadly is complaining of the directions that are given in cer- tain books of devotion, which will be spoken of a little later on, to the communicant to prostrate himself before the Altar.^ The particular act of devotion attacked by White Kennett of going up to the Communion rail at first entering into church and then making some short act of worship may be, possibly, a follow- ing of the Greeks who on first going into church pass to the icono- stasis and salute the holy icons. The kissing of the ground is also practised by the Orthodox. There are other instances in this age of an imitation of the Orthodox Easterns, which is certainly not evidence of a following of Rome.* ^ Ad Populum Phalera : or the Twinn Shams, 1738, p. 6 (no printer or place), Bodleian Library, Gough, Lond. 150. ^ [Benjamin Hoadly,] An Apologetical Defence, or a Demonstration of the Useful- ness and Expediency of a late Book, entitled, A Plain Account of the Nature, and End, of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, London, T. Cooper, 1735, p. 22. The opinion that this tract was written by Hoadly himself is strengthened by a remark on p. 4. " Could any Thing be more worthy of, or more suitable to the Character of the reputed Author of the Plain Account than to attack this formidable Host ? " ^ See below, p. 60. Hoadly (Apologetical Defence, p. 13 to p. 33) gives a convenient series of extracts from the books of devotion which he attacks. * See below, p. 182. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. It may be well to add a few words upon expressions in our period that may not commonly have been looked for. For example the word viaticum is used by Evelyn in connexion with the death of Mrs. Godolphin.^ It may also be found elsewhere. Dr. Gunning administers " the sacred viaticum " to Dr. Barwick, the Dean of St. Paul's.^ The word is also much used by Anthony Sparrow in his Rationale in the chapter on the Com- munion of the Sick. Of Dr. Turner, Dean of Canterbury, it is said that " The day before he surrendered his blessed soul into the hands of God, he received the Holy Sacrament very devoutly, conquering his aversion against anything offered to him to swallow . . . yet he forced himself to receive the Viaticum.^' ^ Dr. Ken, the deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his Sermon at the death of the Lady Mainard, says : " On Whitsunday she received her viaticum, the most holy body and blood of her Saviour, and had received it again, had not death surprised us, yet in the strength of that immortal food she was enabled to go out her journey." * So Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, tells us that the Ancient Christians called the Communion of the Sick, the Viaticum.* Dr. John- son uses the word of his last communion : " I have taken my viaticum : I hope I shall arrive safe at the end of my journey ".^ So Dr. Home, Bishop of Norwich, speaking of the operations of the Holy Ghost, says : "And it is marvellous to behold, as the excellent bishop Andrews ' See above, p. 24. '^The life of Dr. John Barwick, ed. by G. F. Barwick, Stewart Series, 1903, p. 179. ' Peter du Moulin, /I Sermon . . . at the funeral of the Very Reverend Thomas Turner, London, Brome, 1672, p. 27. * The Prose Works of . . . Thomas Ken, ed. J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 142. A sermon preached at the funeral of . . . Lady Margaret Mainard, June 30, 1682. ' Sir William Dawes, An exact account of King George's Religion, London, J. Churchill, 1714, p. 6. ° Narrative by John Hoole, in G. Birkbeck Hill, jfohnsonian Miscellanies, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 155. 45 46 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. observes, how, from the laver of regeneration, to the administration of the Viaticum, this good Spirit helpeth us." ^ But a stranger expression is to be found in an odd story of what may be the last illness of King George the Fourth. It is said that the Arch- bishop of Canterbury was about to administer the Host to the King : " One day whilst the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury waited upon His Majesty in order to administer to him the Holy Sacrament, one of the attendants some how or other so offended His Majesty, that he sternly forbid him the Royal Presence, and then turned round to the Arch-Bishop to receive the Host ; the Arch-Bishop, be it ever spoken to his praise, declined ad- ministering the same until such time as His Majesty was more calm and free from anger. His Majesty bowed with submission and reverence ; sent for the servant ; shook him by the hand, sincerely forgave him ; and after a few moments spent in solemn devotion, received the ' living bread ' from the hands of the ' Hig/i Priest '." ^ In 1824 an unlooked-for expression does meet us. It is said of the Skinners' Company that they attend Divine Service at St. Antholin's Wat- ling Street on Corpus Christi Day. Words sometimes thought to be limited to the middle ages or to the age after the Tractarian movement began, are to be found in use. Parson Supple says : " your ladyship observed a young woman at church yesterday at even -song " ? Another mediaeval word, the survival of which we should not have expected, is Pater nosier, for the Lord's prayer. Describing the " stately Altar-piece built Anno 1 706 and 7 " at St. Dunstan's in the East, the writer says : " here are also the Decalogue, and the Creed, and Pater Noster farther outward ".* It may seem to others as well as to myself a pity that these three formularies, the foundations of morals, faith, and devotion should no longer be shown in our churches, as they were in the middle ages. They may, however, return, when the fury of the present fashion is exhausted. And in common conversation the word is used for the Lord's Prayer : Dry den makes a carrier say he knows the contents of a letter " as well as I do my Pater Noster ".* Arbuthnot makes Peg, the sister of John Bull, take "a fancy not to say ' The works of the Right Reverend George Home, ed. by William Jones, London, Rivington, 1818, vol. ii. p. 352. Discourse xviii, the Unspeakable Gift. 2 The Last Moments of our late beloved Sovereign Geo. IV. London, Elliot [1830], p. 8. ■' Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, Book IV. ch. x. (Works, ed. by A. Murphy and J. P. Browne, London, Bickers, vol. vi. p. 193). *A New View of London, London, Nicholson and Knaplock, 1708, vol. ii. supple- ment, p. 818. = John Dryden, Sir Martin Mar-all, Act. ii. Sc. i. Works, London, Tonson, 1762, vol. ii. p. log. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 47 her Fater nosier".^ Peg is Scotland; there the Presbyterians refused not only a Liturgy, but the saying of a fixed form, even if it had all the authority of the Lord's Prayer. Smollett makes use of the term when describing the devotions of an English sailor half frightened out of his wits by supposed apparitions : "So saying, he had recourse to his Pater noster." ^ The word octave is sometimes thought to have come in with 1840, but we find it in Paterson's Pietas Londinensis of 1714,^ and in the times when marriages are prohibited it is also used,* even to the second decade of the nineteenth century.* 1 John Aibuthnot, History of yohn Bull, Part III. ch. ii. in Swift's Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. vi. p. 301. 2 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ch. vii. Hutchinson, 1905, p. 71. First published in 1762. (Epitome.) 3 p. 80. * See below, p. 260. CHAPTER III. THE EUCHARIST (cont>) Early Celebrations. A FAULT has been found with the period under discussion : it is stated that there were no early celebrations of the Eucharist, or only one in one day in the same church or chapel, until after 1833. But this statement will not bear investigation. It can be refuted at once by the instances out of Paterson. But to proceed in order of time. Two years after the Restoration, on Christmas Day 1662, Mr. Pepys describes what must be two celebrations of the Eucharist in one chapel, the Chapel Royal. One is early, the other late. Had a pleasant walk to White Hall, where I intended to have re- ceived the Communion with the family, [i.e. the household] but I came a little too late. So I walked up into the house. ... By and by down to the chappell again, where Bishopp Morley preached. . . . The sermon done, a good anthem followed, with vialls, and then the King came down to receive the Sacrament. But I staid not. The same evidence is given by Evelyn, though we find that he made a better use of the opportunities of communion. On Easter Day, March 30, 1684, he tells us that he "had receiv'd the Sacra- ment at White-hall early with the Lords and Household," that is, " the family " as Mr. Pepys calls it, but after service at St. Martin's, he returned again to Whitehall and saw the King communicate. There are also the time tables of the London churches beginning in 1692, which record communion at 6 and 7 in the morning. In 1692 there are early communions at St. James' Chapel at 8, St. Lawrence Jewry at 6, and St. Martin's in the Fields at 6. To note more particularly the early celebrations in London churches as distinguished from the weekly. In 1704 there was holy communion every Sunday at St. Andrew's Holborn at 9 ; St. James' Chapel at 8 ; St. Lawrence Jewry at 6, except the first Sunday in the month when it may have 48 EARL Y CELEBRA TIONS. 49 been at 10, as in 1728 ; St. Martin's in the Fields at 6, except the second Sunday, then most lilcely at noon, as in 1692.^ In an edition some twenty years later there is very much the same number of churches with an early celebration, with these changes : there is added early communion every Sunday at St. Anne's Aldersgate at 6 ; St. Dunstan's in the West every Sunday at 9, every Saint's day, and the octaves of Christmas,, Easter, Ascension, and Whitsunday, at 7 ; St. George's Chapel, Great Ormond Street, at 10; St. Giles' Cripplegate at 9, possibly also at 6 ; at St. Lawrence Jewry the communion on the first Sunday in the month is said distinctly to be at 10.^ While Dr. Horneck was Chaplain of the Savoy he had two celebrations, one at 7, the other at midday, on the great festivals.^ This would be before 1698. Paterson in 1 7 14, of which the details are given above,* notes several parish churches where there are two celebrations in one day, at 7 and at noon. On Christmas Day, 171 2, Swift goes to communion early: I was at St. James's chapel by eight this morning ; and church and sacrament were done by ten.^ On Easter Day, April 5, 17 13, he reports : I was at church at eight this morning, and dressed and shaved after I came back.^ Arbuthnot, I think, makes an allusion to rising early for com- munion. They never had a quiet night's rest, for getting up in the morning to early sacraments.' Early celebrations could not have been so rare if a writer could allude to them and expect to be understood by all. ^ Rules for our more devout Behaviour, tenth edition, London, Keble, 1704, p. 36, etc. ''■ibid, fourteenth edition, London, Hazard, 1728, p. 35, etc. ^ Richard [Kidder], Life of the Reverend Anthony Hornech, London, Aylmer, 1698, p. 9. ■* See p. 32, above. *J. Swift, Journal to Stella, Dec. 25, 1712 (Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. iii. p. 136). * ibid. p. 199. ' The History of John Bull, Part IIL ch. viii., Jon. Swift, Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinb. 1814, vol. vi. p. 329. 4 50 COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. There are some few recorded cases of an early Easter celebra- tion of the Eucharist in country churches, apparently at the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century. Mr. C. F. S. Warren says : In Professor [A.] Sedgwick's privately printed history of his father's parish of Dent, Yorkshire, he mentions an eariy Easter Celebration at the end of the last century [i 8th], and lasting far into this. There was another in 1836 at Meifod, Montgomeryshire, where the father of Dr. Rowland Williams was vicar.^ The Rev. Dr. Fowler, Hon. Canon of Durham, wrote to me in 1906 that at Ripon Minster there was from time immemorial at 7 o'clock in the morning a celebration of the Eucharist on Easter Day ; it was frequented by people from the various chapelries in the parish ; sometimes they walked great distances. Of late the hour has been altered to 8, and there is less attendance. In 1789, King George the Third communicated, most likely as an act of thanksgiving after one of his attacks. It was at 8 in the morning : Sunday March 15. — The King this morning renewed his public service at church, by taking the Sacrament at eight o'clock. All his gentlemen attended him.^ William Windham, the well-known politician and friend of Dr. Johnson, writes thus on May 12, 18 10, when told that he must undergo an operation, which proved fatal to him. 1 2th. Walked out. Omitted foolishly to enquire at St. James's Church, otherwise should have learnt that there was to be an administration of the Sacrament at seven, which would just have suited me, as besides the privacy, I could have gone then before I took any physic.^ He thus preferred to receive Communion while fasting. This leads us to the consideration of the next section. Communion while Fasting. During the first half of our period, Communion while fasting that day from all food must have been much easier than it is at present ; usually no food seems to have been taken until dinner, ^ C. F. S. Warren, Church Times, August 24, 1888, p. 721, col. ii. 2 Madame d'Arblay, Diary and Letters, London, 1842, vol. v. p. 11. 3 The Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham 1784 to 1810, edited by Mrs. Henry Baring, Longmans, 1866, p. 505. COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. 51 which was at noon-day, except by the luxurious and self-indul- gent.^ This refreshment was called the morning draught, it was probably beer, or else a bowl of broth or caudle.^ The congrega- tions which assembled for the Sunday morning service would have been, in a large proportion, fasting from all food, whether they in- tended to communicate or not. In 1735. John Byrom notes quite by chance that he goes to church at St. Sepulchre's without breakfast. It does not appear that he went to communion, but it is an illustration of the custom of the people of that age to go without food until sermon was over.^ A German Count travelling in England in 1761 notes the English habit : People never dine in London before four o'clock, and take very little before that hour ... I did not deny myself the early cup of coffee to which I was accustomed, and this I followed by a good breakfast at ten o'clock, consisting of tea, bread and butter, and toast.* Sparrow speaks as if not only were men commonly fasting up to noon, but that communion would not be thought of if men were not fasting. It was an ancient custom, after Burial to go to the holy Communion, unless the office were performed after noon. For then, if men were not fasting, it was done only with Prayers. Cone. Carth. 3, 29, Can^ Still, whether the caution were needful or not, in the year of the Restoration, Jeremy Taylor reiterated the warning that Com- munion should be received before any other food. ^Mr. Pepys, though well able to fast until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, even when up at 5 in the morning (July 4, 1663) yet took his morning draught. (Jan. 12, Feb. 3, 1659-60.) ^ " Sophia must always have her Jellies and Broths, and Caudles, and the Lord knows what, brought to her before she would venture her Carkas out of Bed." This is the luxurious woman; while the good woman, " Aemilia never thought of Eating, till the very moment before she went into her Coach" ([A. Boyer,] The English Theophrastus, London, 1702, p. 42.) In Mrs. Centlivre's play, Love at a venture, Act i. Wou'dbe, the " silly projecting coxcomb," rises at five, yet has no food till dinner at one. (Works, London, 1761, vol. i. p. 270.) ' Richard Parkinson, The Private jfournal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, Cheetham Society, 1855, Vol. \. part ii. p. 557. * Count Frederick Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England in the years 1761-62. Longmans, 1902, p. 28. * Anth. Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer ; Burial ; London, Garthwait, 1661, p. 355. 4* 52 COMMUNION. WHILE .FASTING. It is a Catholic custome, that they who receive the Holy Communion should receive it fasting. This is not a duty commanded by God : but un- lesse it be necessary to eat, he that despises this custome, gives nothing but the testimony of an evil mind.^ And it was observed, this custom of fasting before Communion ; on Passion Sunday, March 31, 1661, there was an ordination at Christ Church Oxford, and one of the ordinands, a Fellow of New College, having been used to eat breakfasts and drink morning draughts, being not able to hold out with fasting, was troubled so much with wind in his stomach, that he fell in a sowne and disturb'd for a time the ceremony.^ Dr. Edward Lake, in the book written for the instruction of the Lady Mary and the Lady Anne, afterwards Queens of Great Britain and Ireland, writes thus : Having thus finished your Closet- Devotions, you go forth to the Church or Chappel fasting, so that a Portion from Gods Table may be the first Morsel? The same direction is to be found in the edition of 1753, the thirtieth edition, the last of the eighteenth century. Henry Cornwallis, a country curate, writing on preparation for Holy Communion, advises thus : And thus I have led you to the Holy Communion . And for the in- structing of your Behaviour there, take these few Rules. I. It hath been the Custom of well-disposed Christians, to receive the Sacrament fasting.* The second rule deals with self-examination. William Nicholls gives this advice : It should also be received Fasting, for these Reasons, Because 1 . Our Minds are clearest ; our Devotion quickest, and so we fittest to perform this high Service, when we are in our Virgin-Spittle. 2. It is for the honour of so high a Sacrament, that the precious Body of Christ should first enter into the Christian's Mouth, before any other Meat. 5 1 Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, Book III. ch. iv. Rule xv. § i, London, R. Roiston, 1660, vol. ii. p. 287. 2 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol.. i. p. 388. Passion Sunday before the Reformation was a time for conferring Orders. 2 Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 63, Sunday morning. * H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, p. 36. ^William Nicholls, The Plain Man's Instructor in the Common Prayer, London, M. Wotton, 1713, p. 48. COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. S3 This last paragraph is a translation of the well-known passage from St. Augustine : Numquid tamen propterea calumniandutn est universae Ecclesiae quod a jejunis semper accipitur? Ex hoc enim placuit Spiritui sancto, ut in honoretn tanti Sacramenti in os Christiani prius Dominicum corpus in- traret, quam ceteri cibi : nam ideo per universum orbem mos iste servatur.^ At the end of Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, in the Addenda im- mediately before the Conclusion of the Second Part, he speaks of the practice of communicating before all food, and thinks it likely to have been the custom in the Primitive Church because they cele- brated the Eucharist before daylight, and thus were in their fasting spittle. But he does not insist upon it as part of the preparation, but to be followed if the communicant find it exalts his devotion. On the other hand : there are many, who cannot communicate fasting without great Uneasi- ness and Indevotion, unless they could go directly from their Bed to the Altar.2 As to receiving Communion while fasting the Pious Country Parishioner has these directions . If your Constitution be weak, or any great Inconvenience come from your Fasting the Morning you receive, use your Pleasure ; but if you are strong and healthy, 'tis best to abstain from Breakfast : for then, your Thoughts will be more fix'd ; and you will gain more time to your self, and the consecrated Bread will be, as it deserves, your first Food.^ But in the thirteenth edition this direction is substituted : And you need not expose yourself to the Danger of Sickness, or any other Inconveniency, by total Abstinence ; but without being nice in such Matters, may take such a moderate Breakfast, as will keep your Spirits under the Length and Fervour of your Devotions.* The New Week's Preparation was brought out to counteract the harmful influence and popish tendencies of a Week's Preparation, which it would seem was first published in 1679 ; though it was some years before the mischievous tendency of the older book was dis- covered under the influence of Hoadly and his school. Yet in the ' S. Augustine, Adinquisitione$Ianuavii,X\\i. i. (seu epistola liv.) Cap. vi. § 8. (Migne, Patrologia Latina, xxxiii. 203). '^ John Johnson, The Unbloody Sacrifice, London, Knaplock, 1718, Part II. p. 270. ' The Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pembeiton, Sixth Edition, 1732, p. 182. The same paragraph is found in the Ninth Edition of 1747. *ibid. 1753, p. 187. The same direction appears in the editions of 1801 and 1821, The edition of 1836 contains nothing about total abstinence or fasting. 54 COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. New Week's Preparation the custom of fasting communion is plainly encouraged. It may be that the first edition was in 1737, for the Author to the Reader there says he follows the old WeeUs Preparation "printed in this present Year, 1736," which contains " Abominable 2Md Wanton Expressions" The following advice is given in the edition of I737 ^^ well as in the later : The Meditation for Saturday Morning. Upon fasting before receiving ike holy Sacrament. * * * [A dialogue between the soul and the body.] 3. There are these things, O my soul ! I shall propose in this case ; if you find that my /a.f//«^ makes you more devout anA serious, and that you are in a better frame of mind, you should certainly choose to go to the sacra- ment /a j//«^; or, if it be indifferent, and you are much the same whether I fast or not, and find it makes no change at all in you, I would for decency, and with regard to ancient practice accompany you to the sacrament fast- ing.^ The soul then pleads that it has contracted a habit of eating or drinking some light matter every morning and cannot do without it. It is answered : Yet, I say, that as neither God, nor the church has appointed the con- trary, I would advise the morning abstinence on sacrament days, where the inconveniency of doing it is none ; but I must disapprove of it, if there be any inconveniency in abstaining. This meditation, always in the second not the first part, is to be found, in editions of the New Week's Preparation published as late as in 1795. When a book so widely used as the New Week's Preparation, and so moderate, recommends the reception of communion before all food, it is hardly surprising to find records of individual cases of the practice at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. The Rev. Dr. Fowler, Hon. Canon of Durham, writes to me that his great-grandmother went fasting to communion. Mr. Henry Jenner tells me of an ancestress of his whose custom at the beginning of the nineteenth century was to communicate fasting. She used to attend the daily service at St. Martin's in the ' The New Week's Preparation for a worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper, Part 11. London, Millar, 1789, p. 133. COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. 55 Fields or St. James' Piccadilly, and on Good Friday she ate nothing but one cross-bun. Mr. Albert Barff, when he had a parish in Berkshire about i860, came across an old woman who was shocked at the idea of com- municating after food. Mr. J. E. Vaux, writing in 1 894, speaks of the practice of re- ceiving communion when fasting. In a Berkshire parish an old woman in 1863 told the parson that her mother only communicated when fasting. At Liskeard in Cornwall it was also a " general, though not the universal custom '' in the days of a clergyman's grand- father. He gives also some other instances, all of which would come within our period, and he considers that these instances taken at haphazard from all parts of the country are some indication of a survival of the practice.^ The Archbishop of Canterbury of ill fame, Dr. Herring, suggests that "it would be necessary to order that the Lord's Supper should be administered after the Evening as well as after the Morning Service," thus to discourage the " superstitious reason " of fasting before communion.^ This desire points out that the practice of re- ceiving communion before all other food was in existence and needed in the writer's opinion to be checked. Knowing how easy prolonged fasting was to Dr. Johnson, and his strict principles, it might well be thought that he would have kept the fast before communion. But it was not so. He tells us expressly that he did not. For example : Easter Day, April 22, 1764. . . . I rose, took tea, and prayed for resolution and perseverance.' then again, fifteen years later : Easter Day, April 4, 1779. I rose about half an hour after nine, ... by neglecting to count time, sat too long at breakfast, so that I came to church at the First Lesson.* Johnson communicated on both occasions. The desire of Mr. William Windham in 1 810 to communicate fasting has been spoken of above.^ 1 J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 57. ^ [T. Herring,] A new form of Common Prayer, London, Griffiths, 1753, p. 21. ^ Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. Geo. Strahan, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 47. ■* ibid. p. 171. * See above, p. 50. s6 mode of communion. Mode of Communion. Robert Nelson recommends the reception of the Eucharist in the palm of the right hand supported by the left : The ancient Christians, in the time of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, received the Consecrated Element of Bread into the Palm of their right Hand, which being supported by their left, was so carry'd to their Mouths, that no por- tion of that Divine Nourishment could fall to the Ground. I am not cer- tain that the Church means this, when she orders her Officers to deliver the Sacrament to the People into their hands ; but I think the expression sufficiently justifies it, and therefore every Communicant may take the liberty of making use of it.^ This practice of receiving the communion in the palm of the hand diminishes the likelihood of fragments falling to the ground, an accident which has been guarded against since the days of Ter- tullian.^ The houseling cloth held in front of the communicant is intended for the same purpose. Throughout our period, except in the cases of King William the Fourth, and of James the Second, the latter not communicating at all, a houseling cloth was held before the Kings and Queens of England at their communion during the coronation service. Further, the use of the houseling cloth has persisted in several parishes in England, and tradition asserts that in some of these cases the use of the cloth comes down from before the Reforma- tion. At Wimborne Abbey the use of the cloth was threatened a few years ago from some mistaken notion of reverence. It actually did disappear from the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, for a few years, but it is now happily restored. It is said to be still in use at St. Michael's and Holy Rood, Southampton ; and I have heard of other parishes. It is a pity that this accessory to reverence, that can be traced back so far in the history of the Christian church, should have met with but little encouragement in the restoration during the last century of many other ornaments of the church that were in use under Edward the Sixth. The Eucharist is a meal, taken in common, and any slight reminder that such is the case should not be put away as a profanation. We meet with such survival at a Lincolnshire village in the mid-eighteenth century, though Mr. 1 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London, Churchill, 1706, p. 67. ^ Tertullian, de corona militis, cap. iii. (Migne, Pat. lat. ii. 80). DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI". 57 Messiter is rather scandalised at the amount of wine provided at each communion, averaging an ounce and a half for each communi- cant. This would however be little more than a mouthful for each communicant, and it may be mentioned that the celebrant in the Roman Communion is advised to take in the chalice about this amount. The figures given by Mr. Messiter are these : 1 744-1 745 : Qts. 39. To Mr. R[omley]. 6 Bottles. In all ;£i^. I OS. od. 1746-7 : Qts 33 wine us'd at Communion. 6 to the Minister The above accounted for £t,. i8s. od. From Easter 48 to Do 49 : Qts 29. To the parson 6. In all jQt, ios. od.i There is a rubric at the end of the Communion Service in the Book of Common Prayer beginning : And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecraied, the Curate shall have it to his own use. The rubric may be an explanation of what is said " To the parson" so much. And as to the large quantity supposed to be consumed by each communicant, it must be remembered that the Eucharist is a feast, a feast upon a sacrifice. At the present day this is too often forgotten, and the amount of wine consecrated is extraordinarily small and mean, or diluted by Manichean clergy so much that it cannot be thought wine. In one church, St. Martin's in the Fields, in 17 14, the Church- wardens' accounts reveal something of a scandal : Paid by ditto, [churchwarden] for Sacrament wine (out of which a great part was drank in the vestry) 90. o. o.^ The excuse was made that there were many celebrations, every Sunday at least ; and that many people came to qualify for office under the Test Act ; but in this case it was not the parson but the churchwardens who had what remained to their own misuse. Devotions such as the Use of Agnus Dei. The books of devotion of our period frequently contain as a private prayer a form which, when sung as an anthem, was thought of sufficiently dangerous import to be charged against Dr. King, ' A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the eighteenth century, Elliot Stock, 1912, p. 53. ^ J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, ^"'^ '^' P' ^^°' S8 DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEP\ the Bishop of Lincoln, in which suit judgement was delivered in the year 1890. It is the well-known prayer: "O Lamb" of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us ". The Whole Duty of Man, first published in 1658, had extra- ordinary popularity thenceforward, and all through the eighteenth century. It has the following : Ejaculations to be used at the Lord's Supper. Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof. * * * O Lamb of God, which takest away the sins of the world, grant me thy peace. O Lamb of God, which takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me. Immediately before Receiving. Thou hast said, that he that eateth thy flesh, and drinketh thy blood, hath eternal life. Note we have Domine non sum dignus as well as Agnus Dei. In a book of which the second edition appeared in 1693 there is Domine non sum. dignus only. When you receive the Consecrated Bread, say ; Lord, I am not worthy thou shouldst come under my Roof : Yet I beseech thee, speak the Word, and my Soul shall be saved : Fill every corner of my Soul with thy Grace and Spirit.^ Dr. Bernard also recommends the same verse from St. Matthew at rieceiving the Bread} It appears in the Roman Missal as a devotion for the celebrant immediately before he receives com- munion. To return to instances of Agnus Dei : Thomas Morer bids the communicant kneeling at the altar to say : O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the World, grant me thy Peace. O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy upon me.^ In another book of prayers there is also to be said before com- munion : ^ H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, Robinson, 1693, p. 40. 2 Edward Bernard, Private Devotion, Oxford, Litchfield and Clements, sec. ed. 1704, Signature G. 6. ^ Thomas Morer, Kuriake Hemera, London, 1701, p. 569. DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI". 59 O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, grant me thy Peace. O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy upon me. . . . O Lord God, how I receive the Body and Blood of my most Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, the price of my Redemption, is the very wonder of my Soul ; yet I firmly believe upon the words of my Saviour, that at this time they are graciously tendered to me ; I am sure it is so, though I dispute not the manner.^ In James King's Sacramental Devotions vfh.ichdi'PP&airQd in 1722 and the eighth edition in 1752 the Communicant is told to say at Prostrating before the Altar : O Lamb of God, that takest away the Sins of the World, Grant me thy Peace. O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, Have Mercy upon me? The same form may be found just before Communion in a prayer book edited by the author of the Week's Preparation for the Sacra- ment.^ The Pious Country Parishioner has the same form, to be said After the Consecration,'^ and it continues thus in all editions that I have seen down to 1836. Immediately after Communion there are these devotions in a book appearing with Royal patronage. O Lamb of God, who takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy upon me : By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, thy Cross and Passion, good Lord, deliver me.* In Daniel Turner's private devotions, that remain still in manu- script, after the words "being now spiritually about to partake of thy Flesh and Blood" there are found " Psalmodick Ejaculations at the Holy Table, O Lamb of God," etc.« So again drawing towards the end of the century : '/4» office or manual of devotions for the better observing the Lords-Day , London, Newborough, 1702, p. 24. 'James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, p. 74. ^The Church of England-Man's Private Devotions, ... by the author of the Week's Preparation to the Sacrament. London, Warner, 1724, p. 56. ■■ Pious Country Parishioner, London, J. Pemberton, sixth edition, 1732, p. 187. ■'' Thomas Burnet, The Nature, Use and Efficacy of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, London, Bettesworth, 1731, p. 30. The book is dedicated " to His Royal Highness The Duke, and Their Royal Highness the Princesses Mary and Louisa". « British Museum, Add. MS. 14,404 ff. 19 b and 20. For his life, see D.N.B. He died in 1741. 6o DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI". O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy upon me ; O lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world grant me thy peace. Amen. Lord Jesus. Amen} The widespread use of Agnus Dei as a private devotion imme- diately before communion must be the explanation, I venture to think, of a circumstance told by the Rev. W. F Clements, that the congregation in a Wiltshire parish used to repeat these words. The impression is given that the congregation said them aloud, to- gether ; ^ but this would have been brawling. We have seen above that James King in his Sacramental Devo- tions bids the communicant say at the moment of Communion certain prayers marked at Prostrating before the Altar} So Bishop Cosin has set before some prayers at Communion this rubric : When we are prostrate before the Altar } In the Pious Country Parishioner^^ communicant is given this direction, when he goes up to the altar before the OfTertory : When you go to the Altar, fall prostrate, and say, Assist me, O Lord &c.* There is the same direction in the ninth edition of 1745. But in the thirteenth, that of 1753, the fear of Hoadly or of his school had done its work, and the direction appears as : When you go to the Altar, meekly kneeling upon your Knees, say. This may be the equivalent oi prostrate. But the proper meaning of prostrate seems to be lying flat on the face. Dr. Bryan Duppa, who died Bishop of Winchester in 1662, thus defines the word : Of all these outward Gestures, Prostration is the lowest act of bodily Reverence that can be used, when the Supplicant casting himself upon the earth, acknowledgeth by that act, that he doth but cast dust to dust, that he is more vile than the least grain of that earth he lies upon ; and this posture best becomes us in times of great Affliction, and ever to be then lowest, when our necessities are at the highest. . . . But the more ordinary and more convenient for all persons, is Genu- flection.* ' Brief Rules for the Holy Communion, London, T. Evans, 1776, p. 81. 2 J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 69. ^J. King, Sacramental Devotions, London, Hazard, 1722, p. 74. ^ John Cosin,M Collection of Private Devotions, London, Luke Meredith, 1693, p. 237- 5 The Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, sixth ed. 1732, p. 184. " Bryan Duppa, Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion, London, Hensman, 1675, pp. 108, III, Part the first. ''amen" at moment of communion. 6i The Saying of Amen at the Delivery of Communion. During our period it was an admirable custom that Amen should be said by the communicant at the delivery of the sacred elements. Dr. Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, who died in 1667, speaks of it thus in his suggestions for a revision of the rubrics : body and soul into f everlasting Life. Answer, by the Receiver, Amen} In a tract attributed to Aldrich there is : The Communicant to answer to it Amen : which without a Rubrick ever was and is still the Practice of the Church of England.^ This is a noteworthy affirmation. And still more to be observed is the teaching of the following catechism : Why do the Communicants usually answer Amen as soon as the Minister has said these Words? [the words of delivery]. . . . The Communicants answer Amen at the end of these Words to profess thereby their Faith of the mysterious Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament.' Some few of the devotional works which suggest the practice will now be mentioned : And as you stretch out your hands to receive the Body or Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, say. Amen. And lift up your Soul in Faith with this or the like Ejaculation, Come Lord Jesus unto thy humble servant* In 1724 the author of the Week's Preparation bids the com- municant at receiving say Amen to the prayer used by the minister.^ James King in his Sacramental Devotions hids the Communicant say the words of delivery with the Priest ; not a commendable practice, it may be added. After "Everlasting Life " he tells him to say, Amen.^ So, too, does Dr. Edward Lake;'^ and in Mrs. 1 William Jacobson, Fragmentary Illustrations of the History of the Book of Com- mon Prayer, London, Murray, 1874, p. 82. ^A reply to two discourses lately printed at Oxford concerning the Adoration of our Blessed Saviour in the holy Eucharist, Oxford, 1687, p. 7. 3 Edward Creffield, A Catechistical Explanation of the Dayly and Sunday Offices, London, S, Keble, 1713, p. 85. 'Rules for our more devout behaviour in the time of Divine Service, tenth edition, London, Keble, 1704, p. 50. Licensed Feb. 11, 1686. ' The Church of England-Man's Private Devotions, ... by the author of the Week's Preparation to the Sacrament. London, T. Warner, 1724, p. 56. * James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, pp. 76, 77. ' Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 68. 62 ''AMEN" AT MOMENT OF COMMUNION. Hopton's book of devotions, at the end, under the title of the Sacrifice of a Devout Christian she adds the Amen to the words of administration. The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for me, preserve my Body and Soul unto Everlasting Life. Amen} The first edition of the New Whole Duty of Man appeared in 1737. It contains this direction : A hearty Amen to that excellent form, when the minister gives you the bread and wine, saying The body of our Lord etc.^ Passing into the nineteenth century we find the custom : When the Priest pronounces the words of delivery " Preserve thy body and soul etc." the communicant should answer. Amen ; a practice rigidly observed in the ancient church.^ To quote Ford again : When the Minister delivereth the Bread, he shall say. The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.* *Say softly Amen ; for here it is most proper and here, therefore, it was formerly placed.^ It is much to be regretted that this ancient practice is now so widely given up. Yet in the middle of the nineteenth century, before the decadence of the last quarter set in, it was comparatively usual. Communicants could be heard plainly saying their Amen as the Eucharist was given to them. Now the practice has nearly dis- appeared. Another insertion oi Amen into the service was practised by Dr. Edward Bernard, the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford towards the end of the seventeenth century. At the Prayer of Consecration, part is a prayer In which I joyn as humbly and devoutly as I can, and putt my Arnen to it at the words may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood [Amen] who in the same night etc. At which consecration I look up to the priest and see what hee do[e]s, with these occasionall ejaculations, nor is there time to be found for more.^ The square brackets enclosing the Amen are in the original manuscript. 1 [Susanna Hopton,] A Collection of Meditations and Devotions, London, Mid- winter, 1717, p. 415. '^ The New Whole Duty of Man, London, Bent, 1819, p. 152. ^ Richard Warner, Book of Common Prayer, Bath, Richard Cruttwell, 1806. ^ James Ford, The new devout Communicant, Ipswich, J. Raw, 1825, p. 116. '' Bodleian Library, MS. Smith, 45, fo. 197. LOCAL CUSTOMS. 63 There is another instance of a similar practice. When the Priest pronounceth these words, This is my Body, This is my Blood b'c. say. Amen. And, Lord, I beUeve thy real spiritual Presence, beneficial to the Souls of Men. O Sacred Feast, wherein Christ himself is received, and the Memory of his Passion renew'd ; our Minds fill'd with Grace, and our future Glory secur'd by a dear and precious Pledge ! 1 The part of this prayer beginning at O sacred Feast is the anthem O sacrum convivium at Magnificat in second vespers of Corpus Christi, common to many breviaries, including the Sarum and Roman. Other Customs. In North Wales the sign of the Cross made by the communicant himself before communion persisted in the first half of the eigh- teenth century. At the delivery of the,bread and wine at the sacrament, several, before they receive the bread or cup, though held out to them, will flourish a little with their thumb to their faces, something like making the figure of a cross. 2 Bishop Wetenhall speaking in the person of the communicant at the end of the service, says : I depart, prayers being ended, with a serious and chearful heart, and countenance ; I keep good thoughts in my mind, but yet pass not so re- served, but that I cheerfully salute any of my Christian brethren, I have occasion ; remembering in the ancient Church, the Assemblies, especially after every Communion, parted with an Holy kiss ; wexy seasonable may it be, and a right charitable imitation of the feasts of Love, to invite any poor communicants home to my Table.^ Dr. Johnson intended to carry this last precept into practice on Easter Day 1765. I invited home with me the man whose pious behaviour I had for several years observed on this day, and found him a kind of Methodist, full of texts, but ill-instructed. I talked to him with temper, and offered him twice wine, which he refused. I suffered him to go without the dinner which I had purposed to give him.* ^ H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, p. 40. ''From a MS. book of a Bp. of St Asaph, written about a century before publication in British Magazine, London, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399. ' [E. Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672, App. ch. viii. p. 406. * Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. George Strahan, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 58. 64 LOCAL CUSTOMS. When the service is over, Dr. Edward Lake gives this direc- tion, suggested it may be by Dr. Wetenhall : Arising and making your Reverence towards the Altar, you depart with a glad heart, and a chearful countenance ; preserve good thoughts in your mind ; yet be not sullen or morose ; but salute any of your Christian Breth- ren you meet with.^ In the same way, at the end of the Communion Service, Dor- rington thus advises the communicant : Then rising from your Knees, kindly and courteously salute your Fellow Communicants at the parting of the Congregation. ^ It is very likely that these salutations were performed in the Church. At this point a Week's Preparation bids the Communicant : Here rising up, and making thine humble Adoration before the Throne of Glory, say. Hallelujah ; Salvation be unto our God, and to the Lamb for ever. Amen. Depart with a glad heart, and a chearful Countenance? This " humble adoration " must be a bow to the altar. It is so called in the Coronation Service of William and Mary,* and thus continues even to the office of our present Gracious Sovereign. The rubric inserted first in 1662 that the Consecrated Species are not to be carried out of the church, but eaten and drunken by the priest and communicants immediately after the blessing, was directed against the profanity of the Puritans, or else it was a vain attempt to stop the gibes of Roman Catholics. Up to 1662 there was nothing in the rubrics of any of the recensions to forbid the priest carrying the Eucharist from the church to the sick man ; he was to minister the Sacrament to him and to those assembled to communicate with him, not to celebrate the Eucharist. But after 1662 this was no longer lawful. A distinct office for the celebration of the Eucharist in the sick man's house, if not in his chamber, was provided, and the consecrated species were not to be taken out of the church. But like some other new rubrics it seems to have been long in ' Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 74, end of service. 2 Theophilus Dorrington, A Familiar Guide to . . . the hordes Supper, London, Aylmer, 1695, p. 163. ^ A Week's Preparation, 43rd ed. 1728, p. 156. *J. Wickham Legg, Three Coronation Orders, Henry Bradshaw Society, igoo, p. 15. LOCAL CUSTOMS. 65 making its way. Anthony Sparrow in the editions of the Rationale published after the year 1662 takes no notice of the direction that the Eucharist is not to be carried out of the church, only repeating the injunction of former editions that according to the Canon Law what is consecrated is " all to be spent with fear and reverence by the Communicants, in the Church ".^ Another new rubric, that at the time of the offertory the priest is to place so much bread and wine upon the Holy Table as shall be sufficient, was, we know, widely disregarded. So that Thorndike in a treatise written be- tween 1670 and 1672 is apparently not conscious that he is saying anything opposed to the rules of the Church when he recommends that the Eucharist be reserved between each celebration for the sick and dying. § 4. And thus far I will particularize, as concerning the eucharist : that the Church is to endeavour the celebrating of it so frequently, that it may be reserved to the next communion. For in the mean time it ought to be so ready for them, that pass into the other world, that they need not stay for the consecrating of it on purpose for every one. The reason of the necessity of it for all, which hath been delivered, aggravates it very much in danger of death. And the practice of the Church attests it to the utmost. Neither will there be any necessity of giving it in one kind only ; as by some passages of antiquity may be collected, if common reason could deceive in a subject of this nature.^ It is still more remarkable that the practice of reserving the eucharist for the sick seems to have persisted in certain places, almost into our time, as the late Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. John Wordsworth, found in his own diocese. And I am inclined to think that something like the custom of the first Prayer-book, which is really nothing but a slight extension on one side and restriction on the other of the primitive custom described by Justin Martyr in the second century, viz., that of sending Communion by the Deacons to the absent [Apol. i. 67), has had a greater traditional continuance among us than is perhaps generally supposed. I have heard of a case of the sacrament being taken to a sick woman directly after a public celebration at Corfe Castle, fifty years ago, and I am told that the like tradition exists at Pentridge. I shall be glad to know if it can be traced elsewhere.^ ^ Anth. Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, London, Garth- wait, 1661, p. 279. The Communion. " Fear and reverence " are a translation of " cum tremore et timore '' of the Canon Law. (Gratian, Decreti iii. pars, de consecr. dist. ii. cap. xxiii. Corpus luris Canonic, ed. Richter & Friedberg, Tauchnitz, 1879, t. i. col. 1321.) ^ Herbert Thorndike, The Reformation of the Church of England better than that of the Council of Trent, ch. xxxix. § 4, in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1854, vol. v. p. 578. 'John Wordsworth, Further considerations on Public Worship, Salisbury, Brown, 1901, p. 15. 5 66 OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST. Whether the following notes from Clay worth, made in 1677, record an instance of this practice on the particular Good Friday there named is uncertain. It may be that the rector celebrated again " in their houses " besides the public celebration in the church ; but three private celebrations besides the public celebration seem to demand a great trial of strength for the parish priest. There is besides no record of those who were appointed to communicate with the sick, who are, it may be noted, in each case three in number, and are spoken of in the plural. 1677 April 8th. Palm-Sunday at Sacrament 57. Thomas the son of Thomas Collingwood Labourer, & of Alice his Wife baptiz'd. 13th. Good-Friday; Communicants 43; & at home in their houses such who were ill, 3. 15th. Easter-day; Communicants 106; and i6th at Francis John- son's house such as were ill, 3.' If other instances become known, the case may become clearer. There is a circumstance connected with the last communion of Dr. Cosin, the Bishop of Durham immediately after the Restora- tion, which may be interpreted either to mean communion by intinction, or to mean that the species of bread was to be dipped in unconsecrated wine to render swallowing more easy ;. the reader may form an opinion as he is disposed. The Bishop desired to have 2 Divines who were the King's Chaplaines then attend- ing at Whitehall to be sent for to him, and when they came desired them to pray with him, and that he might receive the Sacrament . . . and being thus ill the Divines asked him whether he would have the bread only dipped in wine, and so take it, he answered, ' No, he would take it in both kinds ' . . . And so, within half an hower after he had taken the Sacrament, dyed as if he had been going to sleepe.^ Opinions held on the Eucharist. It may be worth while to record here the opinions of some strong Churchmen, Hamon L'estrange, John Evelyn, Robert Nelson, and William Stevens, all laymen, on the doctrine of the holy Eucharist. Hamon L'estrange the layman, who published immediately ' Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth Notts, Nott- ingham, Saxton, igio, p. 29. ^ The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, 1872, vol. Iv. part ii. p. xxxviii. Hunter MSS. ix. 294, most likely at Durham. OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST. 67 before the Restoration a comparative study of the first book of Edward the Sixth, the Scottish Liturgy, and the Elizabethan book, comments thus on the Prayer of Consecration : Saying, Take eat, this is my J^ody.] The recital of these words pass in the common vogue for a Consecration ; were I Romishly inclin'd, I should rather impute unto them the power of Transubstantiation, for that a bare Narrative can be qualified to consecrate, is certainly new Divinity, unknown to Scripture, and Antiquity interpreting it : Therefore I must adhere in judgement to those learned men, who de- rive Consecration from the word of God and Prayer, the very way by which our Saviour himself sanctified those Elements in his first institution.^ In 1 67 1, Evelyn was desired by a certain Father Patrick to give him an account in writing of the Eucharistic doctrine of the Church of England. The doctrine of the Church of England is, or at least to my best un- derstanding, imports, that after the prayer, or words of consecration, the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacra- mental, spiritual, and real manner ; and that all initiated, or baptized persons, of competent age and capacity, who by unfained repentance, and a faithful consideration of the life, doctrine, and passion of our B. Saviour, resolve to undertake his holy religion, and to persist in it, are made realy participants of the benefits of his body and blood for the remission of their sins, and the obtaining of all other spiritual graces ; inasmuch, as it is a revival of the sacrifice of Christ on the crosse, once offered for sin, and for ever effectual ; and a renewing of the covenant of grace to the penitent. But she who afifirmes this, holds also, that even after the words of con- secration (or, rather, efficacy of the benediction) the bodily substance of the elements remaine. * * * And upon this account, the mysterious presence of Christ she holds to be a greate miracle, engaging the infinite power of God, to render the flesh and blood of Christ so present in the elements by effect and benediction, as that the worthy receiver as really communicates in reference to his spirit, as he sacramentally communicates in reference to his body ; the mystical presence being present with the material, by a supernatural conjunction realy tendered to the faithfull.^ Also we may note the agreement of Robert Nelson with the opinion that there should be a celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday. They that are acquainted with Ecclesiastical History, know very well, that the Eucharist in the purest ages of the Church, made a part of their ' Hamon L'estrange, Esq.; The Alliance of Divine Offices, ch. 7, letter K. London, Broom, 1659, p. 215. It went through two more editions, in 1690 and 1699. ''Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879, vol. iii. p. 382. S* 68 OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST. Publick Service; and when the Devotion of Christians began to decline, they yet always upon the Lord's Day celebrated the Christian Sacrifice. Our Second Service at the Altar seems defective without a conformable Practise to Antiquity in this point, and the Holy Exercises of the Lord's Day appear to want their due Perfection without these Eucharistical Devotions. To this purpose, our Church has encouraged a constant weekly Communion, by permitting it to be celebrated where three or four Persons are ready and willing to Communicate, as being assured by our Saviour that where two or three are gathered together in his Name, there he is himself in the midst of them. And if the Parochial Minister should begin with such a small Num- ber, it is likely they would quickly increase, at least it will demonstrate his own Zeal to shew forth the Lordh Death, and may bring a Blessing upon his Parish, as well as upon the other Labours of his Llbly Function. In Order to quicken the establishing of this Primitive Devotion, I can- not forbear suggesting an Observation made by several of the Reverend Clergy, who have been zealous in this Matter, That where Communions have been frequent, the Number of the Communicants have sensibly increased ; which, I think, ought to be no small encouragement to have the Holy Mysteries celebrated in all Parish Churches every Lord's Day.'^ William Stevens, born in 1732, died in 1807 : though a layman, he devoted himself to the study of theology, and shortly before his death edited the Works of Jones of Nayland. In 1773 he published under the name of a Layman his treatise on the Church, which went through numerous editions. The reason why deacons were not allowed to consecrate the Lord's Supper was because this sacrament was always believed to succeed in the place o{ sacrifices ; and as none beside the high priest, and inferior priests, were permitted to offer sacrifices under the Jewish law, so none but bishops and presbyters, who alone are priests in the Christian sense of that name, consecrated the Lord's Supper.^ The large number of editions of this work, the last in 1833, testifies to the support given to his opinions. From the opinions set forth by the laity themselves we may turn to the teaching contained in the books written for them and used by them during our period. So immediately after the Restoration, Annand writes : The bread is blessed ; that is, prayer is made that the bread might be 1 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London, Churchill, 1706, preface, A 3, b. 2 William Stevens, A treatise on the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, new ed. Rivington, published by desire of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 1810, p. 28. OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 69 to the faithful soul the body of Christ broken for its sin, and after the institution is read it becomes so.' Daniel Brevint, noted for his protestant attitude, writes thus of the Eucharist in what is perhaps his best known work : This Bread, which is the Body of the Lord, continues new.^ Further on : Therefore whensoever Christians approach to the dreadful Mystery, and to the Lamb of God lying and sacrificed (as some say the holy Nicene Council speaks) upon the holy Table ; it concerns their main interest in point of Salvation, as well as in other duties, to take a special care, not to lame, and deprive the grand Sacrifice of its own due Attendance.^ Comber, Dean of Durham, puts into the prayers of his com- municants such expressions as these : Thou hast made me drink of thy blood and given me thy Soul, thy Life, and thy Spirit.* later on : When by Faith I see that Body which all the Angels of Heaven wor- ship.' and again : O my Coelestial food, the Bread that came down from Heaven." In a very popular book of devotion there are these expressions : In this thy Holy Sacrament, thou communicatest Body and Blood, Flesh and Spirit, thy whole Manhood, yea, thy very Godhead too.^ The Eucharistic Sacrifice. Much has been said in the way of denial of the existence of teaching in the Church of England that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. As an answer to this, it is enough to point to John Johnson or to Waterland as authors of repute who have maintained this doctrine. Yet it may be useful to examine the teaching of other divines ' William Annand, Fides Catholica, London, T. R. for Edward Brewster, r66i, p. 443- ^Daniel Brevint, The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, Oxford, 1673, p. 15. 2 ibid. p. 94. ^Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Altar, London, Martyn, 1675, Partition IIL Sect. iii. § 13, p. 284. ^ ibid. § 4, p. 276. ' ibid. § 6, p. 277. ''A Week's Preparation, Monday's Meditations in the Morning, 43rd ed. Keble, 1728, p. 4. 70 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. in the Church of England who may be cited to speak on this point during our period. Dr. Stillingfleet, when Bishop of Worcester, in what may be his last Charge, speaks of Christian Priests offering sacrifices in common with priests of all other religions. But it is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion, to have an Order of Men set apart, not meerly as Priests, to offer Sacrifices (for that all Religions have had) but as Preachers of Righteousness, to set Good and Evil before the People committed to their Charge.' Robert Nelson must be admitted as a representative Churchman. He writes : Q. What was the End and Design of instituting the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper? A. To be the Christian Sacrifice, wherein Bread and Wine are offered to God, to acknowledge him Lord of the Creatures ; and accordingly in the ancient Church they were laid on the Table by the Priest, as they are still order'd to be done by the Rubrick in the Church of England, and tendred to God by this short Prayer, Lord, we offer thy own out of what thou hast bountifully given us ; which by Consecration being made Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ, we thereby represent to God the Father the Passion of his Son. . . . Q. After what manner was the Consecration of the Elements of Bread and Wine performed in the primitive Church ? A. The Priest that officiated, not only rehearsed the Evangelical His- tory of the Institution of this Holy Sacrament, and pronounced those words of our Saviour, this is my Body, this is my Blood ; but he offered up a Prayer of Consecration to God, beseeching him, that he would send down his Holy Spirit upon th£ Bread and Wine presented to him on the Altar, and that he would so sanctifie them, that they might become the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus Christ ; not according to the gross Compages or Substance, but as to the Spiritual Energy and Vertue of his Holy Flesh and Blood, communicated to the blessed Elements by the Power and Opera- tion of the Holy Ghost descending upon them ; whereby the Body and Blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken by the Faithful in the Lord;s Supper} It should be remembered that this work is said to have had the largest sale in England of any book except the Bible.' The holy Bishop of Sodor and Man, whose i Sacra Privata was the standard book of prayer for most English Churchmen until the middle of the nineteenth century, puts this prayer before the communicant : ^ Edward Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Cases, London, Mortlock, i5g8, p. 5. 2 Robert Nelson, A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, London, Churchill, 1705, third ed. p. 490. ^ See below, ch. xi. p. 339. OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 71 Immediately after the Consecration. We offer unto Thee, our King and our God, this bread and this cup. We give Thee thanks for these and for all Thy mercies, beseeching Thee to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon this sacrifice, that He may make this bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of Thy Christ : and that all we, who are partakers thereof, may thereby obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion.^ John Johnson, the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar published in 171 8, and Waterland, the author of A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity, published in 1737, could not agree in their teaching on the nature of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but both taught that there was a sacrifice in the Eucharist. Christopher Beeke took his M.A. from St. John's College Cam- bridge in 1740, and he died in 1798, aged 89. He seems to have seen that Johnson, the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice, and Water- land, were really at one in their teaching on the sacrifice in the Eucharist but did not understand one another's words. The Heart of the Question, therefore, turns upon this Point, viz. Whether the Fathers had the same Notion of a material Sacrifice that Dr. Waterland has? If they had, certain it is, they did not believe the Ele- ments to be a Sacrifice, properly so call'd, tho' they frequently so called them : But if they had not that Notion, then there is great Reason to con- clude, that they believed the Elements to be properly what they called them, viz. a Sacrifice. That they rejected all material Sacrifice, in Dr. Waterland' s sense, is beyond all Question ; and so it is, that they did not reject all material Sacrifice in Mr. Johnson's Sense ; for Fathers, Councils, Liturgies do all conspire, in teaching the Eucharist to be a material Offering, an Offering or Oblation of Bread and Wine, as Figures, &c. for a Memorial of the grand Sacrifice.''' Samuel Hardy took his degree at Cambridge from Emmanuel College in 1 74 1. In 1784 he was Rector of Little Blakenham in Suffolk and Lecturer of Enfield in Middlesex. He edited a Greek Testament in 1768 which he dedicated to the Archbishop of Canter- bury, Dr. Frederick Cornwallis. This passed through three editions at least. He also published a number of works on the Eucharist, urging daily communion, or at least every Sunday, and insisting upon the doctrine of a material, true, and proper sacrifice in the Eucharist, maintaining that the Eucharist is consecrated by the descent of ' Thomas Wilson, Sacra Privata, Sunday, Lord's Supper, in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, i860, vol. v. p. 74. 2 Christopher Beeke, The Eucharistical Sacrifice, London, Astley, 1739, p. 163. 72 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. the Holy Ghost upon the elements. He died in 1793, aged 73. But though such a scholar, and so prolific a writer, yet his name does not appear in the Dictionary of National Biography, and I can only find his works on the Eucharist in the catalogue of the British Museum. To begin with the Eucharist prov'd to be a Material Sacrifice. Against the Lutherans and Calvinists he affirms, while rejecting the doctrine of the Papists, as follows : But to deny that the Eucharist is a true dsA proper, the' Representative, Sacrifice, is to err in the contrary extream. (p. 4.) In the next page he attacks Waterland : The latest and best Writer [Waterland] against this Doctrine has passed over the best and strongest Arguments that are brought to prove the Eucharist to be a Material Sacrifice : I mean the Determinations of General Councils : the Ancient Liturgies ; and the express Words of Jesus Christ, and his Holy Apostles, (p. 5.) From this^^he foresees that the Consequence must be that The Christian Sacrifice would be constantly offered, and as constantly received by all the Faithful, (p. 6.) He proclaims that the Apostles were, and consequently that all their Successors were to be, sacrificing Priests, (p. 11.) In the first page of the Appendix he goes so far as to speak of the presence of the Natural Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Eucharist. When we place the Bread and Wine upon the Altar, (which is done immediately before the Prayer for the Church Militant), we solemnly offer them to Almighty God. And this we believe our Church countenances by directing us to beseech God to accept our Alms and Oblations. . . . We believe that the Holy Ghost descends upon them, and makes them, in Divine Construction the Natural Body and Blood of Christ. He had published in 1 746 a work with the title of : The Indispensable Necessity of Constantly Celebrating the Christian Sacrifice, plainly proved from Scripture and Antiquity. (London, Hitch, etc. r746.) in which he presses upon Churchmen the importance of the Eucharist in the Reformation of Manners : But Men may talk what they will of Reformation, and propose a thou- sand Schemes to bring about a Change; but, while the Eucharist is OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 73 neglected as it is, in vain may we expect to see the Morals of the People mended, (p. 2.) In 1 763 Samuel Hardy published another work which he intended as an answer to Warburton's Rational Account. He dedicated this answer to the clergy and its title is A new plain and scriptural Account of the nature and ends of the holy Eucharist, London 1763. Of the notions contained in this work the following extracts may give some idea : You cannot, my Reverend Brethren, but know that our Reformers laboured hard to restore the Practice of Daily Communions. It is certain too, that they embraced the Sacrificial Notion of the Eucharist, (p. [vii].) * * * Mr. Mede had declared, that the Notion of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist would be sufi&ciently established, if the Priest was directed to place the Bread and Wine upon the Holy Altar, (p. [viii].) * * * By the word Oblations in the Prayer for the Church Militant, the Convocation meant the Bread and Wine. From all which it is certain, that the Doctrine of our Church, concerning the Eucharisiical Sacrifice is the same Now, as it was Then. (pp. viii-ix.) Towards the end of his life Samuel Hardy determined to set down a permanent record of his opinions in a work that he intended to live. It was published in 1784 and he dedicates it to the Bishops and Clergy of England. In the dedication he says : The Primitive Notions of the Eucharist, which surely were founded on Gospel Principles, — and some Years ago prevailed in the Church of England, and were indeed its chief Support, — have been ridiculed of late ; and, as if Ridicule was indeed the Test of Truth, as Shaftsbury pretended. Men have suffered themselves to be laughed out of their Strong Holds, and are now exposed, naked and defenceless, to the Storm ! — And there is but one Being in the Universe who can shelter us ! Indeed since our Altars have been forsaken, Dissentions have been greatly multiplied ; — Dissentions, which now disgrace this Country, and endanger our Liberty. And can we wonder at it, if the very Band of Union, which is the Eucharist, be neglected by us ! For since the Bread is One, we, being many, are One Body ; for, we are all Partakers of that One Bread ! It has indeed been insinuated, sometimes, that the Asserters of a Material Sacrifice in the Eucharist, have a Tendency to Popery ; and that the Notion itself leads directly to Transubstantiaiion.^ ^ Samuel Hardy, The Scripttire-Account of the Nature and Ends of the Holy Eu- charist, London, Benjamin White, 1784. Dedication, p. ix. 74 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. Thus even in what is called the darkest hour of the Church of England the doctrine of a material and proper sacrifice in the Euch- arist did not cease to be asserted. That there is a sacrifice com- memorative, if nothing more, is also taught. Commenting on the parable of the Prodigal Son and the return of the Gentiles, Dr. George Home, Bishop of Norwich, says : And, lastly, the ministers were to prepare the Christian sacrifice, on which the now accepted Gentiles were to feast at the table of their heavenly father, singing and making melody to the Lord, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. ^ Dr. William Cleaver, Bishop of Chester, published at Oxford with the imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor a sermon in which it is assumed that we are commanded to eat and drink the body and blood of our Lord in form of a feast on a sacrifice. But if we are commanded to eat and drink this body and blood in form of a feast on a sacrifice ... it would increase the difficulty to suppose, that we do not obtain these benefits in a way analogous to that, by which the benefits are derived from every sacrifice.^ The Bishop also published about the same time another sermon, in which we find the acknowledgement that the doctrine of a material Sacrifice in the Eucharist was held by writers of great weight and character in the English Church. The great object with our Reformers was, whilst they acknowledged the doctrine of the Real Presence, to refute that of Transubstantiation ; as it afterwards was to refute the notion of Impanation or Consubstantiation. They took much pains likewise to shew from the Scriptures, as well as from the authority of the earlier Fathers, that this rite was not a material Sacrifice ; an idea which later Writers notwithstanding, of great weight and character in our Church, have still supported. I see nothing plainer, no interpretation of this Sacrament more easy and simple, none more rational, than that it is a representation and memorial of that Sacrifice, or, in the language of our Church, " a continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ," as well as the means by which every man may apply to himself the new Covenant of grace, pur- chased by that Sacrifice.^ 1 George Home, Discourses on several Subjects and Occasions, third ed. London, 1799, vol. ii. p. 331. 2 William Cleaver, Pardon and Sanctification proved to be privileges annexed to the due use of the Lord's Supper, as a feast upon a sacrifice, Oxford, Fletcher, 1791, p. 19. ' William Cleaver, A Sermon on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Oxford, Fletcher, 1790, pp. 2, 17. VALUE Oh ''TABLE PRAYERS" 75 The famous Jones of Nayland who died in 1800, speaks thus of the alms to be given during the collection at the offertory -. when with the holy oblation of Christ's body and blood, it is right we should offer ourselves and our worldly substance to be consecrated with the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice. ^ In another place, insisting that the Church is holy, he adds : It is holy in its sacraments ; our baptism is an holy baptism, from the Holy Spirit of God ; the Lord's Supper is an holy sacrifice.^ Sir George Pretyman Tomline, who was Bishop of Lincoln from 1787 to 1820, published a Refutation of Calvinism, with other works in Divinity. In commenting upon the thirty-first Article of Religion he says the Eucharist is a commemorative and not a propitiatory sacrifice ; it is not itself a sacrifice for sin, but it is a feast upon a sacrifice.^ So again only eight years before the rise of the Tractarian Move- ment we find the following teaching given to communicants : As the Eucharist takes place of the Sacrifice of the temple, it is, therefore, not improperly called Christian Sacrifice . . . the represen- tation of Christ's own offering or sacrifice, from whence the Altar of his church has its name.* Value of "Table Prayers". The Puritans tried to make the celebrant say in the reading desk, not at the altar itself, the Missa Catechumenorum as the Latins or Typica as the Greeks call it, or Table Prayers as it was mockingly named some sixty years ago. The Puritans did not want frequent Communion, and the celebrant going up to the altar reminded them that this second service was about to begin. Churchmen, therefore, tried to insist on the second service being said at the altar, with the teaching which the going up to the altar involved. The Priest standing at the Communion Table, seemeth to give us an Invitation to the Holy Sacrament, and minds us of our Duty, viz. To ' William Jones (of Nayland), Churchman's Catechism, in Works, Rivington, 1801, vol. xi. p. 419. ^idem. Essay on the Church, ibid. vol. iv. p. 403. ^George Pretyman [Tomline], Elements of Christian Theology, London, 1799, vol. ii. p. 507- * James Ford, The new devout Communicant, 5th ed. Ipswich, 1825, pp. 14 and 15. 76 VALUE OF ''TABLE PRAYERS" Receive the Holy Communion, some at least every Sunday ; and though we neglect our Duty, 'tis fit the Church should keep her standing.^ A little later on Dr. Bisse says much the same : And as the Church gives it the name of the CommunionS&rwice, so it orders it to be read at the Commumon-i: able : and thus by retaining the ancient place and name, as memorials of her primitive zeal, she testifies to all her Children, that there ought to be now in these days, as in the days of old, an holy Communion, whenever this Service is appointed, that is, on every Lord's-day and on every Holy-day, whether a Festival or Fast.^ Dr. Seeker, when Bishop of Oxford, argues from this use of the first part of the Eucharist that it is an indication of a desire for a celebration on every Sunday and Holiday : Part of the Office for it [the Eucharist] is read every Lord's Day in every Church, for an Admonition of what it were to be wished the People could be brought to.^ Though the laity could not be persuaded to approach the Holy Table frequently, yet the going up to the altar every Sunday and holiday by the priest was thought to be such a warning that the Eucharist should then be celebrated, that Churchmen could not give it up. It was a weekly indication of duty, too often disregarded. They were prepared to look upon the Eucharistic as one undivided service. They could not know of the plausible attempts made in our day to show that after all, the uiissa catechumenorum is dififerent in kind from the missa fidelium, because the missa catechmnenorum is a choir service with its lessons in the epistle and gospel, and psalm in the mutilated introit ; though this missa catechumenorum has now for so many ages been joined on to the offertory, consecra- tion, and communion in the missa fidelium that the two are considered inseparable.* The position may be strengthened by the considera- tion that in the Roman rite, the bishop says the missa catechumenorum at his throne, which is usually at one end of the choir, and he does not approach the altar until the offertory. It is a pity that the Puritans were not told that by saying the first part of the Communion service up to the Offertory at the desk, they were doing something Roman and Episcopal. They would have been puzzled to determine which course they should think the better to follow. 'Richard Hart, Parish Churches Turn'd into Conventicles . . . by reading the Communion Service, or any part thereof in the Desk, London, 1683, p. 19. ^ Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. 1721, Lon- don, Taylor and Innys, Sermon iv. p. 124. 3 Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, 1771. Second Charge, p. 62. ■* Fernand Cahrol, Revue du Clerge frangais, 1900, aout, p. 561, and septembre, p. 5. See also my Three Chapters in Recent Liturgical Research, S.P.C.K. 1903, p. 14. CHAPTER IV. OBSERVANCE OF THE DUTY OF DAILY SERVICE. The period with which we are dealing does not call for any de- scription of the Presbyterian or Independent services ; or of the holes and corners into which the Church of England people were driven when they would worship Almighty God during what used to be called the broken times, or, more plainly, the great Rebellion. But the readiness with which the people returned to the use of the Book of Common Prayer is some evidence that they were glad to escape from the dreariness of the presbyterian and independent preachings. Even before the King returned they had begun the old service again. In April 1660 Anthony Wood has this entry : Common Prayer was first of all read at Magdalen parish in the beginning of this moneth after it had been omitted in Oxon to be read in public places since the surrender of Oxon or in 1647 ; see English History 11 19. . . . Read soon after in severall College Chappells, I think Merton the first, Black book, p. 7 , together with the singing of prayers after the most antient way : to which places the resort of people (more out of novelty I suppose than devotion) was infinitely great. ^ Whatever motive may be suggested the fact remains that great ^ Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 102, fo. 70 {ol. 136), printed in Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 313. 2 ihid. p. 319. ^ ihid. p. 357. 77 78 OBSERVANCE OF THE DUTY OF DAILY SERVICE. numbers delighted in the old services. They began the old service at the cathedral church of Worcester on August 31, 1660 : at six in the morning the first morning prayer [was] said in the body of the church according to ancient custom. and on Sept. 2, 1660 There was a very great assembly at morning prayer, by six in the morning, in the Cathedral of Worcester ; and at nine o'clock there appeared again at prayers all the gentry &c.i The daily service was likewise restored in the Chapel Royal, as we find from the following order, dated Dec. 13, 1663 : The gentlemen being decentely habited in their gownes and surplices (not in cloakes and bootes and spurrs) shall come into the Chappell orderly together and attend God's service at the hour of ten and foure on the weeke dayes and at nine and foure on Sundayes and Sermon dayes.^ The word 'gown ' here has the significance of a cassock. And ' orderly ' would seem to direct some sort of procession, not haphazard, in ones or twos at a time, as is still done in some colle- giate churches, without blame. The following order has no date, but it would seem to have been issued soon after the Restoration : As Our expresse pleasure is, that Our Chappell be all the Yeare kept both morning and evening, with solemne musick like a Collegiate Church, unlesse it be at such times in the Summer, or other times when Wee are pleased to spare it.' So also daily service is restored in parish churches. Mr. Pepys being in Fleet Street early on July 14, 1664, says : hearing a psalm sung, I went into St. Dunstan's, and there heard prayers read, which, it seems, is done there every morning at six o'clock. In dealing more at length with the practice of daily service throughout the year it may assist the reader to consider the subject under three heads. The first will deal with the matter as en- joined by authority, such as Visitation Articles, Charges, and books or writings by ecclesiastics of eminence. The second will treat of the records of the opportunities of daily prayer offered by the parochial clergy, as shown in the church time-tables which have come down to us. The third will be based upon incidental mention of attend- ^ John Noake, Worcester Sects, Longmans, 1861, p. 94, from the Townsend MS. ^ The Old Cheque Booh, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872. New Series III. p. 82. ' A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household, printed for the Society of Antiquaries, London, 1790, p. 360. DAIL Y SER VICE RE COMMENDED BY A UTHORIT Y. 79 ance by the laity upon the daily service, to be found in writings of all kinds during the period under consideration. Some amount of overlapping may be detected here and there in the sections, for it has been found a hard matter to make a clean cut division between the three. Nevertheless an attempt at classification seemed better than no attempt at all. As Recommended by Authority. Preaching before King Charles the Second at Whitehall, the Bishop of Ely, Dr. Laney, said : Our Church. . . . That they might not want what all Churches ever had ; so ordered our Liturgie, that by it we might with safety and true de- votion, daily Sacrifice to the praise and honor of God.^ The numerous visitation articles of this time show much una- nimity in asking if the daily service be said, and without mutilation. For example, in 1664, the Bishop of Lincoln inquires VI. Doth your Parson, Vicar, or Curate, in reading the daily Morning and Evening Service . . . use the form and words prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer, without any addition, omission, or alteration of the same ? ^ The same inquiry was made by the Dean two years later.' Also in the Diocese of Winchester in 1662.' And in Oxford in 1672 ;^ Peterborough in 1662 ;* St. Davids in 1662 ;'' and a number of other Articles of Visitation the same inquiry is made ; but it would be wearisome to enumerate them. The service is confessedly of daily obligation ; the question only is : how is it said ? Jeremy Taylor in his rules, issued between 1661 and 1667, to the Clergy of the Dioceses of Down and Connor, speaks thus of the daily service : 77. Every minister is obliged, publicly or privately, to read the common prayers every day in the week, at morning and evening ; and in great towns and populous places conveniently inhabited, it must be read in churches, that the daily sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving may never cease.^ 1 B. Laney, Two Sermons of Prayer to God, London, T. Garthwaite, 1668, p. 7. '^ Articles of Visitation . . . Benjamin, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, London, Garthwaite, 1664, p. 4. ^ ibid. Michael Honywood, Dean of Lincoln, London, Seile, 1666, p. 4. '^ihid. George, Bp. of Winchester, London, Garthwaite, i66z, p. 4. ^ ihid. Nathanael, Lord Bishop of Oxford, London, Hooke, 1672, p. 4. ^ibid. Benjamin, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, London, A. Seile, 1662, p. 5. ''ibid. William, Bishop of St. David, London, Garthwaite, 1162, p. 4. * Jeremy Taylor, Rules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocess of Down and Connor, %vii. in Whole Works, ed, by Reginald Heber, London, Ogle, 1822, vol. xiv. p. 505. 8o BAIL V SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORITY. In 1669 the Archdeacon of Durham at his Easter Visitation gave the following directions to the Curates of his two livings of Sedgefield and Easington : That the Mattens and Evensong shall be (according to the rubrick) said dayly, in the chancells of each his parrish churches, throughout the year, without the le[a]st variation. That the houres for dayly prayer on working dayes shall be six in the morning, and six in the evening, as the most convenient for labourers and men of busyness.^ At Manchester, the Warden and Fellows, in a statute dated May 6, 1671, ordain that the singing men and boys " who shall per- form the prayers and other daily divine services in the Church of the aforesaid College " ^ are to submit to the rules of the College. Dr. Edward Lake in his Officium Eucharisticunt, first published, it would seem, in 1673, follows Cosin's Collection of Private De- votion in inculcating the observance of the five Precepts of the Church, in the fourth of which is urged the importance for the lay- man of attendance on daily Mattins and Evensong in the Church. Next to the Holy Commandments and Injunctions of the Gospel, be diligent to observe the Precepts of the Church, viz. * * * 4. To repair every day Morning and Evening (unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary) unto some Church or Chappel for Publick Prayers, unto which God hath in a more peculiar manner annexed his Blessing, that where two or three are gathered together in his Name he will be in the midst of them.' At a visitation held in 1674 by the Archdeacon of Durham it is asked : Besides the ordinary offices for Sundayes and Feastivalls, and dayly prayers throughout the yeare, hath there been . . .* The daily services are supposed, and obligatory. A little later on, in the Injunctions preparatory to the Bishop's Visitation, there is this order : 4. That the Rubrick enjoyning Dayly Prayer (soe much insisted on by the late Bishopp and both Archdeacons) be observed by all Preists and '^Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 129. * [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations of Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834, vol. ii. p. 7. ^Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharistictim, p. no before evening prayers. ■* The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 11, BAIL V SEJ^ VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORIT Y. 8 1 Deacons (as enjoyned) either publickly or privately, not being lett by sick- ness or some urgent cause of like importance.^ In 1680 when Bishop Patrick was at St. Paul's Covent Garden, he made arrangements for no less than four services daily. They already had Mattins and Evensong daily, for Some pious persons indeed had desired prayers at the hour of ten in the morning, and three in the afternoon, which they maintained by a voluntary contribution. These [extra services] therefore were ordered to be at six o'clock in the morning, and seven at night in summer time, (before trading began, and when it was done,) that servants might resort unto them. Which they did very much, and I hope will continue to do. The other prayers also still continue at ten and three, to which the gentry and better sort of people, who maintain them are wont to come.^ Servants are not of necessity here domestic servants, but what the French call employes. In a Visitation of the Archdeaconry of Northumberland held in April 1684 the third requirement is : III. That the rubricke injoyneing Dayly Prayer be observed duely by all Priests and Deacons, either publiquely or at least privately, not being lett by sickness or other reasonable cause.^ Dr. Fell, when Bishop of Oxford, spoke thus at a visitation in 1685 of those clergy who are constantly excusing themselves from their duties : If I require a constant diligence in offering the daily sacrifice of Prayer for the people, at least at those returns which the Church enjoins, the usual answer is, they are ready to do their duty, but the people will not be prevailed with to join with them.* In 1686, Dr. Francis Turner, then Bishop of Ely, tells his Clergy that there is one thing more which I do exceedingly long to see introduc't, and would fain obtain ; that which the Rubrick in the true Intent of it still exacts of you, to have Morning and Evening Prayer every day of the week in your Church J' 1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 17. ^ The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, Oxford, I. H. Parker, 1839, p. 90. ^Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 282. '' Reprinted in the Student, or the Oxford Monthly Miscellany , No. i, January i, 1750, p. 8. Dr. Seeker, when Bishop of Oxford, refers to this : " Were I to repeat to you the strong expressions which ray great Predecessor Bishop Fell used, in requiring this Part of ecclesiastical Duty, they would surprise you"- (Bight Charges, Lond. 1771. Second charge, p. 76.) * Francis Turner, A Letter to the Clergy of the Dioecess of Ely, Cambridge, Hayes, 1686, p. 12. 6 82 DAILY SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORIT Y. Dr. Symon Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Ely, opens a chapter in his book on prayer, published first in 1686, with these words : Chap. XIX. Of Daily Publick Assemblies and of Hours, and Gestures of Prayer. It may be thought, perhaps, by some, that I go too far, in pressing a daily attendance upon the Public Prayers.' It has been seen above ^ that, at St. Paul's Covent Garden, during his incumbency, he provided four daily services. Thomas Comber, who afterwards became Dean of Durham, published in 1687 A Discourse concerning the daily Frequenting the Common Prayer, in which he exhorts the faithful to a daily atten- dance at church. A Doctor of Medicine, John Mapletoft, published in 1687 A persuasive to the Conscientious frequenting the daily Publick Prayers of the Church of England. It was issued at London, by Kittilby. It may be inferred from Ken's sermon on the death of Lady Maynard that he had established daily morning and evening prayer in his first cure of Little Easton. As Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1688 he exhorts his clergy to daily service : But your greatest Zeal must be spent for the Publick Prayers, in the constant and devout use of which, the Publick Safety, both of Church and State, is highly concern 'd : be sure then to offer up to God every day the Morning and Evening Prayer ; offer it up in your Family at least, or rather as far as your circumstances may possibly permit, offer it up in the Church, especially if you live in a great Town, and say over the Litany every morn- ing during the whole Lent.^ As soon as King James' prosecution of the Seven Bishops had failed, the Archbishop of Canterbury put out a document addressed to his suffragans ; one article of which is an exhortation to the performance of the daily service. V. That they perform the Daily Office publickly (with all Decency, Affection, and Gravity) in all Markit and other Great Towns, and even in Villages, and less populous Places, bring people to Publick Prayers as frequently as may be ; especially on such Days, and at such Times, as the Rubric and Canons [direct] appointed on Holy-days, and their Eves, on ^ Symon Patrick, A discourse concerning Prayer, London, Chapman, 1705, p. 201. ^See above, p. 81. ' Thomas Ken, A Pastoral Letter . . . to his clergy concerning their behaviour during Lent, pubhshed by Charles Brome, 1688, p. 2, reprinted in The Prose Works of Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 476. For the daily service at Little Easton, see p. 131. BAIL Y SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORITY. 83 Ember and Rogation Days, on Wednesdays and Fridays in each Week, and especially in Advent and Lent} This is among "Some Heads of Things to be more fully insisted upon by the Bishops in their Addresses to the Clergy and People of their respective Diocesses,'' and is dated July 27, 1688. In Ireland also there were daily services. In 1691, a Bishop of Cork, urging the practice of family prayer, adds : Besides this, seeing there are daily publick prayers in two Churches of the Town at least, what would it be for every sufificient Housekeeper, if not to come often themselves, yet to send daily at least, one or two of the Family, to pray there for all the rest ? ^ In 1695, Dr. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, urging upon his Clergy the " devout and decent Reading [of] the Holy Offices of the Church "and "a good, distinct, forcible, yet easy, and un- forced Reading of every Prayer and Portion of the Holy Scriptures," adds that, if this be done, " It is indeed almost incredible, how quite another Thing the daily Morning and Evening Prayers will appear".^ The daily morning and evening prayers are taken for granted : only they are to be decently performed. In the year of his death, 1 708, Dr. Beveridge's executor pub- lished a treatise by the bishop on the Great Necessity and Advantage of Publick Prayer and Frequent Communion. In it he shows "the many great Advantages which arise from the Daily frequenting the Publick Prayers of the Church". The little book went through at least nine editions in the eighteenth century, besides being trans- lated into Welsh. In an official letter. Dr. Wake, when Bishop of Lincoln in 1 7 1 1 , urges daily service, even in country parishes : The Examples of several Excellent Parsons, who have done this with good Success, and brought their People to frequent the daily Prayers of the Church, shew what others might do . . . But whatever may be pretended against such a constant Usage of the Daily Service in the Church, certain it is, that no Allowance is made for the ^The Archbishop of Canterbury's Instructions to the Clergy of the Church of England, London, H. Jones, i68g. See also Walter Scott, A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts, sec. ed. London, 1813, vol. ix. p. 133. These are often called the Somers tracts. '^Pastoral Admonitions Directed by the Bishop of Cork to all under his charge, Cork, Brent and Jones, 1691, p. ix. ' Thomas Sprat, A Discourse made by the Lord Bishop of Rochester to the Clergy of his Diocese. . . . 1695. In the Savoy, Nutt, 1710, pp. 11, 13. 6* 84 DAILY SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY. Omission of it upon Litany-Days, Holy Days, Sundays, and their Eves ; and it must therefore be your Duty to see that the Clergy within your Arch- Deaconry do accordingly read it there, at least upon those Days.i In the same way Dr. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, who like Dr. Wake afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks of the daily service as a duty required of every clergyman. These are his words : In reading the daily Prayers of the Church, if any of us, instead of pro- nouncing them in the manner which the Nature of this Duty requires, that is, gravely, seriously and reverently, should make it his constant practice to hurry them over without any Concern or Attention, and like a Task of which he desires to rid himself as soon as possible ; this, instead of ex- citing Devotion in those that hear him, would rather incline them to Remissness and Coldness, to Irreligion and Atheism. . . . My Brethren of the Clergy . . are farther requir'd by one of the Rubricks prefix'd before our excellent Liturgy, to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either Privately or Openlv? It would be well if the advice of Dr. Potter could be remembered in these days. Nothing discourages the attendance of the laity more than the irreverent and grossly indecent manner in which the daily divine service is now too often celebrated. St. George's Chapel in Great Yarmouth was consecrated in 1 7 1 5 ; the Sunday after the preacher told the congregation that Principally for your good daily Morning and Evenitig Prayers, are for- ever to be perform'd both here, as well as in the Mother Church.^ For a parish priest William Law in 1726 sets the duty of daily prayer on the level of the duty of visiting his parish. Eusebius would read Prayers twice every Day in his Parish, he would be often with the Poor and Sick, and spend much Time in charitable Visits ; he would be wholly taken up in the Cure of Souls, but that he is busy in studying the old Grammarians, and would fain reconcile some Dif- ferences amongst them, before he dies.* There is a sermon advertised, but which I have not been able to see in any library, with the following title : ^ W. Wake, Letter to the Clergy of Lincoln, covering a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Queen Anne, August, 1711, p. 4. - John Potter, Bishop of Oxford, Charge, July, 1716. London, Mortlock, 1716, pp. 15 and 18. 3 William Lyng, A Discourse of the Usefulness, Antiquity, and Dedications of Churches, Cambridge University Press, 1716, p. 22. ^ William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. ix. ed. by J. J. Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, igo2, p. 226. DAILY SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY. 85 To join in Prayers, and to receive the Sacrament, in an established, consecrated Place, Morning and Evening every Day, Christian Duties : a Sermon at Market Drayton, in Shropshire, Jan. 27, pr. 6d.i I cannot think that we have here a recommendation of daily communion, but only a recommendation of attendance on Morning and Evening Prayers. Dr. Henry Stebbing, who had the honour to be attacked by Conyers Middleton, mentions the daily Service of Morning and Evening prayer, in his Sermon on St. Mark's day, 1732, on the Excellency of the Constitution of the Church of England considered, as to the Frequency of its Worship. Dr. Best in 1746 says it is accounted disreputable at Bath and Tunbridge Wells not to attend the daily service : " a scandalous and an offensive singularity ".^ Dr. Hildesley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, left in his will a sum of money for printing the Daily Service of the Common Prayer.^ He likewise continued the daily prayers in Sherburn's Hospital, as they were under Dr. Chandler, Bishop of Durham.* A broadsheet in the British Museum which the catalogue as- signs to the year 1760 urges attendance upon the daily service as a means of promoting religion. VII. Frequent publick Worship every Day in the Week, if your Busi- ness permit, and if you live in a Place where it is performed.^ The author of these Hints, reprinted in a third edition in 1771, was the Reverend Thomas Richards. He was curate of St. Sepul- chre's, where the daily service was kept up from 1692 to 1746 at least, and it was still going on in 1824. The following account of his good works appeared at the time of his death. Aged 82, the Rev. Thomas Richards, more than 30 years the indefati- gable and worthy curate of St. Sepulchre's London ; a man of Christian principles, of approved integrity, of unwearied patience. He seemed uni- versally to be animated with zeal for his Divine Master, and to live with 1 Advertised in the Gentleman^s Magazine, for 1731, vol. i. p. 272, amongst the books published in June. ^ William Best, Essay upon the Service of the Church of England, considered as a daily service, London, Oliver and Dod, 1746, p. 46. See also below, p. 100. 3 Weeden Butler, Memoires of Mark Hildesley, London, Nichols, 1799, p. 62. * ibid. -p. 155 and [Geo. Allan,] Collections Relating Sherburn Hospital, 1773, § 23, p. 227. See also Robert Surtees, History . . . of Durham, London, 1816, vol. i. p. 137- * Hints concerning the Means of promoting Religion in Ourselves or Others, British Museum shelf mark: 816, m. 22. (56.) 86 BAIL V SER VTCE RE COAf MENDED BY A UTHORIT V. no common share of heavenly-mindedness. Few clergymen pass this life in so retired and humble a situation ; but, while he preserved the even tenor of his way, in the laborious path of his duty, he never murmured at his comparative low estate, or envied the superior fortunes of others. Con- tented with a little, he really dealt out his bread to the hungry, and scarcely ever eat a meal but the sick and the needy partook with him.^ The need of frequent attendance on the divine service was put before his clergy by Dr. Butler on his translation to Durham in 1751. Divine service was to be celebrated as often as a congrega- tion could be got to attend it. But if these appendages of the divine service are to be regarded, doubtless the divine service itself is more to be regarded ; and the con- scientious attendance upon it ought often to be inculcated upon the people, as a plain precept of the gospel, as the means of grace, and what has peculiar promises annexed to it. . . For this reason besides others, the service of the church ought to be celebrated as often as you can have a congregation to attend it. But since the body of the people, especially in country places, cannot be brought to attend it oftener than one day in a week ; and since this is in no sort enough to keep up in them a due sense of religion ; it were greatly to be wished they could be persuaded to any thing which might in some measure, supply the want of more frequent public devotions, or serve the like purposes. Family prayers, regularly kept up in every house, would have a great and good effect.^ Though the eighteenth century be now far advanced, yet in a charge published in the year before his death. Dr. George Home, Bishop of Norwich, urged upon the clergy the duty of daily service as required by the canons. He complains that daily service had much fallen ofif. To assist us in the great duties of prayer and meditation, books of devotion have their use ; but to us of the clergy, the Liturgy of our Church is the best companion, and the daily use of it in our churches, or families, is required by the Canons. It cannot be denied, that from various reasons prevailing amongst us, we are much fallen off, of late years, from the practice of weekly [? week day] prayers in our churches. AVherever this hath been neglected, we should exhort the people to the revival of it, if circumstances will possibly permit ; and alarm them against a mistake, to which they are all exposed, from a fanatical prejudice of baneful influence, namely, that they come to church only to hear preaching ; and hence they are indifferent, even on a Sunday, to the prayers of the church, unless there is a sermon. But if sermons have not already taught them, that they ^ Gentlcman^s Magazine, for 1798, vol. Ixviii. part i. p. 262. '^ Joseph Butler, A charge deliveyed to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, in Works, ed. by W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, i8g6, vol. ii. p. 409. DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 87 are to be saved by the life and fire of devotion in their own hearts, little is to be expected from all the sermons they will hear in time to come. Devotion is a flame,' which, like other flame, is given to spread. If a clergyman appears to be zealous in the duty of public prayer, the people will be thereby excited to attend him. But if he appears to be indifferent, they will continue to be so ; and though their indevotion will be no excuse for his, his will always be assumed as an excuse for theirs. ^ Also at the beginning of the nineteenth century when it might have been thought that Church tone was at its lowest, a bishop. Sir George Pretyman Tomline, speaks of the daily service : " Our Church, in the beginning of its daily service".^ And a writer in the Quarterly Review, noticing the book, points out " a very re- markable want of allusion, in the daily services, to the corruption of man by the fall of Adam".^ The expression implies that the service is to be daily and it is acknowledged as such ; but an ad- mission of the possibility of daily service as a duty would hardly have been allowed in certain quarters after 1833. It would have smacked of Tractarianism. In 1 8 1 5 , a somewhat Low Church periodical, the Christian Guardian, speaks of the daily service as if it were an acknowledged practice. Discussing morning and evening services, the writer says let us now proceed to consider the manner in which this daily sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving is directed to be off"ered in the Church of England.* In 1820 there appeared a learned work in two volumes, by the Reverend Thomas Pruen, with the title : An Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England as to its daily service. It was published by subscription in London. Thus we approach the end of our period. As Offered by the Clergy. By far the best information that we have under this heading is given us by the time tables for the churches in the cities of London and Westminster that were published, not infrequently, between the years 1683 and 1753. The last that I have seen in our period ^ George [Home], A charge intended to have been delivered to the clere;y of Nor- wich, Norwich, Yarington and Bacon, 1791, p. 38. ^ George Pretyman Tomline, A Refutation of Calvinism, London, 1811, ch. iii. p. 145. ^ Quarterly Review, 1811, October, p. 197. * The Christian Guardian, London, Gosnell, 1815, vol. vii. p. 15. 88 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. was published in 1824, but the numbers have then fallen very low. For the churches in the country we have far less information : for them I have not come across anything like the time tables of services that we have for seventy years in the capital. In the country, the records are very scanty, especially of small parishes. There is one, Bedell, where there was daily prayer in 1681.^ In Ken's first parish. Little Easton in Essex, it has been already said that he established daily morning and evening prayer.^ In the city of London in 1682 there were two churches at least with daily service, St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Christopher.^ The note that gives us this information is, it may be presumed, not ex- haustive ; for in the following year the second edition of the pamphlet in which the note is contained shows a table of some twenty churches and chapels with daily service. Even this is not complete, for it does not give the daily service at St. Dunstan's Fleet Street attended by Mr. Pepys in 1664* and still going on 1692, and in the days of Clarissa Harlowe. In this second edition St. Paul's is not mentioned, as it was re- building : but there were three services every day at the King's Chapel, the Duke's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, and Ely House at 6, 10, and 4. Also at the Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn at 8 and 4 ; and at the Charterhouse at 1 1 and 4. But these are all more or less foundations. The number of Parish Churches with service twice a day is but seven ; and five have service once a day only. The services in 1683 were at various times: From 6 to 11 in the morning and from 3 to 6 in the afternoon. In 1688, in a small quarto tract, there is a greater choice of times given for services, especially at night, thus : I hope there are but few, but will find time at VI. VII. or VIII. in the Morning before business breaks in upon them, or at IX. X. or at XI. when business is over ; And for the Afternoon, either at III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. or IX. a Clock.5 1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Soc. 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 80. ^ See above, p. 82. '[T. Seymour,] Advice to the Readers of the Common Prayer and to the people . . . by a well-meaning (though ' unlearned) Layick of the Church of England, London, Randal Taylor, 1682, on verso of Preface. * See above, p. 78. ^ A letter of Advice to all the Members of the Church of England to come to the Divine Service Morning and Evening every day, London, S. Keble, 1688, p. 5. DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 89 Much the same desire to suit all classes is shown by a writer in 1708 who attempts to vindicate London from the charge of being a lewd and vicious place : rather he would claim that it is a Religious well-governed City : few of the 100 Churches contained in this City, as aforesaid (unless where they stand very thick, as in the Heart of the City) but where there is Divine Service once, twice, or more in a Day, and these at different Hours, some in the Hours of Business, which seem to be intended for Masters, and those that have Estates ; and others in the Evening when Shops are shut, or very early in the Morning, most proper for Servants of all sorts, and labouring Persons.^ To return to the number of churches with daily prayer : in 1687 there are more than in 1683 : there are now ten Cathedral or Collegiate Churches, Chapels royal, and other foundations as we may call them, with daily service, and 28 parish churches and chapels with daily service, most of them twice daily. ^ It may be suspected that this increase is due to a more complete enumeration. In 1692 there are at least forty-seven places where the daily service is celebrated.^ In 1 708 there can be counted up thirty-six churches and chapels, not including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, or the chapels royal, where there are daily services.* A bookseller's catalogue announces an edition of Rules for our more devout Behaviour, etc., published in 1 709, and the writer tells us that he counts up sixty London churches in which there is daily service. I have not myself seen this edition. In 1 714 there were in London and Westminster 72 churches and chapels with daily service,^ while in 1728 there are but 57 parish churches and chapels in London and Westminster with daily service,^ and four years later, in 1732, there can only be found 44 churches with daily service. Seeing that in 1728 and again in 1746 we have much the same figures, 57 in the one, and 58 in the other, it is possible that in 1732 a full tale of the churches was not ' A new view of London, London, 1708, vol. i. Introduction, p. xxxvii. "^ Rules for our more devout behaviour, etc., London, S. Keble, second edition, 1687. ' Single sheet folio in the British Museum, the shelf mark is : 491. k. 4 (11). * A new view of London, in two volumes, London, 1708. * James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714. ' Rules for our more devout behaviour, etc., London, Joseph Hazard, fourteenth edition, 1728. 90 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. given in,i and the hypothesis of violent fluctuation need not be re- sorted to without further evidence. In 1746 there were in the Bills of Mortality 58 churches and chapels with daily service. This must be looked upon as a decided falling off in the numbers as compared with those of 17 14 ; for new churches had been built and, though in them daily service was begun and kept up, yet the services in the older establishments must have been decreasing. A large number, however, still keep the festivals, and every week the station days, that is, Wednesday and Friday.^ They have often evening as well as morning prayer on the Wednesday and Friday, and evening prayer on Saturday, the eve of Sunday. At Bloomsbury Chapel, they had in 1722, prayers, morning and evening, every day at 1 1 and 4.^ At Duke Street Chapel by Story's Gate they had morning and evening prayer also daily, at 11 and 4.* The following passage occurs in editions of Stow's Survey : Constant Publick Prayers, and Lectures every Day. [in m.] I might subjoin here the great Advantages those that live in the City have for their publick Devotions. For there be set up in the Churches the Use of Publick Prayers said, not only every Day, but almost every Hour of the Day, at one Church or other. That so, if a Man's occasions do obstruct his going to Church, to pay Almighty God his Devotions at one Hour, he may at his greater Leisure, do it at another.^ In 1824 the daily services had fallen almost as low as they could without being extinct. Only nine parish churches in London and Westminster had preserved them. But cut short as they were they had not entirely disappeared. Yet judging from the extra- ordinary outcry made when the early Tractarians attempted to re- vive the practice of daily prayer, it might be thought that such devotions were unknown in the Church of England. There are 1 New Remarks of London, collected by the Company of Parish Clerks, London, Midwinter, 1732. The Clerk of St. Margaret's Westminster denied all knowledge of the paragraphs assigned to him in this collection. (J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Re- divivum, London, 1807, vol. iv. p. 121.) ^ William Best, An Essay upon the Service of the Church of England considered as a daily service, London, 1746. See Appendix. ' Supplement to the Review of London, London, Roberts, 1722, p. 33. "* ibid. p. 34. ^ John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype, London, 1720, Vol. IL book v. p. 33, also sixth edition, London, Innys, etc., 1755, Vol. IL book V. ch. iii. p. 148, where the same statements are repeated ; whether after fresh verification or merely by copying I do not know. DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 91 doubtless many who would be ready to believe that all trace of daily service had disappeared. But the time table of the year 1824 shows that it is not so. At St. James' Piccadilly and St. Martin's in the Fields there were three services every week day at 7, 11, 6, continued from the eighteenth century ; at St. Martin's the first service in the winter months was at 8. This latter point gives a touch of reality to the statement. At St George's Hanover Square, St. James' Clerkenwell, St. Giles' in the Fields, and St. Dunstan's Stepney there were prayers daily at 1 1 . At St. Andrew's Holborn there were every week day prayers at a quarter past 1 1 and a quarter past 3. At St. Sepulchre's prayers every morning at 7 o'clock and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon ; while on Wednesdays, Fridays and holidays there were also prayers at 1 1. In a good number of churches where the service was not daily there were prayers on Wednesdays, Fridays, and holidays, in the morning, only. These were some twenty-two in number. I have assumed that whenever there is no special mention of week day ser- vices in 1824 no such services existed, and this I fear was the case in the majority of churches. One curious endowment existed at St. Anthony or St. Antholin Watling Street, where there were six lectures preached, one for every evening at seven o'clock but Saturday ; with the exception of one week in the year when divine service was performed at seven in the morning. At this church the worshipful company of Skinners attended divine service on Corpus Christi day. This word may be noted, for the day does not appear in the Calendar of the Church of England ; and another unusual entry in the same year of a sermon on All Souls' day is at St. Margaret's Westminster. The endowment at St. Mary le Bow for a celebration of the Lord's supper every Saint's day made in 1755 and spoken of above seems to have been diverted in 1824 to the mere reading of Prayers " at 8 o'clock in the morning on Saints' days ''. Thus much for the services of 1824. We have records of three daily services at St. Clement Danes in 1746, and some of these may have been continued in 1779 : for on a Sunday evening, October loth. Dr. Johnson intended to go to evening prayers ; but owing to a little gout in his toe, he said " I shan't go to prayers to-night ; I shall go to-morrow ; whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do not always do it." 92 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. If the London churches had all been shut from Sunday to Sun- day, Dr. Johnson would not have said this. Sometimes, as in Dr. Johnson's case spoken of above, we have incidental notice of the existence of daily service. For example, on June 14, 1729 it is announced in the papers that St. Swithun's church was robbed on Monday night, the thieves having hid them- selves after prayers.^ St. Swithun's London Stone is among the churches given in the time tables as having daily evening service ; the newspaper paragraph confirms what is given in the time tables. Even when exiled to the tropics the chaplains of the East India Company tried to keep up the rule they had learnt at home. In 1718 they had prayers twice daily, at 8 and 4.^ At Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1769 there were at All Saints " prayers every day, at ten o'clock in the morning, and four in the afternoon".' At St. Nicholas there were also "prayers twice a day".* At Southampton we are told that It was the practice of the town clergy to keep up a daily service at Holy Rood, and in September, 1661,* they were begged to revive that ancient and laudable custom ; a practice broken through probably before 1752, since Taunton's bequest that year for the same purpose was confined to the Vicar of Holy Rood, or on his failing in the duty the bequest was to go to St. Lawrence, and on failure there to return to Holy Rood, and so from one to the other for ever. In 1781 Holy Rood is described as the fashionable church of the town, with service twice a day.** * * Town Journ. (Corp. MSS.). ** Ford, Guide (1781). 1 do not quite follow the reasoning that the practice had been broken through because the endowment was to leave the church if the daily service were discontinued. It rather suggests the desire for the keeping up of a practice by this threat of loss if discontinued. It may be gathered from the last paragraph of the extract printed below ' that the daily service at Holy Rood was continued down to 1849. By the help of the Bath Guides which we have from 1753 to ' British journal or the Censor, Saturday, June 14, 1729. ^ Henry Barry Hyde, Parochial Annals of Bengal, Calcutta, igoi, p. 76. 2 John Wallis, Natural History . . . of Northumberland, London, Strahan, 1769, vol. ii. p. 230. *ibid. p. 224. = Victoria History of the Counties of England : Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, London, Constable, 1908, vol. lii. p. 527. " See extract below, p. 94, from Christian Remembrancer, 1849, vol. xvii. p. 337. DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 93 beyond our period, it is possible to follow the custom of daily ser- vice at Bath for some eighty years. In 1753 it is said that at the Abbey Church there were prayers every day, at eleven in the fore- noon and at four in the afternoon. Also at St. Mary's Chapel in Queen's Square divine service was twice every day, at eleven and four. At St. James' they only had prayers .on Wednesdays and Fridays, at eleven and four.^ These services continue much the same, except those at St. James' which was rebuilding, until 1768, when it is added that at St. John's Hospital they have service twice a day together with those at the Abbey and St. Mary's.^ These go on till 1784, when the evening service in the Abbey would seem to have been given up. In 1786 the daily service at St. Mary's has fallen to one only at eleven in the morning, but in 1788 the Abbey Church has again services at 1 1 and 4 : St. Mary's only once at 11, but at St. John's twice. After St. James' Church was rebuilt they had service on Wed- nesdays and Fridays, in the morning, not in the afternoon ; on Saturdays in the afternoon. In 1 79 1, at the Abbey Church they have service twice a day, at II and 4: so in 1801, 1811, and 1813. St. Mary's continues with one service only in the forenoon, up to 1823. At the Abbey Church in 1834, there are prayers daily at eleven. At Manchester, besides the daily services of the collegiate or Old Church, now the cathedral church, they had before 1834 service twice daily at St. Anne's Church, consecrated in 1712 : prayers are read on all other days, [besides Sunday] throughout the year, viz. at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at six in the evening. To sup- port this extra duty, two curates have generally been attached to the church.' It would thus seem that even at the end of our period the daily service was never quite extinct in parish churches. The paragraph which follows gives some further instances of its maintenance, and there can be little doubt that the list now in our hands is not ex- haustive. In the eighteenth, [century, daily prayer] it gradually died out of our towns, though in some instances, as at Boston and Grantham in Lincoln- 1 Bath and Bristol Guide, Bath, Thomas Boddeley, 1753, p. 4. ^ New Bath Guide, C. Pope, about 1768, 5th ed. The later dates are those of the Bath Guide of the year given. *[S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations of Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834, vol. ii. p. 51, note. 94 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOFl^t.. shire, it lingered on till the commencement of the present [nineteenth] cen- tury. In the latter town it has never been given up. Dr. Wells endowed his church at Cotesbach with a sum for the perpetual recitation of daily morning prayers. The piety of a townsman did the same thing for Holy- rood at Southampton, even in that dark age. In both cases the practice is maintained.^ As Attended by the People. Here we have to rely upon the incidental mention of attendance at daily prayer in the miscellaneous writings of the time. From the nature of things it cannot be looked for that such should be found very often ; yet in the first half of the eighteenth century, it must be owned that the number of times in which one may find daily prayer spoken of as attended by the people, much exceeds what one may have thought beforehand it would be. At Southampton there is evidence that the civic authorities, as already mentioned, called upon the town clergy to resume the daily service the year after the return of the King ; that is in September 1 66 1 . The practice continued at least as late as 1781,^ and even down to 1849.^ When Mrs. Godolphin is in Paris in 1675 she attends public prayers twice a day, it must be supposed in the Embassy chapel.* At the English Court "Were it never soe dark, wett or uncomfortable weather, dureing the severity of winter, she would rarely omit being at the Chappell att 7 a'clock prayers ".* It is recorded of Dr. Thomas Willis, a distinguished physician, who began to practice in London in 1666, and who died in 1675, that As he rose early in the morning, that he might be present at divine service, which he constantly frequented before he visited his patients, he procured prayers to be read out of the accustomed times while he lived, and at his' death settled a stipend of 20/. per annum to continue them.^ ' Christian Remembrancer, 1849, vol. xvii. p. 337. Article on Daily prayers, which I am inclined to attribute to the pen of Dr. Neale. There is on p. 344 a letter from Wake describing four services a day at Larabeth. 2 Victoria History oj the Counties of England : Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, London, Constable, igo8, vol. iii. p. 527. The reference given for the resumption after the Restoration is : Town Journ. (Corp. MSS). See above, p. 92. ^ See immediately above. ■• The life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, 1888, p. 123. ^ ibid. p. 166. ^Alex. Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary, London, 1817, vol. xxxii. p. 140 under Thomas Willis. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 95 This benefaction is spoken of in 17 14 and prayers were then continued at 6 in the morning,^ and they are also spoken of as in existence in 1824.2 Amongst the Rawlinson papers of the Bodleian Library is a long letter from a student in the Inns of Court unable to find a rubrical service either on Sundays or week days, and he complains that the service ordered to be daily in every church is not fully or perfectly read.^ This gives some evidence of a desire among the laity to attend the daily service, which should be read without mutilation or alteration. In 1704 the gentlemen of Clifford's Inn are commended for their constant attendance on the prayers of the Church at St. Dun- stan's in the West.^ Ken when he was parson at Little Easton in Essex seems to have begun or continued the daily service as pointed out above : for in his funeral sermon of Lady Maynard he says of her : Besides her own private prayers, she morning and evening offered up to God the public offices, and when she was not able to go to the house of prayer, she had it read to her in her chamber.* It seems to follow from this that Ken had daily morning and evening prayer in the parish church of Little Easton. A writer, complaining of a superfluity of sermons in England, remarks of the frequent services especially in great Cities, where the Bells never lie still all the Week long, from Six a'clock in the morning, till Five at night so as to give the parson no time for preparation of sermons, which become mere " prating ".^ Sir George Whaler, a Prebendary of Durham, speaking of the way in which a Christian Nobleman's household should order its affairs, says that such should have daily offices. ^ James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 152. ''London Parishes, London, Weed and Jeffery, 1824, p. 151. ' See below, Appendix to this Chapter. ^ A letter of advice to all the members of the Church of England to come to the Divine Service every day, London, Keble, 1704, reprinted by Joseph Masters, 1852, p. 5. 5 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady Margaret Mainard, at Little Easton, in Essex, June 30, 1682, in The Prose Works of Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 131. * Speculum Crape-Gownorum, Lond[o]n, 1682, p. 16. Crape was the name of the stuff of which the gown of the clergyman was often made. 96 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. Persons of this first Magnitude usually do, and all should, like Micah, keep a Divine to be a Spiritual Father and Priest to his Family : who, as he is oblig'd to say daily Morning and Evening Prayers Privately or Pub- lickly, according to the Rule of his Common- Prayer Book; So should there be a decent Chappel in the House, set apart to perform this Office in : ... If this were fixt to, or near Six in the Morning, at Mid-day, [daily Communion service] and after Six at Night, it would effect this most conveniently.^ Of a lady at Manchester in 1705 or thereabouts, it is said incidentally that the hour of visiting was then two ; but the visits were all paid in time to allow her to attend prayers at four in the Old Church, which in the nineteenth century was refounded as the cathedral.^ It was hardly to be looked for that Mrs. Centlivre should bear testimony to Church practices. Her evidence immediately follow- ing is indirect, but not therefore the less trustworthy. Const. 'Tis near Six — I have a mind to see yi Belinda comes to Church this Morning. Lov. She seldom fails. and again : there's a person at hand that may prevent your Six o'Clock Prayers.' At St. James' Westminster, they had daily service in 1687, at 1 1 and 4, only twice a day ; but the Rector taking leave of his parish in 1708 on becoming Bishop of Norwich* can congratulate the parish on four daily services : The numerous and orderly Assemblies . . . the good Congregations there are at all the four Courses of the Daily Prayers ; . . The calling for more Opportunities of Worship, which has added a Course to the Daily Service in one part of the Parish,* and occasioned the opening of a New Chapel in another.** * King street Chapel. ** Barwick Street. Sir John Morden, Baronet, the founder of Morden College for decayed Merchants, directs in his will executed before 1708 That the Chapel in the said College be Consecrated : And that there be a sober, devout, and discreet Person, in Holy Orders, appointed to be -^ [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, i6g8, p. 154. ^J. Aikin, A Description of the Country . . . round Manchester, London, Stock- dale, 1795, p. i85. " Mrs. Centlivre, The man's bewitch'd, Act I. The Basset Table, Act I. from Works, London, 1761, vol. i. p. 2og, and vol. iii. p. 86. * Charles [Trimnell], A sermon preach'd at . . . St. yames Westminster . . . at his taking his Leave of the said Parish, London, Chapman, 1709, p. 25. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 97 Chaplain to the College, to read Divine Service there, according to the present Liturgy of the Church of England, as now by Law established, Twice every day. Morning and Evening. Also he wills that all the Merchants do constantly go to Chapel and Divine Service twice every Day without fail, if they are able.^ There is just the same idea in the Whig, Sir Andrew Freeport, who, on withdrawing from the world, announces his in- tention of building an Almshouse for twelve poor Husbandmen : It will be a great pleasure to me to say my Prayers twice a day with Men of my own Years, who all of them, as well as my self, may have their Thoughts taken up how they shall die, rather than how they shall live.^ Swift attacks a parson for " making the bowling-green his daily residence, instead of his church, where his curate reads prayers every day "? Daily morning and evening service was still going on in 1710- 1 1 at St. Paul's Covent Garden, for the Sexton is made to complain of the disappearance of the fashionable world that patronised in- stead a puppet show in the Piazza. He says, plaintively, There now appear among us none but a few ordinary People, who come to Church only to say their Prayers.* The Spectator speaks of a man with a great fortune, the over- plus of which he gives away and he leads a most retired and austere life, having " no one necessary Attention to any thing but the Bell which calls to Prayers twice a day ".^ The Guardian gives this description of the daily service : the other Morning I happened to rise earlier than ordinary, and thought I could not pass my Time better than to go upon the Admonition of the Morning Bell to the Church Prayers at six of the Clock. I was there the first of any in the Congregation . . . there was none at the Confession but a Sett of poor Scrubs of us, who could Sin only in our Wills, whose Persons could be no Temptation to one another . . . when we poor Souls had presented our selves with a Contrition suitable to our Worthlessness, some pretty young Ladies in Mobbs, popped in here and there about the Church, clattering the Pew Dour after them. . . . For the sake of these ^ John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype, London, 1720, Book I. p. 221. ^Spectator, No. 549, Saturday, November 29, 1712. ^ J. Swift, The Tatler, No. 71, Thursday, Sept. 22, 1709, in Works, ed. W. Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ix. p. 230. " Spectator, No. 14, March 16, 1710-11. ^ ibid. No. 264, Wednesday, January 2, 1711-12. 7 98 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. it is worth while, that the Church keeps up such early Mattins throughout the Cities of London and Westminster?- In 1 71 3 Ambrose Bonwicke as soon as he arrives in London goes to church that same night, and "according to his constant practice, was twice a day at church while he continued in town "} In 1715 there was executed a deed by which the Squire of Ham assigned the great tithes to the Vicar in consideration that the ser- vice should be said daily in the church ; and if omitted, a fine not exceeding sixpence was to be exacted.^ The squire had a very right sense of the purpose of endowments : to wit, to maintain the public service of God in a parish. In the same year another Squire showed his piety. William Coke (1679-1718) who built the present church, was a well- known Derbyshire squire, famous for his pack of harriers, and a zealous Churchman of his days. He always attended morning prayers, read by the rector of Trusley, before hunting, as well as evensong after his return.'* The Tory foxhunter, coming to London, is pleased to find " that Clergymen, instead of being affronted, had generally the Wall given them ; and that he had heard the Bells ring to Prayers from Morning to Night in some part of the Town or another "} And Sir Roger de Coverley bids the Spectator " observe how thick the City was set with Churches, and that there was scarce a single Steeple on this side Temple-Bar. A most Heathenish Sight ! says Sir Roger : There is no Religion at this End of the Town!' ' It was evidently thought a duty to attend the daily service ; for Addison speaks thus of Queen Caroline, the wife of King George the Second, that as Princess of Wales She is constant in her Attendance on the daily Offices of our Church, and by her serious and devout Comportment on these solemn occasions, gives an Example that is very often too much wanted in Courts.' Others have reported differently of the conduct. ^ Guardian, No. 65, Tuesday, May 26, 1713. ''Life of Ambrose Bonwicke, by his father, ed. by J. E. B. Mayor; Deighton Bell, 1870, p. 66. 3 Ecclesiologist, 1861, vol. xxii. p. 300. '' J. Charles Cox, Athenceum, 1907, Sept. 28, p. 373. 5 Jos. Addison, Freeholder, No. 47, June i, 1717, London, Tonson and Draper, 1751, p. 274. » Spectator, No. 383, Tuesday, May 20, 1712. Sir Roger's statement will be con- firmed by a glance at Sayer's View of London, 1788. ' J. Addison, Freeholder, No. 21, Friday, March 2, 1715. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 99 At a fashionable watering-place like Tunbridge Wells, the daily service was not forgotten. We read : After the Appearance is over at the Wells, (where the Ladies are all undress'd) and at the Chapel, the Company go home.^ Fielding in the Temple Beau, first acted in 1729, alludes to Daily service. Lady Lucy. That you rail at the diversions of the town . . . that you went to church, twice a day, a whole year and a half, because — you was in love with the parson ; ha, ha, ha 1 ^ And again in the Modern Husband, acted in 173I) a fashionable lady protests that if a husband were to insist upon my never missing any one diversion this town affords, I beheve in my conscience I should go twice a day to church to avoid them.' In Clarissa Harlowe, a reforming rake is told : " It is not every girl o{ fortune 3,nd family that will go to prayers with thee once or twice a day ".* The heroine speaks of the daily prayers in several churches : St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street at 7 in the morn- ing ; Lincoln's Inn Chapel at eleven and five ; and Covent Garden Church at six,^ and she wishes to attend them. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu mocking the devotional practices of her time and the backbiting which accompanied them writes : Sermons I sought, and with a mien severe Censur'd my neighbours, and said daily pray'r.^ In 1742 Fielding ridicules those pure and sanctified virgins, who, after a life innocently spent in the gaieties of the town, begin about fifty to attend twice per diem at the polite churches and chapels.'' We may have seen something like this in the nineteenth century. At Bath there seems to have been some attendance of the ' [Daniel Defoe,] A tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, London, Strahan, 1724, vol. i. Letter ii. p. 56. The third edition has " in Deshabille " instead of " un- dressed " (p. 179). ^ Henry Fielding, The Temple Beau, act i, sc. i. Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. i. p. 186. ^ The modern Husband, act v. sc. 10. ibid. vol. ii. p. 251. ^S. Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe, Tauchnitz, vol. iv. p. 402, Letter civ. ^ibid. p. 24, Letter vii. and p. 152, Letter Ixv. ' Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Six Town Eclogues, London, Cooper, 1747, p. 6, for Monday. ' Henry Fielding, History of . . . Joseph Andrews, Book L ch. viii. in Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. v. p. 45. 7* loo DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. fashionable company at the daily service. It is part of the pleading of the Rev. John Jackson, who does not seem to have been accounted quite orthodox, that during his stay at Bath " he attended constantly the Prayers of the Church twice a day".^ Further it is said : 'Tis also the Fashion of the place for the Company to go every Day pretty constantly to hear Divine Service at the great Church, and at St. Mary's Chapel in Queen' s- square, where are Prayers twice a day.^ A letter from Bath, dated May 9, 1747 speaks of the daily service at St. Mary's : Scarce had the Bell of St. Marys chapel done ringing for morning prayers on Thursday last before a smoak &c.^ Goldsmith in his life of Nash, the King of Bath, alludes to the daily service, but not as if everybody were expected to attend church every day. "When noon approaches, and church (if any please to go there) is done " ; and later in the day : " After dinner is over, and evening prayers ended".* But in a Bath Guide, which cannot be earlier than 1766, are some verses of no great merit, which, however, describe the daily life of Bath. Arise betime, to Pump repair. First take the Water, then the Air ; * * * Frequent the Church in decent Dress, There ofifer up religious Vows ; Yourself to none but GOD address ; Avoiding foppish Forms and Bows. It will be seen that the bows and courtesies which the Spectator disapproved of ^ still continued. After church, exercise ; then dinner, followed by " chearful Chat and little Thought " or even by a hand at Whist and Ombre. Then The Mind unbent, your Thoughts prepare To bear a Part in Ev'ning Pray'r : That Duty done, a Draught repeat ; Concoction help with liquid Heat.^ 1 A narrative of the case of the Reverend Mr. Jackson being refus'd the Sacrament of the hordes Supper at Bath, London, J. Noon, 1736, p. 3. 2 [Daniel Defoe,] /4 Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, third edition, London, 1742, vol. ii. p. 255. This passage is not in the edition of 1724. ^Manchester Magazine, May ig, 1747. ^Oliver Goldsmith, Life of Richard Nash, in the Globe edition of Miscellaneous Works, Macmillan, 1869, p. 525. *See below, p. 172. 15 The New Bath Guide, Bath, Pope, fifth edition, p. 15. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. loi At Exeter the traveller notes that 'Tis no uncommon Thing to see 500 People here in a Morning, which is at least five times as many as usually attend at St. Paul's, or any other Six o'clock Chapel I was ever at : And 'tis commendable, that the Reader doth not here curtail the Morning Service, by leaving out any Part there- of, as in other places they do.^ The Student of the Inns of Court complains to Dr. Denis Gran- ville of grievous mutilation.^ In the text oiA Tourthe writer remarks on the grave and pious behaviour of the congregation at Exeter. After the middle of the century going to church every day con- tinues. A journalist speaks of: "The fine lady of fashion . . . who attends the sermon every Sunday, and prayers every week-day ".' So with the reverse of a fashionable lady ; the inhabitants of a workhouse are said to have a handsome Chapel where they go to Prayers twice a Day, at Seven in the Morning and Seven in the Evening. On Sundays they all go to St He/en's, where they have Seats.* This is the London workhouse, near Bishopsgate Street. In 1 7 14 the hours were the same.' Of the Temple it is said that Besides the master, there is a reader, who reads divine service twice a day, at eight o'clock in the morning, and at four in the afternoon.* In 1762 the time of the Cock Lane ghost, the officiating clerk of St. Sepulchre's, observing one morning at early prayers, a genteel couple standing in the aisle,'^ &c. William Cowper writing to Lady Hesketh on Sept. 14, 1765 says of a clergyman, Mr. Nicholson: He reads prayers here twice a day, all the year round ; and travels on foot to serve two churches every Sunday through the year.^ and the poet attends the daily service himself Speaking of his every-day mode of life he says : ^ [Daniel Defoe,] A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, third edition, London, 1742, vol. i. p. 316 note. This edition is said to be edited by Samuel Richardson. The note does not occur in the edition of 1724, but it is in the seventh edition of 1769. ^See Appendix to this Chapter, p. 112. 3 The World, No. 184, July 8, 1756. * [Daniel Defoe,] A tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, London, 1753, fifth ed. vol. ii. p. 112. ' James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 140. ''London and its environs described, London, Dodsley, 1761, vol. vi. p. 113. ''Annual Register, 1762, Chronicle, Sept. p. 142. ' W. Benham, Letters of William Cowper, London, Macmillan, 1884, p. 9. I02 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. at eleven we attend divine service, which is performed here twice every day.i Of the Duke of Newrcastle, the minister in the middle of the eighteenth century who, while corrupting others, was incorruptible himself, and died ;£^300,ooo poorer than when he began official life, it is said : He was affable and religious, having divine service constantly per- formed twice a day in his family, both in town and country, and at stated times the sacrament was administered, at which he constantly communi- cated.^ Some few years before, there died Gilbert West, one of the minor poets, whose life was written by Dr. Johnson, and of whom he says : Perhaps it may not be without effect to tell, that he read the prayers of the public liturgy every morning to his family, and that on Sunday evening he called his servants into the parlour, and read to them first a sermon and then prayers. Crashaw is now not the only maker of verses to whom may be given the two venerable names of Poet and Saint . . . as infidels do not want malignity, they revenged the disappointment by calling him a Methodist.^ One who meant seriously to try and do his duty was at that time often vilified as a Methodist. So again the chaplain in a country house remarks : I had nothing to do but to say grace at meals ; for the Squire was no Methodist, and hated the J>omp of daily prayers in the family.* This excerpt brings out two points : one, that in a squire's family it was the custom to say the daily prayers ; the other, the use of the word methodist, an illustration of what has been said before. Nothing is so useful as the calling of names. Dr. Home found it so at Oxford : If he mentions the assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit, with the necessity of prayer, mortification, and taking up the cross — "O, he is a Methodist I " If he talks of the divine right of episcopacy, and the power of the keys, with a word concerning the danger of schism — " Just going over to Popery ! " ^ ^ W. Benham, Letters of William Cowper, London, Macmillan, 1884, p. 16. ^ Annual Register, 1768, Nov. 17, Chronicle, p. 187. ' Samuel Johnson, Life of Gilbert West, in Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xiii. p. 258. '' The Student or the Oxford Monthly Miscellany, 1751, vol. ii. p. 182. ^George Home, ^« Apology to certain Gentlemen in the University of Oxford, in Works, ed. by William Jones, London, Rivington, 1818, vol. iv. p. 167. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 103 Towards the end of the century, in 1780, Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to a young clergyman who asked for advice against falling into improprieties in the daily service.' This helps the opinion that daily service was no extraordinary thing at that time ; the parish which the young clergyman 'served seems to have been barbarous, and thus without the likelihood of a congregation to keep up the services. Early service went on every day in the Royal Chapel at Windsor in 1785 and 1786. Mrs. Delany writes as follows: Sept. 20, 1785. I have been three times at the King's private chapel at early prayers, eight o'clock, where the royal family constantly attend ; and they walk home to breakfast afterwards.^ and a few pages after : July 3, 1 786. I seldom miss going to early prayers at the King's chapel, at eight o'clock, where I never fail of seeing Their Majesties and all the royal family .^ This practice of King George the Third is made in 1794 the text of an exhortation to frequent the daily service : following the example of a Personage, who has a greater weight of duties, a greater burden of cares, a greater variety of earthly concerns upon his mind, than any other individual amongst us. . . . After this, let no excuses be made for the neglect of our daily Service.* This daily attendance still went on in 1 809,* that is until the year immediately before the illness from which the King did not recover. The attendance at the daily services of the Collegiate Church at Manchester was maintained at least till late in the century. An old lady dying in 1 790 is spoken of as attending the services "almost daily, and latterly brought by two footmen in livery in a sedan chair ".* Quite at the end of the eighteenth century the editor of the sermons of Dr. Berkeley, the son of the philosopher, speaks of the week day services as if they were a thing given up recently, within the memory of man. 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. iii. p. 436. Letter dated Aug. 30, 1780. ^ Letters of Mrs. Delany, London, Longman, 1820, sec. ed. p. 60. ^ ibid. p. 67. ■* William Best, An Essay on the Service of the Church of England, considered as a daily service, S.P.C.K. 1794, p. vi. of the preface written by the editor of 1794. ^ See the Times of June 6, i8og. *F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, Chetham Society, 1891, Part ii. p. 213. 104 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. The editor humbly conceives that one great cause of the ignorance of the lower ranks of people, and of course the lamentable decay of Christian piety, is the almost universal abolition of week-day prayers in the country. . . . Many a^erf/^(?r people, unable to read in their own small-print Bibles, by attending regularly week-day and saints-day prayers, hear the word of God read to them. . . . It is quite delightful ... to see what numbers of traders high and low attend the week-day prayers at Henley upon Thames. . . . Very early and late prayers in London are still attended, as about thirty years ago they were at Canterbury. The editor has frequently counted twenty ladies, gentlemen, traders, and servants, in the sermon-house, where they were read at Canterbury on a morning at six o'clock.^ Imitation is the sincerest flattery; and at the end of the seven- teenth century it would seem that the Dissenters copied the daily services of the Church. Dryden, in his play of Limberham, has the follovifing dialogue between a master and his man : Gervase. 'Tis already order'd. Sir : But they are like to stay in the outer Room, till the Mistress of the House return from Morning Exercise. WooDALL. What, she's gone to the Parish Church, it seems, to her Devotions. Gerv. No, Sir ; the Servants have inform'd me, that she rises every Morning, and goes to a private Meeting-house ; where they pray for the Government, and practise against the Authority of it.^ So at the beginning of the next century, in 171 1, one of the correspondents of the Spectator complains of his wife thus : I am one of those unhappy Men that are plagued with a Gospel-Gossip, so common among Dissenters (especially Friends) Lectures in the Morn- ing, Church-Meetings at Noon, and Preparation Sermons at Night, take up so much of her Time, 'tis very rare she knows what we have for Dinner.^ Ralph Thoresby, not exactly an enthusiastic Churchman, doubt- ful about the cross in baptism, "(which though I think lawful, yet had rather omit) " about godfathers, and kneeling at Communion, yet thus speaks of the daily service on August 8, 1702 : nor should I ever, I hope, as long as I am able to walk, so far forbear a constant attendance upon the public common prayers twice every day.* Thus a man with a Nonconformist mind can see the advantage of a daily cycle of worship, and the daily services must have been ' George Berkeley, Sermons, London, Rivingtons, 1799, editor's preface, p. xxii. ''John Dryden, Limberham : or the Kind Keeper, act i. sc. i in Dramatick Works, London, Tonson, 1763, vol. iv. p. 289. ' Spectator, No. 46, Monday, April 23, 1711. * The diary of Ralph Thoresby, ed. Joseph Hunter, London, Colburn, 1830, vol. i. P- 375- DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 105 attended by dissenters who found them profitable ; for the Guardian remarks : It has happened that the Person, who is seen every Day at Church, has not been in the Eye of the World a Churchman, and he who is very zealous to oblige every Man to frequent it, but himself, has been held a very good Son of the Church.^ The tables given below are the best answer to the opinion com- monly entertained that the clergy in the Church of England were a slothful and indolent set of men throughout the eighteenth century. It is also some testimony to the devotion of the laity ; for, as Sir Walter Besant observes, " clergymen certainly do not go on reading the prayers to empty pews " ? But malice has not been wanting in attempts to exhibit the English clergy in the worst light. At the end of the eighteenth century they had very possibly become lax, but not to the degree which some represent. Thus Arthur Young, while exonerating the clergy of France from gross outward scandals, blames the English clergy of his time (about 1792) and accuses them of reeling from inebriety to the pulpit. Advertisements like this, he asserts, were never seen in France : Wanted a curacy in a good sporting country where the duty is light and the neighbourhood convivial.' It should, however, be noticed that Arthur Young distinctly disavows having seen the advertisement. He has only been told of it. He gives no reference, and, like many other amusing scandals, it may possibly prove incapable of verification. Perhaps some may doubt if it were just of him to bring so grave an accusation on such insufficient grounds. Even with the high character which the French clergy bear so deservedly at the present moment, one may read every now and then accusations against them of drunkenness in public places. Sir John Hawkins writing in 1787 when the Latitudinarian influence had become strong, says that the clergy were then neglecting their studies for cards, preaching the sermons of others, and affecting, in many particulars of their dress, the garb of the laity.* and farther on he says : ^ Guardian, No. 80, Friday, June 12, 1713. ^Walter Besant, London in the Eighteenth Century, A. & C. Black, 1902, p. 147. 5 Arthur Young, Travels in France, ed. Betham-Edwards, Bell & Co. 1905, p. 327. * John Hawkins, Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1787, p. 19. io6 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. the clergyman was now become an amphibious being, that is to say both an ecclesiastic and a laic.^ These statements are far more likely than the gross insinuations of Arthur Young. And it may be remembered that Coleridge when a Unitarian Minister in 1798 declares that the clergy are many of them Unitarians and Democrats,^ very much as many at the present day. But supposing all these accusations to be true, so far as the writers' experiences went, there were yet clergymen who did their duty by their parishes even at the end of the eighteenth century. Let us take as an example an obscure country parish in Wiltshire where if we judge from the births and deaths entered in the registers the population was sparse. Yet it is recorded that Dr. John Eyre, who died in 1792, had been Curate for thirty-three years, in which long time he never once omitted the Duties of his Sacred Function, performing Divine Service twice every Lord's Day, Saints' Days, and every Wednesday and Friday unless hindered by the mere force of extreme affliction.^ The prayers which this good man offered to the Almighty were doubtless as warm and affectionate as those which in the beginning of the twentieth century we put up with all the aid that music and magnificent surroundings can give. I remember reading in the columns of the Tablet, in 1885, the statement by a convert to Popery that he recollected the peculiar delight of evensong without music in an unrestored church. One of my correspondents, a convert, writes to me of the charm still dwelling in his memory of the Anglican Evensong as he recalls it, on many a peaceful summer afternoon, in a quiet, unrestored little church in the heart of the country (with a glimpse of rural landscape seen through the open doorway), where there was no chanting or intoning, but where the service was simply and distinctly read.* But when the daily services in the parish church were discon- tinued, the instinct of churchmen led them to a domestic or private recitation at home of the very pith and marrow of the divine service, that is, the daily psalms and lessons. They used to be read in many families till after the middle of the nineteenth century. It is recognised now by our best liturgical scholars that it is the psalms ^ John Hawkins, hife of Samuel Johnson, London, 1787, p. 261. 2 See below, ch. vi. p. 192. ' G. R. Hadow, The Registers of the Parish of Wylye in the county of Wilts, Devizes, G. Simpson, 1913, p. 141. ■• Tablet, Feb. 14, 1885, p. 259, in a note to Letter IV. on the Conversion of Eng- land, by Mr. St. George Mivart. DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 107 and the lessons followed by the Lord's Prayer, which make up the essence of divine service. Mr. Henry Jenner tells me that his grandfather, Sir Herbert Jenner-Fust, who was appointed Dean of the Arches in 1834, used every morning to read the psalms and lessons of the day in his study, before going into Court. The custom was already known in the first half of the eighteenth century. From the vain converse of the world retir'd She reads the psa/ms and chapters for the day.^ At the end of the eighteenth century Mary Lamb had to read to her elders "the psalms and the chapters, which was my daily task "} And the same was the practice of Mrs. Temple with her son Frederick, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.^ Dr. Pusey speaks of the practice as a matter of common know- ledge before 1833 : Since our Daily Service has been nearly lost, many pious individuals, it is well known, have habitually read just that portion which the Church has allotted.* Amongst my own kith and kin, I can remember the reading of the daily psalms and lessons by a daughter to an aged mother about the year 1850. Describing the practice of a Devonshire family, perhaps before 1 840, the author says : We used to be in the schoolroom at eight, and then we read round, by turns, the Psalms and Lessons for the day.* SYMBOLS IN TABLES BELOW. 1692 = Single Sheet folio [British Museum, 491. k. 4. (11.)]. 1708 = A new view of London, in two volumes, London, Chiswell, 1708. 1714 = James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714. 1732 = New Remarks of London, collected by the Company of Parish Clerks, printed by Edward Midwinter, 1732. 1746 = William Best, An Essay upon the Service of the Church of England, considered as a daily service, London, 1746. 1824 = London Parishes, London, Weed and Jeffery, 1824. s = summer ; w = winter. ■ Edward Young, Works, London, vol. i. p. 122, in Love of Fame, Satire V. 2 E. V. Lucas, The Life of Charles Lamb, London, Methuen, sec. ed. 1905, ch. iii. p. 25. ^ Memoirs of Archbishop Temple, eiiisA by E. G. Sandford, London, Macmillan, 1906, vol. i. p. 18. * Tracts for the Times, No. 18, on Fasting, by E. P. Pusey, new edition, 1840, p. 8. = An elderly Bachelor, Not many Years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, sec. ed. p. 11. io8 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. w t^ T^ fo ri-ya oy m r^ rW to t/i fn ■^i^iO ^ ^ >da r-v fo r^io CO fo'^' CO r^ lA W CO ID MP W '^ ? ^ ^ 00 ID fooo r^oo fo w rod cy r^ u~i tn •^ m (Tj t^ ■^ - o «- M M ID M CTl O^ M HI b> M CO ' ^ S= & 00 CO r> I>.CO W roiDoX c/i CO ro ro r^ ro ^ & ss . H .<« " r^ fxl o "^ ^ ^ CJO N COiD cy « CO (O fo r^ T^ fn O w lO o -oB .CO *. « arking taining Holborn Chapel ndersh tminstt m"5 » John' rew's e's W 5 2! c3 - G «^^ ffi ■< i) 5 3 2.2 ujs ' „ _ o o -t-> m iH C 3 ti! SQ 3 .aK 5;55> en c« coc/j cocfi u o- u. &. l* 3 5 mpqmmmm § a ^ J ^. ^. ^. ^ o « cnMMcncncnMO B.2 B us u .goo O 03 tc rt m rt 60 jn m E -a c c J i2 a -J, coQQ cfi cfi ■3 6 Co rt o 65 o o 00 tnW DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 109 ■*i w W w ""3 ■" 00 fO fO « . ■3^ I *ea =a ca »o U^ 00 t^ M M O, M ;=a 00 M VO ■^^ CO ^ m CO ££- CX3 lO H M ^ S M w c« H M M CO =a 4) -0 nl v to fe CL, U (X •fi !J "trt "rn .•a 00 o S o §0 c c 03 O -" cS O < S M § ■u It! u5ot tn a5t5 cocn iJiJ J i-.S art .pa p_xl o ■ Cp;« 25 C o 3 ■" M >-* "ij *^ 03 •- ■C m u Cfi _ -- 3 jj ^ 1-10303 iQcyo no DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. Q Z < o Q Z o ►-J (I. o CO H o w H O q1 Z a WW <;co Sz S' ►J CO O to pc; o w H C5 Z o K (O W W cq < OO M |jj "J^ htMM MHMMH'J M m 00 ID CO R M w "" yD m in cy m m > w O M H to lO H M w "" ID m 'd- fn in ^ ^ s " o H M 00 lO M '"' W H M oy M t^ M M IH H M )-( O 00 .s a s CO ■"■ ^r'ji . _ . _ - h Palmer's Almshouses St. Vedast's Foster Lane . Whitehall Chapel . Oxenden Chapel Hog Lane Chapel St. Martin's Ludgate St. Mary's Aldermanbury St. Mary le Bow St. Mary le Strand . St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish S St. Mary Magdalen, Bermonds( St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard St. Michael's Queenhithe St. Michael's Basinghall . St. Michael's Crooked Lane St. Nicholas Cole Abbey . Oxford Chapel Marylebone St. Paul's Covent Garden St. Paul's Shadwell . St. Peter's Cornhill . Queen's Bench Prison St. Sepulchre's Skinner's Alms Houses . Somerset House Chapel . St. Stephen's Coleman St. St. Stephen's Walbrook . St. Swithun London Stone Temple Church St. Thomas Hospital Chapel Trinity Chapel Bond St. . Tuttlefields Chapel, Westminst APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN OF THE INNS OF COURT TO DR. DENNIS GRANVILLE, COMPLAINING OF NEGLECT IN SAYING THE DAILY SERVICE, JANUARY, 1683. [Bodleian MS. Rawlinson D. 851.] (f. 198). Letter from a young Gentleman, Student in the Inns of Court} to a Reverend Divine in the Country, Complaining of ministers Irregularity in the Citty of London, etc. in point of Conformity. Reverend Sir, Knowing you to have a right Nocion of that exact Con- formity to the Rule of God's PubHck Worshipp, which the Church requires, having made it both your Study and your Practice, to keep up the Re- putacion of our Liturgy, which I have often heard you Declare you thought see Sacred, that you judg'd it a great fault in any Churchman to Add thereto, or Diminish from it, in the Publick Discharge of his Office, I make bold to addresse myself to you for Resolucion in some particulars, that I have frequently Discoursed with you, desiring you to give mee a little more ample Satisfaction by your Pen, then I have been capable to receive from your Discourse, by word of Mouth, concerning our old Theme of Con- formity (which you know is the ordinary Subject of our Discourse) how far the Comon Prayer book, as it now stands Ratified by two Acts of Uniform- ity, obligeth both Priest and people. You will pardon mee Sir I hope, if I make bold sometimes to Censure some of your Brethren, being of an In- feriour Profession, and Exalted no higher than a Round cap in one of the Inns of Court.2 No Man Honours the Function more than I doe, and it is Respect to the Coat, as well as God's Service, that does ingage mee, if my Heart deceives mee not, in this present Attempt. I have had, from my very Cradle, a great Affection for the Church of England, and have been all along of the Judgment, that God's Publick Worshipp ought to bee pre- scribed, and not Prostituted to the Wills and Fancies of any private person. And have thought it my great Felicity in being born a Member of the Church of England which Binds up Ministers Hands more 1 strictly than other Churches, from varying from the publick Rule Established by Law. ^ After Court, Compla struck out in MS. * Altered in MS. from Exalted no higher than a Shop. 112 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. Sir I may chance to bee a little too Nice and Squeamish, in this particular; and if you find mee soe, I pray shew mee my Errour and set mee Right. I Confesse I am much offended and Disturbed, whensoever I hear any Minister Maime God's Publick Service, or add any New Matter of his own, or else Exalt his own Prudence, in Varying from the Forme or Order thereof, tho' hee should use no other Prayers, but what are Conteined in the Book. All which seems ^ to mee to bee Expresly against the Designe of the Church as well as his own Obligacions, Every Priest having Promised the contrary, both by Word of Mouth and under his Hand. These Things alone do Create a great Deale of Disturbance to my Mind, for it causeth mee to ^ trott up and down to the Prejudice of my Health, as well as my Affairs, on Sundayes as well as Weekdayes, for the Satisfaction of an Intire Service, performed Exactly according to the Rubrick without any Exercise of the Prudence of a Private Man,^ which does methinks * but Sully a Divine Office of Publick Composure and Authority. Which is a Felicity which I cannot yet Discover in all London, the'. Blessed bee God, London is Metamorphised exceedingly for the better, in Point of Conformity both of Priest and People. Wee have yet as many severall wayes of Worshipp, as wee have Ministers, and every one that I could yet Discover, offends in some thing that is clearly contrary to Law, which tho' it may appear some- times to bee but in a very small Matter, yet it being a Breach of an Esta- blish'd Publick Order, and an Exaltacion of Private Prudence above the Church's, it appears to mee to bee a very high Off'ence, and I am sure it is of very Lamentable Consequence, it being probably one special] Root of our Non-Conformity, Ministers by Neglect of their Duty, Creating wrong Nocions in the people, and the people taking wrong Measures from their Divided Practice, which Proclaimes a manifest Contempt of the Book, which they have, Publickly in a Congregacion, Declared, that they did approve of in their Judgment and Resolve to Practice ; for soe much I ^ have ever Conceived the Words of Assent and Consent to suppose. To bee a little more particular. One Cuts of[f] the Preparatory Exhortacion, Dearly Be- loved Brethren etc.. Another the Benedictus and Jubilate, and satisfyeth himself with a Psalme in Meeter in stead thereof, out of Sternald and Hopkins, which, all know, is no part of your Office, and a bad Translacion, considering ^ the Language of our Age (tho' probably it was very tolerable when it was first Composed) and never approved of in a Convocacion. A Third brings in part of the Visitacion Office, Comanded to bee said in the Sick Man's presence, into the Publick Congregacion, and sometimes with soe much Impertinence, and Indiscreet Addicions of his own, by reason of the multitude of Bills that are brought to^ Ministers here in our* City; ^ altered from seem. 2 to added above the line. ^ Man added above the line. * methinks added above the line. ' I added above the line. » our itrtick out after considering. ' to altered from the. "our altered from the. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 113 that besides the severall Disturbances occasioned by sundry Hiatus's, by the Surprisall of the Minister with some Bills, to which hee knowes not what to say, I have often Blush'd for the Ministers Sake, to see him Intro- duce a Practice voluntarily on his own head, and to Manage it with soe little Discretion, and as I humbly Conceive not at all to Edificacion. A Fourth Adds very Formally a Preface of his own 1 to the Recitall of the Creed, tho' hee (f. 198") would not allow of^ one of the Church's ^ to the whole Service. A Fifth Jumbles both first and Second Service to- gether, Cutting of[f] not only the Concluding Prayer of St. Chrysostome, and the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but allso our Lord's Prayer, in the Front of the Comunion Office, which I have alwaies look'd on as an extra- ordinary piece of Boldnesse. A Sixth more presumptuously not only Cuts of[f] the Lord's Prayer alone, but both the ^ Lord's Prayer and Nicene Creed allsoe. A Seventh, who avoids those Irregularityes, yet Presumes after Sermon ° to Cut of the Prayer for the Church Militant, and the Final Benediction, The Peace of God, etc. hoping to satisfye his Congregacion, (but I am sure hee never Satisfied mee) with a Benediction of his own Choice, and Prayer of his own Composure. An Eight[h] Justles out the Office of Churching, or Publick Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, til after the Benediction and Departure of the Congregacion, tho' it bee Evident, that the Office was intended Publickly in time of Divine Service, because there is not added thereunto, as to the Office of Buriall, etc. any Conclusive Prayer or Benediction. A ^ Ninth takes as great a Liberty with the Sacrament of Baptism, as others doe with the ordinary Service, and will not Allow '' it ^ the Honour that the Church Designs, in being done after the * Second Lesson, in the face of a Congregacion ; (which, Gravely and Reverently Perform'd, I have ever Conceived more to Edi- ficacion than the best Sermon), shuffling it over, as I have often seen, at a Font, sometimes unhappily Placed in a Corner, with not above ten persons to assist thereat, when there were before above a thousand in the Congre- gacion, thus Depriving the poor Infant of the joint Prayers of the Assembly, and the Assembly of the great Advantage of hearing the Solemn Repeti- cion of their Vow at Baptisme. An Office, which, if it were not Comanded to bee done in Time of Divine Service, appears to bee soe Intended, be- cause there is noe Blessing Annexed thereunto, more than to the former. A Tenth on a Sacrament Day takes upon him contrary to the Designe of the Church Gravely to Dismisse his Congregacion with a Blessing, for Prophanely turning their Backs upon God's Altar, Pronouncing the very Peace of God to those that proclaime a manifest Contempt of their Saviour's ' of his own added above the line. " of added above the line. ' of the Church's added above the line. * the added above the line. ^ Sermon altered from Service. " A added above the line. ' not Allow written twice, and the second time struck out. " it added above the line. ' the added above the line. 8 114 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. Death and Passion, by a sinfull Departure, when they are Invited to that Heavenly Feast, not only by the Exhortacion of the Priest, but by the very Elements Exposed on the Altar. Sir, If I should prosecute this point of 1 the Cleargy in ^ their Irregularityes, I should make my Lettre like a Fanatick Sermon, and come up to one and thirtiethly, which would Tyre both you and mee allsoe. The other Things therefore at present I shall only hint to you in grosse, namely the Reading the Communion Service in the Desk, when the Church appoints it at the Altar. The Reading not Service at all in most Churches weekly, when the ^ Church Commands it to bee in every one Dayly. Catechising the Children but only in Lent, when the Church comands it throughout the whole Year, and when they do Catechise, performing that Duty on Week dayes, in a very small Assembly, when the Church comands it to bee done on Sundayes and Holydayes in the Afternoon, and * when here in our City wee may assure ourselves of a very full Congregacion. Churching Women in the Chamber, as well as Visiting the Sick in the Church. Baptising Children almost generally m private Houses, without the least appearance of Necessity. And Ad- ministring the Comunion allsoe oftentimes to the whole, in private where they have no Conveniency of a Chappell ; which as I remember is quite contrary to the Canon, and I am sure, the Dignity of that holy Sacrament. And these three last Dutyes most comonly performed, as our Burialls are, without the Surplice, and sometimes, I have seen, without a Gown. These manifest Contradictions of the Law do very much Scandalise mee, and I doubt not, many others ; but that which does chiefly Discompose mee when I am in the Church, (and which does almost unfit mee, by Disturb- ing my Thoughts, to pray that Day), is, to see a Minister, who has Sub- mitted to the Authority of the Church, in his Ordinacion and Admission to a Living, Promising Canonicall Obedience, nay who has Subscribed under his own Hand, that hee does approve of the Prayers of the Church of England and resolves in Publick to use no other, Presume not only pub- lickly * to affront his Mother, but to Expose himself, by giving himself the Lye, by Venting a Prayer, (and sometimes I have heard an Impertinent one) of Private Composure. In which Practice there seemd to mee so many Absurdityes, that to Reflect on them all Severally would afford Matter enough for such another Letter. I shall rather refer you to an Excellent little Pamphlet which I lately met withall, Intitled the Old Puri- tan Detected and Defeated, by a Reverend Divine, now with God, which I am told was the worthy Doctor Steward, a great Sufferer, and Clark of the Closet to his Majestic, when hee was abroad at Paris. Which Piece has done a great Deale of Good already in shaming some out of this ^ this point of added in the margin. ''- in altered from according to. ^ the altered from they. ■• and added above the line. ° publickly added above the line. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 115 Irregularity, 1 and will I hope erelong Convince many more (to which End it will bee a very good Work I think, that it was made very Publick, and Dispersed about the Kingdome) that this Irregular Practice Feeds a Temper, which must Inevitably, if there bee no timely Check given thereto, Worme out once againe the Common Prayer; for I am persuaded (f. 199) as this Worthy Authour Intimates, that whereas it was at first a piece of Malicious Craft, (not to say worse) in Cartwright, who certainly was the Beginner of this Practice, soe it is now only Inconsideracion in the Generality of Cleargy who Continue it. Tho' I am struck with Admiracion, how soe many Eminent and Accomplish'd Persons, who are great Ornaments to the Church of England in other particulars, should bee soe giosly Deluded, as to Imitate soe pernicious a Practice, which fully Consider'd and Examined, I am confident, cannot bee maintained by any Ingenious and Sincere person, that has a Real Affection, as to the maine, for the Church of Eng- land. And methinks it is now Impossible, (Mens Eyes being, God bee praised, a little more open, than they have been this twenty Years) but that a Point of soe great Importance, and the Strong .Hold of the Non-Conform- ists,^ must bee Consider'd, and Examined to the very Bottome ; and Care taken for the Banishment out of the Pulpit all kinds of Prayers and Ad- dresses to God, that have not the Stamp of Authority, whether Ex Tempore ones, or else Forms of Private Composure, since both are certainly a Trans- gression of the Law and open a Gap to the Exercise of Private Prudence in God's Publick Worshipp, the most Destructive Thing Imaginable to an Establish'd Liturgy, and absolutely contrary to the Designe of the Church of England which does not give the least Liberty to a Minister to use any of his own Words, when hee speaks to the people, before Reading the first or second Lesson. Which well Consider'd, will bee a sufficient Argument that the Church of England never intended that every Minister should Leade the people in Prayer before a Sermon, whereto there are greater Qtialificacions and more Sincerity Required, than to Preaching to the People, which yet wee know, ought not to bee performed without License from the Bishopps or the Universityes. Sir I beg your Pardon that I have Presumed thus far, in Interrupting you with soe Prolix a Letter, and in making sometimes a little too bold Reflections upon the Practice of the Cleargy of the Church of England. What I have writ, I appeale to God, is out of an honest Zeal, and if I Err herein, I beseech you, who have taken soe much Pains with mee already to take a few more, in Convincing mee, where you Conceive mee in the wrong, as well as Establishing mee where you Judg mee in the Right. In order whereto I do assure myself, that you will Condescend soe far, as to Pen down your Thoughts, as I have already Intimated, in the Beginning ' Irregularity aZ<«)'«rf /toot Irregular Practice. '■' and . . , Non-Conformists added in the margin. 8* ii6 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. of this Letter, in all these particulars relating to God's Service, which I humbly Recommend to your Consideracion, during the Time of this Ensueing Lent, and Returne them to mee, if possible, some few Dayes before Easter, for I do not doubt they may Contribute, as your Discourses and Letters have often done, to the putting my Mind in Frame, and raising it to a higher Pitch of Devotion than ordinary, according to all our Obligacions at the great Solemnity of Easter. I am. Sir, more than ever Convinc'd of the great Necessity, of making Religion and Vertue the Businesse of my Life, to which good Work, your good Counsell, by God's Blessing has much Contributed, and shall Indeavour, by the Assistance of the Almighty, with Fresh Courage and Resolucion, to Encounter all the DifScultyes and Temptacions of my Profession, which I Confesse are not a few, because my usuall Acquaintance and Companions of the Inns of Court, are none of the greatest Pretenders to Strictnesse of Life and high Devotion. In short. Sir 1 am very earnestly Bent to Save my Soul, and ^ to Redresse any Scandalls that I may ^ have given by the Youthful! Vani- ties and Vices of my past Life, desiring that I may Live soe, that neither my Conversacion, nor Practice, in the Way of my Calling, may Prove any Dishonour to the Church of England, whereto I am with wonderfull Affection Devoted, and in the Constitucion whereof I every Day see more and more Beauty, and by the serious Study whereof, (and more especially the Comon Prayer book, which, with the Learned and Pious Dr. Comber's Treatises thereon, I have spent some Time in considering, as well as my Lord Cook upon Littleton) I hope to Improve myself in Christianity, and true Orthodox Religion, than by all other Books in the world, besides my Bible. And tho' I fear I shall never arrive to the Pitch of Devotion of that worthy and Pious Person, who lately Published some excellent Advice to the Readers of the Comon Prayer, by the Name of a well mean- ing and unlearned Laick etc. yet I hope I shall Labour Constantly in my poor Sphere to doe all that I can towards the Raising its Reputacion, which notwithstanding the false Suggestions of the Fanaticks, that wee do Idolize the Comon Prayer, suffers methinks under vile Contempt, soe long as Private Men ^ are permitted in the Publick Celebracion to Add thereto, or Diminish from it, or in any way to Vary or Change its Order, which doth in such an extraordinary Manner Disgust mee, whensoever I Discover any such Irregularity in any Cleargyman, tho' hee bee of the highest Note, (f igQ*") that I cannot easily Compose myself, I confesse my Infirmity, to give soe hearty Attencion* as I ought to his Discourses from the Pulpit, having some odd ^ kinds of Suspicions arise in my Soul, concerning those persons, on whom I Discover soe Notorious a Flaw and Grosse Ignorance, pardon the Expression, in Reference to the Designe of the Church in her ' doe struck out after and. ^ may altered from might. 3 Private Men altered from any Private Man. •* Attencion altered from Intencions. " odd added above the line. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 117 Incomparable Liturgy. If I have been Transported into any unbecoming Expressions, by my great Concerne for the best of Forms, I shall upon your Censure of them, without farther Dispute, Confesse them, and Crave your Absolucion. Beseeching you that you will by no meanes Deny mee the humble Request that I make you here in this Letter, more than you doe your Prayers or good Advice by Word of Mouth, which I beseech you to Continue, I rest, with great Sincerity and Affection Dear and Reverend Sir Your most faithfull and most New Years Day (i68f). humble Servant Answer from the aforesaid Divine to the Gentleman of the Inns of Court. Sir, I received yours Dated the first of January within a few Daies after the Date, which Pious Letter I esteem the kindest Newyear's-Gift I have re- ceived thes a^ many Years. I was at first Surprized with the Length thereof, having not, you know, soe much Leisure as Will, particularly to Answer long Letters from my friends. But as soon as I had Read a few Lines, I found the Subject soe Gratefull to mee, that I did not only Read it through once, but perused it a second Time with serious Consideracion, and before I laid it out of my Hand, came to a Resolucion, to Comply with your Desires in Penning down my poor Reflections, on every one of those Heads you Recomend to my Thoughts. It did in an extraordinary Manner please mee, to receive soe good a Straine of honest and Pious Zeal, from a young Gentleman in the Inns of Court, for our Incomparable Liturgy, never the lesse admirable, for being neglected by some and Des- pised by others. It Relishes methinks more of a Colledge, than of a House, Dedicated to the Study of the Law, and you seem much better Qualified for a Square Cap, than a Round. Among your Books of Law, and other good Authors, wherein I know you Conversant, you have not I see forgot your Bible, no nor your Comon Prayer Book neither ; the Study of both which, in some measure, is certainly Incumbent on Men of all Professions. But I need say little to this Point, your Practice thereof shews, that you are fully Convinced in this Particular. I shall therefore hasten to the Subject whereto you presse mee, only premising, that I begin to bee very much ashamed, (and soe I believe speedily, will bee ^ very many of my Brethren too likewise), that the Laicks, both Learned and Unlearned, begin now to Reproach us parsons, in outstripping of us in our own Trade. But I shall easily absolve them from that Sin, where I dis- cover soe good Fruit, of their Pains, as I do in your Religious and Canonical Letter, and that other Judicious and Devout ^ Piece, by Way ' a added above the line. " bee added above the line, ■■* Devout altered from good. ii8 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. of Advice to the Readers of the Comon prayer, which you mencioned to bee lately Publishd, by a well Meaning and Unlearned Laick. The Authour whereof, who I am Informed is a Citizen of London, hath seasonably done his Part, towards Redeeming the Reputacion of the Citty, as you have yours 1 to restore the Honour of the Temple ; for his Book does assure mee hee was no Ignoramus Juryman, nor Tumultuous Petitioner, as your Lines do abundantly, that you were not very Conversant last Christmas at the Scandalous Disorder of your Revells. [This letter left unfinished in MS.'l ' yours added above the line. CHAPTER V. THE CHURCH BUILDING, ITS FURNITURE AND DECORATION. As soon as the Restoration was accomplished it was plain that the ecclesiology of Laud had secured a complete triumph. The aim of the puritan was to have a moveable communion table, on tressels, brought out of the vestry for the communion service, and set down in some vacant place in the church, the long sides facing north and south, while no rails protected it. After 1660 this struggle with the puritan is over ; the place of the Holy Table is determined to be in the place of the mediaeval altar, with one of its long sides against the east wall ; it is covered with a decent carpet of silk ; there are often two wax candles upon it ; and it is fenced with rails, at which the people no longer hesitate to com- municate kneeling. King Charles the First and Laud have given their lives ; but their cause has won. No considerable section of the Church of England has ever gone back to puritan practice, how- ever poorly the churches may have been kept. Accordingly, at the Easter Vestry in 1662, Mr. Evelyn notes how they undid the work of the Puritans : April 6. Being of the Vestry, in the afternoone we order'd that the communion table should be set as usual altar-wise, with a decent raile in front, as before the Rebellion. This was before the reformed Common Prayer was appointed to be read and abjuration of the Solemn League ordered to be made. Mr. Evelyn is careful on August 17 of this year to note down that his vicars read both. Some fifteen years after, the keeping of churches still lacked a good deal. On Sept. 10, 1677 for though at Euston he says the church is most laudable, most of the Houses of God in this country resembling rather stables and thatch'd cottages than temples in which to serve the Most High yet the foul state brought on by twenty years of neglect, from 119 I20 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 1640 to 1660, could not be rapidly replaced by conditions approaching to decency. At Idbury "on the brinke of Glocestershire " Antony Wood reports in 1674 that the church is kept in excellent repaire, being an handsome and well built pile.i But this is owing to half a yard-land having been given for the repair of the church by some ancient lord of the manor. Some of the churches however must have been like Idbury or Euston, and well kept, for in 1716 Hearne, not given to over- much praising, says of Whaddon The Church is very neat and handsome.^ Those who look over the pages of a New View of London pub- lished in 1708, or of James Paterson's Pietas Londinensis published in 1 714, will be convinced that the building after the fire of 1666 and the upkeep in that decade were as good as possible. At St. Mildred Poultry in 1714 Paterson remarks: "The Floor is paved with Stone, and the Chancel with Marble," just such a distinction as the Cambridge Ecclesiologists would have been pleased to make. The same care was seen elsewhere. About the same time, [1700] Mr. Nathanael Edmundson, of Man- chester, woollen draper, gave the marble pavement of the floor within the altar rails, which event is recorded on a tablet of timber, placed against a pillar at the north-east angle of the aisle, on the south side of the choir, to this effect : — " Ne Altari novis sumptibus exstructo, et modesto ornato Dispar foret -Pavimentum Marmoreum fieri curavit, Nathanael Edmundson, Lanarius Mancuniensis, Anno Domini 1700."' A new altar had evidently been set up ; and the good soul wished to have the floor of the presbytery at least equal in sumptu- ousness to the new altar. In the visit to Cambridge of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, he went to Trinity College Chapel, and says : The altar is of wood, very massive and well made. Behind it we ' Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 284. 2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne,'Oxiord Historical Society, 1901, vol. V. p. 349. ^ [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834, vol. ii. p. 285. CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 121 noticed four very fine pictures, painted on the wall with water colours, re- presenting Christ, St. John, Mary the Mother, and Mary Magdalene} From the figures enumerated, it would seem most likely that the Crucifixion was the subject of the altar piece. The havoc wrought during the great Rebellion in the Welsh churches seems to have been enormous, and the recovery exceeding slow. Dr. Fleetwood, the Bishop of St. Asaph, seeing apparently the shameful state of so many of the churches in Wales in 1710, exhorts to a liberal spending of money upon their repairs and decoration. Is it not still an Indication of an excellent Devotion, and of a Mind that truly honours God, and intends to promote his Service, to lay out Money upon such Occasions ? There is nothing draws so near to Super- stition, as an unreasonable dread of it. . . . And anyone may foretel, without the Gift of Prophecy, that unless this bountiful good publick Spirit, prevail a great deal more among us, and be more encouraged ; an hundred Years will bring to the Ground a huge Number both of our Temples and our Synagogues} By Temples does the Bishop mean parish churches ? by Syna- gogues chapels ? The continued existence of this foul state in Wales is confirmed by a writer a few years after. In some, not only the Bells are taken away, but the Towers are de- molished, and in many others there are scarce any Seats, excepting here and there a few ill contriv'd and broken Stools and Benches ; their little Windows are without Glass, and darken'd with Boards, Matts, or Lettices ; their Roofs decaying, tottering, and leaky ; their Walls green, mouldy, and nauseous, and very often without Wash or Plaister, and their Floors ridg'd up with noisome Graves without any Pavement, and only cover'd with a few Rushes. Later on he adds : their state might well tempt you to think we had lain in the Road of the Turks and Saracens, in some of their wild Excursions ; or that we had but very lately pass'd the Discipline and Reformation of an Oliverian Army.^ Further: During Dr. Johnson's Welsh tour, he makes the fol- lowing notes at Bodville on August 24, 1774 : ^J. E. B. Mayor, Cambridge under Queen Anne, ed. M. R. Rhodes, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, igii, p. 125. "William [Fleetwood], Articles of Enquiry . . . at his primary Visitation, no place or printer, 1710, p. 58. ^ Er. Saunders, A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. David's, About the Beginning of the iSth Century, London, John Wyat, 1721, § ii. p. 17. 122 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. We surveyed the Churches, which are mean, and neglected to a degree scarcely imaginable. They have no pavement, and the earth is full of holes. The seats are rude benches ; the Altars have no rails. One of them has a breach in the roof.^ Altogether there seems little improvement in fifty years. The state of the churches of England seems to have been worst in the north where it borders on Scotland and where it would re- ceive encouragement in slovenly practice from the presbyterian discipline. Dr. Basire writes : " the Archdeaconry of Northumber- land will take up a whole man to reforme the Parsons [and] to re- paire the Churches".^ In 1665 the chancel of St. Nicholas, the great church of Newcastle, let the rain in upon the Aldermen as they received the communion. At Ilderton the chancel was ruinous, at Ingram the church.^ In a neighbour diocese, that of Carlisle, things were found almost as bad as this at the Visitation of Dr. William Nicolson, the Bishop in 1704. At Bridekirk, Aug. 25, "The Quire has Rails ; but everything else (in and about it) looks very scandalous''.* Many of the other churches are re- ported as in much the same state. At Kirk Bampton " the Quire is (as most of its Neighbours) long and nasty ; having no ascent in it " } Again at Kirkbride : " I never yet saw a Church and Chancel (out of Scotland^ in so scandalous and nasty a Condition "} At Kirk Bampton it was expected that there should be an ascent into the Quire. As late as 1821, there was supposed to be symbolism in the ascent : I have heard it said, that the going down steps, or descending into the main body of the church, and then the floor rising to the chancel and altar, was intended as an emblem of our descending into the grave, and rising again into the holy place, or heaven.^ This is just the explanation which would have delighted the ecclesiologists of 1840. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Vener- able John Eudes reports a state of the churches very like that of the Welsh churches. ^ A Diary of a, Journey into North Wales in the year iTJ^, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. ed. R. Duppa, London, R. Jennings, 1816, p. no. ''The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, 1872, Vol. LV. part ii. In- troduction, p. ix. ^ loc. cit. * Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlile, . . . by William Nicolson, late Bishop, ed. by R. S. Ferguson, London, Bell, 1877, p. 81. ■■' ibid. p. 15. ^ibid. p. 21. ' Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 5. CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 123 Allez dans les eglises : vous en verrez plusieurs au dehors environnees d'ordure et de puanteur ; au dedans tapissees de toiles d'araignees, pavees de boue et de poudre ; les vitres et la couverture rompues et ouvertes au vent, a la pluie, a la grele et a la neige ; les autels denues d'ornements et couverts de poussi^re, les prgtres oEfrir le redoutable sacrifice avec des aubes et des chasubles toutes dechirees, des corporaux et des purificatoires quelquefois si sales qu'ils font mal au coeur ; des calices d'etain et tout noirs ; le tres Saint Sacrament dans un ciboire de meme etoffe et dans un chetif tabernacle tout convert et rempli de poudre et d'ordure, sans lampe et sans lumiere et sans aucune marque de religion.^ William Law speaks in 1726 as if the churches were then well kept and likely to attract a connoisseur. Patronus, one of his characters, loves the Church of England because of the Stateliness and Beauty of its Buildings ; he never comes to the Sacrament, but will go forty Miles to see define Altar-piece.^ William Law's favourable testimony should be heeded, for his severity is well known. The great Dr. Butler delivered a charge to his clergy at his first coming into the diocese of Durham in 175 1 exhorting them to maintain the externals of religion, and amongst these the fabric of the church. In the present turn of the age, one may observe a wonderful frugality in everything which has respect to religion, and extravagance in everything else. But amidst the appearances of opulence and improvement in all common things, which are now seen in most places, it would be hard to find a reason why these monuments of ancient piety should not be pre- served in their original beauty and magnificence. But in the least opulent places they must be preserved in becoming repair ; and everything relating to the divine service be, however, decent and clean ; otherwise we shall vilify the face of religion whilst we keep it up.^ Speaking of our country churches in 175^ a writer who does not seem ill-disposed to the Church complains of the state in which he finds them. 1 Jean Eudes Traite de Vhonaeur dii aux lieux sacres, in Oeuvres completes, Vannes, 1906, t. ii. pp. 43, 44. Quoted by Henri Joly, Le Venerable Pere Eudes, Paris, Lecoffre 1907 pp. 12, 13. Also see the miserable state in which the civil wars left the French churches. (Louis Abelly, La Vie du Venerable Serviteur de Dieu Vincent de Paul, Paris, Lambert, 1664, Livre L ch. i. p. 2.) ..jut 2 William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, chap. ix. ed. by J. J. Trebeck, Spottiswoode, 1902, p. 226. . ,,, i 8 Joseph Butler, Charge delivered to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, >n Works, ed. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, vol. ii. p. 408. 124 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. The ruinous condition of some of these edifices gave me great offence ... the church perhaps has no other roof than the ivy that grows over it. . . . In other churches I have observed, that nothing unseemly or ruinous is to be found except in the clergyman.' In the next line he adds something in detail on the decoration of the altar : the 'squire of the parish, or his ancestors, perhaps, to testify their devo- tion and leave a lasting monument of their magnificence, have adorned the altar piece with the richest crimson velvet, embroidered with vine leaves and ears of wheat. Dr. George Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, gives the fol- lowing account of a Sunday visit to a country church. The church-yard joined to the park. Having surveyed everything there, it being Sunday, I went into the church ; to which one miserable bell, much like a small porridge-pot, called half a dozen people, which number comprehended the congregation. The church-yard itself was low and wet ; a broken gate the entrance ; a few small wooden tombs and an old yew tree the only ornaments. The inside of the church answered the outside ; the walls green with damp ; a few broken benches ; with pieces of mats, dirty and very ragged ; the stairs to the pulpit half worn away ; the communion-table stood upon three legs ; the rails worm-eaten, and half gone. The Minister of this noble edifice was answerable to it, in dress and manners. Having entered the church, he made the best of his way to the chancel, where he changed his wig ; put on a dirty, iron- moulded, ragged surplice ; and after a short angry dialogue with the clerk, entered his desk, and began immediately without looking into the book. He read as if he had ten other churches to serve that day, at as many miles distance from each other. The clerk sang a melancholy solo ; neither tune nor words of which I ever heard before.^ Beyond all doubt there is before us a grave scandal. But such cannot be said to be limited to the eighteenth century. In the last decade of the nineteenth century I paid a visit to a church in the diocese of Exeter and found it in like wretched state to that des- cribed by Dr. Home. I made some notes at the time : " General appearance of great neglect throughout the church. The sexton said that very few people came to the church. The font had the drain stopped up, which was covered by an inverted, cracked, and mended white ware bowl. There was a screen between the quire and nave ; the gates were bolted and buttoned from the nave. There was only one pew in the quire and over it were thrown a ' Connoisseur, No. 134, Thursday, Aug. 19, 1756, 4th ed. Vol. IV. p. 226. ^Olla Podrida, No. 33, Oxford, Rann, 1788, Saturday, October 27, 1787, p. 194. On p. vi. the authorship is given to Z, that is, Dr. Home. CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 125 surplice much iron moulded, a scarf, and a bachelor's hood. The altar was covered with a red baize cloth which did not come down to the ground. There was much green mould about." The moral which may be drawn from these two cases of grave neglect of the House of God is that the scandal does not arise from the age in which they are found but from the character of the parson. Given a diligent parson and the evil soon ceases. Early in the nineteenth century, in 181 5, when a young clergyman first came into the parish he found a most neglected church ; but in a year or two all had been made decent.^ Miss Austen has some regard for the village church : " I told him of the church's being so very well worth seeing".^ She is speaking of the church at Kellynch. In Emma, Frank Churchill on arriving at Highbury goes to see the church.'^ Sir Walter Scott speaks thus of the English Churches of his time : It was one of those old-fashioned Gothic parish churches which are frequent in England, the most cleanly, decent, and reverential places of worship that are, perhaps, anywhere to be found in the Christian world.* But of Scotland he makes Andrew Fairservice say : " the dog kennel at Osbaldistone Hall is better than mony a house o' God in Scotland".* Boswell tells us of St. Giles, once the cathedral church of Edinburgh, that it was in 1773 "shamefully dirty ".^ Confirmatory of Sir Walter's opinion of English churches there is a letter of Keble's describing a church near Fairford in 1818 as " a pattern of neatness "? I think it may be a fair conclusion to draw that, excepting the first forty years or so of our period when the influence of the Puri- tan Rebellion was still felt, especially in the North, the way in which a church was kept depended almost wholly upon the parson. When he was careful and attended to his duty, the church was clean and in good repair. And this is probably true of the whole eighteenth century, if not of years later than 1833. C6sar de Saussure, who was in England in the first half of the ' The Christian Guardian, London, Gosnall, 1815, vol. vii. p. 85. '^ Jane Austen, Persuasion, ch. xiv. ' Same, Emma, ch. xxiv. * Sir Walter Scott, Heart of Mid Lothian, ch. xxx. published in 1818. ^idem, Rob Roy, end of ch. xix. * James Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Aug. 16, 1773. 'J. T. Coleridge, A memoir of the Rev. John Keble, third ed. Oxford, Parker, 1870, p. 24. 126 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. eighteenth century, has left us a description of the churches at that time and of the services in them. His evidence may, it is thought, be received, as in other parts of his book he shows a certain acquain- tance with church matters, and familiarity with ecclesiastical obser- vances. I have told you that several Roman Catholic ceremonies have been preserved, and are in use in the Anglican services at the present time. The Book of Common Prayer, which is the liturgy, is almost a missal, if you cut off the prayers addressed to the Holy Virgin and to the saints, and those for the dead. The priests and choristers all wear long white surplices when they celebrate divine service, but the preachers take them off before stepping into the pulpit. In the royal chapels, the cathedrals, and collegiate churches the services are chanted in a tone resembling that used by the Roman Catholics in their services. In all the churches the altars are covered with a velvet or damask silk cloth ; candlesticks are placed upon them, and pictures are frequently hung above as ornaments. Communion is taken kneeling, because this attitude is that of humility. The sign of the cross is made only on a child's forehead at baptism. Several saints' days are celebrated — not to invoke the saints, but only as an opportunity for reading those portions of the Bible in which their noble acts and lives are described.^ The Altar and its Furniture. Throughout our period there is to be found an undercurrent of opposition to seemliness in the surroundings of the worship of Almighty God. Puritanism was far from extinct, and throughout the age it gives signs of revival every now and then as will be seen farther on. But it never becomes dominant as before the Restora- tion. At the end of the seventeenth century it raised its voice in this manner : Prejudice. But, pray, what can you say to the Images over your College Gates and in other places ; your young Boies painted with Wings at their Backs over your Altars ; your Brass Candlesticks ; your Saints painted in Glass Windows ? ^ ' C^sar de Saussure, A Foreign view of England in the reigns of George I. and George II. London, Murray, igo2. Letter xiv. p. 318. The description of the Church of England services by this layman will bear a very favourable comparison with the in- accurate report drawn up by Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia, of ecclesiastical affairs in England in the reign of Edward the Sixth. Even if the original report in the Venetian Archives be consulted (see my Ecclesiological Essays, Dela More Press, 1905, p. 244) rather than Alb^ri, matters are not made much better. It is astonishing that any credit should still be given to Barbaro's Relazione. ''A Dialogue between Mr. Prejudice . . . and Mr. Reason, a Student in the University, London, Sawbridge, 1682, p. 6. THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 127 But this sort of attack serves to show that in the twenty years after the Restoration much had been done to return to the state of affairs before the Rebellion, if not to make an advance upon it. The following are early attempts to make things decent about the altar. The altar at Winchester described below in such glowing terms must have been set up immediately after the Restoration, for Dr. Morley was Bishop only from 1660 to 1662. The Altar is the finest I ever saw in a Protestant Country ; it was made of fine carved Wood by Bishop Morley after the Restoration, with a Canopy and Curtain of Wood hanging down, with gilt Garlands ; and on each side of the Altar run up Vases of Stone, with golden Flames coming out to the Roof of the Church. . . . The Communion Rail before the Altar is also a neat Piece of carved Work.^ On December 7, 1684, Evelyn goes to see the new altar of St. James' Piccadilly, for so I take it that the church must be, as it was consecrated on July 13 of that year. His gratification at the new building is marked, and he must be allowed to be a judge, having seen most of the great churches, whether at home or abroad. I went to see the new church at St. James's, elegantly built ; the altar ^ was especially adorn'd, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons in wood ; a pelican with her young at her breast, just over the altar in the carv'd compartment and border, invironing the purple velvet fring'd with I. H. S. richly embroider'd, and most noble plate were given by Sir R. Geere, to the value (as was said) of ;^20o. There was no altar anywhere in England, nor has there ben any abroad, more handsomely adorn'd. Concerning the altars and altar pieces in the London churches rebuilt after the great fire of 1666 there is abundance of evidence, and they must have been as good and handsome as money could buy, and the taste of the age directed. It may be noted that though the altar piece is almost general in the new City churches if we go through the list in Paterson's Pietas Londinensis ; yet the ^ A journey through England in familiar letters, London, Pemberton, 1722, vol. ii. p. i6. ^ Those who square all their ideas in faith and morals and less important things by acts of parliament or what the police allows, may notice that the word altar is used twice in our period in acts of parliament, 59 Geo. III. t. 134, s. 6, and 2 & 3 William IV. c. 61. The latter enacts that the chapel shall " be subject to the Jurisdiction of the Bishop and Archdeacon within whose Diocese and Archdeaconry the Altar of such Chapel should be locally situate ". Thus no excuse need be given to persons who hold these opinions for the universal use of the word altar by the eighteenth century writers. 128 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. organ is not so.^ Both altar piece and organ were abhorrent to the puritan and their presence in a parish indicates that puritanism was at a low ebb therein. Pictures representing sacred subjects were very common over the altar. The churches which escaped restoration in the nineteenth century nearly always have a painting in the centre of the altar piece. Altar pieces and the pictures in them being so usual a part of the furniture of a church it is hardly possible to enter upon an ac- count of all. It may be desirable to say somewhat of a few particular cases, which have been chosen for their history or the minuteness of the description. One instance, that of All Hallows Lombard Street in 1708, de- serves a special mention and quotation of its description : The Altar-piece is the most spacious and best carved that I have thus far met with : It is of right Wainscot, and consists of 4 Columns with their Entablature, all finely Cut with 5 Pediments of the Corinthian Order ; viz. a Circular, and above it a Triangular, belonging to the two N[orth] Columns, and to the two S[outhwar]d ; the Inter-Columns are the Commandments done in Gold Letters upon Black, and the Lord's Prayer and Creed is done in Black upon Gold. And in the middle bet [wee] n the Arching parts of the Frames for the Commandments, is a Pelican feeding her Young with her own Blood (an Emblem of our Saviour) ; and above the Cornish, over the Commandments, is a Glory finely painted and adorned, with an Enrich- ment of Carving, as Flowers, Fruit, (s^c. above all which is a large tri- angular Pediment and seven Candlesticks, representing the Seven Golden Candlesticks we read of in the Revelations ; which Altar-piece, I am credibly assured, cost not less than 186 /. The Communion-Table is finely finnier'd, under is the Holy Lamb on a Chalice, and at each of the four feet of the Table is a Dove.^ Candlesticks, with sham tapers in them, seven or less in number, were a frequent addition to the reredos of the eighteenth century. Mr. Birch has figured many of these.* They had them also in the country churches ; for example, at Bledlow in 1783.* At St. Vedast's Foster Lane, built by Sir Christopher Wren, but described much later, there was The altar-table, supported by four angels, is inclosed by singularly elegant railing ; and the altar piece is composed of four Composite pillars ^ For an account of organs, see below in ch. vi. p. 185. " A New View of London, London, Chiswell, 1708, vol. i. p. log. 2 George H. Birch, London Churches of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, London, B. T. Batsford, i8g6, large folio. * See below, in appendix to this chapter, item no. 6, p. 160. THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 129 with an entablature, a circular divided pediment, and an attick terminating in another angular, under which is a Glory, inscribed " Glory be to God on high." Perhaps there is not another church in England that contains a nimbus with so superb a border : it is composed of three Cherubim im- mersed in clouds, and six winged infants in the highest possible relief, one sounding two trumpets, and the remainder sporting with branches of palm.^ There was also a " Glory" at St. Michael's Cornhill in 1708. On the N. and S. sides of the Altar is a spacious Pieddroit, and another on the S. side painted, and a Chalice, Paten, Incense pot, Aaron's budded Rod, and the Pot of Manna, etc. painted; and on the Roof over the Table, is a Glory appearing in' Clouds, painted and gilt, some of whose Rays are about 8 Foot in length.^ This "glory" must have been a canopy over the altar, and a characteristic piece of work of the artist of the day. Very similar constructions may be seen even now in some French churches form- ing a reredos over the altar, with enormous gilt rays protruding from clouds. There are three altar pieces that caused much disturbance at the time when they were first set up, and two caused such scandal that they had to be taken down ; or rather the picture which formed the centre had to be removed. These are sufificiently important from their notoriety to be described more at length. To consider first the altar piece of St. Mary's Whitechapel, which conveyed a scandalous personal attack upon an individual. The circumstances are these : Dr. White Kennett, once a Tory and High Churchman, thought it well to reconsider his old opinions and become a Whig. This change was not grateful to his former friends ; and, as Hearne tells us, he passed with them under the name of Judas.^ Their resent- ment went farther; a new altar piece was set up at St. Mary's Whitechapel, in which, in the foreground of a representation of the Last Supper, White Kennett was depicted as the traitor himself. ' James Peller Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 638. '' 1708, vol. ii. p. 420. 3 Thomas Hearne (Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1898, vol. iv. p. 377) on July 12, 1714, notes that " Dr. Wellwoodf of White Chappell hath pub- lished a Sermon about Altar Pieces, occasion'd by the Altar Piece there, which the Bishop of London ordered to be pulled down. There is a Preface about the pulhng it down. He reflects upon White Kennett, commonly called Judas." On p. 336 the bishop orders it to be altered, but on p. 352 it is taken down. Hearne (vi. 345) is accused of calling White Kennett Proteus. Hearne has earlier in his Remarks a fine tirade against him (i. 311). 9 I30 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. The portrait was unmistakeable ; the black patch, covering the spot where in early life White Kennett had been trefined, was plainly visible in the forehead, nearly touching the hair. Naturally this indecency was resented by the friends of White Kennett, and the Bishop of London, acting through his Chancellor, had the altar piece taken down. An engraving may still be seen in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House ; where the representation is rendered still more offensive by the lines under- neath : Falleris, hac qui te pingi sub imagine credis ; Non similis Judas est tibi ; poenituit.^ That all this should be possible shows how hateful his prin- ciples were to a large number of the churchmen of his time. The next disturbance was at St. Clement Danes in the Strand. Thomas Lewis who edited the Scourge, a Vindication of the Church of England, a periodical published in London in 171 7; managed thereby to draw upon himself the attention of the Whig Government. In 1721 he proceeded to compliment the Church- wardens and vestry of St. Clement Danes for the zeal which they showed in improving the beauty of their church ; on their intro- duction of pictures, as of King Charles the Martyr, which portrait was " a solemn ornament to some Churches in this City," and on keeping up the old custom of garnishing the church with flowers and branches of trees. Yet he complains a little farther on that no Images but of Lions and Unicorns must now be the Embellishments of our Churches, and the Arms of the Civil Magistrate may stand with Applause where the Cross, the Arms of a Crucified Saviour, must be de- faced as Popish and Idolatrous.^ As to placing the royal arms in the room of the Crucified Saviour it may be noted that it was not peculiar to England : The King of France had before visited the Society, and had taken down the Image of Christ, which was over the Gate, and caused his own Arms to be placed in the Stead. The Distich Sustulit hinc lesum, posuitque Insignia -Regis, Impia Gens ; alium non colitilla Deum.? ^ Soc. Antiq. London : London Prospects, fo. 48. 2 Thomas Lewis, The obligation of Christians to beautify and adorn their Churches, London, Hooke, 1721, pp. 26, 21, 23. He had published an essay upon the consecra- tion of churches, London, Strahan, 1719. '[Thos. Watson,] The Ornaments of Churches, Oxford, 1761, Postscript, p. 2. THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 131 But what part, if any, did this Thomas Lewis have in bringing about the hubbub that was caused by the new altar piece at St. Clement Danes in the Strand about the year 1725? It was as- serted that an angel in white and blue, by the side of St. Caecilia, was the portrait of Princess Sobiesky, the wife of the Pretender. This picture, supposed to be so disloyal, had been put up over the altar ; crowds of irreverent persons came to see it, and the nuisance became so great that the Bishop of London, Dr. Edmund Gibson, the well-known Church historian, ordered it to be taken away. An indignant parishioner writes as follows with all the accurate infor- mation of his class : But never before was any popish Saint put over the Communion Table in a Protestant Church. The Last Supper, the Passion, Crucifixion, or some other Incidents of our Blessed Saviour's Life, are the general Subjects given to Painters on these Occasions ; but to have a Consort of Musick Ss'c. (suppose it were not the Pretender's Spouse, and, probably, some more of his Family, under the Form of Angels) is the most abrupt and foreign that I ever saw or heard of. A great many of our Churches have only the Pictures of Moses and Aaron, on each side the Commandments. I have nothing to object against them, but what I have before assign'd, yet have I often wondered why Aaron, who made the Molten Calf, which occasioned the Breaking the first two Tables ; Why he, I say, who was the Jewish High-Priest, should be placed at a Christian Altar ? ^ The Parishioner writes in the spirit of those who thought that the ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor ; for he exclaims against " so sumptuous an altar piece '' that cost four- score pounds. Nowadays the objection to St. Caecilia would not have been that she was an inhabitant of old Rome but that there is no proof of her existence. But his views seem to be sound in looking upon the Last Supper, the Passion, or Crucifixion as most proper for an altar piece. On June 3, 1907 I went to St. Clement Danes and found the picture that caused this dreadful pother hidden away on a back stair- case. It is an ordinary St. Caecilia with an organ and harp, and angels around, one of which was the supposed Jacobite portrait. It is now hard to understand how it could be the cause of such a disturbance. A real Jacobite would only have been satisfied if the central figure M Utter from a Parishioner of Si. Clement Danes to the Right Reverend Father in God Edmnnd Lord Bishop of London occasioned by His Lordships s causing the Picture over the Altar to be taken down, London, J. Roberts, 1725, p. 21. 9* 132 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. had been a portrait of Princess Sobiesky ; it would have seemed to him disrespectful to have represented her as a mere attendant. Neither of the two foregoing cases could be approved by the Church authorities ; the first, because it was an injurious attack upon a dignified clergyman, whatever may be thought of his tactics ; and the second, because a political significance which was very possibly not in the mind of the artist, was attached to it by the populace who came in herds to stare. But in the third case, as far as the evidence goes, the Bishop of London, Dr. Thomas Sherlock, stood firm. An altar piece had been set up in the church of St. James' Clerkenwell : it was in three compartments, separated by Corinthian pilasters ; the Nativity in the centre, the Holy Child in the arms of the Virgin Mother, with St. Joseph, and the ox in the background ; while Moses and Aaron were in a compartment on each hand.^ It was denounced to the bishop by one Thomas Watson, and the usual complaint made of idolatry and superstition. The bishop refused to move. Watson printed his complaint in a letter to the papers.^ At Lincoln's Inn Chapel they had in 1714 the most curious Painting upon the Glass Windows of both Sides ; first, the Patriarchs and Prophets on the north Side ; and the twelve Apostles on the three Windows on the south Side.^ These appear to have been set up in the seventeenth century ; the names of the donors being given. But St. Margaret's Westminster saw a greater stir about the. painted glass in the east window. In 1762 the new window at the east end having caused a considerable agitation outside the parish, the question of the lawfulness of painted windows was taken before the High Court of Delegates ; * the prosecutors seemed to have gained nothing by their action, for the window was there in 1 828 : ^ and, it may be believed, still remains, though how much damaged by the alterations during Dr. Hensley Henson's incumbency is not known to me. The changes made have, perhaps, given delight to the baser 1 Library of the Society of Antiquaries, London: London Prospects, fo. 47. 2 Old Whig, Oct. 30, 1735. It is reprinted with the engraving at the Society of Antiquaries. 3 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 136. '' Thomas Wilson, The Ornaments of Churches considered, Oxford, 1761. ■' Thomas Allen, The History . . . of London, London, Cowie and Strange, 1828, vol. iv. p. 155. THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 133 sort of the High Church curate, but not to the English antiquary or ecclesiologist. In 1 7 14 it is recorded that the Chapel Royal in the Savoy has a fine Chancel, it's beautified with the Portraits of the twelve Apostles at large, some painting upon the Glass Windows.^ At Bolton in 1750 Dr. Pococke notes a peculiarity in the church : The altar in the church is sett off from the east wall with a partition which makes a vestry behind it, according to the rule in Queen Elizabeth's time, that the Communion table should be in the middle of the church.^ We may accept the good bishop's statement of fact that a vestry had been made under the east wall but hardly agree so readily with what he tells us as to the cause. Apparently the altar was still in the chancel and not in the middle of the church. He notices the same thing at Wellington : the altar is at a litle distance from the east end with a partition behind it.^ At Worcester in 1792 the thanks of the Dean and Chapter were given to Mr. Green for presenting a picture of the descent from the cross after Rubens, and for fixing it behind the altar of the cathedral at his expense.* At Manchester St. Peter's Church was consecrated on September 6, 1794, and it is noted that "Over the altar was placed a fine de- scent from the cross by Annibal Caracci "? St. Martin Outwich was rebuilt in 1796 and Malcolm describes a curiosity in the ritual arrangements : that the pulpit was at the west, while the altar was at the usual place, in the east, and of stone. The West end of the church has a deep recess. . . . The priest's and clerk's desks, on the same level, are placed below, and on either side of this pulpit, which compels the congregation to turn from the sacred spot appropriated to the most solemn offices of our faith. The Sacrarium resembles the Western recess in the outline, and the cieling ; but the sides are plain. Three steps lead to the altar, which are ^ James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 179. ^ The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam- den Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 12. ^ibid. p. 143. ^ John Noakes, The Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester, Longmans, 1866, p. 6i8. * S. Hibbert, History of the Foundations in Manchester of Christ's College, London, Pickering, 1844, vol. ii. p. 164. 134 THE ALTAR AND ITS MATERIAL. covered by a rich Wilton carpet. The table is a slab, supported by a plain arch, and by caryatide winged boys, whose arms are crossed on their breasts. The arch and tablet are an imitation of red marble, spotted with white, with a very high pohsh ; but the boys are painted white, though of stone ; the effect, however, is rich. Two dark purple velvet custions lay on the table.i Over the altar was a recent picture of the Ascension, but al- ready on the high road to decay. Near the end of our period there is this entry in a parish register : Seaham. The Reverend Richard Wallis late Vicar of this Parish, presented a drawing in poker '^ by him of the Salvator Mundi, after Carlo Dolce' which hangs in the church as an altar piece, according to his wishes and at the desire of his three daughters. — Seaham 5 July, 1827.^ This entry may be explained by supposing that the Rev. Richard Wallis had during his lifetime placed this poker work over the altar ; but at his decease doubts may have arisen of his intention to bestow the drawing upon the church, to remove which the con- sent of his heirs to the gift was attested. The material of which the altar is made is of no great import- ance provided it be handsome and costly. Mr. Micklethwaite has said that Stone or marble altars of the eighteenth and the first half of the nine- teenth century are not uncommon.'* And this appears to be the case. He adds : In 189 1 I saw one [a stone altar] in the church of Long Clawson in Leicestershire which was curious for its classical affectation. It was only 3 feet 9 inches long, was of solid stone consisting of a die with a moulded plinth and cap after the Roman pagan manner, and it bore in front a dedicatory inscription Deo Triuno Optimo Maximo with the date 1738. Altars set up in the better sort of churches during the eighteenth century had generally marble tops, which were often carried by ironwork fixed into the wall or the floor. Examples of this were very common till lately ; but now many have been taken away, and amongst them those of the old church, ^ J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivitm, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 410. 2 N.B.D. de&nes poker work as "Artistic work done by burning a design on the surface of white wood with a heated pointed implement ". * J. S. Burn, The History of Parish Registers in England, sec. ed. London, J. R. Smith, 1862, p. i8g. * J. T. Micklethwaite, Ornaments of the Rubric, Alcuin Club, 1897, p. 22, note 4. THE ALTAR AND ITS MATERIAL. 135 now the cathedral, at Wakefield, St. Mary's Church, Beverley, and All Saints' Church, Derby.i I cannot, as Mr. Micklethwaite is able to do, appeal to my own observation of stone altars in churches spread over the land ; I can only report such as I have chanced of late to meet with in print, of dates within our period. Some that I do not record may perhaps be such as were set up before 1833 ; but where I have had doubts of their age, I have passed by such instances. In 1703, in the midst of the greatest neglect, if not want of decency, Dr. William Nicolson, the Bishop of Carlisle, found more than one stone altar during his visitation. At Walton Mr. Dacre, the patron, " promises shortly to refit the Altar (of Stone) and rail it in "? At Grinsdale he finds church and chancel in ruins : " nothing left but a good handsome Stone-Table heretofore used for an Altar ".3 At All Hallows the Great in 1708 : The Communion-Table is a large Marble Slab, supported by a Figure in Stone of the Angel Gabriel, and its Foot pace is also of Marble.* So of St. Mary Aldermary : The Communion-Table is a marble Slab on a carved Frame, resting on a Foot pace of that Stone, black and white, inclosed with Rail and Banister.^ At St. Antholin's The Communion-Table (which is a large Marble Slab placed on a carved Frame) is inclosed with Rail and Bannister, and the Choir paved with black and white Marbles.^ At St. Mary Woolnoth The altar-piece is enclosed by beautiful scroll-work railing ; and the table is of marble, on spiral legs.'' At Rotherhithe on February 27, 1723 the vestry ordered that the Church-wardens do with all expedition (with the consent of Mrs. Baker) change a certain Marble Slab (given by Mr. Field) for another, and Fit and make the same convenient for a Communion Table.^ 1 J. T. Micklethwaite, loc. cit. 2 Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese ofCarlile, ed. R. S. Ferguson, for Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archa;ological Society, 1877, p. 52. •< ibid. p. 13. ^ 1708, vol. i. p. io5. 5 1708, vol. ii. p. 365. " 1708, vol. i. p. 133. ' J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 433. 8 E. J. Beck, Memorials to serve for a history of the parish of St. Mary, Rotherhithe, Cambridge, 1907, p. 254. 136 ALTAR FRONT ALS. At Farley in the West country Dr. Richard Pococke notes in 1 754 : The top of the Communion-table is a piece of fine marble, not well polished ; they call it Egyptian, but it seems to be of our pieces of marble, which consists of several pebbles cemented together.^ The Bishop was a minute observer of all the various kinds of marbles, stone, slate, etc. that he met with in his journeys. Malcolm in 1803 mentions two churches in London where they had the altar of porphyry.^ The stone altars in our period seem not to have followed the mediaeval precedent of a solid stone erection on the top of which was a slab marked by a cross in the places where the bishop had touched the stone with the holy cream. They seem to have been frames of stone or wood, upon which the stone slab was fixed. A hybrid altar, part of stone, part of wood, is not to be commended. An altar wholly of stone, or wholly of wood, is worthy of all respect ; but a wooden altar with a stone slab, large or small, seems to en- courage the superstitious opinion that the Eucharist ought only to be celebrated on stone. Worse perhaps is the encasing of a wooden altar in stone or marble and leaving it without a frontal (an ornament that no altar should be without) so as to suggest the erroneous belief that the whole altar is of stone. One of the first authorities upon the history of the Roman cata- combs has told me that the altars in the catacombs and early Roman churches were of wood, and moveable. And the altars of stone, set up in the ages when stone was coming into use for altars, show clearly that they are copying a table of wood. Altar Frontals. The frontal or altar cloth was one of the first things to be re- stored on the return of the King. The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. William Fuller, writes to Dr. San- croft on Oct. 27, 1662 about a new frontal for the cathedral church. I have a greater trouble to give you, which you will receive from my Secretary Mr. Symonds now in London. It is to buy mee an altarcloth, which I would have rich : one pane thereof to be Cloth of Gold, the other I thinke Damaske, of a sky colour ; if it bee not too Gawdy. Our Cathedrall hath a purple one of cloth paned with crimson Damaske : Mine I intend ' The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam- den Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 153. " See below, pp. 141, 142. ALTAR FRONTALS. 137 for solemne Dayes. The length of our Altar is 7 foote, one yard High, and one yard broad. Above the Altar 2 yards to the Cornish. But how the Cloth is to be fashiond, that I must leave to you.^ Evidently the Bishop intended to have a ferial as well as a festival frontal. Describing the frontals for the altar at Lichfield Cathedral Church in 1668, the Bishop, Dr. Hacket, writes: In vellet, purple and azure, fiftie pounds worth from the excellent Ladie Levison, to serve for a paraphront, a suffront, and carpet for the Altar. From my Ladie Bagot, most rich pieces of gold and silke, and exquisite imagery for two quishions, whose making up being added from a deuout aged widow, and a poore one, Mrs. Hulkes, they are as beautifull as euer I saw. Add to these, the most curious piece that I haue seen, of purple vellet, flowry gold and silke, to bee placed in the paraphront aboue the quishion.^ The altar cloth given by an Archbishop of York, who died in 1 69 1, deserves to be noticed on account of its colour. Thomas Lamplugh D.D. ArchBishop of York, gave to the Church of Thwing one larg Silver Cup double gilt with Gold, with a Cover and a Chalice of the same, and to both the Cup and Chalice a convenient stifned Case of red Leather with Clasps to keep them in. — He gave also a very good large Cushion for the Pulpit, and a larg Pulpit Cloath lined, both of very fine red Velvet and a Carpet of fine Orange coloured Sattin lined with Silk for the Communion Table, and a Table Cloath of a very rich Damask for the Communion and a fine Unnen Cloath to cover the conse- crated Elements of the same Damask.^ Dr. Comber, the Dean of Durham, records in his papers that an unknown person sent a noble crimson velvet cloth with rich embroidery and gold fringe to adorn the altar of the cathedral.* Queen Mary the Second, between 1689 and 1694, gave to the altar of Christchurch Canterbury a frontal of silver stufif and purple flowered velvet : The altar was furnished with a pane of the figured velvet and a pane of gold stuff, flowered with silver, and the Archbishop's throne with plain velvet. The figure for both was a ruffled f one, of gold, silver, and purple, which alone cost ;^Soo.^ 1 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 44, fo. 42. "^iUd. 44, fo. 66. Letter from Dr. Hacket to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dec. 12, 1668. ' Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearnc, Oxford Historical Society, i8g8, vol. iv. p. 245. * Memoirs . . . of Thomas Comber, D.D. ed. by Thomas Comber, London, Richardson, 1799, p. 288. ^ G. S. [George Smith], Chronological History of Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, 1883, p. 330. 138 ALTAR FRONTALS. Much about the same time, " in the present age " says the writer, Mistress Dorothy Seymour gave to the Parish-Church of Berry- Pomeroy aforesaid, a very fair Pi\\.&x-Piece, with a New Communion-Table, a rich Carpet to cover it, carv'd or turned Rails to enclose it, a large gilded Chalice, with other things of Value ; and also new laid the Floor of the Chancel throughout with squared Stones. We have another example of a hke Piety, in Totnes near adjoining ; where Mr. Richard Langdon, Mer- chant, hath given lately an Hundred Pounds, in double gilt Plate for the Communion Service of that Church, and a rich Crimson Velvet Carpet, with deep Gold Fringe for the Communion- Table there. The like whereunto near to the same Value, was done for the Parish-Church of Dartmouth in this County by William Hayne, Esq; lately deceased.^ Nor wras this " man millinery,'' as it is contemptuously called, limited to Queens and Bishops and Ladies. Here [Trusley, Derbyshire], too, in cases against the wall, are the remains of a once beautiful altar-frontal of blue cloth, with the arms and initials of William Coke and his wife Catherine Ballidon. . . . This altar- cloth was in use up to i860, when it was removed and carelessly crumpled up at the bottom of the parish chest, because the then rector had con- scientious scruples as to using a frontal with heraldic embellishments." It was one of the foibles of the ecclesiological movement in the nineteenth century to dismiss the use of heraldry as savouring of pride. A writer, not too cautious, denounces the squire, "the parochial autocrat " ; for his armorial bearings (the very essential hieroglyphic of the pomps of this world which we renounce at Baptism) displace the emblems of our hope and of our faith. ^ 1 have heard, on good authority, of a much worse case in the twentieth century ; where a democratic parson chipped off the squire's arms on a fifteenth century font. The squire, I fear from good nature, did not, as he ought to have done, put the parson at once into the ecclesiastical courts. In the eighteenth century, a lady who had undertaken an altar cloth for a clergyman's chapel apologises for the colour not being green : ' John Prince, The beauty of God's House, London, Freeman Collins and Samuel Keble, 1701, p. 48. 2 J. Charles Cox, Atkenaum, 1907, September 28, p. 373. ^ G. A. Poole, Churches ; their Structure, Arrangement and Decoration, London, 1845, ch. vii. p. 73. ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 139 October 28, 1 740. I am glad the Chappie is done, and succeeds to your mind ... 13s years in your chaple, and I conclude the old green Cloath has been so too ... I hope this Crimson won't offend the Doctor Osborn. He was a little outragious at the Colour. I unfortunately called it red, and that is not so right for a Chaple. Is he reconciled to the Tapistry at the Altar ? He is not sure if that does not favour a popish one.^ It will be noticed below in the directions for an oratory in Enter into thy closet that the colour of the hanging is to be green.^ Altar Candlesticks. Candlesticks began to be set again on the altar soon after the Restoration. At Christchurch, the Metropolitical Church of the Province of Canterbury, they had in 1667 altar candlesticks ; for a charge is made for gilding one of them ; and " Candlesticks for the Altar " go on as far as the Inventories of the eighteenth century reach.^ The charge for two large wax tapers for the Altar was allowed in the eighteenth century every winter, and the candles must have been lit.* The candlesticks were still there in Hasted's time.^ He pub- lished in 1799. And indeed they were there at the end of the nineteenth century when the materials for the Inventories of Christ- church Canterbury were being collected. At York two pair of altar candlesticks were given soon after the Restoration. One pair by Dr. Sancroft who was Dean of York in 1664, but the candlesticks were made in 1662 ; and the other pair was given by " Lady Mary Beaumont" in 1673. These were still in use in 191 2 at the high altar and the altar in the Lady chapel. * At Chester cathedral two candlesticks were given to the altar in 1662.^ The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. William Fuller, writing on Oct. 27, 1 Mrs. Osborn, Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the Eighteenth Century, 1721-1771, Griffith and Farran, [i8go ?], p. 72. ^ See below, p. 157. ' J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter- bury, Constables, 1902, pp. 272, 311, 316. '' ibid, p. 313. 5 Edward Hasted, History . . . of Kent, Canterbury, Simmons and Kirkby, 1799, vol. iv. p. 526, note a. "T. M. Fallow and H. B. McCall, Yorkshire Church Plate, Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1912, p. 4. ' T. Stanley Ball, Church Plate of the City of Chester, Sherratt and Hughes, 1907, p. 24. 140 ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 1668 to Dr. Sancroft, Dean of St. Paul's, asks him to buy for the altar at Lincoln a pair of better candlesticks than what they have : They have a pittifull paire of ordinary brasse Candlesticks upon the Altar ; which I am ashamed to see and can indure no longer. Therefore I will give them a paire of faire Candlesticks. Truly, Deane, my purse is empty : and I cannot doe what I would. But I find in the Inventory of the Church Utensills, before they were Imbezild, a paire of copper Candle- sticks guilt. Why may I not give the like : if you approve of it. Then I must intreate you to bespeake them, accordingly. I would have them great and plaine, and double guilt. Pray inquire what such a paire will cost.i A Bishop of Ossory, having been Dean of Christchurch Dublin, feared lest any Church money should remain in his hands at his death ; and therefore on October 19, 1677 he bequeathed to the Dean and Chapter thereof, 200I. to buy a pair of large Silver Candlesticks gilt, and other Utensils for the Use of the Altar.^ There is an interesting receipt given on behalf of the Bishop of Durham, by the Dean, for certain pieces of gilt plate lent on loan which seemed to have been considered so necessary that the Bishop was constrained to borrow them when the plate belonging to the Cathedral could not be had. They are these : One basan, twoe candle-sticks, twoe flagons, twoe chalaces, and twee pattens ._^ The paper is not dated but it was most likely written between 1686 and 1689. A Roman Catholic priest, Bassett, writing in 1704 under the pretence of being a Minister of the Church of England, and speak- ing of the furniture of the altar, says : " Yea, we have great Candles too".* In 171 2 Mrs. Elinor James gave a quantity of plate for use at the altar of St. Benedict, Paul's Wharf, and amongst other pieces was " a pair of embossed candlesticks and sockets ".^ To show how little negative evidence may be trusted, nothing is said of these by James Paterson in 1714." ' Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 44, f. 42. ^ The whole Works of Sir jf antes Ware concerning Ireland, ed. Walter Harris, Dublin, Bell and Fleming, 1764, vol. i. p. 428. ' Miscellanea, Surtees Society, i85i, vol. xxxvii. p. 218. ^ Essay towards a proposal for Catholick Communion, ch. xvi. quest, ii. 1704. "■J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, 1803, vol. ii. p. 471. "James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 44. ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 141 C^sar de Saussure in his account of Anglican churches in the reigns of King George the First and King George the Second says : In all the churches the altars are covered with a velvet or damask silk cloth ; candlesticks are placed upon them.^ The Ecdesiologist records that at St. Mary's, Bruton, Somerset- shire the candlesticks are of silver and bear the legend : " The gift of Mr. John Gilbert to Bruton Church, 1744". Also seven other instances of candlesticks on the altar; but it is not said if they were the gift of persons within our period.^ Messrs. J. Charles Cox and Alfred Harvey give a number of instances of altar candlesticks now in use in English parish churches. I will only mention those which have the hall mark of a post-restoration year, and which, in some likelihood, were acquired by the church after that year. During our period there are : Buck- land, Surrey, 1691 ; Harthill, Yorkshire, 1675 ; Hatton, Warwick- shire, 1683; St. Augustine, Norwich, temp. Carol. II.; Moseley, Leicestershire, 1662; St. Anne's Soho, 1722; Swithland, Leicester- shire, 1701 ; St. Mary's Shrewsbury given between 17 16 and 1727 by Lady Abigail Yeomans "for the use of the Communion ".^ In 1786 two pair of altar candlesticks were stolen from Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford. In the following year a pair was presented by the President, Dr. George Home, to replace those stolen.* In truth, candlesticks on the altar must have been so usual that this fact was brought in as a support to the contention that painted windows and pictures must also be allowed. Whoever brings the Authority of Q. Elizabeth's Injunctions and Homilies against the Window in St. Margaret's, will first remove Candle- sticks from the Altars in Cathedrals ; not that the Editor of these Papers has the least Objection to their standing there, or on the Altars in any paro- chial Church.* Malcolm in 1 803 mentions " two remarkably handsome candle- sticks" on the altar at All Hallows Barking.^ Also at St. Bar- tholomew Broad Street or Exchange, " the table is of porphyry, 1 See above, in this chapter, p. 126, 2 Ecdesiologist, Cambridge, Stevenson, 1844, vol. iii. p. 160. ^ J. Charles Cox and Alfred Harvey, English Church Furniture, Methuen, about 1907, p. 326. * J. R. Bloxam, Register of the Presidents . . . of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, Parker, 1857, vol. ii. pp. clxxxiv-clxxxv. ^ [Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster,] The Ornaments of Churches con- sidered, Oxford, Jackson, 1761, p. 134, n. "J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 421. 142 ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. with a step for candlesticks of the same material, supported by richly carved and gilt feet " } At St. Clement Danes they had also the table of porphyry with " two steps for candlesticks on it " ? At St. Botolph Aldersgate the Holy Table " supports two rich candle- sticks '' } In a will made on November 19, 1831 Mrs. Quilliam directs as follows : I leave to the chaplains and wardens (for the time being) of St. Mary's Chapel in Castletown aforesaid my two best silver chased Candlesticks to and for the use of the said Chapel for ever and to be placed therein on the Communion Table.* Their height is io| inches. Mrs. Quilliam also bequeathed another pair exactly similar and of the same date (1770-71) to the chapel of King William's College. It is an excellent example, much to be commended, of the conversion of good domestic ma- terials to church uses. No instance in our period has been met with of more than two lights on the altar. Thus the mediaeval custom of two lights only was carefully preserved until our time of decadence in the nineteenth century, when six large candles, or little candles in drawing room sconces began to be set on the altar. When I was at Exeter in April 1894, I was told by a responsible officer of the chapter library with a certain amount of distress, that things were so low before the present dean was appointed that the altar candlesticks were only put on for a celebration of the Eucharist, and taken off directly after. I do not know who the dean was in 1 894, but if what I was told prove exact, he certainly destroyed a very ancient and desirable custom. It was a survival of a distant time when there were no candles on the altar but carried only in the hands of the clerks ; brought in by them, and taken away by them as soon as the service was over. Doubtless the change at Exeter was made with intention of promoting the cause of progress and de- velopement, and credit should be given for good intentions, even if not altogether successful. Something similar, it may be inferred, is spoken of by Hasted as happening at Canterbury ; the candlesticks were set upon the 1 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 426. ''ibid. vol. iii. p. 395. ^ibid. vol. ii. p. 550. ^ E. Alfred Jones, The old Church Plate of the Isle of Man, London, Bemrose, 1907, p. 28. ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 143 altar with the other plate when there was a celebration of the Eucharist.^ Another instance of a like practice, and in a parish church, was put on record in pleadings before the ecclesiastical courts about 1855. At Ham in Staffordshire where they had daily service in 1715," The Candlesticks are here put on the Altar on days when Holy Com- munion is administered ; an ancient custom. The former Incumbent, who held the living 50 years, found the custom, and retained it.^ The opinion that two candlesticks on the altar were customary and lawful appears quite at the end of our period. Among other ornaments of the Church in use, in the 2d year of Edward VI. there were two Lights appointed to be set upon the high Altar, as a significant ceremony of the light which Christ's Gospel brought into the world ; . . . These lights were continued in all the Queen's Chapels dur- ing her whole reign ; and in many Cathedral Churches, besides the Chapels of divers noblemen. Bishops, and Colleges to this day.* In the last sentence it may be supposed that the author speaks of his own personal knowledge, and so with the authority of a con- temporary witness. In 1892 Dr. Porter, the Master of Peterhouse, showed me the arrangements in his chapel which were most likely those made at the Restoration after the havoc that was wrought by William Dowsing during the Rebellion,^ who would not have suffered altar rails to remain ; and thus the present rails are almost sure to be post-Restoration. There were no candlesticks on the altar; but the western angles of the rectangular rails enclosing the altar carried two round wooden tables on tripods, on which stood the two candlesticks with prickets. The Master assured me that, within his time, the candles had always been in that particular place. A similar arrangement may very likely have existed at Clare, ' Edward Hasted, History . . . of Kent, Canterbury, Simmons and Kirkby, 1799, vol. iv. p. 526. ^ See above in ch. iv. p. g8. ' The yudgment of the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington . . . Westerton against Liddell, edited by A. F. Bayford, London, Butterworths, about 1855, p. xxvi, Schedule No. 2. * Thomas Pruen, Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England as to its daily service, London, Rivington, 1820, vol. i. p. 206. ^J. Wickham \^eg^, English Orders for consecrating churches in the seventeenth cen- tury, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1911, p. 350. 144 BRANCHES. but the old order of things had been changed in the nineteenth century. Branches. Branches with candles hung from the ceiling were very frequent in cathedral and parish churches, but they appear to have been brought in merely for decoration, or perhaps for giving light, with- out any ritual purpose. They were disliked by the puritans be- cause they gave dignity and beauty to the house of God. In 171 4 according to James Paterson's Pietas Londinensis there were sixteen churches in London furnished with branches, but it is quite possible this may be an underestimate. If one turns over the pages of the later editions, published in the eighteenth century, of Stow's Survey one may often notice the appearance of branches as part of the ornaments of London churches. At the Collegiate Church of Manchester, the foundation of King Charles the Martyr in 1635, we are told that Suspended from the chancel roof, are two brass candelabras, each con- taining twelve branches ; on the one is inscribed, " The Original Gift of Chadwick, A.D. 1696. Renewed By the Warden and Fellows, A.D. 1768: " and on the other, "The Gift of Jeremiah Bower, Manchester, Haberdasher of Hats, September 29, 1745." ^ These branches are still filled with candles and lighted during the Twelve Days of Christmas.^ On Feb. 17, Sunday, 1722-3 Hearne writes : About a Month or six Weeks since was put up in St. Peter's Church, in the East, Oxon. a very handsome Branch for Lights. And much about the same time were renewed the Images of St. Peter and St. Paul over the Porch Door of the same Church.' Three branches had been presented at different times during our period to Christchurch Canterbury by Sir Anthony Aucher, Dr. Shuckford, and Dr. Tenison.* At Clinok in Wales, Dr. Richard Pococke, an Irish bishop, observed in 1756 : 1 [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834, vol. ii. p. 285. For statutes of King Charles, see vol. i. p. 152. ^See below, ch. vii. p. 2og. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 46. ^ J. WickhamLegg andW. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter- bury, Westminster, Constables, 1902, p. 327. CROSSES, PICTURES, ETC. 145 The ancient rood-loft is standing, and they have a wooden branch to illuminate their church at their early devotions on Christmas day, which is a custom that prevails in most parts of North Wales. ^ It is recorded of Dr. George Berkeley, the son of the celebrated Bishop, that he laid out the money received by him for temporary duty in "purchasing some ornament for the house of God; — such as an handsome altar cloth, chandeliers, &c." ^ The Use of Crosses, Pictures, etc. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in a weighty passage, recommends the use of devotional pictures, and of the Cross. His remarks are the more noticeable because of the favour which he showed to Protestant Dissenters. And yet to say with men who run into extremes, that Devotional Pictures are no helps to excite memory and passion, is to forget that they are called mute Poems ; to speak against common sense ; and to impute less to a Crucifix than to the Tomb of our friend, or to a thread on our finger. They may be useful as Monitors in a Christian Commonwealth where their worship is plainly and frequently forbidden, and by all under- stood to be so prohibited. And it was high superstition in those who in our late unhappy Revolutions, defaced such Pictures and brake down such Crosses as Authority had suffered to remain entire, whilst it forbad the worship of them ; and was in that particular so well obeyed that none of them (it may be) ever knew one man of the Communion of the Church of England to have been prostrate before a Cross, and in that posture to have spoken to it.^ Such a testimony in favour of the use of pictures and crosses from a man of the studied moderation of Tenison is not to be put aside. But an immense amount of Puritan prejudice had yet to be overcome. A painted window over the altar, a picture serving as a reredos, or even a plain cross might in the eighteenth century give rise to much ill-will. Dr. Fiddes, a writer of some reputation in his time but now almost forgotten, doubted if all external acts of reverence towards an image be forbidden by the second commandment : it is not thought altogether so clear from any principles of natural reason whether such outward acts of reverence be of themselves directly ' The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pocoeke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, i88g, vol. ii. p. 175. ' George Berkeley, Sermons, London, Rivington, 1799, p. 150, note. ^ Thomas Tenison, Of Idolatry, London, Tyton, 1678, ch. xii. p. 279. 10 146 CROSSES, PICTURES, ETC. sinful : Provided they terminate in the object represented by those images, and that such object be in itself really adorable.^ Dr. Fiddes died in 1725. His works were much read by Dr. Johnson. Ten years after the Restoration Thomas Philipot published a work in which he remarks : So the sign of the Cross was put upon the Churches, to make it known they were mark'd out and distinguish'd for God's service." It would be hardly worth mentioning that Dr. Joseph Butler, afterwards Bishop of Durham, the immortal author of the Analogy, had a cross over the altar in his episcopal chapel at Bristol, had not this led to the statement that he died a papist.^ It cannot have been that the use of the cross in connexion with churches was un- known. Dr. Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, affirms that "most of our churches have crosses upon them ".* Even a crucifix was recommended by William Law.^ In the Isle of Man, Kirk Andreas has a chalice made about 1685 with a crucifix engraved on it. Under it is: Andreas Cristif famulus.^ The fop's chapel, to be spoken of below, had " many crucifixes in it ".^ Miss Austen speaks of a cross being given to a young lady to wear round her neck.^ Malcolm who wrote in the first decade of the nineteenth century may be appealed to for his evidence of the large number of pictures then existing in London churches.' And in the country, nothing is more common than to find some sacred subject depicted in the parish 1 Richard Fiddes, Theologia Practica; or, the Second Part of a body of Divinity, London, Bernard Lintot, 1720, Book III. ch. iii. p. 245. ^ Thomas Philipot, Antiquitas Theologica et Gentilis, London, Needham, 1670, p. II. 3 An account of this strange accusation, not made until fifteen years after Butler's death, and the immediate contradiction by the Bishop's closest friends, is given by Dr. Samuel Halifax, Bishop of Gloucester, in the notes to a preface to his second edition of Butler's works. (Works, Oxford University Press, 1836, vol. i. pp. xxxiii-xxxvii.) 'ibid. p. XXXV. ^ William Law, A Serious Call to a devout and holy life, ch. xvi. London, Innys and Richardson, 1753, p. 301. " E. Alfred Jones, The old church Plate of the Isle of Man, London, Bemrose, 1907, Plate VIII, No. i. ' See below, p. 159, on Oratories. ^ Jane Austen, Maiisfisld Park, ch. xxvi. (Macmillan, igoi, p. 228). * J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1802-7, •" four volumes. SEATS ABOUT THE ALTAR. 147 churches. Samuel Wale, an artist of note, was almost a specialist for church paintings.^ Seats about the Altar. One of the great sources of irritation to the early ecclesiologists was the practice of setting a chair at each end of the altar, the oc- cupants of which faced the people. The early Gothic architects de- nounced this practice and made a great point of placing the seats for the clergy in the presbytery on the south side only. But the older designers had some precedent for what they did. There are Italian churches which show chairs at the ends of the altar facing the people, as at the cathedral churches of Sienna and Salerno. The cathedral church of Naples has a seat at the south, or in more modern language the epistle, end of the high altar, on which during the reading of the lessons of Easter Even the celebrant sits. In our own West- minster Abbey there is shown a like seat in the Islip Roll." Dr. Eager has also seen a seat in much the same place at Barcelona, and elsewhere in Spain, and a clerk sitting upon it.^ The explanation of these varying positions of seats in the presbytery is that early in history when most churches had apses, and the altar stood on the chord of the apse, the seats for the clergy ran all round the wall of the apse ; and the sedilia are but the re- mains of the most western of these, and the seats facing the people the remains of those behind the altar. The old three-decker, as it was irreverently called, of pulpit, reading desk, and clerk's desk, was not a post-reformation invention. There is just such an erection on the north side of the quire of St. Mark's Venice, clearly mediaeval in date. In 1 82 1, a clergyman thus describes the state of his chancel: When I came to my present parish, I found the chancel without any rails at the east end round a communion table and the table standing in the middle of the chancel. On inquiry, I found that the practice here was, for all the communicants, at the time of a sacrament, to come into the chancel, which is large, and has seats on each side of the entrance at the west end, and which are continued towards half way on each side. . . . Be- fore the seats is a front, or desk, to kneel and lean against. The table 1 D.N.B. under Samuel Wale. 2 The Obituary Roll ofj^ohn Islip, published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, Vetusta Momimenta, Vol. VIL part iv. plate xxii. igo6. ' Reginald Eager, Transactions of the St. Paxil's Ecclesiological Society, Harrisons, 1900, vol. iv. p. 113. 10* 148 SEATS ABOUT THE ALTAR. stands so that the minister can see all the communicants before him ; and, when he administers the bread and wine, instead of their coming up to the table he goes round to them.^ A London Curate at the beginning of the nineteenth century sets forth his views in the following very interesting way : Then respecting the interior of our churches ; there is no need to make alterations for alteration's sake. Our ancestors, and their architects, were very good judges of the proper arrangement of parts in the inside of churches. It shall rarely happen that any good comes of moving the pulpit, desk, &c. Least of all should they be placed in the middle aysle. The Altar, most certainly, should ever be regarded as the sanctum sanctorum of a Christian Church. Nothing should shut it out from the perspective of the building. It should occupy the main point of light. Of late years, (is it because preaching is preferred to praying ; nay to the solemnization of the most sacred Christian Mysteries ?) the pulpit obstructs the view of the altar in many newly repaired churches. In ancient churches, the pulpit is found on the north side of the church, near the entrance of the chancel. In most of the fifty new churches, in and about London, the pulpit and desk stand one on one side, and the other on the other side of the middle aysle. But in churches which have lately been improved, both pulpit and desk are placed, indecently, before the Altar, 1 am sorry to observe, that the pulpit in St. Paul's Cathedral has been moved from the spot where it was placed by Sir Christopher Wren. It is now fixed, in the new fangled way, directly in the center, and com- pletely blotting out all view of the Altar from the entrance of the choir. But this is not all. The litany desk keeps its old position — where the Priests recite that impassioned, and very impressive part of our public service, the litany, between the porch and the altar,* but when the officiating ministers kneel at "the failed stool," (as it was anciently called,) they cannot see the Altar ! Their faces are within a few feet of the pulpit, which directly fronts them.^ * No doubt the litany was ordered to be said in this place, because of Joel ii. 17. " Let the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, weep between the Porch and the Altar, and let them say — spare thy people, O Lord, &c." This expostulation might have been written by one of the early Cambridge Camden Ecclesiologists. It shows, with them, the sense that the altar is the chief feature and ornament of a church, not to be obscured or overshadowed by the pulpit, a fashion that had set in at the beginning of the nineteenth century. We may see in this the influence of the evangelical movement. The Rev. Dr. B. J. Kidd has pointed out to me that this making of the pulpit the central point of a church is an unconscious following of the Manichees. ^Mediciua Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 56. " A letter signed /I London Curate, in Tjie Orthodox Churchman's Magazine and Review, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 297. CHANCEL SCREENS. 149 They dressed up a pulpit in the middle of a church, and then wor- shipped before it.^ Litany Desk. Another ornament may be noticed, the litany desk or litany stool, of which, strange to say, it has been said that it was in the eighteenth century a great rarity. As a matter of fact, such were in use in most cathedral churches, such as Canterbury, Durham, and Lincoln, besides St. Paul's ; and in parish churches, too : at St. Giles', Durham, in 1683 the churchwardens paid money "for colour- ing the Litany Desk," sure sign that it was in use.^ The editions of Sparrow's Rationale published in the seventeenth century have a frontispiece showing a priest in a short surplice kneel- ing at a desk in front of the altar, saying " Spare thy people O Lord ". Also in several other frontispieces of devotional books printed in the first half of our period, the same may be seen. At Bledlow in 1783 they had apparently just bought a Litany Desk, for the carriage is included in the accounts.* It may be also noticed that the Priests who sing the Litany are spoken of in the plural. Most of the Litany Desks of the eighteenth century are for two Clerks ; and indeed at St. Paul's the statutes require the Litany to be sung by two minor canons.* But the anomia of the last half of the nineteenth century has caused the practice to be abandoned. Chancel Screens. After the Restoration they began again to build screens. A very beautiful chancel screen of the Corinthian Order was put up at Cruwys-Morchard, North Devon, at a time which Mr. Bligh Bond, with good reason, calls Hanoverian. Even as late as 1808 at Mol- 1 quae causa esset quod Pascha Domini plerumque nulla, interdum a paucis tepid- issima celebritate frequentaretur, nuUis vigiliis, nuUo prolixiore jejunio indicto Auditori- bus, nullo denique festiviore apparatu ; cum vestrum bema, id est, diem quo Manichaeus occisus est, quinque gradibus instructo tribunal! et pretiosis linteis adornato, ac in promptu posito et objecto adorantibus, magnis honoribus prosequaraini : hoc ergo cum quaererem, respondebatur ejus diem passionis celebrandum esse qui vere passus esset. (St. Augustine, Contra Epistolam Manichaei, cap. viii. Migne, P.L. xlii. 179.) '^Memorials of St. Giles's, Durham, Surtees Society, 1896, vol. xcv. p. 188. ^ See Appendix to this chapter, Bledlow Inventory, item 27, p. 161. ' W. Sparrow Simpson, Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudimim Eccles. Cathed. Sancti Pauli Land. London, Nichols, 1873, p. 282. ISO SEPARATION OF THE SEXES. land North Devon they set up a chancel screen with a tympanum over it.^ At Clinok in 1756 Dr. Richard Pococke, the Irish bishop, notes : The reading desk is within the skreen, and the minister comes out to an elevated seat in the body of the church to read the lesson.^ The service was thus said within the chancel. Did the parish clerk read the other lesson ? Separation of the Sexes. It may be noted below ^ that at West Wickham the sexes were separated. This was not so unusual. There is evidence of it in 1698 at St. James' Chapel, in the time of William the Third. On Sunday last a rifle-barrelled pistol, loaded with balls, was found in St. James's Chapel, after the king of England had left, and it was ob- served that there had been two strange-looking men present who, contrary to the usual custom, had seated themselves among the ladies.* And almost at the same date. Sir George Wheler speaks of the separation of the sexes as being a custom in his day : the promiscuous mixture of Men and Women together in our Assem- blies, is an Abuse crept in, not meant by our first Reformers, as is manifest from the first C.P. Book of Edw. VI. and the Order in many Country Churches to this day.^ And earlier than this, in 1689 the same Sir George Wheler says : I believe this Division of Sex was formerly in our Churches : For in many Country Churches (where the Grandees have not deformed them, by making some High and some Low, to be Tenements to their whole Families) is yet to be seen not only Dextra et sinistra Pars virorum ; but also the Right and Left hand Seats for the Women. The Seats for the Men being next to the Chancel, and the Seats for the Women next from the Middle-Doors to the Belfery ; with an Alley up to the Middle of the Church ; and another Cross that to the North and South Doors. ^ ^F. Bligh Bond, Mediaeval Screens and Rood-lofts (Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society), Harrison, 1905, vol. v. p. 217. " The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 175. ^ See below in this chapter, p. 153. ^ Tallard to Louis the Fourteenth, London, April 16, 1698. (P. Grimblot, Letters of William III. and Louis XIV. London, Longmans, 1848, vol. i. p. 3S3.) ^[George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, 1698, p. 100. 8 George Wheler, An account of the Churches . . . of the Primitive Christians, London, Clavell, 1689, p. 119. CHURCH BUILDING. 1 5 1 Church Building. The destruction of the city of London by fire in 1666 led, necessarily, to a large amount of Church building in which Sir Christopher Wren was most happily the chief actor. But this may be thought not altogether voluntary. In 1711, Cardwell reports that Convocation originated the idea of building fifty new churches in the cities of London and Westminster,^ part of which scheme was later on carried into effect. A large number of churches, one in every parish, had been be- queathed to the eighteenth century by the middle ages, and until the population began to increase there was no great need for new buildings, and it was somewhat late in our period when the want of new churches became urgent outside London. I have com- piled a list, imperfect no doubt, of churches and chapels consecrated in the seventeenth century: of those from 1660 to 1 700. putting aside domestic and college chapels, there appear to be only ten churches and chapels consecrated for public use.^ Convocation certainly looked for an increase in church building ; for just before it was silenced it drew up a form for consecrating churches and churchyards. This was published it would seem in 1715.3 When the era of the great Church building caused by the " late dreadful fire " was over. Churchmen did not relapse into indiffer- ence as to their churches. There are two churches built in the first half of the eighteenth century which are still among the glories of London. One is St. Martin's in the Fields, the other is St. Mary le Strand. And the men of the time were not niggardly, as may be seen by the sums expended in building these new churches, equi- valent nowadays to more than double the amount. The first stone of the new Church of St. Martin's in the Fields was laid in 1722. The expence attending the re-building amounted to 36,891!. los. 4d. of which sum 33,450!. was raised under an Act of Parliament, by rates on landlords of four fifths, and one fifth on tenants.* 1 Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. ii. p. 827, note. ''English Orders for Consecrating Churches in the Seventeenth Century, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1911, p. 323. 3 Cardwell, op. cit. ii. 819. ■•J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 194. I S 2 CHURCH B UILDING. On St. Mary le Strand which was consecrated on January I, 1723 was expended ;^i6,34i is. 2A} Another sign -of a good feeling in Architecture in the middle of the eighteenth century is given by All Saints, Derby. The church needed to be rebuilt ; and the parishioners employed the famous architect, James Gibbs, who designed St. Mary le Strand, St. Martin's in the Fields, the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and other well-known buildings. A stone altar, and handsome screens of iron work testified until 1873 to his taste as well as to his knowledge; but these, if they have not disappeared entirely, have been shame- fully mutilated by a clerical obscurantist.^ Of the church at Derby, Gibbs thus speaks : The Church of Allhallows in Derby is a very large Fabrick, join'd to a fine Gothick Steeple. It is the more beautiful for having no Galleries, which, as well as Pews, clog up and spoil the Inside of Churches, and take away from that right Proportion which they otherwise would have, and are only justifiable as they are necessary. The plainness of this Building makes it less expensive, and renders it more suitable to the old Steeple. I have given two Plates of it.^ In fact there are three, plates 25, 26, 27, as one may be pleased to note, being given more than promised. In the middle of the eighteenth century there may be found a preference for the old Christian architecture in place of that of the Renascence. A journal tells us that In St. Peter's one is convinced that it was built by great Princes : in Westminster-Abbey one thinks not of the builder ; the religion of the place makes the first impression.* This is not the only passage in writings of the eighteenth cen- tury in which a preference for the Gothic is expressed. About 1752, Horace Walpole scoffs in this fashion at a new church built by Lord Westmoreland at Mereworth : The earl has built a new church. . . . The greatest absurdity is a Doric frieze, between the triglyphs of which is the Jehovah, the I. H. S. ^J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivimim, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 281. 2 J. Charles Cox and W. H. St. John Hope, The Chronicles of the Collegiate Church or Free Chapel of All Saints, Derby, London, Bemrose, 1881, plate ii. p. 227. See p. 81 for some account of the destruction in 1873. •' James Gibbs, A book of Architecture, London, 1728, p. viii. ^ The London Register, March, 1762, p. 209. CHUR CH B UILDING. 1 5 3 and the dove . . . There is an entire window of painted-glass arms, chiefly modern in the chapel, and another over the high altar.i Here is an account of the cost and trouble taken to beautify the church at Hagley about 1756 : Sir George Lyttelton has adorn'd the church in a most exquisite Gothic taste, Mr. Miller's design. The chancel is entirely new ; the windows are adorn'd on the sides and every part with Gothic ornaments in hewn stone, and all the other parts of it is in stucco. . . . These [coats of arms] were all done at the expence of the Dean of Exeter, who has also given a Persian carpet as a covering for the communion table. The east window is entirely of rich painted glass . . . the Communion rail is of a Gothic design. ^ A new church was built in Wolverhampton by Act of Parliament : It was consecrated in 1761 and is dedicated to St. John. . . . The whole is handsomely pewed and painted ; and the altar-piece, our Saviour taken down from the cross, the work of a native genius, Mr. Joseph Barney, now drawing master of the royal academy at Woolwich.^ This single instance suffices to dispose of the statement that not one new church was built in England after the reign of King George the Third had begun. Other cases will now be given, and the list is by no means exhausted. Some writers seem to feel a sort of satisfaction in inventing statements to the discredit of the eighteenth century. Another new church, very handsome, is thus described : The new church of West Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire was opened, on an eminence two miles in height, where the old church stood. The pave- ment is Mosaic, and the roof stucco, ornamented with emblematic figures. There are no pews, but seats covered with green cloth, and hassocks to kneel on. The men sit on one side, and the women on the other. The pulpit is built by itself, in which is a large spread eagle, standing on a ball, both made of brass, and finely gilt. The reading desk, and the desk for the clerk, both stand separate from each other. In the center of the church stands a font of inimitable workmanship ; four carved doves seem to be drinking out of it, one dove appears going up by the side, and a serpent following it ; and the bason where the water is kept, with the cover to it is of solid gold. Near the altar is a fine picture representing our Blessed Saviour at his last Supper. * ^ Horace Walpole, Worki, Robinson, 1798, vol. v. Letters to R. Bentley, Aug. 5, 1752, p. 268. ^ The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. by J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, i88g, vol. ii. p. 235. ^ Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, London, Nichols, 1801, vol. ii. p. 164. * Gentleman's Magazine, Historical Chronicle, July, 1763, p. 359. 1 54 FREE AND OPEN CHURCHES. All Saints' Chapel, Lansdown Place, Bath, was built in 1794. It is thus described : It is in the Gothick stile, and is 64 feet long by 46 wide, within the walls, exclusive of four recesses, with a fireplace in each. The gallery con- tinues all round the chapel, the front of which forms an oval, and is sup- ported by eight light Gothick pillars, which support also the roof. The middle part of the ceiling is also an oval, and rises 6 feet higher than the ceiling over the gallery ; is enriched with stucco ornaments and cove ribs springing fan shape from each column. There are 12 large windows above the gallery, in the tops of which are paintings on glass of the heads of the Twelve Apostles, set round with variegated glass ; — the window of the altar has a transparent painting of the Lord's Supper.^ Free and Open Churches. This absence of pews at West Wickham ^ led to a sort of prema- ture Free and Open Church movement : Lord Le Dispenser has lately shewn an excellent Example in this Re- spect, in the new Church of West Wickham, Bucks, which is worthy of Imitation Instead of Pews, or inclosed seats, there are many Rows of Forms and Benches, so that those who first come are first served.^ Later on it is recommended that all the pews at St. Stephen's Coleman St. be burnt in Moorfields, and forms and benches substi- tuted. Dr. Daubeny, the Archdeacon of Salisbury, built a church called Christ Church, at Walcot near Bath, which was opened in 1798. Redesigned it for the poor, and all the seats were free and open. It is incorrectly said to have been the first free and open church in the country.* The cases given immediately above are some proof of the contrary. Watson, the notorious absentee from his diocese, could yet see what would be useful in London. In a letter to Mr. Wilberforce dated April i , 1 800 he says : The parish-churches of this metropolis are greatly too few . . . this inconvenience is much augmented by the pews which have been erected in them. What I would propose is — the building an additional number of new churches, each on a large scale, in proper situations, which should have ^ The New Bath Guide, Bath, Cruttwell, 1796, p. 34. ^ See above, p. 153. '■' The Reformation of the Church of England, Reformed, London, 1765, p. 11, n. The writer is mistaken in thinking that pews came in after the Reformation. * D.N.B. sub voce Charles Daubeny. DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 155 no appropriated seats, but, being furnished merely with benches, should be open alike to the poor and rich of all parishes and of all countries.^ This was also the opinion of a clergyman in 1 821 : I wish that all churches were made so warm that the reader need not wish for a close pew, but that there were no pews at all, but merely rows of seats, with low backs, or rails for the backs of the congregation to lean against, and which might serve as the front to the row of seats behind it, and on to which a sloping desk might be fixed, to hold prayer-books, or to support the arms of the kneelers. There should be kneeling forms too throughout the church. Those seats near the door should have close backs, higher than the heads of the sifters, to keep off the wind. Pews are too often only a screen to sitting, instead of kneeling, during the prayers, and to talking, or sleeping, during the sermon.^ The behaviour of the Rattling Clubs in Church shows that square pews were already built in 171 4. It is needless to observe that the Gentlemen who every Sunday have the hard Province of instructing these Wretches in a way they are in no present Disposition to take, have a fixt Character for Learning and Eloquence . . . whatever surpasses the narrow Limits of their [the Rattling Clubs'] Theology, or is not suited to their Taste, they are all immediately upon their Watch, fixing their Eyes upon each other, with as much Warmth as our Gladiators of Hockley in the Hole, and waiting like them for a Hit ; if one touches, all take Fire, and their Noddles instantly meet in the Centre of the Pew ; then, as by beat of Drum, with exact Discipline, they rear up into a full Length of Stature, and with odd Looks and Gesticulations confer together.^ Domestic Chapels and the Daily Service. It is a matter for considerable regret that the private chapel, where the whole of the divine service was often said every day, can no longer be thought to exist. The writers of the eighteenth century often give us a glimpse of the domestic chapel.* It was indeed sometimes consecrated, as was the chapel in Lord Clarendon's house in Piccadilly.^ It may be looked upon as the usual accompani- ment of a squire's or nobleman's house. Richardson says : '^Anecdotes of the life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, London, Cadell and Davies, 1817, p. 341. '' Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 32. 3 Spectator, No. 630, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 1714. ■* See below, p. 156. ^ J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches, Henry Bradshaw So ciety, 1911, p. 324, Ixiv. iS6 DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. To this convenient house belongs an elegant little chapel, neatly de- corated. '^ Speaking of family prayers, the same writer says : The chapel, now our congregation is large, will be the properest place, ^ In 1 746 there is advertised a ballad (Moore, price 6d.) on Ld. D-n-r-l's "converting his Chapel into a Kitchen'';^ an act plainly attended by a certain amount of scandal. Mr. AUworthy says, when told of the death of Mrs. Blifil : he would have his sister deposited in his own chapel.* The events of Tom Jones are supposed to be taking place in 1745-46. At Wentworth Dr. Pococke noticed in 175° that they had "a handsome chapel, where they have prayers every morning between ten and eleven ".^ So at another great nobleman's house : Dr. Johnson found a chapel at Chatsworth in his journey into Wales in 1 774-' The daily prayers used to be read in the domestic chapel, either by the chaplain, or the master of the house. In 181 9, Washington Irving, in his account of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, describes " a small chapel in the old wing of the house ". He adds : I afterwards understood that early morning service was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year either by Mr. Bracebridge or by some member of his family. It was once almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of England, and it is much to be re- gretted that the custom is falling into neglect.'' Oratories. Dr. Edward Wetenhall, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, pub- lished about 1666 a book of prayers with the title Enter into thy 1 Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Chapman and Hall, igo2, vol. vii. p. 32, in Letter vi. ^ ibid. p. 41. ' British Magazine for the year 1746, vol. i. p. 85. ■* Henry Fielding, The History of Tom jfones, Book V. ch. viii. in Works, ed. by Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. vi. p. 266. '' The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam- den Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 66. " Samuel Johnson, A Diary of a fourney into North Wales in the year 1774, ed. R. Duppa, London, R. Jennings, i8i5, p. 14. ' Washington Irving, The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, Dent, igo6, Ch. Christmas Day, p. 35. DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 157 closet, which had the honour of being attacked by Hoadly ; and at the end of the first chapter of the first part he recommends those who wished to lead a Hfe close to the ways of holiness to have a place convenient to retire into ; what he calls a closet, and we an oratory. I give the greater part of his description for an account of such at this time is rare, though the thing itself was not so very unusual. Now (it being supposed that my condition allows me so much choice, as that I might have it so) my Closet would I have no unpleasant place, as sweetly situated as any place of my house, that I might delight to be there- in ; and by no means a low or darksom room, but as high as I well could : for that so it will be most remote from the noise, company, and disturb- ance . . . The furniture of my Closet I would have a little more, than that of Elisha's chamber, A Table, a Stool and a Candlestick : and instead of his bed an hard Couch or great chair on which I might some times lean my weary or aching head : But a Couch the reather for that sometimes I haply might find it necessary to spend the whole night there, and might thereon take some repose. To these I would add a Bible, a Common-prayer book, two Paper books (which when filled must be supplyed by two others) and a Pen and Ink. Another book or two (of which hereafter I may also see occa- sion) to add to these. A Chimney, against Winter's cold, to make the place endurable, if need be, a whole night, would be no contemptible conveni- ence. If besides these, I there keep any thing, as Students do Books, Gentlemen writings, and Ladies Medicines, (s^c. all these I would have placed on one side, or at least, one side I would have free from them, against which should either stand a table, or a Praying desk (that when occasion should be I might lay a book or paper before me) and the wall over such desk or table should be hung (if I were able to do it) with some stuff, of one colour, (Green the best) to the end that when there kneeling at my prayers, I might have in mine eye nothing to call away or divert my thoughts.'- Henry Cornwaleys, complaining of the few who come to church on a week day, gives this advice on Saturday night : Let them repair to their private Oratory; Let them enter into their Closets.^ Lady Maynard, whom Ken directed, spent, he tells us, the best part of her time in her oratory. 1 [Edward Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet : or, a Method and Order for Private Devotion, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672, Part I. ch. ii. p. 5. The first edition is said to have appeared in 1666. 2H[enry] C[ornwaleys], The Coxmtry-Curate^s Advice to his Parishioners, London, Robinson, 1693, p. 8. iS8 DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. Her oratory was the place, where she principally resided, and where she was most at home.' In the same way Sir George Wheler gives directions for a private chapel or oratory ; and, in cases where a special place cannot be re- served, for the arrangement of a room used for domestic purposes. It is very Decent to adorn the place we worship God in, with such decent and proper Ornaments, as are useful for the Service we are about, or any way tend to the Edification of those present, or that may express Reverence and Respect to so great a Guest, as then we Receive and En- tertain. Which consists not in great Pomp and Splendor, but Neatness ; in con- venient and edifying Ornaments, with cleanliness. As a decent Desk or Table, to read the Word of God, and Pray on, set in the most convenient and respectable Place ; then to have convenient Seats set in com[e]ly Order for all present. If the Room be necessarily used about Domestick oc- casions, to have all the Furniture put in due Order, and not lying in un- seemly confusion, is no more than a good Housewife would do to receive her ordinary Neighbours. If it be adorn'd with any Pictures, I would have them such as represent some profitable History out of the Old or New Testa- ment ; or Sufferings of the Martyrs. But not as the objects of our Devo- tion, but such as may teach us some Moral or Religious Virtue, in the intervals of it.^ Thus Private Oratories were not unknown in this age. Swift is said to have regularly used such : The place which he occupied as an oratory was a small closet, in which, when his situation required to be in some degree watched, he was daily observed to pray with great devotion.^ William Law recommends the pious to have an oratory. To proceed ; if you was to use yourself (as far as you can) to pray always in the same place ; if you was to reserve that place for devotion, and not allow yourself to do any thing common in it ; if you was never to be there yourself, but in times of devotion ; if any little room, (or if that can- not be) if any particular part of a room was thus used, this kind of conse- cration of it, as a place holy unto God, would have an effect upon your mind, and dispose you to such tempers as would very much assist your devotion. For by having a place thus sacred in your room, it would in some measure resemble a chapel or house of God.* In Mrs. Delany's diary we read on November 17, 1750: 1 Thomas Ken,, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady Margaret Mainard, in Prose Works, ed. J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 130. 2 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, 1698, p. 98. ^The works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 396. ■* William Law, A serious call to u devout and holy life, ch. xiv. London, Innys and Richardson, 1753, p. 244. DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 159 I have begun a large Madonna and Child for the chapel which is a great undertaking.^ In Amelia Dr. Harrison (for in the eighteenth century nearly all beneficed clergymen have taken a doctor's degree, if we trust the contemporary writers) says to a soldier who has just acquitted himself very well in the Doctor's eyes : " Sir " said he " if I knew half a dozen such instances in the army, the painter should put red liveries upon all the saints in my closet." ^ The pictures of the saints, then, were hung up in the oratories of the clergy at this time. In 1 768 there is a description by Mrs. Delany of a fop's chapel : 1 was a little provoked at his chapel, which is within his dressing room. It is not above eight feet square, or rather an octagon ; it is an exact re- presentation of a popish chapel expensively decorated . . . There are many crucifixes in it, ivory figures of saints, crowns, and crosses set with sapphire.^ It would seem that there were spikes (as Dr. Bright of Christ- church used to call them) in 1768. Johnson looked upon the parish church as a proper place for private devotion. At Harwich, in 1763, about August 6, when on his road to Utrecht, Boswell writes : We went and looked at the church, and having gone into it and walked up to the altar, Johnson, whose piety was constant and fervent, sent me to my knees, saying, ' Now that you are going to leave your native country, recommend yourself to the protection of your Creator and Redeemer ' ''■Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville Mrs. Delany, London, Bentley, 1861, First Series, vol. ii. p. 616. 2 Henry Fielding, Amelia, Book II. ch. iv. in Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 223. ^Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville Mrs. Delany, London, Bentley, 1862, Second Series, vol. i. p. 177, Oct. 10, 1768. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. [TRANSCRIPT FROM THE WRITINGS IN THE CUSTODY OF THE VICAR AND CHURCHWARDENS OF BLEDLOW.] An Inventory of Utensils, Books, Vestments, Ornaments, etc. in the Parish Church of Bledlow in the County of Bucks 1783. [i.] A Communion Table [2.] An Altar Pall of Green Cloth bordered with silk fringe [3.] A Silk Cushion with Gold Tassels [4.] A Communion service book in 8vo. bound in Red Turkey, and ornamented with a Glory and Ribbons tipped with Gold Fringe [5.] A Paste-Board with the Consecration Prayer, bordered with Purple Ribbon [6.] An Altar Piece of Mahogany with a painting of a Dead Christ by Wale, in a gilt frame, under a pediment ornamented with a Glory and finished with 3 Sham Tepers f in Candlesticks carved and gilt. [7.] Two Side-Boards in Niches, one in the South, and the other in the North wall. [8.] A Damask hnen Table Cloth [9.] Two Damask Napkins and two small Cambric Altar-Towels [10.] Two brown fustian pieces for the sideboards withi fine Dimity Coverings fronted with pendent borders of Muslin [11.] A Silver Chalice and Paten and a small silver straining spoon [12.] A Silver Flagon, given by Mr. Blanks, and a Pint Glass-decanter and stopper [13.] A Silver Plate given by Mr. Crosse [14.] A Water-Glass, Bottle and Stopper, to rinse the Vessels after the Eucharistic Service [15.] A Long Surplice, A Bachelor's and Master's Hood [16.] A Short Surplice for Funerals [17.] An Alb [18.] A Surplice without Sleeves, intended for the Clerk. [ig.] A Mahogany Stool covered with Silk Moreen, brass-nailed. [20.] A Mahogany three leg'd Candlestick with a brass Socket and Taper for funeral Service 160 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. i6i [21.] Two square Mats and two long ditto and a long Hair cloth and two 1 Oval Matt [22.] Three kneeling boards of the length of the Septum, covered with red Leather. [23.] 2 A Folio Bible in 2 Vols ^ [24.] Four folio Common Prayer books, the book of Homilies, and Fox's Martyrs 3 Vols [2 5. J A Deal Pulpit and Canopy, an hour Glass, and Pulpit-Cloth Fringed [26.] A Reading Desk with a Cloth Cushion, and Kneeling Stool. [27.] A Wainscot Litany Desk with Silk Covering a Stool and Cushion and Litany Book in Qrto [28.] An Oak Bier, and a Funeral Pall of black Cloth bordered with white Crape [29.] A Paste-board with the funeral service bordered with black Ribbon [30.] A Chest with three Locks for the Parish Writings [31.] A long Box ' of Oak ^ for the burying pall [32.] A Stand for the support of ditto, and both united were used as a reading Desk for the Martyrology * till displaced by the erecting of a new Pew at the upper end of the South Ayle. The stand is removed into the Vestry-Room. [33.] A Wooden Horse (instead of a better conveniency) for the surplice and hood [34.] A Long Pole and brush, a hand brush dusting ^ pan, and Hair- broom [35.] Hassocks No. 129. a fresh supply is order'd [36.] A Collecting Box, a Looking Glass, Almanac-frame and 2 Ex- tinguishers [37.] A Church Clock [38.] A Ring of five Bells [39.] A Small Bell communicating with the Vestry to notify the Minister's arrival there to the persons in the belfry [40.] A Small Chain and Padlock to secure the Septum [41.] A Font of Stone, lined with lead, having ^ a hole at the bottom to convey the water into a Cavity beneath [42 .] A Grate in the Chimney of the Vestry-room [43.] The Vestry-Room has a floor of Deal over a deep '' Cavity almost filled with loose flints to prevent the rising of the Damps ; And the Walls, to a proper height, are batten'd and plaister'd The Room being much pestered with Bats, it is intended to ceil it in the course of the summer ' Two is interlined over an struck out. '^''^ interlined. 3-3 interlined. ■* In this word Martyrology the ro is interlined. ^ dusting written over an erasure. " written over erasure, ' interlined. II l62 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. [44.] A Long and short ladder are intended to be bought for the purpose of getting upon the Roofs there being no access to them by a Stair- Case 1 [On the back is written in the same hand a list of the parish charities which is signed by the Vicar and churchwardens and also by the Archdeacon as exhibited before him. It begins with the following sentence :] " The following is an Account of the Charities and Benefactions to the Parish of Bledlow." [The account ends with these signatures :] Jo Davey Vicar William Cowdery Vj^^^^j^ ^^^^^^^ William Bigg J 19th May 1783 Exhibited before me Luke Heslop Archdn. [Here ends the long Inventory ; and there follow some Church wardens' accounts with a short recension of the long Inventory.] Church wardens' accounts Brought on By William Bigg's Disbursements viz. For charges at a Visitation 28 May 1782 Do at a Visitation 23 Octr following For a bonfire on the 5 November For three head of vermin @ ^d For 13 Dozen of Sparrows @ T,d per dozen For 9 Dozen of Old Ditto @ M 16. II. 0. 13- 6 0. 12. 6 0. 6. 0. I. 0. 3- 3 0. 4- 6 2. 00. 9 For Parchment and Making out two Inventories of the Books Utensils and Ornaments belonging to the Church and Exhibited at the parochial Visitation of the Revd. and Worshipful Mr. Archdeacon Heslop, holden here the 19th of May 1783. One of the Inventories signed by the Vicar and Churchwardens was deliver'd in at the Court and the other is to remain among the Parish writings. 18. 12. 5 o. i7.f o 18. 19. s. 1 The following paragraphs are written in pencil below the last entry. A Painted iron Register Chest as per Act 52d Geo. III. A Large strong Deal Parish Chest containing the Award of Inclosure Date 1812. A pencilled cross has been made, possibly by the same hand, in the margin of the following items : 5. 10. 14. 16. 17. 18. 19. 27. and against two small cambric Altar- Towels in g. a small silver straining spoon in 11. a. Pint Glass-decanter and stopper in 12. and an hour Glass in 25. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. 163 [The verso of this leaf is blank] Brought on ;!^i8. 19. 5. A List of Articles included in the Inventory, many of which had been long in use, and others were provided against the Visitation. [3.] A Silk Cushion with Gold Tassels for the Altar [4.] An Altar-service book bound in Red Turkey [5.] A Paste-board with the Consecration prayer bor- dered with purple Ribbond [9.] Two Cambric Altar-Towels [10.] Two Fustian and two Dimity Pieces with Muslin frontals for the side boards [it.] A Silver straining spoon [12.] A Glass pint decanter and stopper in the Flaggon [r4.] A Small oblong Water-bottle and stopper and a Water-Glass [16. 17. 18.] An Alb, a short surplice for funerelsf and another for the Clark without Sleaves [19.] A Mahogany stool cover'd with Moreen [21.] Two Square Mats and two Oval ditto Five Yards of Yard wide ditto and 5 Yards of half yard [2 1 .] Six Yards of Hair Cloth [36.] Two Extinguishers [27.] A Litany Desk and Carriage ^ 0. 10. 0. 10. 0. I. 6 0. 2. 6 0. S- 0. 3- 0. 2. 0. IS- 0. 16. 6 0. 3- 10 0. ro. 0. 7- 6 0. 0. 6 r. 5- 9 24. 9- 3- 24. 9- 3 0. 2. 8 0. I. 0. .■;• 6 [The verso of this leaf is blank] Brought on [25.] An hour glass and small Looking Glass [36.] An Almanac frame [42.] A grate in the Chimney of the Vestry Room [39.] A Small Bell and Wire communicating with the Belfry to notify to the Ringer's the minister's arrival o. 3. 6 [20.] A Mahogany three leg'd Candlestick with a brass Socket for funeral Service o. 7. 9 [29.] A Pasteboard with the funeral Service border'd with Black Ribbon i. 6. 25. 10. II ' written overierasure. CHAPTER VI. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS AT CHURCH AND AT HOME. Baptism. In the early part of our period there is evidence that baptism with- in a few hours after birth was a custom approved by many. It agrees with the rubric in the Prayer Book that the Curates of every Parish shall often admonish the people that they defer not the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth. Accordingly we find that the Duke of York's son/ born to him on September 14, 1667, was baptized the same day. ^ So earlier, in 1661 Pepys notes that a child was born on May 26, and baptized on May 29 ; and on Feb. 20, 1665-66 he goes to the christening of Capt. Ferrers' child born the day before. On July 12, 1668 he notes the birth and christening the same day of Mrs. Michell's baby. Mrs. Godolphin's son was born on a Tuesday, September 3, 1678, and was baptized on the following Thursday.' On May 20, 1669 Evelyn's daughter, Susannah, was born, and baptized on the 25th. On March i, 1681-2 his second grandchild "was born and christen'd the next day"; on June 28, 1683 was born a grand-daughter and christened by the name of Martha Maria, our Vicar officiating. I pray God blesse her and may she choose the better part. Addison was born and christened the same day. May the first, 1 The following note may serve to show how one of the sacraments was neglected by the Puritans before the Restoration. " Mr. Graunt observes that the number of christenings in 1660 was greater than anie three yeers foregoing." (Diary of the Rev. yohn Ward . . . extending from 1648 to 1679, ed. by Charles Severn, London, Colburn, 1839, p. 162. It is not a diary so much as a memorandum book.) The disappearance of the Eucharist under the Common- wealth has been spoken of at the beginning of the second chapter. 2 British Museum, MS. Add. 10,117, fo- 210. 2 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 142. 164 BAPTISM. 165 1672, by the name of Joseph.^ A son of Dr. Comber, Dean of Durham, was born on November 26, and baptized on Dec. 4, 1688.^ Christopher, son of Christopher Wood, was born on Dec. 15, 1666, and was baptized on the 2ist.^ In 1677, Nov. 7th. The Duchesse of York was safely delivered of a son. . . . 'Twas christen'd the next day in the evening by the Bishop of Durham.* George Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, was born on January 18, 1683-4, ^Ti baptized the same day.^ John Byrom was born and baptized the same day.^ Luke Heslop, Archdeacon of Bucking- ham, was born and baptized on St. Luke's day, I738.''i In 1747 ^ child immediately after the Caesarian extraction was christened by the name oi Jonah and it was declared likely to live.* Sir Charles Grandison delays the christening for a few days because he was anxious that it should be performed at church. " Shall it not be performed when it can, as the church directs ; the child in full health?'"' It was observed about 1730 that in the Isle of Man the people always brought their children to the church to be baptized, no matter how far off they lived.^" On the other hand, Mrs. Montagu's boy was born on May 11, 1743, but not baptized till "the latter end of next week," after June 4." The Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth, was born on August 12, 1762, but not baptized until September 18.^^ And towards the end of our period, practice had become very lax, and so continues. 1 Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, in Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xii. p. i. 2 Memoirs of . . . Thomas Comber, D.D. ed. Thomas Comber, London, 1799, p. 266. ^Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 95. ^ Diary of Dr. Edward Lake, ed. by George Percy Elliott, Camden Society, 1846, p. 7. ^ D.N.B. under George Lavington. "J. Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, John Murray, 1892, under Byrom. '' D.N.B. under Luke Heslop. ' Manchester Magazine, July 28, 1747. " Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Chapman and Hall, igo2, vol. vii. p. 20, Letter v. 10 George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in CompUat Works, no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 170. ^^ Elizabeth Montagu the Queen of the Blue-stockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson, Murray, 1906, vol. i. p. 148. '^'^ Annual Register for 1762, fifth ed. Dodsley, Chronicle, pp. 96-98. 1 66 BAPTISM. The Puritans greatly disliked baptism in the old stone font, which they looked upon as polluted by the superstitious papistical baptism of the middle ages. A return to the use of the old font was insisted upon by the canons of 1 603, and the use of basons forbidden by exclusion.' It is worth noting that at Wylie, a parish in Wiltshire, they had in 1781 A Silver Bason for Baptisms.^ It would seem safe to assume that the silver bason is to hold the water in which the child is to be baptized. A moveable font is often seen in the East of silver, and was formerly in use in the West for the children of great persons. There was a silver font at Canter- bury for the children of the King of England and a brazen font at Edinburgh for the children of the King of Scots.' The royal family of England are still baptized in a special silver vessel. At St. George's Windsor a great deal of the plate was stolen in 1642 by a Captain Fogg ; and amongst other things lost was The great Brass Bason, or Font for Christenings, given by the Founder King Edward III.'' At Girgenti in Sicily, in the year 1908, I saw baptism admin- istered in a silver or white-metal bason. Towards the end of the high mass in the Duomo this bason was set upon an altar in the nave, near to where I was, and I saw a child baptized in it, while the high Mass was still going on in the quire. It would seem that baptism by immersion had been discontinued even at the time of the Restoration. It is much to be wished that baptism by immersion as also many other ancient customs could be restored ; though, perhaps, not for the reasons which the author of the following paragraph submits : Were the immersion in Baptism restor'd here according to the primi- tive Practice, and the Rubrick of the present Church ; it would be more conformable to the primitive Institution, and more conducive to the Infants Health ; the Rickets not being known in England until that Cus- tom was omitted, which Immersion I have seen several times practis'd in ^ Canon 81. (Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxf. 1842, vol. i. p. 211.) ^ G. R. Hadow, The Registers of the Parish of Wylye in the county of Wilts, 1913, Devizes, Simpson, p. 141. ^ J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter- bury, Westminster, Constable, 1902, pp. 237 and 238, ^ Christopher Wren, Parentalia, London, 1750, p. 137. BAPTISM. 167 this Church with great Safety and Success, and all the Infants enjoyed constant Health for many Years. 1 Baptism by immersion is indeed the primitive practice, and the temperature of the water may be artificially raised in which the child is to be baptized, as it is amongst the Orthodox Christians. And in the West, though baptism by immersion is not often seen, yet the godparent usually brings a kettle of warm water with him or her for use at the font. What is quoted above about the Rickets is of course pure fancy and may be disregarded. As next best to bap- tism by immersion baptism with abundance of water is to be re- commended. Such an instance of this is given in 1798 : My brother whispered William Way not to drown it, as he thought he threw so much cold water on it ; but she was fast asleep the whole time.^ The author of Medicina Clerica mentions quite incidentally as a cause of the length of the service at the great festivals that " Easter and Whitsunday are days on which the lower classes like to have their children baptized"; ^judging from the rest of the work, I should think the writer had no notion that these seasons were the times at which anciently baptism was commonly administered. It is a curious survival amongst the lower classes, always so conserva- tive. He adds : I always, too, make a point of pouring away the water in which a child has been baptized, that it may not be employed by the people of the house to any superstitious purposes.* In North Wales during the first half of the eighteenth century it is noted that If there be a fynnon vair (well of our lady or other saint in the parish) the water for baptism in the font is fetched thence. Old women are very fond of washing their eyes with the water after baptism.* I am told that on the Continent the eyes are often touched with holy water, and thus ophthalmia is spread. The adoption of the Church as a profession has been known to 1 Mitre and Crown, October, 1748, vol. i. p. 3. 2 Serena Holroyd to Maria Josepha Stanley, January 20, 1798, in the Early Married Life of Maria Josepha Lady Stanley, ed. by Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1899, P- 153- ^Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 42 note. *ibid. p. 134. » From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before publi- cation in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399. i68 RESPECT TO BETTERS. be called "going into the Church," and though it is a convenient expression, yet the more pedantic have considered that it should only be applied to entrance into the Church by Baptism. It is used in this latter sense by one Henry Brougham writing on October i, 1684 to his godfather. Sir Daniel Fleming, whom he thanks for "the inestimable kindness you did me in procuring my admission into the Church "} Dr. Magrath points out that he really does mean Baptism. Henry Brougham's letters are not in manner far behind those of the admirable Mr. Collins in Miss Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Respect to Betters. The fifth commandment has for forty years or more been of little or no account in England. So that it may be useful to point out how it was kept in our period as a contrast with what passes before us in our time. Children knelt to ask the parents' blessing. We are told this by a foreigner who is speaking of the English manners and customs. Well brought-up children, on rising and going to bed, wish their fathers and mothers "Good morning" or "Good evening," and kneeling before them ask for their blessing. The parents, placing their hands on their children's heads, say " God bless you," or some such phrase, and the children then kiss their parents' hands. If they are orphans the same ceremony is performed with their grandparents or nearest relations.^ Swift alludes to the practice in describing the wild man from Hanover, perhaps a congenital idiot who had escaped into the woods : observing children to ask blessing of their mothers, one day he fell down upon his knees to a sow, and muttered some sounds in that humble posture.^ In the Spectator there is Honoria, the would-be-young Mother, whose daughter, Flavia, is almost her rival, and thus awkward acci- dents happen. When a Lover of Honoria was on his Knees beseeching the Favour to kiss her Hand, Flavia rushing into the Room kneeled down by him and asked Blessing.* 1 J. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii. p. I2g. ^ CSsar de Saussure, A foreign view of England in the Reigns of George I. and George II. London, Murray, 1902, p. 296. * Works of jfonathan Swift, ed. by Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xiii. p. 201, in "It cannot rain but it pours". * Spectator, No. 91, Thursday, June 14, 1711. RESPECT TO BETTERS. 169 Hearne speaks of a daughter asking her father's blessing as soon as she saw him, and again when taking leave. ^ Lady Bute reports that her mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, started up from the dressing table and fell on her knees before a stranger who had just entered the room, and asked his blessing.^ It was the Duke of Kingston, her father. In like manner Samuel Richardson speaks of it as a matter of course, when a child meets a mother, even in a sort of public place. Anne saw her first, I alighted, and asked her blessing in the shop : I am sure I did right. She blessed me and called me dear love.^ A grandmother receives the same marks of respect : She hurried in to her grandmother, rejoicing, as she always does, to see her. She kneeled ; received her tender blessing.* When I was in Vienna in 1909 I saw in a middle class family the younger members run up, curtsy, and kiss the hand of the grandmother, or some aged kinswoman. Godfathers also gave their blessing. There is a characteristic entry by Mr. Pepys on this custom, April 11, 1661. By and by we come to two little girles keeping cows, and I saw one of them very pretty, so I had a mind to make her aske my blessing, and telling her that I was her godfather, she asked me innocently whether I was not Ned Wooding, and I said that I was, so she kneeled down and very simply called, " Pray, godfather, pray to God to bless me '' which made us very merry, and I gave her twopence. The same obeisance is accorded to the priest. The two younger, impressed by the venerable description Sir Charles had given of him, [the Rev. Dr. Bartlett] of their own accord, the younger, by the elder's example, fell down on their knees before him and begged his blessing.* If to the priest, still more to the bishop. In Charles Leslie's Rehearsal we read : It is the proper office of 2^ priest to bless in the name of the Lord. And it is the blessing of God we ask from those to whom he has granted commission ' Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1902, vol. vi. p. lay. ^ George Paston [E. M. Symonds], Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her times, Methuen, no date [ ? 1907] , p. 287. 2 Samuel Richardson, The history of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart. Chapman and Hall, 1902, vol. iv. Letter xxxviii. p. 296. ^ibid. vol. V. Letter xiv. p. 124. ' ibid. vol. iv. Letter v. p. 51. 170 RESPECT TO BETTERS. to give it. We ask it upon our knees from our natural parents, much more ought we from our fathers in God, to whom he has given his commission, and separated them for that end. and a few lines above the same w^riter has said we kneel to our bishops and ask their blessing} John Hudson, Bodley's Librarian, tells Hearne that when at Peterborough in 1707, As I went into the Church just as the Evening Prayers were ended I mett the Bishop, [Richard Cumberland] and beg'd his blessing ; I told him that I was a Traveller that came from Oxon.^ There is another earlier instance when a whole people seems to have gone on its knees to ask the Bishops' blessing. This is the description which Evelyn gives us of the Seven Bishops going to the Tower on June 8, 1688. The concern of the people for them was wonderfull, infinite crouds on their knees begging their blessing, and praying for them as they pass'd out of the barge alone [along] the Tower-wharfe. Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, had a somewhat dis- agreeable experience of a pretended respect paid by a false devotee. For when he was leaving the Tower for his exile, One of the fair enthusiasts went up to his chair and kissed his hand. She manifested a world of affectionate tenacity, and the ex-prelate was only just in time to discover that the pretty, tearful Jenny Diver had quietly drawn a valuable ring off his finger, with her lips. The ring was saved, but Atter- bury consigned her to the mob who as the papers remark, followed the usual custom on such occasions. They ducked her in the river.^ Atterbury had not ceased to be a prelate as Dr. Doran suggests, though deprived of his see. Much later in the century we find both the practice of blessing and kneeling in existence in the Isle of Man : The kneeling for a blessing is very customary amongst relatives in the Isle of Mann when they meet ; and the benediction pronounced is, generally, Dy bannee Jee 00 : — " God bless you ". It is also usual with the islanders, upon meeting their diocesan, tokneel down on one knee, and ask his blessing.* ''■Rehearsal, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 1707, N. 266, in A View of the Times, ed. Phila- lethes [Charles Leslie] sec. ed. London, 1750, vol. iv. p. i8i. ' Letters addressed to Thomas Hearne, ed. Frederic Ouvry, privately printed, 1874, p. 16. 3 John Doran, London in the Jacobite Times, London, Bentley, 1877, vol. i. p. 434. * Memoirs of Mark Hildesley D.D, Lord Bishop ofSodorandMann, ed. by Weeden Butler, London, Nichols, 1799, p. 98. BARING THE HEAD IN CHURCH 171 The custom of kneeling for the Bishop's blessing must have lasted up to the end of our period, if not beyond it. A writer who does not give dates speaks of it thus at Exeter : In those days the choir boys always waited in the nave, after service, for the Bishop's blessing as he passed. ... I was standing near them, and, as they knelt, followed their example. ^ In Sir Roger de Coverley's parish church, it is said that The Knight walks down from his Seat in the Chancel between a double Row of his Tenants, that stand bowing to him on each Side." In Medicina Clerica one of the reasons for having a vestry door near the reading pew is that the congregation may not get up to make their bows and curtsies on the clergyman's entrance or passing them.^ Nowadays the whole congregation rises when the clergy come into the church to perform service, which possibly enough took its origin in the practice just spoken of. Miss Austen is shocked at a disrespectful utterance which seems to us quite slight* In Democratic France, Monsieur Ren6 Boy- lesve speaks of young people calling their parents by their Christian names,^ and I have heard that the same thing is done in England. In more colleges than one at Oxford, the undergraduates address the dons by their nicknames. Thus the spirit of democracy eats into the very heart of family life and of discipline. Baring the Head in Church. In the eighteenth century they had for the most part unlearnt the Puritan practice of sitting in Church with the hat on. Mr. Pepys heard a sermon against the practice on November 17, 1661, which is some evidence of its existence. And so some thirteen years after it was still thought desirable to admonish persons against the practice : ' An elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, Skeffington, i8g8, sec. ed. ch. vi. p. 105. I am indebted to an Elderly Bachelor for a copy of his work the value of which must increase every year. 2 Spectator, No. 112, Monday, July 9, 1711. ' Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 14. ^ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. vi. Miss Crawford spoke of her " honoured uncle," who was not altogether a good character. ^ Ren^ Boylesve, Madeleine jeune femme, ch. iii. 172 EXCHANGE OF SALUTATIONS IM CHURCH. not putting on our Hats in contempt, as soon as Prayers or service is over.i And as late as 1716 it was thought necessary to warn persons against walking into church with the hat on : The plain Meaning of Eccles. 5.1. exprest agreeably to our Customs or Fashions, is this : Take care and put off your Hat, when you go into the House of God or Church.^ But Bernard Mandeville remarks : " If we see a man walk with his hat on in a church, though out of service time, it shocks us".^ Johnson speaks with respect of Dr. John Campbell as a good pious man though he has not been inside a church for many years, be- cause he never passes a church without pulling off his hat.* Such an act of reverence would have been approved by Dr. Butler, the great Bishop of Durham, who recommends reminders to stir up in our hearts the sense of our duty to God. Exhort them to make use of every circumstance, which brings the subject of religion at all before them ; to turn their hearts habitually to him ; to recollect seriously the thoughts of his presence in whom they live and 7nove and have their being, and by a short act of their mind devote themselves to his service. — If, for instance, persons would accustom them- selves to be thus admonished by the very sight of a church, could it be called superstition ? '■' This idea was enlarged by the Rev. Thomas Richards in a work which went through at least six editions : Secret Ejaculations too may be used as you are walking, or riding, or in whatever Company you may happen to be — and, on some particular Hour, remember (as for Instance, at Morning, Noon, or Evening, when your Town-Clock strikes, which will be a loud and never-failing Memo- randum) to set yourself in the Presence of God for a few Minutes." Exchange of Salutations in Church. Fashionable people at the beginning of the eighteenth century commonly saluted each other when they came into church. The 'Thomas Wemys, Beth-Hak-Kodesh, London, Dring, 1674, P- i4i- 2 Edward Wells, Discourse concerning the great and indispensable duty of a decent and reverent behaviour in church at all times, London, Knapton, 1716, p. n. ' B. Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, gth ed. Edinburgh, 1755, vol. i. p. 141. '^Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 417, about July i, 1763. ^Joseph Butler, A charge delivered to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, in Works, ed. by W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, vol. ii. p. 412. ° [Thomas] Richards, Hints for Religious Conversation, London, Dilly, 3 ed. 1771. P- 36- For an account of this author see above, in ch, iv. p. 85. REVERENCES IN CHURCH. 173 writers in the Spectator notice it. It was frowned upon by the more reverent, but it nevertheless continued till after the middle of the century. I have a very angry Letter from a Lady, who tells me of one of her Acquaintance, who, out of mere Pride and a Pretence to be rude, takes upon her to return no Civilities done to her in Time of Divine Service, and is the most religious Woman for no other Reason but to appear a Woman of the best Quality in the Church. > A little later on the Spectator speaks of: The Ceremonies, Bows, Curtsies, Whisperings, Smiles, Winks, Nods, with other familiar Arts of Salutation, which take up in our Churches so much Time, that might be better employed, and which seem so utterly inconsistent with the Duty and true Intent of our entring into those Religious Assemblies.^ He praises the much better behaviour in the Roman Catholic churches abroad. Lavinia, who was to church as constant as to Drury Lane, be- haves thus as she enters the pew : Her lifted fan, to give a solemn air, Conceals her face, ^\\v:h passes for a. prayer, Curt'sies to curt'sies, then, with grace, succeed ; Not one the fair omits, but at the creed. Or if she joins the Service, 'tis to speak ; Thro' dreadful silence the pent heart might break : * * * Since Sundays have no balls, the well-dress'd belle Shines in the pew, but smiles to hear of hell." Mrs. Primrose, it will be remembered, complained that the Squire's wife only returned her civilities at church with a mutilated curtsey.* Reverence made to the Altar. But putting aside these mutual salutations on entering the church there is another obeisance different altogether, that is made to the East of the Church, or to the altar itself. It is noticed early in our period. Mr. Pepys being at Windsor, on February 26, 1665-66, records : ^Spectator, No. 259, Dec. 27, 1711. ^idem. No. 460, Aug. 18, 1712. 'Edward Young, Love of fame, Satire vi. line 25, in Works, London, 1757, vol. i. pp. 141, 154. ^ Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ch. i. See also above, p. 64. 174 REVERENCES IN CHURCH. Great bowing by all the people, the poor Knights in particularly, to the Alter. This bowing to the altar at Windsor went on at the installa- tion of Knights of the Garter in 1762.^ The sovereign, making his reverence to the altar, descended from his stall, and then making another reverence, proceeded to the offering. . . . The sovereign coming to the rails of the altar, Black Rod delivered the offering on his knee to the knight, who presented it to the sovereign; and his majesty taking off his cap, and kneeling, put the offering into the bason held by the prelate assisted by the prebends. The sovereign then rising, made one reverence to the altar, and being in his stall another. The reverences made by the knights are here omitted from this extract. One New Year's day, 1 787, Miss Burney gives an account of the reverences made by the Sovereign. The Dean then read aloud, " Let your light so shine before men, &c. " The organ began a slow and solemn movement, and the King came down from his stall, and proceeded, with a grave and majestic walk, towards the communion table. When he had proceeded about a third of the way, he stopped, and bowed low to the altar : then he moved on, and again, at an equal distance, stopped for the same formality, which was a third and last time repeated as he reached the steps of the altar. Then he made his offering, which, according to the order of the original institution, was ten pounds in gold and silver, and delivered in a purse : he then knelt down, and made a silent prayer.^ Leaving the ceremonies at Windsor, let us return to general custom. In 1682 an attempt is made to justify Church customs against Puritan prejudice ; and incidentally is shown what these customs are: Prejudice. Have I not seen your Gravest Divines among you, at their entrance into the Church, cast their Eyes upon the Glass Windows, bow towards the Altars, worship the Pictur'd Saints, and make Leggs to the Brazen Candlesticks ? Reason. All this is said upon the account of Bowing towards the Altar. 3 ^Annual Register, 1762, Chronicle, Sept. 22, fifth ed. , London, Dodsley, 1787, p. 125- ^ Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, London, Colburn, 1842, vol. iii. p. 269, January i, 1787. ' A Dialogue between Mr. Prejudice . . . and Mr. Reason, a Student in the Uni- versity, London, Sawbridge, 1682, p. 7. REVERENCES IN CHURCH. 175 This is testimony offered by the Churchmen themselves of what they did. It is better evidence than what is given us by a wretched renegade who had turned his coat many times. He thus pours out his venom : Risum teneaiis ? Amici I Come hold your sides ... to see a grave Dignitory f of the Church, with Tippet and Sattin Cap, a gaudy Cope and Hood (before and behind) nodding his Reverend Head, and making Reverences so humble, that his brisly Chin even kisses the ground (no Antick French Man, or Father Peter, can outvie the Complement) in an humble Address to the East, to the Altar. ^ Dr. Edward Bernard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford towards the end of the seventeenth century, thus records his practice : When I enter the place of common prayer, as the choir of a collegiate Church, or the body of a parish church or chappell, I worship God by humble bowing of my body towards his holy altar, where I have often ex- perienced his most gracious and glorious presence.^ To encourage the practice of making a reverence when coming into church there was published in 1706 a tract of 44 pages with this title : Reverential Love : or, God Honour'd by the Pious Decency of The Minister's humbly Bowing the Head when he approaches to, or comes from, the Altar, or Communion-Table, in the Worship of God . . . London : printed by W. B. for William Carter, at the Green Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1706. On p. 8, § iv. the writer asks : Shall it be a Duty for a Priest of the Jews to worship God before the Altar ; and must it be a Sin, or no Duty for a Christian Priest to worship God before the Altar ? If we have a Christian Sacrifice, must we have no Altar ? Or if we have, must we not worship there ? In 1707 Hearne quotes a letter of Dr. Hickes, written in the same year, bewailing the disappearance of the ancient notion of Priest, Sacrifice, and Altar, and that the antient devout Custom of worshiping towards the Holy Altar is quite laid aside in some Cathedrals, and Colleges, and begins to be disused in others, and as I hear, in another place, which I shall not name.^ 1 Edm. Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger, London, i68g, ch. i. p. 13. 2 Manuscript in lower margin of leaf a i. of Act of Uniformity in Dr. Edward Bernard's Book of Common Prayer in the Bodleian Library, C. P. 1686, c. i (formerly S. C. 27762). * Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1886, vol. ii. p. 64. 176 RE VERENCES IN CHURCH. The source of the information is Hickes, who was not at that time a member of the Church of England, and his testimony may therefore be suspect. And Hearne is always ready to look on the dark side. But in the north bowing at coming into church was still the practice. We may observe the Generality of old People among the Commonalty, as they enter into the Church, to turn their Faces towards the Altar, and bow or kneel that Way. * * * in the ancient Church they prayed with their Faces to the East ; and that many of our own Church at this Day, turn their Faces to that Quarter of the World, at the Repetition of the Creed. ^ The same testimony comes from an Archdeacon of Northumber- land. If it be asked whether there be any Piety, or Religion, in bowing to- wards the Altar, or at the name oi Jesus, or in turning sometimes towards the East at the Repetition of the Creeds &c. which are customs received from the undated Usage of the Christian Church ? I answer, There is no Holiness in these Things by any Means . . . only Points of Order and Decency? There is, I think, an allusion to bowing at entering the church and going out in Arbuthnot's John Bull. They were so plagued with bowing and cringing as they went in and out of the room, that their backs ached.^ In the Pious Country Parishioner the communicant is told : At the end of the Communion, turn your Face to the Altar, and bow- ing your Body, say to your self; Mine Eyes have seen Thy Salvation is'c.'^ This direction continues in the ninth edition of 1745, but it has disappeared in the thirteenth, that of 1753. The Rev. J. R. Hill, S.P.G. Missionary at Banda in India, writes to me that a relative of his, who died in 1874 aged 83, told him that when she was a girl it was a common practice among the people of Yapton, near Arundel, Sussex, to bow to the altar before entering the pews. This information was given on the occasion of 1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 29-31. ^ Thomas Sharp, A sermon preached at the opening of the New Chapel of Cornhill upon Tweed, on Sunday, July 12, 1752, Newcastle upon Tyne, no date, p. 17. 3 The history of John Bull, ch. viii. (Jon. Swift, Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edin- burgh, 18 14, vol. vi. p. 328). * Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, 1732, sixth edition, p. 194. TURNING TO THE EAST. 177 its being noticed that an old man, much older than Mr. Hill's in- formant, did not enter his pew before, standing in the centre walk of the nave, he had bowed his head to the altar. In Devonshire, before " Puseyism" came in, the country people " made their reverences on entering and leaving the Church ".^ Bowing at the Sacred Name. Bowing at the sacred name of Jesus was a practice denounced with much warmth by the Puritans, but it had been re-enacted by the canons of 1604 as testifying to the belief that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the very and eternal Son of God.^ This Canon has never been repealed, so that it is still the law of the Church of England, with whatever neglect private persons may presume to treat it. Accordingly bowing at the name of Jesus was pressed at the early part of the eighteenth century, when Dr. Clarke and his fol- lowers began to make way in the Church : This custom is very useful against the Arians and other enemies of our Lord's Divinity ; and therefore never more strictly to be kept up than in these days, wherein those enemies abound.^ In these days when not only Arianism but pure Deism exists among the clergy, it would be a most significant practice if the laity would resume this custom as an emphatic declaration of their belief in the Divinity of Our Lord. Turning to the East at the Creed. It will be noticed how persistent has been the custom in the Church of England of turning to the East at the Apostles' Creed Towards the end of the nineteenth century certain persons, hangers- on to the High Church school, though really unworthy of that honoured name, discovered that the custom was only English, and they discontinued it in their persons. It was, however, known in France, as the following quotation, shown me by the Rev. E. Beres- ford Cooke, will decide : Pourquoy est-on tourne vers I'Autel en disant le Credo ? ^An Elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, SkefSngton, 1898, sec. ed. ch. iii. p. 52. " Canon 18. (Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. i. pp. 172 and 255). 3 Thomas Bisse, The Beauty of Holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. London, Taylor and Innes, 1721, p. 145, note. 12 T78 TURNING TO THE EAST. Pour la m^me raison que nous avons dit du, Pater &c.' The work, like so many explanations of ceremonies, is not valu- able for the reasons which it gives, but for the practices which it records. Turning to the East at Gloria Patri. Speaking of Gloria Patri, Dr. Bisse says : (. . . it is a Creed as well as an Hymn) being so often rehearsed in our Service, and that alternately by the Minister and People.^ Minister and People did not say it together, but by way of ver- sicle and respond. This practice seems to have been universal in England down to the middle of the nineteenth century, just as it still is in France and Italy. It was then discovered to be the "cor- rect " thing for minister and people to say Gloria Patri all together. The Right Reverend Dr. Richardson, late Bishop of Zanzibar, told me that when he entered at Merton College in 1863 he found Gloria Patri said in the following fashion : Supposing the first psalm to be said had an odd number of verses, the officiant would say the last verse of the psalm, the college would say Glory be, etc., the officiant would say As it was, etc., and the college would begin the first verse of the second psalm. This might easily happen at morning prayer on the first day of the month. The good bishop also informed me that his aunt, hearing this, told him that when she was young this was the practice in the parish church. The Rev. Arthur Davies, when an undergraduate at Queen's College in the same University of Oxford, found that this was also the custom in that Society. The psalms were thus still said alternately by priest and people ; which practice is recorded by writers of the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries. This Psalm, [Venite] and indeed all others, as also the Hymns, ought to be answered Verse by Verse with the Minister : And in Cathedrals, one side of the Quire to say or sing one Verse ; and the other side the other.^ ' Raymond Bonal, Explication litterale et mystique des rubriques et ceremonies du Breviaire, Lyon, Pierre Valfray, 1679, p. 54. " Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, London, Taylor and Innys, second edition, 1721, p. 43. ' H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, p. ig. TURNING TO THE EAST. 179 So also Wheatly, writing after Cornwaleys, speaks of the alter- nate recitation of the psalms : This practice, so primitive and devout, our Church (though there is no particular rubric to enjoin it) still continues in her Service either by sing- ing, as in our cathedral worship; or by saying, as in the parochial. ^ When the Spectator was coming out Gloria Patri was evidently considered a particularly sacred part of the service ; for the parish clerk speaks of a young woman as if she were committing an act unusually scandalous by interrupting her devotion while this formula was being repeated. 1 have often seen her rise up and smile, and curtsy to one at the lower end of the Church in the midst of a Gloria Patri} Under Dr. Peploe, Bishop of Chester from 1726 to 1752, there began at the Collegiate Church of Manchester, not then a cathedral, some attempts at ceremonial of which we have no very accurate account. It is unfortunate that we have no description of the events but from those hostile to the doings on both sides : for ex- ample, the Bishop's visitation for the suppression of certain practices, and the ceremonies themselves, are only recorded to be ridiculed. Thus it is somewhat troublesome to make out what was really done. The following extract from Thomas Percival's Letter to the Clergy appears to describe in a highly sarcastic manner the turning to the East at Gloria Patri. And indeed for my own Part I must give way to my Passion, at his [Josiah Owen] so foolishly ridiculing those mysterious Ceremonies of bowing to the East, &c. What is in that Man's Head ? or is there any Thing in it ? when he is so dull that he can't see Religion in the very bowing, and much more when the bowing is to the East. For my part I must own I was greatly edified at seeing the two Chaplains face to the West, step once, face to the North, step again, face to the East, bow, face to the South ; * step once, face to the East ; step once, and then face to their Reading Desk, at each Gloria Patri, with as regular a Motion, as just a Deportment, and as grave an Aspect, as the oldest Veteran in the Army. Nay so exact were they in their Discipline, that I could not distinguish any Difference of Time in performing the Motions ; only I must for the sake of Truth, say, that the lesser [Clayton] has the most religious Bow, and the most * N.B. The Chaplains being of contrary Sides the facing to North and South is vice versa the one to the other. ^ Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. III. sect. ix. § 4. ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 122. 2 Spectator, No. 284, Friday, January 25, 1711-12. 12 * i8o TURNING TO THE EAST. pious Rowl of his Eyes I ever saw, besides the mysterious Cross he makes with his Hands before him.i Clayton was one of the Clergy much influenced by Dr. Deacon, the Bishop of the Nonjurors in Manchester; at Oxford in 1733 he had been one of John Wesley's friends, who communicated every week, and kept the fast days of the Church.^ At Salford he was well known and obtained much support from the generality of the clergy. But Percival himself was not free from grave faults and was ill qualified to censure Clayton. On one occasion his daughter wrote that her father was so ill last week that his recovery was doubted of. His disorder was caused by his having been drunk nine days suc- cessively.^ The Josiah Owen mentioned by Percival in his first line was a presbyterian minister, and Whig journalist. The Rev. Arthur Lampen informs me that at Probus in Corn- wall, where his father, the Rev. John Lampen, was Curate to his cousin, the Rev. Robert Lampen, Prebendary of Exeter, the rest of the service being of the strictly evangelical type, the people always turned to the east and bowed at the Gloria Patri. This was about, or soon after, 1828. In North Devon, before " Puseyism '' came in, it is said that the country folk used to turn to the east at every doxology in the ending up of the Psalms, and of the Tate and Brady's Version of the Psalms. All the singing time they used to face west, staring at the gallery, with its faded green curtains ; and then, when the Gloria came, they all turned "right about" and faced eastwards.* Gloria Tibi Domine. Immediately after the Restoration we find the practice of saying Glory be to thee Lord before the Gospel continued from earlier times. It is spoken of by a musician, familiar with the practice of St. Paul's and the Chapel Royal. ^A Letter to the Reverend the Clergy of the Collegiate Church of Manchester : occasioned by Mr. Owen's Remarks both on Dr. Deacon's Catechism, and on the Con- duct of some of the Manchester Clergy ; in the Second Edition of his Jacobite and Nonjuring Principles freely examin'd. By a Believer in the Doctrines of the Church of England, London, J. Robinson, 1748, p. 21. " See below, ch. ix. p. 298. 'F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, Chetham Society, 1891, Part ii. p. 255. ■i An Elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, ch. iii. sec. ed. p. 52. STANDING AT THE GOSPEL. i8i The second, or Communion Service. After the Epistle, this heavenly Ejaculation, Glory be to thee O Lord.^ It is to be found in Cosin's second and third Orders for the Con- secration of Churches.^ There is evidence of the same practice in 1721. The first is, that all the Congregation stand up at the reading of them, [the gospels] as being the word of the Master ; * * * Secondly, The other honour paid to the Gospel, was, that after the naming of it, all the People standing up, said, Glory be to thee O Lord. This usage borrowed from ancient Liturgies our Reformers continued in Ours : and tho' afterwards discontinued in the Rubrick, yet custom still continues the use of it in most Cathedral and in many Parochial Churches : and the voice of Custom is in many cases the voice of Law. ^ A giving of thanks after the Gospel was also practised. The Gospel, which follows, being the Word of our Master himself, we are commanded to stand up ; and after it is read, we say an Hallelujah, or, We praise thee, O God, for thy Holy Gospel."^ Wheatly, writing after Cornwaleys, says The custom of saying. Glory be to thee, O Lord, when the Minister was about to read the Holy Gospel, and of singing Hallelujah, or saying. Thanks be to God for his holy Gospel, when he had concluded it, is as old as St. Chrysostom ; but we have no authority for it in our present Liturgy.' Standing at the Gospel. The following extracts give us some view of what the inhabitants of Holborn considered innovations in the first quarter of the eigh- teenth century. They admit that It was the Custom at the Beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign, for the People to stand up at the Gloria Patri, and when the Te Deum, Jubilate, and the other Hymns were repeated ; . . . and the Custom for the People to say. Glory be to thee, O Lord. But now an entirely unnecessary practice had begun of standing up at other times : ^ J. Clifford, Divine Service and Anthems, London, Brome, 1663, Sheet A, 7 v. 2 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for consecrating Churches in the seventeenth century, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1911, pp. 235 and 253. 'Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. London, Taylor and Innys, 1721, p. 141, iv. Sermon. * H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in time of Divine Service, second ed. London, 1693, p. 33. * Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, Ch. VI, sect. vi. § 3, ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 308. i82 STANDING AT THE GOSPEL. They must needs stand up at the Reading of the Second Lesson when taken out of the Gospels, and also at the Singing of the Psalms, with other Odnesses. Complaint is also made of the disturbance caused by people rising when the Lord's prayer occurs in the second lesson. And the writer insinuates very plainly that those who practise these in- novations are no good friends to the House of Brunswick. You know . . . what sort of People they are who chiefly promote these Innovations and are most forward to distinguish themselves by little Cere- monious Observances ; and you also know what King it is they incline to.^ At this time Sacheverell still held the living of St. Andrew's Holborn, and his sympathies were with Jacobites and Nonjurors. He stood at the door of his church and respectfully saluted Thomas Deacon accompanying the prisoners led from Newgate to Tyburn for execution after the rising of 1715.^ And it must be noticed that it was in the parish of St. Andrew's Holborn that there was the private oratory in Scrope Court. There Hickes and two Scottish bishops continued the Nonjuring succession by consecrating Spinckes, Collier, and Hawes to be bishops at large.'^ Now in the innovations complained of at St. Andrew's Holborn we may perhaps be allowed to see the influence of the Dissenting Nonjurors in the parish. There can be little doubt of the influence of Deacon upon the clergy of the Collegiate Church at Manchester, and these innovations such as standing up at the reading of the gospel when occurring in the second lesson, which are imitations of Greek customs, would be much affected by the Dissenting Non- jurors, and even by Churchmen. So we are told by White Kennett that some Church people would not go to their seats " till they had kneel'd and pray'd at the Rails of the Communion Table ".* This practice m.ay be looked upon as an imitation of the Oriental custom of going to the iconostasis on coming into church, and saluting the holy icons. It was a convenient way of damaging a churchman's reputation to insinuate that those who were following the greatest enemies of Rome were tending Romeward themselves, and more allied to the Jacobites than they should be. ^ A letter to an inhabitant of the Parish of St. Andrew's Holborn, about New Ccrc- moniesin the Church, sec. ed. London, James Knapton, 1717, pp. 3, 4, 10, 12, 14. ^ Henry Broxap, A Biography of Thomas Deacon, Manchester, 1911, p. 19. *J. H. Overton, The Nonjurors, London, Smith Elder, 1902, p. 118. " The Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, BiUingsley, 1730, p. 126. Letter dated 1716. kneeling at prayers. 183 Kneeling at Prayers. The Greeks do not as a rule kneel in prayer ; but this was not the reason which the Presbyterians would have given for their doing the like. They looked upon kneeling as a popish practice, to be much discouraged. Thus, here and there, after the Restoration, there appears the practice of standing during the prayers, as a sur- vival from the times of the Rebellion. Sir Matthew Hale, in his advice to his family, written only in the second year after the Restoration, begs them to kneel at the prayers, but to stand at the epistle as well as at the gospel, from which mark of respect they should abstain if any of the Apocrypha were read.^ This would make a very distinct difference between the canon- ical and deutero-canonical scriptures ; and standing at the epistle would put the latter on the same level as the gospel. As much as in you lies, endeavour to perswade your Congregation to Kneel in the time of Divine Service. ... If they cannot have convenience for Kneeling, at least let them stand up at Prayers.^ This is the sound advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Archdeacons of the diocese of St. Davids in Wales, sede vacante. In 171 1 there is a description of the behaviour of some young women at Church. The man complains that When the Service began, I had not room to kneel at the Confession, but as I stood &c.^ When hindered from kneeling, standing was as reverent a posture as kneeling, and far better than the sitting and leaning forward with head on the desk which is so common now, and of which we hear complaints in the eighteenth century, as we shall see a little later on. The Spectator soon after takes notice of the behaviour of a young woman at Church that " one thing indeed was particular, she stood the whole Service, and never kneeled or sat " : * but she was a co- quette, and her object in coming to church does not seem to have been that for which the church was established. 1 [Matthew Hale,] Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, Shrewsbury, 1676, in Directions for keeping the Lord's Day, p. 87. 2 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Letter to the Reverend the Arch- Deacons and the rest of the Clergy of the Diocese of St. David, London, 1703, p. 15. '■'Spectator, No. 53, Tuesday, May i, 1711. 'ibid. No. 503, Tuesday, October 7, 1712. In No. 515 she is called plainly a Coquette. i84 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. And the same year the Spectator seems to have heard a sermon preached against standing during the prayers : On Sunday last, one, who shall be nameless, reproving several of his Congregation for standing at Prayers, was pleased to say ^ &c. Standing in prayer being part of the relics of Puritanism was therefore disliked by the clergy ; as putting on the hat in church out of service time was a following of the presbyterians. Standing up during prayers had not become quite extinct even in the nineteenth century. It has been inferred because it is said of an ofificer in church that he kneeled, that the rest of the congregation, or the officers, sat during the prayers.^ But this is not a legitimate inference. The likelihood is that many of the congregation early in the nineteenth century stood during the prayers : a very seemly and decent posture, if not adopted from fanaticism ; and it is quite primitive. In the middle of the nineteenth century I can remember old half-pay offi- cers who stood with their hats before their faces during prayer time. They did not mean to be irreverent. To this day in Italy one may see men devoutly hearing mass, yet standing. There was even in our period a much more undesirable practice than that of standing at the prayers, namely sitting, or leaning for- ward while sitting : While these Prayers are reading we ought devoutly to continue upon our Knees ; not sitting, nor in any other slothful Posture, as too many profanely and irreverently do.^ At Naples in 1908 I found some Italians adopting this "devo- tional attitude " during mass, if only a second chair were near. Voluntaries during Service. Early in Charles the Second's reign they had the custom of playing a voluntary after the psalms, and this passed on into the rest of our period. In Clifford's book we read : The first Service in the morning. After the Psalms a Voluntary upon the Organ alone, and again : 1 Spectator, No. 455, Tuesday, August 12, 1712. ''■A Memoir of yane Austen, by her nephew, J. E. Austen Leigh, Bentley, 1870, P- 23- ^ Directions for a Devout and Decent Behaviour in the Public Worship of God, thir- tieth ed. S.P.C.K. [ ? 1750] p. 18. ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. 185 After the Blessing, i. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ &c. a Volun- tary alone upon the Organ. 1 In 1 7 14 the Spectator approves of the voluntary after the psalms : Methinks there is something very laudable in the Custom of a Volun- tary before the first lesson.^ And the custom remained for near a century after. The Voluntary before the First Lesson. This practice common in all churches which have an organ.' Organs. It is hardly worth while to stay and prove how much organs were hated by the Puritans. This will be accepted by all. Organs began to be played again in churches immediately after the Restoration. Within a month of the King's return the organs at Whitehall began again. On June 17, 1660 Mr. Pepys records: This day the organs did begin to play at White Hall before the King. On July 15, 1 66 1 he writes at Cambridge : Then to King's College chappell, where I found the scholars in their surplices at the service with the organs, which is a strange sight to what it used in my time to be here. At Rochester he had been on April 10 in the same year, and found " the organ then a-tuning". It was ordered for the King's chapels on Dec. 13, 1663 that of the three Organistes two shall ever attend, one at the organ, the other in his surplice in the quire.* At the consecration on St. Peter's day 1665 of the new chapel at Auckland the organist was directed more than once to play " a still verse".* On April 4, 1667 Mr. Pepys says : To Hackney . . . here I was told that at their church they have a fair ij. Clifford, Divine Services and Anthems, London, 1663, Signature A. 7. 2 Spectator, No. 630, Wednesday, December 8, 1714. 'Richard Warner, Book of Common Prayer, 1806. Note to morning prayer, first lesson. * The Old Cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872, New Series III, p. 83- 5 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches in the Seventeenth Century, Henry Bradshaw Society, igii, p. 231. i86 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. pair of organs, wliich play while the people sing, which I am mighty glad of, wishing the like at our church at London. Here Mr. Pepys' love of music got the better of his presby- terianism. After the fire in the City in 1666 there seems to have been some delay in furnishing the new churches with organs. From the lists, most likely not complete, given in 1708, the number of churches with organs would seem to be under thirty.^ It is quite possible that the parishioners, taxed to their utmost to build a new church, would be ready to wait awhile before providing what is more or less of a luxury in public worship. Still in 1 71 4 it is said that most Churches and Chappels are adorned with very good Organs, which accompany the Singing of Psalms, and play Voluntaries to the assemblies as they go out of the Churches.^ In the same year the Spectator mentions the voluntary after the psalms as a laudable practice.^ Where the parish clerk was so much upset by the misbehaviour of a young lady in curtsying to her lover that he wandered out of the tune of the Old Hundredth into Southwell Tune and Windsor Tune, there could have been no organ to keep him from straying.* Yet so late as the beginning of the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the Puritans did their best to hinder the in- troduction of organs. 1724-5 Feb. 14, Sun. Notwithstanding the Clamours (mentioned above, p. 58, &c.) of many of St. Peter's Parish in the East, Oxford, against the Organ offered them by the University, yet the wisest Part of them came to a resolution, in op- position to the rest, to accept of it, and contribute towards a Place in which it should be fix'd, and accordingly, a Place being prepared, the Organ was translated Yesterday in the Afternoon, St. Marie's and St. Peter's Bells ringing all the time.^ Even near the end of the eighteenth century an organ was not always part of the church or chapel furniture. We have got a Seat in Duke Street Chapel. I should have preferred a Church with an Organ in it." ^ A New View of London, in two volumes, 1708. '^ A journey through England in familiar letters, etc. London, 1714, vol. i. p. 202. ^See above, p. 185. ^Spectator, No. 284, January 25, 1712. ''Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 334. " The Girlhood of Maria jfosepha Holroyd, ed. by Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1896, p. g. Letter dated March, 1784. ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. 187 In John Shepherd's book on the Common Prayer he remarks of the organ that the want cannot be supplied by any other kind of instrumental music. Violins, bassoons, flutes, etc. ought to be entirely excluded.' But early in the nineteenth century organs must have become almost universal in English churches : a rough ignorant fellow de- fined the Church of England to be a " large building with an organ in it ".2 There are many other incidental notes of organs in churches in these pages, which it is hoped may be found by looking in the index. Music. Of the music performed in the churches we have no very full account. It is not likely to have been good in the country churches, except perhaps in Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it was made a study. The famous author of Brown's Estimate writes thus of the Church Music of his time : But while we justly admire the sacred Poetry of our Cathedral Service, must we not lament the State of it in our parochial Churches, where the cold, the meagre, the disgusting Dulness of Sternhold and his Companions, hath quench£d all the poetic Fire and devout Majesty of the royal Psalmist. * * * Our parochial Music, in general, is solemn and devout : Much better calculated for the Performance of a whole Congregation, than if it were more broken and elaborate. In Country Churches, wherever a more artificial Kind hath been imprudently attempted. Confusion and Dissonance are the general Consequence. * * * The Performance of our parochial Psalms, though in the Villages it be often as mean and meagre as the Words that are sung ; yet in great Towns, where a good Organ is skilfully and devoutly employed by a sensible Organist, the Union of this Instrument with the Voices of a well-instructed Congregation, forms one of the grandest Scenes of unaffected Piety that human Nature can afford. The Reverse of this appears, when a Company of illiterate People form themselves into a Choir distinct from the Congre- gation. Here devotion is lost, between the impotent Vanity of those who sing, and the ignorant Wonder of those who listen.'^ ^John Shepherd, A critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, London, Rivington, 1817, third ed. vol. i. p. 304. '•' D. C. Lathbury, Correspondence on Church and Religion of William Ewart Glad- stone, London, Murray, igio, vol. i. p. 2. ■•John Brown, Yicar of Newcastle, A Dissertation on . . . Poetry and Music, London, Davis and Reymers, 1763, p, 213. i88 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. At Selby Abbey, in 1751, Dr. Pococke, an Irish bishop, notes: This town is no corporation, and has neither clergyman nor justice of the peace in it. They chant all their service, except the litany ; and the clerk goes up to the Communion table and stands on the Epistle side to make the responses, and they sing well not only the psalms but anthems. ^ The expression Epistle side is unusual in England at this period. As Dr. Pococke was an Irish bishop he may have heard the phrase used by Roman Catholics in Ireland. The function of the parish clerk may also be noted. At a Berkshire village, Welford, in 1770 the church music is praised. I may here mention that at Welford their manner of singing Psalms is particularly pleasing. The tunes are solemn but exceedingly melodious. Mr. Archer's Steward, honest John Heath leads the set, with as agreeable a voice as I ever heard. The game keeper plays upon the Hautboy, and the gardener upon the Bassoon, and these, joined to eight or ten voices, form a Harmony that strikes the attention most amazingly.^ Dr. Home, the Bishop of Norwich, while Dean of Canterbury states that In England, choral service was first introduced in this cathedral, and the practice of it long confined to the churches of Kent, from whence it became gradually diffused over the whole kingdom. ^ More than twenty years after Dr. Brown, Dr. Vincent, who later on was Dean of Westminster, describes some part of the church music and the musicians. He says that in his time there were certain churches and chapels where they appropriated a band of singers " to chant the Psalms, Te Deum, &c. and who are competent enough to perform an Anthem with sufficient accuracy " These chapels, he tells us in a note, were Portland Chapel, the Octagon Chapel at Bath, now, in the twentieth century, turned into a furniture warehouse, and some churches, he adds uncertainly, in Lancashire ; but here I have reason for thinking he was well informed as to the chanting of the psalms. He speaks highly of the Methodists' Music, and adds that " for one who has been drawn away from the Established Church by Preaching, ten have been induced by Music ".* 1 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 173. ^Lady Alice Archer Houblon, TA«HomJZo« Family, Constables, 1907, vol. ii. p. 145. ' George Home, Discourse II. on Church Music, in Works ed. by William Jones , Rivington, 1818, vol. iv. p. 25. '' William Vincent, Considerations on Parochial Music, London, 1787, pp. 10 and 14. A second edition appeared in 1790. SERMONS. 189 Disturbing the Minister. It is much to be desired that the faithful should join their voices to the praises of God and to those parts of the service which they are bidden to say with the minister ; but a bad practice surviving even to our time had arisen in the eighteenth century or earlier of following in an undertone the prayers set apart for the priest. Thus the Spectator dislikes the Disturbance some People give to others at Church, by their Repe- tition of the Prayers after the Minister, and that not only in the Prayers, but also the Absolution and the Commandments fare no better, which are in a particular manner the Priest's Office. ^ So many complaints throughout our period are made of this practice that it has not been possible, even if desirable, to note all that have been met with. It was also common in the mid-nineteenth century. James Ford, writing about 1825, notes it. When the Service begins, with your eye and not with your voice, reap along with the Minister ; but never pretend to use any other prayers or medi- tations, whilst he is offering the prayers of the Church . . . what can be more improper than to hear them promiscuously absolve themselves and one another and thus take the Priestly office on themselves ? ^ This disagreeable practice of saying the words of the service after the minister is not characteristic of Englishmen. In 1908, on Easter Even, at Naples, the man kneeling next to me followed aloud the blessing of the priest at the end of mass, and other parts of the Latin service which he knew by heart. Sermons. The Puritans, it will be generally acknowledged, thought that the hearing of sermons was the main purpose of going to church ; and inconsistently enough, such was their love of sermons, if they could hear a Church of England sermon without attending the Church of England service they would do so. There is an instance of this at Canterbury in 1640 when they complain of the sermon being no longer preached in the Sermon House, as they call the Chapter House, but in the Quire, so " that all that will partake of the Sermon, should of necessitie partake of their Cathedrall-Ceremonious-Altar Service " } ''^ Spectator , No. 236. Friday, November 30, 1711. ''■ James Ford, The new devout Communicant, Ipswich, 1825, p. 82. ^ Richard Culmer, Cathedrall News from Canterbury, London, Clifton, 1644, p. 2. igo SERMONS. After the Restoration there seems to have been a return to this practice in the North. At the Visitation of his diocese in 1703 by Dr. WiUiam Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, he found at Ravenstondale a Saints-Bell, and the Bishop was told that " this Bell used to be rung in the Conclusion of the Nicene Creed ; to call in Dissenters to Sermon " } They would not then be offended, either, by the sight of a surplice. Can this have been one of the motives for preaching the sermon in the black gown, and not in the surplice? It seems possible that this relic of Puritanism survived late in Yorkshire ; for a description of the Sunday morning service written, it is pretended, before the battle of Waterloo, but plainly later, makes the Sunday school children in a Yorkshire parish come to church after the Litany and before the Communion service.^ It is more likely to be a relic of Puritanism than a humane wish not to fatigue the children with over-long devotions. Sir William Blackstone entered the Middle Temple in 1741 and there is this tradition of his experience : The sermons which Blackstone heard, when he came as a young man to London, were, he has told us, below the standard of the morality of Plato or Cicero. He himself gave it as his opinion, that, for all that they contained of religion, it would have been hard to say whether the preacher believed in the Koran, the Talmud, or the Bible. ^ These statements of Blackstone are said to be based upon recollections of the table talk of Sir Robert Inglis. There is con- firmation of this in the paragraphs that follow. How dissatisfied during our period churchmen were with the Whigs may be seen by a tract designed to show the variance be- tween the book of Common Prayer and the Sermons of the Latitudinarians, such as Blackstone may have heard.* The tract appeared in 1767, and in numerous editions later on, of which the last that I have been able to trace was printed at Lancaster in 1 81 7. The Pulpit and the Reading Desk converse together. The Reading Desk says to the Pulpit : You have long been my sore Enemy, a public and private Foe to me, and the whole congregation ; and if it be considered, the Harm we have ' Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlilef ... by William Nicolson late Bishop of Carlisle, edited by R. S. Ferguson, Cumberland Antiq. and Arch. Soc. London, Bell, 1877, p. 42. " [Charlotte Bronte] Currer Bell, Shirley, ch. xxxiv. ' John Campbell Colquhoun, William Wilberforce : his friends and his times, Longmans, 1866, p. no, ch. vi. on Hannah More. "/l dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. NicoU, 1767. SERMONS. 191 all sustained, it would appear what Favour has been shewn you in not stripping off your Gown, driving you out of the Church, and leaving you to follow another kind of Business. The Evil you have done, 1 am sure the whole World can never repair.^ The Whig shov/s how little he cares for the solemn assent and consent that he has given to the Book of Common Prayer, or re- gards the teaching of antiquity : Pulpit. Some have, indeed, great Veneration for the Fathers ; but for my-part, I have not. I prefer the Authority of later Times, and depend most on the Judgment of modern Authors. On the next page Pulpit makes some remarks depreciating the Bible. The Reading Desk asks in horror : Reading Desk. The word of God a stale unpolished Piece of Anti- quity ? 2 As to the assent given at Subscription. Pulpit. I look on the Words as mere Fo?-m ; and I used them only as a necessary Step to Preferment. Desk. So, in order to get clear of Enthusiasm, you are not ashamed to own yourself a Hypocrite. Who do you think will ever trust you again, when you can so readily speak one thing and mean another ? Pulpit. I regard nothing you are pleased to think of me. The Multitude is on my Side, not yours.^ The cynic may remark that the history of the eighteenth century repeats itself in the twentieth. This little book that went through so many editions may be looked upon as an important and interesting testimony to the value widely set upon the Prayer Book in the eighteenth century as a protection against latitudinarianism, and the low standard of morals involved in a repetition with the mouth of formulae that are not be- lieved in the heart. Even a prae-Christian poet had a higher sense of honour. His notion of duty was to hate as one would the gates of hell the man who concealed one thing in his heart and uttered another.* The disgust which the laity felt at the behaviour of these men is attested by the wide circulation, during fifty years, of the little tract, which can hardly be accounted for if the readers were confined to the clergy. The unhappy state to which those were re- duced who clung to their preferments in the Established Church instead of going out into the wilderness was thus described in the nineteenth century : ^A dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. Nicoll, 1767, p. 4. ^ibid. pp. 17, 18. ^ibid. p. 65. * Iliad, ix. 313. 192 SERMONS. They were compelled Sunday after Sunday, to affirm in their reading desk what they contradicted in their pulpit. ^ What a position ! But the importance of keeping up the fixed standard of orthodoxy that has come down from antiquity is hereby made evident enough. And this scandalous state of affairs lasted to the end of the century. For S. T. Coleridge, when a Unitarian minister at Shrewsbury, describes clergy and laity as being divided into two camps : The Parsons of the Church of England, many of them, Unitarians and democrats — and the People hot-headed Aristocrats — this is curious, but it is true.^ So in the twentieth century. It is to the Houses of Laymen that we look to save the Church, not to the Convocation. In Dr. Johnson's time, too, the sermons cannot have been good when this devoted Churchman could speak of the preaching in such terms as these : I am convinced (said he to a friend) I ought to be present at divine service more frequently than I am ; but the provocations given by ignor- ant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which other- wise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself on such occasions — How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a Liturgy which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom ? ^ Goldsmith, not so pious a son of the Church as Johnson, yet complains of the English preachers: "Their discourses from the pulpit are generally dry, methodical, and unaffecting ; delivered with the most insipid calmness, " * and he then recommends the French preachers as an example. In the early nineteenth century an Edinburgh Reviewer opens an article on Dr. Rennel's sermons thus : We have no modern sermons in the English language that can be con- sidered very eloquent. . . The great object of modern sermons, is to hazard nothing ; Their characteristic is decent debility.^ ^ [William John] Conybeare, Church Parties, An Essay reprinted from the Edin- burgh Review, No. CC. for October, 1853. Longmans, 1854, p. 4. ^Letter of S. T. Coleridge, British Museum, No. 29, Jan. 16, 1798. (Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, Part i. 1912, p. 70.) ^Anecdotes by George Steev ens, in jfohnsonian Miscellanies, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 319. ■■ O. Goldsmith, Essays, iv. Globe edition of Works, Macmillan, i86g, p. 294. ^Edinburgh Review, Edinb. 1803, vol. i. p. 83. UNUSUAL PRACTICES. 193 Against this we may set Dr. Church's account of the sermons deHvered, by the old High Church school, in the first third of the nineteenth century, just before the Tractarian movement began.^ Unusual Practices. One or two oddnesses in the services may be spoken of here for want of a better place. There appears to have been a curious state of affairs in Spital- fields in which Sir George Wheler, the Canon of Durham, is con- cerned. He had the reputation of being a high-churchman ; but his acts if rightly reported do not much support this claim. Things seem to have been done in a strange way. What was the Wicker Basket or the Glass vessel for the elements at Communion? What explanation is there of giving the Eucharist to the unbaptized? And is the "conformable Curate" the Luke Milbourne of the Dun- dad? The Tabernacle is that spoken of by Paterson as " The Taber- nacle in White Lion yard, and facing Wheeler Street in Spittle-^elds. It's commonly called Wheelers Chapel, because it was built by Sir George Wheeler Prebendary of Durham!' The Inhabitants of the Hamlet of Spittle-fields, Petition'd the Honourable House of Commons. * * * XI. We are not much verst in Kubricks or Canons. But we are sure th&ce ax& none for Praying before Sermon with the Fa.ce to the People till the concluding Lord' s Prayer, and turning the Back, and repeatingthdX towards the Altar. No Rubrick enjoins us to begin Divine Service with Singing Psalms, or to Use four in one Morning Service. No Rubrick ever order'd the Wicker Basket or Glass Vessels, or the Time of the Clarks bringing them at the Communion, or to read the Exhortation when the People are negligent, from the Pulpit after Sermon, when solemn notice of the Communion had been %vienfrom the Desk, at the proper Time before. No Rubrick ever order'd the Priest to leave out the Gloria Deo in Excelsis after the Communion. Nor to Sing a Psalm after Morning Sermon, while the Priest leaves the Pulpit to put on the Surplice again, to read the Prayer for the Church Militant 2A the Communion Table. No Rubrick allows to give the Eucha- rist to a Person unbaptized, and to defend the Action afterward in a Ser- mon, Nor to abuse the Hearers from the Pulpit, because they could not under- stand Nonsense in the Chamber. Not to call it an Insolent Affront to be soberly desired, by a Priest of more than twice a Man's own Standing, to Review and consider again an III Worded Discourse (to call it no worse) concerning the greatest Mystery of our Faith. No Rubrick teaches us to forget the Athanasian Creed day after day, tho' admonish'd of it, when ^ See above, ch. i. p. 15. 13 194 UNUSUAL PRACTICES. requir'd. Nor to Collect Money for the Poor at the Tabernacle- Door, and refuse the Church- Warden an Account of the Disposal of it ; And, because there are no Rules nor Rubricks for these things, We remember not that Mr. Milbourne our Conformable Curate even did them, and if he should, we should approve them as little in Him as in any Other Person whatsoever.' At the end of the seventeenth century these things described may have shocked the faithful accustomed to law and order. Now- adays we are all accustomed to the omission of Gloria in excelsis on certain days by one set of people, and of the Athanasian Creed on others by a second set, both equally lawless. But it is a good thing to find complaint made of the multitude of singing psalms, or, as we have them to-day, of metrical hymns. In the foregoing extract there is mentioned the carrying of the elements to the altar in a wicker basket, as something reprehensible. One has seen the pain b^nit carried about a French church in a basket, and distributed thence to the faithful, but the two cases are not precisely similar. More akin is the following, from a church in Ireland, held up to scorn in a Roman Catholic journal. The old Church of St. John the Baptist, Headford (co. Galway) is now in a very dilapidated condition and the new incumbent is putting forth an effort for its restoration. In this church during the last incumbency the elements for Holy Communion used to be carried from the vestry up to the Communion table in an old clothes-basket covered with a patchwork quilt? The Rev. Henry Austin Wilson has suggested to me an analogue of this wicker basket. In the inventory of Andrewes Chapel there is a "Canistor for the wafers like a wicker basket, and lined with Cambrick laced ".^ Another complaint by parishioners appears in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. In 171 7 the inhabitants of Kew-Green were much displeased with their minister on several counts. He does not catechise, and gives no account of the sacrament money. They want service on Wednesday and Friday, not said by a Deacon, for so they " are deprived of the Benefit of Absolution," and they desire the whole of the Exhortation to Communion to be read the Sunday before. As he is non-resident they cannot have baptism 1 A Vindication of the Case of Spittle-Fields, against an Uncharitable Paper, pri- vately Printed, called a True Narrative of the Case of Sir George Wheler etc. Humbly offered to the Honourable House of Commons. [1694 ?] ^ Quoted in a letter to the Tablet, July 21, 1888, p. 97. 'J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches, Henry Bradshaw Society, igii, p. Ixix, FUNERALS. 195 when a child is in danger of death, or the blessed sacrament in the latest hours of extremity.-' Their complaints all show a good Church tone. Contrasted with the indifference nowadays, whether children shall die unbaptized, or the grown-up parishioners without communion, we have an edifying glimpse into the family surroundings in Church matters during our period. Throughout the eighteenth century it will be noticed, in descriptions of death-beds, how careful, in most cases, the faithful are that communion shall be administered to the dying. Funerals. Next to say somewhat of funeral customs and rites. Evelyn notes on May 13, 1680 a piece of asceticism worthy of La Trappe : old Mr. Shish, master shipwright of his Majesty's Yard here, an honest and remarkable man, and his death a public losse ... It was the costome of this good man to rise in the night, and to pray, kneeling in his own coffin, which he had lying by him for many yeares. Eleven years after the Restoration we find the following account of the posies of evergreens distributed at funerals, and the doles given to the tenants and poor in Westmoreland. October 7, 167 1, Mrs. Agnes Dudley dying at Yainwith-hall Oct. 5, 167 1, early in the morning; she was buryed in Barton-church Oct. 7, 71, & before her corps was carryed out of the house, the gentry had given each of them, Posys of Lawrell and Rosemary, Bisketts and burnt Claret-wine, and Papers of Sweetmeats ; Their servants had given them Bisketts and burned Clared-wine. Her Tenants & their wifes had bread & cheese. And the Poor had 2d a peice given them, which Doal came to 08. 05. 06.^ There is the same carrying of evergreens in a neighbouring county. Bourne, speaking of the decent custom, that had come down from antiquity, of following the corpse to the grave, notes that as this Form of Procession is an Emblem of our dying shortly after our Friend, so the carrying of Ivy, or Laurel, or Rosemary, or some of those Ever-Greens, is an Emblem of the Soul's Immortality. This bearing of green boughs seems to have been a general custom in the North if not in all England. Of the practice of ^ The case and complaint in the year 1717 of the then Inhabitants of Kew-Green against Mr. Thomas Fogg, London, 1743. 'J, R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii. p. 310. 13* 196 FUNERALS. accompanying the corpse to the church with psalms, he suggests that it was not so universal, for he says : There is another Custom used in some places, at the Procession of Funerals, which pays a due Honour to the Dead, and gives Comfort and Consolation to the Living ; and that is, the carrying out the Dead with Psalmody.^ From a letter written by Mr. Henry Gandy, Hearne reports as follows : Mr. John Kettlewell (he says) dy'd on Friday; the 12 of April, 1695, was bury'd in the Parish Church of Barkin (in the same Grave in which Archbishop Laud was layd) on the isth day of the same Month, the Right Reverend Bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Tho. Kenn) performing the Office in his Lawn Sleeves. He read the Confession and Absolution, then the proper Psalms in the Office for buriall of the Dead, after that the Magnificat, then part of the 15th Chapter of the ist. Ep. to the Corinthians, the Lesson appointed. Then read the Evening Service, pray'd for the King — and the Queen's, &c.^ Sir John Morden, Baronet, the founder of Morden College, who died in 1708, left in his will the direction that he was to be buried " without Pomp or Singing Boys ; but decently "} A member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners was barbarously murdered by three private soldiers in 1708. He was accompanied to his Grave with about 30 Constables and Beadles, and between 20 and 30 of the Reverend Clergy, all going before his Corpse; and 12 Justices of the Peace holding up the Pall, and im- mediately following it, and a great Train of other Gentlemen of Quality, and among them some Aldermen of the City ; and lastly, above a Thousand worthy Citizens and others conducting him to his Grave. It was a Sight, said the aforesaid Preacher, at which, he was persuaded, the Powers of Darkness did tremble.* The funeral was at St. Clement Danes and the sermon preached by the Rev. Thomas Bray, D.D. Sir Richard Hoare's funeral on January 13, 171 8-19 was attended by the Governours of Christ's Hospital and the Blue Coat Boys, walking before in Procession, singing of Psalms.* 1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 19, 22. '^ Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxioii Historical Society, vol. viii. p. 256. ' John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype, London, 1720, Vol. I. book i. ch. xxvii. p. 220. ^ibid. Vol. 11. book v. ch. iii. p. 32. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, igo2, vol. vi. p. 289. FUNERALS. 197 and at Lady Holford's funeral, at the beginning of November in 1720, the Blew-Coat Boys belonging to Christ - Hospital walk'd before the Corps in Procession, singing of Psalms, and 27 Clergymen attended at the Funeral. 1 Some time it would seem after 1710 Samuel Wesley, the father of John Wesley, recommends the suppression of " the new custom of burying by candlelight " ? This very likely was an imitation by the poor of their richer neighbours. Hearne describes Lord Stafford's funeral at Westminster Abbey on May 19, 1719. He was buried in a Coffin covered with Crimson Velvet and drawn in an open Charriot, followed by a prodigious Number of Mourning Coaches and Lights.^ and on March 11, 1720-1 he says of the Duke of Buckingham- shire's funeral In the Abbey they were received by the Dean and Chapter in their Copes, the whole Choir, in their Surplices, singing before the Corpse.* At the funeral of King George the Second, the Dean and Prebendaries were in their copes, attended by the choir, all having wax tapers in their hands.^ At the Duke of Gloucester's funeral in 1805, the choir and clergy attended, each holding a wax light.'' In 1732 at the funeral of the senior bencher of Gray's Inn at St. Andrew's Holborn there were provided amongst other things : 8 Large Plate Candlesticks on stands round the body. i. 0.0. 43 lbs. of Wax Lights and Tapers at 2/8 5. 14. 8. 100 white wax branch lights, and 100 men in mourning to carry them at 5/6. 27. 10. ^ Pope, describing the sumptuous funeral of a miser, says : When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living sav'd a candle's end.^ ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne^ Oxford Historical 1 Society, 1902, vol. vii. p. 189. ^ A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the Eighteenth Century, Elliot Stock, 1912, p. II. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, igo6, vol. vii. p. II. '^ibid. p. 226. ^Annual Register, 1760, Chronicle, p. 181, London, 7th ed. 1783. '^ibid. 1805, Chronicle, p. 416, August. ' Quoted in R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts, 1883, P-53- *A. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 291. 198 FUNERALS. In 1746 there is an account of a sham funeral, six Ghosts all in white with wax tapers in their hands.^ Speaking of her funeral and lying in state Mrs. Montagu re- marks : " The torches and the crowd about my dead body would give me neither light nor amusement "? In 1769 about January 14 it is recorded that Mrs. Mead, the mother of Jack Wilkes' wife, had died, and that the corpse was " attended to the grave by 1 16 men carrying lights "? In 1 82 1, a clergyman speaking of the funerals in his parish says : 1 believe it now very rarely happens that a funeral does not take place by day-light, except in cases where persons have died of the small-pox, or any other infectious disorder. I found my parishioners, at my first coming to my parish, inclined to make them latish, and, once, candles were brought in to give the singers light to see the words of their psalm.* But the parson managed to put a stop to this. It seems more likely that these " psalms " were Sternhold and Hopkins rather than the ritual psalms of the Order for the Burial of the Dead. Beau Nash, "the King of Bath," died on February 3, 1761, and thus the ceremonies at his funeral are described : About five the procession moved from his house : The charity-girls, two and two preceded ; next the boys of the Charity-School, singing a solemn occasional hymn ; next a large band of music, sounding at proper intervals a dirge ; three clergymen immediately preceded the coffin.* We are not often told when the funeral sermon was preached ; but at Dr. Parr's funeral A sermon was also preached by the Rev. Dr. Butler, Vicar of Kenil- worth and Head Master of Shrewsbury School. This was introduced after the reading of the lesson.^ A suicide is traditionally said to be buried with a stake in the body. There is a record of such at Epworth in 1791 or 1792. A woman named Poll Pilsworth had poisoned some children, and being found out she poisoned herself. The people would not permit her to be buried in the churchyard. The inhabitants were all in a muster about this poisoning, not knowing ^British Magazine for the year 1746, vol. i. p. 282. 2 Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson, Murray, 1906, vol. ii. p. 202. ^Annual Register, 1769, January 14, Chronicle, p. 66. * Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 136. ^New Bath Guide, 1784, p. 63. " New Monthly Magazine, 1825, Part iii. p. 185. FUNERALS. 199 where it would end. She [Mrs. Ingram, the witness] saw the coffin taken on the sledge. She was in the crowd, and could not get close to the grave. They drove two stakes through the body. She (Mrs. Ingram) saw them lift the mell, or big hammer, " to drive the stakes through her, poor thing ! " ^ In N.E.D. mellxs defined as a heavy hammer or beetle of metal or wood ; cf. malleus or mallet. A later instance is recorded in 1 81 2, in the description of the burial of a murderer and suicide : The stake was immediately driven through the body, amidst the shouts and vociferous execrations of the multitude, and the hole filled up and well rammed down.^ The practice of burying a suicide in the cross-roads continued till 1823 : a son had murdered his father and then killed himself. The warrant for the interment of the unfortunate parricide in the cross- road was issued by the coroner . . . [the grave was] at the cross-road formed by Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place, and the King's road.^ A graduate of the University of Oxford, a layman, has suggested to me that in view of the increase of suicide in these latter days, it is almost a matter for regret that all signs of horror at the crime have been discontinued at the burial. About 1730 a resident in the Isle of Man made these notes : When a Person dies, several of his Acquaintance come to sit up with him, which they call the Wake. The Clerk of the Parish is obliged to sing a Psalm, in which all the Company join ; . . • The Procession of carrying the Corps to the Grave, is in this manner : When they come with- in a Quarter of a Mile of the Church, they are met by the Parson, who walks before them singing a Psalm, all the Company joining with him. In every Church- Yard there is a Cross, round which, they go three Times, before they enter the Church.* In Wales in the eighteenth century, a bishop of St. Asaph notes : The night before a dead body is to be interred, the friends and neigh- bours of the deceased resort to the house the corpse is in, each bringing with him some small present of meat, bread, or drink, (if the family be some- thing poor,) but more especially candles, whatever the family is ; and this night is called w^l nos, whereby the country people seem to mean a watching night. Their going to such a house they say is i wilio corph, i.e., to watch ^A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epwortk Parish Life in the Eighteenth Century, Elliot Stock, 1912, p. 79. ^Annual Register, 1812, London, Rivington, 1825, Chronicle, p. 4.* ^ Ibid. 1823, Chronicle, p. 142.* " George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works, folio, no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 170. 200 FUNERALS. the corpse ; but wylo signifies to weep and lament, and so wyl nos may be a night of lamentation. While they stay together on these nights, they are either singing psalms or reading some part of scripture. Whenever anybody comes into the room where a dead corpse lies, especially the wyl nos, and the day of its interment, the first thing he does he falls upon his knees by the corpse and saith the Lord's prayer. Pence and half-pence, in lieu of httle rolls of bread, (which heretofore generally and by some still are given on these occasions,) are now distributed to the poor, who flock in great numbers to the house of the dead before the corpse is brought out. When the corpse is brought out of the house, and laid upon the bier, and covered before it be taken up, the next of kin to the deceased, widow, mother, daughter, or cousin, (never done by a man,) gives cross over the corpse to one of the poorest neighbours two or three white loaves of bread and a cheese with a piece of money stuck in it, and then a new wooden cup of drink, which some will require the poor body that receives it immediately to drink a little of. When this is done, the minister (if present) saith the Lord's prayer, and then they set forward to- wards church. And all along, from the house to the church-yard, at every cross way, the bier is laid down, and the Lord's prayer renewed ; and so when they come first into the church-yard, and before any of the verses appointed in the service to be said. In some places there is a custom of ringing a little bell before the corpse from the house to the church-yard. If it should happen to rain while the corpse is carried to church, 'tis reckoned to bode well for the deceased, whose bier is wet with the dew of heaven. When a corpse is carried to church from any part of the town the bearers take care to carry it so that the cross may be on their right hand, nor will they bring the corpse to the church-yard any other way but through the south gate. There is also a custom of singing psalms on the way as the corpse is carried to church. At church nothing is done but as directed by the rubric, besides that, evening service is read with the office of burial. At those words, " we com- mit this body to the ground," the minister holds the spade and throws in the earth first. The minister goes to the altar and there saith the Lord's prayer, with one of the prayers appointed to be read at the grave ; after which, the con- gregation offer upon the altar, or on a little board for that purpose fixed to the rails of the altar, their benevolence to the officiating minister. A friend of the deceased is appointed to stand at the altar, observing who gives, and how much. When all have given, he tells the money with the minister, and signifies the sum to the congregation, thanking them for all their good will. The people kneel and say the Lord's prayer on the graves of their lately deceased friends for some Sundays after their interment, and this is done generally upon their first coming into the church, and after that they dress the grave with flowers. ^ ' From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before publi- cation in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399. Cf. Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Wales, London, White, 1784, vol. ii. p. 33S. FUNERALS. 201 Pennant speaks further of Welsh funerals : Offerings at funerals are kept up here, and I believe in all the Welsh churches. A disgusting, and in cases in which the deceased may have died of an infectious distemper, a dangerous custom, often prevails, of the corpse being brought into the Church during divine service, and left there till the congregation is dismissed. That excellent memento to the living, the passing-bell, is punctually sounded. . . . The canon (67) allows one short peal after death, one other before the funeral, and one other after the funeral. The second is still in use, and is a single bell solemnly tolled. The third is a merry peal, rung at the request of the relations. 1 1 Thomas Pennant, The History of the Parishes ofWhiteford and Holywell, London, White, 1796, p. gg. " Disgusting" has often in the eighteenth century more the sense of being displeasing, than of being abhorrent. It is used in this way by Dr. Johnson. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI. DESCRIPTION OF CHILDREN'S SERVICE AT BATH IN 1787. [Letter of Serena Holroyd to Maria Josepha, Bath, August 4, 1787, in the Girlhood of Maria josepha Holroyd, ed. Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1896, p. 17.] It was at our Cathedral, which we call the Abbey. I daresay you have heard of Sunday Schools. It is but lately we have had that institution here, and at first it went on slowly ; but by joining it to a School of Industry, they now all crowd to the other, which is a necessary step to that of industry. There is a clergyman employed for this Sunday evening service for the children alone, after the other common service is over, and it is in the great Isle where you must suppose nine hundred children in perfect order, placed on benches in long rows, so quiet that could hardly have heard a pin drop while the Clergyman was reading. Reflect how very extraordinary this circumstance alone ! when you recollect that most of them were taken out of the streets, untaught and actually almost savage, cursing, swearing, and fighting in the streets all day, and many without a home at night. Two girls, I myself know, slept in the street. Most of them not only ragged and starving, but without a chance of being put in the way to earn their bread. Yet here I saw them, not only in such order, but so well instructed as to have most of the service by heart ; for though they had books, I ob- served they scarce looked at them, and yet repeated the responses per- fectly, aloud. At one instant also, without direction to do so, the nine hundred dropped on their knees and rose again, which showed they knew what they were about ; their little hands lifted up and J oined together, looking with such innocent devotion. They sang the Psalms, all in time with the organ by heart, and notwithstanding the number, the sound was neither too loud nor too harsh, but on the contrary, soft and affecting beyond measure. CHAPTER VII. OBSERVANCE OF CERTAIN CHURCH SEASONS. The observance of the Christian year is one of the most profit- able of the Church's institutions ; yet it was abhorred by the Puri- tans, mainly for the same reason that they rejected other things, because they found it in existence and it had the claim of antiquity. Christmas. Christmas was a feast which in England had always been a season of rejoicing, and of showing good-will towards all men. Nevertheless, during the Rebellion the observance of the festival of Christmas, as the Church bids us, was not allowed. It was turned into a fast, or no notice was taken of the day. This was very ill borne, and a reaction set in immediately.^ Mr. Pepys observes the unusual decorations at the first Christ- mas kept after the Restoration, for on Dec. 23, 1660 he finds his pew decked with rosemary and bays. The "sticking of Churches" at Christmas with green boughs went on during our period, and is thus described by the Spectator : our Clerk, who was once a Gardiner, has this Christmas so over-deckt the Church with Greens, that he has quite spoilt my Prospect, insomuch that I have scarce seen the young Baronet I dress at these three Weeks, though we have both been very constant at our Devotions, don't sit above three Pews off. The Church, as it is now equipt, looks more like a Green- house than a place of Worship : the middle Isle is a very pretty shady Walk, and the Pews look like so many Arbours of each Side of it. The ^ " 1647, Dec. 29, News came of a great Disorder and tumult in Canterbury, about the Observation of Christmas-day, the Major endeavouring the Execution of the Ordin- ance for abolishing holy-days, was much abused by the rude multitude, had his head broken, and was dragged up and down, till he got into an house for his safety . . . like Insurrections were in several other places of the Kingdom." [Bulstrode White- locke,] Memorials of the English affairs [K. Charles I. to K. Charles II.] London, Ponder, 1682, p. 286. See also Canterbury Christmas, London, Humphrey Howard, 1648; and The Declaration of many thousands of the City of Canterbury , Lond. 1647. 203 204 CHRISTMAS. Pulpit itself has such Clusters of Ivy, Holly, and Rosemary about it, that a light Fellow in our Pew took occasion to say, that the Congregation heard the Word out of a Bush, like Moses} In the North the decking does not seem to have been so well known. Another Custom observed at this Season, is the adorning of Windows with jBay and Laurel. It is but seldom observed in North, but in the Southern-Parts, it is very Common, particularly at our Universities ; where it is Customary to adorn, not only the Common Windows of the Town, and of the Colleges, but also to bedeck the Chapels of the Colleges, with Branches of Laurel.^ So Gay, speaking of Christmas, treats these evergreens as well- known decorations in 1716 : Now with bright holly all your temples strow With laurel green and sacred mistletoe.^ In 1 72 1 , Thomas Lewis speaks of the custom in use in his day of garnishing the churches " with Flowers and the Branches of Trees," * not, however, it may be noted specially at Christmas. Horace Walpole attends Prince Edward to the new Magdalen House for penitent women : This new convent is beyond Goodman's-fields, and, I assure you, would content any catholic alive . . . Lord Hertford . . . led the prince directly into the chapel, where, before the altar was an arm-chair for him, with a blue damask cushion, a prie-Dieu, and a footstool of black cloth with gold nails. We sat on forms near him. There were lord and lady D — in the odour of devotion, and many city ladies. The chapel is small and low, but neat, hung with gothic paper, and tablets of benefactions. At the west end were enclosed the sisterhood, above an hundred and thirty, all in greyish brown stuffs, broad handkerchiefs, and flat straw hats, with a blue riband, pulled quite over their faces. As soon as we entered the chapel, the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts ; you cannot imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil, — or to invite him. Prayers then began, psalms, and a sermon.*^ The orange and myrtle were probably holly or other evergreens, ^Spectator, No. 282, Wednesday, January 23, 1711-12. The letter Is dated Jan- uary 14, 1712, the day after the Octave of the Epiphany. 2 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgates, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 136. ^ John Gay, Trivia, Book i. line 441, from Poems, ed. J. Underhill, London, Rout- ledge, 1893, vol. i. p. 143. * Thomas Lewis, The obligation of Christians to beautify and adorn their Churches, London, John Hooke, 1721, p. 23. '' Letter cxix. January 28, 1760, to George Montagu. (Works, London, Radwell and Martin, 1818, vol. vi. p. 193.) CHRISTMAS. 205 remains of the greenery at Christmas, not taken away till Candle- mas. Orange and myrtle have a more genteel, Italian, or exquisite sound than holly ; orange is not likely to have been imported for this purpose from the south. For some twenty years at the end of the nineteenth century I had to pass the winter at Cannes, and near the port and market there was a little French chapel, decked at Christmas quite after the fashion of the Spectator's church. A tall fir tree filled up the little pulpit. There was no creche, such as nearly all the parish churches around had ; but the greenery was quite after the arrangement which Washington Irving might have seen at Bracebridge. In his description of an English Christmas he introduces the parson re- buking the sexton for using mistletoe among the greens with which the church was adorned.^ Christmas was one of the times for a general communion throughout our period. In 17 14 there were two celebrations at St. James' Piccadilly, St. Martin's in the Fields, St. Mary Magdalen Bermondsey, St. Anne's Soho, at 7 and 12. At St. Dunstan's in the West " every day in the Octaves oi Christmas" at 8 after morning prayers. It may be taken for granted that where Paterson says the Eucharist is celebrated on " the solemn occasion " or other like expres- sion, Christmas day is included as well as Easter and Whitsuntide. Christmas was also a time when the members of the University were expected to receive Communion at Oxford. Just before the Revolution Anthony Wood notes that the new papist did not re- ceive the Sacrament in the College chapel.^ Dr. Felton rode out of Oxford at 8 o'clock in the morn- ing one Christmas Day,^ and thus set no edifying example to those who remained at Edmund Hall. He should have met Parson Adams who severely rebukes a youth for travelling on Christmas Day.* But Hearne himself is not free from blame in this matter, for on the Christmas Day of 171 3 he had done just as Dr. Felton did.5 ' Washington Irving, The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, Dent, igo6, p. 41. ^ Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1894, v°'- "'• P- 202. ' Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 310. ■* See below in this chapter, p. 245. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. iv. p. 280. 2o6 CHRISTMAS. Christmas was observed at the EngHsh Court by a curious offering of a wedge of gold called a Byzant. The author of Festa Anglo-Romana writes : This is a Grand day in His Majesties Court, and one of the Houshold- days, when the Besant is to be given by the Lord Steward, or one of the White-Staff Officers.^ In 1738 there is a London letter dated Dec. 26 saying that the day before the King had received Communion. His Majesty at the Altar made his Offering of a large Wedge of Gold, called the Byzant, according to ancient Custom. ^ Again in 1747 : Dec. 25. Being Christmas-day, the same was observed at court as a high festival. . . . His majesty made an offering at the altar of a wedge of gold, commonly called the Byzant' But the last time I find this recorded is in 1765. Dec. 25. [Their majesties] received the sacrament . . . after which his majesty made the usual offering, at the altar, of a wedge of gold called the Byzant.'* Hospitality was a great feature in the English Christmas. Here in England, during the twelve Days of Christmas, the Nobility and Gentry retire to their respective Seats in the Country ; and there, with their Relations, Neighbours, and Tennants, keep Carnavals in their own Houses, Hospitality, Musick, Balls, and Play as much during this Season all over England, as in any Kingdom whatever.^ Sir Roger de Coverley, "after the laudable custom of his Ancestors, always keeps open House at Christmas" .^ Stukeley tells us of a strange custom at York with mistletoe on Christmas Eve. The custom [? of cutting mistletoe] is still preserved in the north, and was lately at York, on the eve of Christmas-day they carry mistletoe to the high altar of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal liberty, pardon and freedom to all sorts of inferior, and even wicked people, at the gates of the city, toward the four quarters of heaven.^ The statement is somewhat confused ; and we are not told by what officers the mistletoe was taken to the high altar of the minster at York or by whom the pardons were proclaimed. 1 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 128. ^ WhitwovMs Manchester Magazine, January 2, 1738-39. ^ British Magazine, 1747, Dec. p. 561. ''Annual Register, 1765, Dec. 25, Chronicle, p. 152. '" A yourney through England, London, 1723, third ed. vol. i. Letter ii. p. 25. '^Spectator, No. 269, Jan. 8, 1711-12. ' William Stukeley, The Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, Book II. London, Corbet, 1759, p. 164. CHRISTMAS. 207 There was and perhaps still is in Wales a practice which may have taken its rise from the Mattins and Mass said at Midnight before the Reformation. Plygan is cockcrow ; and the first Mass of Christmas is called Missa in galli cantu. Christmas Plygain. Upon Christmas day in the morning, about three of the clock, most of the parishioners meet in the church, and after prayers and a sermon, they continue there singing psalms and Welsh hymns with great devotion and earnestness till 'tis broad day ; and if any through age or infirmity are disabled coming to church, they never fail to have prayers and carols on our Saviour's nativity at home.^ Almost the same words are used by Pennant, speaking of Re- ligious Customs : ^ so that the question arises whether one may not be borrowing from the other. In Mrs. Thrale's Tour in Wales with Dr. Johnson from the 5th of July to the 29th of September 1774, we read : Monday August i .... In our return from this place we saw Whit- church, where, as at all Churches in this valley, lights are kindled at 2 in the morning on every Xmas Day and songs of joy and genuine gratitude are accompanied by the Harp and resound to the cottages below, whose little inhabitants rousing at the call hasten and chuse a convenient place to dance till prayer time which begins at sunrise and separates the dancers for a while. ^ This fuller account of the Christmas Plygan is given by the Rev. Elias Owen writing in 1886. On Christmas morn, tradition says, the church bell was rung in Cilcen from five to six o'clock, at which latter hour the service began. In other parishes the hour was four. The service usually consisted of a selection of appropriate portions of the Prayer Book, with or without a brief ad- monitory address by the clergyman, and then the carol-singing began. Any one who desired to sing was at liberty to do so. Sometimes a party sang in chorus, and sometimes a single voice was heard, and this service of song was continued until the dawn of day, when the Benediction was pronounced, and the congregation separated. Those who took part in the carol-singing supplied themselves with their own home-made candles, but the church authorities partially lit up the church for the occasion. As there were formerly no evening services in ' From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before pub- lication : printed in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 401. ^Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Wales, 1770, London, White, 1781, vol. ii. p. 339. ' A. M. Broadley, Doctor Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, London, John Lane, igio, p. 186. 2o8 CHRISTMAS. the churches, and the gosper or vespers began at three o'clock in the after- noon, when no lights were required, it was necessary that the churchwardens should provide candles and candlesticks for the Plygan on Christmas morn.i Mr. J. E. Vaux reports as follows : I learn from the Rev. S. C. Baker that an ancient custom of having a celebration at six o'clock on Christmas morning is kept up at Usk in Monmouthshire. The country people come in from distant parts of the parish to this early service, and some communicate who do not at other times. It is called " Pwlgwm " in Usk, in other places " Plygain "? And further on he says : A lady at Swansea has informed me that at St. Peter's Church, Carmarthen, an early service used to be held on Christmas morning within the memory of persons now living. The church was lighted with coloured candles, carried thither on that occasion by the congregation. ^ Not unlike the custom in Wales is the custom in the Isle of Man. On the 24th of December, towards Evening, all the Servants in general have a Holiday, they go not to Bed all Night, but ramble about till the Bells ring in all the Churches, which is at twelve aclock ; Prayers being over, they go to hunt the Wren . . . after which Christmas begins. There is not a Barn unoccupied the whole twelve Days, every Parish hiring Fidlers at the publick Charge.* The author of Festa Anglo-Romana is no very sure antiquary, and his description of what went on in his own time is not always to be trusted, as when he makes the King offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh on the feast of the Circumcision, instead of the Epiphany ; yet his ideas may be those of the people. Thus he writes of Christmas : The Latin or Western Church nam'd it Luminaria, or the Feast of Lights ; because therein were used abundance of Lights and Tapers ; or rather, (as some conceive) because Christ the Light of Lights ; the true Light then came into the World.* But it is truly the name in the East for the Epiphany rather than for Christmas. The real reason for such an abundance of artificial light would seem to be the period of the winter solstice, at which the festival is ^Elias Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd, Quaritch, 1886, p. 11. * J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 61. 'ibid. p. 222. '' George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works, no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 155. Waldron was a revenue officer in the Isle of Man so that he had good opportunities for noting the customs of the Manx population. ° Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 127. EPIPHANY. 209 celebrated, when the days are short and dark. But be this as it may, luminaria is not a frequent name for Christmas in the West. Manchester in the middle of the eighteenth century was a very locus of High Church practices. One of these was the lighting of the branches that hung in the quire of the Collegiate Church for the hour of evensong during the Twelve Days of Christmas. How far into the eighteenth century this custom goes back is not well known. But in the nineteenth century were taken away altogether the branches that hung in the nave, and those that hung in the quire were re- legated to the ambulatory. Yet these latter are still lit from Christ- mas Eve to the Epiphany. ^ If the date of the first appearance of the candelabra be 1 696, the custom of lighting them for the Twelve Days of Christmas can hardly be earlier.^ Lighted candles seem to be connected with Christmas in Wales as well as at Manchester. A correspondent with the initials A. R. and writing from Croeswylan, Oswestry, notes as follows : When I was a boy, the colliers at Llwynymaen, two miles from the town, were in the habit, during the evenings of Christmas week, of carrying from house to house in Oswestry boards covered with clay, in which were stuck lighted candles.^ A writer with the initials A. E. L. L. says : Until the last few years, the village children of Hucknall Torkard, Notts ... on Christmas Eve used to carry with them a large doll, placed in a box decorated with sprigs of holly.* He adds that the children had no idea that this represented our Lord in the manger. The Pickwick Papers, with their complete disregard of Christmas as a religious festival, may represent the practice in some families in England towards the end of the period. Yet we have Miss Austen giving us a welcome contrast to Dickens when she says " though Christmas Day, she could not go to church ".* The Epiphany, that great festival of the Church, older than Christmas, yet so much neglected in our time, was, during some part of our period at least, much thought of ^ See Mr. Henry A. Hudson's valuable paper on The Christmas Lights at Manchester Cathedral, published in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, vol. xxix. igi2. ^S. Hibbert, History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834, vol. li. p. 285. 2 Notes and Queries, 1873, Dec. 13, p. 471. ^ ibid. 1877, Dec. 22, p. 486. ^ Jane Austen, Emma, ch. xvi. towards end. Emma was written before 1816. 14 2IO EPIPHANY. The Twelfth-Day it self is one of the greatest of the Twelve, and of more jovial Observation than the Others, for the visiting of Friends and Christmas- Gambols. . . . But tho' this be generally the greatest of the Twelve, yet the others preceding are observed with Mirth and Jollity, generally to Excess.^ Also in the Chapel Royal : Tuesday being Twelfth Day, the same was observed at Court as a High Festival . . at noon His Majesty, their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and the Princess Amelia, preceded by the Heralds and Pursuivants at Arms, went in State to the Chappel Royal, and during the Offertory his Majesty advanced to the Altar, and according to ancient Custom of the Kings of England, offered three purses filled with Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. . . . There was a very numerous and splendid Appearance at Court on this Occasion.^ 1 76 1 is the last year in which I have found a record that the gold, frankincense, and myrrh were offered on Twelfth Day by the King in person. Jan. 6. His majesty went to the chapel royal, and offered gold, myrrh, and frankincense as usual.' When Dr. Horsley was Bishop of Rochester, he issued in a charge of 1800, recommendations for the services to be held in the more populous villages. He is by no means over exacting in his requirements, yet he directs, amongst other days, that the church ought certainly to be open on the Epiphany. It is to be feared from this that the festivals and fasts of the Church were at that time as he expresses it, "gone much into oblivion and neglect".* This is part, no doubt, of the influence of the Calvinistic Evangelical Movement. Christmas seems to have had two endings during our period. One is Twelfth Day. Mr. Pepys on Jan. 6, 1662-3 declares This night making an end wholly of Christmas, with a mind fully satis- fied with the great pleasures we have had by being abroad from home. We may contrast the pleasure-loving Pepys with the savage- minded Dean, who ends Christmas at Candlemas. Swift writing to Stella on Feb. 2, I7il-I2says: This ends Christmas, and what care I ? I have neither seen, nor felt, nor heard any Christmas this year.'' ' Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 151-152. '^Manchester Magazine, January 13, 1746-7. ^Annual Register, 1761, Chronicle, Jan. 6, p. 60. "• Samuel Horsley, Charges, Dundee, 1813, p. 161, Charge at Rochester in 1800. ''Journal to Stella, Feb. 2, 1711-12, in Works, ed. by Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 1814, vol. ill. p. 30, LENT. 211 Also a somewhat different end and beginning to Christmas may be given. Musick and Revelling are allowed in the Inns of Court on All Saints and Candlemas Days, one being the first and the other the last day of Christmas.^ In the North, Bourne says With some, Ckristmass ends with the Twelve Days, but with the Gen- erality of the Vulgar, not till Candlemass? In the strict household of Dr. Granville, the Dean of Durham before 1689, it was ordered that there should be no playing at tables or dice all the year long, nor any playing at cards, but be- tween All Hallows Day and Candlemas.^ This is a matter of some three months, fully a quarter of the year, long enough one would think for recreation of this kind. Candlemas at Ripon seems to have been observed by way of anticipation : The Sunday before Candlemas-day the collegiate church, a fine antient building, is one continued blaze of light all the afternoon by an immense number of candles.* This has been copied by a later writer and it has become con- fused in the end : At Rippon, on the Sunday before Candlemas Day, the Collegiate Church is still one continued blaze of light all the afternoon, an immense quantity of candles being burnt before it.^ Nothing is known of this practice at the present moment by persons who lived in Ripon in the middle of the nineteenth century. In Nottinghamshire it was the custom on the eve of Candlemas to decorate the churches and houses with branches of box, and to light up a number of candles in the evening, beingthe last day of Christmas.' Lent and Holy Week. Lent began to be kept again immediately with the Restoration. Mr. Pepys gives us many notices of it. On March 7, 1659-60 he says it is Ash Wednesday, and begins Lent with a fish dinner. The next year Ash Wednesday falling on Feb. 27, 1660-61 he says : ^Festa Anglo- Romana by a True son of the Church of England, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 14. ^ Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 157. ' The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 155. Gentleman's Magazine, 1790, vol. Ix. p. 719, Aug. 18. Signed ; Riponiensis. ° Time's Telescope for 1815, London, Sherwood, 1815, p. 43, under note on Feb- ruary. There is nothing about Ripon in the almanack for 1814. ^ J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 226. 14* 212 LENT. I called for a dish of fish which we had for dinner, this being the first day of Lent ; and I do intend to try whether I can keep it or no. We are curious to learn how long this good resolution lasts. The next day we read : Notwithstanding my resolution, yet for want of other victuals I did eat flesh this Lent but am resolved to eat as little as I can. On the sixth of March he has " a good Lenten dinner ". On the lOth, a Sunday, "a poor Lenten dinner of coleworts and bacon". He does not tell us how he made bacon a Lenten dish. Perhaps he ate flesh as it was Sunday. On Good Friday (April 12, 1661) a fish dinner. Before another Lent (Feb. 23, 1662-3) he goes to see a play at Court, because it is likely to be the last acted before Easter. On March 8 the chapel at Whitehall is hung with black, and no anthem sung after sermon. The next day he dines with the Lord Mayor, "a great Lent dinner of fish little flesh". On April 17, Good Friday, his dinner is "only sugar-sopps^ and fish; the only time that we have had a Lenten dinner all this Lent ". This is a great falling off in his practice of little austerities. On Dec. 12, 1663 there is a strange entry : We had this morning a great dispute between Mr. Gauden, Victualler of the Navy, and Sir J. Lawson, and the rest of the Commanders going against Argier, about their fish and keeping of Lent ; which Mr. Gauden so much insists upon to have it observed, as being the only thing that makes up the loss of his dear bargain all the rest of the year. Lent kept in this fashion could do good to nobody ; but when a man of Pepys' character, a presbyterian Royalist, thinks it well to appear to keep Lent in this outward fashion we have some evidence that the season was widely observed in London. Leaving Mr. Pepys and his superficial observance of Lent, it may be well to consider how far the practice of fasting, and observance of the days of fasting and abstinence set out in the Book of the Com- mon Prayer were retained by Churchmen at large during our period. It would not be looked for that a cookery book could throw much light upon Church customs ; but a certain Mrs. Hannah WoUey, or Woolly (she spells her name in many fashions) wrote a work which seems to have been highly popular. Published in 1670, 1 Sugar-Sops was a drink. " Take what quantity of Beer or Ale you think fit, boil it and scum it, then put to it some Currans (or none at all) slices of fine Manchet, large Mace, Sugar or Honey." (T.P. J. P. R.C. N.B. The English and French Cook, London, Miller, 1674, p. 414.) LENT. 213 there was a second edition in 1672 ; and I quote from a fifth, pub- lished in 1684. The title is: The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet stored with all manner of rare receipts for Preserving, Candying and Cookery. . . . London, Chiswel and Sawbridge, 1684' In the second part, No. 287, there is a receipt given for a suit- able Dish for Lent. At the end of this part are a number of Bills of fare according to the different seasons : for example, A Bill of Service for extraordinary Feasts in the Summer ; then Another Bill of Fare for Winter Season ; a Bill of Fare for lesser Feasts. But now we come to meagre diet, A Bill of Fare for Fish Days and Fasting-Days in Ember-week, or in Lent. This is followed by A Bill of Fare without Feasting, in winter and in summer. Then there is A Bill of Fare for Fish-Days in great Houses and at familiar times, which is followed by a shorter bill of fare, for Gentlemens Houses upon Fish-Days, and at Familiar Times} It is not likely that all this would have been set out at length in a book of many editions, if there had been no use for the directions for meagre days. And it seems a fair inference that the custom of making some change in diet on the days prescribed by the Church was at the time widely spread. In his parish of Coles-Hill to which Ketlewell was presented in 1682 it is said that He was a Religious Observer of all the Festivals of the Church, which had been much neglected in his Parish before his Time, as indeed they were almost everywhere throughout the Kingdom. He observed likewise the Days of Fasting and Humiliation, both those appointed by the Church, and those which were enjoyned by the Civil Authority. Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, he abstained from Flesh, and Drank small Beer, according to the Canon ; he failed not to bid all Publick Holy Days, and had Prayers both upon them, and their Eves, as also upon Saturdays in the Afternoon.^ When Mrs. Godolphin was Maid of Honour she drew up a rule of life and this is part of her resolution as to fasting : "... On Festivall evens I resolve to dyne att home, and to repeat all the psalmes I know by heart " (of which she had almost the whole psalter,) "reserveing my reading or part of my prayers till night ; and supp with bread and beere only. ' There is another cookery book of the same period in which Lenten dishes are given, and this is The English and French Cook, by T.P. J. P. R.C. N.B. (London, Simon Miller, 1674). I' ^^s on p. 372 " All manner of Potages for Lent " which " are made and seasoned as these for the fasting days, only this excepted, that you put no Eggs in them " On p. 382, there are Dishes proper for Good Friday, and on p. 387 " for any Friday ". On p. 434, are bills of fare for fish days, Ember weeks, or Lent. '^Memoirs of the Life of Mr. John Ketlewell, London, 1718, p. 66. 214 LENT. "On Frydayes and Wednesdaies I'le eat nothing till after evening prayer; and soe come downe as soone as ever the Queene has dyned, without goeing to visitt, till my owne prayers are finished." ^ In Mrs. Astell's proposed community all the fasts of the Church were to be observed : that is Lent, Ember days, Rogation Days, Vigils and Fridays.^ Ambrose Bonwicke, the pious Cambridge undergraduate, writes thus to himself: Remember to observe all Lent with abstinence and retirement, and interruption of visits ; and the Wednesdays and Fridays therein, together with the holy passion-week, with strict fasting. Observe all vigils with abstinence and prayer, as also Embers and Rogations, and all Fridays in the year with strict fasting.' More than the Prayer Book requires was also recommended ; the Wednesday as well as the Friday was to be kept : Serve God publickly with Fastings and Prayers upon the Wednesdays and Fridays of the whole year.^ Wednesday and Friday were specially to be observed with prayer according to Dr. Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canter- bury, as " the stationary days of each week," ^ which in this age are more commonly called the station days. Besides Wednesdays and Fridays as days of fasting Annand tells us that Some also abstain on Saturday in memorial of that sorrow that was upon believers while our Saviour lay in the grave. ^ This was the case in 1662 at Jesus College, Cambridge. John Strype writes home to his mother, describing his diet : Sometimes, neverthelesse, we have boiled meat, with pottage ; and beef and mutton, which I am glad of; except Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes Wednesdays ; which dayes we have Fish at dinner, and tansy or pudding for supper.'^ ' The life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 22. ^ [Mary Astell,] A serious proposal to the Ladies, etc. London, i6g6, p. 61. ^ Life of Ambrose Bonwicke by his Father, ed. by John E. B. Mayor, Cambridge, Deighton, 1870, p. 26. ^ Edward Felling, The good old way, J. Edwin, 1680, p. 92. ° Thomas Seeker, Eight charges, London, 1771, p. 76, in the Second Charge. " W. Annand, Fides Catholica, London, Brewster, 1661, p. 257. ' Charles Henry Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Cambridge, Warwick, 1845, vol. iii. p. 504. LENT. 215 It may be noted that at Winchester College Saturday was a day of abstinence up to 1711.^ The English Roman Catholics must have kept Saturday as a meagre day up to 1775 or 1776 ; for Dr. Nugent would order on Friday or Saturday an omelet for supper at the Literary Club.^ When Dr. Granville, the Dean of Durham, kept house at his Parsonages, they must have resembled convents more than ordinary families. The fasting days, Lent, Ember days, Vigils, Rogation Days were all most strictly observed.^ On April 24, 1723 Hearne notes: Among other Customs that Dr. Felton hath altered at Edmund Hall, is the breaking off Fast Nights on Fridays. For, whereas there did not use formerly to be any Suppers there on that day, he hath now ordered the contrary, and makes the Bell to be rung as at other set Supper times.* This is evidence that Hearne looked upon Friday as a fast day, as one of the two meals was taken off; not a day of abstinence merely. William Law holds fasting to be a part of the duty of every Christian. No Christian who knows anything of the Gospel, can doubt whether fasting be a common Duty of Christianity, since our Saviour has placed it along with secret Alms, and private Prayer.* Fielding presents a self-satisfied person at the judgement gate, pleading his observance of fast days. The second [applicant] exhibited that he had constantly frequented his church, been a rigid observer of fast days.^ About 1767, Dr. Hildesley, Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1755-72, saw to the observance of Lent and Fasting days at Sher- burn Hospital. There are fifteen vigils of holidays, and six Wednesdays in Lent, on which they have but a pound of pudding ; and on Good Friday they have only sugar sops.'^ ^T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester College, London, Frowde, 1892, pp. 379-381. See also p. 322. ^ H. L. Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, second ed. London, Cadell, 1786, p. 122. 2 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 156. * Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 69. 5 William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. vii. ed. by J. J. Trebeck, Spottiswoode & Co., 1902, p. 169. ^ H. Fielding, A Journey from this world to the next, ch. vii. in Worhs, ed. by Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. iv. p. 368. ' Weeden Butler, Memoirs of Mark Hildesley, London, Nichols, 1799, pp. 148- 150. For composition of sugarsops, see footnote above on p. 212. 2i6 LENT. It will be remembered that in 1750 there were earthquakes succeeding one another with such an amount of periodicity that Horace Walpole in his flippant way proposed that the bark should be taken against them.^ So in 1756 a fast day was ordered by the authorities, and a journalist wishing to mock the indifferent into a better behaviour remarks that persons of fashion, who are above the law, will I doubt pay as little regard to this nominal fast-day as to Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, or the long exploded 30th q[ January? There was a public fast in 1740, and a journalist takes occasion to rebuke a manner of fasting that has nothing painful in it. [People] cannot, I think, easily imagine that this Duty consists merely in Abstinence from Beef and Mutton, or any other Flesh, while they riot in all the Delicacies which Fish and Vegetables can afford them ; no, tho' they should give an entire Holyday to the Cooks, and refuse all Manner of Sustenance, during 24 Hours ... A total Forbearance of all Diversions will be likewise insisted on, not only of public Entertainments, which will not be permitted by the Government, but all private Parties, as Cards, Dancing or any other Merriment.' In the same number a protest is made against mere fish eating. All these methods of keeping a Fast without abstinence, mortification, or self-denial are mere quibbles to evade the performance of our duty and entirely frustrate the design of appointing the solemnity. This is just the old Tractarian teaching which I have heard insisted upon when a boy. It is also exactly the teaching of the holy Bishop of Sodor and Man. 526. Fasting. From pleasant meates, rather than from all, as it would answer the Ends of Mortification, in not gratifying the Palat, nor ministring to Luxury, so it would agree with every constitution, and answer the objec- tion That my Health will not suffer me to Fast.* An example of the way in which in Evelyn's time the Friday fast (not mere abstinence) was kept by the clergy is given in his note on Feb. 20, 1671-72. Dr. Breton had died on Feb. 18 : on the Friday, having fasted all day, making his provisionary sermon for the Sunday following, he went well to bed, but was taken suddenly ill, and expir'd before help could come to him. ^ Letters of Horace Walpole . . . to Sir Horace Mann, London, 1833, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 354, April 2, 1750. ^ Connoisseur, No. 106, Feb. 5, 1756. " Champion, Tuesday, January 8, 1739-40, vol. i. p. 166. " Thomas Wilson, Maxims of Piety and Morality, No. 526 in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, i860, vol. v. p. 438. See also No. 1055, Fasting and Temperance, p. 486. LENT. 217 The powers of staying without food expected of the average man at this period are shown in the Friday fast of Lake's Officium Eucharisticum. The communicant is told to rise at 5, "if your Health will permit you ". He is then to be occupied with private prayers and self-examination up to 1 1 when he goes to Church ; at noon he returns and begins private prayers again, with a recapi- tulation of self-examination. This being finished at 3, the penitent betakes himself to Evening Service, when if the conscience be not satisfied he may open his " Grief by Confession" and "receive the benefit of absolution ". Then returning to his closet he occupies himself in prayers until 7 when Thus disposed you are ready for your Supper by Seven a Clock, whereto notwithstanding your long Abstinence, you must not let loose your Appetite ; but eat as sparingly as at other times. ^ The food when taken is to be mean and ordinary, such as a crust of bread, a little wine, or a glass of small Beer, etc. The same belief in power to fast is shown in 1748 in the Rules for diet at a school founded by John Wesley at Kingswood. On Fridays they had vegetables and dumplings for dinner, no meat as on other days, and there is added "And so in Lent". But part of the rule is : On Friday, if they choose it, they fast till three in the afternoon. Ex- perience shows that this is so far from impairing health that it greatly con- duces to it.^ Who, nowadays, would think of asking growing children to do without food till three o'clock in the day? and for the forty days of Lent as well ? Speaking of the duty of giving alms to the poor the Spectator says : Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular Days of Fasting and Abstinence, in order to increase his private Bank of Charity, and sets aside what would be the current Expences of those Times for the Use of the Poor.^ Thus it was not to be the overflowings of the purse merely that were to be given as alms ; but the product of what was saved by austerities on fasting days ; the abstinence from flesh meats or pleasant food being also enforced. Of Shrove Tuesday, Bourne says : ^ Lake's Officium Eucharisticum, p. 48. ''^ The History of Kingswood School . . . by three old boys, London, Kelly, 1898, p. 25. ^Spectator, No. 177, September 22, 1711. 2i8 LENT. This Custom of confessing to the Priest at this Time, was laid aside by our Church at the Reformation : For Sins are to be confess'd to God alone, and not to the Priest, except when the Conscience cannot otherwise be quieted : Then indeed the Grief is to be opened to the Spiritual Guide in private. That by the Ministry of God's Word, he may give [? receive] the Benefit of Absolution} The remainder of the Exhortation before Communion in the Book of Common Prayer follows. The Public Penance that preceded Lent is remembered by Thorndike. And for this Exercise, [Penance] the time of Lent hath always been deputed by the Church. The Fast before the Feast of the Resurrection stands by the same Law, by which that stands. For, the Feast was, from the beginning, the end of the Fast. So, the Lent-Yz^X., and the keeping of the Lords day, stand both upon the same authority. For, the Lords day is but the Remembrance of the Resurrection once a week.^ The beginning of Lent must have been a time for Communion. In 1686 Anthony Wood notes that Obadiah Walker, turning papist, had not " received the sacrament I. Sunday in Lent "} The services of Ash Wednesday must have been well attended by the people when a worldling like Horace Walpole could take it for granted that the generality would understand a jest upon the Commination Service. The penalty of death came over as often as the curses in the Commin- ation on Ash-Wednesday.* Swift, while manifesting his impatience at the restraints of Lent, bears witness to the keeping of the season in Queen Anne's time. Writing to Stella on March 5, 1711-12 he says : I wish you a merry Lent. I hate Lent ; I hate different diets, and furmity and butter, and herb porridge ; and sour devout faces of people, who only put on religion for seven weeks.* Next year he dines with Lord Abingdon on Ash Wednesday. (Feb. 18, 1712-13.) ^ Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. i8o. ^ Herbert Thorndike, ^ust Weights and Measures, London, Martin, etc. 1662, p. 121, ch. xviii. "Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1894, vol. iii. p. 176. ■* Horace Walpole, Menioires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of King George the Second, London, Murray, 1822, vol. i. p. 32. ^ The works of fonathan Swift, ed. by Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 1814, vol. iii. p. 55. LENT. 219 We did not dine till seven, because it is Ash Wednesday. We had nothing but fish, which Lord Stawell could not eat, and got a broiled leg of a turkey. Our wine was poison ; yet the puppy has twelve thousand pounds a year. His carps were raw, and his candles tallow. '^ Swift is scandalised not so much at the dinner on Ash Wednesday as at the bad entertainment. It will be noticed how late the dinner was on Ash Wednesday. This was part of the discipline, for only one meal had to be taken on a fast day, the usual hour for dinner in Queen Anne's time being still about mid-day. In the same way, on January 16, 1711-12 Swift notes : This being fast day, Dr. Freind and I went into the city to dine late, like good fasters.^ That only one meal was to be eaten on a fast day we see by the rules set out by authority. For example : In 1665 during the time of the plague, an additional fast was prescribed for the Wednesday, and these were the rules to be observed : All persons (children, old, weak, and sick folk, and necessary Harvest- labourers, or the like, excepted) are required to eat upon the Fast-day, but one competent and moderate Meal ; and that towards night, after Evening Prayer ; observing sobriety of Diet, without superfluity of riotous fare ; re- specting necessity and not voluptuousness.^ In 1676 Anthony Wood tells us how he kept Lent. 27 Mar. - I returned from Weston. I went there 27 Jan. (Th.) ; kept a Lent which I never did before ; not eat a bit of flesh from Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 8) till Easter day (26. Mar.).* Looking back upon the evidence offered as to the custom of fasting, it does not appear that in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries the distinction between fasting and abstinence was better known to Churchmen than in the prje-Reformation Church of England. All Fridays appear to have been fast days, only one meal being allowed. John Byrom sends his sister a poem on the keeping of Lent, which begins : ' The works of Jonathan Swift, ed. by Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 1814, vol. iii. p. 169. ^ Ibid. p. 16. ' A Form of Common Prayer, together With an Order of Fasting for the Averting of Gods heavy Visitation, set forth by His Majesties Authority. London, John Bill and Chr. Barker, 1665, leaf A. i. * Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii, p. 341. 2 20 LENT. Dear Mrs. Phebe, if you will keep Lent, We must, the Parsons say be abstinent.' and he proceeds to forbid not only flesh-meats but eggs and fish, with wine, beer, and spirits. Bishop Butler, preaching on the first Sunday in Lent, alludes to the mourning clothes which in his day were worn : Repentance, the outward show of which we all put on at this season. ^ A near kinswoman of my own, who was a girl at school when the Royal George went down at Spithead in 1782, always wore black during Lent. The Rev. J. R. Hill, S.P.G. Missionary at Banda in India, tells me that a relative of his who died in 1874 aged 83, could re- member that in her girlhood all the women of the village of Yapton, near Arundel in Sussex, wore black in Holy Week. In 1804 we read that the Endeavour Society widely distributed two well-written papers, one of which was on the observance of Lent. This latter is reprinted in full in the Orthodox Churchman! s Magazine. It is an urgent exhortation to the keeping of the Lenten fast, noting that the Church had already appointed a weekly fast on Friday.^ A little later in the nineteenth century a preacher could remind his hearers of the Christian seasons, Advent, Ascension Day, and the like. In Lent he says : Of the various seasons of devotion which our religion prescribes, the season of Lent is at once the most solemn and the most salutary. . . . Over the wide extent of the Christian world, it reminds us that all the holy and the good are engaged in the same purifying work of self-examination.* As a device for continuing everyday pleasures while pretending to keep Lent, and as an instance of the importance of calling things by unobtrusive names, we have the ironical advice of a clerical poet : In Lent, if Masquerades displease the town, Call 'em Ridotto's, and they still go down.^ A Ridotto was much the same thing as a Masquerade." Thus 1 Poems of John Byrom, Chetham Society, edited by A. W. Ward, 1912, vol. iii. p. 6. '^ Fifteen Sermons, VI. in Works of jfoseph Butler, ed. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, i8g6, vol. ii. p. iig. ^ The Orthodox Churchman^s Magazine and Review, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 163. 'Archibald Alison, Sermmis, Edinburgh, i8ig, sec. ed. vol. ii. p. 356. ^ James Bramston, The Man of Taste, Reprinted at Dublin, Geo. Faulkner, 1733, P- 13- "See N.E.D. under Ridotto. HOLY WEEK. 221 in our time invitations to a really large and fashionable ball in Lent have been sent out under the name of a little dance. In 1750, the Bishop of London, Dr. Thomas Sherlock, con- demns the opening of so many places of amusement in his diocese during Lent. Fifteen Places of Diversion [are] advertis'd in one News-Paper, at which the innocent are too often seduced, and which will give foreign Churches a strange Idea of the Manner in which Lent is kept in this Protestant Country.^ In 1800 a journalist remarks of Covent Garden Theatre that "as usual in Lent, this theatre has been opened for the performance of oratorios at play house prices".^ And some years after, it would seem that during Lent the theatres in London were closed for plays, at least on Wednesdays and Fridays, as late as 1825. For Samuel Leigh in his guide to London says : Les Mercredis et Vendredis soirs pendant le Careme, on donne a Drury- Lane et \ Covent-Garden des concerts spirituels, et on execute des morceaux choisis de musique : ces soirs-la aussi sont ouverts les petits theatres, pour I'exhibition des figures mecaniques.^ In our time we have seen plays permitted in Holy Week, and now on Ash Wednesday, the last trace of the Christian practice being obliterated by the Government. In Daniel Turner's private prayers (he was a physician by pro- fession, and died in 1741) there is "A prayer to be used throughout the holy season of Lent, and other set days of Fasting," and follow- ing are prayers for Passion Week, Easter, Whitsunday and Christmas.* According to Festa Anglo-Romana, Holy Week was the name given early in our period to the week beginning on Palm Sunday.^ Some have imagined that in the days before the Reformation, Holy week was not called Passion week. There is good evidence to the contrary. For example, at St. Stephen's Walbrook they had " a harrow for tenebris Candles, in passion weke," in the inventory of Dec. 13, 1558, and thus under Queen Mary Tudor." The mention of tenebrce makes it sure that it is Holy Week. ^ Mitre and Crown, March, 1750, p. 274. '^ British Magazine, 1800, March, p. 273. 'Nouveau Tableau de Londres de Leigh, Londres, 1825, p. 279. ^ British Museum MS. 14,404, ff. 32 — 34. ' Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 40. ^ Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archcsological Society, 1881, vol. v. p. 337- 222 HOLY WEEK. Earlier, in the same century, in 1 506, pilgrims embarked on the Wednesday in Passion week and landed next day, in France, on Maunday Thursday. Firste, the Wednysday at nyght in Passyon wake that was the viij. day of Apryll in the .xxi. yere of the reygne of our soueraygne lord kynge Henry the .vij. the yere of our Lorde God .M.D.vj., aboute .x. of the clokcthe same nyght, we shypped at Rye in Sussex, and the nexte daye, that was Shyre Thursdaye, aboute noone, we landed at Kyryell in Normandy.^ Holy Week was certainly used as one name for the week before Easter. Dr. Edward Lake speaks of the Gospels for the Holy week} Dr. Edward Bernard of The holy weeke before Easter? The famous John Partridge, in spite of Swift's announcement of his death, pretends to be still alive in 1769, and publishes an al- manack for that year, Merlinus Liberatus. The fifth Sunday in Lent is called Passion Sunday, but there are no indications that the week following was called Passion week. That name for the week after Passion Sunday seems to have been brought in by the ecclesio- logists of the nineteenth century. It ranks with words like crosier for the Archbishop's cross, stole for scarf, superaltar for gradine, and the like. Dr. Horsley in his charge to the clergy of Rochester in 1800 speaks plainly about the keeping of certain feasts and fasts : There can be no excuse for the neglect of the feast of our Lord's Nativity, and the stated fasts of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, even in the smallest country parishes ; but in towns and the more populous villages, the church ought certainly to be opened for worship on the forenoon at least of every day in the Passion- week.* He adds to these the Epiphany, of which notice has been taken under that day, and the Mondays and Tuesdays in the weeks of Easter and Whitsuntide, and there is included, a pious wish for other festivals. In Holy Week Swift vents his spleen, but it gives us a view of the way in which this week was kept by the more part. It is Easter Even, April 4, 171 3. This Passion week, people are so demure, especially this last day.* ^The Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde, ed. by Sir Henry Ellis, Camden Society, 1851, No. 51, p. 3. ^Edward Lalie, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 35, the Preparation on Friday. 8 In a book of Common Prayer, Bodleian Library, press mark : (C. P. 1686. u. i) Dr. Bernard has written these words in the upper margin of signature b. vii. ■■ Samuel Horsley, Charges, Dundee, Rintoul, 1813, p. 160. ''ibid. p. 198. HOLY WEEK. 223 On arriving at Holy Week the Spectator calls attention to the custom that this Week is in a manner set apart and dedicated to serious Thoughts. ^ In the same way, at the approach of Easter, Johnson's numbers of the Rambler become very nearly sermons. No. 7 written on the Tuesday in Holy Week 1750, speaks of the "Solitude, which the institutions of the church call upon me, now especially, to men- tion". And on April 6, 175 1, No. no is devoted to the duty of penitence. On April 5, 1760 [the last Idler, No. 103.] is published in that solemn week which the Christian world has always set apart for the examination of the conscience, the review of life, the extinction of earthly desires, and the renovation of holy purposes. This was written in the despised eighteenth century, but most holy seasons have been forgotten in the twentieth, except for pur- poses of amusement. Maundy Thursday. On April 4, 1667 being Maundy Thursday, Mr. Pepys remarks that the King did not wash the feet himself but the Bishop of London did it for him. This statement is borne out by the form and order contained in the Appendix to this chapter which it is quite possible may be that for the first Maundy of King Charles II. In King George the Second's time the ceremonial washing of the feet was continued : His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, per- form'd the annual Ceremony of washing the Feet of a certain Number of Poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the Kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's Pattern of Humility.^ And again in 1736 : Yesterday being Maunday Thursday, the rev. Dr. Gilbert, subalmoner, in the absence of the Archbishop of York, distributed at Whitehall to 5 3 poor men and women, his Majesty's alms. . . . His Grace the Archbishop of York washed the feet of so many poor persons in Duke Street chapel : he was assisted by the Rev. Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Harter.^ On Maundy Thursday, April 3, 1740, it is announced that This Day His Majesty's Alms of Linnen, Woollen, Shoes and Stockings, for one Shift . . . will be distributed to 57 poor Men and Women by Dr. ' Spectator, No. 23, Tuesday, March 27, 1711. "^Gentleman's Magazine, T-Ti^-^ April, p. 172, April 15. ^ Gruh Street jfournal for April 23, 1736, No. 331. (British Museum, Burney Col- lection, 306 b.) 2 24 HOLY WEEK. Gilbert, Sub-Almoner to the King ; Who is likewise to wash their Feet, (if not already done to his Hand) in Imitation of that HumiUty, which is so great a Satire^ etc. Good Friday. In 1706, Thomas Hearne has one of his party notes: The Queen having order'd Good Friday to be kept strictly in London, 'twas accordingly observ'd in a most decent and Religious Manner by all Friends of the Church, but very negligently and disrespectfully by the Pres- byterians and the rest of that Brood. ^ In the first half of the eighteenth century Good Friday w^as noticed in the contemporary journals. We read in one : The approaching Anniversary of that Great Day, on which he [Our Lord] finish 'd the Work of our Redemption.^ And there follows a sort of sermon for Good Friday. Jour- nalists commonly know the taste of the public for whom they cater, and unless there had been well-disposed people in abundance, the writer would not have ventured on such an article. ♦ On Good Friday, April 4, 1735, Byrom wandered about considering how little the day is regarded ; met Mr. Parker, and went with him to the Temple church.* It is somewhat hard to make out how Good Friday was kept in London after the passing of the influence of the reign of Queen Anne. In 1775 Boswell complains to Johnson that one dis- advantage arising from the immensity of London was that there was no fear of censure for not observing Good Friday as it ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country towns. Here Boswell testifies to the day being properly kept in English country towns. Johnson replies to him that it was on the whole well observed even in London.* There must have been a certain amount of observance of Good Friday, for it was attacked in an insolent tract published in 1777. Good Friday is a rebel against the king of kings, and always when ' Champion, 1743, sec. ed. vol. ii. p. 71. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 208. ^ The Wanderer, Thursday, April 18, 1717. " Richard Parkinson, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, Chetham Society, 1857, vol. i. part ii. p. 575. '■' Boswell' s Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. ii. p. 356. HOLY WEEK. 225 loyal subjects approach him the traitor lurks behind, skulks among popes and priests, and hides his guilty head in a cowl.^ Later on he appeals to the ashes of Burnets and Hoadlys and Lardners.^ But Dr. Pusey writing about 1833 tells us that Good Friday was formerly but ill kept in the country : It is within the memory of man, that the yearly Commemoration of our Blessed Saviour's death was in country congregations very generally omitted. This solemn day is now, I trust, almost universally observed.' Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, writes thus of Dr. Johnson : In Lent, or near the approach of any great festival, he would generally retire from the company to a corner of the room, but most commonly be- hind a window-curtain to pray ... At these holy seasons he usually secluded himself more from society than at other times, at least from general and mixed society, and on a gentleman's sending him an invitation to dinner on Easter-eve he was highly offended.* But his morbid dread of being alone, which impelled him to seek solace in the company of those quite below his own intelligence, caused him to break this rule of retirement. In 1778 he writes on Good Friday : It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion Week before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion.^ On the last two days of Holy Week his fasting was severe: on Good Friday 1773 he writes : ^ Lewis Carbonell, The History and the Mystery of Good Friday, London, Fielding and Walker, 1777, p. 23 [? a dissenting minister, Robert Robinson]. ''ibid. p. 56. ' E. B. Pusey, Tracts far the Times, No. 18. Thoughts on . . . Fasting, post- script. ^Miss 'RtynoMs, Recollections of Dr. yohnson, in G. Birkbeck Hill, jfohnsonian Miscellanies, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 257. The careful editor says that " There is nothing to show that he kept any part of Lent but Passion Week " ; but surely he has forgotten that Mrs. Piozzi says that " Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feeder, kept fast in Lent, particularly the holy week, with a rigour very dangerous to his general health "- (Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel jfohnson, London, Cadell, 1786, p. 91.) In confirmation of Miss Reynolds' statement about Easter Even, may be remem- bered a letter to Dr. Taylor : " On the last day of Lent I do not willingly go out "- (Letters of Samuel jfohnson, ed. by G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1892, vol. i. p. 188.) ' Prayers and Meditations, composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. Geo. Strahan, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 157. In the year 1781, he dined twice with bishops in Holy Week. See Boswell's Life on April 12 for his excuses. 15 226 HOLY WEEK. On this whole day I took nothing of nourishment but one cup of tea without milk ; but the fast was very inconvenient. On Good Friday 1775 : We breakfasted; I only drank tea, without milk or bread . . . Boswel and I went to church, but came very late. We then took tea, by Boswel's desire ; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not seem to fast ostentatiously. On Easter Even he writes : After the bread and tea [for breakfast] I trifled, and about three ordered coffee and buns for my dinner ... I then went to Evening Prayer and was tolerably composed. Of the Good Friday of 1776 he says : I fasted, though less rigorously than at other times. I, by negligence, poured milk into the tea, and, in the afternoon drank one dish of coffee with Thrale. In 1782, therefore when 73 years old, he says : Good Friday. After a night of great disturbance and solicitude, such as I do not remember, I rose, drank tea, but without eating and went to church. The next day, Easter Even : I was faint ; dined on herrings and potatoes. The contempt which Johnson has met with at the hands of writers like Macaulay and Cowper for refusing milk and butter on Good Friday and Easter Even, is quite undeserved. Once grant- ing the position that on fasting days some change is to be made in diet, it seems reasonable enough that a man like Johnson would conform to the rules that Christians have observed from early times, some rules more severe than others, but the least severe being ab- stinence from the flesh of warm-blooded quadrupeds, and of all that comes from them. Thus butter and milk are forbidden, and in re- fusing them Johnson was only following the Christian tradition. Macaulay does not understand this, and laughs at "sugarless tea"; tea, coffee, and sugar, being vegetable in origin, would not have been forbidden by any rule. Edward the Sixth at the most Protestant moment that England has ever seen, gave a dispensation, which must therefore have been thought necessary, to Sir Philip Hobby, allowing him to eat during Lent, and on other fasting days, flesh and milk foods {carnibus et lacticiniis)} ^ Thomas Rymer, Fosdera, London, Churchill, 1713, vol. xv. p. 291. EASTER. 227 An Irish clergyman visiting London on Good Friday makes this note : Good Friday, April 14, 1775, N. B. [Dr.] Dodd did not read the Communion service rubrically, for he kneeled at the beginning, and tho' it was a fast day, he and his coadjutors wore surplices.^ Montagu Robert Melville, sixty years later, advised that on fast days there should be no organ played and no surplices worn, except by those who read prayers, and at the altar. The preacher was to wear gown and hood on these days only.^ The first edition of 1 the Christian Year by the Rev. John Keble was published in 1827 but contains no verses for the Restoration. The third edition, in 1828, contains the poems now printed after the Commination, and a note upon the verses for the Restoration : The organ is silent in many Churches during Passion week : and in some it is the custom to put up evergreen boughs at Easter as well as at Christmas time. Easter. There is evidence that throughout our period the Communion at Easter was well attended.' In remote districts like Llanasa in Wales, we are told by a writer in the nineteenth century, the Rev. Elias Owen, that Celebrations of the Holy Communion took place in this parish on Good Friday, Easter Eve, Easter-Day, and Easter Monday.* The same writer earlier in the book says : The parish clerk of Derwen tells me, and I have heard the same thing in other parishes, that at Easter-tide all the adults in the parish were in the habit of partaking of the Holy Communion. There were three cele- brations at that season, one on Good Friday, one on Saturday, and one on Easterday. In some parishes I have also heard of a celebration on Easter Monday. 5 Easter was also a time for giving alms. Narcissa, under which name the reigning Duchess of Hamilton is supposed to be depicted, Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim. And made a Widow happy, for a whim.^ ^Thomas Campbell, Diary of a visit to England in 1775, Sydney, 1854, p. 71. ^ Montagu Robert Melville, Reform not subversion ! a proposed book of Common Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. 93, Canon xxv. 'For some figures giving the attendance, see ch. ii. p. 38. * Elias Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd, Quaritch, 1886, p. 97. ^ibid. p. 45. ^Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, II. v. 57. Globe ed. 1869, p. 237. 15* 2 28 ROGATIONTIDE. The same duty is noted as practised at Court. Last Sunday being Easter Day, his Majesty, their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Princesses, were at the Chapel Royal and made their Offering at the Altar according to annual Custom, for the Benefit of the Poor.^ According to Festa Anglo-Romana this is also a day for the offering of the Besant.^ Concerning the custom amongst the vulgar to rise early and go out into the fields to see the sun dance on Easter Day, Bourne says the origin of the habit is that devout and holy Men did, in the best Ages of the Church, rise early in the Morning of the Resurrection.^ The early rising should be to meditate seasonably on the Resur- rection of Christ, not as the vulgar do to see the sun dance. ROGATIONTIDE. The Rogation Processions may be noticed, for they were continued throughout the whole of our period.* There are many witnesses to their persistence. The following notes represent the etymological ideas prevalent soon after the Restoration. The solemnization of Matrimony is prohibited by the Holy Church from the first day in this Week, until Trinity Sunday following. The Belgians or DuUh-mtn call it Cruys- Week, that is, Cross-Week ; and so 'tis also nam'd in some Parts of England, because the Priest on these days goes in Procession with the Cross before him. In the old Saxon 'tis nam'd Gang-dagas, i.e. Dayes of Walking or Per- ambulation. In the North of England Gang-week, from the ganging or going in Procession (for Gang there, as well as in the Saxon, signifies to go) from an Antient and Commendable Custome (tho discontinued in the time of the late Unnatural Rebellion) to make Perambulations and Proces- sions with the Young Children in every Parish and Township with us to view and understand the Ancient Limits and Boundaries of every Parish.^ ^ Bath Journal for 1745, Bath, vol. ii. p. 17, April 22, 1745. ^ Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 50. * Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 190. Sir Thomas Browne (Pseudodoxia Epideniica, sec. ed. Book V. ch. xxi. § 16, 1650, London. Dod and Ekins, p. 228) holds that it is no more than " a Tropicall expression ". ■■Mr. Cuthbert Atchley has nearly exhausted the literature of the Rogation processions after the Reformation in a paper entitled " Some Notes on Harvest Thanksgivings and certain other votive offices " in Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 1905, vol. V. p. 59. ^ Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 60. ROGATIONTIDE. 229 Anthony Wood speaks by accident of the Rogation procession in 1664. The next day being Munday it was soe excessive hot that people that went a procession in the country about us fainted with heat and the poultry in Abington market died with heat.^ And yet it was only May 16, when great heat is not to be looked for. In 1667 Mr. Pepys notes on another May 16 : This being Holy Thursday, when the boys go on procession round the parish. In 1 67 1 Anthony Wood notes the processioning again : June I, Holy thursday, St. Peter's parishioners came a processioning and took in half Alban hall. Mr. Whitehall (the sub-warden) and I therefore went to forbid them, telling them that the cross should be made by the principall's dore.^ In June 1682 Anthony Wood notes the holding of the proces- sion in the parish of St. John Baptist on Whitsun Monday, June 5, not on Ascension day. The Rogations at Milan are held on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Ascension Day and before Pentecost, but this is not 'like what was done at Merton. They made the crosses on the houses, as the St. Peter's people had done in 1671.^ I have been told by a young man who has seen these processions at Oxford in this century that the crosses are made with white chalk on the houses by the parson or curate. An account of these processions in the diocese of St. Asaph in 1686 is given in the second appendix to this chapter. The Rogation Processions were also observed in the North. It was a general Custom formerly, and is still observed in some Country Parishes, to go round the Bounds and Limits of the Parish, on one of the three Days before Holy Thursday, or the Feasts of our Lord's Ascension ; when the Minister, accompany 'd with his Church- Wardens and Parishioners, were wont to deprecate the Vengeance of God, beg a Blessing on the Fruits of the Earth, and preserve the Rights and Properties of their Parish.'^ Bourne has certainly not overstated the frequency of the practice. What is most present to the minds of us in the twentieth century ^ The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 13. "^ibid. p. 223. ^ ihid. vol. iii. p. 20. ^ Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 203. 230 ROGATIONTIDE. is the preservation of the ancient bounds and rights of the parish, the last of Bourne's purposes. There were certain places or boundary marks, at which they read a Gospel ; but what gospel, whether the gospel of the day or some other, is not so clearly indicated. The making a station is spoken of by the following writer of the later seventeenth century. 30. And now I have run myself into Divinity, I cannot but note an odd custom at Stanlake, where the Parson in the Procession about holy Thursday, reads a Gospel at a Barrels head in the Cellar of the Chequer Inn, where some say there was formerly a Hermitage ; others that there was anciently a Cross, at which they read a Gospel in former times, over which now the house, and particularly the cellar being built, they are forced to perform it in the manner as above. ^ In 1750 this custom is enquired after in Visitation Articles : Do he and his Parishioners observe the annual Perambulation in Rogation Week?^ At Wolverhampton where there was a collegiate church the following ceremonies are recorded by a clergyman. Among the local customs which have prevailed here may be noticed that which was popularly called Processioning. Many of the older inhabi- tants can well remember when the Sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, assembled at morning-prayers on Monday and Tues- day in Rogation week, with the charity-children, bearing long poles cloathed with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men, and boys, dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and chanting, in a grave and appropriate melody, the Canticle, Benedicite, omnia opera, &c. The boundaries of the township and parish of Wolverhampton, which latter is very extensive, are in many points marked out by what are called Gospel irees, from the custom of having the Gospel read under or near them, by the clergyman attending the parochial perambulations. Those near the town were visited for the same purpose by the Processioners before-men- tioned, and are still preserved with the strictest care and attention.^ It will be noticed that at Wolverhampton they sang a canticle in the procession, Benedicite omnia opera, which is an alternative in ' [Robert Plot,] The Natural History of Oxfordshire, Oxford, 1677, ch. viii. § 30, p. 203. '^ Articles of Visitation . . Martin\Benson\Bishopof Glocester,G\oce^te.r,R?Skes, 1750, p. 3- 2 Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, London, Nichols, 1801, vol. ii. p. 165. ROGA TIONTIDE. 2 3 1 the Prayer Book for Te Deum. They do not seem, therefore, to have followed the Elizabethan directions that they should sing the two psalms that begin Benedic anima mea, that is, the 103rd and 104th, with the litany and suffrages, that is the latter part of the litany be- ginning with the Lord's Prayer.^ Late in the eighteenth century an inhabitant of Ripon sets down amongst other local customs : Some time in the spring, I think the day before Holy Thursday, all the clergy, attended by the singing men and boys of the choir, perambulate the town in their canonicals, singing hymns ; and the blue-coat charity- boys follow, singing, with green boughs in their hands. ^ It will be noticed how like the ceremonial at Ripon is to that at Wolverhampton. The gospel trees are alluded to by Herrick : Dearest, bury me Under that Holy-oak or Gospel-tree Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon Me, when thou yearly go'st procession.^ Writing certainly before 1813, possibly as early as 1795, Brand says : In London, these parochial processions are still kept up on Holy Thursday.* They were in existence in the City of London in 1870. It seems plain from what has been quoted above that these pro- cessions in the eighteenth century had a distinct religious character ; shown by the canticles, the hymns, the psalms, the reading of a gospel by the clergyman ; and thus while the definition of the parish bound- aries was not forgotten, a blessing on the fruits of the earth was asked, and the vengeance of God deprecated, as Bourne has said. It may be doubted if nowadays any thought of deprecating the vengeance of God would be allowed by the school of Dr. Gore. More than once, in proposals for revision of the Prayer Book, coming from this quarter, the last verses of Venite which speak of the wrath of God have been struck out : and yet the whole of this 1 Henry Gee and W. J. Hardy, Documents illustrative of English Church History, Macmillan, 1896, Document LXXXI, p. 472. ^ Gentleman^ Magazine, 1790, vol. Ix. p. 719, Aug. 18, Signed ; Riponiensis. 'Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 55, in Works, ed. A. W. Pollard, London, Lawrence and Bullen, 1898, vol. i. p. 22. * John Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, ed. Henry Ellis, London, 1813, vol. i. p. 169, note. 232 KEEPING OF SUN DA Y. Invitatory Psalm has been sung for centuries before Mattins with- out offence. The same idea of asking a blessing on the products of the sea as well as on the fruits of the earth was to be found in the Isle of Man, not necessarily expressed at the Rogations. The' Herrings are taken all round this Island, yet the main Body of the Fisher-Boats goes out from Port Iron, where the Fishermen are attended by a Clergyman, who joins with them in a solemn Form of Prayer, on the Sea-side, to Almighty God, that he will be pleased to favour their Under- taking, and bless their Nets with Plenty.^ Mr. Pepys observes on May 23, 1661 that Ascension Day was kept as a holiday throughout the town ; but this practice must very soon have been given up, for the Swedish chaplain, in 1683, though pleased with many things in the Church ; of England, yet is astonished at the neglect of Ascension Day with us.^ Keeping of Sunday. The keeping of Sunday during our period varied greatly. There seem to have been two schools ; one, of much severity, keep- ing Sunday like a Jewish Sabbath, no relaxation or recreation being permitted ; and the other, treating the day almost as if it were any other day ; amusements, such as card playing, being allowed by some, but servile work being forbidden. Between these two extremes many stages may be found. It is much to be wished that one of the Puritan school had left behind him a book on Sabbatical Casuistry, to tell us what may be or may not be done on " the Sabbath " in the opinion of his sect. It is not to be supposed that the laws of Massachusetts were ever enforced in their rigour in England during our period ; but Sir Matthew Hale wrote out in 1662 a set of Directions for keeping the Lords Day which were to be observed in his family and which are sufficiently severe. Here he gives his opinion upon what may be allowed on Sunday ; first, works of absolute necessity, amongst which he reckons stopping the breach of a sea wall, milking cows, setting a broken bone, dressing meat. But he adds : If a rick of Hay be on fire, I may endeavour to quench it on the Lord's Day : but if my Corn be cut, and lying abroad upon the ground on the ' George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works, no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 159. ^Miscellanea, comprising the Works and Letters of Dennis Granville, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171. KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 233 Saturday, though the weather be rainy, or inclining to wet, I may not make it into Cocks, or fetch it home upon the Lord's Day.^ It is hard to see the underlying difference. And he forbids recreation : I would not have you meddle with any Recreations, Pastimes, or or- dinary work of your Calling, from Saturday-night at eight of the Clock, till Monday-morning.''' So a little further on : In all your speeches or actions of this day, let there be no Lightness nor Vanity ; use no Running, or Leaping, or Playing, or Wrestling ; use no Jesting, nor telling of Tales or foolish Stories, no talk about worldly business ; but let your actions and speech be such as the day is, serious and sacred.^ Here is very marked the strict control derived from the ideas of the Puritan Sabbath. Sunday is to be a day of gloom. You are to behave all Sunday as you behave at a funeral. But on the other hand, immediately after the Restoration the Oxford dons seem to have thought it good policy to discourage Puritanism, and to suppress an over-strict Sabbatarian observance of the Sunday ; which efforts are thus described : And, that they might go just antipodes to the intervall time, not to hinder, to indulg or connive • walking or sports or drinking on the Lord's day ; — to connive or pass, not to punish, swearing or drunken- ness or wenching.* * ♦ * the strictness of the Lord's day was mitigated, that is to say that people might loyter about the streets in sermon time, sit upon benches and bulks and talke idely, walk or ride into the feilds, drink in taverns and alehouses, etc., — all of which were accounted damnable in the intervall.* The interval means the usurpation. In the same direction we have Cosin treating of the Ten Com- mandments and the breaking of the Fourth : Offenders against the Fourth Commandment. « * * 2. They that set themselves to needless, worldly and servile affairs upon the Sunday. ^[Sir Matthew Hale,] Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, Shrewsbury, 1676, in Directions for keeping the Lords Day, p. 85. 'ibid. p. 86. s jj;^. p. gg. ^ The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 356. ^ibid. p. 359. 234 KEEPING OF SUNDAY. 6. They that, under a pretence of serving God more strictly than others, (especially for hearing and meditating of Sermons,) do, by their Fasts and certain Judaizing observations, condemn the joyful Festivity of this High and Holy day, which the Church allows, first for the spiritual Exercises of the Soul ; and then for the lawful and convenient recreation of the Body in due time.^ This latter paragraph is an attack upon the Puritan practice. Dr. Wetenhall, also writing near Puritan times, in his popular Enter into thy closet allows on Sunday walking in the fields^ as a recreation : this was to the Puritan only one of many forms of Sabbath breaking. Robert Nelson says we keep the Lord's day by Setting it apart for the Exercises of Religious Duties, both in Publick and Private ; abstaining from the Works of our ordinary Calling, or any other worldly Affairs and Recreations, which may hinder our attendance upon the Worship of God, and are not reconcilable with solemn Assemblies, and may defeat those Ends for which the Day was separated from common uses.' So farther on we are warned to take care that no Sowerness or Moroseness mingle with our serious frame of Mind.* To return to what was actually done. Anthony Wood complains in 1679 that the Mayor of Oxford, Robert Pauling, prohibits coffee to be sold on Sunday, which Dr. Nicholas, vice-chan- cellor, prohibited onlie till after evening prayer, viz. till five of the clock ; but this R. Pauling hath been bred up a Puritan.* Coffee houses were much resorted to in Oxford at this time, and it may be supposed that the prohibition of cofifee spoken of is the closing of the coffee houses on Sunday. Here we have again the contrast between the two schools. In 171 5 the Vice-Chancellor and Hearne paid a visit to the Schools Tower on a Sunday and inspected documents.^ It may be noticed that good Mr. Evelyn made a journey on a Sunday in which he accompanied Lord Essex to Cassiobury. ^ John Cosin, A Collection of Private Devotions, London, Royston, 1681. ^ [E. Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet, London, Martyn, 1672, 4th ed. p. 210. 3 Robert Nelson, A Companion for the Feastivals and Fasis of the Church of Eng- land, London, Churchill, 1705, 3rd ed. p. 14 (under Lord's Day). ^ibid. p. 20. '' Life and Times of Anthony Wood, edited by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 463. "Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1901, vol. v. p. 109. KEEPING OF SUNDA V. 235 (April 18, 1680.) Going early they arrived at the house at ten, but thought it too late to go to church ; so they had prayers in the chapel. This most worthy man gives a charming description of the way in which Mrs. Godolphin spent her Sundays : How would this Lady rejoyce att the approach of the Lord's day. She has often told me she felt another soule in her ; and that there was nothing more afflicted her than those impertinent visitts on Sunday Even- ings, which she avoided with all imaginable industry ; whilst yett seldome did she pass one without goeing to visitt, pray by, or instruct some poor religious Creature or other, tho' it were to the remotest part of the Towne ; and sometymes, if the season were inviteing, walke into the fields or Gardens to contemplate the workes of God. In a word, she was allwayes soe solemnly chearfuU upon that day, and soe devout, that without lookeing into the Kalendar, one might have read it in her countenance. Thus was the Sunday taken up in prayers, hearing, receiveing, meditateing on the word and workes of God, acts of Charity, and other holy exercises, without the least formalitye or confusion ; because she had cast all her affairs into such a method, as rendered it delightfull as well as holy.i Passing into the eighteenth century we may consider the more reasonable episcopal pronouncements of the time. In 1 710 Dr. Fleetwood, when Bishop of St. Asaph, spoke well of the Book of Sports, which is the more remarkable as he has the reputation of being a Low Churchman and a Whig. The Book of Sports it self, (which was but a Declaration put out by James I. and afterwards unhappily reviv'd in the Day of K. Charles, his Son) as odious, and licentious as it was esteem'd, did yet prescribe such Rules, as I should be glad were now observ'd, in some places, in Honour of the Lords-Day.^ He then recounts the restrictions, as obliging presence at Divine Service, while the sports did not begin till after Evening Prayer. Dr. Seeker in his second charge as Bishop of Oxford in 1 741, insists upon the joyful character of the Christian Sunday. And therefore, though one would not by any Means make their Day of Rest wearisome, nor forbid Cheerfulness, and even innocent Festivity upon it, much less the Expressions of neighbourly Civility and Good-will, which are indeed a valuable Part of the gracious Ends of the Institution : yet employing a reasonable Share of it seriously at Home as well as at Church, and preserving an especial Reverence of God even throughout the freer Hours of it.' ijohn Evelyn, The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 171. ''■Articles of Enquiry exhibited by . . . William [Fleetwood] Lord Bishop of St. Asaph, 1710, no printer, p. 39. ^Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, Rivington, 1771, p. 75. 236 KEEPING OF SUNDA V. In an Instruction for Sunday morning, Dr. Thomas Wilson, the saint-like Bishop of Sodor and Man, speaks thus : It is your duty, therefore, on this good day, to lay aside, as much as possible, all worldly business, all worldly thoughts, all worldly pleasures, that you may honour your Creator to the best of your power : — by owning your dependance upon Him ; by hearing His Word and His commands ; by asking His blessings, and giving Him thanks for His favours. ^ The same bishop in his Instruction to Indians has this question and answer : Lid. ' How is the Lord's day profaned ? ' Miss. By . . . idleness and trifling conversation ; unnecessary business and journeys ; and by vain sports and gaming, unbecoming the seriousness of the day and of Christianity.^ This bishop is more inclined to take up a severe attitude to- wards the keeping of Sunday than some of his brethren. Following is an interesting reason for allowing ourselves to call Sunday the Christian Sabbath : because Our Lord rested from the work of our salvation on that day. And the resurrection of Christ, wherein he rested from all the labours of his love towards mankind, and finished the great work which his Father had given him to do, being the great evidence of our spiritual and eternal redemption by him ; it was very reasonable that the Jewish sabbath should withdraw, and give place to the day, when old things were done away, and all things thus became new, in virtue of his resurrection.^ The Rev. Moses Browne, who is said to have been the chief poetical contributor to the Gentleman s Magazine of his time, was not prepared to enforce a Judaizing law for Sunday, so as to for- bid walking in the fields on that day. These are his verses : away ! ye gloom'd O'er-rigid race ! ^'(\^ pharisees in creed I Who gospel-saints by sabbatary forms Would bind ; that vassalage of legal rest.* Even now, when the University in England has become an agnostic institution, it may be doubted if a convocation would be held at Oxford on a Sunday. Yet in 1759 a letter from the King 1 Thomas Wilson, Plain and Short Directions and Prayers, in Works, Anglo- Catholic Library, Oxford, Parker, vol. iv. p. 109. 2 Thomas Wilson, The Knowledge and Practice of Christianity, Part II. Dialogue xiii. in Works, as above, vol. iv. p. 239. 'Richard Fiddes, Theologia Practica : or, the second part of a body of divinity, London, Bernard Lintot, 1720. Introduction, p. viii. * Moses Browne, Sunday Thoughts, London, 1750, Part ii. p. 49. KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 237 of Prussia was " On Sunday last read to the doctors and masters in full convocation".^ In the eighteenth century the University of Oxford was part of the Church of England, and in its practice may be held to represent the teaching of that Church. For it should be remembered that throughout our period the two Uni- versities of Oxford and Cambridge were part and parcel of the Church of England. Later on, these ancient bodies underwent, at the hands of the nineteenth century parliaments, changes far greater than they had ever before experienced in the sixteenth century. A popular novel that went through at least six editions attri- butes the following opinions to a devout nobleman : My Lord is of opinion that Sunday was intended as a day of rejoicing, not of mortification. and a little farther on : It is worth observing that the book of sports was put forth by the pious, the religious, the sober Charles the First ; and the law for the more strict observation of Sunday passed in the reign of the libertine Charles the Second.^ To turn now to the practice of people that thought themselves fashionable. On Sunday the Hon. Mrs. Osborn writing from Bath in 1721, says she goes " to Church and to return all my Visits".^ So Miss Burney (Madame D'Arblay) tells us that in 1778 Mrs. Montagu invited all to a house warming on Easter Day.* Further, in June 1 780 the same diarist records that being at Bath with Mrs. Thrale one Sunday, the Bishop of Peterborough, who must then have been Dr. Hinchcliffe, " proposed a frolic " after dinner, which was, to go and drink tea at Spring Gardens. Mrs. Thrale found she had invited a number of people to her house for the afternoon. So that here we have a Bishop enjoying a " frolic " on a Sunday and Mrs. Thrale, without any suspicion of causing scandal, entertaining a large party of friends on the same day.* A Sunday shortly after, Miss Burney attends a large party at Mrs. Byron's.^ These large parties on Sundays may be contrasted with the ' Annual Register, 1759, August, seventh edition, London, 1783, p. 105. ^ The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, a new edition, London, Dodsley [1763], vol. i. pp. 180, 181. ^ Mrs. Sarah Osborn, Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the eighteenth century, 1721-1771, Griffith Farran, about i8go, p. 21. * Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, London, Colburn, 1842, vol. i. p. 126, "■ ibid, pp. 369-371. ^ ibid. p. 390. 238 KEEPING OF SUNDAY. scruples of the mid-nineteenth century. Lady Palmerston, during the zenith of her husband's power, had assemblies on the Saturday evenings, and the papers were careful to record that the company separated shortly before midnight. But it is clear that the non-observance of Sunday went much farther than giving tea parties on that day. Dr. Home, the Bishop of Norwich, sarcastically observes that The idea of a Sunday, unenlivened by a little innocent play, is a very dull and dreary one.^ In a number of the Rambler (No. 10.) ascribed to Mrs. Chapone we read : Lady Racket sends compliments to the Rambler, and lets him know, she shall have cards at her house every Sunday. In No. 100. attributed to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the translator of Epictetus, she implores the Rambler to enlarge on the very ex- tensive benefit of playing at cards on. Sunday. No. 30. also attributed to another pen than Johnson's, speaks in the name of Sunday ; but would appear to aim at a Via media, not Puritan, nor continental. From Dublin it was reported that a lady of considerable rank gave card parties and drums on Sunday evenings. But a number of gentlemen stopped a Sedan chair going to the party, and told the occupant she was a very wicked woman to play cards on the Sunday.^ It may be asked did not the party of gentlemen commit an offence, according to their own rules, in stopping a Sedan chair on a Sunday ? It needs a mind of much acuteness and experience in casuistry to find reason why one thing like card playing should be wrong, yet another kind of amusement, as music, be lawful. Thus the other stricter side of Sunday observance makes itself felt. William Law's asceticism appears in his treatment of Sunday amusements. He says : Not only you, but the Generality of Readers, would think it very improper, and contrary to Piety, to read Plays on the Sundays? But it is to be remembered that William Law held all kinds of stage performances to be forbidden to Christians ; so that the reading of a play would very likely be as sinful as going to the theatre. ' Olla Podrida, No. 29, sec. ed. London, Dilly, 1788, p. 289. 'Annual Register, 1760, March i, seventh ed. Dodsley, 1789, Chronicle, p. 87. ' William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. x. ed. J. J. Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, 1902, p. 266. KEEPING OF SUNDAY. 239 The behaviour of the half pious people on Sunday may be told us by William Law : If you visit Flavia on the Sunday, you will always meet good company, you will know what is doing in the world, you will hear the last lampoon, be told who wrote it, and who is meant by every name that is in it. . . . Flavia thinks they are Atheists that play at cards on the Sunday, but she will tell you the nicety of all the games, what cards she held, ho^^&playd them, and the history of all that happened at play as soon as she comes from Church. . . . But still she has so great a regard for the holiness of the Sunday, that she has turned a poor old widow out of her house, as a pro- phane wretch, for having been found once mending her cloaths on the Sunday night. 1 Parson Adams expresses great horror at gaming for as much as a whole guinea, which might perhaps be allowed in holiday times ; but worse appears : the holy Sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings ; and card-playing goes on as publicly then as on any other day.^ In the celebrated Brown's Estimate, the author, dealing with the observance of Sunday, says To suppose a Man of Fashion swayed in his Conduct by a Regard to Futurity is an Affront to the Delicacy and Refinement of his Taste. Hence the Day set apart by the Laws of his Country for religious Service he derides and affronts as a vulgar and obsolete Institution.^ How far we may ask does this tirade represent the real state of affairs ? For almost in the next page he asks Why in an Age of Irreligion, so capital a Book as the ^Vritings of Lord Bolingbroke, met with so cold a Reception in the World ? It will be suggested that the answer may be that the age was not so irreligious as Dr. Brown more than insinuated. A journalist satirically remarks that The Red-letter days pointed out in our common Almanacks may perhaps be observed by some formal ladies, who regulate their going to church by them ; but people of quality percieve no difference between the Moveable and Immoveable Feasts and Fasts, and know no use of Sunday but as it serves to call them to the card-table.* He has already said that ^ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, ch. vii. sixth edition, London, Innys and Richardson, 1753, p. 97. 2 Henry Fielding, The True Patriot, Tuesday, January 28, 1746, in Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 115. ^John Brown, /I » estimate of the manners and principles of the times, London, i757> sec. ed. vol. i. sect. vi. p. 54. * Connoisseur, No. gg, Dec. 18, 1755, p. 5g6. 2 40 KEEPING OF SUN DA Y. Going to church may indeed be reckoned among our Sunday amuse- ments.^ Dr. Robert Bolton, Dean of Carlisle, was born in 1697 and died in 1763, and he may be looked upon as a strict upholder of Puritan principles in the keeping of the Sunday. He does not seem to allow of a walk on the Sunday.^ He forbids card playing on a Sunday,^ but this restriction is not unusual. Already in Hannah More's time it was positively held unlawful to listen to music on a Sunday. A note from her dated Farn- borough Place, 1777, says: On Sunday evening, however, I was a little alarmed ; they were pre- paring for music (sacred music was the ostensible thing) but before I had time to feel uneasy, Garrick turned round, and said, ' Nine, you are a Sunday woman ; retire to your room — I will recal you when the music is over.'* " Nine" was a nickname given Hannah More by Garrick. The very idea of music on a Sunday was enough to drive her to her room. Queen Charlotte in 1761 held a Court on Sundays after service: On Sunday we went to Court again, as every Thursday and Sunday a large reception of both ladies and gentlemen is held by the Queen. ^ And King George the Third was in the habit of holding a re- ception at Windsor on Sunday while a band played. In a letter from Sir James Stonhouse, baronet, physician, and priest, to Miss Sarah More, the sister of Hannah More, dated Oct. 17, 1791, he speaks thus : The music on the terrace on Sundays is pregnant with evil from Wind- sor to London ; it infects all the neighbourhood ten miles round Windsor, and oh ! what an irreligious example to the youths of Eton ! ^ This brings us to the often repeated story of an Archbishop of Canterbury being reprimanded by King George the Third for giving entertainments on Sunday at Lambeth. This at least is the usual ' Connoisseur, No. 26, July 25, 1754, p. 154. ^ Robert Bolton, A Letter to an Officer . . . on travelling on Sundays, London, Rivington, 1757, p. 27. ^ idem, A Letter . . . on Card Playing on the Lord's Day, London, Leake, 1748. ^Memoirs of . . . Mrs. Hannah More, edited by William Roberts, Seeley, 1834, vol. i. p. 113. * Count Frederick Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England in the years 1761- 62, Longmans, 1902, p. 27. '• Memoirs . . . of Mrs. Hannah More, ed. by William Roberts, sec. ed. Seeley, 1834, vol. ii. p. 283. KEEPING OF SUNDAY. 241 interpretation of the letter. But there are difficulties in the way of accepting this interpretation. In the first place, in the letter the text of which is relied upon for this statement, there is no mention of Sunday at all. Secondly, the objections of the King apply rather to the introductions of " routs," that is, soirees, or evening assemblies, into the seclusion of an archiepiscopal house, which the King says has been devoted for centuries to divine studies, religious retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence. Such recep- tions, though in the nineteenth century these were thought harmless enough in a bishop's house, yet to the feeling of the King, were very objectionable. It does not appear from any part of the letter that it was the day that offended the King's sense of the fitness of things, but the place in which the entertainments were held. We know also the King's own contrary Sunday practice at Windsor, Weymouth, and Kensington, from which the remonstrances of Dr. Porteous and Dr. Barrington, the Bishops of London and Durham, could not move him. Here is the evidence of a writer who appears to have some private sources of information : A good deal has been said in recent discussions on the Sunday amuse- ment controversy, of King George's Sunday bands at Kensington and on the Weymouth esplanade ; and these have generally been cited only as instances of the laxer usage of that time, under so religious a sovereign. But the truth is that the King upheld these practices with all his decision of character, and against a good deal of opposition. It is said that he was countenanced in them by Bishop Douglas, the only clergyman who after the death of Hurd appears to have had much influence with him. The story ran that he consulted Douglas as to the propriety of Sunday amusements, at the time when Bishops Porteous and Barrington were endeavouring to re- strain them. Douglas told him not to mind them, ' for the first was a Methodist, and the last only followed the first.' Porteous, who objected to the ' Sunday esplanade ' at Weymouth, is said to have made the King so angry that he would not speak to him for some days.^ The following text of the royal letter comes neither from the King nor the Archbishop ; but, thanks to the kindness of the Rev. Claude Jenkins, Librarian at Lambeth Palace, it is taken from a printed quarto sheet of four pages belonging to Miss D. F. Ellison, whereon is given a letter purporting to be written by Dr. John Jebb, who was Bishop of Limerick from 1822 to 1833. The letter is dated Feb. 1808, and deals with the impropriety of clergymen ^ George III, and Charles James Fox, in the Quarterly Review, 1859, vol. cv. p. 479 note. 16 442 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. being present at fashionable amusements. On p. 4, after Dr. Jebb's letter, is printed this letter from King George the Third. Earlier than this printed sheet I have been unable to trace the King's letter. I cannot help expressing some of the hesitation which I should feel if called upon to accept the text as authentic. My good Lord Primate, I could not delay giving you the notification of the grief and concern with which my breast was affected, at receiving authentic informa- rion that routs had made their way into your palace. At the same time I must signify to you my sentiments on this subject, which hold these levities and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a residence, for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious retire- ment, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence ; I add, in a place where so many of your predecessors have led their lives in such sanctity as has thrown lustre on the pure religion they professed and adorned. From the dissatisfaction with which you must perceive I behold these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and in still more pious principles, I trust you will suppress them immediately : so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of my displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. May God take your Grace into His Almighty protection ! I remain, my Lord Primate, Your gracious friend, G. R.i In like manner King Lewis the Sixteenth rebuked the Arch- bishop of Narbonne for offences far greater than any suggested in the foregoing letter. The censure had a precedent a thousand years old. Charles the Great used to deal very freely with his bishops and abbots. Kings and members of Royal Families are more often the subjects of myth than common folk. It is said, for example, that Quicunque Vult being in due course recited before King George the Third, he shut the book with such emphasis and such gesture of disapproval that the chaplains never again dared to recite the symbol in his presence. The following seems a more trustworthy account, being furnished by Dr. Heberden, physician to the King and Queen. The clergyman there, on a day when the Athanasian Creed was to be read, began with Whosoever will be saved, &c. ; the King, who usually ^ The letteris also printed in some of the lives of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, who claims to have moved the King to write the letter, as a protest against Sunday amusements at Lambeth. {Life and Times, London, Painter, 1844, vol. ii. p. 283. Also Sarah Tytler, The Countess of Huntingdon and her circle, London, Sir Isaac Pitman, 1907, p. 125.) KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 243 responded with a loud voice, was silent ; the minister repeated, in a higher tone, his Whosoever ; the King continued silent ; and at length the Apostle's •}• Creed was repeated by the minister, and the King followed him throughout with a distinct and audible voice. ^ The reasonable interpretation is that the King could not find the place. We often see this in congregations at the present time. It must be owned that the rules set down for the keeping of Sunday by many authors seem arbitrary, and not easy to explain consistently upon any good grounds. If we regard the Fourth Commandment as binding upon Christians as it was upon Jews, then the position held by Sir Matthew Hale is intelligible, except that Sunday is not Saturday. If with Thorndike we conclude that Sunday is not of divine ordination, but is solely a matter of eccle- siastical observance,^ it will be a troublesome matter to draw a line dividing lawful from unlawful relaxations and amusements. Dr. Johnson, as ever, was not consistent in his opinions on the way in which Sunday should be kept. A friend, Mrs. Thrale tells us, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted (said he) to dance and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness. Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir (continued he), provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity without reaping the reward of superior virtue." ^ It seems as if this remark had been provoked by the speech of the visitor who cried out on the abominable crime of catching birds on a Sunday ; for nearly all that we have of Johnson's conversation when he was not excited by his love of contradiction is in favour of keeping a strict Sunday. Thus about bird catching Boswell reports : Dr. Johnson enforced the strict observance of Sunday. " It should be different (he observed) from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. "There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity."^ ' Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, London, Cadell & Davies, 1817, p. 243. ^ Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xxi. § ig, in Theo- logical Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1853, Vol. IV. part ii. p. 497. ^Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Hesther Lynch Piozzi, second ed. London, Cadell, 1786, p. 228. ' J. Boswell, journal of a tour to the Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773. 16 * 244 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. Much the same is the purport of another dictum. He said he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom, but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour. '^ Later on he said to Bosw^ell : I do not like to read anything on a Sunday, but what is theological ; not that I would scrupulously refuse to look at anything which a friend should shew me in a newspaper ; but in general, I would read only what is theological.^ and on another day : Sunday (said he) was a heavy day to me when I was a boy. My mother confined me on that day, and made me read ' The Whole Duty of Man.' 2 No one makes any claim for Good Friday that the observance of the day is of divine obHgation ; yet Boswell notes : I observed that he would not even look at a proof-sheet of his Life of Waller on Good Friday. . . He, however, observed, that formerly there might have been a dis- pensation obtained for working on Sunday in the time of harvest. Indeed in ritual observances, were all the ministers of religion what they should be, and what many of them are, such a power might be wisely and safely lodged with the Church.* If the observance of Sunday be a part of the divine law^, the Church cannot dispense with the observance, as Johnson here says it might ; if so, it follows that Sunday is only an ecclesiastical holiday, according to Johnson. Much in the same way Ralph Thoresby, who was prosecuted for nonconformity in 1683, yet in 1678 enters in his Diary of February : 23. Die Dom. Constrained utterly against my mind to travel from Royston to Stamford, though the Lord's day ; but either do so, or be left upon the road about a hundred miles from home and not knowing a foot of the way.^ This is some evidence that a non-conforming Puritan did not consider the obligation on Sunday to abstain from travelling to be of divine obligation : for if it were, he should have suffered any inconvenience rather than break a divine command. Christmas is only an ecclesiastical festival, and travelling may not be thought forbidden on the day. Yet Fielding introduces ^ Boswell's Life of Johnson, September, 1769, vol. ii. p. 72. 'i James Boswell, fourndl of a tour to the Hebrides, October 17, 1773. 3 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 67. "^ibid. April 17, 1778. s The diary of Ralph Thoresby, ed. Joseph Hunter, London, 1830, vol. i. p. 13. KEEPING OF SUNDA V. 245 Parson Adams describing a mere boy who, after his kind, pretends to every vice conceivable : [Mr. Wilson] asked our spark when he left London ? To which he answered, the Wednesday before. 'How, Sir,' said I, 'travel on Christ- mas-day?' 'Was it so,' says he, 'fags! that's more than I knew; but why not travel on Christmas-day as well as any other ? ' ' Why not ? ' said I, lifting my voice ; for I had lost all patience. ' Was you not brought up in the Christian religion ? Did you never learn your catechism ? ' ^ Fags is most likely the same as Ifegs, which N.E.D. says is used by i8th century dramatists as a trivial oath, by my faith. Yet some thirty years later a beneficed clergyman thinks he causes no scandal by openly leaving his parish for London as soon as the duty of the Sunday is over. The Rev. Stotherd Abdy, Rector of Cookersale, who died in 1773, has left behind him a journal of a visit from Essex into Berkshire. It begins : On Sunday Sept. 9th 1770, as soon as the Evening Service was over, Mrs Abdy and myself set off Post for Saville Row, and came to Sir Anthony's Door there, soon after seven. ^ The next Sunday they had a drive ; we "read the Newspapers, chatted over our Letters, and made Bouts rimh verses, till we were called to supper ''. Bouts rim^s were a degenerate kind of wit, only the two final rhymes being given, and the rest of the verse had to be supplied by the society poet. After supper, as the ladies resolved to be dumb, the evening was spent somewhat hilariously ; what was called in 1 870 a bear fight followed (a kind of entertainment during which it could be looked for that the two front teeth might be knocked out), glasses of water thrown over gentlemen's legs, ladies' caps and hats pulled off, and the like.' Let us compare this travelling on Sunday and merry making with the ideas of Miss Austen, who thinks a young woman well advised to reject a suitor because She saw that there had been bad habits ; that Sunday travelling had been a common thing.* It would seem that we must conclude that in the latter half of the eighteenth century in some clerical circles travelling on Sundays was thought quite allowable ; in others, scandalous. ' The true Patriot, No. 10, Tuesday, January 28, 1746, in Fielding's Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 117. ''Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family, London, Constables, 1907, vol. ii. p. 118, ch. V. ^ibid., p. 127. * Jane Austen, Persuasion, ch. xvii. It is said to have been written between 1811 and 1816. 246 KEEPING OF SUNDA V. Boswell put a case of conscience to Johnson concerning con- sultations on Sunday. Much the same conclusion is arrived at as before that the obligation to keep Sunday may be dispensed. I asked Johnson whether I might go to a consultation with another lawyer upon Sunday, as that appeared to me to be doing work as much in my way, as if an artisan should work on the day appropriated for religious rest. Johnson. ' Why, Sir, when you are of consequence enough to oppose the practice of consulting upon Sunday, you should do it : but you may go now. It is not criminal, though it is not what one should do, who is anxious for the preservation and increase of piety, to which a peculiar ob- servance of Sunday is a great help. The distinction is clear between what is of moral and what is of ritual obligation.' ^ Johnson on his deathbed made three requests to Sir Joshua Reynolds : The second demand was that Sir Joshua should not paint on Sundays. To this a small degree of hesitation appeared, but however no positive objec- tion was made.^ This request, if regarded by Johnson as of moral obligation, does not seem consistent with his opinion offered to Boswell, for the moral law is immutable and cannot be dispensed with ; but the ecclesiastical law can be dispensed by the same authority that enacted it. No school in this matter seems to have been quite consistent during our period. One sign of the coming reaction against the Evangelical Sab- batarianism is given in a pamphlet on Church Reform published in 1834. The writer allows sober and temperate amusements after service on Sunday.^ From a review of what is known of the observance of Sunday in our period it would seem just to infer that throughout all the early part of it, until towards the end of the eighteenth century. Church people kept the Sunday in two ways ; one set allowing re- laxation and amusements after attendance at church ; the other for- bidding all amusements, limiting reading to the Bible, or theolog- ical books, and making the day gloomy. Towards 1 800 this latter party got a complete upper hand, and their domination lasted to the end of our period and beyond. ^ BosweWs Life of Johnson, May 12, 1775. ''■Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, J. Walker, 1785, p. 181. '' Montagu Robert Melville, Reform not subversion I u Proposed Book of Common Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. 88. APPENDICES TO CHAPTER VII. APPENDIX I. DESCRIPTION OF THE KING'S MAUNDY, WASHING OF THE FEET, DISTRIBUTION OF CLOTHES, ALMS, AND FISH. [From British Museum, Harl. MS. 3795.] f. 28.] The service to be don on Maundy thursday by the Lord Bishop Almoner. 1. Scaffolds and boxes to be made round the roome and an high scaffold for the gentlemen of the Chappell with a moveable organ. 2. The Lords who dine with the Lord Almoner bring him into his chaire the subalmoner attending on him, both girt about with linen, and a linen Towell in the fa,shion of a Doctors Tippet ; The Lord Almoner taking his chaire with a deske before him, kneeles downe ; The gentlemen of the chappell begin prayers ; The exhortation, confession, with a proper psalme, for the worke of the day ; Then part of the 13th chapter of St. John, from ist verse to the i8th. When the chapter is read, the Lord Almoner marches downe to the first poore man, takes a sprigg of Hysop, and Sprinckles the water on his foot, wipes it with his Towell, and kisses it, and does all this kneeling ; soe to every poore man in his order, then returnes to his seate, after which an Anthem is sung. 3. After the Anthem the 2nd offering is brought in, vizt. the stockings and shoes by the Guard in theire rich coates ; the sub-almoner taking it from the guard, and delivers it to the Lord Almoner, and he bestowes it to every poore man, after this, another Anthem. 4. That service don, the Wardrobe brings in theire clothes, linen and woollen ; after that the Anthem. 5. That service don, the clerkes of the Treasury bring in their purses : first, white purses, in every purse 3 1 single pence ; then red purses in every one of them 20s. The sub-almoner takes all gives it to the Lord Almoner : soe after every service the Lord Almoner returnes to his seate, then an Anthem. f. 29.] 6. After this then the Guard brings in a jowle of Linge, a jowle of Salmon, and some Herings, to every poore body, the sub-almoner taking 247 248 APPENDIX I. TO CHAPTER VII. it and gives it to the Lord Almoner, and he to the poore ; then is read the 25th chapter of St Matthew begining 14th verse ; and soe reade to the end of the chapter : After that the blessing is pronounced. Then the Lord Almoner calls for Wine and drinkes to all the poore the Kings health, and bids them * againe be thankeful to God and the King. f 2gi.] Maundy Service. ' scored through. APPENDIX 11. ROGATION PROCESSIONS AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. [Bodleian MS. Tanner 30. f. 23.] Directions for my Brethren of the Clergy that shall officiate in the Perambulations. iBy William [Lloyd] Lord Bishop of S. Asaph. A.D. 1686.1 On every day of perambulation, the Incumbent or Curate, and the Church- Wardens and other parishioners, that are to make the perambula- tion, are to meet together at the Parish Church or Chappel, and there to have the prayers appointed for the day : or in case the perambulation that day will be so large that they cannot well afford time for the full Prayers, yet at least the Minister ought to begin there with the Confession, Absolu- tion and Lord's Prayer; and for all the rest of the office for Morning Prayer, he may bring it in, in parts, at the severall standings in the peram- bulation, together with the Psalms and Hymns, and Lessons and Prayers that are here recommended for this Purpose. At every Standing there ought to be used one or more Psalms, or Hymns, a Lesson or Epistle and Gospell, or one of the three Creeds, or the ten Commandements, and one or more of the following Collects or Prayers. There may be fewer or more according to the time. In one Standing where there is a more remarkable bound to be remem- bred, it is very fitt that there the Minister should hear one of the Children or of the others there present, say his Catechism, or some part of it ; as either the Creed, or Commandements, or the Doctrine of Sacraments, etc. And in one of the most remarkable Standings it will be fitt to use the Litany ; especially if the perambulation should be upon a Wednesday or a Friday, because the Church requires the use of the Litany on those days. For Psalms to be used in the perambulation, beside the 9Sth, 96th, 67th and the looth, which are used in the office of Common Prayer; I [^"^ this note in Sancroft's hand.'] 249 2SO APPENDIX II. TO CHAPTER VII. think fitt to recommend these that follow, i, 8, 15, 19, 23, 24, 33, 34, 37. 65. 103. 104. 107. 133. 144, 145. 147, 148. For Hymns I recommend the use of the Te Deum, and the Benedicite. For Collects and Epistles and Gospells, those that are appointed in the Church for the ist and 2d Sunday in Advent; For the 2d, 3d, 4th, sth, or 6th Sunday after Epiphany : For Septuagesima, Sexagesima or Quin- quagesima : For the 3d Sunday in Lent or the sth Sunday after Easter : For the ist Sunday after Trinity ; or for any other Sunday after Trinity, especially the 4th or the Sth. Of all these Collects, Epistles, and Gospells, there may be used one at a Standing, such as the Minister shall chuse. I also recommend the read- ing of that part of the Gospell, Math. 6. 24, till the end of the Chapter; or the Parable of the sower, Math. 13, from the ist to the 9th verse ; with our Saviour's Interpretation from the i8th till the 23d verse. Other such parts of Scripture the Minister may chuse at his discretion. But whatso- ever Lesson he reads it will be fitt to use the Collect of the 2d Sunday in Advent after that which he has read. For Prayers (beside the Litany as before-mentioned) it will be fitt to use the Prayers, or Thanksgivings, for rain, or for fair weather as there shall be Occasion ; also the Collect or Prayer for all Conditions of men, and the generall Thanksgiving ; Also the Thanksgiving for Peace and Deliverance from our Enemies, and the Thanksgiving for restoring public peace. In the end of Every day of perambulation, the Minister ought to bring the People to Church with him, and there to read the Evening Prayer if the time will permitt ; or at least to read the last part of it, from the 2d Lord's Prayer to the Blessing. (f. 23b) I am sensible of the great Inconveniences that happen, and the differences that often arise through the neglect of those yearly peram- bulations which the Law has required to be made in every parish by the Incumbent and Church- Wardens and other parishioners. I therefore re- quire you to perform your Duty according to Law every year, and this year particularly in going your self if you are able, or otherwise in getting one that is able to goe for you with your Wardens and other parishioners over all the bounds of your parish, and especially those that are doubtfuU, to the end that they may be kept in memory, if they are not allready quite forgotten. And I desire you to perform this as becometh Christians, with Prayer and Thanksgiving to God, and with usefull Lessons and Admonitions to those that shall walk the bounds with you. For which purpose I desire you to gett your self a Copy of the Directions that I have sent to the Rurall Deans for this purpose, and to observe those Directions in your peram- bulation. APPENDIX II. TO CHAPTER VII. 251 You are to present the Church-Wardens, if they refuse to walk the bounds with you. I Commend you to the Grace of God and remain. * * * ^ I wrote to the Bishop, to take Notice of the 4th part of the Homily for Rogation-week, compos'd on purpose for these daies : which he pro- misd to doe the next perambulation. [Endorsed^ Bishop of S. Asaph for Rogation. 1686.^ [^"' this note in SancrofVs hand.] CHAPTER VIII. DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE : DIRECTION AND PRIVATE CONFESSION. It is not intended in this chapter to give a complete account of the discipline which prevailed throughout our period ; but the object in view has been rather to give a certain number of cases which will show that discipline was not altogether unknown in the Church of England, and if necessary could be invoked for the layman as well as for the clergyman. Thorndike bears witness to the need of discipline, even if rarely exercised. If a Christian, after Baptism, fall into any grievous sin, voiding the effect of Baptism, can it fall within the sense of a Christian to imagine; That hee can bee restored by a Lord have mercy upon mee ? No, it must cost him hot tears, and sighs, and groans, and extraordinary pra)ers, with fasting and almes ; to take Revenge upon himself, to appease Gods Wrath, and to mortifie his Concupiscence ; If hee mean not to leave an entrance for the same sin again. If his sin bee notorious, so much the more; Because hee must then satisfie the Church, that hee doth what is requisite to satisfie God ; that is, to appease his wrath, and to recover his Grace. The Church may bee many ways hindred, to take account of notorious sin. But the Power of the Keyes, which God hath trusted it with, is exercised only in keeping such sinners from the Communion, till the Church bee so satis- fied. And for this Exercise, the time of Lent hath always been deputed by the Church.^ The particular discipline which the Church of England every Ash Wednesday in the Commination Service desires to see restored had already fallen into abeyance- before the time of Edward VI. in whose first Prayer Book the wish begins to appear. I do not know if this primitive expulsion of penitents from the church early ' Herbert Thorndike, Just Weii;lits and Measures, London, Martin, etc., 1662, p. 120, ch. xviii. ^ A full and quite sympathetic account of the mediaeval discipline at the beginning of Lent is given in a sermon preached on Ash Wednesday about 1793 by Sir Adam Gordon, (Collection of Sermons, London, Stockdale, 1796, p. 56.) 252 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 253 in Lent, and restoration on Maundy Tiiursday,^ exist at this moment anywhere, either in the East or in the West. But various other forms of discipline were known in the Church of England throughout our period. With the Restoration the Spiritual Courts began again to be active, for in 1679 the lawyers reprinted at Oxford Lyndwood's Pro- vinciale. But the Courts Christian were not popular in the time of James the First, and their revival' does not'seem to have been wel- comed by the Puritans, who, though they were quite willing to see discipline exercised upon others, yet did not so well relish it when applied to themselves. On Nov. 9, 1663, one Blackbume, a Roundhead, comes to Mr. Pepys with gossip against the Duke of Albemarle and the late King, which Pepys does not seem to have been unwilling to hear. And further : He says that many pious ministers of the word of God, some thousands of them, do now beg their bread : and told me how highly the present clergy carry themselves every where, so as that they are hated and laughed at by everybody ; among other things, for their excommunications, which they send upon the least occasions almost that can be. And I am con- vinced in my judgement, not only from his discourse but my thoughts in general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England ; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. There is an instance of Sancroft, while Archbishop of Canter- bury, suspending one of his suffragans. Dr. Thomas Wood, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, for non-residence and other offences. The instrument is given at length by Dr. D'Oyly, from Bancroft's Register.^ In 1695, Dr. Watson, Bishop of St. Davids, was deprived by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tenison, for simony and other offences. Dr. Watson applied to the Court of King's Bench for a ' A writer in the Yorkshire Archaeological yournal (1905, vol. xviii. p. 419 : 1907, vol. xix. p. 80) has printed four cases of public penance in our period for breach of the seventh commandment, and takes occasion to say that a restoration of this discipline is desired every year in the Commination Service of the Church of England. That the revival of the particular penance of which instances are given by this writer is yearly wished for in the Commination Service can hardly be accepted. The discipline at the beginning of Lent, the restoration of which is much to be wished, was already obsolete in 1549, and it is this that is spoken of in the book of Common Prayer. ^George D'Oyly, Life of William Sancroft, London, John Murray, 1821, vol. i., p. 194. 2S4 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. prohibition, and the litigation went on into the reign of Queen Anne.^ Chamberlayne thus describes the process for the degradation of a clerk : And Fourthly, Deprivatio ab Officio, when a Minister is wholly and for ever deprived of his Orders ; and this is Deposiiio or Degradatio, and is commonly for some heinous Crime, meriting Death, and is performed by the Bishop in a solemn manner, pulling off from the Criminal his Vest- ments, and other Ensigns of his Order ; and this in the Presence of the Civil Magistrate, to whom he is then delivered to be punished, as a Lay- man for the like Offence.^ Of this we have a very marked example in the case of Samuel Johnson, Vicar of Coringham in Essex, in the diocese of London, in the reign of James the Second. He appears to have committed an offence which no Government could overlook, namely, an attempt to seduce from their allegiance the men in the King's army and navy. Of this offence he was found guilty in the Court of King's Bench, and sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and to be whipped by the common hangman from Newgate to Tyburn.^ But out of consideration for the Church it was determined to take away his Orders from him before submitting him to so humiliating a punishment. That apprehending 'twou'd be a Scandal to the Clergy to have so infamous a Punishment inflicted on a Minister, they desir'd Mr. Johnson might be first degraded : in order to which, being a Prisoner in the King's Bench, in the Diocess of the Bishop of Winchester, he was summon'd to appear the 20th of November in the Convocation-house of St. PauVs, in the Diocess of London, his Living being within that Diocess, and brought thither by Habeas Corpus, where he found the Bishops of Durham, Ro- chester, and Peterborough, Commissioners to exercise the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of London during his Suspension, with some Clergymen, and many Spectators : A Libel was exhibited against him, charging him with great Misbehaviours, tho none were specify 'd nor prov'd. That Mr. Johnson demanded a Copy of the Libel, and an Advocate ; both which the Bishops deny'd, and immediately proceeded to Sentence ; That he shou'd be declar''d an Infamous Person : That he shou'd be deprived of his Rectory : That he shou'd be a mere Layman, and no Clerk ; and be depriv'd of all 1 Sir Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, London, Stevens, 1873, vol. i. p. 84. ^John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, London, 22nd edition, 1708, p. 256. This paragraph is also to be found in the thirty-eighth edition, 1755, part i. p. 194. ^ These particulars are taken from the entry in Compton's Register, pars i. fo. 90. b. See English Historical Review, 1914. DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 255 Right and Privilege of Priesthood : That he should be degraded thereof, and of all Vestments and Habits of Priesthood. Against which Proceedings Mr. Johnson protested, as being against Law, and the 13 2d. Canon, not being done by his own Diocesan : but his Protestation was refus'd, as was also his Appeal to the King in Chancery. After which they proceeded to de- grade him, by putting a Square Cap on his Head, and then taking it off ; by pulling off his Gown and Girdle, which he demanded as his proper Goods bought with his Mony : which they promis'd to send him, but he cou'd not get 'em till he paid Twenty Shillings. Then they put a Bible into his Hands, which he not parting with readily, they took it from him by Force. 1 It is added, however, that in the ceremony of degradation the Bishops omitted what was said to be a very important circum- stance. They omitted to take off his cassock. It happen'd they were guilty of an Omission, in not stripping him of his Cassock, which as slight a particular as it might seem, render'd his Degradation imperfect, and afterwards sav'd him his Benefice.^ For after the Revolution, Johnson returned to his living, and, no doubt the parish being favourably disposed, they held that this small omission nullified the degradation. With less attention to niceties and more to the Canons, the House of Commons resolved that the degradation was illegal, having been performed by the Commissioners, and not by Johnson's proper Diocesan, the Bishop of London.^ Whiston, who, as Macaulay says, seems ready to believe in everything except the Holy Trinity, was, in the reign of Queen Anne, banished from the University of Cambridge for his Arian opinions. He has printed the documents connected with this pro- cess. There seems no doubt about the want of orthodoxy in his opinions : what astonishes us to-day is that an English University should take the slightest notice of such a trifle. The following is the sentence pronounced on October 30, 17 10. In the name of God, Amen. I Charles Roderick, Vice chancellor of this University, do decree, de- clare, and pronounce, that Mr. William Whiston, Mathematick Professor of this University, having asserted and spread abroad divers Tenets con- trary to Religion receiv'd and establish'd by Publick Authority in this Realm, hath incurred the Penalty of the Statute, and that he is Banished from this University.* ' Some Memorials of Mr. Samuel Johnson, p. xv. in Works, London, Darby, 1710. ^ ihid. p. xii. 'Journals of the House of Commons, June 24, 1689, vol. a. p. 194. * William Whiston, An Historical Preface to Primitive Christianity reviv'd, London, 1711, Appendix, p. 27. 2S6 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. Whiston tells us himself that he was refused communion by the Bishop of Bristol in 1726.^ In like manner, the Rev. John Jackson was refused communion at Bath in 1735.^ He had been denied his promotion from B.A. to M.A. at Cambridge in 1718 on account of his opinions, which in the main were those of Whiston and Clarke. It is said that Jack- son's tracts are of little importance and they derive what importance they have from the notice which Waterland took of them.^ Thomas Wilson, the holy Bishop of Sodor and Man, suffered severely in his exercise of ecclesiastical discipline. In 1719 Mrs. Home, the wife of the Governor of the Island, falsely accused Mrs. Puller, a widow woman of good character, of fornication with Sir James Pool. Thereupon Archdeacon Horrobin refused Commun- ion to Mrs. Puller. The matter was carried into the Bishop's Court and Mrs. Home was sentenced to ask pardon. This she refused to do, and treated the Ecclesiastical Law with contempt ; whereupon she was censured ; but the Archdeacon admitted her to Communion ; and for this offence the Archdeacon himself was suspended. Instead of appealing to the Archbishop of York as Metropolitan, the Archdeacon threw himself on the Civil power, and the Bishop, with his two Vicars-general, was imprisoned on June 29, 1722 for non-payment of fines inflicted by the Governor, and detained in prison for two months. Here the Bishop appealed from Caesar's servants to Caesar himself, with the result that The King and Council reversed all the proceedings of the officers of the island, declaring them to be oppressive, arbitrary, and unjust ; but they could grant no costs. * * * The King offered him the Bishoprick of Exeter, vacant by the trans- lation of Dr. Blackburn to the See of York, to re-imburse him ; but he could not be prevailed on to quit his own Diocese. His Majesty therefore promised to defray his expences out of the privy purse, and gave it in charge to Lord Townsend, Lord Carleton, and Sir Robert Walpole, to put it into his remembrance ; but the King going soon afterwards to Han- over, and dying before his return, this promise was never fulfilled.* ^ Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston, sec. ed. London, Whiston and White, 1753, part i. p. 284. -A narrative of the Case of the Reverend Mr. Jackson being ref us' d the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper at Bath by Dr. Coney Minister of Bath, London, Noon, 1736. ^ See D.N.B. under John Jackson. ■* Thomas Wilson, Works, ed. C. Crattwell, sec. ed. London, Dilly, vol. i. pp. 29- 32- DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 257 Swift gives us an instance of what they could do in Ireland in the way of discipline. I am just going to perform a very good office ; it is to assist with the archbishop in degrading a parson who couples all our beggars ... I am come back, and have deprived the parson, who by a law here is to be hanged the next couple he marries : he declares to us that he is resolved to be hanged, only desired that when he was to go to the gallows, the arch- bishop would take off his excommunication. Is not he a good catholic? and yet he is but a Scotchman.i The study of the records of the Archdeacons' Courts reveals to us that they were most occupied in the punishment of two kinds of offences, slander and porneia, which the politicians in the opinion of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu considered acts more to be en- couraged than frowned upon.^ Chamberlayne gives this account of the penance. This power of Excommunication the Bishop may delegate to any grave Priest with the Chancellor. Besides the general Censure of the Church which respects Church-Com- munion, there is another which toucheth the Body of the Delinquent, called Public Penance, when any one is compelled to confess in publick his Fault, and to bewail it before the whole Congregation in the Church, which is done in this manner : The Delinquent is to stand in the Church-Porch upon some Sunday, barehead and barefeet, in a white Sheet, and a white rod in his Hand, there bewailing himself, and begging every one that passes by to pray for him ; then to enter the Church, falling down and kissing the Ground ; then in the middle of the Church is he or she emi- nently placed in the sight of all the People and over against the Minister, who declares the Foulness of his Crime, odious to God, and scandalous to the Congregation ; that God can no way be satisfied but by applying Christ's Sufferings ; nor the Congregation, but by an humble acknowledging of his Sins, and testifying his sincere Repentance and Sorrow, not in Words only, but with Tears, and promising there, in the sight of God and his holy Angels, that by God's Assistance, and by Prayer, Meditation, and daily Works of Piety, he will endeavour hereafter more carefully to watch against the Temptations of the World, the Allurements of the Flesh, and the Snares of the Devil : which being done, and the Priest in Christ's Name, pronouncing the Remission of Sins, the Penitent humbly beseeches the Congregation to pardon him in that great Scandal against them, and receive him into their holy Communion, and account him again a Member of their Church ; and in testimony thereof, out of their Christian Charity, to vouchsafe to say with him aloud the Lord's Prayer. And this way of the Church of England, ^ Letter of Jonathan Swift, dated Dublin, Nov. 17, 1726. (Works, edited by Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xvii. p. 117.) 2 See above. Introductory Chapter, p. 2. 17 258 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. appears by divers Writers to be the ancient way used by the Primitive Churches.i This open penance was witnessed by Mr. Pepys on July 16, 1665 : so by coaches to church four miles off; where a pretty good sermon, and a declaration of penitence of a man that had undergone the Churche's cen- sure for his wicked life. Mr. Pepys himself ought, if justice had been consulted, to have done penance of this kind often enough. In the following case it will be seen how disturbed the congrega- tion was by the entrance of an excommunicate person into the church. Scotter, CO. Lincoln. 1667-8, Jan. 19. Mem. That on Septuagesima Sunday, one Francis Drury, an excommunicate person, came into the church in time of divine service in the morning, and being admonisht by me to begon[e], hee obstinately refused, whereupon the whole congrega- tion departed, and after the same manner in the afternoon the same day he came againe, and refusing againe to goe out, the whole congregation againe went home, soe that little or noe service [was] performed that day. I pre- vented his farther coming in that manner as he threatened, by order from the justice, upon the statute of Q. Eliz. concerning the molestation and disturbance of public preachers. Wm. Carrington, Rector? The crime for which Francis Drury was excommunicated does not appear. It should be noted, however, that the congregation was against him. Nowadays public opinion would certainly sym- pathise with the criminal. Penance had to be done for drunkenness. This is the confession of a Verger at Durham. Whereas by the sin of drunkennesse I have done dishonour to God and given offence to my superiours of this Cathedral, and scandal to all other good Christian people : I doe here humbly confesse, and am heartily sorry for the same ; and doe earnestly beg God's and the Church's pardon ; and doe promise that (by God's grace) I will never offend in like manner for the future.' More than a century later the sin of drunkenness is punished in a parish clerk. In January 1799 the Dean of Middleham cited the parish clerk into his court and pronounced the following -sentence : ' John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, London, 1708, 22nd edition, p. 255- A good part of this appears in the thirty-eighth edition, 1755, part i. p. 194. 2R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts, 1883, p. 77. ^June 16, 1686. Roger Blakiston's Penance in The remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 135. DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 259 That Thomas Ibbotson should be suspended from the office of parish clerk, without forfeiting the wages, until after the loth day of February then next, being the first Sunday in Lent ; that he do not approach the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper on that day, that, by the prayers of Lent, he might be fitted for it at the festival of Easter ; and, lastly, that, on the first Sunday of the ensuing Lent, he should stand during service until the Nicene creed was read, before the font under the gallery, and there depart to a private seat, after having read distinctly the following acknow- ledgement, viz. " I, Thomas Ibbotson, do acknowledge that, on the day of the Feast of Circumcision, I behaved very irreverently in the House of God : that I interrupted the divine service, and conducted myself in such a manner, both in the church and out of it, as to give just cause of offence to the congregation then present : that I was led to this misconduct by resent- ment, and not being perfectly sober at the time, for which I beg pardon of Almighty God, and do promise to order myself with greater sobriety and decency for the time to come." ^ The next iew cases deal with penance done for breaches of the seventh commandment. On Sunday last a Woman did Penance in the Parish Church of St. Bride's, by standing in a white Sheet, with a Wand in her Hand, on a Stool in the middle Isle during the time of Divine Service, for Adultery and Fornication, and having a Bastard Child in the Absence of her Husband.^ This is an instance of the manner in which public penance was performed. In the appendix to this chapter will be found the schedule of a like punishment carried out in the same year. Stephen Hales, the famous physiologist and chaplain to the prince afterwards King George the Third, died in 1761. He is said to have been the last of the clergy who made his female parishioners do penance.^ But this can hardly be. Penance was done at Pittington and Melsonby in 1770.* And the poet Wordsworth has left on record that he saw a woman doing penance in the church in a white sheet some time before the death of his mother in 1778.° At Hurstmonceaux public penance is said to have taken place for the last time about 1 800.^ ^ Documents relating to the Foundation and Antiquities of the Collegiate Church of Middleham, ed. William Atthill, Camden Society, 1847, p. 42. '^ Fog's Weekly Journal, No. 267, Saturday, Dec. 15, 1733. ^ Albert Hartshorne, Memoirs of a Royal Chaplain, 1905, p. 314. ^ Memorials of St. Giles's, Durham, Surtees Society, i8g6, vol. xcv. p. 160 note. ' Memoirs of William Wordsworth, ed. by Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln; Moxon, 1851, vol. i. p. 8. 'Augustus J. C. Hare, Memorials of a quiet life, Strahan, 1872, vol. i. p. 143. 17* 2 6o FORBIDDEN TIMES OF MARRIAGE. In the appendix to this chapter is a schedule of penance for slander, performed as late as 1 8oi , thus only twelve years before 1 8 1 3. The Courts in the early part of our period seem to have been active in punishing those who married without a licence in times forbidden. John Ayliffe, who most likely represents the general practice of the Courts before 1725, is against marriage in Lent without licence, but not in Advent. This agrees with the mediaeval custom in England, where Advent was not a time of fasting : for tho' the Banns of Matrimony are seldom or never publish'd in Lent, is'c. according to that Law ; yet People may marry at that Time with Licences. But as for the time of Advent which was never observ'd in our Church as a Fast, there is no Foundation for such a Prohibition with us.^ Yet notwithstanding Ayliffe's opinion, it would seem that licences were demanded for marriages celebrated in the times prohibited by the old canon law ; that is, from the first Sunday in Advent to the Octave of the Epiphany, inclusive ; from Septuagesima to the Octave of Easter, inclusive ; from the first day of the Rogations till the seven days of Whitsuntide be passed.'* Thus a licence is required for marrying in Whitsun week. Twickenham. 1665. Christopher Mitchell and Ann Colcot, married, 4 June, by permission of Sir Richard Chaworth, it being within the octaves of Pentecost.^ Mr. Pepys on March 21, 1669 notes a licence to our young people to be married this Lent. A little later and a couple were excommunicated for marrying in a time forbidden. 1676 April 16. I publishd an Excommunication sent out of the Arch- Deacon's Court at Nottingham and bearing date Feb. 29, 1675 against William Smith and Eliz. his wife for being marryed in a time prohibited and refusing to appear, after due summons, to give account of the Same. * * * April 23rd. I published the Absolution of William Smith and his wife, which was sent out of the Court at Retford the 2 1 instant.* 'John Ayliffe, Parergon, London, 1726. Of Marriage, p. 365. 2 Lyndwood, Provinciate, Lib. iii. tit. 16, de decimis, ad verba Nubentium solemniis, Oxford, 1679, p. 185. 3 Quoted in R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts, 1883, p. 33. ^ Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book, Clay worth, Notts, Nott- ingham, Saxton, 1910, pp. 18, 19, DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 261 Notices of the times in which Marriage is forbidden continued to appear in the yearly Almanacks. In Yond^s Almanack for the year of our Lord God 1690, published at Cambridge by John Hayes, the times at which marriage is not to be solemnised are given as in Lyndwood. The Ladies Diary for 1752 preserves a notice of the same times, during which matrimony may not be solemnised. Septuagesima is marked with Marriage goes out in black letter, very striking to the eye. Low Sunday is marked with Marriage comes in, in the same type. The Saturday before Rogation Sunday is marked with Marriage goes out ; and Marriage comes in is against Trinity Sunday. Advent Sunday is marked: Marriage goes out till 13th Jan. In a collection of sermons for family reading, which had passed through four editions, there is a note preceding the sermons for Advent, in which the editor says : This is also one of the seasons, from the beginning of which to the end of the octave of the Epiphany, the solemnizing of marriages is forbidden, without special licence. and again at Septuagesima there is From Septuagesima Sunday until the Octaves after Easter, the solemn- izing of marriage is forbidden by the Canon Law.'^ The draught of new Canons in 1 7 1 4 for regulating marriage for- bids marriages on Ash Wednesday, Passion Week and the 30th of January, only, either with licence, or after banns. ^ A considerable power in discipline was left in the hands of the parish priest in 1662, that of repulsion from communion, as well as insistence upon the names of intending communicants being given to him " at least some time the day before ". It is a pity that the layman so rarely observes this rubric. The man who does not send notice to the parish priest is as lawless as any of our high placed divines. A very curious and edifying instance of voluntary penance is re- corded of Dr. Johnson : Fifty years ago, Madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety, which has ever since lain heavy on my mind, and has not till this day been 'Samuel Clapham, Sermons, selected and abridged, London, Rivington, 4th ed. 1813, vol. i. pp. 2 and 314. First edition 1803. ^ See D. Wilkins, Concilia, i-TiT, vol. iv. p. 660. 262 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. expiated. My father, you recollect, was a bookseller, and had long been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and opening a stall for the sale of his books during that day. Confined to his bed by indisposition, he requested me, this time fifty years ago, to visit the market, and attend the stall in his place. But, Madam, my pride prevented me from doing my duty, and I gave my father a refusal . To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went in a postchaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the weather ; a penance by which I trust I have propitiated heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy toward my father.^ The fact of the penance having been performed may be assumed, but the language is unlike that of Johnson. A curious form of discipline seems to have been exercised at the end of the eighteenth century by the Dean of Middleham in York- shire. He made the followfing entry in his register of burials : Burials, October 29th. 1792. I enter under the head of burials as spiritually dead the names of John Sadler, Clerk to Mr John Breare, Attorney-at-Law, of this place ; and Christopher Felton, Clerk to Mr Luke Yarker, Attorney-at-Law, of this place ; first for irreverent behaviour in church a second time, after public reproof on a former occasion of the same sort ; and, secondly, when mildly admonished by me not to repeat the same, they both made use of the most scandalous and insolent words concerning myself, for which I thought proper to pass a public censure upon them after sermon (though they were wilfully absent) in the face of the congregation ; and enter the mention of the same in this book, that the names of those insolent young men may go to posterity as void of all reverence to God and his ministers. Witness my hand, RoBT. B. NicKOLLS, Dean. Witness, Rogr. Dawson, Regr.^ In the diocese of Salisbury, so recently as 1900, a churchwarden, after having accepted office, desired not to be admitted. At the Bishop's Visitation, held in Dorchester, the proceedings are reported in a local newspaper as follows. Mr. Cornish Browne intimated that he did not wish to be admitted. The Bishop, after consulting the legal authorities, said he did not think he could refuse, after having accepted office. He might be excommunicated ^ Minor Anecdotes by the Rev. Richard Warner, in Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. by G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 427. '^Documents relating to the Foundation and Antiquities of the Collegiate Church of Middleham, ed. William Atthill, Camden Society, 1847, p. 42. PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. 263 according to ecclesiastical law. Of course no such penalty could be thought of, but he would point out that he might be compelled, if the parish chose to take action against him. He considered it would be wise for him to take the office. Mr. Cornish Browne, after consultation with the Rector : I will be ad- mitted.^ Private Confession and Direction. In dealing with this matter it may be considered under three heads : i. As exhibited in the practice of individuals. ii. As recommended in current books of devotion. iii. As treated by divines and other authors of good repute. The Practice of Individuals. That the practice of private confession and spiritual direction was widely spread in the Church of England immediately after the Restoration there is good evidence to show. Even in the days before the Restoration when, as Dr. Johnson could say, that a wild democracy had overturned King, Lords, and Commons ; and that a set of Republican Fanatics, who would not bow at the name of Jesus had taken possession of all the livings and all the parishes in the kingdom,^ and when only one church in London was left to churchmen, John Evelyn went to London to visit Dr. Jeremy Taylor, " using him thenceforward as my ghostly father " ? And after the death of his daughter Mary, some years later, there were found letters to her ghostly father asking him not to despise her for her many errors,* though from her character she must have needed such excuses but little. Another gracious character of that age was Mrs. Godolphin, and we are told that she designed to live by herself at Hereford, so as to be under the direction of the Dean of that church, who had long been her spiritual father.^ I doubt if" the more minute ' Dorset County Chronicle, No. 4167, June 28, igoo. ^Arthur Murphy, An essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel jfohnson, London, 1792, p. 108. ^Diary of John Evelyn, 1655, March 31, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879, vol. ii. p. 76. He WTites to Dr. Taylor " as to my confessor " on Ap. 27, 1656 (iii. 215). ■■ ibid. March 16, 1684-85, p. 459. ^ The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 67. She died in 1678. 264 PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. Confessions" for which she kept "an account of her actions and resolutions " ^ were for private confession, but they may have been. She counts it among the special mercies that she had the " assistance of a spirittuall Guide " ^ which she owed to the extraordinary care of a pious and excellent Mother.' There is the following account of the deathbed of Dr. Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln after the Restoration : After his taking his bed, and about a day before his death, he desired his Chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution : and at his performing that office, he pulled off his cap, that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon his bare head.* Clarendon's daughter, who married the Duke of York, is said by Gilbert Burnet to have practised " secret confession " before she was reconciled to the Church of Rome. Her confessor was Morley, Bishop of Winchester, to whom succeeded Blandford, who died Bishop of Worcester.^ But for all this we depend only upon Burnet's evidence, which is always more or less untrustworthy. Bishop Patrick, when at Covent Garden, made some effort to hinder the Duke of York from becoming a papist. For I had some time before been with him, and restored him some money of which a servant of his thought she had wronged him. This pleased him mightily, and he expressed great satisfaction to hear that people came and confessed their sins to us, of which we could not absolve them, unless in case of wrong they made satisfaction.^ On his return from France in 1679, the Dean of Durham, as he was soon to be, made a general confession to Dr. Gunning, the Bishop of Ely. Thus he speaks of it ; Mem : That I prepare a draught of my whole life by way of confession in order to demand an absolution (in the name of God) from the Rt. reverend Bp. Gunning, my first spiritual father. * « * Mem : that I did, the evening before this celebration, unburthen my conscience to this good Bishop (my spirituall guide) and submitted my ^ The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 188. '^ ibid. 'p. 2i6. See also pp. 46, 160. sjiid. p. 221. * Isaak Walton, Lives of Dr. John Donne, etc. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1805, vol. ii. p. 258. ^ Bishop Burnefs History of his own time, sec. ed. Oxford, 1833, vol. i. pp. 307 and 566. " The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1839, p. 78. PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. 265 soule to his test and examination, receiving after the same a solemne absolution on my knees. ^ In 1682, Ken preaching on the death of Lady Maynard reveals her practice of confession to him : As to myself, I have had the honour to know her near twenty years ; and to be admitted to her most intimate thoughts, and I cannot but think, upon the utmost of my observation, that she always preserved her baptis- mal innocence, that she never committed any one mortal sin, which put her out of the state of grace ; insomuch, that after all the frequent and severe examinations, she made of her own conscience, her confessions were made up of no other than sins of infirmity, and yet even for them, she had as deep an humiliation, and as penitential a sorrow, as high a sense of the divine forgiveness, and loved as much, as if she had much to be forgiven : so that after a life of above forty years, nine of which were spent in the court, bating her involuntary failings, which are unavoidable, and for which allowances are made, in the covenant of grace, she "kept herself unspotted from the world," and if it may be affirmed of any, I dare ven- ture to affirm it of this gracious woman, that by the peculiar favour of heaven, she past from the font unsullied to her grave.^ Ken did not take the oaths after the Revolution, and writing to Tenison the Archbishop of Canterbury, as attending Queen Mary on her deathbed, reproaches him with having drawn from her no confession of the wrong she had done her own father, James the Second. He opens his letter thus : Sir when I heard of the Sickness of the Late Illustrious Princess, whom I had never fail'd to recommend to God, in my Daily Prayers, and that your self was Her Confessor, I could not but hope that at least on Her Death- bed, you would have dealt faithfully with Her.^ A few pages farther on : A Conscientious Faithful Confessor, especially on the Death-bed is One of a Thousand, who will always be desired and valu'd, and rever'd.* Tenison took no notice of the attack, " his relations with the Queen being under the seal of confession " } Ken's recommendation of confession to the Winchester scholar as a preparation for com- munion will be seen below. Dr. John Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York, was " Confessor and Spiritual Guide " to Lord Chancellor Finch, the first Earl of ^ The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. pp. 40, 41. 2 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady Margaret Mainard, at Little Easton, in Essex, June 30, 1682, in The Prose Works . . . of . . . Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 129. ^A Dutiful Letter from a Prelate to a Prelate, London, 1703. *ibid. p. II. '•D.N.B. sub voce Tenison. 266 PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. Nottingham.! Later on, when Archbishop of York, he was director to Queen Anne.^ A chaplain to the Queen's Forces in the Province of New York, by name John Sharp, describes in his funeral sermon the deathbed of Lady Cornbury : She received the Sacrament and Absolution of the Church and desired our prayers might be continued for her in the language of our holy Mother.^ This incident is mentioned, as it shows that Church practices did not cease in far distant colonies in Queen Anne's time. The Spectator prints a letter as it were from a penitent to his confessor, and it begins : I know not with what Words to express to you the Sense I have of the high Obligation you have laid upon me, in the Penance you enjoin'd me of doing some Good or other to a Person of Worth every Day I live.* In a letter from T. Allen dated Sept. I, 1711, the character of a young man is spoken of; and it is said : he had his principles from Dr. Alston who is still his spiritual Guide. ^ Clayton, the Chaplain of the Collegiate Church at Manchester, writes to Wesley from Manchester in 1733 : Poor Miss Potter ! I wonder not that she is fallen. Where humility is not the foundation, the superstructure cannot be good. And, yet, I am sorry to hear the tidings of her, especially that she has a great man for her confessor, who dissuades her from constant communion.^ It might be thought that a confessor would be a better judge than anyone else of the frequency with which the penitent might approach the Holy Table. Fielding more than once bears witness to the practice of con- fession, penance, and absolution in the Church of England of his day. Parson Thwackum in Tom Jones says : Who but an atheist could think of leaving the world without having first made up his account ? without confessing his sins, and receiving that absolu- tion which he knew he had one in the house duly authorised to give him? 1 [John Hildrop,] The Contempt of the Clergy Considered, London, 1739, p. 65. ^ The Life of jfohn Sharp, D.D. Lord Archbishop of York, London, Rivington, 1825, vol. i. p. 301. ' John Sharp, A sermon preached . . . in New York in America, New York, Brad- ford, 1706, p. ig. Was he the author of the Charter of the kingdom of Christ, London, Morphew, 1717, and De rebus liturgicis. Thesis at Aberdeen, 1714 ? * Spectator, No. 27, Saturday, March 21, 1711. '' Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, i88g, vol. iii. p. 219, note. '' L. Tyerman, The Oxford Methodists, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1873, p. 36. PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS. 267 \x\. Joseph Andrews there is depicted a somewhat unclerical parson who yet requires a full confession from Joseph of all his sins, when he finds him lying on a sick bed. And in Amelia Dr. Harrison says : ' this young gentleman will absolve me without obliging me to penance.' ' I have not yet that power,' answered the young clergyman ; ' for I am only in deacon's orders.' 1 It may be remembered that Fielding was a Whig and a Low Churchman. He speaks highly of Hoadly's Plain Account. Smollett was a Scotch presbyterian ; yet in Roderick Random he makes the chaplain on board a ship in the King's service, exhort the patient, supposed to be in danger of death, as follows : It is incumbent on you, therefore, to prepare for the great change, by repenting sincerely of your sins ; of this there cannot be a greater sign, than an ingenuous confession, which I conjure you to make without hesitation or mental reservation.^ When the patient declares himself to be a presbyterian the chap- lain leaves him, hoping that he may not be in state of reprobation. The same novelist, describing the deathbed of an old sea officer, makes him say : I trust by the mercy of God, I shall be sure in port in a very few glasses, and fast moored in a most blessed riding : for my good friend Jolter hath overhauled the journal of my sins ; and by the observation he hath taken of the state of my soul, I hope I shall happily conclude my voyage.^ Jolter is the name of a priest who was governor to the nephew. Glass is a sand or hour glass usually taking half an hour to run out. Later on in the same novel he speaks of the curate (who still maintained his place of chaplain and ghostly director in the family).* As Recommended in Books of Devotion. In Bishop Cosin's Collection of Private Devotions, which reached a ninth edition in 1693, there is a form for confession of sin before Communion, prayers before and after Absolution. Under the Pre- cepts of the Church he has : ' Tom Jonesy Book V. ch. viii. Joseph Andrews, Book I. ch. xiii. Amelia, Book IX. ch. viii. in Worhs of Henry Fielding, ed. Murphy and Browne, vol. vi. p. 263 : vol. v. p. 70 : vol. ix. p. 167. "Tobias Smollett, The adventures of Roderick Random, ch. xxxiv. London, Hutchinson, 1904, p. 233. ^ Tobias Smollett, Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, ch. Ixxiii. 1904, Hutchinson, vol. ii. p. 8. * ibid. ch. civ. vol . ii. p. 437. 268 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS. 5. To receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ with frequent devotion, and three times a Year at least, of which times Easter to be always one. And for better preparation thereunto, as oc- casion is, to disburthen and quiet our consciences of those sins that may grieve us, or scruples that may trouble us, to a learned and discreet Priest, and from him to receive advice, and the benefit of Absolution} In Dr. Wetenhall's directions for the sick, he recommends him to consult with some spiritual Guide, to whom if I have nothing to unburden myself of, yet I apply myself to, to receive absolution?' after which, a little later on he adds : it is fit (all meet circumstances admitting it) I proceed to partake of the Lords Supper, before which according to the order of the Church, I receive absolution.^ Dr. Thomas Ken advises the Winchester scholar thus : In case Phil[otheus] you do find this Examination too difficult for you, or are afraid you shall not rightly perform it, or meet with any scruples, or troubles of Conscience, in the practice of it, I then advise you, as the Church does, to go to one of your Superiours in this place, to be your Spiritual Guide, and be not ashamed to Unburthen your Soul freely to Him, that besides His Ghostly Counsel, you may receive the benefit of Absolution.* In a book called A Daily Office for the Sick, attributed to Zachaeus Isham, chaplain to Dr. Henry Compton, Bishop of Lon- don, and dedicated to him, there occurs among the subjects for self-examination the following questions : 6. Is there any special sin that lies heavy upon thee ? 7. Have I confess'd it to a Minister and humbly requested Absolution ? ^ A prayer after self-examination then follows with the form of absolution as in the Visitation of the Sick, with commendations of this form by Bishop Andrewes, Dr. Hammond, and others. This advice appears a little before : If the Sick Person feels his Conscience troubled with any weighty matter ; he is exhorted by the Church, to make a special Confession of his Sins to the Minister, that visits him : and then having testify'd his hearty ^John Cosin, A Collection of Private Devotions, eighth ed. London, Royston, 1681. Sign. D. 2 [Edward Wetenhall,] Enter into thy Closet, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672. Per- suasives, ch. 10, p. 444. The first edition is said to have been in 1666. ^ ibid. p. 445. * Thomas Ken, A Manual of Prayers For the Use of the Scholars of Winchester Colledge, London, John Martyn, 1675, p. 27, ^ A Daily Office for the Sick, London, Roycroft and Clavell, 1694, p. 232. PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS. 269 Repentance, he is to desire Absolution ; and to receive it in the Form of the Church, with all possible humility, and thankfulness. * * * 'Tis fit also for him to observe ; that though our Church presseth particular Confession to a Priest, only when the Conscience is disquieted with sins of deeper malignity, yet it doth not discountenance the more frequent use of it ; and this too is so comprehensive a Case, as to take in great numbers that neglect it.^ In hearing confessions himself, Dr. Granville made use of the following form : Begin first with the Lord's prayer, saying together Our Father which art &c. Vers. O Lord open thou our lipps. Answer. And our mouth shall shew forth thy [praise]. Vers. O God make speed to save us. Ans. O Lord make hast to helpe us. Glory bee to the Father etc. As it was in the beginning &c. then Recite together psalme 139. Domine probasti. O Lord thou hast searched mee out and knowne mee &c. After this is said the Preist takes his place in his chaire, and requires the Penitent to Kneell downe before him, and to answer sincerely in the Name and Feare [of] God to such Questions as hee shall by Christ's author- ity demand of him. It is expedient and thought good for the Ease and Incouragement of the Penitent to have some forme of examination and answers given to him some Convenient time before, to Consider of for the greater proffit of his soule, and better preparation for soe solemne a [thing erased\ Duty. Then let the penitent Repeat one of the Formes of Confessions after the Priest, with due deliberation and Intention. After which the Preist rising up shall ^ add. O Lord I beseech thee &c.^ ^ and then ^ solemnely pronounce that excellent forme of Absolution, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Then let the priest pronounce such sentences of Scripture as hee con- ceives most to edification. Reciting afterwards * on their knees together ps. 32 Blessed [etc.]. Concluding with these following prayers : Let us pray ' I. O Lord I beseech thee favourably to receive our prayers &c.^ 1 . O most mercifull God whoe according to the multitude of thy mercies [&c.] with some few alterations or O most Mighty God and mercifull Father &c. 2. Lord, wee beseech thee give us Grace to withstand &c. 3. O Lord whoe knowest that all our doings are nothing worth &c. 4. Lord wee pray thee that thy Grace &c. ^ Directions for the sick, § v. pp. 193, 194. '^-"'■interlined. '■^ow«>' pronounce. ^interlined. '''^ struck out. 270 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 5. Allmighty God the Fountaine of all Wisdome &c. Benediction ^ The Opinion of Divines. Thorndike has devoted a chapter to the consideration of pri- vate confession and penance, and maintains that the abuse of these in the Church of Rome has not destroyed their use, and he is desir- ous of seeing private confession made once a year ; still more so because the Church of England has failed of that great piece of reformation, the retrieving of public penance, though it every year wishes for its restoration in the beginning of the Commination Service.^ Hamon L'estrange, a learned layman, of good repute, comment- ing on the office for the Visitation of the Sick, in a work published just before the Restoration, says : Confession and Absolution.l Here the Church approveth of, though she doth not command, Auricular Confession. Many times poor soules lye labouring under the pangs of an horrid reflex upon the number or greatness of their sins, and the dreadful wrath of God deservedly expected for them. In this case, no remedy comparable to an humble and sincere confession at large.^ Bishop Pearson, in his letter on Promiscuous Ordinations, dis- suading against accepting irregular ministrations, points out that the absolution of one whose commission is not acknowledged can- not be expected to be of any efficacy upon the bed of sickness or on the approach of death. * Dr. Comber, the Dean of Durham, speaks thus of confession to the priest : And this was so received a Doctrine in the Primitive times, that the Confession of sins to a Priest, in case of a troubled Conscience, was esteemed an Apostolical institution, and was a general practice, as might be proved by innumerable testimonies of Antiquity ... we wish therefore that our People, even in time of health (when their Conscience is troubled for some great sin, or their souls are assaulted with a violent Temptation) 1 Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. D. 851. ff. 222-223. See also Remains of Denis Granville, op. cit. p. 148. ^Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xi. §§ 20, 21, in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1852, Vol. IV. part i. pp. 258, 259. ' Hamon L'estrange, The Alliance of Divine Offices, ch. 10, London, Broom, 1659, p. 298. * The minor Theological Works of yohn Pearson, ed. Edw. Churton, Oxford, 1844, vol. ii. p. 237. PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 271 would come and make their case known to their spiritual Physician, to whom the Fathers elegantly compare the Priest in this case.^ Isaac Barrow, dealing with the Power of the Keys, speaks thus : Now they (the pastors of the Church) may be understood to remit, or retain sins divers ways. 1. They remit sins dispositive 2. They remit (or retain sins) declarative,. . . . 3. They remit sins impetrativd. . . . 4. They remit sins dispensativd, by consigning pardon in theiadministra- tion of the Sacrament ; especially in conferring Baptism, whereby duly ad- ministered and undertaken, all sins are washed away ; and in the absolving of penitents, wherein grace is exhibited and ratified by imposition of hands : the which St. Paul calls -j^api^ecrOai, to bestow grace, or favour on the penitent.^ Wake in controversy with Bossuet writes thus : The Church of England refuses no sort of Confession either publick or private, which may be any way necessary to the quieting of men's con- sciences ; or to the exercising of that Power of binding and loosing, which our Saviour Christ has left to his Church. We have our Penitential Canons for publick Offenders : We- exhort men if they have any the least doubt or scruple, nay sometimes tho they have none, but especially before they receive the Holy Sacrament, to con- fess their sins. We propose to them the benefit not only of Ghostly Advice how to manage their Repentance, but the great comfort of Absolu- tion too, as soon as they shall have compleated it. * * * When we visit our Sick, we never fail to exhort them to make a special Confession of their sins to him that Ministers to them : And when they have done it, the Absolution is so full, that the Church of Rome its self could not desire to add anything to it.^ Here is Beveridge's opinion : But our Saviour's kingdom being, as himself saith, not of this world, but purely spiritual, he 1 that hath authorized his substitutes in the govern- ment of it, to use rewards and punishments of the same nature ; even to admonish delinquents in his name to forsake their sins, and if they continue obstinate, and neglect such admonitions, to excommunicate or cast them out of his church ; and, upon their repentance, to absolve and receive them in again. This power our Saviour first promised to St. Peter, and in him 1 Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Temple, London, 1684, Offices of Matri- mony, Visitation of the Sick, etc. part iv. p. 124. ^The Theological Worlis of Isaac Barrow, ed. Alex. Napier, Cambridge, 1859, vol. vii. p. 365, note : concerning the power of the Keys in An exposition of the Creed. The editor encloses this note in square brackets. ^ William Wake, An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, London, Chiswell, 1686, p. 42. On Penance and Confession. 272 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. to the rest of the apostles, Matth. xvi. 1 9. But it was not actually con- ferr'd upon them till after his resurrection, when having breathed, he said unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained, John XX. 23. As if he should have said, I, the Son of man, having power upon earth also to forgive sins, do now commit the same to you ; so that whose sins soever are remitted or retained by you, are so by me also.^ In the time of William the Third, Freind and Parkins v/ere hanged for being in a conspiracy to murder the king ; at the gallows Jeremy Collier publicly absolved them without any previous con- fession, so that " he knew not the state of their souls ". The Arch- bishops and Bishops protest at this scandal, asking how could they, without manifest Transgression of the Churches Order, as well as the prophane abuse of the Power Christ hath left with his Ministers, absolve them from all their Sins ? ^ Dr. John Stearne, or Sterne, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, when dealing with the necessity in the sick of the confession of sins and of real penitence for them, gives this rule: 24 Reg. Poenitentibus pronuntianda est absolutio Ea exponenda et quomodo. 24. lUis de quorum poenitentia, quin vera fuerit, non jure dubitatur pronuntianda est absolutio, si obnixe eam petierint, eaque, ne perperam intelligatur ut plurimum exponi debet, et proponi possit tanquam absoluta respectu eorum delictorum, quae ecclesiae scandalum pepererunt, et respectu aliorum omnium peccatorum tanquam authoritativa, Deique gratia efificax futura illis, qui veram egerint poenitentiam.^ Wheatly's commentary on the Prayer Book was thought so exactly to express the mind of the Church of England that in the eighteenth century it was put by many bishops into the hands of the Ordinands : in speaking of the abolition by Nectarius of the ofifice of Penitentiary he says : Not but that they were at liberty, after the abolishing of this office, as much as they were before, to use the advice of a ghostly counsellor, if they found themselves in want of it, but then there was no peculiar Officer, whose distinct business it should be to receive such applications : but every one was left to choose a Confessor for himself, in whom he might safely confide. * * * 'Christ's Presence with his Ministers, Sermon i. in The works . . . of Dr. William Beveridge, London, sec. ed. Bettesworth and Innys, 1729, vol. i. p. 7. 'A Declaration of the Sense of the Archbishops and Bishops now in and about London, London, Everingham, i6g6, p. 10. ^ Johannes Stearne, Tractatus de visitatione Infrmorum, Londini, Baldwin, 1700. Regulse ad Secundam Classem spectantes, p. 48. PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 273 But present ease is not the only benefit the penitent may expect from his confessor's aid : he will be better assisted in the regulation of his life ; and when his last conflict shall make its approach, the holy man, being no stranger to the state of his soul, will be better prepared to guide and conduct it through all difficulties that may oppose. ^ In a Catechism of some fifty pages, French and English being printed opposite one another, and designed to set forth the chief differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, we read on the subject of confession the following declaration as giving the position of the Church of England : We are not against Confessing to a Minister, in the Church of England ; Nay, our Church presses it, both publick and private, to God chiefly, and to a pious and able Divine, if the Conscience be burthened, and particu- larly upon a sick or death Bed, and before receiving the Sacrament.^ Fiddes treating of the article of the creed, " the forgiveness of sins " and the power committed to the church to remit sins, says confession is, under certain circumstances, a duty ; as the priest is our proper spiritual guide . . . whether a particular confession of their sins be in any case, necessary, in order to qualify sinners for the sacerdotal absolu- tion ; or whether other general testimonies of their repentance be sufficient to this end ; it seems highly requisite, if not absolutely necessary, to all true penitents, where the sacerdotal absolution can be had, that, as it is a means God has appointed to declare the forgiveness of sins, it ought to be had.3 He adds those who refuse absolution in contempt are, using the softest terms, in a very dangerous state. The same writer, preaching to criminals found guilty of murder, says: A Third Condition of Repentance is Confession ; First to God, and that not only of your Sins in general, but in as particular a Manner as you can call them to Remembrance, that so you may, in some measure, pro- portion your Sorrow and Humiliation to the Nature and Degree of your Guilt. 2. To Men; especially to him who has in a more peculiar Manner the Guide and Direction of your Consciences . . . but besides there is ^ Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. xi. § 5, ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1859, pp. 527, 528. * Questions and Answers Concerning the two religions, viz. that of the Church of England, and the Other, Of the Church of Rome, London, 1723, p. 37. No printer's name. Bodleian Library, Pamphl. 374. ^Richard Fiddes, Theologia Speculativa : or, the first part of a body of divinity, London, Bernard Lintot, 1718, Book IV. Art. x. p. 598. 18 274 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. another very weighty and important Reason, why Penitents should make particular Confession of their Sins to their spiritual Guides, and which I cannot give you better than in the Words of our admirable Liturgy, viz. That by the Ministry of God's holy Word &c.^ He continues the quotation from the exhortation to Com- munion. The celebrated philosopher, Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, has no doubt Pascal's exposure of Jesuit morals in his eye, when he condemns the casuistry of the Church of Rome. 1 had forgot to say a word of Confession, which you mention as an advantage in the Church of Rome which is not to be had in ours. But it may be had in our communion, by any who please to have it ; and, I admit, it may be very usefully practised. But, as it is managed in the Church of Rome, I apprehend it doth infinitely more mischief than good. Their casuistry seemeth a disgrace, not only to Christianity, but even to the light of nature.^ This was written as part of a letter to a friend who was tempted to become a Roman Catholic. Dr. Wilson, the good iBishop of Sodor and Man, put this high standard before his clergy : Ad Clerum. Qualifications of a Good Confessor. — A Blameless Life. Of an Unviolable Secresy, a Sweet Behaviour to Allure and to comfort Sinners. Courage to Reprove, and Prudence to Apply fit Remedies to Troubled Consciences, and to let them know that God respects Sincerity of Heart above all things. Pag. 47.^ And again : [The priest] would mightily abuse his Power, if he should Pronounce one Penitent, who has been persuaded to tell his Faults, without consider- ing seriously how to leave them, and purposing sincerely to do so. And certainly the best way to satisfye one's conscience whether we are truly penitent, is for a while to try whether we keep up sincerely to our Resolu- tions of Forsaking every sin.* The next authority to be quoted is Dr. Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury. ^ Richard Fiddes, Fifty two Practical Discourses, London, 1720. Sermon xv. to the Criminals in York Castle, July 4, 1708, p. 182 end of Sermon. 2 The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Fraser, Oxford, igoi, vol. iv. p. 532. Letter to Sir John James, 1741. ^Thomas Wilson, Supplement to Maxims of Piety and Morality, § 52 in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, i860, vol. v. p. 532, No. 52. 'ibid. p. 540, No. 78. PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 275 Still in many Cases acknowledging the Errors of our Lives, and open- ing the State of our Souls to the Ministers of God's Word, for their Opinion, their Advice, and their Prayers, may be extremely useful, sometimes nec- essary. And whenever Persons think it so, we are ready both to hear them with the utmost Secresy, and to assist them with our best Care : to direct them how they may be forgiven, if we think they are not ; to pro- nounce them forgiven, if we think they are.^ Dr. Johnson was consulted by a man who ought to have had no scruples at all, for his master had given him permission to take as much as be pleased of certain goods. He told me that he was oppressed by scruples of conscience : I blamed him gently for not applying, as the rules of our church direct, to his parish priest or other discreet clergyman. He was dismissed not so gently as he was received. " Sir (said I) teize me no more about such airy nothings." ^ In bodily or spiritual sickness Dr. George Home, the Bishop of Norwich, advises the patient thus : More especially " let them send for the elders of the church " whose continual employment it is to present sinners to Christ. . . . He shall hear the voice of Jesus saying to him by his word, by the absolution of the church, and the testimony of his conscience through the holy Ghost — "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee".^ And speaking of the diseases of the soul he says that when sick, or wounded by sin, it must be recovered and restored by godly counsel and wholesome discipline, by penance and absolution, by the medicines of the word and sacraments, as duly and properly adminis- tered in the church, by the lawfully and regularly appointed delegates and representatives of the physician of souls.* Hey disliking greatly the practice of private confession has to own that The church of England may seem, from some things, to approach towards Romish Confession. After quoting from Bishop Sparrow's Rationale the three parts of Repentance, Hey goes on : 1 Thomas Seeker, Sermons on several Subjects, ed. by Beilby Porteus and George Stinton, London, Rivington, 1771, vol. vi. p. 357. Sermon xiv. ^ Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, second ed. London, Cadell, 1786, p. 226. ' George Home, Discourses on several Subjects and Occasions, second ed. Oxford, 1795, vol. iii. p. 306. " The paralytic healed." ''ibid, third ed. London, Robinson, 1799, vol. ii. p. 164, on Ephes. iv. 7 preached before the University of Oxford on June 8, 1757. 18* 276 CONFESSOR TO THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD. Confession, in some sort private, is often commended by our Divines, and even in our Liturgy : we may instance in the first Exhortation to the Communion, and in the Visitation of the Sick.' Next he does his best to neutralise what the Prayer Book says. Sir George Pretyman TomHne was Bishop of Lincoln and then Bishop of Winchester, dying in 1827. Dealing with the twenty- fifth Article of Religion he says : Confession of sins to God is an indispensable duty, and confession to priests may sometimes be useful, by leading to effectual repentance ; and therefore our church encourages its members to use confidential confession to their priest, or to any other minister of God's holy word.^ Dr. Herbert Marsh was Lady Margaret Professor at Cambridge, and afterwards became Bishop of Llandaff and then of Peterborough. He distinguishes between the Roman and Anglican scheme of con- fession thus : The case is widely different, when men voluntarily go to consult their ministers, in order to seek relief for a troubled conscience, and relate to him at their own discretion the offences, which cause their uneasiness. Now the Confessions required by the Church of England are general Confessions to Almighty God, in which the Priest joins with the congregation : and though on certain occasions especial Confession is recommended it always depends on the will of the person himself.^ There is the testimony of a Lutheran, travelling in England, in favour of our practice. In 1683, a chaplain, in waiting upon a young Prince of Sweden, expressed himself as much satisfied with the Common Prayer Book ; and confessed wee had retained very much of the practices of the Primitive Church, and more particularly that wee had retain'd Confession, Absolution, and soe many Feasts and Fasts.* The office of Confessor continued in the King's Household throughout our period. The first day of November 1675 the said Mr. Stephen Crespion was swome Confessor to his Majesties Household. When he died he was apparently followed by Mr. Radcliffe ; and ijohn Hey, Lectures in Divinity, Book IV. Art. xxv. § 4. Cambridge, lygS, vol. iv. p. 218. 2 George Pretyman Tomline, Elements of Christian Theology, London, 1799, vol. ii. p. 424. Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles, Part III. Art. xxv. 2 Herbert Marsh, A comparative view of the Churches of England and Rome, Cambridge, 1814, ch. ix. p. 195. < 1683, June 13, in Miscellanea : comprising the Works and Letters of Dennis Gran- ville, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171. WORD "ABSOLUTION" USED IRREGULARLY. 277 then the Rev. Mr. Samuel Bentham succeeded in this office on Nov. 9, iyi6} Later on there may be traced appointments to the office of Confessor to the King's Houshold.^ It does not seem to have ceased until the middle of the nineteenth century. The list of Confessors from 1606 to 1833 is given by Dr. Sheppard, the last being appointed in that year and succeeded in 1859 by a clergyman with a new name of office : Chaplain at the Palace of St. James ? The word absolution does not always mean during this period a solemn administration of a rite, either in Church or in Court. It is used loosely, not as a word of art. The episcopal absolution seems to be spoken of in an irregular sort of way. The Dean of Durham, Dr. Denis Granville, wishing to clear himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Bancroft, on Easter Even, 1685, says : As for any infirmities and imprudences in this transaction, I beg God's, my lord's [of Durham], and particularly your Grace's absolution.* So also Miss Burney, when at Bath, says they had a most ex- cellent sermon on the Sunday from the Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Hinchcliffe, who after dinner " proposed a frolic," which was to drink tea at Spring Gardens. Mrs. Thrale had invited company, and, on returning from this "frolic," found her house full of people. She " was in horrid confusion ; but as the Bishop gave her absolu- tion, her apologies were very good naturedly accepted in general ".^ Dr. Haweis, one of the more prominent Calvinistic clergymen in the Church of England at the end of the eighteenth century, is credited with an attack upon Dr. Pretyman Tomline, the Bishop of Lincoln mentioned above, in which he remarks, not without sarcasm, that if what he says cannot be made good, " I shall then take shame to myself, and implore your Lordship's absolution ".^ ' The Old Cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872. New Series III. pp. 15, 26, 28. ^See Cardanus Rider, Sheet Almanack for 1778, p. 76, and Royal Kalendar for 1181, p. 130, and Rider's British Merlin for 1829 under Chapel Royal when the Confessor of the Household is Henry Fly, D.D. F.R. and A.S. 'J. Edgar Sheppard, Memorials of St. James's Palace, Longmans, 1894, vol. ii. p. 299. 'Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 210. ^ Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, 1780, June, London, Colburn, 1842, vol. i. p. 371. ^Church of England vindicated from Misrepresentation, London, Mawman, 1801, p. ig. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. [BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 32,415.] f. 229 d.] By vertue of an order from the reverend Mr. Tanner, Comis- sary of the Archdeaconry for Amy King to do penance in the Parish Church of Helmingham. ^ To be repeated by the Person doing Penance after t}ie Minister as followethP- NB. After the service, before the Psalms, and Sermon I Amy King, late of the Parish of Helmingham, do here, in the pre- sence of Almighty God, and this congregation, humbly confess and acknow- ledge, that I have, most grievously, offended his divine Majesty, in defiling my body, by committing, the heinous Sin of Fornication, with William Pells of Otley, For which, my said foul offence, I am heartily sorry, and do sincerely, repent thereof, and beg of God, mercy and forgiveness, for the same. Desiring all you, here present, to take warning, at this my punish- ment, for the ^ avoiding, any the like wickedness, and to pray God, for me and with me, that his wrath, and plagues, threatned against whoremongers, adulterers, fornicators, and all such unclean persons, may be turned away, from me, and this * parish town, wherein I now dwell, desiring also, all good people, to forgive me, this scandal, which I have given them, and the profession, of Christianity, And I do promise, by Gods grace, for the re- mainder of my days, to live soberly, chastly, and godly, which that I may do, I desire you all, to joyn with me, in prayer, and^ say the Lords Prayer.^ Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingd. come ; Thy will be done in Earth ^ as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us, And lead us not into Tempt : ^ but deliver us from evil.'^ For thine is the Kingd. and the Power, and the glory, for ever and ever, amen, f. 229.] After this you may say to the apparitor I won't insist upon the * It was done the 5th of Aug. 1733. ^To . followeth: underlined. [The punctuation in the confession is due to the necessity of reciting the form slowly, "after the Minister".] '^interlined. *ibid. ''"''and . . . Prayer: interlined, "corrected from heamen. '-'"•but . . . evil " added in margin. 278 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. 279 riguour to have her stand all the time of the sermon ; You may take ^ of her sheet ; ^ and let her sit in the lower end of the Church. Inscr. A schedule of penance enjoined the 13' day of June in the year of our Lord 1733, by the worshipful John Tanner Gierke Master of arts in and throughout the whole archdeaconry Official lawfully constituted to be per- formed by William Pells of Otley and Amy King of Helmingham in the county of Suffolk and Archdeaconry aforesaid for the Crime of fornication by them committed. The said William Pells and Amy King shall be present in the Parish Churches of Otley and Helmingh[am] aforesaid on some Sunday or sun- days before the last day of August next ensuing standing penitently in the middle Alley before the Ministers seat or the pulpit, cloathed in a white sheet, holding a white rod or wand in their hands, having papers pinn'd upon their breasts describing their faults or sin, And then and there in such sort to continue during the whole time of divine service — and at the end of the same before the congregation is dismiss'd and the blessing given shall upon their knees make their humble confession repeating every word after the Minister with an audible voice as followeth : — \end off. 229] [Bodleian Library, MS. Oxf. Archd. Papers, Oxon. c. 130. fo. 85.] In the Archdeaconry Court of Oxford. Bridges against Castle. A Schedule of Penance enjoined Thomas Catlef of the parish of Saint Ebbe in the city and Archdeaconry of Oxford by the Reverend William Brown clerk Master of Arts surrogate of the Reverend George Turner clerk Master of Arts Official Principal of the Reverend the Arch- deacon of Oxford lawfully constituted to be by him performed in the parish church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid on Sunday the twenty second day of February in the Year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and one. The said Thomas Castle shall on the day and year aforesaid in the parish church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid immediately after Morning Prayers and Sermon ended before the Minister churchwardens and two other Par- ishioners of the said parish, after the Minister distinctly repeat the follow- ing words. Good People. Whereas I contrary to good manners and Christian Charity have unjustly reproached and defamed Elizabeth 'j!C, * Scored through in MS, 28o APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. Bridges wife of John Bridges of the Chapelry of North Hincksey in the county of Berks, by saying to her " You are a strumpet and I knew you when you lay on the Botley Road," of which I am con- victed in the said Court by my own Confession and by the decree of that Court am come hither to acknowledge my Fault, which I heartily do, and am sorry that I have so defamed and injured the said Elizabeth Bridges and do hereby ask forgiveness of the same. This agrees with the Acts of Court. Andw Walsh Depty Regr.J This schedule of Penance was duly performed by the said Thomas Castle in the parish Church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid on the day and time above mentioned in the presence of us [Here follow names of Minister, Churchwardens, and two parishioners.] CHAPTER IX. CHURCH SOCIETIES. When the storm of the Rebellion was over, Little Gidding could hardly fail to inspire some to follow its example. And though many of the schemes proposed in our period came to nought, yet it is good to see the idea of a life devoted in common to recollection, prayer, study, or charity, springing up in so many quarters, and en- couraged during our period by those who can speak with authority. The first of these projects took shape but a short time before the return of the King. On September 3, 1659, thus six months before the Restoration, good Mr. Evelyn wrote from Says-Court to the famous Robert Boyle, explaining his intention to quit the world, and found a society " to preserve science and cultivate themselves". First, thirty or forty acres of land were to be purchased near London ; the building was to be divided up so that each apartment " should contain a small bed chamber, an outward room, a closet, and a private garden, somewhat after the manner of the Carthusians. There should likewise be one laboratory, with a repository for rarities and things of nature ; aviary, dovehouse, physick garden, kitchen garden, and a plantation of orchard fruit &c." He has already said there was to be " a pretty chapel " and there was also to be a chaplain. As to diet, there was to be : " At one meal a day, of two dishes only (unless some little extraordinary upon particular days or oc- casions, then never exceeding three) of plain and wholesome meat ; a small refection at night ''. In the following " Orders " it may be particularly noted that " the principal end of the institution" is " the promotion of experimental knowledge". Orders. At six in summer prayers in the chapel. To study till half an hour after eleven. Dinner in the refectory till one. Retire till four. Then 281 282 LIFE IN COMMUNITY. called to conversation (if the weather invite) abroad, else in the refectory ; this never omitted but in case of sickness. Prayers at seven. To bed at nine. In the winter the same with some abatements for the hours, because the nights are tedious, and the evenings conversation more agreeable ; this in the refectory. All play interdicted, sans bowls, chess, &c. Every one to cultivate his own garden. One month in spring a course in the elaboratory on vegetables, &c. In the winter a month on other ex- periments. Every man to have a key of the elaboratory, pavilion, library, repository, &c. Weekly fast. Communion once every fortnight, or month at least. No stranger easily admitted to visit any of the Society, but upon certain days weekly, and only after dinner. Any of the Society may have his commons to his apartment, if he will not meet in the refectory, so it be not above twice a week. Every Thursday shall be a musick meeting at conversation hours. Every person of the Society shall render some publick account of his studies weekly, if thought fit, and especially shall be recommended the pro- motion of experimental knowledge, as the principal end of the institution. There shall be a decent habit and uniform used in the college. One month in the year may be spent in London, or any of the Universities, or in a perambulation for the publick benefit, &c. with what other orders shall be thought convenient &c.^ It does not appear from the after life of John Evelyn that he ever accomplished his design of leaving the world. There may be noted once more the great contrast to other societies of this kind : that the aim of the college was the increase of knowledge, and that by way of experiment, as would become, indeed, a society founded by one of the Fellows first elected into the new formed Royal Society in 1661. Ten years after, another of these abortive schemes entered into the head of Mr. Edward Chamberlayne, who, with other friends, was prepared to begin a convent for women. His correspondent in all likelihood was Dr. Basire. London, 31. Jan. [1670.] Worthy Dr. At the request of some worthy persons I have undertaken a designe which you and all good men will doubtlesse much favour. It is for erecting a Colledge not far from hence for the education of young ladies, under the government of some grave matrons, who shall resolve to lead the rest of their dayes in a single retired religious life ; which many 1 Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Bray and Wheatley, London, Bickers, 1879, vol. iii. p. 265. LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 283 have a long time wisht, but none have made it their busines to bring to effect. My request to you is for your advice herein. Our good friend Dr. Thriscrosse hath told me that you have mentioned some such CoUedge to be in Germany among either Lutherans or Calvinists. Herein chieify I desire to be satisfied, at what place you have seen, or been certainly in- formed, of such a Colledge, or Protestant Monastery, and whether you know any one here who can informe me of their Rules and Constitutions, and whether you believe that such a thing may be practised in England ; if so, then that you will please to promote the designe by inviting such ladyes of your acquaintance in any parts of England whom you know well qualifyed and fit to be of the Society, and such other well disposed persons as may contribute towards the charges, which, I hope will not be great ; for at first there will only need a house with good gardens, well secured with walls, and a constant salary for a Chaplain ; and for this divers have already promised to subscribe in a bountiful manner. Much more I could let you know of this matter, but I shall now only beg pardon for this great boldnesse, and assure you that I am, Sir, Your very humble servant Edw. Chamberlayne.i It is clear that Mrs. Godolphin at one time had thoughts that a religious vocation was hers ; but Evelyn observes : that the Heroick tymes were now antiquated, and people proceeded by gentler and more compendious methods ; and the decencyes of her sex, and custome of the nation, and the honour of the condition, and the want of Monasteryes and pyous Recesses obliged her to marry. ^ And vi^hen at Paris she writes : I did not imagine the tenth part of the Superstition I find in it, yett still could approve of their Orders. Their Nunneryes seem to be holy Institutions, if they are abused, 'tis not their fault : what is not per- verted ? ' A scheme for a College of Maids was put forth by Clement Baskdale (so stated in Anthony Wood's handwriting on the first page) on Aug. 12, 1675, in which rules much resembling those of an Oxford College for men are given. At the end of the tract, under Postscript, the author says : As for the Religious Orders of Virgins in the Roman Church, though [in] some of those very great abuses have crept in ; yet I think 'twere to be wish'd, that those who supprest them in this Nation, had confin'd them- ' The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, vol. Iv. 1872, part ii. p. 384, from Mickleton MSS. xlvi. 243. ^ The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 81. "'ibid. p. 120. 284 LIFE IN COMMUNITY. selves within the bounds of a Reformation, by choosing rather to rectifie and regulate, than abolish them.' In 1682 (January 27) Mr. Evelyn was consulted by the King and the Archbishop about " the erection of a Royal Hospital for emerited souldiers" in which Sir Stephen Fox was much interested, and which he was apparently about to found. This is what we are told: He also engag'd me to consider of what laws and orders were fit for the government, which was to be in every respect as strict as in any religious convent. This again seems to have come to nothing. But the plan of Mrs. Astell reached near to success. She, reflecting upon the evils of her time, was led to think of a remedy for them ; and this was her remedy. Now as to the Proposal, it is to erect a Monastery, or if you will (to avoid giving offence to the scrupulous and injudicious, by names which tho' innocent in themselves, have been abus'd by superstitious Practices,) we will call it a Religious Retirement, and such as shall have a double aspect, being not only a Retreat from the World for those who desire that advantage, but likewise, an Institution and previous discipline, to fit us to do the greatest good in it.^ But there was a busybody at hand to confound such a project. The scheme given in her [Mrs. Astell's] proposal, seemed so reasonable, and wrought so far upon a certain great lady, that she had designed to give ten thousand pounds towards erecting a sort of college for the educa- tion and improvement of the female sex : and as a retreat for those ladies who nauseating the parade of the world, might here find a happy recess for the noise and hurry of it. But this design coming to the ears of Bishop Burnet, he immediately went to that lady, and so powerfully remon- strated against it, telling her it would look like preparing a way for Popish Orders, that it would be reputed a Nunnery, &c. that he utterly frustrated that noble design.^ To Mrs. Astell the dangers of living free in the world must have seemed very great. The infection of ill company was much to be avoided. She quotes the saying Liberty will corrupt an Angel: ^ ^ A Letter touching a Colledge of Maids, or, a Virgin-Society, Bodleian Library, Wood 130. 2 [Mary Astell,] A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, Part I. third edition, London, Wilkin, 1696, p. 40. ^George Ballard, Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, Oxford, 1752, p. 146 (thus ; but a printer's error for 446). ^Astell, p. 78. LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 285 and her mind is at one with the sentiment in the ninth chapter of the first book of the Imitation : " Go where thou wilt thou shall not find peace save in humble obedience to the will of a master". The modern idea is that Liberty is the first thing to be claimed, without which life is not worth having. We see the results of this doctrine in practice in the world around us. Swift in 1709 ridiculed this scheme of Mrs. Astell's by pointing to what folly it might lead if carried out. Sir Walter Scott, at least, thinks that it is Mrs. Astell's scheme which is laughed at in the Tatter under the name of the Platonics, and the mention of the name of the Rector of Bemerton, John Norris, Mrs. Astell's corres- pondent, makes the assumption very plausible. This is Swift's account of what he calls Platonnes. There were, some years since, a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes and erect a nun- nery. The place of residence was pitched upon ; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts &c.^ Then one Mr. Rake, with a number of his sex, succeeds in pene- trating into this protestant nunnery, with the usual results. Sir George Wheler, a Prebendary of Durham, had been in the East, and while he commends the Greek Monasteries, yet speaks severely against the Western. He puts aside the Communities at Bromley founded by Dr. John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, and at Winchester by Dr. George Morley, Bishop of that See, as not being convents but Colleges of Retirement for old age. Those for the Retirement of Single Men, it would seem, he would not admit at all. But he devotes his fourth Chapter to Monasteries for Women, which he opens with these words : Convents for single Women seem more convenient, if not very neces- sary for all times and Countries, and are by far less dangerous, since no considerable detriment can be expected from them, if due regard be had in composing the Rules of their Institution, by such like precautions as these.^ His rules would allow these nuns to marry, to remain or leave the Society, but while they remain to be enclosed, their reputation 'Jon. Swift, Tatler, No. 32, Thursday, June 20, 1709: in Works, ed. W. Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ix. p. 206. 2 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery : or, Christian Oeconomicks. Contain- ing Directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family, 1698, p. 14. 286 LIFE TN COMMUNITY. before admission to be of a spotless modesty, and the government of the Society to be "committed to none, but such, whose Virtue, Conduct, Age and Experience, should render them worthy of that Honour, and are rather to be chosen out of the Widows ". His book otherwise is one of suggestions for the regulating of a Christian family rather than for the encouragement of a religious life. It appears that the following scheme of Edward Stephens was actually brought into existence, as the others were not. In the Bodleian Library there are two copies of a Proposal in an anony- mous tract of four pages, without date, place, or printer. On the third page there is a sort of advertisement of Socrates Christianus, allowing the Proposal to be by the author of Socrates Christianus, which is usually attributed to Edward Stephens. If this be so, the Proposal must have appeared after 1700, the date of Socrates Christianus. The following is the introduction to the scheme. THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY: OR, A PROPOSAL OF A COMPLEAT WORK OF CHARITY. For the Accommodation of some Devout Women, with such mean but convenient Habitation, Work, Wages, and Relief, that they may have Time and Strength for the Worship of God, both in Publick and Private, and Free- dom of Mind for Meditation and Religious Exercises, while their Hands are Imploy'd for Maintenance of the Body; and that while they enjoy the Bene- fit of such Accommodations for their own Souls, tfieir Benefactors, and the Church and Nation, may be benefitted by their Constant Prayers.^ These women were to be employed upon Works of Charity ; in visiting the sick and needy ; carrying alms where there may be occasion ; and spreading the Kingdom of Christ. Also in the edu- cation of young women in piety and virtue. He has a marginal note considering how single men might live together in a Religious Society, but defers putting forth a scheme till he sees the success of the earlier for women. What is to be noticed is the prominent appearance in the scheme of practical works of benevolence, as a great aim of the institution. In another separate tract he is able to announce the deiinite for- mation of the Society ; and at the end of the extract may be ob- served a suggestion the carrying out of which was a great purpose in Stephens' life, a daily celebration of the Eucharist. ' Bodleian Library, 4° Rawl. 564. No. 27. and another copy : Th. 4° R. 66. LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 287 He hath also begun to put his Proposal into Practice, having, for that purpose procured a Friend to take a Lease of a convenient House of near 40/. per Annum ; his Design therein being to give an Experiment and Ex- ample of the great Use and Benefit thereof, and not merely the Accommo- dation of one Twenty Women. This he hath begun in hope and confi- dence that there is yet so much real Piety and Charity left in this City, and especially in this Sex, as not to suffer such a Proposal to come to nothing for want of Supplies, and become a Publick Testimony of the Barrenness and Insincerity of the Religion professed amongst us, as another Good Work, begun by him for the Restitution of the most Solemn Christian Wor- ship to its Integrity and just Frequency of a Daily Celebration} This daily celebration had been begun in private in 1692 and carried on at St. Giles' Cripplegate in 1694; and later on at St. Alphage.^ It must have been going on, not at St. Giles, but else- where, in 1706, for Dr. Thomas Smith writes to Hearne on Feb. 19 : Here is indeed now in towne Mr. Edward Stephens, . . . who in his little congregation of daily Communicants, consisting of five or six women, makes use of the first Liturgy of King Edward VI, with some few additions and patches of his owne.^ He had lost one of his little Society, evidently much to his chagrin, for he published the following quarto tract : A true account of the unaccountable Dealings of some Roman Catholick Missionars of this Nation, for Seducing Proselytes from the Simplicity of the Gospel, to the Roman Mystery of Iniquity. With a particular Relation of a Gentlewoman lately so seduced out of a true Catholick Family. That is, his own. The pamphlet was printed and sold in 1703 by J. Downing. The only rules of Edward Stephens' little Society that have come down to us are these : T. To meet daily at five in the Morning at a daily Communion. 2. To endeavour, as near as we could, in all things to follow the example of the ancient Christians ; and, 3. To avoid giving offence to any, but especially to the Church of ^ Bodleian Library, Th. 4° R. 66, p. 8 of a Letter to a Lady, concerning . . . Celi- bacie <&"C., the colophon has : Printed for the Religious Society of Single Women. '^ In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Use of some Portions of other Parts of our Liturgy in the Communion Service upon just occasion, in a Collec- tion of Tracts and Papers, London, printed for the Author [Edw. Stephens] 1702. 'Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 188. Stephens' Liturgy of the Ancients was printed in 4° in 1696 and reprinted by Peter Hall in the second volume of his Fragmenta Liturgica, Bath, Binns and Good- win, 1848. * Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 21 Feb. 1694-5. Bodleian Library, 4° Rawl. 564. No. 26. See also TAc Second Part of the Apology of Socrates Christianus , p. 5. 288 LIFE IN COMMUNITY. Atterbury laments the entire destruction of monastic institutions : 'Twas the great Blemish of our Reformation, that, when Religious Houses were suppressed, some Part, at least, of their Revenues was not restored to its Original Use.^ With this last wish we may compare a remark in one of his essays by Dr. Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich : It is well known what strange work there has been in the world, under the name and pretence of Reformation ; how often it has turned out to be, in reality. Deformation ; or, at best, a tinkering sort of business, where, while one hole has been mended, two have been made.^ William Law, with his disposition to asceticism, naturally com- mends the religious life : If therefore persons, of either sex, mov'd with the life of Miranda, and desirous of perfection, should unite themselves into little societies, professing voluntary poverty, virginity, retirement and devotion, living upon bare neces- saries, that some might be reliev'd by their charities, and all be blessed with their prayers, and benefited by their example : Or if for want of this, they should practice the same manner of life, in as high a degree as they could by themselves ; such persons would be so far from being chargeable with any superstition or blind devotion, that they might be justly said to restore that piety, which was the boast and glory of the Church, when its greatest saints were alive.' William Law formed a very small society, hardly more than two women, who lived under his guidance in a house at Kings Cliffe, spending in good works that part of their income not needed for a most simple and plain way of living. On Law's death in 176 1 this strict way of living was given up.* Sir William Cunninghame, Baronet, of Caprington and Lam- brughton, who died in 1740, writing from his house in the Lawn Market, Edinburgh, on March 17, 1737 to Dr. Thomas Sharp, the Archdeacon of Northumberland, encloses an elaborate scheme for erecting a Society of Ladies of Quality, and Gentlewomen of Great Britain in order to a pious and comfortable Retirement. It extends over five octavo pages and it is too long to be reproduced here ; but a portion of the covering letter may be given. 1 Francis Atterbury, Maxims, London, 1723, p. 13. 2 Olla Podrida, No. 23, Saturday, August 18, 1787. Oxford, Rann, 1788, p. 133. 2 William Law, A serious call to a devout and holy Life, ch. ix. London, Innys and Richardson, 1753, p. 135. ^ See D.N.B. under William Law. LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 289 Diverse speculations have been had by such as wish heartily well to the good ladies on this occasion ; but after mature deliberation, none has appeared more agreeable than to propose a Nunnery of Protestant religious and vir- tuous persons, well born, of the female sex, conforming themselves to the worship of the Church of England, as by law established . a scheme of this society is, with all humble deference, inclosed here, for your perusal at hours of greatest leisure, and submitted to your opinion : and if either this, or any such model, happen to take, it must of course be subject to such regulations as shall be concerted by the Bishop of the Diocese where such nunnery shall be founded, with advice and consent of the Dean and Chapter of such diocese.^ He then suggests the diocese of Durham, and the site Sedge- field, for the nunnery. The importance given to the consent of the Dean and Chapter to the action of the Bishop may be noted, as indicating a knowledge of their function as council to the Bishop. He adds that there are to be no vows, but each nun is to be at liberty to quit the nunnery, timely notice being given to the prioress and bishop. The Archdeacon returns a reply, unfavourable on almost all the points laid before him. The great philosopher, Dr. George Berkeley, in attempting to dissuade from popery, writes thus of the religious life : That the contemplative and ascetic life may be greatly promoted by living in community and by rules, I freely admit. . . . I should like a convent without a vow, or perpetual obligation. Doubt- less a college or monastery (not a resource for younger brothers, not a nursery for ignorance, laziness, and superstition) receiving only grown persons of ap- proved piety, leaming, and a contemplative turn, would be a great means of improving the Divine Philosophy, and brightening up the face of religion in our Church. But I should still expect more success from a number of gentlemen, living independently at Oxford, who made divine things their study, and proposed to wean themselves from what is called the world.^ In John Kirkby's curious romance he pictures an Utopian Church of England, where they use a liturgy like that in the First Book of King Edward VI. At baptism it is said that the other sex were intrusted, in a separate Apartment, to the Care of a sufificient Number of pious Women, called Deaconesses, who, out of Love 1 The Life of John Sharp, ed. by Thomas Newcome, London, Rivington, 1825, vol. ii. App. iii. p. 282. ''The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Fraser, Oxford, 1901, vol. iv. p. 529. Letter to Sir John James,'i74i. 19 290 LIFE IN COMMUNITY. to a religious Life, had sequestred themselves from the World for that Purpose.'^ Kirkby was a Nonjuror ; tutor to the Gibbon family at Putney ; but I do not know if he were a dissenting or conforming Nonjuror. Samuel Richardson makes Sir Charles Grandison speak warmly in favour of religious societies living in retirement ; and he gives an outline of his scheme which is too long to be reproduced here com- plete. The hero begins : We want to see established in every county Protestant Nunneries, in which single women, of small or no fortunes, might live with all manner of freedom, under such regulations as it would be a disgrace for a modest or good woman not to comply with, were she absolutely on her own hands ; and to be allowed to quit it whenever they pleased.^ What we may call his quire sisters were to be women of good birth ; and the lay sisters hopeful children of the industrious poor. They were to board young women of small fortune, married women whose husbands were out of England for a time, and widows. Some proiitable employments, it may be presumed in needlework, were to be found them. A truly worthy divine to be director of the Society at the appointment of the bishop of the diocese. Later on his hero writes thus : Permit me to say, that though a Protestant, I am not an enemy to such foundations in general. I could wish, under proper regulations, that we had nunneries among us. I would not, indeed, have the obligation upon nuns be perpetual : let them have liberty, at the end of every two or three years, to renew their vows, or otherwise, by the consent of friends.' Dr. Johnson is divided between admiration for piety and fear of oppression. I never read of a hermit but in imagination I kiss his feet ; never of a monastery, but I could fall on my knees, and kiss the pavement. But I think putting young people there, who know nothing of life, nothing of retirement, is dangerous and wicked. ... I have thought of retiring, and have talked of it to a friend ; but I find my vocation is rather to active life. Boswell then said some young monks might be allowed, to show that it is not age alone that can retire to pious solitude. But John- son would not allow this.'' 1 [John Kirkby,] The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding exemplified in the Extraordinary Case of Automathes, London, Manby and Cox, 1745, p. 14. '^ Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart. vol. iv. Letter xxii. Chapman and Hall, 1902, vol. iv. p. 194. ^ ibid. vol. V. Letter li. p. 335. ^ James Boswell, The jfonrnal of a tottr to the Hebrides, ig August. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 291 Earlier in life he had written in a judicial strain attempting to give both sides of the question. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life ; and if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat. .Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of their conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many are dis- missed by age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. ^ Goldsmith thought that Johnson himself would have made a decent monk.^ In one way he was qualified to become a monk, if his opinion hold good that convents are idle places, for he was him- self the most indolent of men. Mrs. Thrale reports : And when we talked of convents, and the hardships suffered in them — " Remember always (said he) that a convent is an idle place, and where there is nothing to be done something must be endured.'" ^ Guilds. Not so very long after our period had begun, societies were formed which we should nowadays call Guilds. They were purely spiritual societies ; their aim being to deepen the love of God in the hearts of their members, and next to practice charity towards their neighbours. They would be helped in these pious endeavours by the encouragement which men feel when they are linked together in a band with a common object. Chamberlayne thus describes them, in his annual publication, as late as 175S : The Religious Societies are so called, because the particular end and design of them is to improve themselves and other in the Knowledge of our most Holy Religion, and to animate one another in the serious practice of it. They were begun in London, about the year 1678 by a few serious young Men of the Communion of the Church of England, who, by the Advice and Direction of their Spiritual Guides, agreed to meet together frequently for Religious Conference, and by Prayer and Psalmody to edifie one another. The experience they hereby gained of the blessedness of Religion, and ' Samuel Johnson, Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, ch. xlvii. Cf. a passage in the Idler, No. 38. ^Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnsmi, London, J. Walker, 1785, p. 194. ^Hesther Lynch Viozii, Anecdotes of the late Sarmtel Johnson, Bee. ed. London, Cadell, 1786, p. 92. 19 * 292 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. value of Souls, soon animated their endeavours to gain others to join with them ; whereby they grew and increased, and new Societies were formed by the pattern of the Old : So that there are now above Forty distinct Bodies of them within the compass of the Bills of Mortality, besides divers others in distant parts of the Nation. Those that compose these Societies, are all Members of the Church of England, and in all matters of Doubt and Difficulty, oblige themselves to consult the Established Ministry. They receive the Holy Sacrament at least once a Month, and take all convenient opportunities of attending the Service of God in Public ; have set up Public Prayers in many Churches of the City, procured the Administration of the Sacrament every Holy-Day, and maintain Lectures upon the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper almost every Lords Day Evening, in some one or more Churches. They industriously apply themselves to the relieving poor Families and Orphans, setting Prisoners at Liberty, solliciting Charities for the pious Education of poor Children, Visiting and Comforting those that are Sick and in Prison, and Reclaiming the Vicious and Dissolute ; in promoting Christian Conference, Decency in God's Worship, Family Religion, and the Catechizing of young and ignorant People. They have been instrumental in bringing several Quakers and Enthusiastical Persons to Baptism, and a sober Mind, Reconciling several Dissenters to the Com- munion of the Church of England, and preserving many unsteady and wavering Persons from Popery} The statement of Chamberlayne's gives a good general view of the Societies ; but it may be well to consider the matter more in detail : and to take first the words of a Bishop of Bath and Wells, a contemporary witness. The occasion was this : There was a certain number of Young Men, who were desirous to make such a Society, and to be concluded by these Orders. They applied to a Minister in London to take upon him the In- spection and Care of them. I was concern'd for that Minister, and there- upon laid the whole case before that Prelate. He was clearly of opin- ion that the Young Men were not to be discouraged, and that it was best to take care of them, and secure that zeal which they expressed, in the right Channel ; he was well contented to leave them to the care and management of a Minister of the Church of England. Upon which en- couragement they were admitted.^ The account of the rise of these religious societies, given by Dr. Josiah Woodward, is confirmed in these terms by Dr. Horneck, who may be called the founder of the societies. ^ John Chamberlayne, Magnae BHtanniae Notitia, London, 22nd edition, 1708, p. 276, Part I. book iii. ch. ix. The chapter appears also in the 38th edition, 1755, Parti, book iii. ch, ix. p. 198. 2 Richard [Kidder], The life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, London, Aylmer, 1698, p. 16. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 293 In particular, the late Reverend Dr. Horneck, (who had a very perfect knowledge of them, [the religious Societies] and indeed, was an eminent Friend, or rather. Father to them, from their first Rise, to the Day of his Death) in a Discourse I had with him a little before his Decease, was pleased to give his publick Testimony to it. That it was a very faithful and modest Account of the whole Matter} It vvrill be safe therefore to take Woodward as our chief guide. The Rules which Dr. Horneck framed for them will be found in the Appendix to this chapter, with those of St. Giles' Cripplegate. We have also the Orders printed in 1724.^ All three have a strong resemblance. With the accession of King James the Second there seemed some danger that the prosperity of these Societies might be threatened ; some members did indeed turn their backs, but the re- mainder rather felt the more determined to go on as they had begun and even to widen their activities. Still the societies felt bound to walk warily in those dangerous days, and to conceal themselves if necessary ; so that Woodward informs us : In this Juncture, upon Advice, they chang'd the Name of Society, for that of Club ; and instead of meeting at a Friend's House, who might be endanger'd by it, they adjourn'd to some Publick- House or other where they could have a Room to themselves ; and under the Pretext of spending a Shilling or two, they confer'd seriously together in the same Religious manner as formerly ; by which honest Artifice they carried on their good Design without interruption, even to the end of that unhappy Reign. ^ We can imagine in the twentieth century the outcry which would have been raised by the fanatics, if a Club with a philanthropic or virtuous purpose had held its meetings in a public house. The modern Manichees would hold that this was in itself to encourage vice. Amongst the good works of the Societies it said that they set up (at their own Expence) publick Prayers every Evening, at Eight of the Clock, at St. Clement Danes, which never wanted a full and affectionate Congregation. And not long after, they set up an Evening Monthly Lecture in the same Church, to confirm Communicants in their holy Purposes and Vows, which they made at the Lord's Table.'^ It is interesting to note that these two experiments continued in existence as late as 17 14, and we are told the name of one of the ' Josiah Woodward, An account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies in the City of London, third ed. London, Sympson, 1701, p. 3. 2 See below, next page. ^ Josiah Woodward, An account of the Rise, etc. p. 28. ■* ibid. p. 27. 294 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. founders who encountered much opposition. This is James Paterson's account, speaking of St. Clement Danes : Morning Prayers are every Day at eleven ; and Evening at three, and again at eight in Week-days and seven on Sundays ; which last are main- tained by the Contributions of some well disposed Parishioners ; but first begun by the good Endeavours of Mr. Savigar Upholster in Witch-street, tho' with much Opposition carried on by him, and soon after that he died, about twenty years ago. * « * A Monthly Lecture upon the first Sunday, at five a Clock in the Evening ; maintained by a Society of the Parish, for the Use of the Poor.^ Only the daily prayers are mentioned in 1687.^ One circumstance which Woodward reports in his first chapter is the spontaneous contemporary growth of similar societies. And on this occasion it comes to be known, that in some places the very Scope and Design of these Societies have been begun and continued by several pious Persons, within these three or four years past, who knew noth- ing of these London- Societies, nor had so much as heard any Report of them.^ Dorrington in 1695 recommends his book on the Lord's Supper " to the Societies of Religious Young Men in and about this City " : * and in the same way, Hickes, the Dissenting Nonjuror, thought Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices, which was, it would seem, first published in 1700, would be useful " to those. Religious Societies of which the Reverend Mr. Woodward hath given us an Account "} In 1724 there were printed in London Orders belonging to a Religious-Society.^ They are very like the orders of the Society at St. Giles' Cripplegate which are given in the appendix to this chapter. With them are also printed the devotions used at the meetings of the Society. Members had to promise to be faithful and bear true allegiance to King George. In 1724, one of the Societies in the country, at Romney, pub- lished a hymn book of its own." Some twelve or more of the 1 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 68. ''Rules for our more devout Behaviour in the time of Divine Service, London, Keble, 1687, p. 78. ^Woodward, p. 4. ■• Theophilus Dorrington, A Familiar Guide to the Right and Profitable Receiving of the Lord's Supper, London, Aylmer, 1695, Advertisement, Sheet A.g. ''Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices, ed. by George Hickes, London, 1700. To the Reader, Signature a 4. " Shelf mark in the Bodleian Library : 141. k. 515. ' The Christian Sacrifice of Praises, Consisting of select Psalms and Hymns, with Doxologies and proper Tunes for the Use of the Religious Society of Romney. Collected RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 295 hymns would seem to be taken from John Austin's Devotions, which may serve to show that averse as the Societies might be to Popery, yet they would borrow hymns, and also other devotions from popish books like Austin's.^ There is in the Bodleian Library a manuscript book (MS. Rawl. D. 1 31 2) with this title on its first leaf: The Names, Places of Abode, Employments and Occupacions of the several Societys in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Be- longing to the Church of England, 1694. Some sixteen Societies are enumerated, meeting at different signs in London and Westminster. Only one meets in the vestry of a parish church, and that is at St. Alban's Wood Street. Three meet at Mr. Watts' house, the sign of the Five Bells in Duke Street near Lincoln's Inn Fields. They have different days in the week for assembling ; six on Sunday night, two on Monday, three on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, and three on Thursday. Their occupations point to the lower-middle and working classes. One Society, that meeting on Thursday, " at Mr. Tho : Castles in Cannon-Street near Ab-Church lane" contains members who from their occupation may lay claim to education : Tho : Behn, Attorney ; Geo. Cook, Clerk to his Father, John Cook Esq. ; Isaac Pyke, Clerk to Sir Edward Clerk, Knight and Alderman. The other occupations are, for the most part, such as these : Broker, Pattindrawer, Glazier, Tailor, Barber, Silversmith, Inkhorn-maker, Fishmonger, Steward to Lord Salisbury, Scrivener, Stocking-maker, Weaver, Bricklayer, Butcher, Ironmonger, Bookbinder, Translator, Pastry Cook, Haberdasher of Hats, Pewterer, Coachmaker, Coachharness-maker, Watchmaker, Upholsterer, Mercer, Carrier, Laceman, Carver, Case- maker, Fringe-maker, Felt-maker, Locksmith, Soapboiler, Jeweller, Firkinman, Wheelwright, Painter, Engraver, Salesman, Carrier, Silkman, hy the Author of the Christian's Daily Manual. Wyat, 1724, Shelf mark BM. 3434. cc. 6. ^ See below, ch. xi. p. 341. London, W. Pearson and John 296 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. Canechair-maker, Embroiderer, Wire-drawer, Stationer, Vellumbinder, Stonecutter, Woollen draper, Tobacconist, Hosier. Tinman, Apothecary, Carpenter, Vintner, Schoolmaster, Caneman, Cook, Chandler, Peruke-maker, Gunsmith, Joiner, Founder, Meal-bolter, Turner, Shoemaker, Sword-cutler, Grocer, Butterman, The names are arranged under three headings : Masters, Journey- men, and Apprentices. Some twenty-four years later, in 17 18 the occupations of the members of the Religious Society of St. Giles' Cripplegate were much the same: Clockmaker, Druggist, Distiller, Silkman, Button seller. Needle-maker, Turner, Ironmonger, Plumber, Glover, Jeweller, Cook, Schoolmaster, Plaisterer.-^ Joiner, Perfumer, Leather dresser. Tailor, Peruke-maker, Barber, Cooper, Shoemaker. The occupations show how strong the influence of the Church was with the less prosperous classes. The Church of England does not appear at the end of the seventeenth century to have been only the church of the rich. The list is some answer to the accusation that the Anglican system can only attract the edu- cated and well-to-do. Later on, these Societies were also encouraged by Robert Nelson. For if a few Persons, on no Account considerable, and whose Names are hardly known, being of the Church of England, by their frequently meeting together to pray, sing Psalms, and read the Holy Scriptures, and to edify one another by their Religious Conferences, have, thro' their united Endeavours, and the Grace of God, been enabled to do so much as they have done ; and to propagate and form themselves into such Societies, as those that are particularly called the Religious Societies have been able to do : If they have been so instrumental in promoting the daily Service among Churches, with the regular Administration of the Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ every Lord's Day, and in some Churches ' See Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 1906, vol. vi. p. 34. THE EARLY ME THODIS TS. 297 also every Holy-Day in the Year ; as well as other excellent Designs con- formable to the Practice of the Primitive Days, and to the Establish'd Constitution of this best reformed Church : And if they, but in their private Capacity, have been so serviceable to the Interest of Religion, and to the Honour of the Church, whereof they are Members . . . How much more easy would it be ifor Persons of Quality and Character ... to do abundantly more for Reviving the Piety and Charity of the Primitive Times ? ^ Nelson's sentences extend over three pages. Let us add a portion of another. He speaks with approval of the Setting up several Societies and Funds for the more frequent and devout Attendance on the Divine Service ; for the religious Observation of the Fasts and Festivals by Authority appointed ; for the more exact Conformity to the Rules of the Catholick Church, and of the Church of England in particular ; for suppressing Vice and Immorality ; for pro- moting true Knowledge and Piety, and for proselyting to the establish'd Doctrine and Constitution such as have erred and gone astray from it, for want of due Information and Instruction.^ Theoccupationsof members of the Religious Society of St. Giles' Cripplegate in 1718 have just been given. It is said that its sole design was " to promote real holiness of heart and life ". We have the Rules, the observance of which would indicate an endeavour to lead a very pious and strict life. In the Rules of Dr. Hor- neck's Religious Society it is enjoined to each member to pray seven times each day, if possible.^ At St. Giles', they were all bound to be members of the Church of England, and also to sub- scribe a form declaring King George to have a just right to the crown. In 171 7 Hearne tells us that there were to be no nonjurors in the Religious Societies.* The gaps in the signatures in the original document of 1 7 1 8 look as if there had been some purging of the Society in consequence of this resolution. There is another Society which deserves particular notice from the developement which it underwent in later times, and of which the fears expressed that such Societies might degenerate into Sects were justified. It was formed in the University of Oxford. In the latter end of the year 1729, three or four serious young Gentlemen agreed to pass certain Evenings in every Week together, in order to read ' Robert Nelson, An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate, London, R. Smith, i7iS> p. 136. ^ ibid. p. 139. 3 See below, Appendix to this chapter, Rule No. xviii. p. 309. * Thomas Hearne, Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1902, vol. vi. p. 63. 298 THE EARLY METHODISTS. and observe upon the Classicks, and on Sunday upon some Book of Devotion.^ Then it came to pass that the gaol was to be looked after ; prisoners under sentence of condemnation and debtors were visited, with the approval of the clergymen and bishop, and other philan- thropic work was taken in hand. They also did their best to keep the following rules : The first is. That of Visiting and Relieving the Prisoners and the Sick, and giving away Bibles, Common-Prayer Books, and the Whole Duty of Man. . . . And, 2dly, in order to corroborate and strengthen these good Dis- positions in themselves, they find great Comfort and Use, in taking the Op- portunities which the Place gives them, as I intimated before, of a Weekly Communion. And, 3dly, They observe strictly the Fasts of the Church : And this has given Occasion to such as do not approve of them, abusively to call them Supererogation- Men.''- So far so good ; and the inevitable stimulus of misrepresentation and abuse was soon forthcoming. Attention was, it would seem, first called to this little Society, in no very friendly way, by a writer in Fog's Journal of Dec. 9, 1732. He gave to them the name of Methodists. Unluckily I cannot meet with a co^^y ai Fogs Weekly Journal of this date ; so that I am compelled to fall back upon the extracts given by the writer of the tract with the title Oxford Methodists quoted above. The writer in Fogs Journal '\s said to compare this little Society to the Pietists in Saxony and Switzerland, and the Essenes among the Jews. " They avoid as much as is possible every Object that may affect them with any pleasant and grateful Sensation." ^ Further : " All jcaW Entertainments and Diversions are disapprov'd of".* And " they not only exclude what is convenient, but what is absolutely necessary for the Support of Life " !' And on the same page he adds : They neglect and voluntarily afflict their Bodies, and practise several rigorous and superstitious Customs, which God never required of them. All Wednesdays and Fridays are strictly to be kept as Fasts, and Blood let once a Fortnight to keep down the Carnal Man. ^ % ^ And at Dinner, they sigh for the Time they are obliged to spend in Eating : Every Morning to rise at Four o'Clock, is suppos'd a Duty ; and to employ two Hours a Day in singing of Psalms and Hymns, . . . isjudg'd as an indispensable Duty requisite to the Being of a Christian. In short, they ^ The Oxford Methodists, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 3. ''ibid. p. 8. ^ ibid. p. 20. ^ ibid, p. 22. * ifttrf. p. 23. TRURO RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. 299 practise everything contrary to the Judgment of other Persons, and allow none to have any, but those of their own Sect, which ... is farthest from it.^ Wesley tells us that it w^as in April 1732 that Clayton, after- wards the Chaplain of the Old Church, now the Cathedral, at Man- chester joined them. He it was who suggested a careful keeping of the fast days of the Ancient Church.^ To be sure, a second weekly fast was added to that of the Friday which the Church of England requires, namely, the fast on the Wednesday ; but as this was not set forth as a duty for all Churchmen, but only a voluntary fast for a Society, there appears to be no great harm done. And it was done elsewhere in the Church of England.^ Clayton himself did not follow Wesley into schism, but remained steadfast to the Church of England, and served the Church at Manchester to the end. In politics he adhered to the Chevalier ; but in some way his conscience enabled him to take the oaths to King George while publicly praying, in the streets, for Charles Edward.* It is hard to understand of what stuff such conscience could be made. But the friendship between the Wesleys and Clayton was at an end in 1756, when Tyerman says : Charles Wesley attended the Collegiate church every day for a whole week, and every day stood close to Clayton and yet the latter would not even look at him.^ Not altogether unlike the Religious Societies founded at the end of the seventeenth century, and perhaps indebted to them for a certain number of ideas, was a society set up at Truro in 17 54 by the Rev. Samuel Walker. He explained the end of the Society to the candidates for admission in these words : The design is threefold — to glorify God — lo quicken and confirm ourselves in faith and holiness — and to render us more useful among our neighbours.'' There were two sections in the Society : that composed of single men, from which all women were excluded ; and that of married men and their wives, and single women, from which all single men ^ The Oxford Methodists, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 24. ^F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, Chetham Society, 1891, part ii. p. 250. ' See ch. vii. p. 214. ^ See also ch. vi. p. 180. ^ L. Tyerman, The Oxford Methodists, Hodder and Stoughton, 1873, p. 56. * Edwin Sidney, The Life, Ministry, and Selections from the Remains of the Rev. Samuel Walker, London, Baldwin and Cradock, 1835, p. 53. 300 TRURO RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. were excluded. Into Dr. Horneck's Societies only men were ad- mitted. They of Truro met once a week in the evening, and went home at nine o'clock. The director alone had the power of expel- ling members, and Mr. Walker kept in his own hands the control of the Societies and "prevented all improper trespass on his pro- vince " ; ^ " No one is to be talking there but myself,'^ he said.^ Mr. Walker reserved to himself the performance of the devo- tional exercises. These, it would seem, have borrowed something from the prayers contained in Woodward, spoken of above : the six appropriate sentences of Scripture are from Woodward ; the three collects are not found in Woodward, but the confession, the Lord's prayer, and that beginning as the Collect for Ash Wednesday does, may be suggested by Woodward. The " psalm," It is very meet right, etc. and the Grace of our Lord at the end are in Woodward.' There were no stewards, as in the London Societies, that were permitted to lead the prayers of their fellows. On the contrary, Mr. Walker writes : Laymen officiating in the presence of their authorized minister, and endeavouring to rival or eclipse him in prayer ; women forgetting the modesty of their sex, and the propriety of their situation, in the enthusiastic utterance of feelings real or imaginary ; youths put forward because of a gift, to the destruction of all humility ; ignorant and illiterate persons per- mitted to give vent to unintelligible rhapsodies, exhibit violations of decency and order.* A high sacerdotal tone is far more apparent in the rules of Truro than in the rules of London. Li looking over the Truro rules it may be noticed that there is no insistence on the monthly communion, as there is in Dr. Hor- neck's, Dr. Woodward's, and at St. Giles' Cripplegate. The fourth rule is borrowed in the opening sentence from Dr. Woodward's second rule : Mr. Walker's fourth rule ends with " That none be admitted members, but such as are inhabitants here and communi- cants, and that no person at any time be introduced, but at the re- quest of the director," ^ that is, says the note, Mr, Walker. This as far as I can see is the only mention in all the rules of the Eucha- rist, the great bond of a Society, and the essential duty of every Christian. Nor is there that recommendation of frequent attendance at the 1 Edwin Sidney, The Life, Ministry, and Selections from the Remains of the Rev. Samuel Walker, London, Baldwin and Cradock, 1835, p. 59. '^ibid.p.63. ^ibid.p. 60. *ibid. p. 6t. 'tisd, p. 57. SOCIETIES FOR REFORMING MANNERS. 301 Church Service that we find in the London rules. Altogether the Truro rules are on a lower plane as the rules of a Church Society than those of London, though more strongly sacerdotal. The Society which was founded in 1 800 by William Stevens under the name of " Nobody's Friends " had in view no particular end for the benefit of the Church, beyond bringing together so as to know one another, men of sound " principles of Religion and Polity".^ With this view they dined together three times a year. Societies for the Reformation of Manners. It may be well to mention here another and different kind of Society, Societies for the Reformation of Manners. Edward Stephens, whose head was always full of whims and fancies, tells us that in 1 691 he began to think of another kind of society, altoge- ther different from those established by Dr. Horneck. It may be doubted if Dr. Horneck would have allied himself with Stephens' new plans had the doctor lived. Woodward in his fourth chapter tells us something of their beginnings. He says : " Four or five gentlemen of the Church of England" met together and determined to put into execution the laws against Vice and Impieties. These had had a legal education, and so in some way we are directed towards Edward Stephens, who had left the bar to take orders in the Church of England, and it may possibly be that Stephens was one of these four or five. He was a man of but small judgement, and little that was sane and sober could be looked for at his hands. Stephens' Society was a new Society ; and Wood- ward also in the same chapter tells us what should, it seems, be very particularly noticed : that the Religious Societies must be carefully distinguished from the Societies for the Reformation of Manners. In this number of the Societies for Reformation here given, I do not in- clude any of the Forty Religious Societies before mentioned. For tho' they all agree in the Promotion of Virtue, and Opposition to Vice, yet their first and more direct Design of Association, seems to be distinguished thus : In that the Societies for Reformation bent their utmost Endeavours from the first to suppress publick Vice ; whilst the Religious Societies endea- vour'd chiefly to promote a due sense of Religion in their own Breasts, tho' they have since been eminently instrumental in the publick Reformation.^ ^ James Allan Park, Memoirs of the late William Stevens, Esq. ed. by Dr. Chr. Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, Rivington, 1859, Preface, p. iv. See also The Club of "Nobody's Friends," privately printed, 1902, vol. ii. p. 161. 2 Woodward, p, 64, 302 SOCIETIES FOR REFORMING MANNERS. Thus a new kind of Society came into existence ; the old Societies were spiritual and charitable agencies ; the new were to be agres- sive and often harmful instruments for attacks upon open and barefaced breaches of morality. Such attacks require the utmost prudence and foresight. And it may be feared that both these gifts were often wanting in the agents employed by the Societies for the Reformation of Manners. It is no matter for surprise that they quickly became decadent. So that as early as 1702, their tenden- cies had been detected. Are not we in a fair way to see the Nation Reform'd, when a parcel of Beggarly Informers undertake the Pious Work ? Yimg fames the Second might as soon have Enslav'd his Protestant Subjects with a Popish Army, as our late Societies for Reformation of Man- ners., mend the Nation. These New Apostles Are for the most part, a set of Scoundrels, who are Maintain'd by Lying., serve God for unrighteous Gain.^ In 1709 Swift is much more friendly, yet he speaks of them thus : Religious societies, though begun with excellent intention, and by persons of true piety, are said, I know not whether truly or not, to have dwindled into factious clubs, and grown a trade to enrich little knavish informers of the meanest rank, such as common constables, and broken shopkeepers.^ Swift has not drawn a distinction between the Religious Societies, and the Societies for the Reformation of Manners. But the history of the Societies for the Reformation of Man- ners has so recently and so fully been set forth by the Rev. Garnet V. Portus ^ that there is no great need to pursue their history in this work. They seem to have dwindled, notwithstanding strong support from the Bishops, and the last reference to them that I find is one in 1763, where they violently attacked the keeper of a public house in Chancery Lane and were fined .^300 in damages for their act* Nor, if the following resolutions bear upon a society for the re- formation of manners, does their behaviour in church seem to have been all that it should be. ' [Abel Boyer,] The Etiglish Tkeophrastus, London, Turner and Chantry, 1702, p. 143. -Jonathan Swift, A Project for the Advancement of Religion, in Works, ed. Wal- ter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. viii. p. 221. ' Garnet V. Portus, Caritas Anglicana, Mowbray, 1912. '^Annual Register, 1763, Chronicle, Feb. 23, p. 57. S.P.C.K. AND S.P.G. 303 At a vestry meeting of St. Alban's Wood Street held on Wednesday, May 14, 1760, the question was put: Whether the Sunday morning Society frequenting this Church shall be permitted to continue for one year longer on their contributing and paying such sum towards the Repairs of the Church ... or intirely dis- missed the use of the Church ? It was ordered That the said Society have immediate notice to provide themselves with a Church elsewhere on or before Christmas next untill which time they may continue at this Church they keeping the Church clean and decent and behaving so as not to occasion any complaints against them.^ The vestry repeated this order on July 2, 1 760. In the New Whole Duty of Man there is " a prayer for the Religious Societies". The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is named and also the societies " for Christian conference and works of piety " as well as for those " for putting the laws in execution against the vitious and profane " } The Great Church Societies. Three great Church Societies were founded during our period ; the S.P.C.K., the S.P.G. and the National Society for educating children in the principles of the Church of England. First to come into life was the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, founded on March 8, 1699 by four laymen and one clergyman. Its history has been written of late, on the occasion of its second hundredth anniversary, so that reference to this book may be enough for present purposes.^ The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was incorporated on June 16 in the year 1701. Its first beginnings were encouraged by the sister Society, the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and thus for two hundred years these two great Societies have been working together.* The National Society for promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church was founded on October 16, 181 1. On May 19, 1812 it had over ;^i 5,000 at its bankers,^ 1 Guildhall Library, London, 1264, i. pp. 287 and 305. ^ The prayer continues in an edition printed by J. McGowan in i8ig, p. 476. ' W. O. B. Allen and Edmund McClure, Two Hundred Years : the history of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898, London, S.P.C.K. 1898. * The Spiritual Expansion of the Empire, S.P.G. igoo. '•' First Annual Report of the National Society , London, 1812, p. 62. 304 THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES. and subscribers whose names extend over eighty octavo pages of the Report. The Society for promoting the Enlargement and Building of Churches and Chapels was founded in l8i8 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1828. Its income in 1832 was over ;£'i7,ooo and Free Sittings even then were a prominent feature in the Society's grants.^ Thus the Societies founded in our period continue to this day the work for which they were set up. Had our period been utterly apathetic in its duty towards God and its neighbour, it could hardly have established these great Church Societies and then main- tained them in the flourishing state that they are found in at the end of the first third of the nineteenth century. Theological Colleges. In the nineteenth century much complaint was made of the setting up of theological colleges. It can easily be understood why the average privy-councillor, or member of parliament, business, University, or professional man should object to a well-trained par- son or curate. Such clergymen are able to set him right upon subjects which he has not studied, yet upon which he loves to dog- matise in the superior liberal manner. " The man of facts is a bore," he would say : " he has such a knack of upsetting you." Yet why a bishop should be on the side of ignorance is not at all clear. It might have been thought that an elementary course of instruction in divinity might have been of some use to the candidate for orders. Be this as it may, all that is now to be remarked is that the idea of a special preparation for men intending to apply for holy orders was not unknown in our period. Gilbert Burnet, who has been called the founder of the Lati- tudinarian school in the Church of England, has left a note behind him in which he expresses a wish to be able to counteract the narrowing effects of a University education. It might be that he foresaw the time when the Bishops will refuse to ordain a man who has gone through the contracting influence of an English Uni- versity. I thought the greatest prejudice the Church was under was from the ill education of the Clergy In the Vniversities they for most part lost the '^Incorporated Society for promoting the Enlargement^ etc. Annual Report, May 21, 1832, London, Clay, 1832, p. 16. THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES. 30^ learning they brought with them from Schools and learned so very little in them that too commonly they came from them lesse knowing than when they went to them especially the servitors who if they had not a very good capacity and were very well disposed of themselves were generally neg- lected by their Tutors. They likewise learned the airs of Vanity and Insolence at the Vniversities so that I resolved to have a nursery at Salis- bury of students in Divinity who should follow their studies and Devotions till I could provide them. I allowed them 3olit>- a piece and during my stay at Salisbury I ordered them to come to me once a day and then I answered such difficulties as occurred to them in their studies and enter- tained them with some discourse either on the Speculative or Practicall part of Divinity or some branch of the Pastorall care. This lasted an hour. And thus I hoped to have formed some to have served to good purpose in the Church some of these have answered my expectation to the full and continue still labouring in the Gospell. But they were not all equally well chosen this was considered as a present setlement that drew a better one after it so I was prevailed on by importunity to receive some who did not answer expectation. Those at Oxford looked on this as a publike affront to them and to their way of Education so that they railed at me not only in secret but in their Acts unmercifully for it.i The same idea entered the mind of Burnet's very opposite, Denys Granville, Dean of Durham. Sir George Wheler in a letter to Mr. Bemont, dated August 19, 1693, speaks of the Dean's purpose to make the Cathedral the great seminary of young Divines for the Diocesse, and to this end to invite ingenuous young men to be Minor Canons, he got this order past in Chapter, that what preferments the Chapter had to dispose of, the Minor Canons according to their seniority, meritts, and deserts should have the option before any other; and to further them in their studies, did intend them the use of the College library; and that they might continue a regular and Collegiate life, had often thoughts of getting them lodgings erected in the Colledge.^ Speaking of the two Universities and their foundations in divinity Robert Nelson says it is a thing to be wished that we had also some of these Foundations entirely set apart for the forming of such as are Candidates for Holy Orders ; where they might be fully instructed in all that knowledge which that Holy Institution requires, and in all those Duties which are peculiarly incumbent upon a Parochial Priest. Where Lectures might be daily read, which in a certain Course of Time should include a perfect Scheme of Divinity ; where all peculiar Cases of Conscience might be clearly stated, and such general Rules laid down, as IMS. Bodl. Add. D. 24. fo. 213. Edited also by Miss H. C. Foxcroft, A supple- ment to Burnet's History of my own time, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902, p. 500. ''Robert Surtees, The history . . . of Durham, London, Nichols, i8i6, vol. i. P- 175- 20 3d6 theological COLLEGES. might be able to assist them in giving Satisfaction to all those that repair to them for Advice in difficult Matters. Where they might receive right Notions of all those Spiritual Rights which are appropriated to the Priesthood, and which are not in the Power of the greatest secular Person either to convey or abolish ; and yet are of such great Importance that some of them are not only necessary to the well being but to the very Being of the Church. Where they might be taught to perform all the Publick Offices of Re- ligion with a becoming Gravity and Devotion, and with all that Advantage of Elocution, which is aptest to secure Attention, and beget devout Af- fections in the Congregation. Where they might particularly be directed, how to receive clinical Con- fessions, how to make their Applications to Persons in Times of Sickness, and have such a Method formed to guide their Addresses of that Nature, that they might never be at a Loss when they are called upon to assist sick and dying Persons. Where they might be instructed in the Art of Preaching ; whereby I mean not only the best Method in composing their Sermons, but all those decent Gestures and graceful Deportment, the Influence whereof all Hearers can easier feel than express. And where they might have such judicious Rules given them for prose- cuting their Theological Studies as would be of great Use to them in their future Conduct. 1 Something of the kind that Robert Nelson wished for, had already been set up by the good Bishop of Man, Dr. Thomas Wilson. 4. Setting up Colleges, or Seminaries for the Candidates of Holy Orders ; and particularly for the Mission into America, and other Remote Parts. * * # And if the Palaces of Bishops might become again, as heretofore, the Schools of Candidates for the Holy Ministry, how then would Religion in general, and our Church in particular, flourish ? . . . However a small seminary of this kind hath within these few years been set up in the Isle of Man, under the Direction of the good Bishop thereof \i.e. Thomas Wilson].^ This seminary continued in the days of Dr. Mark Hildesley, his immediate successor in the see of Sodor and Man, of whom his biographer says : There was one business in particular, concerning which he always felt himself very anxious ; namely, the improvement of the academical scholars, or young men of the island, designed for the ministry in the Church of Mann. They were ordered constantly to attend him once a month at ^ Robert Nelson, The Life of Dr. George Bull, London, Richard Smith, 1713, p. ig. For the convenience of the reader the passage has been broken up into shorter paragraphs. 2 Robert Nelson, An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate, London, 1715, Appen. p. 122. THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES. 307 Bishop's Court, where he personally examined them in the Classicks, the Greek Testament, and the Thirty-nine Articles ; then had them to read over distinctly some portion of the Holy Scriptures, in order to qualify them for reading in publick.^ Dr. Pococke, the Bishop of Meath, found this seminary at work in 1750. On June 27 he writes: The young men who are educated at the academy at Castleton for the ministry, are frequently taken in to the bishop's house to be under his eye, and study divinity for two or three years before they go into Orders, and the example, conversation, and instructions of such a prelate must be of great advantage to them.^ Dr. George Berkeley, before he was Bishop of Cloyne, spent some four years in London endeavouring to secure a charter for a Theological College in the Bermudas. In 1725 he published in London through H. Woodfall his Proposal for a College in Bermuda. A College or Seminary in those parts is very much wanted : and there- fore the providing such a Seminary is earnestly proposed and recommended to all those who have it in their power to contribute to so good a work. By this, two ends would be obtained : — First, the youth of our English Plantations might be themselves fitted for the ministry. « * * Secondly, the children of savage Americans, brought up in such a Seminary, and well instructed in religion and learning, might make the ablest and properest missionaries for spreading the gospel among their countrymen.^ A charter was granted by King George the Second in 1725 for the founding of a College by the name of St. Paul's College in Bermuda. The President and Fellows were to have the power of conferring Degrees in all Faculties.* The idea of special professional training is so reasonable and promises to be so fruitful that it is somewhat astonishing that with these precedents it was left to the nineteenth century to put the conception into practice. The other two learned professions, those of the lawyer, and the physician, have now to undergo highly special- ised training after leaving the University. Why should the clergy- man have such a specially disadvantageous privilege thrust upon him ? ' Memoirs, of Mark HildesUy, D.D, Lord Bishop of Sodor and Mann, ed. by the Rev. Weeden Butler, London, J. Nichols, 1799, p. 81. ^ The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. by J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 2. ^ The Works of George Berkeley, ei. by A. C. Fraser, Oxford, igoi, vol. iv. p. 347. ^ibid. p. 362. 20 * APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. RULES FOR THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY GIVEN BY DR. HORNECK. [The Life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, by Richard [Kidder] Bishop of Bath and Wells, London, Aylmer, i6g8, p. 13.] I. That all that entered into such a society should resolve upon an holy and serious Life. II. That no person shall be admitted into this Society till he arrive at the age of Sixteen, and hath been first confirmed by the Bishop, and solemnly taken on himself his Baptismal Vow. III. That they chuse a Minister of the Church of England to direct them. IV. That they shall not be allowed in their meetings to discourse of any controverted point of Divinity. V. Neither shall they discourse of the Government of Church or State. VI. That in their meetings they use no Prayers but those of the Church, such as the Litany and Collects, and other prescribed Prayers ; but still they shall not use any that peculiarly belong to the Minister, as the Absolu- tion. VII. That the Minister whom they chuse shall direct what practical Divinity shall be read at these meetings. VIII. That they may have liberty, after Prayer and Reading, to sing a Psalm. IX. That after all is done, if there be time left, they may discourse each other about their spiritual concerns ; but this shall not be a standing Exercise, which any shall be obliged to attend unto. X. That one day in the Week be appointed for this meeting, for such as cannot come on the Lord's Day, and that he that absents himself with- out cause shall pay three Pence to the Box. XI. Every time they meet, every one shall give six Pence to the Box. XII. That on a certain day in the year, viz. Whitsun- Tuesday, two Stewards shall be chosen, and a moderate Dinner provided, and a Sermon preached, and the Money distributed (necessary Charges deducted) to the Poor. XIII. A Book shall be bought, in which these Orders shall be written. 308 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 309 XIV. None shall be admitted into this Society without the consent of the Minister who presides over it ; and no Apprentice shall be capable of being chosen. XV. That if any Case of Conscience arise, it shall be brought before the Minister. XVI. If any Member think fit to leave the Society, he shall pay five Shillings to the Stock. XVII. The major part of the Society to conclude the rest. XVIII. The following Rules are more especially to be commended to the Members of this Society, viz. To love one another : When reviled, not to revile again : To speak evil of no man : To wrong no man : To pray, if possible, seven times a day : To keep close to the Church of England : To transact all things peaceably and gently : To be helpful! to each other : To use themselves to holy Thoughts in their coming in and going out : To examine themselves every night : To give every one their due : To obey Superiors both Spiritual and Temporal. RULES OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF ST. GILES' CRIPPLEGATE. [By the kindness of the Rev. Albert Barff, Vicar of St. Giles' Cripple- gate, and Prebendary of St. Paul's, I am enabled to give extracts from a manuscript belonging to St. Giles'. It is a book of paper, 16 by 6-J- inches, bound in limp vellum with two clasps. Tke Orders and Rules have been begun at one end of the book ; and accounts begin at the other. Tlie Orders and Rules are written on the recto only, and the same hand seems to have been employed from p. i to the end of p. 20, where several hands begin to write the names of members.] / Orders and Rules [p. i. To be Observed by all the Members of the Society. 1. That the Sole design of this Society, being to promote Real Holiness of heart and Life ; it is Absolutely necessary, that the Persons who enter into it do seriously Resolve to apply themselves in good earnest to all means proper to make them wise unto Salvation. 2. That the Members of this Society shall meet together one Evening in the week at a Convenient place in order to Encourage each other in practical Holiness : by discoursing on Spiritual subjects and reading God's Holy word and to pray to Almighty God and praise his name together. 310 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 3. That at such meetings there be no dispute about controversial points State Affairs or the concerns of trade and worldly things ; but the whole bent of the Discourse, be to the Glory of God : and to Edifie one another in Love. 4. That it be left to every Persons discretion to contribute at every weekly meeting what he thinks fit towards a Publick Stock for maintaining a Sermon and to defray other /necessary charges and the money thus [p. 3. collect shall be kept by the Stewards (who shall be chose by majority of voices every half year) to be disposed of by the Major part of the Society for the uses abovementioned, and the said Stewards shall keep a faithfull Register of what is thus collected, and Distributed to be perused by any Member of the Society at Request. 5. That every Member shall clear his part in the Roll once in two months : the charge of the Sermon occurring once in that time. 6. That at the time of choosing new Stewards there shall be likewise chose, [(]by the new Stewards) Six Collectors to serve for the following half year and if any of these Collectors so chosen neglect to come or pro- vide one to serve in their place they shall forfeit six pence for every such default. 7. That if any Member Absent himself three Sunday nights together he shall forfeit twopence and shall be judged Disaffected to the Society ; without giving a Satisfactory account to the Stewards. 8. That one or both of the Stewards shall not fail upon the forfeit of six pence before the next time of meeting to visit and enquire into the reasons of such members absence and desire him to be more frequent in Meeting his brethren for each others mutual advantage and if after such visit he continues to absent himself four nights more let him be Excluded. 9. That if the Stewards neglect to gather in the forfeits they shall be liable to pay the same themselves. /lo. That none shall be admitted into this Society without giving [p. 5. due notice thereof to the Stewards who shall acquaint the whole Society therewith and after due Enquiry into their Religious purposes and manner of life they may be admitted to subscribe their names. 1 1 . That every one that is so admitted a member of this Society shall with the subscribing of his name to the Orders enter down his Profession and also the place of his abode and shall if he at any time remove acquaint the Stewards therewith. 12. That every Member in this Society look as near as he can after each others conversation and if they find any that walks disorderly let him Admonish him privately by himself and if it prove inefectual let him be reprov'd before one or two more and if this prove inefectual also, let him be reprov'd before the whole Society and if this reclaims him not let him be Excluded. APPENDIX ru CHAPTER IX. 311 13. That every Person concern 'd in this Society do wholly decline all Ale-House Games ; and shun all unnecessary resort to such Houses, and Taverns and wholly to avoid Play-Houses. Rules. 14. That the respective members of this Society shall heartily endeavour through God's Grace. Rule I. To be just in all their Dealings even to an Exemplary Strict- ness. 2. To pray many times every day. 3. To partake of the Lord's Supper once a month at least if not prevented by a Reasonable impediment. 4. To practice the profoundest Meekness and Humility. 5. To watch against Censuring others. 6. To accustome themselves to Holy thoughts/In all Places, [p. 7. 7. To take care of their words and give not way to foolish Jest- ing. 8. To be very modest and Decent in Apparel. 9. To be helpful to one another. 10. To shun all foreseen Occasions of evil as evil company known Temptations etc. ir. To think often of the different estates of the Glorified and Damned ; in the unchangeable eternity to which we are Hastening. 12. To examine themselves every night what good or evil they have done the day past. 1 3. To keep a private fast once a month especially near our ap- proach to the Lords-Table if we may with convenience. 14. To pray for the whole Society in our private prayers. 15. To read good books and especially the Holy Bible and herein particularly Mat. 5. 6. and 7. Chap. Luke 15. and 16 Chapters. Romans 12. 13. Ephes. 5. 6. Chaprs. i. Thess. 5. Chapter. Rev. i. 2. 3. 21. And in the Old Testament. Lev. 26 Chapter. Deu. 28 Chapter. Isai. 53 Chapter. Ezek. 36 Chapters. 16. To shun all manner of affectation and Morossness f and to be of a Civil and obligeing Deportment to all men. 17. To be continually mindfull of the great obligation of this Special profession of Religion, and to walk so Circumspectly that none may be offended or discouraged from this by what they see in them nor Occation \ given to any to speak reproachfully in it. 15. Tha,t every member be ready to do what upon consulting with each other shall be taught adviseable towards the punishment of publick 312 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. prophaness but not out of any base end as popular Applause or malice to any man but out of pure Love to God and Charity to men's Souls. /i6. That each member shall encourage the Catechising of [p. 9. young and Ignorant Persons in their respective Families, according to their Stations and abilities and shall Observe all manner of Religious Famfly Duties. 17. That the Major part of the Society shall have power to make a new order to bind the whole when need requires if it be approved of by a pious and learned Minister of the church of England ; (nominated by the whole Society). 18. That upon every second Sunday in the month these Orders shall be read over by one of the Stewards and that with so much Distinction and Deliberation that each member may have time to Examine himself by them or to speak his mind in any thing relating to them and what time remains shall be spent in discoursing upon that blessed Sacrament, that Sunday following being for our meeting at St. Lawrances Church in the morning at six of the Clock to Receive the same. 19. That the Members of this Society meet every Lords day precisely at five a Clock and in the Afternoon ; and if both Stewards be war.ting they shall forfeit two pence each. 20. That at every Sundays meeting the Stewards shall propose Sub- jects propor ■]- to be discours'd upon the Sunday night next ensuing that each member may have time to consider and observe something from the same. 21. That three of the members of this Society be chosen by the majority of voices once a year to serve as Trustees for the Charity Schoole. 22. That every Person that is admitted a member of this Socisty shall with the first opportunity after his having these Orders Read over/[p. 11. to him hereunto Subscribe his name as a testimony of his approbation and Resolution, [(Jthrough the Assistance of God) to live up to them. 23. It is likewise Ordered by this Society that none shall be idmitted to this Society, without they receive the Sacrament of the Church of England. 24. It is likewise Ordered by this Society that the Monthly Collection at Cripplegate-Church for the Charity School shall be paid into the Trea- surer or the Trustees within one day upon the forfeiture of five Snillings. 25. It is likewise Ordered by this Society that every member shall con- tribute towards the feast on Easter monday whether he comes or not. 26. It is likewise ordered by this Society that no person shall be ad- mitted in the Room during the time of our meeting without giving due notice to ; and Approbation of the Stewards. 27. It is likewise ordered by this Society that if any Person be duly chose to serve as Steward and shall refuse the same, [he] shall forfeit five Shillings. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 313 28. It is likewise Ordered by this Society that the Prayers Recom- mended by the Twelve Stewards and approved of by the Lord Bishop of London, with may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ etc shall be used by this Society. Finis 1718 /We whose names are hereunto Subscribed Do Severally declare [p. 15. that we are fully Satisfied of the Just Right That our Sovereign Lord King George Hath to the Crown of these Realms and that we will En- deavour by the Grace of God to behave our Selves as becomes those who are well affected to his said Majesty and Govermentf. I. 16. 2 _ 17- John Nevill. 3- Alexander f\^ Duffy s' Mark. 18. 4- 19- S- 20. Joel Pugh. 6. 21. Robert Vokins. 7- 22. Robert Peirson. 8. Samuell Hathway. 24. John Rivers. 9- Jonathan ffentum. 25- 10. 26. II. John Reynolds. 27. Samuell Maynard 12. 28. John Kent. 13- 29. Richard Pearce. 14. 3°- George Pearce. 15- 31- /The names of each Member with his place of abode. [p. 19. [Joiner, Perfumer, Leatherdresser, Taylor, Perukemaker, Barber, Cooper, Taylor, Shoemaker, Clockmaker, Druggist, Distiller, Silkman, Buttonseller, Needlemaker, Turner, Ironmonger, Perukemaker, Plummer, Glover, Jeweller, Taylor, Cook, Shoemaker, Schoolmaster, Plaisterer, are the professions of those members, written first in one hand ; those that follow are not in the same clerkly hand, but in different hands.] [One of the features of the St. Giles' Society was the annual feast on Easter Monday, mentioned in Rule 25. The Bills of fare at this entertain- ment are given in the book with the Rules, down to 1762. The Bill of fare for this year has been printed as a specimen of a modest English public dinner at this date. Wine, punch, and " bumbo," a drink " composed of rum, sugar, water, and nutmeg," appear among the liquors. It would seem that churchmen had not yet discovered that in order to be a Christian you must become a teetotaller. This return to an ancient heresy was reserved for the decadence of ouriown age. The Stewards Book begins on October 14, 1722, and ends on April 15, 1762.] 314 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. A Bill of Fare in the Stewardship of Mr. John Jennings, Mr. John Jones, Mr. Francis Gilding, and Mr. Jephthah Harris, April isth, 1762. 6 Fillets Veal, 65 lb. at (>d. 4 Hams, 72 lb. at 6d. 6 Pidgeon Pyes 6 Marrow Puddings Stewards etc. Bread and Beer 70 Wine Punch Bumbo Porter and Brown Stout Tobacco Oranges Lemons and Sugar Dressing Veal Do. Hams Force Meat for Veal Greens Butter, etc. Butter Cheese and Redishes Dressing Stewards Dinner Servants Received 7 7 half Crowns - Deficient There were 70 Gentlemen Dined. I 12 6 I 16 I 4 I 4 6 6 II 8 3 14 I 4 4 12 3 3 6 9 8 3 6 8 4 I 6 S 14 16 9 12 6 £^_ 3 6 CHAPTER X. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED : INVOCA- TION OF SAINTS AND ANGELS. In dealing with the practice of praying for the faithful departed during our period it may be well to consider the subject under two heads : 1. Popular use, shown in exclamations, epitaphs, and books of devotion. 2. In the opinions of pious writers of repute. To deal first with what is said by writers describing the popular customs of their own times. When a conversation is described in which a deceased person is spoken of, it is quite usual throughout the first half of our period to find such an expression as " God rest his soul " added as an excla- mation. It is to be found in at least six such instances, among the authors of the time.' Also much later, a clergyman yet living who had charge of the parish of West Farleigh, Kent, in 1863 tells me that the very old people used, in those days, when speaking of the departed, to add the ejaculation " God rest his soul ". I cannot help thinking that this evidence is some indication of the frame of mind of the generality of the people. The expression, it seems, would not so often be put into the mouths of the people by writers attempting to represent the way of speaking then in vogue, without some good ground for it. 1 Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, The man's bewitch' d. Act iii. Works, London, 1761, vol. iii. p. io6. Jonathan Swift, Complete Collection of genteel . . . Conversation ; in Works, Scott's ed. Edinb. 1814, vol. xi. p. 416. Colley Gibber, Love's last Shift, Act i. Dramatic Works, London, 1760, vol. i. p. 14. T. Smollett, Peregrine Fickle, ch. ii. 1904, Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 13. The Adven- tures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ch. iv. Hutchinson, 1905, p. 48. S. Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe, Letter xxxii. Tauchnitz, vol. i. p. 149, and again Letter xliv. in vol. ii. p. 152. H. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, Book H. ch. iii. (Works, 1871, v. 118). 315 31 6 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. Aubrey uses a sort of ejaculatory prayer for the dead in writing, for of Major John Graunt who died on Easter Even, 1674 he sets down He was my honoured and worthy friend — cujus animae propitietur Deus, Amen.' and again of another friend, George Johnson, of whom after record- ing his decease in 1683, he writes : cujus animae propitietur Deus.^ To consider next the numerous epitaphs in which a prayer is offered for the peace or rest of the departed soul, or the Almighty is prayed to be merciful to it : some such have been collected to- gether by Dr. F. G. Lee, who has been able, he says, to discover such an inscription for every decade after the Reformation.^ But at once it is seen that a good deal of caution is here needed before we can ascribe all these epitaphs to members of the Church of England. A large number are for certain taken from the graves of Roman Catholics ; and information in many is wanting as to the persuasion of those whom the inscriptions commemorate. A few of these epitaphs are here given where it seems possible to deter- mine that they commemorate a member of the Church of England,* dying within our period. This inscription is said to be in Blackmore Priory Church, Essex : Here lyeth the body of Simon Lynch, Rector of Runwell . . . unto whom the Lord be merciful. Who died the i6th June 1660, aged 60 years. ^ At Shermanbury, Sussex, there is said to be a monument To the memory of the truly Revd. John Bear, D.D. Rector of this parish. . . . And of Mary, his beloved wife, who died April 23, 1755, aged 80 years. ^ Brief Lives, chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by jfohn Aubrey, between the years 1669 and 1696, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford, i8g8, vol. i. p. 273. - ibid. vol. ii. p. 9. ^' F. G. Lee, The Christian Doctrine of Prayer for the Departed, London, Strahan, 1872, Appendix xi. ^A caution more than usually necessary should be exercised in drawing any con- clusion from the inscriptions recorded in F. T. Cansick's painstaking volumes of Col- lection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs, published by J. Russell Smith, 1869 and 1872. For the friends of deceased Roman Catholics often chose the churchyard of St. Pancras for the burial of their relatives. The same caution is needed at Bath Abbey, where many Irish visitors have monuments. ^F. G. Lee, op. cit. p. 318. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 317 The Lord grant unto them that they May find mercy in the Lord in that Day. This monument was erected by her son, John Burton, D.D., 1767.^ In the will of Dr. John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, who died in 167 1, he desires that the inscription over his sepulchre may end thus : Hie sepultus est expectans felicem corporis sui resurrectionem ac vitam in coelis aeternam. Requiescat in pace.^ Thorndike directed in his will that the final words of the in- scription on his grave should be : Tu, Lector, requiem ej et beatam in Christo Resurrectionem precare.^ It is said that this direction was never carried out. But the inscription on the tomb of Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of St. Asaph, was as follows : Exuviae Isaaci Sancti Asaphensis episcopi in manum Domini Depositae In spem Laetae Resurrectionis per sola Christi merita Vos transiuntes in Domum Domini Domum Orationis Orate pro Conservo vestro Ut inveniam Misericordiam In Die Domini.^ The famous Dr. Thomas Tanner, when Chancellor of Norwich, wrote on April 2, 1700 a note to Dr. Charlett of Oxford about a will lately brought into his Office, containing a direction from a Clergyman to this effect : Corpus committo Ecclesiae de Thrigby lapide superimposito cum hoc epitaphio, Orate ut requiescat anima Edvardi Warnes Clerici in pace.^ The testator gives his reasons for the epitaph : that the Church of England desires to follow antiquity; that it was a "bestial in- difference'' not to pray for the departed ; it was not forbidden, at least in terms, in the Articles. ' F. G. Lee, op. cit., p. 329. ^ The correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, vol. Iv. 1872, Part ii. p. 294. ^ The Theological Works of Herbert Thorndike, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1856, vol. vi. P' 143- * Bodleian Library, Wood, D. 4, fo. 376. It has been edited in Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 489, note 6, and in many other works. * ibid. Ballard MS. 4. fo. 55, ol. 30. 31 8 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. I owe to the kindness of the Rev. Douglas Macleane, Preben- dary of Sarum, a copy of two inscriptions in the Ilchester Chantry at Farley, Wilts. The one is on the tomb of Sir Stephen Fox and his wife, who both departed this life in 1716. It is in French, and ends thus : Dieu Aye Merci de leurs Ames. The second, to the memory of the Hon. Charlotte Elizabeth Fox, daughter of Lord and Lady Ilchester, who died in 1753, finishes with a like petition : May the Almighty God have mercy on her Soul. He also sends me an inscription from a gravestone in the east cloisters of Salisbury. Before it is an incised Greek cross : To the memory of the Revd. Richd. Turner, who died 14th of May 1794 aged 77 years, R. I. P. The same good friend has sent me the prayer which Dr. M. J. Routh, the famous President of Magdalen College, Oxford, put in 1822 upon the tomb of his brother, Samuel Routh, B.D. Grant, O Lord, that the Soul of our Brother here departed may rest in thy Peace and Protection, and Reign in thy Kingdom in Heaven, through the Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, Amen. Amongst Dr. Routh's papers were found two drafts of an epitaph for himself, neither of which, as in the case of Thorndike, was put over his grave : 1. All ye who come here, in your Christian and charitable hope, wish peace and felicity, and a consummation of it afterwards, to the soul of Martin Joseph Routh, the last Rector of the undivided parish of Tylehurst, and brother of the pious Foundress of this Church. (Theale) He departed this life {22. Dec. 18$ 4) aged (lOo). Dying, as he had lived, attached to the Catholic Faith taught in the Church of England, and averse from all papal and sectarian innovations. 2. O all ye who come here, wish peace in your Christian hope and charity to the soul of Martin Joseph Routh, the last Rector of the un- divided parish of Tylehurst, and brother of the Foundress of this Church. He died . . . MDCCCX . . ., aged Ixx . . ., and lies buried in the ad- joining crypt with his wife, Eliza Agnes Blagrave of Calcot, whom the Lord grant to find mercy from the Lord in that day. She died {2J March) MDCCC {/xix.) aged (Ixxviii.).^ As it was, the President was buried in the quire of Magdalen College Chapel, and his wife in Holywell Cemetery. The second ij. R. Bloxam, Register of Presidents &c. Oxford, James Parker, 1881, vol. iv. (the Demies) p. 25. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 319 draft appears to have been written after the second decade of the nineteenth century was ended. I am indebted to the Rev. Herbert Salter for the following in- scription which still exists at Northmoor, beyond Bablock-Hythe, Stanton near Harcourt. The date is about 1714- Richard Lydall gave a new Bell and built the Bel loft free and then he said before he died Let Ringers pray for me. The saintly Bishop of Sodor and Man, Thomas Wilson, records amongst his Maxims the epitaphs of Bishop Barrow and Mr. Thorn- dike,^ but it does not appear exactly for what purpose. This is part of the will of Dr. Thomas Ken, deprived for not taking the oaths to William and Mary. May the here interred Thomas late Bp. of Bath & Wells & uncanoni- cally Deprived for not transferring his Allegiance have a perfect consumma- tion of Blisse both in body and Soul at the Great day, of w'^'' God keep me allwaies mindfuU.^ One may notice the transition into the first person at the end of the sentence, as in the epitaph given above of Dr. Isaac Barrow into the second. Ken prayed for his friend Coles thus in a letter dated October 24, 1677. It pleased God to take away Mr. Coles between 10 and 11 of the clock last night. . . Cujus anima requiescat in pace.^ Fielding's own opinions are of no account in theology ; but he is an important witness to the general feeling of people in his time. In the following extract, he represents a flippant conversation be- tween a woman recently widowed and a friend, who says to the widow you pray for the happiness of your tyrant now you are out of his power. Lady Matchless. . . . freed from that torment, an injurious husband : one who — but he is gone, and, I hope, to heaven. Vermilia. That's a generous wish, my dear ; and yet I believe it is the wish of many whose husbands deserve a worse place. La. Match. You mean during the life of a bad husband ; but those prayers, then, flow more from self-interest than generosity ; for who wou'd ^ Thomas Wilson, Maxims of Piety and Morality, 225, in Works, ed. by John Keble, Oxford, J. H. Parker, i860, vol. v. p. 395. The editor notes that both epitaphs are omitted in the quarto edition. ^ Transcribed from a facsimile of Ken's own handwriting, in W. L. Bowles, Life of Thomas Ken, London, Murray, 1830, vol. ii. opposite p. 35. 'ibid. vol. ii. p. 37. 320 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. not wish her spouse in heaven, when it was the only way to deliver herself out of a hell ? Verm. True, indeed. But yours are the efforts of pure good nature ; you pray for the happiness of your tyrant, now you are delivered out of his power. La. Match. Ah ! poor man ! since I can say nothing to his ad- vantage, let him sleep in peace, i Amongst his notes on the religious customs of Wales, Thomas Pennant says : In some places it was customary for the friends of the dead to kneel, and say the Lord's Prayer over the grave, for several Sundays after the inter- ment ; and then to dress the grave with flowers.^ Thus Pennant testifies to the custom of kneeling at the grave ; and a later writer commenting upon Pennant, thinks he has found howr it was that the friends of the deceased knelt at the grave, and adds : In Corwen churchyard there are gravestones of a very peculiar form, evidently pointing to the old custom of praying for or over the dead. They are only a few inches above the ground, placed at the head and foot of the grave, with holes for the knees of those who pray. * * -* The custom most likely lingered long in secluded districts, which held but little intercourse with the outer world, and the probability is that even so late as the beginning of the present [nineteenth] century people prayed for or over their dead in and about Corwen.'' The particular shape of the gravestones mentioned by this last writer may be seen in England as well as in Wales ; but in England the stones are often so high that they would hardly serve to kneel upon. It seems more reasonable to imagine that the stonemason has given an undulating outline to the upper edge of the tombstone for the purpose of giving a sort of artistic finish to the work rather than for any practical purpose. The question of the mere legality of inscriptions with a prayer for the departed on tombstones in the cemeteries of the Church of England came before the Court of Arches on Dec. 12, 1838 some five years after our period had ended. It was decided by Sir Herbert Jenner, afterwards Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, that " no authority or canon had been pointed out by which the practice [of praying for the 1 Henry Fielding, hove in several Masques, Act ii. Sc. i. in Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, vol. i. p. 104. "Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Wales, 1770, London, 1784, vol. ii. p. 339. * Elias Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the vale of Clwyd, Bernard Quaritch, 1886, pp. 22, 23, PRA VERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 321 dead] had been expressly prohibited," ^ and the inscription with a prayer for the deceased was allowed. But there is a decision of more authority still. The Prayer Book itself contains prayers for the faithful departed according to Cosin. His opinions expressed before the beginning of our period when he was commenting on the words then in the Burial service : That we with this our brother and all other departed in the true faith &c. were to this effect : The puritans think that here is prayer for the dead allowed and practised by the Church of England, and so think I ; but we are not both of one mind in censuring the Church for so doing. They say it is popish and superstitious ; I for my part esteem it pious and Christian.^ But in 1 66 1 the Bishops amended the words that we with this our brother and all other departed in the true faith and substituted that we with all those that are departed in the true faith for the good reason that the former implied that the person buried was in a state of salvation. The Puritans had objected, says Wheatly, against all that expressed any assurance of the deceased party's happi- ness, which they did not think proper to be said indifferently over all that died. However, upon the review of the Common Prayer afterwards, these words were left out. Not but that the sentence as it is still left standing, may well enough be understood to imply the dead as well as the living : for we pray, as it is now, that we, with all those who are departed in the true faith of God's holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss ; which is not barely a supposition, that all those who are so departed will have their perfect consummation and bliss ; but a prayer also that they may have it, viz. that we with them, and they with us, may be made perfect to- gether, both in body and soul, in the eternal and everlasting glory of God.^ To consider now handbooks of Prayer. Dr. Cosin's Devotions were for years after the Restoration very popular. At the end of the book are Prayers and Thanksgivings for Sundry Purposes, and among these is a prayer for the whole Catholic Church, at the end of which the faithful Departed are remembered thus : thy happy Servants our Fathers and Brethren who have departed this life with the seal of Faith, and do now rest in the sleep of peace . . . and ' The Judgement is given at length in the British Magazine, 1839, vol. xv. p. gi. ^John Cosin, Notes and Collections on the Book of Common Prayer, First Series, in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1855, vol. v. p. 169. ^ Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. xii. sect. iv. ii. §2. ed. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 581. 21 322 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. that at the last day we with them and they with us may attain to the Resur- rection of the just, and have our perfect consummation both of Soul and body.i At the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth, there flourished a Mrs. Susanna Hopton, who early in life was perverted to the Roman Communion, but later on returned to the Communion of the English Established Church. Under the influence of Dr. George Hickes, a Bishop among the Dissenting Non- jurors, she brought out in 1700 a book entitled Devotions in the An- cient way of Offices. It was very popular and went through a large number of editions,^ the last being in 1765. It is allowable, there- fore, to think that the Devotions were much used by members of the Established Church of England. The handful of Dissenting Non- jurors could not have absorbed so many. Like so many of those eighteenth century concoctions, it showed a marvellous lack of the sense of humour. The productions labelled psalms were not psalms at all, not even centoes of the psalms, but independent flights of the good lady's imagination though adorned with invitatories and antiphons as if they had been real psalms. Of the hymns the less said the better. But at this moment that which asks our attention is the preparatory Office for Death by way of Com- memoration of the Faithful departed. This office contains a sort of anthem : Give all thy faithful eternal rest, O merciful God, and may thy glorious Light shine upon them for ever. which is repeated as : Give us eternal, etc. This may justify its calling itself an office for the dead. There are prayers containing petitions "that we, with all these that are departed in the true Faith of thy Holy Catholick Church, may have their perfect con- summation and bliss ". In some editions there is a prayer : " We commend also unto thee, all other thy servants that have departed hence from us with the sign of faith, and now rest in the sleep of peace," words which seemed borrowed from the Second Memento of the Roman Canon. The same Mrs. Hopton issued in 1 717, "reviewed and set forth by the late learned Dr. Hickes. Published by N. Spinckes," a book 1 John[Cosin], A Collection of Private Devotions, London, Royston, eighth edition, 1681, p. 347. ^See Edgar Hoskins, Horae Bcatae Mariae Viyginis, Longmans, 1901, p. 90. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 323 with the title : A Collection of Meditations and Devotions, London, Midwinter ; on p. 1 29, meditating on the clause " Thy Kingdom come " in the Lord's Prayer, she says : Hasten thy Coming in the Kingdom of Glory, for thine Elect sake here, and for thy Faithful departed ; That they, in the Resurrection of their Bodies, and we, both in Bodies and Souls, may enjoy the Fulness of thy Glory, in giving thee Praise and Thanksgiving for ever. This does not seem to have had such success as the Reformed Devotions. In 1719 there was brought out at Oxford, with the imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor, a book of devotions by Joseph Wasse, Rector of Aynbo, with a somewhat long title, as follows : Reformed Devotions being a collection of the best Hymns Prayers, and other Spiritual Exercises, for all occasions composed by Divines of the Church of England, and foreign Ascetics Laud, Featley, Duppa, Whitchcot, Wettinghal, Cosins, Hammond, Taylour, Bernard, Scot, Tillotson, Patrick, Kettlewel, Bennet, Th. a Kempis, Stanhop, Inet, Hickes, Nelson, Gothair, &c. The Whole Corrected and improv'd . . . Oxford, 1719. The reader will remark this motley list of writers from whom Wasse has borrowed a good number of his prayers. Wasse has not, however, included the name of Mrs. Hopton, though he has bor- rowed a large part of his Preparatory Office for Death from her Re- formed Devotions, such as pseudo-psalms and " Give us eternal rest O merciful Lord and may the Light of thy Countenance shine upon us for ever " to be said in the place of Gloria Patri at the end of some of these strange compositions. During the pontificate of Dr. John Moore, Archbishop of Canter- bury, the King commanded a General Thanksgiving for the victories vouchsafed to His Majesty's Fleets. After the General Thanks- giving there is a prayer beginning : " O God our Defence and Strength"; at the end of the middle paragraph of which there is this clause : And for those, whom in this Righteous Cause Thy Providence per- mits to fall, Receive, we pray Thee, their Souls to Thy Mercy ; and be Thou, O Lord, the Friend and the Father of their Widows and their Orphans. 1 The Rev. Henry Austin Wilson, Librarian of Magdalen College, 'v4 Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God ; to be used . . . on Tues- day the Nineteenth Day of December iTjj, . . . By His Majesty's Special Command, London, Eyre and Strahan, 1797, p. 8. 324 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. Oxford, has kindly told me that the same clause occurs in the same place in a form of Thanksgiving to be used on November 29, 1798, issued by the Royal Authority. To deal now wfith the opinions of authors of reputation and authority. The work of Thorndike from which the following extract is taken appeared in the year before the Restoration. § 53. I will not here allege that the Church of England teacheth to pray for the dead : where the Litany prays for deliverance " in the hour of death and in the day of judgement ; " or when we pray after the commun- ion, that " by the merits and death of Christ, and through faith in His blood, we and all the whole Church may obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of His passion." But it is manifest, that in the service appointed in the time of Edward the Sixth prayer is made for the dead, both before the Communion, and at the Burial, to the same purpose as I maintain. It is manifest also, that it was changed in Queen Elizabeth's time to content the Puritans ; who now it appears could not be content with less than breaking of the Church in pieces. § 54. And, therefore, since unity hath not been obtained by parting with the law of the Catholic Church (in mine opinion) for the love of it, I continue the resolution to bound reformation by the rule of the Catholic Church : allowing, that it may be matter of reformation to restore the prayers which are made for the dead to the original sense of the whole Church ; but maintaining, that to take away all prayer for the dead is not paring off abuses but cutting to the quick.^ And again in a work pubhshed two years after the Restoration. And therefore St. Ambrose and St. Augustine had great reason to follow the fourth Book of Esdras, (written, without doubt, by a very antient Christian, though not authorized by the Church) placing the generality of souls departed in the state of Grace in certain secret receptacles ; signifying no more, then the unknown Condition of their estate. For, the practice of the Church, in interceding for them at the Celebration of the Eucharist, is so general, and so antient, that it cannot bee thought to have come in upon imposture, but that the same aspersion will seem to take hold of the Common Christianity. In the mean time then, what hinders them to receive comfort and re- freshment, rest, and peace, and light, (by the visitation of God, by the con- solation of his Spirit, by his good Angels) to sustain in the expectation of their tryal.^ ^ Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xxix. in Theo- logical Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1853, Vol. IV. part ii. p. 722. 'idem, jfnst Weights and Measures, London, Martin, 1662, p. 106, ch. xvi. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 325 In Jeremy Taylor's last considerable work, A Dissuasive from Popery, published in 1664, he writes thus : Upon what accounts the fathers did pray for the saints departed, and indeed generally for all, it is not now seasonable to discourse ; but to say this only, that such general prayers for the dead as those above reckoned, the church of England never did condemn by any express article, but left it in the middle ; and by her practice declares her faith of the resur- rection of the dead, and her interest in the communion of saints, and that the saints departed are a portion of the catholic church, parts and mem- bers of the body of Christ ; but expressly condemns the doctrine of pur- gatory, and consequently, all prayers for the dead relating to it.^ Thomas Hearne is not to be reckoned among the dissenting Nonjurors : and yet he says : Praying for the dead is most certainly a very ancient and primitive Custom, as appears from the Fathers. Our best English Divines also are for it, and many use it privately, tho' not publickly. Dr. Isaac Barrow and Mr. Thorndyke were mightily for it.^ This private use was acknowledged by Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury and Blandford, Bishop of Worcester in their conversa- tions with Anne Hyde, Duchess of York. They said : That praying for the Dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity ; That for their parts, they did it daily, tho' they would not own it.' As to the last six words we may remember that the statement passes through a Roman mouth and may be expected to represent unfavourably anything Anglican. Wake in his discourse of prayers for the dead acknowledges their antiquity, but disapproves of them. We do indeed confess, that this Custom of Praying for the Dead, was one of the most early Practices of the ChurchJ' He is driven to the argument that the early Church was not infallible. Robert Nelson declares the doctrine of Dr. George Bull upon the intermediate state, that the souls of men subsist after death, either happy or miserable as they have been good or bad in their past lives, until the Resurrection, but that there is no foundation ^ Jeremy Taylor, A Dissuasive from Popery, Part I. ch. i. § iv. in Works, ed. R. Heber, London, 1822, vol. x. p. 148. ^ Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 168. ° A complete history of England, vol. iii. sec. ed. London, 1719, p. 320. ^ [William WakeJ Two Discourses : of Purgatory, and Prayers for the Dead, London, Chiswell, 1687, p. 67. 326 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. for the doctrine of purgatory. The best men after death were in separate places of rest and refreshment, not in purgatory. The Bishop asks : what Grounds can there be for that Furnace, which she [the Church of Rome] hath heated as necessary to purifie almost all that go out of this Life, though with the Sign of Faith ; even for a Purgatory . . . those [Prayers] of the ancient Church being only for such who were at peace, and who rest in Christ, but they who are exposed to the Pains of Purga- tory, cannot certainly be said to enjoy those Advantages. ^ Wheatly speaks with approval of the ancient catholic prayers for the dead, and his book may be taken as of importance as in- dicating the authorised teaching. Prayers for the Dead an ancient a?id catholic practice [in m.\ § 2. In the primitive church too their prayers were more extensive, and took in the dead as well as the living : not that they had any notion of the Romish purgatory, or so much as imagined that those whom they prayed for were racked or tormented with any temporary pain . . . they prayed for the souls of the deceased, that they might not only rest in peace for the present, but also obtain part in the first resurrection.^ John Johnson, one of the most learned writers of the eighteenth century, says : Prayer and Oblations for the Dead were indeed establish'd here from the first dawnings of Christianity among us ; and ther[e] is reason to beheve, that ther[e] was no Church, or Age for the first 1500 Years, in which these Devotions were not used; especially because it is evident, that this Practise obtain'd among the Jews before the Incarnation of our Lord : This appears from 2 Maccab. xii. 39-45, which is true History, tho' not Canonical Scripture. And ther[e] is no direct or indirect Prohibition of it in the New Testament, to the best of my Knowledge and Observation. But in those ancient Times Men were not under any Obligation to offer their Devotions for the dead, upon a Supposition that their Souls were in Purgatory ; but upon another Principle universally granted, viz. that they were in a very imperfect state of Happiness. Yet it must be confess'd, that the conceit of a Purgatory was gaining ground apace in the Age of Bede ; but it was an Opinion only, not an Article of Faith, till the Council of Trent made it so.'* In an earlier work the same author had said : ^ Robert Nelson, Life of Dr. George Bull, late Lord Bishop of St. David's, London, Richard Smith, 1713, p. 482. 2 Charles Wheatly, A rational illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. vi. section xi. ed. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 326. ^ John Johnson, A Collection of All the Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons, Answers or Rescripts Sfc. London, Knaplock, 1720, General Preface, p. xix. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 327 There is one Proof of the Propitiatory Nature of the Eucharist, ac- cording to the Sentiments of the Ancient Church, which will be thought but only too great ; and that is the Devotions used in the Liturgies, and so often spoken of by the Fathers, in behalf of deceased Souls : There is, I suppose, no Liturgy without them, and the Fathers frequently speak of them.^ Bingham after a lengthy account of the teachings of the fathers upon the practice of praying for the dead, adds : All these were general Reasons of Praying for the Dead, without the least Intimation of their being tormented in the temporary Pains of a Purgatory-Fire. Besides which, they had some particular Opinions, which tended to promote this Practice. For first, a great many of the Ancients believed, that the Souls of all the Righteous, except Martyrs, were se- questred out of Heaven in some Place invisible to mortal Eye, which they called Hades, or Paradise, or Abraham's Bosom, a Place of Refreshment and Joy, where they expected a compleater Happiness at the End of all Things. * * * St. Chrysostom says farther, that their Prayers and Alms were of use to procure an Addition to the Rewards and Retribution of the Righteous. These are all the Reasons we meet with in the Ancients for praying for Souls departed, none of which have any Relation to their being tormented in the Fire of Purgatory, but most of them tend directly to overthrow it.^ One may not call the Dissenting Nonjurors as witnesses for Church of England practice. But there can be no doubt that their writings had great influence upon the churchmen left behind, who did not go into schism with them. Therefore it may be well to name them : for example, Thomas Brett quotes Thorndike and the Bishop of St. Asaph, Isaac Barrow, whose epitaphs have been given above. ^ Archibald Campbell, a bishop of the Nonjuring Church of Scotland and a cadet of the House of Argyle, published in 1 721 a serious contribution to the subject of the middle state which John- son recommended to the notice of the Duchess of Argyle when he was at Inverary.* It is to be feared that when in London, he did not communicate with the Church of England. 'John Johnson, The Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar, London, Knaplock, 1714, Part i. p. 287. -Joseph Bingham, The Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book XV. ch. iii. § 16, in Works, London, Knaplock, 1726, vol. i. pp. 759-761. "Thomas Brett, ^ Collection of the Principal Liturgies, London, King, 1720, in A Dissertation concerning the preceding Liturgies, p. 425. I do not think that Brett had returned to the Communion of the Church of England, if ever he did, when he published this work. * James Boswell, Journal of a tour to the Hebrides, October 25, 1773. 328 PRA VERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. Having surveyed the Fathers of the first centuries, he begins his Introduction with the sentence : I come now to bring my Vouchers for Prayers for the Dead, in a more general Sense. But I think it proper first to Premise the Notion I have of the State of the Dead, which may serve for a Key whereby to make Prayers for the Dead, the more inteUigible.^ He divides the dead into four classes : i. those who die unrepentant. ii. those who repent on their death-beds, or in the article of death. iii. those that have begun a course of real repentance, and broken off ill habits. iv. those who have habits of virtue rooted and ri vetted in them. It is for these of the two last Classes, that the publick Prayers, Offer- ings, or Thanksgivings of the Primitive Church were principally offered, and the Prayers run, generally in these Terms. For those who have departed this Life, in, or, with the sign of Faith, and are at Rest in the Lord!^ He allows of a Purification after Death,^ but regrets the notion of the Popish Purgatory. George Hickes, the learned Dean of Worcester, dispossessed at the Revolution, became a Bishop among the Nonjurors, and left behind him an office for the dead which was to be said after his departure. It fills more than a folio page, but the substance may be given in one paragraph from the middle of the prayer : I pray God grant Light, Rest, Refreshment, and Joy to all those who have Died with the Sign of Faith.^ The Judgment of the Right Reverend Bishop Hickes upon the middle state and prayers for the dead follows soon after this office, but as his practice has been stated it is not so necessary to reproduce his reasons.^ Dr. Grabe, the learned Prussian, was on the eve of joining the Roman Communion, when he discovered the existence of the Church of England. He came to England and was made a Doctor of Divinity in the University of Oxford. A letter of his dated Oxford, 4th July, 1700, is printed by Archibald Campbell. I pray you likewise to Pray, whenever you please, and Offer the most Holy Sacrifice to God, for the Soul of One Young Man, of my Relation, in ^ Archibald Campbell, The Doctrine of a Middle State, London, Tayler, 1721, p. 64. There was an earlier edition, anonymous, printed by Keble in 1713 in 8°. -ibid.p.6g. ^ibid. p. 110. 'ibid. p. lyg. ^ ibid. p. ig8. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 329 Prussia, lately departed this Life; whose Name was Frederick . . . God /tave mercy on him, and Bless his Soul in Peace? The date of the subjoined letter from John Wesley makes it likely that he had not yet fallen into schism. ' Your Fourth argument is, That in a Collection of Prayers, I cite the words of an ancient Liturgy, " For the faithful departed." Sir, whenever I use those words in the Burial Service, I pray to the same effect : "That we, with all those who are departed in thy faith and fear, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul : " Yea, and whenever I say, "Thy kingdom come ; " for I mean both the kingdom of grace and glory. In this kind of general prayer, therefore, " for the faith- ful departed," I conceive myself to be clearly justified both by the earliest antiquity, by the Church of England, and by the Lord's Prayer ; although the Papists have corrupted this scriptural practice into praying for those who die in their sins.^ Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Johnson, tells us that Johnson in his early days associated with nonjurors and was much influenced by them, as indeed so many churchmen were. Hawkins mentions particularly Dr. Thomas Brett as turning his thoughts in the direc- tion of praying for the dead.^ Johnson had a conversation with Boswell about March 27, 1772 on the subject of a middle state, and Boswell objected the passage about Dives. Johnson. Why, Sir, we must either suppose that passage to be meta- phorical, or hold with many divines, and all the Purgatorians, that departed souls do not all at once arrive at the utmost perfection of which they are capable. Boswell. I think, Sir, that is a very rational supposition. Johnson. Why, yes. Sir ; but we do not know it is a true one. There is no harm in believing it ; but you must not compel others to make it an article of faith ; for it is not revealed. Boswell. Do you think. Sir, it is wrong in a man who holds the doctrine of purgatory, to pray for the souls of his deceased friends ? Johnson. Why, no. Sir. Boswell. I have been told, that in the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, there was a form of prayer for the dead. Johnson. Sir, it is not in the liturgy which Laud framed for the Epis- copal Church of Scotland ; if there is a liturgy older than that, I should be glad to see it. Boswell most likely alludes to the final clauses of the prayer for ' Archibald Campbell, p. 178. "^ John Wesley, Second. Letter to Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, written in 1752, in Works, London, Mason, third ed. 1830, vol. ix. p. 55. Cf. vol. a. p. g. ^ John Hawkins, Life of Samuel jfohnson, London, 1787, p. 448. 33° PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. the Church miHtant in King Charles' Book, published at Edinburgh in 1637: these were afterwards transplanted into the Liturgy of 1 764 ; but there is less prayer for the faithful departed in this Scot- tish Liturgy than in the English prayer for the Church militant of 1662. Boswell speaks of Dr. Johnson's practice of recommending de- parted Christian souls to the mercy of God. He writes of Dr. Johnson : That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his de- votions.^ He then quotes the prayer which Johnson used on Easter Day 1753: And, O Lord, so far as it may be lawful for me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife ; beseeching Thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness.^ On January 23, 1759, the day on which his mother was buried, he prays : I commend, O Lord, so far as it may be lawful, into thy hands, the soul of my departed mother, beseeching Thee to grant her whatever is most beneficial to her in her present state.^ Preparing for communion on Easter Even, 1764, Johnson says: I prayed for Tett.* On Easter Day, the same year, he says : After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself ; and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another. I did it only once, so far as it might be lawful for me.* The allusion to Bathurst is touching ; for it is said he seldom spoke of Bathurst without tears in his eyes. On Easter Day, 1765, he writes down his intentions : At church I purpose. Before I leave the pew, to pray the occasional prayer, and read my resolutions. To pray for Tetty and the rest. * * * ' BosweU's Life of yohnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 240. ^ Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. Geo. Strahan, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 14. " ibid. p. 32. ■* ibid, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 47. " ibid. p. 48. PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. 33 1 This was done, as I purposed, but with some distraction.^ On Easter Day, April 7, 1776, he writes : The time is again at which, since the death of my, poor dear Tetty, on whom God have mercy, I have annually commemorated the mystery of Redemption.^ On Easter Day, April 6, 1777, he commended Tetty and other friends.^ In 1778 at Easter he again remembers Tetty, upon whose soul may God have had mercy for the sake of Jesus Christ.* On the death of Mrs. Williams in September, 1783, he writes in his prayer. Look upon her, O Lord, with mercy.' On the death ofThrale in 1781 he had prayed for whom, so far as is lawful, I humbly implore thy mercy in his present state." and he had written on Good Friday May God, that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on thee.' At Levett's sudden death Johnson wrote in a memorandum book : Commendavi. May God have mercy on him. May he have mercy on me.* In the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine for 1804, there arose a correspondence concerning the use of prayers for the dead, out of a discussion upon the intermediate state. A correspondent asks if it be conformable to the liturgy of the established Church to pray for deceased relations ; and gives for an instance Dr. Johnson's prac- tice.* In reply, a correspondent answers that the soundest divines thought the practice lawful and have also acted upon this opinion : such as Andrewes, Hickes, Bull, Grabe, Collier, and others. He continues : Certainly the practice of praying for the dead is of very antient date, as any one may see who will give himself the trouble of looking into the primitive liturgies, even into the best ecclesiastical historians. If indeed ' Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel yohnson, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 58. ''ibid. p. 139. '■'ibid. p. 152. ^ ibid. p. 160. ^ibid. p. 210. ' ibid. p. igi. See also p. 208. ' jjjrf. p. 185. 8 Boswell's Life of Johnsoyi, Oxford, 1887, vol. iv. p. 137. ''Orthodox Churchmati's Magazine and Review, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 20. 332 PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. the soul departs at once to a state of complete felicity, or to the fixed place of torment, then to pray for its repose would be presumptuous if not sinful. But on the ground that its absolute condition will not be fixed till the last judgment, and that it is now in an intermediate state, prayer on its behalf appears to be an act of Christian charity. ^ Dr. Reginald Heber, the Bishop of Calcutta, wrote thus in a letter, dated January 2, 1821, to a kinswoman who had recently lost her husband : Few persons, I believe, have lost a beloved object, more particularly by sudden death, without feeling an earnest desire to recommend them in their prayers to God's mercy, and a sort of instinctive impression that such devotions might still be serviceable to them in that intermediate state which we are taught by Scripture precedes the final judgment. The Ro- man Catholics, by their interested doctrines of hired masses for the dead, and by their unwarranted and melancholy notion of a purgatory to which even the good are liable, have prejudiced the greater number of Protes- tants against this opinion ; and it is, I confess, one which is not so clearly revealed or countenanced in Scripture, as to make the practice of praying for the dead obligatory on any Christian. * * * I have accordingly been myself in the habit for some years of recom- mending on some occasions, as after receiving the Sacrament, &c. &c., my lost friends by name to God's goodness and compassion through His Son, as what can do them no harm, and may, and I hope will, be of ser- vice to them. Only this caution I always endeavour to observe — that I beg His forgiveness at the same time for myself if unknowingly I am too presumptuous.^ The same writer, the year after this letter, before he became Bishop of Calcutta, edited Jeremy Taylor's works ; and speaking of the latter's teaching upon prayers for the dead, as distinguished from prayers for the release of souls out of purgatory, he comments : The same subject he [Jeremy Taylor] pursues when discussing the question of purgatory, which doctrine he judiciously distinguishes from the really ancient doctrine or practice of prayer for the dead.^ Stating the disbelief of the Greeks in a Purgatory, while yet they practised praying for the dead. Dr. Waddington, afterwards Dean of Durham, says : In truth, to pray for the souls of our departed friends is the most natural and pardonable error of piety ; and though it be dangerous and ^ Orthodox Churchman's Magazine and Review, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 93. '^[Frances Williams Wynn,] Diaries of a lady of quality, ed. by A. Hayward, sec. ed. London, Longmans, 1864, pp. 208, 209. ' Reginald Heber, Life of Jeremy Taylor, p. ccxiiv. (Prefixed to Works, London, 1822, vol. i.). INVOCATION OF DEPARTED SAINTS. 333 improper to inculcate as a church doctrine the efficacy of such prayers, it would neither be right to discourage their private and individual effusion, nor easy to disprove the possibility of their acceptance. ^ Invocation of Saints and Angels. Leaving now the subject of prayers for the dead, the invocation of departed saints in one form or another may be considered. Amongst the early practices in the Christian Church is the custom of praying to God that the departed Saints may pray for us : What is called Oro ut oret. There is an example of this in the prayer said at Evensong in the first order published for the commemoration of King Charles the Martyr. It is a mistake to look upon it as a prayer for the dead ; it is a prayer that we may be worthy that the Saints may pray for us. It is as follows : And we beseech Thee to give us all grace to remember and provide for our latter end, by a careful studious imitation of this thy blessed Saint and Martyr, and all other thy Saints and Martyrs that have gone before us, that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their Prayers, which they in Communion with thy Church Catholick offer unto thee for that part of it here Militant, and yet in fight with, and danger from the flesh ; that following the blessed steps of their holy Lives and Deaths, we may also shew forth the Light of a good example.^ The above is a portion of the third section of the long prayer to be said in place of the Collect at Evening Prayer on the anni- versary of the death of King Charles the First. Thorndike in 1662 speaks of the concern of the departed for those remaining below. Now, all Members of the Church Triumphant in Heaven, according to the degree of their favour with God, abound also with love to his Church Militant on earth. And, though they know not the necessities of particular persons, without particular Revelation from God ; yet they know there are such necessities, so long as the Church is Militant on earth. Therefore it is certain, both that they offer continual prayers to God for those necessities ; and, that their prayers must needs bee of great force and effect with God, for the assistance of the Church Militant in this warfare.^ There is the same thought in an anonymous Elegy sacred to the ' George Waddington, The Present Condition and Prospects of the Greek, or Ori- ental Church, London, Murray, 1829, p. 37. '^ A form of Common Prayer to be used upon the thirtieth of jfanuary, . . Pub- lished by His Majestie's direction, London, John Bill, i66i. 'Herbert Thorndike, jfust Weights and Measures, London, Martin, 1662, p. 107, ch. xvi. 334 INVOCATION OF DEPARTED SAINTS. Memory of Dr. Thomas Kenn, the depriv'd Bishop of Bath and Wells : which ends thus : Farewell blest Saint, almost invoked below, i But hear me first and grant this pious Vow, / Be thou our Guide and Guardian Angel now ; ' For if Departed Souls can intercede None can the Churches Cause so fitly plead ; None suffer'd more, none better knew her State, Nor can Her danger better deprecate.^ The Spectator makes a dying wife to write thus to her husband at a distance : Why may we not please ourselves at least, to alleviate the Difficulty of resigning this Being, in imagining that we shall have a Sense of what passes below, and may possibly be employed in guiding the Steps of those with whom we walked with Innocence when mortal ? 2 The same thought occurs in Dr. Johnson's prayer which is given below. Johnson's practice of remembering at the altar his beloved friends has been spoken of above. In the following extract he seems to have desired the prayers of the saints, but not to have recommended invocation. We know little of the state of departed souls, because such knowledge is not necessary to a good life. Reason deserts us at the brink of the grave, and can give no farther intelligence. Revelation is not wholly silent. There is joy in the angels of Heaven over one sinner that repenteth ; and surely this joy is not incommunicable to souls disentangled from the body, and made like angels. Let hope therefore dictate, what revelation does not confute, that the union of souls may still remain ; and that we who are struggling with sin, sorrow, and infirmities, may have our part in the attention and kindness of those who have finished their course, and are now receiving their re- ward.^ So, on the death of his wife seven years before, he had prayed as follows : April 26, 1752, being after 12 at Night of the 25th. Lord ! Governour of heaven and earth, in whose hands are em- bodied and departed Spirits, if thou hast ordained the Souls of the Dead to minister to the Living, and appointed my departed Wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and minis- tration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams or in any other 1 Bodleian Library, shelfmark: fol. 0. 662. (41.) ^ Spectator, No. 204, Wednesday, October 24, 1711. 'Samuel Johnson, Idler, No. 41, in Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. viii. p. 156. INVUCATWN Ut DKFARTED SAINTS. 335 manner agreeable to thy Government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.^ This thought is followed out when in 1782, on March 28, he writes : Perhaps Tetty is now praying for me. God help me.^ Mrs. Hopton thanks God For all the Faithful departed. For thy great Graces given unto them, Their good Example given to me ; For the Suffrages and Prayers of all Saints, For my Communion with them, and with all those of them who are at Prayers with me now in this holy Hour.^ This is akin to Johnson's thought just given above. We arrive now at the most barren portion of the research un- dertaken for this chapter. There has been found, during our period, next to nothing of any practice of the invocation of saints by the people or of recommendation of it by authors. So that compared with the abundance of evidence for the practice of prayer for the faithful departed, the evidence for the practice of the invocation of departed saints may be counted as nothing. The following is almost the only instance of a direct address to the Saints that I have come across in our period. A book with the Lambeth Imprimatur has the following de- votion " for the feast of Saints " : O happy Saints ! this broken rate Our slowness bids to ply its wings ; While your unwearied active state Does always wake and alwaies sings.'' Thus the invocation of the departed saints may be found hardly at all. That of angels seems to be allowed by the Psalms, and it is not so infrequent in our period. Mrs. Godolphin in a letter lamenting her imperfect preparation for the altar, but rejoicing in God's goodness, says : '■Boswell's Life of jfohnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 235. 'Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel jfohnson, London, Cadell, 1785, p. 204. '[Susanna Hopton,] A collection of Meditations and Devotions, London, Midwinter, 1717, p. 378. Set forth by Geo. Hickes and Nat. Spinckes. *Reform'd Devotions, in Meditations, sec. ed. London, 1687, p. 479. 336 INVOCATION OF ANGELS. O Jesu (said I,) how happy are wee, how blessed that have the Lord for our God. And you, blessed Angells, who are present at these assemblyes, admireing the heavenly bounty, I tell you I was even dissolved with love to God.i At Winwick there was an epitaph upon the tomb of John Pitt, who died April 19, 1694 : a Loyal Subject and Souldier to K. Charles the Martyr, a frequenter of the Common Prayer and of the holy Sacrament a cordial Lover of his Freind To whom his usual farewell was God's holy Angell go along with you.^ Richard Baxter can hardly be quoted as representing the mind of the Church of England ; yet in his poems we come across ad- dresses both to the angels and the departed. As follows : I. Ye holy Angels bright, 1 Which stand before God's Throne, And dwell in glorious Light, Praise ye the Lord each one. You there so nigh Are much more meet Than we the feet. For things so high. 2. You blessed Souls at Rest, That see your Saviours face. Whose Glory, even the least Is far above our Grace : God's Praises sound. As in his sight With sweet delight You do abound.^ This is from Theophilus Dorrington : Sing Praises, Oh ye glorious Hosts of Angels ! Produce your loftiest Hymns and help ! Oh help poor feeble Mortals to praise the Son of God.* Bishop Ken, in his morning and evening hymns, addresses the Angels and his Guardian especially. The verses are too well known to quote. In a book of prayers for the sick, the assistance of Angels is prayed for at the moment of death. Let thy blessed Angels stand in ministry about thy servant ; and defend ^ The life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 169. ^ Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, iSg8, vol. iv. p. II. ' Richard Baxter, Poetical Fragments, London, Simmons, 1681, p. 84. ••Theophilus Dorrington, A Familiar Guide to the Right and Profitable Receiving of the Lord's Supper, London, Aylmer, 1695, p. 73. INVOCATION OF ANGELS. 337 him from the violence, and malice of all his ghostly Enemies ; and drive far from hence all the Spirits of Darkness. 1 Amongst the Prayers towards Bedtime in Bryan Duppa's devo- tions we find this prayer to God : Give thy Angels charge over me, that the Spirits of darkness may not come near me.^ The year after his death in 1826 there was published a col- lection of hymns which are avowedly written for use in public wor- ship, and put forth with the name of Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. One of them contains the prayer to Almighty God. May Thine Angel guards defend us.' But all these are little more than we pray for in the collect on Michaelmas day. More direct is the following. The Spectator has this invocation : Ye guardian Angels, to whose Care Heaven has intrusted its dear Emilia, guide her still forward in the Paths of Virtue, defend her from the Insolence and Wrongs of this undiscerning World ; at length when we must no more converse with such Purity on Earth, lead her gently hence innocent and unreprovable to a better Place, where by an easy Transition from what she now is, she may shine forth an Angel of Light.* Fielding's Amelia when taking leave of her husband is another instance of an attempt at the invocation of angels : " Go, my dear husband," cried she, falling upon her knees, " may every angel of heaven guard and preserve you."^ When Tom Jones has to take leave of Sophia, he ends his letter thus : May guardian angels protect you for ever.^ One young lady writing to another in Sir Charles Grandison ends the letter : Adieu, my dearest Harriet. May angels protect and guide you, whithersoever you go ! ^ M daily office for the sick, London, Clavell, 1694, p. 86. From Bp. Taylor : in m. 2 Bryan Duppa, Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion, London, Hensman, 1675, p. 191. 3 Reginald Heber, Hymns written and adapted to the weekly church service of the year, London, John Murray, 1827, p. 147. * Spectator, No. 302, Friday, February 15, 1711-12. ^H. Fielding, Amelia, Book III, ch. i. in W'oj-As, ed. by Murphy and Browne, London, 1871, vol. viii. p. 254. ^History of Tom Jones, Book VI. ch. xii. Edition as above, vol. vi. p. 342. 'Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart. vol. i. Letter i. London, Chapman and Hall, igo2, vol. i. p. 3. 22 CHAPTER XI. BOOKS OF PRAYER AND SPIRITUAL READING : ADAPTATIONS. The devotional books most in use during our period may be judged of in two ways : in one, by the number of editions that come from the press ; in the other, by what we find spoken of by con- temporary authors as popular, or enumerated in the list of books possessed by well-disposed people, as in use by them. Farther on it may be convenient to discuss apart the custom of translating and adapting foreign books, especially Roman Catholic books, for the use of Churchmen. The catalogues spoken of in this chapter are those of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. It is from one or both of these that are drawn the numbers of the editions of the books that are spoken of. It seems likely that the Whole Duty of Man was the most popular book of devotion that England has known. It appeared just before the Restoration, and continued to be published in edition after edition until 1832, and indeed after our period had ended. Its title was imitated, a sure sign of popularity : the Whole Duty of Woman ; the Whole Duty of a Christian ; the Whole Duty of a Communicant ; the Whole Duty of Prayers ; the Whole Duty of Mourning. It was a High Church book, recommended by Johnson ; ^ but blamed by the Low Churchman, Cowper ; because when on the verge of insanity he failed to recover his senses by using its prayers, he declared it to be a "repository of 'self- righteousness and pharisaical lumber".^ With a good deal of plausibility the authorship has been attributed to Richard Allestree, assisted by Fell and Hammond,^ who had all suffered for their constancy to the Church during the Rebellion. 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, Clarendon Press, 1887, vol. iv. p. 311. With it he recommends Nelson and Law. 2 Robert Southey, The Life and Works of William Cowper, London, Baldwin and Cradock, 1835, vol. i. p. 116. * Charles E. Doble, Academy, 1882, vol. xxii. pp. 348, 364, 382. 338 DEVOTIONAL WORKS. 339 Next in popularity was a Week's preparation towards a worthy receiving of the Lords Supper, which was licensed in 1678 ; the fifty- second edition appeared in a fresh issue in 1764. And beyond. This also was a High Church book and was attacked with asperity by Hoadly, with other High Church books of devotion, for insist- ing upon a certain amount of preparation before Communion, and recommending devotions which indicated a belief in the Real Presence.^ During our period it may well be believed that Robert Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England was an extremely popular book of devotion. The thirty-second edition in 1 81 5 is recorded in the Bodleian Catalogue. In 1776 Boswell says that he understands the work has had " the greatest sale of any book ever printed in England, except the Bible "? Most likely there is here some exaggeration ; but the sale was no doubt great. Dr. Edward Lake, who had charge of the education of the Lady Mary and the Lady Anne, daughters of King James the Second, who afterwards both became Queens of England, published in 1673 his Officium Eucharisticum as a guide to his royal pupils, when ap- proaching the altar, and at other times. Between 1673 and 1753 there can be reckoned up thirty editions. The book is plainly a High Church book : it recommends confession before communion, communion before all food, reverences to be made to the altar, attendance at daily service, and the like. Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying also enjoyed a great popularity. In apprehension of the Day of Judgement, Swift makes the Maids of Honour buy each of them a Bible, and Taylor's Holy Living and Dying^ which is a testimony to the latter's every-day use. Of devotional books in the library of the lady that affects learn- ing, there is beside a Prayer book and Sherlock upon Death, only Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.^ Twenty-eight editions had ap- peared in 1 810 and two more by 1826, It does not seem extra- vagant to reckon this book amongst High Church publications. Denis Granville, Dean of Durham, advising his nephew on the 1 [Benjamin Hoadly,] An afologetical Defence, or a Demonstration of the Usefulness and Expediency of . . .A Plain Account, London, 1735, pp. 15-34. ^ BosweU's Life of Johnson, ed. by George Birkbeck Hill, Clarendon Press, 1887, vol. ii. p. 458, A.D. 1776, March 22. 'A true and faithful narrative of what passed in London, in Works of jfonathan Swift, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 1814, vol. xiii. p. 299. •^Spectator, No. 37, April 12, 1711. 22 * 340 DEVOTIONAL WORKS. practice of meditation, suggests to him the use of Ars cogitandi and of Ars meditandi by Bartholomew Riccius, a Jesuit ; but the latter book was to be used with great caution. Further the Sancta Sophia of Father Baker, a Benedictine monk, but this also with great wariness,! because some of his writings were "very enthusiastical ". In fact, they were accused of Quietism. Some fifteen years after his death an unfounded accusation was made upon the memory of Dr. Butler, the author of the Analogy, by insinuating or rather asserting that he died a Papist, and they fortified what they said from the natural melancholy and gloominess of Dr. Butler's disposition ; from his great fondness for the lives of Romish Saints, and their books of mystic piety.' As they made a great point in their accusation of Dr. Butler's having a cross over the altar in his private chapel, which is admitted to be true, so this minor item in the attack, of being fond of Romish books of devotion may by chance prove true also. But it shows nothing, unless it be admitted that almost all Churchmen in this period were popishly inclined from the Roman books they so abund- antly used. Johnson also recommended one of the classics of the language, William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. This again was very widely read, but its aim is not so much to deepen the spiritual life as to awaken it. Law recommends the keeping of Terce, Sext, and None, the Canonical Hours of Prayer, at 9 a.m., mid-day, and 3 p.m., a practice of frequent prayer which was not at all unknown in our period. For, after the Directions for Night Prayers in the Whole Duty of Man, it is remarked that In the Antient Church there were, besides morning and night, four other times every day, which were called Hours of Prayer ; and the zeal of those first Christians was such, as made them constantly observed . . . I cannot but mention the example, and say, that for those, who are not by very necessary business prevented, it will be but reasonable to imitate it. Devotions for these Hours of Prayer had indeed been already provided by Dr. John Cosin, who at the Restoration became Bishop 1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, xlvii. p. 67. It is printed " weariness," I presume " wariness " is meant. It cannot be too carefully remembered in reading eighteenth century writings that enthusiasm means fanaticism, not zeal or industry. ^ Samuel Halifax, Works . . . of Joseph Butler, Oxford, University Press, 1836, vol. i. p. XXXV. of notes to the preface. DEVOTIONAL WORKS. 341 of Durham, having suffered greatly for his constancy in the In- terregnum. His Collection of private devotions or the Houers of Prayer after the manner of the primer, went through numerous editions : the ninth appeared in 1693. Theophilus Dorrington's Reformed De- votions " disposed into the form and method of the Roman Breviary" went through nine editions between 1686 and 1727. Mrs. Hopton's Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices appeared in eight editions from 1700 to 1765.' There can be little doubt that the Devotions of John Austin, a Roman Catholic book with almost the same title, have been copied and in fact almost reproduced. Her meditations, which only went through the one edition of 1 717, contained prayers for the Third Hour (to the Holy Ghost), for the Sixth Hour (on the Passion) and the Ninth Hour (on the Death of our Lord).^ The members of Horneck's Religious Society were "to pray, if possible, seven times a day".^ There is a work attributed to the Rev. William Howell which was licensed by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford on December 24, 1685, and the seventeenth edition of which ap- peared in 1734, called: The Common-Prayer-Book the Best companion in the House and Closet, as well as in the Temple. To which there is added " a particular office for the Sacrament ". The body of the work contains nothing but prayers taken from the Common Prayer chosen with much judgement and skill. Besides prayers for morning and night, there is a long office for noon. It was one of the books which George Fleming took with him to Oxford in 1688.* While such books as these were in wide circulation it can hardly have been that a good church tone was wanting among the faithful laity. It has been said that if you will let me write the songs of a nation, I care not who makes its laws ; and this may be repeated, contrasting prayers and sermons. Let who will preach sermons if I may write the prayers of the people. People seem to have written out their own prayers and said ^ Edgar Hoskins, Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis, Longmans, igoi, pp. xxi. go, 317, 325. ^[Susannah Hopton,]/! Collection of Meditations and Devotions, London, Midwinter, 1717. Edited by George Hickes and Nathaniel Spinckes. ' See above, Appendix to ch. ix. p. 309. ^ J. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 19T3, vol. ii. p. 213. 342 MANUSCRIPT BOOKS OF PRAYERS. these, instead of betaking themselves in all cases to the printed books. The most famous of these is Dr. Johnson's Prayers and Meditations, which, had he not previously given them to Strahan, might well have perished in the great burning of papers which took place shortly before his death. ^ They are important as they show Johnson's practice of prayer for the departed. There is another collection of inedited devotions in the British Museum, MS. Add. 14,404, left behind by one Daniel Turner who was a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London and who died in 1741. His manuscript is of some interest as showing the private devotions of a layman. He has Thanksgiving for the recovery of a sick person committed to his care : ^ prayer upon the anniversary of baptism,^ heads for self-examination, prayers for Lent, Passion week, Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas. He prays as " being now spiritually to partake of thy Flesh and Blood".* He recites Agnus Dei immediately before Communion, and he has " a prayer to be recited at the Bedside by a Freindf, in the Absence of my Spiritual Guidf , when Death approaches ''. Lady Maynard, whom Ken directed, followed the same practice of committing her devotions to writing. Ken, in his sermon at her death, speaks thus : Her oratory was the place, where she principally resided, and where she was most at home, and her chief employment, was prayer, and praise. Out of several authors, she for her own use transcribed many excellent forms, the very choice of which does argue a most experienced piety, she had devotions suited to all the primitive hours of prayer, which she used, as far as her bodily infirmities, and necessary avocations would permit, and with " David, praised God seven times a day," or supplied the want of those solemn hours by a kind of perpetuity of ejaculations.* There is amongst my books a manuscript which deserves far more attention than I am able to give to it here. It appears to have been drawn out about 1692 by the Rev. Samuel Woodeford, F.R.S., canon of Chichester and also of Winchester. He died in 1700. The title of the manuscript \s Preaiin Privatarum Horar- iiini ad usum Ecclesiae Primitivae. The basis of the work is the psalter, divided into canonical hours for every day in the week, with additions of hymns, prayers, and litanies. The Breviary has evi- ^ Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. iv. p. 405. 'fo. 22. sfo. 24. iio. ig h. 5 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady Margaret Mainard, at little Easton, in Essex, June 30, 16S2, in The Prose Works of Thomas Ken, edited by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 130. MANUSCRIPT BOOKS OF PRA VERS. 343 dently inspired this work, which, however, is far from being a mere transcription of the Breviary. Affixed to the end of a folio edition of the Common Prayer in the Bodleian Library (Shelf Mark : C. P. 1686. c. i.) formerly be- longing to Dr. Edward Bernard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, is a manuscript addition of eleven leaves ; the size of this addi- tion is 6| inches by A,\. It is taken from the Woodeford manu- script of which I have just spoken, but only the cues or incipits are given. Apparently the two are in the same hand, very likely that of Samuel Woodeford. Into this Prayer Book, Dr. Edward Bernard has copied out a number of private prayers. The margins of the collects are filled with the corresponding collects from the Gregorian Sacramentary, and on the fly-leaves are written his own private devotions, some of which may have a source akin to those of Merlo von Horst's Paradisus Animae Christianae. There are hymns of Prudentius; also extracts from the Sacramentarium Bobbiense. At the end of the book are additions in manuscript, one of which has been spoken of above. To consider now the lists of books of devotion which are found in use by well-disposed people. For instance George Fleming in 1688 takes with him to Oxford ^ I Common-Prayer Book. I Dr. Ken's Exposition of the Church Catechism. I The Common-Prayer Book the best companion. I Rules for our more Devout Behaviour in the time of Divine service of the Church of England. These Rules went through fifteen editions at least and contain time-tables for the daily services in the London churches. The Common Prayer Book the best Companion has been spoken of just above. Ambrose Bonwicke, a conforming Nonjuror, when a scholar at St. John's College Cambridge about 1 710, had Lake's Officium Eucharisticum, Thomas a Kempis' de imitatione Christi, the Whole Duty of Man, some pieces of Kettlewell, Brome of Fasting, and almost all Nelson's Festivals and Fasts? Fielding makes the pious footman, Joseph Andrews, read the ij. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii. p. 213. '^Life of Ambrose Bonwicke by Ms father, edited by John E. B. Mayor, Cambridge, Deighton Bell, 1870, pp. 19, zo, 53. 344 BOOKS OF PRAYERS. Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a Kempis : but Tom Jones had never before seen Thomas i Kempis when the book was offered to him.^ This is quite in accordance with the character given him by the noveUst. Clarissa Harlowe's sister comes to spy upon her under pretence of borrowing a Thomas 4 Kempis. In the den into which she is lured, and to give some pretence of respectability to it, she finds : Stanhope's gospels; Sharpe's [Abp. of York], Tillotson's [Abp. of Canterbury], and South's sermons ; Nelson's Feasts and Fasts ; a sacra- mental piece of the Bishop of Man, [Thomas Wilson] and another of Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter \The whole duty of a communicant] and Innett's Qohn Inett] Devotions.^ In January, 173 5, John Byrom buys Thomas a Kempis for 15 shillings, St. Austin's Meditations for 3s. 6d., both old editions. Ken's Catechism and Sparks on the Liturgy for a shilling each. This last I take to be Edward Sparkes' Scintillula Altaris, first published in 1652. Before this, in 1729, he had bought Law's Serious Call. In 173 1 he buys Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Ex- ercises ; Albert the Great's Paradise of the Soul in English ; and in 1735 Bona's Christian Principles for 4d. At another time he reads Thomas a Kempis a good deal.' But on the other hand, describing a simple sort of person it is said : " her reading has been wholly confined to her Psalter and Bible, a few devotional tracts and some sermons".^ The Psalter and Bible would indeed be the best kind of reading for such a person, and it is a pity that they are not now recommended with such insistence as formerly. Dr. Johnson's Prayer Book was Bryan Duppa's Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion. An edition of 1673 is in the British Museum and one labelled the 7th appeared in 1704. More were issued in 1817 and 1 81 8. Duppa quotes Bonaventure, St. Bernard, and the fathers, and takes antiquity as his guide. Johnson laid aside Thomas k Kempis because the main design of it was to promote 1 Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, Book I. ch. iii. The History of Tom Jones, Book VII. ch. v. ed. Murphy and Browne, Bickers, 1871, vol. V. p. 28, vol. vi. p. 463. 'Samuel Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe, Tauchnitz, 1862, vol. i. Letter Ixxv. p. 329 and vol. ii. Letter lix. p. 192. 2 The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, ed. by Richard Parkinson for the Chetham Society, 1855, Vol. I. part ii. ' Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, Euphemia, London, Cadell, lygo, vol. i. Letter vi. p. i8g. ROMAN CATHOLIC BOOKS ADAPTED. 345 monastic piety/ and thus it was not so useful for persons living in the world. The practice of adapting Roman Catholic books of devotion or of spiritual reading for the use of Church of England people, wag de- nounced with no small vigour a few years after our period had closed. It seems strange that the great abundance of Roman books which had been translated and adapted should have been unknown, and the considerable Church authority which sanctioned the practice should have been then forgotten, or no pains taken to look into the facts. Nor was the recommendation of Hannah More, the testi- mony of a firm Protestant, remembered. In the book, then recent, written in view of the education of Princess Charlotte, she writes that The errors of the Romish church were to be rejected, but the trea- sures of ancient piety which she possessed, were not to be abandoned. Her formularies contained devotional compositions, not more venerable for their antiquity than valuable for their intrinsic excellence, being at once simple and energetic, perspicuous and profound.^ At the end of the eighteenth century, the alliance between the Prayer Book and the Roman Liturgy was well known, and con- sidered a great merit. Hence the resemblance between the English Liturgy and the Romish Breviary, which Ignorance with her usual petulance, is ever forward to object to the Church of England, is, in effect highly honourable to her, inasmuch as it shows her reverence for primitive antiquity.^ We see how far we have moved from the Puritan times of the seventeenth century when the discovery that a portion of the Prayer Book was akin to the Mass book was enough to raise a cry for the immediate discontinuance of the former. There is a little book of prayers published in 1822 with no markedly High Church tendency, for in the Instructions for Com- munion it omits the word sacrifice in the answer to the question Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordaiiied? which in this work runs For the continual remembrance of the death of Christ, not the continual remem-brance of the sacrifice of the Death of Christ. Yet aniong the prayers after communion there is a free adaptation of the well-known prayer attributed to St. Thomas in the Reformed ^ Sir John Hawkins, The hife of Samuel Johnson, London, 1787, p. 543. '^ Hints towards forming the character of a young Princess, ch. xxxvii. in Works, Fisher and Jackson, 1834, vol. iv. p. 355. 2 Gentleman^s Magazine, 1795, vol. Ixv. September, p. 727. 346 ROMAN CATHOLIC BOOKS ADAPTED. Roman Missal, among the Orationes post Missam, which begins Gratias tibi ago D amine} Thomas 4 Kempis must be held as common to all Christians and the translations into English are numerous in our period. That of Stanhope, the Dean of Canterbury, seems to have produced a large number of editions. Between 1698 and 18 14 there were nineteen issues of his translation. Willymott published a version in 1722. John Wesley translated the first three books by themselves in 1735, an edition which continued to appear as long as 1 806. The fourth book, on the Sacrament of the Altar, he published separately as a Companion to the Altar extracted from Thomas k Kempis, and the iifth edition appeared in 1755. Of the translation of John Payne, a mystic, apparently undenominational, there appeared five editions in our period. Dibdin in 1828 brought out a translation with John Payne's preface. There are further editions, anonymous, but to no great number. The editions in English printed abroad, or by Roman Catholics in England, have not here been noticed. But it may be repeated that the de Imitatione is indeed not to be coniined to any body of Christians, if we omit the fourth book, which might be dis- liked by a Zwinglian. Cardinal Bona's Manuductio ad Caelum was translated into English by Sir Roger L'Estrange, and published in 1672. The sixth edition of the translation appeared in 171 2. The original was turned into verse by a Baronet, Sir James Chamberlayne, and it appeared in 1681. Another work by the same Cardinal is : Precepts and Practical Rules for a truly Christian Life . . . Englished by L. B. London, Clark and Brome, 1678. This is dedicated to Thomas Ken, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and it has the imprimatur of Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Principles of Christianity , written originally in Latin by John Bona, translated by T. E. Esq. was published by Joseph Hazard about 1722, but I have never seen a copy. Nor of the Evangelical In- stitutions by the pious Cardinal Bona, London, 171 9. Henry Dodwell, the elder, translated and adapted St. Francis of Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life. I have not found it in either catalogue. Hearne speaks of it as follows : 1 Devotions for duly receiving the Holy Sacrament, compiled by a Layman, London, Hatehard, 1822, p. 84. KUMAN VAitiui^n, uuOKS ADAPTED. 347 Sales' Introduction to a Devout Life came out in twelves in 1673, being printed at Dublin, with this Title ; An Introduction to a Devout Life : containing especially, A prudent Method for Spiritual Closet-Exer- cises, and Remedies against the Difficulties ordinarily occurring in the con- duct of a pious Life. Fitted for the Use of Protestants. 'Twas fitted by Mr. Dodwell, being done at the request of the Book- seller. . . . The Preface contains 37 Leaves. 1 Also in 1 701, Nicholls turned into English and adapted the In- troduction to a Devout Life of St. Francis of Sales. He prefixes a memorandum " of the rise and progress of Spiritual Books in the Romish Church," in which he speaks of the good Reception which Devotional Books have found in this Nation for some Years last past ; and he tells us that notwithstanding the great deserved aversion which the Nation has to Popery, yet the Books of Their Divines upon Devotional and Practical Subjects, have met with as favourable reception among Us, as if the Authors had been of a better Religion.^ He ends by saying : I think I have left nothing standing in this Edition, which is directly contrary to the Articles of our Church. The catalogue of the British Museum gives but tw^o more editions of this translation ; in 1726, and 1741. Fenelon, the Archbishop of Cambray, must have been during our period a great favourite wfith Anglican translators and adapters. A long list of his w^orks in English for devotional and spiritual reading is to be found in the catalogue of the British Museum, but only a few can here be noted, and these few will be limited to those which are clearly not the product of a Roman Catholic publisher. Most of these adaptations of Fenelon are in small bulk, as little books of devotion commonly are, to fit them for the pocket. But there is an exception which had better be considered first, the edition being in two volumes. Part of the spiritual works of the celebrated Francis Fenelon, Arch- bishop of Cambray, author of Telemachus, &c. translated by Richard Houghton, late of the City of Dublin, Surgeon, in two volumes, 8° Dublin, Powell, 1 77 1. A long list of subscribers, extending over 17 pages, precedes the ' Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. by C, E. Doble, Oxford, His- torical Society, i88g, vol. iii. p. 258, Nov. 4, 1711. ^An Introduction to a Devout Life by Francis Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva, by William Nicholls, London, Bennet and Sprint, 1701. 348 ROMAN CATHOLIC BOOKS ADAPTED. preface, and the translator tells us (p. iii.) that he is a member of the Church of England. There are also : Instructions for the education of a Daughter . . . Done into English and revised by Dr. G. Hickes, London, 1707, 12°. Of this work editions were printed until 1812. That of Dr. Hickes continued to appear till 1750 at least. Dibdin, the biblio- phile, published an edition at Cheltenham through H. Ruff in 1805. There is a Lenten book : The Christian Pilgrimage : or a Companion for the Holy Season of Lent : being meditations upon the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascen- sion of . . . Jesus Christ by the late . . . Mons. de Fenelon . . . Made English by Mrs. J[ane] Barker, etc. pp. vi. 152. E. Curll and C. Rivington : London, 17 18. 12°. The other works which appear under Mrs. Barker's name are not altogether of the same subject matter as the foregoing. Abel Boyer, born in France, but a journalist practising in Eng- land, brought out in 171 3 a translation of Fenelon's work, A Demon- stration of the Existence, Wisdom and Omnipotence of God, dedicated to Dr. John Sharp, then Archbishop of York. This was reprinted at Glasgow in 1755. Three other editions also appeared in our period, the latest in 1821. The same prelate's Pious Reflections for every day in the Month, Englished, appeared in at least six editions between 1797 and 181 8. Something of Fenelon's popularity in England may be due to his alliance with Madame Guyon and Quietism. The Society of Friends found certain parts of Fenelon's writings to their liking. Directions for a holy life seems to have been published by them three times at least between 1795 and 1829. One Martin, a Quaker, gave a copy to John Byrom in 1736,^ so that an edition approved by them must have appeared before this. Amongst the writers suspected by the Inquisition of Molinism was Pietro Matteo Petrucci, created a Cardinal in 1686 by Innocent the Eleventh. He died in 1701. His work on Christian perfection was brought out by Richard Smith at Bishop Beveridge's Head in Paternoster Row where the works of Bishop Bull, Bishop Beveridge, and other Anglican Divines were published. The Catalogue of the British Museum gives the title as follows : 1 The Private Journal and Literary Remains of yohn Byrnm, ed. by Richard Parkinson, Chetham Society, 1857, Vol. II. part i. p. 2-)-o. i^uin^iy y.j-nAiKyj^.^ ^^OKS ADAPTED. 349 Christian Perfection, consisting in the love of God ; explain'd in several letters to a lady, &c. Written originally in Italian . . . now rendered into English, with an account of the author, . . . London, 1704. 8°. The Discourse on Christian Perfection was published by W. Bray in 171 1 bound up with the Works of Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, which that Prince in the devotion of his later life had compiled. The Spiritual Combat of Lorenzo ScupoH was published in at least three English editions : one in 1742, a second in 1 81 6, and a third in 1828. An unpromising author for adaptation by Anglicans would seem to offer himself in Bellarmine. Yet three of his books have been translated and adapted. Ouranography ; or. Heaven opened. The substance of Cardinal Bellarmine's Five Books concerning the Eternal Felicity of the Saints. Published in Latin . . . and now made English ... by B[enjainin] Jenks, London, 1710, 12°. Another edition and translation is : The Joys of the Blessed ; being a practical discourse concerning the eternal happiness of the Saints in Heaven. Translated from the original Latin of Cardinal Bellarmin. By T. Foxton. With an essay upon the same subject, written by Mr. Addison. London, 1722. 8°. The second work is : The Art of Dying Well. In two books. Written in Latin. Trans- lated into English by J. Ball. With an addition of prayers suited to the subject of each chapter. London, 1720, 8°. The third of Bellarmine's books is : Steps of ascension to God. Written Originally in Latin by . . . Cardinal Bellarmine. Done into English by a divine of the Church of England \i.e. H. Hall] Second edition. London, 1705, 8°. Still more unpromising would be the works of Father Robert Parsons, of the Company of Jesus. He left a book behind him with the title of a Christian Directory or Holy Resolutions, and it may seem that of all other works of devotion, a book by such a schemer and plotter might well be thought the least suitable aid for Anglican meditation. Yet Stanhope, the Dean of Canterbury, undertook to edit and adapt Parsons, making judicious alterations to accommodate it to the Anglican position. He explains his plan as follows : 3. The Third are chiefly concerned in the Chapters of Faith, Good Works, and Purgatory ; wherein the Doctrines of the Romish Infallibility ; 35° ROMAN CATHOLIC BOOKS ADAPTED. Satisfaction by Penance, and Alms ; and the temporal Punishment of Sins whose Eternal Punishment is remitted, are treated of, according to the Principles of this Father, and his Society. And herein I have cast out what was peculiar to the Romish Communion, and reserved so much only as might be supposed to come from the Pen of a Christian Priest at large. This I forsee is like to give greatest offence to a sort of Persons, whose eagerness for a Party in Religion disposes them to resent it very heinously, that we should pretend to enjoy the advantage of what makes for Christianity in common, without being content at the same time to swallow all that is interspersed for the Interest of some particular denomination of Christians. But I hope this will appear to be no un- reasonable way of proceeding, when we have attended a little to the two following Arguments.^ At least five editions of this work appeared in the course of the century. Apparently Joseph Wasse did not scruple in his Reformed De- votions to call in the aid of Foreign Ascetics, and his book was printed at the Theatre with the Imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1719. William Cowper cannot be accused of leanings to Rome ; yet in searching for materials for hymns he asks : Can there not be found among those translations of Madame Guyon somewhat that might serve the purpose ? ^ Theophilus Dorrington's Reformed Devotions went through at least eight editions, which is some evidence of popularity. They contain versions of the old mediaeval hymns : Lauda Sion Salva- torem, Vexilla Regis, Veni Sancte Spiritus, etc. This reminds us that Dr. Johnson when repeating Dies irae, dies ilia could never pass Tantus labor non sit cassus without emotion.^ In a sermon before the University of Oxford on Innocents' day, 1772, Dr. George Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, notes that The Christian poet, Prudentius, in one of his hymns, has an elegant and beautiful address to these young sufferers for their Redeemer — Solvate, /lores Martyrum.^ And the preacher adds a version of the stanzas. '[Robert] Parsons his Christian Directory, Being a treatise of Holy Resolution, London, Richard Sare, 1700, Preface. 2 Private Correspondence of William Cowper, ed. John Johnson, London, Henry Colburn, 1824, vol. ii. p. 15, Aug. 17, 1785. s Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, sec. ed. 1786, p. 200. * George Home, Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions, third ed. London, 1799, vol. i. p. 292. CHAPTER XII. OPINIONS IN OUR PERIOD ON THE MEANING OF THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC : WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE VESTMENTS ACTUALLY WORN. It has been thought well to add a chapter upon church vest- ments between the Restoration and the Oxford Movement be- cause it has been suggested that the subject of Ecclesiastical vestments disappeared from sight after 1662, and that "no more was heard of the matter until the ' Oxford movement' in the 19th century".^ If we take this to mean that the matter was wholly forgotten, assent can hardly be given to such a proposition. The matter is discussed by almost as many writers as there are decades between 1660 and 1833. With only two exceptions authors de- clare that the rubric means what it says, that it directs the use of the ornaments of the first book of King Edward the Sixth. The two excepted authors hold that the Edwardine vestments may bfe strictly legal, but they have fallen into desuetude, and thus no clergy- man can be required to wear them. In dealing with our period we may begin with Dr. Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, who was a prisoner for near twenty years in the Tower under Cromwell. When the Prayer Book had to be re- vised after the Restoration, the Bishop wrote out a paper of notes which was only published in 1874, by Dr. Jacobson, then Bishop of Chester. Dr. Wren seems to think that at that moment, before the Act of 1662, the Ornaments of the First Book of King Edward were the lawful ones ; but to avoid dispute he advises that a new rubric should be made : But what is now fit to be ordered herein, and to preserve those that are still in use, it would [should] be set down in express words, without those uncertainties which breed nothing but debate and scorn. The very words too, of that Act, 2. Edw. VI, for the Minister's Ornaments, would ^ See the article on Vestments, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cambridge, 1911, eleventh edition, p. 1060 ; col. ii. 351 352 INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMKNr:^ Kunnj^^. [should] be set down, or to pray to have a new one made ; for there is somewhat in that Act that now may not be used.^ The Bishop pleads for a definition of the ornaments : either in " the very words " of the Act that is, to print the rubric as it stands in the Book of King Edward ; or else to have a new direction made. There is more than somewhat in the Act which may not now be used ; rites as well as ornaments and ceremonies. In 1660, from the mention of the King it would appear to be after the Restoration, a pamphlet came out, written, it is said, by Cornelius Burges, which acknowledged the legality of the orna- ments of the First Book of King Edward, but at the same time asked to have a liberty granted in using these ornaments ; perhaps more than liberty in using them may be suspected ; it is their abolition that is wished for. 4. The Book of Common Prayer of 2. Edw. 6. is in some things re- ferred to, and particularly as to Ornatnents and Rites, both by the Rubrick before Morning- Prayer in the present Liturgy ; and by the Stat, of i . Eliz. 2. So that, as to this point, so much of the first Book is still in force by Law.2 The opinions of this writer may be judged by the vehement objections made to Surplices, Copes, Cross in Baptism, Kneeling at the Communion, Marriage with the Ring, etc' Thus his acknow- ledgement of the legality of the ornaments of the First Book is given against the grain. The exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer presented at the Savoy Conference, after quoting the Ornaments Rubric, add : Forasmuch as this rubrick seemeth to bring back the cope, albe, &c., and other vestments forbidden by the Common Prayer Book, 5 and 6 Edw. VI. and so our reasons alledged against ceremonies under our eighteenth general exception, we desire it may be wholly left out.* Richard Baxter, writing in 1670, setting down what he held to be the most necessary Alterations of the Littcrgy, has amongst others : 1 William Jacobson, Fragmentary Illustrations of the History of the Book of Common Prayer, London, Murray, 1874, p. 56. There is a reference on p. 109 to the Coronation of King Charles the Second ; and it is evident that the Bishop had seen the alterations made in the Prayer Book of 1662 from his remarks that which has been often turned into who and congregation into church. Thus it would seem that the four paragraphs which end the book were written some time after the earlier part of the book. 2 [Cornelius Burges,] Reasons shewing the Necessity of Reformation, . . . by divers Ministers, London, Cottrel, 1660, p. 38. See also p. 4. ^See p. 33, a.nd passim. •• Edward Cardwell, History of Conferences, Oxford, 1841, sec. ed. p. 314. JiyrEKFTm-L'ArWN Oh' rHE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. 353 The Rubrick for the old Ornaments, which were in use in the second year of Edw. VI. put out.^ It would not be necessary to put out the Rubric for the old Ornaments if it did not legalise them. A sort of society for the discussion of ecclesiastical questions was formed at Durham before the Revolution, and amongst other matters discussed was the Ornaments Rubric : Be it enacted that such ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use, as was in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the 2d year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th. S^c. What were these Ornaments ? Ans. Vide Statute.^ The Statute is that of the Second of Edward the Sixth in the opinion of the answerer : the Advertisements of Elizabeth are not thought of by him ; the matter seems to him quite simple ; he con- siders, that it is the Statute that is the sole rule. Much the same is the opinion of William Watson whose book on Clergyman' s Law went through at least five editions in the eighteenth century. He speaks dubiously of the authority by which James the First made alterations and additions to the Book of Common Prayer; but such were confirmed in 1662. But the Ornaments Rubric of 1662 is given as it stands, without any gloss upon it from Queen Elizabeth's advertisements.^ In the first decade of the eighteenth century Dr. Thomas Bennet, speaking of the Ornaments Rubric, after quoting the Rubric of Edward the Sixth's first book, says : From hence it seems to follow, that the present Rubric, and that of Queen Elizabeth, which are in effect the very same, do restore those Orna- ments, which were abolish'd by King Edward the Second's Book, [i.e. Ed- ward the Sixth's Second Book] and which indeed have been disus'd ever since that time. But it must be consider'd, that in the latter Part of the Act for Uniformity, I. Eliz. there is this Clause. Then he quotes the clause, giving authority to the Queen to take other order : and he proceeds : Now such other order was accordingly taken by the Queen in the year 1564, which was the seventh of Her Reign. For she did then, with the ^ Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. Matthew Sylvester, London, Parkhurst, etc. Part III. p. 39 (falsely so numbered ; it should be p. 30). See Contents, Part III. written for the most part in the year 1670 at the beginning of the volume. ^ The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 174. ^William Watson, The Clergy-Man's Law, London, John Place, 1701, p. 243. 23 354 INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. Advice of her Ecclesiastical Commissioners, particularly the then Metro- politan Dr. Matthew Parker, publish certain Advertisements, wherein are the following Directions. He then prints the well-known Advertisements, and the Canon of 1603. Then he says : From hence 'tis plain, that the Parish Priests (and I take no notice of the Case of others) are oblig'd to no other Ornaments, but Surplices, and Hoods. For these are authentic Limitations of the Rubric, which seems'to require all such Ornaments as were in Use in the second Year of King Edward's Reign. Besides, since from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign down to our own Times, the Disuse of 'em has most notoriously been allow'd ; therefore, tho' it were not strictly reconcilable with the Letter of the Rubric, yet we cannot be suppos'd to lie under any Obligation to restore the use of them. And indeed, if that Practice which our Governors do openly and constantly permit and approve, be not admitted for a good Interpretation of Laws whether Ecclesiastical or Civil ; I fear, it will be impossible to clear our hands of many other Repugnances, of different kinds, besides this now under Debate.^ From this last sentence it is plain that Dr. Bennet saw quite clearly the amount of law-breaking that was going on around him in the Church ; and he refers often in the rest of his book to the tacit permission of questionable practices by the Governors of the Church, as if this "Living Voice of the Church" overrode the written law. This is Ultramontanism, but it is not the English interpretation of statute law, even if it be that of canon law. Bingham has some remarks on the Ornaments Rubric which he quotes at length and which he interprets as directing the clergy to the first Book of Edward the Sixth. But unluckily, he does not seem to be acquainted with the Rubric of the first Book which deals with the vestment or cope, alb, and tunicle, but only with that at the end of the Book, in Certain Notes, which prescribes the surplice for Mattins and Evensong, Baptizing and Burying.^ This imperfect information rather lames his conclusion that the surplice and hood are the only ornaments for the " private minister " ; while the Bishop is allowed a surplice or alb, and a cope or vestment. It may be feared that we have before us not Mr. Baxter's great Mistake about the Ornaments of the 2nd year of King Edward, but that of another writer, namely, Bingham himself. ' Thomas Bennet, A Paraphrase with Annotations upon the Book of Common Prayer, sec. ed. London, Knapton, 1709, pp. 2-7. 2 Joseph Bingham, The French Churches Apology for the Church of England, Book III. ch, vii. London, Knaplock, 1706, p. 131, INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. 355 It seems likely that John Johnson, the learned author of the Un- bloody Sacrifice, had at one time fallen into the same error as Bing- ham in his judgement on the first book of King Edward. He begins by quoting the rubric of that book ; and then adds : I find that others, as well as I, have supposed, that all the Ornaments injoin'd to Ministers, by the 2d. \thus\ Book published in the 2d of Edw. VI. and consequently by our present Liturgy, were the Surplice for the Priest, the Rochet, Alb and Cope for the Bishop. The occasion of this Mis- take was, that we look'd no further, than to that long Rubric at the end of that Book ; but by a more diligent perusal of the Communion Office, it appears that the Cope is enjoin'd to the celebrating Priest, Albs and Tunicles to the attending Clergymen. ^ Apparently John Johnson took Cope to mean the same as Vest- ment. Nicholls prints a long note upon the Rubric, a note too long for all of it to be reproduced here : So that by this Act, we are sent to enquire into the Rubricks of King Edward's first Common- Prayer-Book, for the Habits in which Ministers are to Officiate. He then gives the rubric of Edward the Sixth's first book, but only that in Certain Notes ; thus he seems to fall into the same error as Bingham : and the Act of Elizabeth empowering the Queen to take other order : of which he says : Which last Clause, whether it be a Qualification personally Empowering this Queen, and dying with her ; or a declarative only of the Regal Power, antecedently inherent in her, and derivable upon her Successors ; has afforded matter of much Dispute.^ This question does not afTect his interpretation of the Rubric ; and he passes on to describe the surplice, alb, hood, rochet, and cope. But Charles Wheatly, the well-known author of the Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, commenting on the second part of the ornaments rubric, writes thus : By the Ornaments of the Church and the Ministers thereof vciexAxox^ A in the second part of this Kubrick, it is plain from the Rubrick it self, we are to understand such as were prescrib'd by ^!a& first Common-Prayer Book of K. Edward the Sixth.^ ' [John Johnson,] The Clergy -man's Vade-Mecum, third ed. ch. iv. London, 1709, p. 21, note. 2 William Nicholls, A Comment on the Book of Common Prayer, London, 1710, Sheet 0, leaf i. ' Charles Wheatly, The Church of England Man's Companion, Oxford, 1710, p. 32. Words to the same effect are continued in Dr. Corrie's Cambridge edition of 1858, but 23 * 3S6 INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. Gibson, Bishop of London, the well-known ecclesiastical his- torian, adds this note to the rubric of Elizabeth : Until other order] which other Order (at least in the method prescribed by this Act) was never yet made ; and therefore legally, the Ornaments of the Ministers in performing Divine Service, are the same now as they were in 2. E. 6.1 Gibson marks the rubric of Edward the Sixth as obsolete,^ but not the rubric of Charles the Second of 1662. Thomas Sharp,^ Archdeacon of Northumberland and Official to the Dean and Chapter of Durham, declares that : The use of hoods, and disuse of copes and tunicles, are now so notor- iously and universally allowed of by the Ordinaries, that, although neither of them could in strictness be reconciled with the letter of the Rubric, yet we are not bound, at this time, to make any alteration in our practice. A little below he speaks of a curious custom in the diocese of Durham introduced, he says, by Bishop Cosin which may be here mentioned, viz. The constant use of the surplice by all Preachers in pulpits. It is quite decent, he thinks, but we are not bound to it. And another writer in the middle of the eighteenth century ad- heres to the opinion that the Ornaments Rubric prescribes the Ornaments of Edward the Sixth's first book. After Nicholls, he says : So that by this Act, we are sent to enquire into the Kubricks of King Edward's first Common-Prayer-Book, for the Habits in which Ministers are to officiate. And among them we find these Rules. ■* He then gives the rubric of Certain Notes of Edward the Sixth's first book. An anonymous writer of the same period, whose notes are still he dissents, if I judge aright, in a note (p. 92) though he still observes that the rubric as it now stands was re-adopted in 1661 after it had been superseded by the Advertise- ments. In another place, too, Dr. Corrie seems to attempt to negative in the notes what his author says in the text. ' Edmund Gibson, Codex luris Ecdesiastici Anglicani, London, Baskett and Whitledge, 1713, vol. i. p. 363. This is repeated in the edition of 1761, p. 297. ''ibid. p. 472, sec. ed. p. 390. ^Thomas Sharp, The Rubric in the Book of Common Prayer and the Canons, London, Knapton, 1753, p. 246. Because Dr. John Sharp, the Archbishop of York in Queen Anne's time, preferred the first book of King Edward to the present Communion OfSce {The life of John Sharp D.D. Lord Archbishop of York, collected by Thomas Sharp, London, Rivington, 1825, vol. i. p. 355), it by no means follows that he thought that the ornaments Rubric of our day prescribes the ornaments of the first book. He may have done so ; but the evidence is not forthcoming. Writers may have confused the Archbishop with the Archdeacon. ■•Ferdinando Warner, ^» illustration of the Book of Common-Prayer, London, Hodges, 1754. Sheet D. leaf i. verso, note f. Ct. Nicholls above, on p. 355. ii\ijcKrKt!.iAnui\ UP utitL ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. 357 in manuscript, suggests strictly legal visitation articles, with the purpose of pointing out to what extremities they would lead. A short Trial of the Expediency of some Articles of Efiguiry, when carried up to the rigor of the Law.'- 18. Doth he precisely observe the Canonical Habit, as enjoined by Canon and Rubric, without omitting any ? for instance, the Surplice, Band, White- Alb with a Cope, or an Alb with a Tunacle ? ^ The writer is probably a Latitudinarian who wanted to gain " Liberty " ; and to this end to frighten average clergymen by pointing out their numerous transgressions of the law. Burn, the well-known writer on Church law, quotes the orna- ments rubric of Charles the Second, and as explanation gives in full the rubric of the first book of Edward the Sixth touching the white albe plain, vestment or cope, and tunicles for the ministers at the holy Communion.^ In 1783 Dr. Luke Heslop, the Archdeacon of Buckingham, allowed among the church Vestments and Ornaments of Bledlow an alb.* It was in use, as the churchwarden's accounts note the payment for its washing. This could only have been allowed if the legality of the ornaments of the first book of King Edward be pre-supposed. Dr. John Randolph, afterwards Bishop of London, delivered a course of lectures in 1784 when Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in one of which he deals with the interpretation of the ornaments rubric. We have had occasion before to take notice of the disputes about the ornaments and habits of ministers. The Rubric restrains the Church to a moderate use of them ; it refers to an Act of Parliament, 2. Edward VI., which establishes those prescribed in the first liturgy of Edward VI.^ The Professor passes on to enumerate the ornaments of the 1 British Museum, Add. MS. 5370, fo. 128. The word Expediency is dotted under- neath. ''ibid. p. 135 b. •' Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law, London, 1763, vol. i. p. 680, under Lord's Supper. * No. 17 in the Inventory of Bledlow published in the Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 1905, vol. v. p. 235. See Appendix to ch. v. p. 160. ^John Randolph, v4 Course of Lectures delivered to Candidates for Holy Orders, ed. Thomas Randolph, London, Rivingtons, 1870, vol. iii. p. 293. Lecture xxxiii. at end. The Lecture is also reprinted in Three Lectures on the Book of Common Prayer, Riving- tons, i86g, p. 19. 35 8 INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. rubric, leaving out the word vestment before cope ; and he adds that, though restored by the rubric, they are now fallen into disuse. Thomas Pruen, in his enumeration of the Ornaments of the Ministers, includes the Cope and Alb, with Tunicles for those that assist ; but he does not mention the vestment, perhaps thinking that it was identical with the cope. The pastoral staff, he says, is now grown out of use.^ A writer of the first third of the nineteenth century, who does not give his name, but had plainly been bred to the law, speaking of the lawful ornaments of the minister, mentions the theory that Queen Elizabeth had taken other order ; but he rejects it. If she had taken such order, yet the Rubric before morning-prayer in our present Liturgy, enforced by the act of Uniformity, 14th Charles II., could not be affected by any order taken by Queen Elizabeth : therefore Gibson truly says, " Legally, the ornaments of ministers in performing divine service are the same now as they were in the 2d of Edward VI. Code, p. 363 " ; yet he marks this Rubric of Edward VI. as obsolete, p. 472. He does not so mark the Rubric of our present Liturgy,;). 363, and it is certain they are both in force, or neither of them are so.^ Of the authors quoted above it will be seen that only Dr. Bennet and Dr. Sharp express an opinion against the Ornaments of King Edward's first book. And even this opinion is so worded as not to declare that these ornaments are illegal, but to protect from attack by reason of long desuetude any beneficed clergymen who did not wear them. But it may be remarked, as Dr. A. J. Stephens has observed, that neither " the governors in the Church " nor "usage" can supersede the positive enactments of the Statute Law.^ So that the reasons given for the opinion of both these writers must be disallowed. With the exception of these two, during the eighteenth century all the authors, who speak on this point (and names of great author- ity are to be found among them), suggest that the ornaments of Edward the Sixth's first book are the legal ornaments of the minister. The tradition of the eighteenth century is then in favour of the Edwardine Ornaments. In fact, whenever men have taken the trouble to investigate the subject with care and without prejudice, they have usually come to the same result. Of this Dr. A. J. 1 Thomas 7raen, Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England as to its daily service, London, Rivingtons, 1820, vol. i. p. 205. ' London Parishes, London, Jeffrey, 1824, p. 14. '■' The Book of Common Prayer, ed. A. J. Stephens, Ecclesiastical History Society, London, Harrison, 1849, vol. i. p. 368- ± \r^~xx jc* A jn. J. 2.K^ ± :;^;= ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. 359 Stephens in his early days and the Committee of the Privy Council in Westerton v. Liddell may be examples. That the Ornaments Rubric directed the use of the ornaments of the first book of Edward the Sixth may be claimed as the general opinion of the Church of England during the whole of the eighteenth century and the first third of the nineteenth. This being the case, it will be interesting to inquire how the churchmen of our period carried their opinions out in practice. It must be owned that in practice they followed their opinions but little. The ornaments of which we have evidence as in general use are the Surplice and the Hood, and, for dignified clergymen, the Scarf Nor judging from the Bishops' visitation articles of the seventeenth century have we much evidence that they attempted immediately after 1662 to enforce the use of any ornaments but the surplice and hood. An attempt to explain this apparent in- consistency may be made in this way. The first book of Edward contains two rubrics touching vestments : one, at the beginning of the Supper of the Lorde and the holy Communion, and another, on the last leaf of the book, beginning Certayne Notes. This latter, Certayne Notes, has been taken as expressing the whole mind of the book, ordering only surplice and hood, no notice being taken of the rubric before the Eucharist which prescribes other vestments. This mistake was made by no less authorities than Bingham,^ John Johnson, and others.^ What wonder, then, if the same mistake should have been made in less careful quarters ? They did not enforce the rubric before the Eucharist, which begins Upon the day and the time, that orders the white alb and vestment or cope, prob- ably because it was not known. If the disuse of the Edwardine ornaments were the only instance of a disregard of the Act of Uniformity by the clergy of our period, or of the absence of any attempt by the Bishops to enforce all the rubrics, some support, perhaps, might be given to a theory that has been broached that this very disregard is proof that these orna- ments were illegal. But the disregard of other rubrics besides the Ornaments Rubric was widespread, as also the absence of attempts by the Bishops to enforce them. For example, the rubric before the Prayer for the Church Militant plainly directed that the Priest should place upon the Holy Table, after the presentation of the alms, so much Bread and Wine as he should think sufficient. This 1 See above, p. 354. ^ See above, p. 355. 360 INTERPRETATION OF THE ORNAMENJ i> kudi^k^. rubric was new in 1662. How was it obeyed during our period, up to 1833? Then after the Nicene Creed, the Curate is to declare to the people what fasting days are in the week following to be observed. During our period how often was this rubric observed ? Also in cathedral and collegiate churches, the rubric at the end of the communion service directs that " they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every Sunday at the least ". Was this rubric universally kept? And on any reading of the Ornaments Rubric, the celebrant is to wear a cope at the Eucharist in cathedral churches. Did not the cathedral clergy openly disregard this law, as at Durham,^ even when the copes were provided for them ? Yet another instance of the disregard of rubrics. The persons to be married are told to come into the body of the church ; and when the important part of the rite is over, a procession from the body of the church up to the Lord's Table is to be made, the priest and clerks singing the psalm that is directed. How many instances during our period are on record in which these plain directions were observed ? All the evidence we have points to the whole of the service having been said at the Communion rail. And the accus- tomed duty to the Priest and Clerk, was this always demanded with the ring ? Though the neglect of daily service in our period was nothing so great as some have represented, yet towards the end of the eigh- teenth century under the influence of the evangelical Calvinistic clergy, the neglect became very widespread, and yet there was Order for Morning Prayer daily throughout the year visible at the beginning of the Prayer Book. Immediately after the Restoration, and while the Act of 1662 was still new, we have the astounding revelations by a Student of the Inns of Court of the licence of the London Clergy in conducting the services of the Book of Common Prayer. They are hardly credible, even by those who have lived in these days of anomia? These instances may suffice to give some idea of the trouble there is to persuade Clergymen of the Church of England, of all schools, to keep the rules of the Communion of which they are officers. At the end of the nineteenth century I have known them resent, as highly injurious, the suggestion that as soon as they put 1 See below, p. 372. ' See above, Appendix to chapter iv. p. 112. ^.^^ .J ESTMENTf 361 on the surplice they ceased to be their own masters and became the servants of the Church. This self-evident truth was the opinion of the early Tractarians, between 1833 and 1863, an opinion which they tried to put into practice. And how was it received ? They were scolded for trying to revive " obsolete rubrics ". Dr. Theophilus Leigh's " Distinctive Vestment ". It seems very dubious if it can be proved that there are in the Church any such things as Eucharistic Vestments. A claim has been made for the chasuble that it is par excellence the Eucharistic vestment, only worn at the Eucharist, and worn only by the cele- brant, universally throughout the East and West. This doctrine was, some fifty years ago, much insisted upon in certain Church newspapers, and the Chasuble for the Eucharist was held up as what we may call the Vincentian vestment, following the rule quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus} This notion that there is a distinctive vestment for the Eucharist is still widely spread in the Church of Rome, and there are some few traces of it in the Church of England in our period. For example, Mr. Christopher Words- worth, the Subdean of the Church of Salisbury, has recorded a curious statement of fact concerning the practice of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, the Master of Balliol College. It occurs as an additional note on the last page of Social Life at the Universities after the index and below the errata. It is as follows : Mr. Wright, who was elected fellow of Balliol in 1784, has left on record that the Master of his college. Dr. Theophilus Leigh, not only bowed to the Altar on entering and leaving the college chapel ; but at his country living of Huntspill (1767- 1785), dio. Bath and Wells, he always wore a distinctive vestment at Holy Communion, for he was a constant resident at his rectory in vacation time.^ We have no information given us what the distinctive vestment was. But while Dr. Theophilus Leigh was Master of Balliol, in 1783 ^And yet some ot these writers were students of the oriental Liturgies and must have known that not only was the cope worn at the Liturgy in certain oriental rites, but that the Russian Bishops and Greek Metropolitans did not wear the chasuble at all. " In place of the chasuble Greek metropolitans and all Russian bishops wear the Sakkos {ai.KKos, Slav, sakkos), a loose-sleeved tunic, identical in form with the western dalmatic." (F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, Oxford, i8g6, vol. i. p. 592, Glossary of technical terms, sub voce Vestments.) ^ Christopher Wordsworth, Social Life at the English Universities in the eighteenth century, Cambridge, Deighton Bell & Co. 1874, p. 728, on the very last page of the book after the Errata. Cf. Guardian, July 22, 1874, p. 947, col. iii. 362 DISTINCTIVE VESTMENT'^ there was in use in the parish church of Bledlow an alb, and it is known to have been in use, for there are charges in the Church- wardens' accounts for washing it.' At this time one John Davey held the living of Bledlow : he took the degree of M.A. from Balliol College in May 1757, and he must have been the parson of Bledlow in 1773 for he signs a church rate in that year. He suc- ceeded Dr. Theophilus Leigh as Master of Balliol in 1785- At this time, under Dr. Theophilus Leigh, Balliol College was "a stronghold of Jacobites ".'■' Now Jacobites were not far apart from Nonjurors and High Churchmen ; and some influence, not unconnected with Balliol, may have led Dr. Theophilus Leigh to wear a distinctive vestment at the Eucharist, and the Parson of Bledlow to assume an alb. The prevailing doctrine in some quarters is that the chasuble is the distinctive Eucharistic vestment. With this notion Pater Braun and many Roman Catholic writers agree. Pater Braun lightly puts aside the cases in which the chasuble is worn by other than the celebrant, or at an office other than the mass.' But these cases cannot be wholly disregarded. They must be reckoned with. They are numerous and important, enough to destroy the common opinion. For Monseigneur Barbier de Montault, while holding that the chasuble is the priestly vestment without which mass may not be said in the Church of Rome, yet gives a convenient list of many cases in which the chasuble must be worn outside mass if the advice of the Sacred Congregation of Rites is to be followed.* The first instance given by this writer is from the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, a work of first-rate authority, in which the direction occurs that when the Bishop himself celebrates vespers, the canons who are priests wear chasubles.^ Further, on Ash Wednesday the canon who gives ashes to the Bishop is to wear a chasuble and not a cope. In solemn processions, regulars wear chasubles. And there are other instances, besides these, not a few, nor of rare oc- currence. It is thus hardly possible to maintain the proposition that the chasuble is limited to the mass, and is never worn but at mass. 1 Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 1905, vol. v. p. 235. ^ J. H. Overton, The Nonjurors, London, igoz, p. 342. ^Joseph Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, Herder, 1907, p. 149. ■■ X. Barbier de Montault, Le Costume et les Usages eccl'esiastiques selon la tradi- tion romaine, Paris, Letouzey, no date, t. ii. p. 82. ' Caeremoniale Episcoporum, Lib. L cap. xv. Colon. Agripp. 1688, p. 78. j^^o^y.vo^^K^ VESTMENT? 363 Still less can it be held that at mass it is the celebrant only who wears the chasuble. There is the striking instance of the deacon and subdeacon who during the penitential seasons, such as Advent, Lent, and Ember Days, wear chasubles at the Mass ; they are folded slightly in front and go by the name oi planeta plicata} Again, if a canon assisting at the solemn vespers celebrated by a bishop be not a priest, he is to wear a chasuble when his fellow canons who are priests wear chasubles. This is noteworthy, for here we have the chasuble worn by one who is not a priest, and not necessarily in holy orders, during a function which is not Mass.^ It will hardly be maintained that according to the modern use of the church of Rome, the chasuble is restricted either to the Eucharist, or to the celebrant, and it was still less so in times before the Council of Trent. But, dealing with the case in hand, if we be allowed to make a guess, it seems more likely that Dr. Theophilus Leigh's distinctive vestment was a cope rather than a chasuble. In the first place there is the Anglican tradition in favour of the cope, and the use of that vestment in some of the Oxford colleges during our period. Then the cope is worn at the Eucharist in the East by the Armenians, and the Armenian vestment is thus spoken of by Pierre Le Brun, the well-known French liturgist, as " la Chas- uble en forme de Chape," ^ which is a clever way of admitting that, after all, it is only a cope. It has been pointed out in these pages already that the East had great influence with the Dissenting Nonjurors, and the Established Clergy at the same time. At Manchester, Thomas Percival taunts the clergy of the Collegiate Church with a wish to borrow of the Armenians " the noble and grand Habits of the Priests ".* Speaking of the Armenian and Syrian rites, Monseigneur Bar- bier de Montault, who is of the strictest Ultramontane orthodoxy, remarks that the priest in them celebrates with a sort of cope which is nothing else than the primitive chasuble, covering the whole body and slit up in front to allow free movements. The Latin Church, ' Missale Romanum, Rubricae generales, cap. xix. § 6. ^X. Barbier de Montault, op. cit. p. 82. 'Pierre le Brun, Explication de la Messe, Paris, Valade, 1778, t. v. p. 75, ;i. Diss. Art. ix. * [Thomas Percival,] Letter to the . . Clergy of . . Manchester, London, 1748, p. 24. 364 DISTINCTIVE VESTMENT? he adds, rather maliciously, has slit the chasuble up along the sides. "^ But this Armenian cope-chasuble is not altogether unlike the chasuble as worn in other Eastern Rites. Mr. Brightman describes it as follows, under the word chasuble as : The supervestment of priests : in form a semicircle of material put on like a western cope and sewn up the front, thus enveloping the person and requiring to be drawn up over the arms to allow of action. The Greek chasuble is still in this form, slightly shortened in front, and provided with buttons &c. by means of which the front can be folded and held up so as to leave the arms free. ... In Russia the front is generally cut out, leav- ing a fall of about nine inches from the neck. In all other oriental rites the chasuble has been opened down the front and is only fastened on the breast, becoming in effect a western cope.^ Similar changes in the early middle ages had taken place in the West, the chasuble approaching the cope in outline, so that at first sight it may be taken for a cope. It is square behind, descending to the feet, and the front part so much cut away that only a narrow band of stuff remains. Such kind of cope-chasubles may be seen in illuminations in pre-Norman manuscripts. These appearances lead one to ask the question what is the re- lation of the cope to the chasuble ? Is the cope only a chasuble slit up in the front for the convenience of the wearer? Or is the chas- uble a cope which has been sewn together in front so as to en- velop completely the whole body? That the chasuble and cope are closely allied no one is likely to deny who has paid any atten- tion to mediaeval antiquities. If we were to classify the two vestments in the same way as naturalists classify plants and animals we should certainly place them both in the same genus, possibly in the same species, one being then related to the other as a variety. The chasuble, being one of the most ancient of the liturgical vestments and common to all the clergy, even to acolytes, as Ordo Romanus Primus testifies,^ may very likely indeed be the source of the cope, which appears so much later in history than the chasuble. The many points of resemblance which the two vestments have to one another would thus be explained. 1 X. Barbier de Montault, Lc Costume et les Usages Ecclcsiastiqties scion la tradition romainc, Paris, Letouzey, no date, t. ii. p. 92. 2F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, Oxford, 1896, vol. i. Glossary of Technical Terms, sub voce Vestments, p. 592. ^ Ex praecepto archidiaconi super planetam acolythi . . . duobus acolythis super planetas tenentibus parat evangelium. (I. Mabillon, Musei Italici torn. II. Lut. Paris. Montalant, 1724, p. 6. DISTINCTIVE VESTMENT? 365 In the common speech of England the two vestments were not well distinguished. In the fifteenth century it is said that the priest at the end of mass doth off " his Masse-Cope "} In the sixteenth century Machyn in his Diary tells of a priest being caught saying mass in a cope." Sir Thomas More also speaks of those who did not care " whyther the prieste saye Masse in his gowne or in hys cope".^ In the seventeenth century a dictionary maker defines as follows : a chasuble, a fashion of cope thats open onely in the sides ; and is worne at Masse both by the Priest (who hath it round) and his assistant Deacon, and Subdeacon, who have it square, in the bottome.* In the eighteenth century, Wheatly thinks that tunicles are shaped like copes. The priests and deacons that assist the minister in the distribution of the elements, instead of copes, are to wear tunicles, 'which Durand describes to have been a silk sky-coloured coat made in the shape of a cope.* An antiquary, writing in the first half of the same century as Wheatly, thinks a chasuble is called a tunicle as well as by its own proper name. He quotes with approval Cotgrave calling it " a fashion of cope". Chesible, called sometimes a Planet. It was called a Chesible or Chas- uble, from the Latin Casula, and is thus described by Cotgrave [then comes the quotation from Cotgrave just given]. It seems to have been called likewise a Tunicle, since by that Name our Bishop Christoferson calls the uppermost Garment which the Priest putteth upon him last of all.^ The last sentence, defining chasuble as an uppermost garment, seems to be exact while the rest is somewhat confused. And not only Englishmen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but a Frenchman in the twentieth, may mistake a chasuble for a cope. In an account of a private mass celebrated by Leo the Thirteenth, we read in the Paris Figaro : ^ Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. E.E.T.S. 1892, p. 349, cap. xxxvii. line 773. 2 The Diary of Henry Machyn, Camden Society, 1848, p. 291, " a priest with a cope, taken sayhyng of masse in Feyter lane". September 8, 1562. * Thomas More, Workes, London, Cawod, etc. 1557, p. 365, cap. H. * Randle Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London, Islip, 1611, under Chasuble. ^ Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. ii. section iv. § vi. ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 90. *John Lewis, History and antiquities . . of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent, second ed. London, Ames and Thompson, 1736. Glossary at end of book, p. 107. 366 DISTINCTIVE VESTMENT? Des dignitaires de I'^glise, pares de faste, assistaient le Souverain Pontife officiant. lis le vetirent des ornements presents. La chappe lourde s'appesantit sur les epaules freles : des epaules elle tombait, rigide, hieratique, durement pliee, cassee en lignes longues.^ The Pope was, of course, wearing a chasuble. In fact, we must not trust too much to the knowledge of the average Roman Ca- tholic. It has come within my observation that some " practising Catholics " do not know the name of the vestment that the priest wears on his back when he is saying mass. Thus in English and French the word cope would seem to have an uncertain meaning. Provided a vestment cover the whole of the body, and be an uppermost outer garment, with or without sleeves, it may be dignified with the name of cope. But can a thing with such a variety of shapes be called a dis- tinctive vestment for the Eucharist? If Dr. Theophilus Leigh's vestment were a cope, it could not be called a distinctive vestment in any sense. It may have been that Dr. Leigh wore this vestment only for the Eucharist, and therefore in his eyes it may have been a distinctive vestment ; but it cannot be said it would be recognised as such all the world over. In the search for a distinctive vestment, being thus driven from both cope and chasuble, what Church ornament is there that re- mains for us ? If the alb and amice be suggested, they are open to tha objections made to the chasuble, for they are often worn with the chasuble, at offices which are not mass, and by the deacon and subdeacon who are not celebrants. The stole is still more unfitted to be called a distinctive vestment ; for, in the Roman books, it is notoriously directed to be worn at baptism, matrimony, penance, extreme unction, and other functions of the Rituale. Only half seriously it might seem, a distinguished Roman Ca- tholic has recently put forward the suggestion that the maniple may be considered the distinctive eucharistic vestment. He says : The maniple, more than the chasuble, is the Eucharist vestment.^ In the same spirit it might be hazarded that the pallium is the eucharist vestment. It is worn only at mass and it can be traced back as far as any other vestment. At the Council of Micon held in 581 it was ordered ' Une messe priv^e du Pape Leon XIII. (Figaro, Mardi, 21 Juillet, 1903, p. 3.) ''Adrian Fortescue, The Mass, Longmans, 1912, p. 227, note i. DISTINCTIVE VESTMENT? 367 ut episcopus ^ sine pallio missas dicere non presumat. Thus as early as the sixth century the bishop could not say mass without the pallium, and even now the archbishop or bishop wears it at mass. But unluckily for the argument of its being a distinc- tive eucharistic vestment it is put upon the bishop to be taken off, even as the chasuble is, when the bishop is to be degraded, when there is no thought that he is about to say mass,^ and thus with the chasuble and maniple it loses the right to be called eucharistic. Having thus examined some of the principal church vestures, it cannot be found that there exist in Christendom any vestments that are used only for the Eucharist or only by the celebrant. In the West it cannot be said that the chasuble is special to the Eucharist, nor that in the East the cope is the special Eucharistic vestment, without which the Liturgy cannot be celebrated, for the cope is not universally worn at the Liturgy, inasmuch as Metro- politans and Bishops wear in its place a tunic with sleeves, shaped like the Western dalmatic.^ Nor can it be said that cope or chasuble has any precise significance from the historical standpoint. The most they set forth is that the wearer is a man of consideration, worthy and estimable. They are now made of silk and thus of a costlier material than linen or wool : and the chasuble in its first state, such as we see it in the mosaics at Ravenna or Rome, gives an appearance of dignity to the wearer. Thus both cope and chasuble have gained a widespread use in the East and West as garments of dignity.* The symbolic or mystic interpretations given to them in the middle ages, as to everything else belonging to the Church, need not detain us. The most that may be allowed is that both West and East pre- scribe some sort of garment of better material than that in common wear and enveloping the whole body of the officiant as an outer or ' The usual reading is archiepiscopus, but Edgar Loening has examined the manu- scripts ol which only four exist. Three have episcopus and the reading of the fourth is unknown. (Das Kirchenrecht in Reiche der Merowinger, in Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, Strassburg, 1878, Bd. ii. p. 94, note.) ^See Degradatio ab ordine pontificali, in Pontificate Romanum, Antverp, Plantin, 1765, p. 451. '' See F. E. Brightman, above, p. 361, note i. * It may be noted that a barbarous tribe like the Indians on the north-west coast of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia have adopted as a ceremonial dress a blanket shaped like the early chasuble, which is described as of " the form of a truncated cone, with no openings for the arms ". (Albert P. Niblack, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution . . . for the year ending June 30, 1888. Washington, 1890, p. 273.) 368 DISTINCTIVE VESTMHIWI 7 over vestment. Such a precedent is not to be lightly set aside, and the rubric of Edward the Sixth's First Book shows a laudable desire to follow the widespread custom of the whole Church by prescribing either a chasuble or a cope. Thus much may be said in defence of the rubric of Edward's First Book. But if there be no distinctive ornament worn at the Eucharist common to all Christians, and no significance can be attached to special ornaments, it may well be asked why should Churchmen take any particular pains to insist upon the use of either chasuble or cope? There is no such great virtue in them. The only answer is that it is a mere question of obedience to the Book of Common Prayer : that is, of obedience to constituted authority in this Church and Realm. In this matter we may share the opinion of Matthew Parker which he expressed on his deathbed : Doth your Lordship think, as he went on, that I care either for Cap, Tippet, Surplise or Wafer-bread, or any such ? But for the Law so estab- lished esteem them.^ From this point of view it may be well to remember the well- known letter of Pope Celestine the First (A.D. 423-432) addressed to the Bishops of Southern Gaul who had begun to appear in church in the dress of St. John Baptist, such as a girdle and rough cloak, like monks and hermits. The Pope tells them that this is superstition not piety.^ Upon the letter Dr. Kidd allows me to quote a note taken from his lectures on ecclesiastical history. Celestine's reproof is interesting. It shows on the unimpeachable evidence of a Pope, that while as yet there was no specifically liturgical dress for the clergy in church, nevertheless they wore chasuble and albe for Sunday clothes as would other gentlemen in their congregation. A couple of hundred years later, gentlemen in the congregation would have been found wearing the tunic and breeches of their barbarian conquerors; and only the clergy retained the flowing attire of the Roman gentleman, which by this time was becoming specifically liturgical, though not even to-day specifically sacerdotal nor specifically eucharistic, but traditional and seemly. (Cf. C. Bigg, Wayside Sketches on Ecclesiastical History, Longmans, 1906, p. 228, note i.) There is no historical foundation for the opinion still widely held that there are special Eucharistic vestments, or that the chasuble connotes sacrifice. This opinion may be compared with one 1 John Strype, The Life and AcU of Matthew Parker, Book IV. ch. xliii. London, John Wyat, 1711, p. 492. - Celestine, Bpist. iv. (Migne, P.L. 1. 430.) THE COPE. 369 formerly widely held among the early Ecclesiologists that the candles on the altar were specially eucharistic, and should only be lighted at the Eucharist, and at no other time. Who is there now that holds this view ? So it may be hoped that in a very few years the opinion will have disappeared that there is anything specifically eucharistic or sacerdotal in the chasuble, or in any other vestment. The Cope. Now to consider what mention is made of the cope during our period. Hickeringill, a man practised in turning his coat, abuses the clergyman of the Restoration without stint ; he invites his readers to handle him, as if he really were a Popish Priest ; his Cope, his Hood, his Surplice . . . when I came in 1660, first from beyond sea to Pauls, and White- Hall, I could scarce think myself to be in England, but in Spain or Portugal again, I saw so little Difference, but that theire Service was in Latine and ours in English?- What is the worth of Hickeringill's evidence ? He declares the Church furniture, the altar with candles, organs, singing men and boys to be " all but the Vestments illegal ". He mentions the cope ; which he may have seen in use at Whitehall, for we know that in 1663 amongst other things to be bought for the King's Chapel, was " one grosse of silke pointes for the coapes ". ^ The points may be laces to keep the cope in place. " Laces or ties, frequently having ornamental tags, and, as often used in the i6th and 17th centuries." ^ Be this as it may, it is clear the copes were in use, for in 1675 they had again "one gross of points of silk for the copes" in the King's Chapel.* Thus Hickeringill may perchance be reporting a fact when he says that copes were used soon after the Restoration, in the King's Chapel and St. Paul's. It is known they had copes at Westminster, for they were worn at the coronation of King Charles the Second in 1661. Also at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where they had ' Edmund Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger, London, 1689, p. 18. See the quo- tation above, in full, in ch. ii. p. 42. He speaks of a cope also at p. 13 as being worn. ' The old cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Soc. 1872. New Series HI. p. 93. ^ S. William Beck, Draper's Dictionary, London, no date, s.v. Points. * Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, March ist, 1675, to February 29th, 1676, June 24, p. 178. 24 370 THE COPE. two in the King's Wardrobe in 1684.1 At Norwich it is recorded that the old copes having been destroyed by the rebels, a new one at the Restoration was presented. As were [demolished] the 5 or 6 Copes belonging to the Church, which tho' they looked somewhat old, were richly embroider'd : The present Cope was given at the Restauration by Philip Harbord, Esq ; then High-Sheriff of Norfolk ?■ This would seem possibly to have been in use at the time that Blomefield edited his book, that is, 1745. Copes were still amongst the furniture of Corpus Christi Col- lege, Oxford, in 1666 : for an action was brought for the restoration of sixty such vestments, with 400 vestments not more particularly specified. Apparently these copes had been in use before the Rebellion as charges are made against those who wore them in 1640.^ A correspondent signing himself J. B. L. tells us that Although the cope is now out of use, I have been credibly informed that it was used in Brasennose college during the last century.* that is the eighteenth century. Thus there seems a fair amount of evidence of the use of copes in cathedral and collegiate churches during the early part of our period. There is evidence from the Forms and Orders of each sovereign that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops and Canons of Westminster assistant to him, wore copes at all coronations from the coronation of King Charles the Second to the coronation of King William the Fourth. To take an instance recorded by a looker on. In a description of the coronation of Queen Anne it is said : The Dean of Westminster and the prebends which assists f the Arch- Bishop in the Cerimonyes are arrayed in very Rich Coapes and Mitres, black velvet Embroyder'd with gold Starres or Else tissue of gold and silver.^ The evidence of Cesar de Saussure upon the English vestments ' British Museum, Harl. 6815, fo. 133. ^Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a topographical history of the County of Norfolk, Norwich, 1745, vol. ii. p. 489. 'Thomas Fowler, History of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Historical Society, 1893, pp. 244-246. * British Magazine, 1834, vol. vi. p. 40. ' Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of William and Mary, London, 1888, p. 256. THE COPE. 371 is likely to be good, for he shows himself knowing in the matter of church vestments. He calls the tabard of the heralds a dalmatic, which is quite a good description.^ Noting the costume of the bishops on every-day occasions he says : The princes of the Church wear their episcopal garments, which are ample white surplices of cambric, and over these their scarves. Instead of hats they wear flat square black caps, trimmed with a thick tuft of black silk.2 This is all exact enough. And then at the installation of Knights of the Bath he notes that the Canons of Westminster wear square caps of black cloth while the Dean, being Bishop of Ro- chester, was in a cope, and " in one hand he carried a mitre "} In his account of the Coronation of King George the Second, he says the prebendaries of Westminster wore surplices and copes of white silk, and had square caps in their hands.* The bishops wore rochets and big cloaks and copes, all their garments being of silver cloth ; and in their hands they carried mitres of the same cloth of silver.* The Archbishop of York was " in his rochet and cloak of gold cloth, carrying his Archbishop's mitre of the same cloth in his hand".* Copes were worn at funerals : for example at the funeral of the Duke of Albemarle : At the entrance into the Abbey, the Dean and Prebends in their Copes, and the Quire in their Surplices attended.'' And at the funeral of John, Duke of Marlborough, Aug. 9, 1722 : The Prebends in theyr Rich Copes and the choir in theyr Surplices (after the great Banner and before the Heralds) sung the Sentence I am the Resurrection &c.^ When the Duke of Buckingham was buried at Westminster it is recorded that In the Abbey they were receiv'd by the Dean and Chapter in their Copes, the whole Choir in their Surplices singing before the Corpse.^ Also at Royal funerals copes were worn. At the funeral of ^ C^sar de Saussure, A foreign view of England in the Reigns of George I. and George II. London, Murray, igo2, p. 244. ^t6jd. p. 58. "jftjd. pp. 100, 102. ^tijrf. p. 243. ^ibid.p.z^j. ^ibid. p. 2^1. ' Francis Sandford, The Order and Ceremonies . . . Interment of . . . George Duke of Albemarle. ' Bodleian Library, Gough Maps G. iiv and I2. ' The Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, Saturday, March 18, 1721, p. i86g, col. ii. 24* 372 THE COPE. Queen Caroline, the wife of King George the Second, it is said that the Dean, Prebendaries and choir of Westminster were attending there in their proper Habits, with wax Tapers in their Hands, and the Dean and Prebendaries in their Copes. ' The same at the death of that King in 1 760. At the entrance within the Church, the Dean and Prebendaries in their Copes, attended by the Choir, all having wax tapers in their hands, received the Royal Body.^ At Durham the cope continued long in use, and was worn at the time ordered in the Canons, to wit, at the celebration of the Eucharist' Going to see the Church of Durham, they shewed us the old Popish Vestments of the Clergy before the Reformation, and which, on high Days, some of the Residents put on still. They are so rich with embroidery and emboss'd work of Silver, that indeed it was a kind of a Load to stand under them.* But in later editions the corresponding paragraph runs : This Church is very rich : they have excellent Music. The old Vest- ments, which the Clergy before the Reformation wore, are still used on Sundays and other Holy-days, by the Residents. They are so rich with Embroidery and embossed work of silver, as must needs make it uneasy for the Wearers to sustain.* But there is evidence that in 1760 the use of these copes had been discontinued. At the latter end of July or beginning of August [1760] the old copes (those raggs of popery) which had been used in the Communion Service, at the Abbey, ever since the time of the Reformation, were ordered by the dean and chapter to be totally disused and laid aside. Dr. Warbur- ton, one of the prebendarys and bishop of Gloucester, was very zealous to have them laid aside, and so was Doctor Cowper, the dean.^ It is to be hoped that the Dean and Chapter of Durham did not know what they were doing when they decided to discontinue the use of copes at the celebration of the Holy Communion. On ' Gentleman's Magazine, 1737, vol. vii. p. 765. ''ibid. 1760, vol. XXX. p. 540. ' Canon xxiv. of the Constitutions of 1604. (Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. i. p. 258.) * [Daniel Defoe,] A totir through the Whole Island of Great Britain, London, 1727, vol. iii. p. i8g. '■Idem. London, 1753, vol. iii. p. 215. See also third edition, 1742, vol. iii. p. 196. ^Six North Country Diaries, Surtees Society, igio, vol. cxviii. p. 208. (Gyll's Diary.) THE ALB. 373 any interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric, even on that adopted by the Privy Council in the Purchas and Ridsdale cases, copes were to be worn in cathedral churches on certain days at the Eucharist. It is always a serious thing to discontinue a custom which had been handed down from generations ; and in this case it was not a mere custom that they discontinued, but they broke both canon and statute law. Thus there seems abundance of evidence that during the first half of our period at least, the cope was in use for great ceremonials. It is not restricted to the celebration of the Eucharist, but appears to be worn as a vestment of dignity, like the pallium in the dark ages, the grey amys in the middle ages, and the black scarf in our period. The Alb. We notice an alb in the Inventory of Bledlow taken in 1783 and exhibited before the Archdeacon at his Visitation.^ In the Inventory it appears simply as : an Alb. There are charges for washing it in 1 77 1 -72 : Paid him [the Clerk] for washing the Table Cloth, Napkins, the Sur- plice and the Alb o. 7. o. and such a charge appears again later on. Thus it is clear that it was in use. The alb, it is well known, is a sort of sister vestment to the sur- plice, the chief difference between the two being in the sleeves. In the alb they are tight to the arms ; in the surplice large, long, and flowing. The surplice appears to be the more ancient of the two vestments, as we see examples of it in the mosaics of St. Vitalis at Ravenna, with the chasuble and the pallium. The alb may count for very much the same vestment as the surplice. Like the chasuble and the cope, they have, none of them, any doctrinal significance. Another instance of the appearance of the alb in our period, with other unusual vestments, is given at Wells in the effigy of the Bishop, Robert Creighton, who died in 1672. Mr. W. H. St. John Hope describes it thus : it represents the bishop in a cassock, the buttoned sleeves of which appear at the wrists ; an unappareled amice ; a plain girded albe ; and a shaped cope with jewelled border fastened by a small morse or brooch. No ^ See Appendix to ch. v. p. 160, or Tramactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, 1905, vol. v. p. 235. 374 THE SURPLICE. cope-hood is visible. On the head is a cap with side-flaps, over which is a jewelled mitre with labels with fringed ends. The hands are clasped in prayer, and between the body and the right arm is held a crosier. There can, I think, be no doubt that this distinctly English effigy re- presents the bishop in vestments actually worn by him, and it is therefore an important piece of evidence of the survival of the ancient episcopal ornaments. 1 Representations of a garment which cannot be distinguished from an alb may be found in several illustrated works published in our period. Stothard, a Royal Academician, furnished the draw- ings for the engravings which illustrate an edition of the Book of Common Prayer, dedicated to Queen Charlotte and published in 1 794. At the administration of Communion and of Baptism, at the burial of the dead, and at prayers for those at sea, the minister wears a vestment which greatly resembles an alb, the sleeve not being fuller than that of an ordinary coat. Then, too, in a later work, an edition of the Common Prayer called the Christian's Best Companion, published in 1 8 1 1 , there are engravings by Craig. The minister at Baptism, Matrimony, and the Burial of the Dead wears a surplice with tight sleeves. Other instances have also been found and are given with the shelf marks of the books which contain them in the notes to the Bledlow inventory in the Transactions cited above. The Surplice. After the Restoration there appears but little of that determined resistance to the wearing of the surplice in the church, which the Puritans had stirred up. They indeed still showed their dislike of the vestment, as the disgusting story of their treatment of it at Christ Church, Oxford, proves," and here and there are instances of its being reviled, but not many. In the year of the King's Restoration Anthony Wood makes this entry : The II of Nov. <2ist Su. after Trin.> the canans f and students of Xt. Ch. began to weare surplices and the organs plaid. ^ Wood also notes : Some colleges had before begun ; other places followed. 'W. H. St. John Hope, Archaeologia, 1894, vol. liv. p. 84. ''Life and Times of Anthony Wood, edited by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 358. See also p. 380. ^ibid. p. 347. THE SURPLICE. 37S On November i8, l66i, Mr. Pepys sees quiristers in their sur- plices at St. Paul's ; but only a poor lot look on : on October 5 , 1662 (six weeks after St. Bartholomew's) the surplice is begun at his parish church. As late as 1680 attempts against the surplice were made. In a scheme for uniting His Majesty's Protestant subjects, the third head is : that the use of the surplice shall be taken away except in the king's chappell and cathedrall churches. ^ In the Alterations proposed by the Royal Commissioners of 1689 it was suggested that dispensation might be given by the Bishop from wearing the surplice.^ After this I have not met with any serious attempt at suppress- ing the surplice.^ On fasting days, however, it seems not to have been worn by certain clergymen. Dr. Dodd is censured in 1775 because he and his coadjutors wore surplices on Good Friday.* An interesting note has been written by the Provost of Queen's on the omission of the Ornaments Rubric in certain editions of the Prayer Book that appeared in 1680 and 1682. This omission is noticed in 1683 and the Rubric is then called "the Injunction touching the Surplice,'' and the Provost well remarks that how the Rubric came to be known as the Injunction touching the Surplice there is little but conjecture to be offered. ° There may, it seems to me, be two conjectures to explain the change of name. I. The surplice is the universal garment or vesture, common to all clerks, which had to be worn at all offices. It was put on for the Eucharist before the alb and chasuble were taken. It is therefore '^ Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 505, note. ^ Alterations in the Book of Common Prayer prepared by the Royal Commissioners . . . in i58g. Printed by order of the House of Commons, 1854, p. 9. 2 There is a letter from Robert Watts dated London, Feb. 7, 1707-8, in the post- script of which it is said : " The Presbyterians here are much dejected by hearing from their Correspondents at Scotland, that theSurpliss is us'd and our Liturgy read in most if not all the Episcopal Meeting Houses there". (Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1886, vol. ii. p. 427.) But Mr. F. C. Eeles tells me that he knows of no other evidence of the use of the surplice in the Disestablished and non-juring church of Scotland at this time. * Thomas Campbell, Diary of a visit to England in 1775, April 14, Sydney, 1854. ^ J. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii, pp. 388-391. 376 THE SURPLICE. the foundation ornament for all the others, without which neither stole nor alb can be worn. Being therefore the iirst of all the ves- tures, the most widely worn and therefore in one sense the most important of all, the rubric directing its use would be called the surplice injunction though rubric is the word more often used. Thus the surplice dominates the other vestments of the Orna- ments Rubric as a name may be given to the whole from the largest portion of its contents. So in the middle ages Mattins was the name given to the compound service consisting of all the hours up to Vespers ; and Evensong to the two services of Vespers and Com- plin joined. It may be noticed that Cosin, in his manuscript alter- ations, added to the ornaments rubric the words : that is to say, A surplice &c.^ Without the surplice nothing else could be begun. The hood and scarf could not be put on. In fact, the surplice took the place which in more modern times the cassock fills. Or, secondly, it may be that it was thought that the Ornaments Rubric referred only to Certain Notes at the end of the first book of King Edward, the other rubric before the Supper of the Lord not being remarked, as we know Bingham, John Johnson and Wheatly did not at first notice it, even while they acknowledged the first Edwardine book to be the authority for vesture.^ The surplice has been scoffed at either as a rag of popery or else as a mere mediaeval vestment, which the Church of England, pre- tending to be in search of primitive customs, has adopted, and thereby stultified itself. It may, however, be demonstrated to be as early an ornament as any known to the Christian antiquary. In the mosaic at St. Vitalis at Ravenna of the Emperor Justinian and the Bishop Maximianus set up about 547, the Bishop and his clerks wear surplices with full sleeves, the Bishop under his chasuble and pallium. It will be a hard matter to find ecclesiastical vestments older than these three. It was once thought that the wearing of cassocks under their surplices by singing men and boys was an innovation of the early ecclesiologists. But it is not so. Amongst Irregularities within the verge of the Cathedrall Church of Durham, drawn up apparently by Denis Granville, the Dean, and thus before the Revolution, there is : 1 T/if! Correspondence of jfohn Cosin, Surtees Soc. ed. G. Ornsby, vol. Iv. 1872, part ii. p. 44. ^ See above, p. 354. THE SURPLICE. 377 zdly. Singing men and boyes wearing no gowns at all when they officiate, under their surplices.^ Amongst the directions given by Mr. M. R. Melville for the dress of the clergy he warns singing men to wear gowns when per- forming their office.^ And clergymen, too, should not wear surplices alone, as, with great disregard of propriety and anti- quity, has frequently been the practice of some Ministers. Throughout our period it seems likely that the black gown was very commonly worn for the sermon. Yet exceptions may be found especially among the High Church. Some of you say that it is very indecent for the Priest to go out of the Desk up to the Altar in his Surplice, and to come back again with his Sur- plice still on, to the Homily or Sermon (which by the way, being part of Administration of the divine Service, is to be performed with the Surplice on) and to return back again to read the Prayer for the Church Militant as they are appointed to do.' In the time of Queen Anne the black gown was in all likelihood the most ordinary garment worn in the pulpit. One of the four Indian kings goes to Church and reports as follows : But upon my going into one of these holy Houses on that Day, I could not observe any Circumstance of Devotion in their Behaviour : There was indeed a Man in Black who was mounted above the rest, and seemed to utter something with a great deal of Vehemence ; but as for those underneath him, instead of paying their Worship to the Deity of the Place, they were most of them bowing and curtsying to one another, and a con- siderable Number of them fast asleep.* Thomas Sharp, Archdeacon of Northumberland, considers " the constant use of the surplice by all Preachers in their pulpits" to be quite decent but the clergy are not bound to it.^ In a preface to a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer, a writer who, it can hardly be supposed, would have been in sympathy with the Tractarian movement in 1833, thus expresses himself, after some words upon the considerable importance of ceremonies in worship : ' The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 161. 2 Montagu Robert Melville, A Proposed Booh of Common Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. 93, Canon xxv. ^Richard Hart, Parish Churches Turn'd into Conventicles . . . by reading the Communion Service or any part thereof in the Desk, London, Ralph Holt for Obadiah Blagrave, 1683, p. 13. ^Spectator, No. 50, April 27, 1711. ^ Thomas Sharp, The Rubric in the Book of Common Prayer and the Canons, London, Knapton, 1753, p. 246. 378 OUTDOOR DRESS. I am constrained to remark, that by some unaccountable perversion of things, Ministers of the Established Church read prayers in white and preach in black I Whereas, if they considered the nature of these two offices, namely, prayer and preaching, they would just reverse this otder, and read prayers in black, and preach in white. The reason is that confession of sins should be made in black. Therefore, black is the most proper colour for the reading desk.^ In this writer's opinion it would seem that the principal part of the prayers said in the reading desk is not praise, or intercession, but confession of sins. Are we to forget Te Deum, Benedictus, lubilate, and the Psalms ? But at the Communion Table and in the Pulpit he is the Ambassador of the Lord ; " consequently, his dress ought to be white, or nearly so ". He adds : Were I asked, what dress I considered most proper to be used at the Communion Table, and in the Pulpit, I should say, — a dark purple cassock and sash, a white gown, made like a Clergyman^ s full-sleeved black gown, and bands. But those to whom the expense would be an object, might wear a surplice and bands ; because I consider that black, at this time, ought not to appear in the dress.^ The Outdoor Dress, Cassock, Gown, and Scarf. In the year of the Restoration, Anthony Wood looking back upon the doings of the prudent persons who had set their sails to catch the prevailing wind, writes thus : Another party would strip them of their puritanicall cut and forthwith put on a cassock reaching to their heeles tied close with a sanctified circingle. And though they lately hated a square cap, yet now they could dispense [put up] with one, nay, check and perhaps punish those that neglected the wearing of one.^ The clergy seem early in the period to have gone back to the cassock and gown, and dignified clergymen to the scarf in addition, for outdoor use. The puritan wore the cloak and the hat, not the gown and square cap. So a writer of the end of the seventeenth century, satirising the clergy, speaks thus of the scarf and its wearers : But if they get but a Scarf about their Necks, by virtue of a Chaplain- ship in some Noble Family : then how big they look in an English Book- ^/4 new arrangement of the Liturgy, London, Baynes, 1820, p. vi. ^ibicl. p. viii. ■' Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 366. OUTDOOR DRESS. 379 sellers Shop ? for the Latin ones they seldom haunt, as being out of their sphear.i It will be acknowledged that the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth the scarf was thought to be a mark of dignity and was not given to the clergy all alike. The Spectator writing a few years after says : ^Ve may divide the Clergy into Generals, Field-Officers, and Subalterns. Among the first we may reckon Bishops, Deans, and Arch-Deacons. Among the second are Doctors of Divinity, Prebendaries, and all that wear Scarves. 2 In the same collection of essays we read later on that the scarf as a sign of dignity had become somewhat abused : As I was the other Day walking with an honest Country-Gentleman, he very often was expressing his Astonishment to see the Town so mightily crowded with Doctors of Divinity : Upon which I told him he was very much mistaken if he took all those Gentlemen he saw in Scarfs to be persons of that Dignity ; for that a young Divine, after his first Degree in the University, usually comes hither only to show himself, and, on that Occasion, is apt to think he is but half equipp'd with a Gown and Cassock for his publick Appearance, if he hath not the additional Ornament of a Scarf of the first Magnitude to intitle him to the Appellation of Doctor from his Landlady, and the Boy at Child's.^ Another writer describes clerical dress thus : The Clergy, different from the Protestant Countries, are distinguished by a decent Habit, or Gown of Black-Cloth, which they wear every- where, all the Week and Year round, but are not sub-divided into Party- Colours of Grey, White, and Brown, as in Popish Countries : But all from the Bishop to the Curate of the Parish go alike ; only those that are digni- fied, wear Black Scarfs about their Necks, and hanging down to their Feet before.* On Feb. 8, 1719-20 Hearne notes It is a Custome now in London for all the Tory-Clergy to wear their Masters' Gowns (if they have proceeded in the Degree of Master of Arts at either of the Universities) which much displeases the Whiggs and the Enemies of the Universities, who all go in Pudding-sleeve Gowns.' ' Speculum Crape-Gownomin, London, 1682, p. 21. ^ Spectator, No. 21, Saturday, March 24, 1710-11. '■'ibid. No. 6og, Wednesday, October 20, 1714. * A Journey through England in Familiar Letters from a Gentleman Here, third ed. London, J. Hooke, 1723, vol. i. p. 273. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1906, vol. vii. p. 97. 380 OUTDOOR DRESS. The pudding sleeve gown may be that now worn at Court, called also the preaching or Genevan gown. A deist pretending to be writing to a young clergyman who has just stepped into a fat living, rallies him thus : You dress out with a good Gown and Cassock, a Scarf, a fine Beaver, adorned with a hallowed Rose, and appear in publick a very Doctoral Figure.' A number of plates exist which show the ordinary dress of clergy- men from the middle of the eighteenth century to have been cassock, gown, and bands. A three-cornered hat was not unusual.^ The Bands of linen which are worn by lawyers, proctors, and ecclesiastics at Court, do not appear in the portraits of clergymen until after the Restoration. But the bishops seem to have used some distinctive colour like blue or purple. There is the line : The purple prelate or the parish clerk. ^ When Atterbury is being sent into exile in 1723 his footmen still wear purple liveries. Mr. Atterbury was in a Lay-Habit of Grey Cloth, but was waited on, more Episcoporum, by two Footmen in Purple Liveries.* The " Lay Habit " was denied ; he is called also Mr. because his episcopal character was thought to be taken away from him. In a supposed account of a canvass for a lectureship, the candidate is made to say : I had hired an excellent new gown and cassock behind's St. Clements for the occasion.'' By the middle of the eighteenth century custom was becoming slacker. An Archbishop of Canterbury warns as follows : Our Predecessors, that their abstaining from indiscreet Levities might be notorious, wore constantly the peculiar Habit of their Order. And certainly we should be more respected if we followed their Example in this more universally. and on the next page : '■ A Dissuasive from entering info Holy Orders, sec. ed. London, H. Cook, 1732, p. 36. ^George Paston, Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century, Methuen, 1905. Plates viii. xii. Ixii. xcix. clvi. and clxxxii. show clergymen in their outdoor dress of cassock and gown. ' Edward Young, Works, London, 1757, vol. i. p. 182. {Love of Fame, Satire v.) ■• The Flying Post, June 18-20, 1723. ' Annual Register, 1768, p. 185. (Miscellaneous Essays.) OUTDOOR DRESS. 3^1 Young Clergymen . . . who dislike them [the peculiar habits] the most, might sometimes perceive, that they have the most need of them.^ Of Dr. Hildesley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, it is said : To the dress of his clergy he was very attentive. . . . Seeing a clergy- man arrive at his gate, wrapped in a travelling blue great-coat, he asked another, then standing by him, "What captain of a ship that was? "... to the no small confusion of the visitor.^ In a curious pamphlet that has been spoken of above published a year beyond our period but showing, it may be, the ideas which were germinating before 1833 in the minds of churchmen, we find most minute details given for the dress of the clergy. Clergymen are not to wear " new fangled " starched high shirt collars ; but plain white stocks buckled behind. These must have been like the Roman collar now in fashion again. Also Bishops are to wear purple coats, but waistcoats and breeches are to be black. ^ ^Thomas Seeker, Charge designed to have been delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury , June, 1762, pp. 17, 18. 'i Weeden Butler, Memoirs of Mark Hildesley, London, Nichols, 1799, p. 99. 'Montagu Robert Melville, A Proposed Book of Common Prayer, 'Lonion, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. no. CHAPTER XIII. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND CON- STITUTION OF THE CHURCH. It has been asserted of late that the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession first came into existence with the Tractarian writers. But to show how widespread this teaching was in the Church of England early in the eighteenth century it may be well to point out the letter which the Prussian Minister in London wrote to the King of Prussia in 171 1, when the project of an alliance between the Anglicans and the Lutherans had been raised by his Master. The King was then warned of the ill-success that would in all likeli- hood attend the scheme, mainly because the greater part of the English Clergy held the doctrine of an uninterrupted succession from the days of the Apostles down to their own times, and they believed that there could be no good Church government without bishops, and that there could be no real Ministers of the Gospel who had not been ordained by bishops.^ The statement of the Prussian Minister is confirmed by many contemporary writers. First of all there is the high authority of Pearson, whose treatise on the Creed has been the accepted hand- book of the Church of England for more than two hundred years. In 1668, his advice was asked by a person of quality how to con- duct himself, if a man with presbyterian or congregational ordina- tion were forced upon him where he lived. Pearson's advice is noteworthy. It was not to accept his ministrations. In case of necessity the baptism administered by such a minister might be valid ; but his correspondent is advised not to receive Communion at his hands, because the supposed pastor "is not a priest or presbyter, and consequently hath no power to consecrate the elements ". Further, absolution given by him in the hour of death is not efficacious. ^ See the letter below in ch. xiv. p. 404. 382 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 383 Pearson introduces his letter with these remarks on the necessity of lawful orders : That the order of the ministry is necessary to the continuation of the gospel according to the promises of Christ, as it was to the first plantation of it according to his institution, is a doctrine indubitable. That this ministry is derived by a succession and constant propagation, and that the unity and peace of the church are to be conserved by a due and legitimate ordination, no man who considereth the practice of the apostles and ecclesiastical history, can ever doubt. * * * But if we once admit a diversity in our ordinations, we have lost the honour of succession, we have cast away our weapons of defence ; we have betrayed our own cause, and laid ourselves open to the common enemy of all protestants, and we shall at last inevitably fall into the Socinian doctrine, to deny all necessity or use of any mission or ordination. '^ Dr. Stillingfleet, when Bishop of Worcester, in a charge to his clergy, speaking of St. Jerome and the disorders which he saw followed the government of Presbyters, spoke as follows : But beyond this, in several places, he [St. Jerome] makes the Bishops to be Successors of the Apostles, as well as the rest of the most Eminent Fathers of the Church have done. If the Apostolical Office, as far as it con- cerns the Care and Government of Churches, were not to continue after their Decease, how came the best, the most learned, the nearest to the Apostolical Times, to be so wonderfully deceiv'd ? For if the Bishops did not succeed by the Apostles own Appointment, they must be Intruders and Usurpers of the Apostolical Function ; and can we imagine the Church of God would have so universally consented to it ? Besides, the Apostles did not die all at once ; but there were Successors in several of the Apostol- ical Churches, while some of the Apostles were living : Can we again imagine, those would not have vindicated the Right of their own Order, and declared to the Church, that this Office was peculiar to themselves ? The Change of the Name from Apostles to Bishops would not have been sufficient Excuse for them ; for the Presumption had been as great in the Exercise of the Power without the Name.^ To quote Bishop Beveridge who died in 1 708 : Thus therefore it is, that the apostolical office hath been handed down from one to another ever since the apostles days to our time, and so will be to the end of the world, Christ himself being continually present at such im. position of hands ; thereby transferring the same Spirit, which he had first breathed into his apostles, upon others successively after them, as really as ^ John Pearson, Promiscuous Ordinations are destructive to the honour and safety of the Church of England, if they should be allowed in it. (Minor Theological Works, ed. Edw. Churton, Oxford, 1844, vol. ii. p. 231.) ^Edward Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Cases, London, Mortlock, 1698, p. 7. 384 APOSTOL ILAL iULLllJiJJUi ,^ - he was present with the apostles themselves, when he first breathed it into them.i A sermon, noteworthy from the approval which it received from the Bishop, from its popularity, and its clear statements, opens thus in the second head : II. Who may be iru/y said to have this Divine Commission : And here I shall not doubt to affirm, that None, but those who are Ordain'd by such, as we now commonly call Bishops, can have any Authority to minister in the Christian Church. For that the Power of Ordination is solely lodg'd in that Order, I shall prove from the Institution of our Saviour, and the constant Practice of the Apostles. That the Power of Ordination, lodg'd in the Apostles, was of Divine Institution, I suppose, no one will question, who reads these Words of our Saviour to them, after his Resurrection ; As my Father sent me, so send I you. And, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the World. From hence it is evident. First, That it was by a Divine Commission, that our Saviour ordain'd, or sent his Apostles. Secondly, That by Vertue of the same Commission, the Apostles were at that time impower'd to ordain, or send others. And, Thirdly, That this Commission to ordain, was alway to continue in the Christian Church, and to remain in such Hands as the Apostles should convey it to : All this, I say, is evident, from these Words of our Saviour, when duly consider'd and compar'd. And hence this Proposition naturally follows ; Whoever has a Power to ordain, must derive it from the commission, which our Saviour receiv'd from God, and gave to his Apostles, and was by them convey'd to their Successors.^ The fourth head begins with another explicit statement : Fourthly, From what has been said it is natural to infer, that the Main- taining the Divine Right of Episcopacy is a Point of the greatest Conse- quence, not only to the Well-being but even Being of the Christian Church. Since without it all valid Ordination ceases.^ And the powers of the Hierarchy are spiritual : the Sacerdotal is not included in the Regal Office, nor derived from thence ; but is of a distinct Nature and Institution.* This sermon was printed, as the title-page sets out, by Episcopal command ; and shortly after its publication the Bishop gave the preacher a fresh sign of his approval by appointing him to a pre- ^ William Beveridge, Sermon I. Christ's Presence with his ministers, in Works, sec. ed. London, Bettesworth, 1729, vol. i. p. 6. ''William Roberts, The Divine Institution of the Gospel Ministry, and the Ne- cessity of Episcopal Ordination, Asserted, in a sermon preach'd at . . . Visitation of . . . Ofspring [Blackall] Lord Bishop of Exon. . . . Publish'd by his Lordship's Command, Exon : Farley and Bishop, 1709, p. 8. ^ibid. p. 28. ''ibid. p. 6. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 385 bend in the cathedral church of Exeter.^ The sermon also went through four editions. The second appeared in 17 10, the third in 1 71 2, and the fourth later, most likely after the author's death in 1 74 1, the catalogue in the Bodleian Library dating the fourth, with a note of interrogation, as 1752. The following extracts also represent the teaching of the day. To make an Ordination good and valid, 'tis necessary, that the Ordainer, or Ordainers have a Power to ordain, transmitted to him or them, by a con- tinued Succession from Jesus Christ, the Founder and Legislator of this Society, or Religion. . . . To bring the Argument a little nearer home, I plainly affirm that Bishops have this Power : And that none is a lawful Minister, who is not Episco- pally ordain'd : For the Proof whereof let's remember what has just been said upon the Necessity of a continued Succession ; and since Bishops alone have this continued Succession, it evidently follows, that they alone have this Power to ordain.^ Samuel Hill, Archdeacon of Wells, speaks thus in 171 3 : As the Religious Conscience of Priestly Duty obliges us to our pious utmost, to recover Dissenters to our Holy and Catholick Communion, so the first step hereunto is to rouse them out of their confident Security in their state of separation. Nor can this be done, but by clearly laying before them, not only the Spiritual Invalidity, but the Abominable and Sacrilegious Impiety of all their pretended Ministrations of the Word, Sacraments, Discipline, Ordinations, Prayers, &c.^ Then we next have Dr. Bisse. We have seen also the transcendency of our Order, from the dignity and perpetuity of its institution. That as we are taken from among men, so cannot we be taken away by men : seeing we are made Priests not by the power of an human ordination, nor in this sense after the law of a Carnal commandment ; but by virtue of the commission of Christ, sealed to those whom the Holy Ghost shall in every age call to the Ministry.* Passing on farther into the century, we find a clergyman lately come from New York quoting apparently with approval the Eastern teaching on Orders : The Priesthood, as it is a Mystery [i.e. a Sacrament or Sacred Order] was commanded the Apostles by Christ himself And so from the Laying ^ See the note in p. v. of the fourth edition of this sermon. 2 Matthias Symson, The Necessity of a. Lawful Ministry, a sermon preached ... at the Visitation of . the Archdeacon of Lincoln, London, Strahan, 1708, P- 9. ' Samuel Hill, Compendious Speculations upon valid and invalid Baptism, London, 1713, Preface. * Thomas Bisse, A Sermon preach'd before the Sons of the Clergy, at . . . St. Paul, London, Wilkin, 1716, p. 30. 25 386 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. on of their Hands, is an Imposition of the Hand in Ordination performed, down to this very Day.^ Dr. Nathaniel Marshall, a considerable authority in our period on the penitential discipline of the Church, teaches thus : The Faith of History will be grievously shocked, and, with it, the main external Evidence for the Scriptures themselves must be a mighty Sufferer, if we do not acquiesce in such a clear and concurrent Account of these successive Ordinations [just given above] from the age of the Apostles downwards, till all agree the Usage to have been unquestionable. None, I am sure, who are acquainted with the Practice of the Church in her earliest and purest Centuries, can imagine that any should then depart from it, without awakening the Vigilance of the Neighbouring Pastors to retrieve and regulate such a startling Novelty.^ Towards the end of his life Addison wrrote a defence of the Christian Religion, of which Macaulay speaks slightingly. The reason may be that Addison speaks of the apostolical succession. Upon the death of any of those substitutes to the Apostles and Dis- ciples of Christ, his place was filled up with some other person of emi- nence for his piety and learning, and generally a member of the same Church, who after his decease was followed by another in the same manner, by which means the succession was continued in an uninterrupted line.^ In controversy with a Protestant Dissenter, a writer little known in the present day writes : The Truth of this I prove thus ; Episcopacy is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias ; Our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ . . . did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and empower his H. Apostles ... to execute the same Apostolical, Episcopal, and Pastoral Office, for the ordering and governing of his Church until his coming again : And so the same Office to continue in Them, and their Successors unto the End of the World. . . . The Apostles having thus receiv'd Episcopal Power from Christ Him- self ordain'd the seven Deacons.* To the same purpose we read in a vindication of Episcopacy : 'John Sharp, The Charter of the Kingdom of Christ . . . and a preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Bishop of Bangor and his disciples, London, Morphew, 1717, p. 58. He had been a chaplain to the Queen's forces in the Province of New York. There is a letter from him to Dr. Swift. {Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xvi. p. 71.) -Nath. Marshall, A regular succession of the Christian Ministry asserted, in u. sermon preach'd at the Visitation of the . . Bishop of London, Published by Order of his Lordship, London, Taylor, 1719, p. 18. 'Joseph Addison, Of the Christian Religion, % V. c. vi. Miscellaneous Works, ed. Tickell, London, Tonson, 1766, vol. iii. p. 301. IT. Ainsworth, The Validity of Episcopal Ordination and Invalidity of any other, Oxford, 1719, Letter H. p. 17. Imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 387 the perpetual Usage of the Church of England in particular, which hath always embraced this supreme Hierarchy, pursuant to Apostolical Canon and Practice, from the first planting of Christianity among us, and doth still embrace and injoyn the uninterrupted Practice and Continuance of it. . . . That Episcopacy hath been the Supreme Hierarchy of the Establish'd Church of England ever since it was a Church, in Conformity to our Blessed Saviour's and the Apostolical Model of Church Government from \h& purest Ages, is matter of Fact, without any Interruption. ^ William Lowth, who died in 1732, the father of Dr. Lowth, who was Bishop of London, published a sound Tractarian sermon, as it would now be called, in which amongst other things he de- clares : Our Bishops can derive their Authority from the Times of the Apostles with as uninterrupted a succession as any other Church can pretend to do, not excepting the Church of Rome itself." Not only divines but dissenters acknowledged that the Church of England made a claim to apostolical succession. A dissenting practitioner of physic in 1722 casts this claim in the teeth of the clergy. " Can it be thought such Men are the Apostles Successors, who thus behave themselves ? " ^ Again in 1729, a sermon was preached before the University of Oxford and afterwards printed with a dedication to the Bishop, in which the preacher claimed to derive his authority from Our Lord and the Apostles. Now the Adversaries of Our Church may then, if They please, be In- formed, or indeed rather fully Convinced, that from hence it is we receive Our Power, from hence We claim our Authority, from hence We derive Our Commission, and from hence also, in a very Justifiable Sense, We sufficiently prove Our Uninterrupted Succession. They may be entirely satisfied, . . . that the Ministry We now have, is the very Same which was Establish'd in the Apostolical Ages.* ' The Divine or Apostolical Institution and Power of jurisdiction of . . . Bishops ... by a Presbyter of the Church of England, London, Bickerton, 1721, p. 36. 2 William Lowth, The characters of an Apostolical Church fulfilled in the Church of England, a sermon, London, Bonwicke, 1722, p. ig. ^Richard Franklin, An address to the gentlemen and inhabitants of Gosport, London, 1722, Appendix, p. 35. He declares himself on the title-page " A lover of Mankind, a Hater of the Craft of Physicians, as well as the Tyranny of Priests ". He is generous enough to admit on p. ig, that he esteems the Church of England " a Part of the Catholick Church of Christ ". * Joseph Betty, The Divine Institution of the Ministry, and the Absolute Necessity of Church Government, A sermon preached before the University of Oxford on Sunday, the 2ist of September, 1729, Oxford, Lichfield and Wilmot, 1729, p. 11. There are three editions in the same year. 25 * 388 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. . The two Wesleys were exhorted to renounce the Church of England because its orders were derived from Rome. To which John Wesley replied : We believe it would not be right for us to administer either Baptism or the Lord's Supper, unless we had a commission so to do from those Bishops whom we apprehend to be in a succession from the Apostles. And yet we allow these Bishops are the successors of those who were dependent on the Bishop of Rome. . . . We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church, (whether dependent on the Bishop of Rome or not,) an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein, by men authorised to act as Ambassadors of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. . . . We believe that the threefold order of Ministers, ... is not only authorised by its Apostolical institu- tion, but also by the written word.^ I am indebted for this reference to the Rev. F. E. Brightman, Prebendary of Lincoln. The authority of Dr. Johnson is on the same side; for on October 26, 1769 he told Boswell that he preferred the popish to the presbyterian religion : Bonvell. How so, Sir? Johnson. Why, Sir, the Presbyterians have no church, no apostolical ordination. Boswell. And do you think that absolutely essential, Sir ? Johnson. Why, Sir, as it was an apostolical institution, I think it is dangerous to be without it. William Stevens, who died in 1 807, though a layman, had paid much attention to theology ; and in his popular work on the Church which ran through many editions from 1773 speaks thus of bishops, priests, and deacons : Thirdly, That there will be an uninterrupted succession of these officers in the Church to the world's end, may be inferred from the nature of their functions.- At the end of the century, the Ven. R. Churton, Archdeacon of St. Davids, wrote to a dissenter thus : Sir, as a religious Society, a sound branch of the catholic or universal church, Christ is the HLead of the church of England. Her sacraments are of His institution ; and are rightly administered by pastors, who by due order z.x\A unbroken succession, hold their respective offices from Him, in 1 Letter dated December 27, 1745. (Works of the Rev. John Wesley, third edition, London, Mason, 1829, vol. ii. p. 4.) 2 William Stevens, A Treatise on the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, London, Rivington, 1810, p. 16. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 389 virtue of that awful commission, " As my Father has sent me, even so send I you ".1 William Jones of Nayland says that there are but two possible ways of putting men truly into the ministry ; the one is by succession ; the other by immediate revelation or appointment by God himself.^ In another place, teaching in the form of a catechism children and others needing elementary instruction, he says : Q. What reason have we to think that our own Church is a part of the Catholic Church of Christ ? A. Because we find in it the ordinances, the doctrines, and the authority of the Catholic Church. Q. How does it preserve the authority of the Catholic Church ? A. Because it derives its authority by its succession from the Apostles. Q. Why is succession necessary to a true Church ? A. Because none can make a Church but Jesus Christ himself, from whom we derive it ; and without the rule of succession, any company of people, even of women, might make a Church. But the Church being the Church of God, and not a human Society, men can no more make Gods Church than they can make Go(Ps world? Dr. Van Mildert, afterwards Bishop of Durham, speaks in his Boyle Lectures thus : But we have a still stronger proof of this, in the institution of the Christian Sacraments and the Christian Priesthood, and also in the sanctitication of l\\& first day of the week, instead of the seventh, in com- memoration of our Lord's Resurrection. The observance of these solemn Ordinances, and the formation of the Church under the government of the Apostles and their successors, were to be regarded as badges of the Christian profession.'* And in another place : Through the medium of Popery, the Church was still preserved ; it's Priesthood was perpetuated in regular succession from the Apostles ; and it's members were admitted into Covenant with God, through the initiatory Sacrament of Baptism administered by persons duly and lawfully ordained.'' ' Ralph Churton, An answer to a letter from Francis Eyre, Oxford, 1796, p. 10. ^William Jones, L,ife of Dr. Home Bishop of Norwich. (Works, London, Riving- ton, 1801, vol. xii. p. 184.) ' William Jones, The Church man's Catechism, or elements of instructiat on the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, . . . intended for the Use of Sunday schools and such adult Persons as are yet uninstructed in the subject. (Works, London, Rivington, 1801, vol. xi. p. 410.) ^William Van Mildert, An Historical View of the Rise and Progress of Infidelity, London, Rivington, 183 1, fourth edition. Sermon xix. p. 240. Read between 1802 and 1805. ^ibid. Sermon vii. vol. i. p. 235. 390 CONSTITUTION OF THK LMUKi^n. Cardinal Newman tells us that about the year 1823 he was taught the doctrine of Apostolical Succession by the Rev. William James, then a Fellow of Oriel.' Sir Francis Palgrave, a layman, in 1831, says that "Bishops derive their order and spiritual functions from the Apostles "} Secondly, the independent state of the Church, that is the proposi- tion that it does not derive all its powers and authority from the State, is asserted when it is said that it derives its power and au- thority from Our Lord and the Apostles. The following quotations from authors of our period will show the claims to exclusive authority and right which they then made. Dr. John Potter, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking of the constitution of the Church, says : And, First, It is not a meer voluntary Society, but one whereof Men are oblig'd to be Members. Secondly, It is a spiritual Society. Thirdly, It is also an outward and visible Society. Fourthly, It is an universal Society.^ In the fourth Chapter he sums up : I hope it has now appear'd from the Scriptures, and the chief Writers of the four first Centuries, that as our Lord was sent by God the Father to establish a Church in the World, so the Apostles were authoriz'd by our Lord to enlarge and govern the Church after his Ascension, and that they deriv'd the same Authority to their Successors the Bishops, which was the thing at first propounded to be shewn. ^ In a sermon preached at a visitation in 1708 we read : We believe but one Catholick and Apostolick Church, out of which is no such visible or certain way of Salvation.^ The following is from an anonymous pamphlet, possibly by Atterbury : If we view the Holy Scriptures, it clearly appears, that the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Power of governing and feeding his Church, was expresly given not to Civil Magistrates, but to the Apostles : As my ' J. H. Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, Longmans, 1864, p. 67. ^ Francis Palgrave, History of England, London, 1831, vol. i. Anglo-Saxon Period, ch. iii. p. 57. 'John Potter, A Discourse of Church-Government, London, 1707, p. n in ch. i. ' ibid. p. 199. '' Matthias Symson, The necessity of a lawful ministry , a sermon preached ... at the Visitation of the . . . archdeacon of Lincoln, London, Strahan, 1708, p. 23. CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 391 Father hath sent me, says Christ, even so send I you. . . . Let the Kings of the Earth produce such a Commission, if they can ? ^ An Archdeacon of Wells writes as follows : I believe therefore I have proved the Catholic Doctrine of effectual Binding and Loosing, Remitting and Retaining of Sins, to be of Divine Authority and Foundation, tho' the whole Church, that is in immemorial Possession of this Doctrine, is not bound to prove it to every Caviller, as often as he shall quarrel it. What is received and established must be dis- proved by God's Word, or a more Catholic Principal attestable by God's Word.^ Dr. Francis Hare, Bishop of Chichester, who died in 1740, de- clares that Whatever is necessary to be done to preserve this Society, [the Church] and to pursue the true Ends of it, the Governours of it, either by themselves or with the Assistance of the Civil Magistrate, must have a Right to do. And from hence the ordering of the public Worship, while unsupported by the State, must be in them, and whatever is necessary to the exercise of Discipline . . . The Gospel of Christ knows no Salvation out of the Church of Christ.^ William Stevens was member of a band of strong churchmen, such as Dr. Home, Bishop of Norwich, Jones of Nayland, Joshua Watson, and others. He wrote in 1773 a little book on the Church which was often reprinted up to 1 833 ; and in it he teaches as follows : First, That it [the Church] is not a mere voluntary society ; but one whereof men are obliged to be members, as they value their everlasting happiness ; for it is a society appointed by God with enforcements of re- wards and punishments. That it is of God's appointment is certain ; for it is the Church of the living God.* That it is enforced with rewards and punish- ments is not less certain : for remission of sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, are declared to be the privileges of the Christian Church, and annexed to baptism, the constant rite of initiation into the Church ; Repent and be baptized in t/ie Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and^e shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.** . . . And the consequence of neglecting to hear Christ and his apostles may be understood from Matt. x. 14 . . . all men are obliged to become members of it ; and it can in no other sense be called a voluntary society, than as it is left to every man's choice, whether he will be for ever happy or miserable.* * T Tim. iii. 15. ** Acts ii. 38. 1 The Mitre and the Crown; or a real distinction between them, London, Clements, 1711, p. 6. " Sam. Hill, Compendious Speculations concerning Sacerdotal Remission of Sins, London, Taylor, 1713, p. 19. ^ Fr. Hare, Church Authority Vindicated, 'London, Roberts, 1720, p. 31. * William Stevens, A Treatise on the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Church, London, Rivington, 1810, p. 8. 392 CONSTITUTICnr Kjr 1 iij^ \^±i\^i.^ Dr. Samuel Horsley, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died in 1806, says in a charge : He who thinks of God's ministers, as the meer servants of the State, is out of the Church, — severed from it by a kind of self excommunication. ^ Dr. Charles Daubeny, Archdeacon of Salisbury, wras born in i745i and he was a writer well received in his day and his works went through several editions. He insists that the constitution of the Church of England is apostolical. " As my Father has sent me,'' said Christ, " so send I you ; " &c. Ac- cording to the common import of which words, as well as the received sense of them in the Catholic church, our Saviour is to be understood as if he had said, " With the same power and authority that my Father sent me into the world to constitute and govern my church, I send you and your suc- cessors for the further advancement of the same divine purpose.^ ' Samuel Horsley, Charge . . . in the year 1790, Gloucester, Robson, 1791, p. 36. ^ Charles Daubeny, A Guide to the Church, sec. ed. London, Rivington, 1804, vol. i. p. 21, Discourse II. There is a life of the Archdeacon in the third edition, 1830. CHAPTER XIV. ATTEMPTS AT A BETTER UNDERSTANDING WITH SOME CONTINENTAL CHRISTIANS. It has been said of late, with an air of authority, that it was the Oxford Movement that was the only source of the present endeavours to effect a reunion of Christians. But if this means that no attempts at reunion were made before 1833 the statement is the contrary of the fact. Attempts to bring Christians more together were going on throughout the period between the Restoration and the rise of the Oxford Movement. Before the Restoration, when the prospects of the Church of England seemed at their lowest. Dr. Bramhall, afterwards to be Archbishop of Armagh, expressed himself thus : If I have had any byasse, it hath been desire of peace which our common Saviour left as a Legacy to his Church, that I might live to see the reunion of Christendome, for which I shall alwaies bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ^ About 1670, and again later in 1688, and 1707, a miscellaneous writer, Philip Ayres, thought it would be useful to translate and print a tract written by some Frenchman in the hope of reuniting all Christians in one Communion. The Frenchman's name does not appear, and his theological standpoint is not clear. The title is : Pax Redux, or the Christian Reconciler. In Three Parts. Being A Project for Re-uniting all Christians into one sole Communion . . . Done out of French into English, by Philip Ayres, Esq ; Published by Authority. London, Printed, and Sold, by Andrew Sowle, at the Three Keys in Nags- Head Court, in Grace-Church Street over-against the Conduit, 1688, 4°. Of the third edition Hearne says : lately a 3d Impression is come out with great Alterations from Mr. Ayres's, and without any acknowledgment (as Mr. Ayres tells me himself) of the former just like the Dutch Rogues who print other Men's things as their own without Acknowledgment.^ ' John Bramhall, A Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon, London, 1656, To the Christian Reader, signature a 3, verso. 2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. by C. E. Doble, Oxford Historical Society, 1886, vol. ii. p. 78. 393 394 ATTEMPTED RECOAn^^r^ il ± 1 KJX1 If it were thought worth while by the booksellers to bring out a pirated edition of a tract, which, it must be said, had no very dis- tinct suggestions to make, it seems very likely that there was suffi- cient popular interest in schemes of reunion for the man of business to take the risks of reprinting even after two editions had already been issued. During the melancholy decade which preceded the Restoration, Isaac Basire, driven from home by Parliament, does his best to create a good feeling among the Greeks for the ruined Church of England. He was afterwards in Westminster Abbey to set forth that the Church of England was for purity of doctrine, substance, de- cency, and beauty, the most perfect under Heaven ; that England was the very land of Goshen. ^ He writes in 1653 : At Jerusalem I received much honor, both from the Greeks and Latins. The Greek patriarch (the better to express his desire of communion with our old Church of England by mee declared unto him) gave mee his bull or patriarchal seal in a blanke (which is their way of credence) besides many other respects. As for the Latins, they received me most courteously into their own convent, though I did openly profess myself a priest of the Church of England. After some velitations about the validity of our ordination, they procured mee entrance into the Temple of the Sepulchre, at the rate of a priest, that is half in half less than the lay-men's rate ; and at my departure from Jerusalem the pope's own vicar (called Commissarius Apostolicus Generalis) gave me his diploma in parchment under his own hand and publick seal, in it stiling mee Sacerdotem Ecclesiae Anglicanse and S.S. Theologize Doctorem ; at which title many marvelled, especially the French Ambassador here. [Pera]. * * * MeanwhUe, as I have not been unmindful of our Church, with the true patriarch here, whose usurper now for a while doth interpose, so will I not be wanting to embrace all opportunities of propagating the doctrine and repute thereof, stylo veteri ; especially if I should about it receive any commands or instructions from the King, [Charles II.] (whom God save) only in ordine ad Ecclesiastica do I speak this ; as for instance, proposall of communion with the Greek Church (salvt conscientia et honore) a church very considerable in all those parts. And to such a communion, together with a convenient reformation of some grosser errours, it hath been my constant design to dispose and incline them. In the early part of the letter he speaks of his " success there, 1 Diary of John Evelyn, November 2, 1661, ed. Bray and Wheatley, London, 1879, vol. ii. p. 138. ATTEMPTED RECONCILIATION WITH GREEKS. 395 [Zante] in spreading amongst the Greeks the Catholic doctrine of our Church "} In 1662, Dr. Basire showed Evelyn the syngraphs and original subscriptions of divers eastern patriarchs and Asian churches to our confession." In 1670, Dr. John Covel was Chaplain to the English Embassy at Constantinople, and he tells us that he was importuned by Dr. Sancroft, Dr. Gunning, and Dr. Pearson, with others, to inquire what was the generally accepted belief of the Greeks touching Transubstantiation, contradictory reports having reached London.' His successor, Edward Browne, appears also to have made some attempts to understand the affairs of the Greek Church.* This curiosity may have been occasioned by the visit of Papas Jeremias Germanus who was in England before 1669 according to Dr. Thomas Smith, and also in Oxford, " where he met with considerable relief".^ Another, and apparently a longer visitor, was Joseph Georgirenes, Metropolitan of Samos, for whom a Greek Church was built about the year 1677 in London in the Soho quarter. Over the door there was an inscription recording its setting up in the reign of King Charles the Second, while Dr. Henry Compton was Bishop of London." The cost was borne by the King, the Duke of York, the Bishop of London, and other bishops and nobles.'' The ^ The correspondence of Isaac Basire . . . with a memoir of his life by W. N. Darnell, London, Murray, 1831, p. 115. This letter is written from " Pera near Con- stantinople, 20 Julii 1653 ". He superscribes his letters with I. H. S. or else with lesu. In the appendix, p. 331, is the permit from the Latins calling him " Sacerdotem Ecclesiae Anglicanae, SS. Theol. Doctorem ". ^ The Diary of John Evelyn, October 29, 1662, ed. by Bray and Wheatley, London, 1879, vol. ii. p. 153. ^John Covel, Some account of the present Greek Church, Cambridge, 1722, Preface, p. i. * Cambridge University Library, Baumgartner Papers, vol. i. pt. j.. No. 90, quoted by Geo. Williams, Orthodox Church of the East, Rivingtons, 1868, p. xv. ' Tho. Smith, An Account of the Greek Church, London, Flesher and Davis, 1680, p. 46. ^Seethe Greek inscription in the Ecclesiologist, 1850, vol. xi. p. 120. There is a translation of it in George Williams, The Orthodox Church of the East in the Eigh- teenth Century, Rivingtons, 1868, p. Ixvi. of the Appendix to the Introduction. ' There would seem to have been a general letter from some authority, suggesting collections for this Greek church, directed to English parishes. In 1678, Feb. 28th, we find ; " Given the Bp. of Samos toward building a church for the Greek-Xtians in Westminster ten shillings ". (Harry Gill and Eversird L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth, Notts, Nottingham, Saxton, 1910, p. 39.) Far off in Somerset at the same time they " Paid towards the building of a church in London for the Grecians that came into England" one shilling. (F. Hancock, Dunster Church and Priory, Taunton, Barnicott and Pearce, 1905, p. 172.) The Metropolitan visited Oxford in July, 1677, to 396 ATTEMPTED RECOJ\tlLlAiiui\ ii ii ri <^nn.jj.i^-j. Greeks do not seem to have kept it long ; and after some changes of ownership it was consecrated for Anglican worship in the middle of the nineteenth century under the title of St. Mary the Virgin. It was taken down as unsafe at the end of that century, and a new building was set up on the site.' The Bishop of London, Dr. Henry Compton, seems to have been a moving spirit in this business, as well as in the establish- ment of a Greek College at Oxford, to be spoken of hereafter ; for Dr. Thomas Smith in his Epistle Dedicatory to Dr. Compton of the English edition of his book on the Greek Church, speaks thus : How highly your Lordship has merited of the Greek Church by taking it into your care, and by opening a Sanctuary for the poor distressed Bishops and Priests of that Communion to fly unto, is not unknown at Constantinople : and whatever the success of it may be, They cannot be so unjust, as not to applaud your Lordships design. * * * It cannot be doubted in the least, that the most likely way to effect this excellent design, was not onely to permit but to encourage the building of a Church in London for their Nation ; where they might enjoy the free exer- cise of their Worship in all things that are decent and inoffensive, and any way essential to their Religion. That this has been done with such Christian generosity and prudence, they owe, next to His Majesty unto your Lordship : whom they must for ever look upon as their great Patron. Thus only three years after the building of the Greek Church in London there is a fear expressed in the sentence, " whatever the success of it may be," that the undertaking was doomed to be of no long continuance. The same ill-success befel the project of bring- ing over young Greeks to give them an Oxford education. The scheme endowed by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was here anticipated by more than two hundred years ; though what are called the sinews of war appear in this case to have been lacking. The project was in existence as early as July or Easter 1677, when Anthony Wood reports : At that time there was a great talk of converting Gloucester Hall into a College for the educating 20 or 30 Greeks in Academical learning and to send them home, but these only wanted pelf." collect money. (LJ/« and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Histori- cal Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 379.) 'Anthony Wood reports two Greek clergymen in Oxford, one said to be an Abbot, the other a Bishop. The former comes in May, 1685, the latter in August. Wood does not give the name or title of either. (Ibid. 1894, vol. iii. pp. 143 and 156.) ^Ibid. 1892, vol. ii. p. 379. ATTEMPTED RECONCILIATION WITH GREEKS. 397 At this time Gloucester Hall was in great disrepair, and not 14 undergraduates there.^ Later on, in 1692, after the Revolution, Wood records the repairing of the Hall, and in 1693 some lines in contempt of its poverty.^ Dr. Woodroof was then head. Mr. George Williams has pointed out the existence of a document which makes it possible that the suggestion of this college at Oxford came from the Greeks themselves. In this document, Joseph, the Metropolitan of Samos, for whom the church in Soho was built, presents a request to the Archbishop of Canterbury that 12 young Greeks might be sent to Oxford to be instructed in the true doctrine of the Church of England ; and asking that the King and the Bishop of London might allow some yearly revenue.^ The document is written in English in a fair clerk's hand and is bound with a collection of documents addressed to Dr. Sancroft at Lambeth. But it is not dated nor signed ; and thus, while its sur- roundings are suggestive, yet there is no proof that the request was ever presented. It may be provisionally dated between 1678, the year of Sancroft's election, and 1685, the year of the death of King Charles the Second, for it is hardly likely that King James would have felt so much interest in the scheme that he would be mentioned as ready to support it. The main documents concerning this attempt to bring young Greeks to Oxford were brought to light by Mr. Edmund S. Foulkes.* The two chief promoters of the scheme seem to have been the Bishop of London and Dr. Woodroof, Canon of Christ Church, for to him Covel tells us Jeremias Germanus was well known. The Canon succeeded in getting Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, assigned to the Greeks ; and there exists in the Archbishop's Library at Lambeth a printed paper describing the Model of a Col- lege to be settled in the University for the education of some youths of the Greek Church} But the letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, Callinicus, '^ Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 398. - iUd. vol. iii. pp. 399 and 426. Cf. C. H. O. Daniel, Worcester College, in Andrevi: Clark, Colleges of Oxford, Methuen, i8gi, p. 437. 'Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 33, fo. 57. It is printed in Geo. Williams, op. cit. p. Ixvi. of the Appendix to the Introduction. Narcissus Luttrell (A brief relation of State Affairs, etc., Oxford, 1857, vol. ii. p. 583, under Oct. 4, 1692) speaks of the proposed Greek College at Gloucester Hall. ■* Union Review, London, 1863, vol. i. p. 490. ■"' Lambeth Library, 938. 38. printed in Union Review, 1863, vol. i. p. 491. 398 ATTEMPTED RECONiSILiAilUJM wiiti ui^ci^i^j. from Dr. Woodroof in which he describes himself as the president and head of the Greek College in Oxford is dated 4 March, 1694-5, and even then the Greek students have not come to Oxford. Dr. Woodroof writes not merely in his own name to invite students but " in the name of the most godly metropolitan of great London, and of all transmarine places, islands, and colonies subject to the most serene worshipful King of Britain ". The " Metropolitan " is, of course. Dr. Henry Compton.^ But the Greek youths do not appear to have come to Oxford until October 1698 and even then their stay was short, "some not many months '' as we shall see from the following extracts taken out of a single sheet bound up with several tracts issued by the erratic Edward Stephens : A good and Necessary Proposal for t/ie Restitution of Catholick Com- munion between the Greek Churches and the Church of England. » * * In Octob. 1698, divers young Men from Smyrna, and others from Con- stantinople and other places, were invited over by our Agents and Mer- chants by Orders from hence, and more especially by Dr. Woodroffe, by Letters to the Patriarchs, to come and study at Oxford, with such Prom- ises of all necessary Accommodations, Assistance in Studies, and to be sent home when their Studies should be finish'd, without any Trouble or Charge to their Parents or Friends, as easily prevailed with them to leave their Parents, Friends and Country too, for the Improvement of their Studies here ; ^ and rais'd such Jealousy in the Papal Faction, that the Pope was at no little charge to get some of them from Oxford^ and the French King was prevail'd with to order a Provision for such as would come thither at Paris ; and the Example was soon follow'd by those Pious and Worthy Persons at Hall in Saxony, where good Provision is made for the Greeks ; so that they live very comfortably with very good Success in their Studies there. But at Oxford, tho they who came first were well enough order'd for some time, yet afterwards they, and those who came after them, were so ill ac- comodated, both for their Studies and other Necessaries, that some of them staid not many Months, and others would have been gone, if they had known how : and there is now but one left there, two being come lately thence to London : So that this good Work, which had rais'd great Ex- pectations among the Greeks, no little Jealousy among our Adversaries aforesaid, and perhaps a pious Emulation in our Friends at Hall, is now 1 Lambeth 951. i. Union Review, 1863, vol. i. p. 493. The Bishop of London, until the establishment of Colonial bishoprics, had the oversight of all the King's dominions beyond the seas. '^ [Cf. Edward Stephens, A Vindication of Christianity from and against the Scandals of Popery, 1704, p. 22.] •'[Cf. Edward Stephens, Missionarivtn, London, 1705, p. 2.] ATTEMPTED RECONCILIATION WITH GREEKS. 399 like to prove an occasion of the Indignation of the Greeks, the Grief of our Friends, the Derision of our Adversaries, and the Shame of the Church and Nation, unless there appear amongst us some sincere devout Christians and Lovers of their Country ... 1 There is no need of a College at Oxford, nor of building of a Church here, but a good House well situated, with convenient Lodgings for some Greek Clergymen and young Scholars, and a decent Oratory here in London. . . . There is one Consideration more,'which in respect to ih& present Juncture of Affairs in the World, ought not to be omitted; and that is, that it is more than possible, that the Restitution of such a Communion between the Greek Churches (a Communion of themselves of larger Extent than that of the Roman) and the Church of England, may by the good Providence of God, prove an Occasion to bring off our Confederates from the Roman to this, being truly Catholick ; which cannot otherwise be expected ; and so break the Papal Faction (and without hands) and bring in such a Uni- versal Reformation, as has been long since foretold by some, and is much expected by many about this time, and much to be desir'd by all sincere Christians.^ Then Edward Stephens, if the wrriter of this leaf be Edward Stephens, asks for " Mony or Subscriptions" for the setting up of this house in London : which project has the recommendation of a Right Reverend Prelate, most likely again the Bishop of the diocese, Dr. Henry Compton. There are extant some letters of Sir George Wheler to Dr. Woodroof, Dr. Covel, and a Greek priest named Dionysius giving the last named assistance in his studies and finances.' Immediately after the Revolution, a time which may be well considered unfavourable to the friendly consideration of the Greeks, there was nevertheless a note added to the Nicene Creed by the ^ Some of Dr. Woodroof's financial embarrassments may have been due to the ill-success of this scheme. There was read to Queen Anne on July 8, 1702 : An account of what charges Dr. Woodroffe hath been at for the Greek youths settled at Gloucester Hall in Oxford. 1,105/. were due to him, which sum he sought might be reimbursed to him, or that a prosecution for a debt might be staid, he being proprietor of arock salt pit in Cheshire. (Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1702-7, p. 42, No. 113.) ^ Bodleian Library, 4° Rawl. 564, No. 21. It is not dated ; but from internal evi- dence it must be after 1698, and it is spoken of in a tract in the same volume (No. 18, The true state of the Church of England, p. 7) which complains of the retention by the Crown of First-firuits and Tenths which were restored by Queen Anne in 1703. So the issue of the leaf must lie between 1698 and 1703. 'Robert Surtees, History . . . of Durham, London, Nichols, i8r6, vol. i. p. 174. 400 ATTEMPTED RECOiin^t 1.1^11 C^ V yy X ^ J Commissioners who were appointed by William the Third for the revision of the Prayer Book. This note expressed a desire that some explanation of the addition oifilioque to the Creed should be given with a view to " maintaining Catholic Communion ". Know- ing the interest taken by Dr. Henry Compton in the Greek Church at this time, it may not be impossible that the following suggestion is due to his influence : It is humbly submitted to the Convocation whether a Note ought not here to be added with relation to the Greek Church, in order to our main- taining Catholic Communion.^ And in the discussion preserved in the Diary of Dr. Williams, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, upon the use of the Athanasian Creed, it was urged by Dr. Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, That it condemned the Greek Church whom yet We defend.^ As usual with the Latitudinarians, the assertion was made that Quicunque vult condemned the Greeks. It is a matter of fact that this symbol is much prized and is well known amongst the Ortho- dox, indeed it is far better known among them than the Apostles' Creed, which is looked upon by their divines as merely a Roman document.' The visit of the Archbishop of Philippopolis to England in 1701 was attended by compliments paid to him and his suite both at Oxford and Cambridge.* But the end of the project for bringing young Greeks to Oxford was not far off: in a letter dated March 2, 1705, the Registrar of the Church of Constantinople wrote as follows to Mr. Stephens : The irregular life of certain priests and laymen of the Eastern Church, living in London, is a matter of great concern to the Church. Wherefore, the Church forbids any to go and study at Oxford, be they ever so willing.^ The Archbishop of Gotchan in Armenia, having come to Eng- ' Copy of the alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, prepared by the Royal Commissioners for the Revision of the Liturgy in 1689. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 2 June, 1854, p. 47. ^ibid. p. gg. ^ See the second edition of my tract on the popular use of the Athanasian Creed, Longmans, 1910, p. x. of the Advertisement, and p. 63 of the work itself. ■•There is a letter in the Bodleian Library, Ballard MS. 13. No. 37 (formerly 22) describing the ceremony at Oxford. See also Chr. Wordsworth, Social Life in the Universities in the eighteenth century, Cambridge, 1874, p. 3ig. * Union Review, London, 1863, vol. i. p. 500. The whole of the letter is given in an English version, but nothing is said as to the present whereabouts of the original document. ATTEMPTED RECONCILIATION WITH GREEKS. 401 land for the purpose of procuring a printing press, was well received by Robert Nelson, through whose influence Queen Anne and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were induced to contribute liberally to his designs.^ He appears to have been in England some six months ; according to Luttrell, his departure was the day after September 6, 1707.^ In the volume by Mr. George Williams spoken of above, he has fully set out the correspondence between the Dissenting Nonjurors and the Patriarchs of the East ; but as the Nonjurors do not represent the Church of England, it will be enough in this volume to mention the fact of the correspondence. The Archbishop of Canterbury in 1725, Dr. Wake, writes to the Patriarch of Jerusalem to explain that the Nonjurors are separatists from the Church of England and warns him against them. The Archbishop begins his letter " Bea- tissime Pater " and ends with the prayer : ita ut in Orationibus atque sacrificiis tuis ad sacra Dei altaria mei re- miniscaris, impensissime rogo.^ In a circular letter of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge issued on May i, 1735, the members are informed: As to the Impression of the New Testament and Psalter in Arabick — The Society's Correspondent at Aleppo, acquaints them ; That He had lately sent 200 New Testaments, 200 Psalters, and 100 Compendium of Christian Doctrine, to Consul Barton, as a Present to the Greek Patriarch at Alexandria ; and more will be sent, when desired.'' The Church of England's position is based upon an appeal to antiquity ; and when an English Churchman describes the Russian service as a model of antiquity it is intended as the highest possible praise. Thus it is noteworthy that the Rev. Dr. King, Chaplain to the British Factory at St. Petersburg, while complaining of the burden of ceremonies practised by the Greeks, yet admits that such ' W. H. Teale, Lives of English Laymen, London, Burns, 1842, p. 302. C. F. Secretan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Robert Nelson, London, Murray, i860, pp. 113, 226. Some documents concerning the Archbishop were printed by the University of Oxford in 1707, and may be found in the Bodleian Library, 4° A 260 (26). ^Narcissus Luttrell, A brief historical relation of state affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, Oxford, 1857, vol. vi. p. 209. ^ Christ Church, Oxford, Wake Correspondence, vol. cclix. Epist. 26. fo. 298. A translation is given in George Williams. (The Orthodox Church of the East, Rivingtons, 1868, Appendix to Introduction, p. Iv.) Dr. Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, has pointed out that the original documents quoted by Williams are in the Library of the Theolog. ical College of the Episcopal Church at Edinburgh, (jfoitrtial of Theological Studies, Macmillan, July, 1900, vol. i. p. 562.) * Bodleian Library, Press Mark Fol. 0. 659. (39). 26 40 2 CORRESPONDENmrwrm-^^^-. ^.-. are expedient, if not essential, to a public worship, and declares as follows : The Greek church, as it is at present established in Russia, may be considered in respect of its service as a model of the highest antiquity now extant.i The book has whatever authority is given by a dedication, by permission, to King George the Third. Dr. Richard Watson, the Latitudinarian Bishop of Llandaff, who may be reckoned with the Hoadlys and Herrings of his cen- tury, was consulted by a young lady whose hand was sought in marriage by a Russian, and who had scruples on the subject of religion. The Bishop did not dissuade her on the score of religion, if the match met with her approbation and that of her parents.^ His action, I think, would have been otherwise, had the marriage proposed been with a Roman Catholic. Near the end of our period, a distinguished Cambridge don, afterwards Dean of Durham, published an account of the Greek church with which he had made acquaintance in a sojourn in the East. The work is altogether friendly, but the idea of reunion does not seem to have been entertained.' To speak now of the advances made by the Calvinists and Lutherans towards the Church of England. Mr. Doble in the Notes to his edition of Hearne has pointed out the correspondence which took place between the professors of Geneva and Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which they complain of the tone of the University of Oxford towards them as shown in certain verses published by the University on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, and on the accession of Queen Anne. The verses may be these : Ah cave sincerum ne Tybris polluat alveum, Ne Lemana sacras squallida foedet aquas.* or these by the President of Magdalen : ^ John Glen King, The Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, London, 1772, p. vii. 2 Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, London, Cadell, 1817, p. 412. * George Waddington, The Present Condition and Prospects of the Greek, or Oriental Church, London, Murray, 1829. ■■ Bxequiae D esideratissimo Principi Oulielino Glocestriae Duct ab Oxoniensi Academia solutae, Oxon. 1700, fo. Sheet E. leaf 2 verso. CORRESPONDENCE WITH CALVINISTS. 403 Illam O ! ne faedet tetricae affectata Genevae Penula, purpureae aut speciosa superbia Romae} It will be noticed that Geneva is much more severely spoken of than Rome in both these pairs of verses. In consequence of these uncomplimentary verses there was in 1707 a correspondence between the pastors of Geneva and the University of Oxford, then be it remembered a part of the Church of England. The pastors of Geneva assure the University that they bear the best will possible towards the Church of England, while the University in replying regrets that the Genevese do not possess the Episcopal succession, and the ancient form of Church government ; but it understands that it was by an irresistible neces- sity and against their wills that they were compelled to swerve from antiquity. It can quite believe that the Genevese have no sympathy with the English separatists although these latter frequently make use of their name.^ The University authorities plainly stand on their dignity, and remind the Genevese of their inferiority in Church Government and order. They had been told by the Archbishop and Bishops to apol- ogise for their verses, but they do it with as ill a grace as may be. The University sent this letter in February 1707, and on this subject Mr. Doble has printed from the Ballard Correspondence two letters of Dr. Wake, then Bishop of Lincoln, written in April and June 1707. In the latter he says : My charity leads me to think and Hope, and Judge, the Best of Them ; But yet I cannot think them so Conformable to, at least, the Apostolical Pattern and Establishment, as if they were setled on the same Episcopall Constitution that our Church is.* Others do not seem to have been prepared to go so far as this : "all Indifferent People stile your [University's] Answer to that ^ Pietas Universitatis Oxoniensis in Obitiim Aiigustissimi Regis Gulielmi III. et Gratulatio in exoptatissimi Serenissimae Annae Reginae Inaugurationem, Oxon. 1702, fo. Sheet DEF. leaf 2 recto. ^Literae a celeberriniis Pastoribus et Professoribus Ecclesiae et Academiae Genevensis ad Universitatem Oxoniensem, Oxonii, e theatro Sheldoniano, 1707, Bod- leian Library, V.I.I. Jur. See also the English authorised translation A Letter from the most renowned Pastors and Professors of the Church and University of Geneva, etc. Oxford at the Theatre 1707, Bodleian Library, 4. A. 260 (6;. Several Letters from the Pastors of the Church of Geneva to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the University of Oxford, . . . Faithfully Translated from the Latin and French Originals, London, Morphew, 1707. ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. by C. E. Doble, Oxford Historical Society, 1886, vol. ii. p. 403. 26* 404 CORRESPONDENCE WITH I.U i nm^^i^i^. Letter trimming and think it contradictory".^ Still, it may be remembered that the position of the Calvinists and Lutherans as to Episcopal Succession and Church Government is not unlike that of the Petite 6.glise in France. Certain sacraments, such as Baptism and Matrimony, may be claimed for them as valid, however little they may have of an apostolic ministry. Frederick, the first King of Prussia, who was crowned at Konigs- berg in 1701, had appointed two Court preachers, Ursinus, a Cal- vinist minister, and Bernard von Sanden, a Lutheran, bishops for the day of the crowning and anointing." This sovereign had a liking for the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and in 1 704 the Common Prayer, translated into German, was by his commands printed at Frankfort on the Oder, and his intention was to intro- duce its use into the Chapel Royal and Dom. Copies were sent to Queen Anne and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tenison. This prelate (it is suspected, from his complaisance to Dissenters) ^ made no acknowledgement of the gift, or of the scheme for establishing episcopacy in Prussia. King Frederick, receiving this rebuff, took no further steps at this time. But some years after, about 1710, an opportunity offered itself, through Dr. Grabe, then at Oxford, an English priest, though of Prussian origin, and Dr. Jablonsky, to open communications with the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sharp. The Queen and her ministers were also interested in the project. But the Prussian Minister at London, Bonnet, wrote on March 17, 1 7 1 1 , to his Master that these transactions might not be followed by success : On est ici pour TEpiscopat, qu'on regarde du moins comma d'institution Apostolique. La pluspart du Clerge est ici dans la prevention qu'il y a une succession non interrompue depuis les Apotres jusques a present ; et suivant cette supposition ils pretendent qu'il n'y a point de bon gouvernement Ecclesiastique que celui oil il se rencontre des Eveques de cet ordre, ni des veritables Ministres de I'Evangile que ceux qui ont ete ordines par des Eveques.* The King of Prussia had thoughts of establishing a fund for the education of students in divinity in the English Universities ; but ^Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. by C. E. Doble, Oxford His- torical Society, 1886, vol. ii. p. 404. ^ Archceological yonriial, 1899, vol. Ivi. p. 130. ^ John 'Nichoh, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1814, vol. viii. p. 250, note. ■• John Sharp, Archbishop of York, Relation des mesnres qui furent prises dans les ann'ees 1711, 1712, et 1713, pour introduire la liturgie Anglicaue dans le Roiaume de Prusse et dans I'Electorat de Hanover, Londres, Richardson and Clark, 1767, p. 27. CURKESPONDENCE WITH LUTHERANS. 405 this scheme, and all others, fell through with the death of the King in February 171 3, and of the Archbishop of York in the following year.^ Besides the correspondence which Dr. Wake entered into with the Doctors of the Sorbonne to be spoken of a few pages below, he had a pacific exchange of letters with certain Swiss pastors about the sametime. Inaletter to Monsieur LeClerc written in April i/ighe denounces those writers of the English Church who declare that the foreign Protestants have no real or valid sacraments and can hardly be called Christians. Interim absit ut ego tam ferrei pectoris sim, ut ob ejusmodi defectum (sic mihi absque omni invidia appellare liceat) aliquas earum a communione nostra abscindendas credam ; aut cum quibusdam furiosis inter nos scrip- toribus, eas nulla vera ac valida Sacramenta habere, adeoque vix Christianos esse pronuntiem.^ Dr. Maclaine has likewise printed letters from the Archbishop to the Pastors and Professors of Geneva, Professor Schurer at Bern, Professor Turretin, and Dr. Jablonski. At the accession of King George the First, Dorrington seems to have thought it opportune to reprint his translation ^ of Pufendorf's attempt at a reconciliation between the Church of England and the Lutherans, but nothing came of it. It may be well to quote a passage from Pufendorf touching these attempts at a reconciliation between Protestants and Papists, which is truer to-day than it was when first written : He that considers well the Frame of the Popish Religion will easily see that the Papists can yield nothing, at least for this reason, because they cannot do it without acknowledging they have been in Error. Forasmuch as the Infallibility of the Pope and of the Church is a chief Corner-stone upon which their State depends, and this being away, the whole Building will fall to the Ground.* 1 Thomas Sharp and Thomas Newcome, The Life of John Sharp, D.D., London, Rivington, 1825, vol. i. p. 448. ^ Archibald Maclaine's translation of J. L. Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, second edition, London, Millar, 1768, vol. v. appendix iii. p. 169. See also p. 141. 3 The first edition of the Uniting of Protestants published in 1703, is, Mr. George Horner informs me, in the library of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat. I have never been able to see a copy. * Baron Pufendorf, A view of the Principles of the Lutheran Churches . . . being a seasonable essay towards the Uniting of Protestants upon the Accession of His Majesty King George to the Throne of these Kingdoms, sec. ed. translated by Theo. Dorrington, London, Wyat, 1714, p. 31. 4o6 REUNION WZ To turn now to efforts at reunion with the Church of Rome. The Treaty of Dover, it is well known, was signed in 1670 ; and in the second article. King Charles the Second owned that he was " convinced of the truth of the Catholic Religion," and that he was resolved to declare himself and be reconciled with the Roman Church as soon as the affairs of his kingdom allowed.^ But apparently the submission to the Roman Church was not to be unconditional ; for Colbert speaks in 1672 of terms which were to be set before the Pope by the Duke d'Estrees. He speaks of the requests which will be made of the Pope in the King of England's name by the ecclesiastic whom he sends to Rome, among others a request for the sacrament in both kinds as a favour to the English who desire this con- cession in order to become converts, and a request for permission to say the mass in the vulgar tongue, giving me to understand that if the Holy See would so far condescend, most of the Bishops and, following their example, almost all the Protestants of England, would reunite themselves to the Roman Church.- It seems that Charles the Second's intention at this time was not to make surrender without terms, but to try for the estab- lishment of a Uniat Church with particular rites in the vernac- ular ; as well as for the concession of the chalice in the Eucharist. It is plain that this scheme would have had a far greater chance of success with his people than if the Roman, unmodified rite were made to take the place of the Book of Common Prayer. About this time there seems to have been in certain quarters a movement towards reunion with Rome, and a tendency to consider the ques- tion how far the doctrines of the two Communions could be recon- ciled. It is known that Anne Hyde, who married James Duke of York, became a papist some months before her death. She drew up a paper, dated St. James', Aug. 20, 1670, giving the reasons for her conversion, from which the following passages are extracted, and are supposed to give the opinion of Dr. Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Blandford, afterwards Bishop of Worcester. These Scruples being rais'd, I began to consider of the difference be- tween the Catholicks and us, and examin'd them as well as I could by Holy Scripture, which, tho' I do not pretend to be able to understand, yet there are some things I found so easy, that I cannot but wonder I had been so long without finding them out : As the real Presence in the Blessed 1 F. Mignet, Negociations relatives a la succession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV. Paris, Imprimerie royale, 1842, t. iii. p. 189. 2W. D. Christie, A life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesburr. Macmillans, 1871. Vol. ii. Appendix ii. p. xiii. Colbert's Memoir, June 7, 1672. i\.£:t uiyi \jiy vv x J. ±x j. xj±^ vy jl>o x . Sacrament, thi Infallibility of the Church, Confession and Praying for the Dead. After this I spoke severally to two of the Bishops ^ we have in England, who both told me there were many things in the Romish Church which (it were very much to be wish'd) we had kept ; as Confession, which was no doubt commanded by God : That praying for the Dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity : That for their parts, they did it daily, tho' they would not own it. And afterwards pressing one of them very much upon the other Points, he told me, That if he had been bred a Catholick he would not change his Religion ; but that being of another Church {wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation) he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that Church wherein he received his Bap- tism.''' Burnet says that the Duchess had practised confession since she was twelve years old, Morley, Bishop of Winchester being her father confessor.^ Very similar evidence is brought to us from another source, though it may be owned that the evidence offered by a member of the Company of Jesus when dealing with the state of the Church of England may not unnaturally be viewed with suspicion ; but what- ever the exact value of the statements may be the following extract is worth consideration. It purports to be the teaching given to Lady Warner by Dr. Buck, a Chaplain to King Charles the Second, written from memory by the lady, and given to the Jesuit Father on her conversion to Popery. An approximate date is given by the allusion to Dr. Sheldon as Archbishop of Canterbury ; he held that see from 1663 to 1677. Being first acquainted with the end of our coming, the Doctor desir'd me to propose my difficulties; I asked him, what was the Protestant Opinion conceming the Sacrament ? He told me, that the Body of our Saviour was really there ; and that it was Eaten by us, with our Teeth. I asked him about Praying to Saints ? He told me, 'twas a thing indiffer- ent. I asked him about Purgatory ? He said, it was an Opinion grounded upon reason, and that he was not much against it. I asked him about Confession? He told me 'twas a necessary, and useful thing, and that it was ever practis'd in the Protestant Church, and that he himself had receiv'd Confessions, all along the troublesome Times. I asked him about Merit ? He told me 'twas as the Roman Catholic Church had Defin'd it; but that Protestants durst not use the word, for fear of offending the Common People thd their meaning in that Point was the ^Sheldon tCof.ol Cant. Blanford Bishop oi Worcester : marginal note. - A complete history of England, vol. iii. sec. ed. London, 1719, p. 320. This third volume is attributed to White Kennett. " Gilbert Burnet, History of his own time, Oxford, University Press, 1833, vol. i. p. 567. 4o8 REUNION P- same with the Catholics. He told me, he agreed to all that the Catholic Councils had Decreed, and that what they had not determin'd he medled not with. He offer'd to bring me to the Arch-bishop of Can- turiury-f, Dr. Sheldon, to be assur'd, that this was not his own Opinion or particular Belief, but the whole Protestant Church believ'd the same. He said there was no difference between the Church of Rome and Church of England, but what might easily be Reconcil'd, and that there was no Dis- pute about Fundamental Points of Faith. Affirming, that he had lately Discours'd with his Grace the Arch-bishop of Canturbury\ about these Points, with the same freedom, he had done with me ; and that the Bishop told him, Doctor I am of your Opinion?- It should be noted that the word Protestant is in these extracts used, as it often was in the seventeenth century, exclusively of the Church of England, as distinguished from Presbyterians, Independ- ents, or other Sectaries. One of Charles the Second's chaplains, the well-known Joseph Glanvill, published a sermon on Catholick Charity in which he be- gins by complaining that an endeavour to bring Christians together may look like a design to persuade a friendship between the winds and the waves, and yet the reasons for the differences in Christians are so small. ^ Every now and then in the period under examination may be noticed some readiness in the good men of the day to consider impartially the teachings of Roman Catholics. Even during the madness of the Popish Plot, Evelyn and Sir William Godolphin went to Dr. Peter Gunning with scruples upon the oath which de- clared the mass as now used in the Church of Rome to be super- stitious and idolatrous. They asked whether masses were idolatry, as the test express'd it, which was so worded that several good Protestants scrupl'd, and Sir William, tho' a learned man and excellent divine himself, had some doubts about it. The Bishop's opinion was, that he might take it, tho' he wish'd it had be[e]n otherwise worded in the test.^ The Bishop did not give his reasons. Can it be that he looked upon the Mass from the point of view of an Orthodox Greek ? It 1 E. Scarisbrick, The life of the Lady Warner, third ed. Lond. 1696, p. 35. Dr. J. Buck preached in Westminster Abbey the sermon before the House of Lords on the restoration of King Charles. Therein he quoted " Dionysius Carthusianus, a godly and learned writer " and " Catherine of Senes, a spiritual woman in her age," marking in the margin " Vid. in vitis Sanctorum, Ap. 2g." {St. Paul's Thanksgiving, 1660, London, John Playford, pp. 16 and 29.) ^Jos. Glanvill, Catholick Charity recommended, London, Eversden, 1669, p. 2. ^ Diary of John Evelyn, Nov. 15, 1678, ed. H. B. Wheatley, London, Bickers, 1879, vol. ii. p. 346. should be noticed that the oath only condemns the Mass as now practised in the Church of Rome, and in 1570 two great changes had been introduced into the missal then edited by Pius V. One is the adoration of the elements during the Recital of the Institu- tion, when the Orthodox do not look upon them as consecrated, and the adoration of them would be simply idolatrous ; and, secondly, the addition of the gospel In principio at the end of Mass, which it must be allowed is thought by many learned men to be superstitious. With these considerations the oath might not be so hard of digestion. In 1680 the Oxford authorities seem to have judged it a suit- able moment to print a treatise called Catholico-Romanus Pacificus, by John Barnes, an English Benedictine monk, which appears to have been in existence before the Restoration, and to have been written with a view to clearing up the misunderstanding between both Communions.^ It was not however published till after the death of the author in 166 1 in a lunatic asylum. Shortly after Richard Simon writes to a correspondent in Eng- land, J. S. D. R., as if some idea of reunion or submission were then in the air," which may be an allusion to the Treaty of Dover or something more recent. In a very few years, in 1685, Samuel Johnson published a collection of the Protestant doctrine in the Homilies "when there was a Project on foot, for Reconciling of the Two Churches,"^ in which, it is added, "Sir Roger L Estrange was a principal Instrument".* Sir Roger L'Estrange was a Tory pamphleteer and journalist. And in the following year, something further appeared in London. Louis Maimbourg, being then a member of the Company of Jesus, published in 1670 and 1671 some treatises which had for their aim the bringing back of Pro- testants to the Church of Rome. One of these, A peaceable Method for the re-uniting Protestants and Cathoticks in matters of Faith : principally in the subject of the Holy Eucharist, appeared in an Eng- lish translation at Paris, in 1671. The same work appeared in 1686. ^Catholico-Romanus Pacificus, auctore Joanne Barnesio, Oxon. 1680. It was also edited by Edward Brown, Appendix ad Fasciculum Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum, Londini, R. Chiswell, p. 826. ^Lettres choisies de M. Simon, ed. Bruzen la Martiniere, Amsterdam, P. Mortier, 1730, t. i. p. 90 (Lettre vii.), 1682. He speaks of a Dr. Gouf, perhaps Stephen Goffe (D.N.B.). 3 Samuel Johnson, The Church of England as by La-ui established in Works, London, 1710, p. 128. " ibid. p. X. 410 REUNION It contains more than "jj pages, and ends (as these proposals are apt to do) with the text of St. Matthew xvi. 1 8, thus asserting what is most in dispute, the supremacy of St. Peter. Naturally he does not add V. 23, Vade post me Satana. Then Dr. Thomas Smith, already spoken of as the author of the Present State of the Greek Church, which ran through several editions, expresses himself in the year 1688 as highly desirous of a reunion. O happy, O blessed, O glorious day, in which all these confusions, which no good man can think of without great disorder of mind shall be removed, and all, who worship the same crucified Saviour, shall unite in brotherly love, charity, and communion.^ There is some evidence that at this time the Church of England was well thought of in France for its learning. The saintly F6nelon speaks thus of the Church of England : The Archbishop of Cambray often said, that, of all the Protestant churches, the church of England alone could do anything in disputing with the Catholics.^ Further, Bossuet, not always in accord with Fenelon, sends a letter from St. Germain en Laye, July 24, 1700, to Robert Nelson, to ask him to convey to Dr. Bull the sincere congratulations of all the French clergy assembled there, for the service which he has rendered to the Catholic Church in defending so well her deter- mination of the necessity of believing in the divinity of the Son of God. C'est ce que je vous supplie de vouloirbien luy faire savoir, & en mesme temps les sinceres Congratulations de tout le Clerge de France assemble en cette ville, pour le service qu'il rend a I'Eglise Catholique, en defendant si bien le jugement qu'elle a porte sur la necessite de croire la divinite du Fils de Dieu.^ It should be noted that Bossuet ends his letter by asking what Bull meant by the Catholic Church. This called forth from the Dissenting Nonjuror, Charles Leslie, his Answer to the Bishop of Meaux. After the general assembly of 1682 had led the way in limiting the Papal supremacy, why not remove M Pacifick Discourse of the Causes and Remedies of the differences about Religion, London, S. Smith, 1688, p. 33. ^Joseph Spence, Observations, anecdotes and characters, ed. Malone, John Murray, 1820, p. 204. ■■' Robert Nelson, Life of Dr. George Bull, Late Lord Bishop of St. David's, London, Smith, 1713. /v-Cr t/^v^L/i V vv 1 ± jn ± njz^ WILJX. the visible remora to the uniting of all Christian churches, and the restoring of catholic communion all the world over ? to take that out of the way, which your bishops of France, as well as those of the Greek church, and ours in England are fully convinced is an usurpation ? ^ A Low Church pamphlet appeared in 1699 which insinuates that the clergy of the Church of England are divided into two camps : " one party were for finding out Means of Reconciliation with Rome, and bringing the Pope to terms," and this, adds the pamphleteer, is " the true Difference between the High Church and Low Church (as they are called) to this Day " ? Early in the eighteenth century there was published an Essay towards a proposal for Catholick Communion, which claimed on the title-page to be by a Minister of the Church of England. It ap- peared in 1704. In the following year the fraudulent character of the pretended authorship was exposed by Edward Stephens and Nathaniel Spinckes,^ and both these divines refused with much warmth the accommodations proposed. Yet the Essay had a good sale : Edward Stephens says that the price rose from two shillings or half a crown to twenty shillings, and that it was " plausibly drest up and greedily bought".* This is some testimony to the interest taken in the beginning of the eighteenth century to a scheme for reunion, even if insincere. According to Mr. H. N. Oxenham, the tract was reprinted in 1781,' and a new edition certainly appeared in 1 80 1. A copy which I have before me is called the third edition and it is a reprint of the year 181 2. These three editions would seem to have been political, set forth in view of the attempts at " Catholic Emancipation " much discussed at this time. The chapters on the Pope, and other points, are obsolete since 1870. The catalogue of the British Museum attributes the authorship of the Essay to T. Dean or J. Basset. Basset was intruded into the Mastership of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, by James the ^ The Theological Works of the Rev. Charles Leslie, Oxford, University Press, 1832, vol. iii. p. 239. ^Catholicism without Popery an essay to render the Church of England a Means and a Pattern of Union to the Christian World, London, T. Lawrence, i6gg, ff. B. 2 and 4. ^ Both replies appeared with the title of the work which they answered. Edw. Stephens adds : " the whole Mystery and Artifice detected, and the Secret Design expos'd and defeated". Spinckes says of the author: " His Business is to persuade People to turn Papists, in hopes that they may become sound Members of that Church, without embracing the Principles of Popery " (p. 304. Answer to ch. xviii.). * Edward Stephens, Missionariuni , p. 7, Bodleian Lib. 4°. Rawl. 564. ° H. N. Oxenham, An Eirenicon of the Eighteenth Century, Rivingtons, 1879. 412 REUNION wmmm Second, and had mass said in the College : so that the title-page hardly conveys an exact description of the author.^ The writer at the end of his pamphlet makes a statement which I have not been able to verify, but as neither Edward Stephens nor Nathaniel Spinckes in their criticisms upon this Chapter XVIII. Conclusion, denies the fact, the statement may perhaps be accepted. Speaking of what he has said upon the points that should be agreed on with a view to reunion, the concealed Roman Catholick adds : And which seems now, the sooner to be Expected, because a great Prelate, in his late Printed Speech, has already thought fit, in some Measure to Prepare the World for it, by telling it so Publickly, that there is a Proposal made by One who calls himself a High Church-man, that a Treaty may be set on Foot between our Convocation, and the Assembly of the Clergy of France, and that we should abate the Regal Supremacy and they the Papal, then fancying all other Matters would be easily adjusted.^ In the midst of the Sacheverell tumult when the famous loyal addresses were being presented to Queen Anne, a Whig pamph- leteer attacks the High Churchmen for their thoughts of a re- union with the Church of France : 4. There appears in these Addresses under Consideration, a great Zeal for Episcopacy, for the Church of England and its Liturgy, for Prim- itive and Apostolical Doctrines. It is very well known, notwithstanding all this seeming Favour, who they are, that would confine the Church within their narrow Inclosures ; whose Spirits are very contracted with reference to Protestants, but enlarged towards those of another Communion. * * * Some of them not scrupulous to affirm. That they had rather be Papists than Presbyterians ; that an Union with the Popish 6^fl//ira«-Church is pre- ferable to that of Protestant Dissenters.^ Gilbert Burnet in 17 12 affirms that There appeared at this time an inclination in many of the clergy, to a nearer approach towards the church of Rome.* What he mentions in support of this idea is merely the teaching of the Dissenting Nonjurors, such as Hickes and others, not of 1 T. Hearne mentions a report that not only Basset but Bonaventure Gifford, Bishop elect of Madaura, had a hand in the Essay. (Remarks and Collections, ed. by C. E. Doble, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 26.) ''■ Essay towards a proposal for Catholick Communion, . . by a Minister of the Church of England, London, John Nutt, 1704, p. 226. ^ The High Chtirch M ask pull' d off : or, Modern Addresses Anatomized, London, Baldwin, 1710, pp. 8, 9. ■• Gilbert Burnet, History of his own time. Book VII. ed. M. J. Routh, Clarendon Press, 1833, vol. vi. p. 123. the clergy in communion with Canterbury. No doubt these Non- jurors greatly influenced the clergy of the Church of England, but Burnet had no right to quote these Nonjurors as clergy of the Church of England. In 1 716 Addison speaks of the efforts which have been made to unite the Churches of Rome and of England : he condemns the Endeavours that have been used to reconcile the Doctrines of the two Churches, which are in themselves as opposite as Light and Darkness. ^ And yet in a year or two, a far more serious attempt than any yet undertaken was to be made at creating a better understanding. In France the Bull Unigenitus had been ill received ; four bishops had appealed against it to a general council, and Ellies Dupin, never wholehearted in submission to authority, began a corre- spondence with Dr. Wake, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with a view to a union between the Anglican and Galilean Churches. Dupin had behind him the Sorbonne, the sympathy of Cardinal de Noailles, and, for a time, of the Regent. Wake at the beginning does not seem to have been at all sanguine, but later on he warmed to the work, when all was brought to an end by the death of Dupin. The matter has been dealt with in our time by Mr. Lupton to whose thesis the reader may be referred as the most recent account of the correspondence.^ It will be acknowledged, I think, by the candid reader on a re- view of the foregoing quotations, that evidence exists of a consider- able fermentation within the Church of England in favour of some understanding with Rome from the time of the Restoration to the accession of the House of Brunswick. After the attempt of Wake, the evidence of such a tendency becomes rarer. It is said on the authority of a correspondent of Mist's Weekly Journal that the Pope in 1724, probably therefore Benedict XIII. just elected, had some design of calling a general council in the hope of meeting the Protestants half way. He had also allowed a ' Joseph Addison, The Freeholder, or Political Essays, No. 28, March 26, London, Tonson, 1751, p. 157. ^ The whole of this correspondence does not seem to have been published as yet. The best account of this project of reunion that I am acquainted with is in J. H. Lupton, Archbishop Wake and the Project of Union (1717-1720), London, Bell, 1896. Twenty-five of Wake's Letters may be found edited by Archibald Maclaine in the fifth volume of the English edition of J. L. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, London, second ed. 1768, p. 146 of App. IIL The Wake Letters are in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford. The Beauvoir Letters are in the British Museum, Add. MS. 22,880. 414 REUNION PP. chapel for the Church of Kngland service in the house of the ChevaHer of St. George, and let Protestants be buried in consecrated ground. These concessions are thought to be due to the influence of the English in the States of the Church.^ Such reports call to mind the advances made by Leo XIII. in the same direction at the end of the nineteenth century. That Benedict XIII. had some such project of reunion is confirmed by finding it alluded to by Zedler under the article of this Pope's Life : he reports that the Pope pro- posed to call four councils of the four chief Christian bodies : Latin, Greek, Lutheran, and Reformed. But Zedler adds : allein die meisten halten dieses vor eine Fabel, zum wenigsten hat man nicht Hand an das Werck gelegt.- Shortly after, in 1729, the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Edward Synge, a prolific writer, published a tract with this title : Catholick Christianity : or an Essay towards lessening the number of contro- versies among Christians. It was printed at Dublin for R. Owen. It does not seem to have had any great effect, for the Archbishop very rightly insisted upon the necessity of Christians being required to accept as matter of faith only the body of truth revealed by Our Lord and the Apostles. A second edition, it may be noted, appeared in 1734- Dom Charles Matthias Chardon, Benedictin of the Congregation of St. Vannes, in his well-known work on the History of the Sacra- ments, has expressed a charitable hope that the orders of the Church of England may prove to be valid, as there would, in that case, be one obstacle the less to reunion. Speaking of the treat- ise of Le Courayer,^ he says : [il] a entrepris de montrer la validite des ordinations Angloises, mais je laisse aux S9avans h. decider s'il y a reussi. II ne me convient pas d'en- trer dans cette controverse : quoiqu'il en soit il seroit a souhaiter qu'il etit mis ce point hors de doute. Ce seroit toujours un obstacle de moins h la reunion, dont il ne faut jamais deseSperer. ^ ^ 'id ' Mist's Weekly Journal, Feb. 6, 1724-5, quoted in T. Hearne, Remarks and Col- lections, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol. viii. p. 329. ^ J. H. Zedler, Lexicon, Halle und Leipzig, 1733, Bd. iii. col. 1116. 2 The diploma conferring tlie degree of doctor of divinity in the University of Oxford upon Peter Francis Le Courayer for his proof that the Bishops of the Church of England are true and undoubted successors of the Apostles, may be found in an official printed copy in the Bodleian Library, V.L 1. Jur. The document also states that his writings show a zeal for bringing about all the churches of Christ to a true concord. Tous les gens de bien dans I'Eglise catholique ne cessent de demander k Dieu cette heureuse reunion.^ It may be that the appearance of the emigres in England led to a better understanding of the Roman Catholic position, as well as to the friendly feeling towards them evoked by "the devastating fury of the French Revolution," from which they had escaped. Dr. Shute Harrington, Bishop of Durham, who has just been quoted, was at first inclined to attribute the Revolution to the effects of popery and spoke severely of the religion of Roman Cath- olics. He does not seem to have been a high churchman, but a sort of moderate, average prelate, without enthusiasm, holding the views prevalent in his time ; and yet after a while he was led to express the opinion that there appears to me to be, in the present circumstances of Europe, better ground of hope for a successful issue to a dispassionate investigation of the differences, which separate the two Churches of England and of Rome, than at any former period. With this view and these hopes, I continue to exert my humble efforts in this great cause of Charity and Truth. The Bishop speaks next of the great causes of separation : if, I say, by persevering in a spirit of truth and charity, we could bring the Roman Catholics to see these most important subjects in the same light that the Catholics of the Church of England do, a very auspicious open- ing would be made for that long desired measure of Catholic Union, which formerly engaged the talents and anxious wishes of some of the best and ablest members of both Communions. And what public duty of greater magnitude can present itself tous, than the restoration of peace and union to the Church by the reconciliation of two so large portions of it, as the Churches of England and Rome ? If I should live to see a foundation for such union well laid and happily begun ; if Providence should but indulge me with even a dying prospect of that enlargement of the Messiah's Kingdom, which we have reason to hope is not very remote, with what consolation and joy would it illumine the last hours of a long life ? With what heartfelt pleasure should I use the rapturous language of good old Simeon : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ! " ^ This utterance of the Bishop of Durham seems to have led the Rev. Peter Gandolphy, a Roman Catholic clergyman serving the 1 C. Chardon, Histoire des Sacremens, Paris, Desprez et Cavelier, 1745. De I'ordre, partie ii. Chapitre i. t. v. p. 194. ^ Shute Barrington, Grounds of Union between the Churches of England and of Rome, considered in a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, London, Bulmer, 1811, pp. 11-13. 41 6 REUNION TA' Spanish Chapel in London/ to issue a Liturgy or a Book of Com- mon Prayers and Administration of Sacraments for the use of all Christians in Great Britain. A good part of it is a curious following of the Book of Common Prayer. A Form of Prayer proper to be daily used throughout the year begins with such sentences of Scripture as When the wicked man, only in another version ; then, after psalms, lessons from the old and new testament, we have the col- lect for the day, for peace, for the Grace and Assistance of God, a prayer for the King's Majesty, a prayer for the Clergy and People, ending with a prayer of St. John Chrysostom and the Grace. Next is a form, of Evening Prayer proper to be daily said throughout the year, the Athanasian Creed, a Litany, Prayers and Thanksgivings upon several occasions, as in the Book of Common Prayer. Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, are given for the Christian year, but only these three sections of the mass : no introits, grails, offer- tories, secrets, communions or post-communions, appear. The first edition of this remarkable book was published in i8i2 : the second in 1 815. At the end of the last volume of this author's Defence of the Ancient Faith he prints approbations under different hands dated May, June, and November 18 16 which con- vey "amplam ab apostolica sede approbationem," as it would seem indeed to be to the mind inexpert in the ways of the Roman Curia.^ But this did not long remain uncontradicted. The books soon appeared on the Index libroruni prohibitorum which denounced the "approbation" as one in qua temere, et falso asseritur dicta Opera amplam approbationem a Sede Apostolica obtinuisse.^ This decree was published on July 27, 1818. In the first decade of the nineteenth century there appears to have arisen in France a desire for the reunion of the Christian com- 'The Dictionary of National Biography qualifies this writer as a Jesuit; and his name appears in Augustin and Alois de Backer, Bibliotheque des Ecrivains de la Com- pagnie de jf'esus, Liege, Grandmont-Donders, 1859, Cinquieme SSrie, p. 221, but the title-page of his Defence has no S.J. after his name but only " Priest of the Catholic Church " He may have feared the legal results of a profession too open. The Bibliography under his name is certainly imperfect. ''See A Defence of the Ancient Faith in four volumes; . . . the Rev. Peter Gandolphy, Priest of the Catholic Church, London, Keating, 1S15. To the end of the fourth volume there is added, in a separate pagination, three several approbations from the Roman authorities, the last, in face of delation acknowledged, affirms again the pre- vious approbations. ^ Index Librorum Prohibitorum sanctissimi Domini nostri Pii VII. Romae, Typ. Cameras Apost. 1819, P' 343- munions, and this is attributed in part to Napoleon Buonaparte, who is said to have inspired a M. de Beaufort with the idea, and he published a Projet de reunion, presente a S. M. I. et R. The Arch- bishop of Besan5on, M. Rabaut, Junior, and others, criticised the scheme. An account of the controversy will be found in the work of Abbe M. M. Tabaraud on this subject.^ This has little to do with the reunion of the Church of England and that of Rome, but the book seems to have inspired the well-known Roman Catholic lawyer, Charles Butler, with the thought of writing on this subject. Of all Protestant churches, the national church of England most nearly resembles the Church of Rome. It has retained much of the dogma, and much of the discipline of Roman-Catholics. Down to the subdeacon it has retained the whole of their hierarchy ; and, like them, has its deans, rural deans, chapters, prebends, archdeacons, rectors, and vicars ; a liturgy, taken in a great measure, from the Roman-catholic liturgy ; and composed like that, of Psalms, Canticles, the three creeds, litanies, epistles, gospels, prayers, and responses. Both churches have the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, the absolution of the sick, the sign of the cross in baptism, the reservation of confirmation and order to bishops, the difference of episcopal and sacerdotal dress, feasts, and fasts. ^ It may be remarked that this Mr. Charles Butler was legal adviser to Dr. Shute Barrington, the Bishop of Durham, whose desire for re- union has been spoken of above. A curious work, with a somewhat misleading title. Discussion amicale, was published in London but in the French language in 1817. Very little of it is friendly to the Church of England ; but the last chapter of the second volume ^ suggests that no moment like the time of the present writing has been so favourable to the return to unity. No explanations are even hinted at on the part of Rome. The mode of discussion is very like that of Dr. Shute Barrington, only from different points of view. About the same time there appeared another eirenikon, from a High-churchman, Samuel Wix, Hospitaller of St. Bartholomew's and a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, so i[M. M.] Tabaraud, De la reunion des communions chritiennes, Paris, A. Le Clere, 1808, p. 450. ^ [Charles Butler,] On the Reunion of Christians, Essay iv. § iv. in An Historical and Literary Account of the Formularies, London, Longmans, 1816, p. 194. ^ Discussion amicale sur I'Etablissment et la doctrine de VEglise anglicane, Londres, Juign^, 1817. Par un licentie de la maison et soci^tS de Sorbonne. [J. F. Lepappe de Tr^vern, successively bishop of Aire and Strassburg.] It passed through three editions. 27 41 8 REUNION W that he would appear to have been a man of some note in his day. In his preface he states that "the Roman Catholics, it is believed are greatly misunderstood, and cruelly calumniated," and that the British and Foreign Bible Society is " the grand modern engine of religious Schism and Insubordination ". He allov/s that it is impossible for the Church of England to seek for union with those " who persist in denying the prominent articles of the Christian Faith," such as are the Socinians and the Quakers ; but No solid objection prevails against the Church of England attempting an union with the Church of Rome ; since the Church of Rome is acknow- ledged by the Church of England to be a true apostolical Church. She denies no article of faith which the Church of England maintains to be re- quisite to salvation ; though she entertains, in addition, opinions which the Church of England considers unnecessary or erroneous ; many of which the Romish Church, on kind consultation, might be disposed to renounce or to modify or to some of which the Church of England might manifest a chari- table forbearance. « * # In the Council which it is proposed should be called, the custom of the Church Service being in a language not understood by the common people, might be considered, and be consequently abandoned. Other customs in the Roman Church, might also be dispassionately reviewed, particularly the offering up of prayers for the dead ; the consecrating of oil for anointing the sick ; the burning of incense at the altar, and the mixing of the sacra- mental wine with water.^ The last attempt at reunion between the Church of England and the Church of Rome that falls within the limits of our period is a correspondence between Dr. Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, and certain Anglican laymen. The Bishop's first letter is addressed to a member of Parliament, Mr. A. Robin- son, afterwards Lord Ripon, and is dated May 13, 1824. Like Samuel Wix, spoken of above, he suggests a meeting of " Protes- tant and Catholic Divines of learning and a conciliatory character," to be " summoned by the Crown to ascertain the points of agree- ment and difference ". He declares that : The chief points to be discussed, are, the Canon of the Sacred Scrip- tures, Faith, Justification, the Mass, the Sacraments, the authority of Tradition, of Councils, of the Pope, the Celibacy of the Clergy, Language of the Liturgy, Invocation of Saints, Respect for Images, Prayers for the Dead. 1 Samuel Wix, Reflections concerning the expediency of a Council of the Church of England and the Church of Rome being holden, with a view to accommodate Religious Differences, London, Rivington, 1818, pp. 28, 33. On most of these, it appears to me that there is no essential difference between the Catholics and Protestants.^ The proposal of Dr. Doyle was received with something like enthusiasm by Mr. Thomas Newenham, yet his letter was but coldly answered by the Bishop ; and Mr. Alexander Knox, a lead- ing Irish Churchman, who, it will be remembered, is looked upon by many as a pioneer of the Oxford movement, wrote to Mr. New- enham to announce that in his judgement " no other union between the church of England and that of Rome is possible, but such as would involve a complete re-subjugation of the former to the latter "? This ended the correspondence. Of this proposal for reunion, Mgr. Bernard Ward says : " it is probably correct to say that Dr. Doyle's scheme is the only one in modern times which has ever been put forth by a Catholic bishop "? Apparently the proposal of Mgr. Lepappe de Trevern, successively bishop of Aire and Strassburg, just spoken of, is not considered to be serious. Dr. Johnson is reported by Boswell to have said (June 25, 1763) : For my part, Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious. Dr. Johnson was a sturdy Churchman as well as a pious man ; and yet he agrees with Lord Melbourne, a cynical politician of in- different morals, prime minister of England in the first half of the nineteenth century. Lord Melbourne thought himself safe in re- peating an assertion that the main opinions of that Church [Rome] being essentially the same as that of our own, it is not fitting, etc.* But again, this was written before 1870. And Lord Melbourne did not foresee the effect of "Catholic Emancipation" upon the English Roman Catholics, and the results of the flooding of the Roman Church in England with converts who had previously been what are called " spikes," and who, if prudence had been at the helm, would never have been re-ordained. "^Letters on a Re-union of the Churches of England, and Rome, from and to the Right Reverend Dr. Doyle, R.C. Bishop of Kildare, John O'Driscol, Alexander Knox, and Thomas Newenham, Esquires, Dublin, Tims [1824], pp. 8, g. See also The Life, times, and correspondence of the Right Rev. Dr. [y. W.] Doyle, ed. by William John Fitzpatrick, Dublin, Duffy, 1861, vol. i. p. 320. ^op. cit. p. 26. s Bernard Ward, The Eve of Catholic Emancipation, Longmans, 1912, vol. iii. p. 150. * Memoirs of the Right Reverend Richard Mant, Dublin, 1857, p. 333. 27 * INDEX. Abdy, S., on observance of Sunday, 245. Absolution, see Penance ; irregular use of the word, 277. Adams, Parson, on gaming, 239 ; Christmas, 245. Adaptation of Roman books, 345. Addison, Joseph, baptism of, 164 ; on Apostolical Succession, 386 ; on efforts at reconciliation with Rome, 413. Agnus Dei, use of, 58. Ainsworth, T., on Apostolical Succession, 386. Alb, at Bledlow, 160, 163, 357, 362, 373 ; as a " distinctive vestment," 362 ; other instances of, 373, 374. Aldrich, Henry, receives Communion weekly, 33. All Souls' day, sermon on, at St. Mar- garet's Westminster, 91. Alms, at fasting times, 217 ; Easter, 227. Altar and its furniture, 126 ; general use of the term, 127 n. ; altar-pieces and pictures, 128, 145 ; candlesticks on, 128, 139 ; stone altars, 133 ; frontals, 136 ; seats near, 147 ; reverence to- wards, 64, 173. See also Table, holy. Amen, at delivery of Communion, 61. Amice, as a " distinctive vestment," 366 ; use of in an effigy, 373. Angels, invocation of, 333. Annand, William, Fides Catholica, 21, 22, 69. Anne, Queen, reception of Communion, 35- Anselm's, St., bones, 9. Apostolical Succession, 382. Aquinas, Thomas, 346. Archdeacons' courts, powers of, 257. Ash Wednesday, 218. Astell, Mary, her community, 2S4 ; euchar- ist in, 33. Athanasian Creed, prized by the Greek Church, 400 ; K. Geo. III., 242 ; " for- gotten," 193. Atterbury, F., as a Nonjuror, 16 ; attempted theft of his ring, 170; on religious orders, 288. Augustine, St., on fasting communion, 53. Austin, John, adaptation of a work of, 341. Ayres, Philip, translates a French tract on reunion, 393. Bangorian controversy, 8. Baptism, 164 ; at Easter and Whitsuntide, 167. Earbier de Montault, Mgr., on the chasuble, 362, 363. Baring head in church, 171. Barnes, J., his Catholico-Rcnnanus Paci- Jicus, 409. Barrington, Shute, hopes for reunion, 415. Barrow, Isaac, on confession, 271 ; his epitaph, 317. Basire, Isaac, experiences in the East, 394. Baskdale, scheme for a " College of Maids," 283. Basons, for Baptism, 166. Baxter, R., his " Ye holy Angels bright," 336 ; on the Ornaments rubric, 382. Beaufort, M. de, his Projet de reunion, 417. Beeke, Chr., on the Eucharist, 71. Bellarmine, Robert, adaptations of his works, 349. Bells, at funerals, 200, 201. Belsunce, Mgr. de. Bishop of Marseilles, 10. Benedict XIII., efforts at reunion with Protestants, 413. Bennet, Thomas, on the Ornaments rubric, 353- Berkeley, George, Bishop of Cloyne, 11 ; on confession, 274 ; convents, 289 ; obtains charter for a seminary, 307. Bernard, Edward, use of Doiiiine non sum dignus, 58 ; Amen at reception of Com- munion, 62 ; on reverence to the altar, 175 ; MS. book of private prayers, 343- Best, W., on daily service, 85. Betty, Joseph, on Apostolical Succession, 387. Beveridge, William, weekly Eucharist at St. Peter's Cornhill, 22 ; on daily service, 83 ; confession, 271 ; apostoli- cal succession, 383. Bezant, offering of a, 206, 228. Bingham, J., on daily Eucharist, 27 ; on prayer for the dead, 327 ; Ornaments rubric, 354. 420 Bisse, T., on " table prayers," 76 ; Apostoli- cal Succession, 385. Blackstone, Sir W., the sermons of his time, igo. Bledlow, inventory of church, 160 ; cited, 357. 373- Blessing, asked from parents, i58 ; from bishops and priests, 169, 170 ; invoked for fishermen, 232. Bona, Cardinal, adaptations of his works, 346. Bonwicke, A., attends daily service, 98 ; observance of Lent, 214. Books of prayer and spiritual reading, etc., 338. Bossuet, his message to Dr. Bull, 410. Bowing at coming into church, 176 ; at sacred name, 177. Bowing, to the altar, 173 ; at the sacred name, 177. Boyle, Robert, 13. Bramhall, John, on reunion, 393. Branches for candles, 144. Braun, P., on the Eucharistic Vestment, 362. Brevint, Daniel, on Eucharist, 25, 69. British and Foreign Bible Society an "engine of schism," 418. Brown, John, on church music, 187 ; ob- servance of Sunday, 239. Browne, M., on observance of Sunday, 236. Buck, J., his teaching to Lady Warner, 407. Burke, Edmund, 4. Burnet, G., 10; discountenances project for a nunnery, 284 ; project for a seminary, 304. Burnet, Thomas, on use of Agnus Dei, 59- Butler, Charles, on reunion, 417. Butler, Joseph, Bishop of Durham, 10 ; on daily service, 86 ; against frugality in maintaining churches, 123 ; private chapel, 146 ; on reverence to churches, 172 ; Lent, 220. Byrom, John, 13 ; author of " Christians awake," 34 ; on Peploe's visitation of Manchester, 34 ; fasting Communion, 51 ; poem on Lent, 2ig ; some of his books, 344. Campbell, Archibald, on prayer for the dead, 327. Candlemas, observance of, 211. Candlesticks, see Altar. Cannes, Christmas decorations at, 205. Cardplaying on Sunday, 238. Carlisle, state of churches in diocese, 122. Caroline, Queen, wife of George IL, 98. Cassock, 376, 378 ; non-removal of, held to invalidate degradation, 255. Celestine L, Pope, and the Gaulish Bishops, 368- Centlivre, Mrs., The man bewitched, 196. Ceremonies in Worship, 41. Chamberlayne, E., his project for a religi- ous society, 282. Chamberlayne, John, on religious societies or guilds, 291. Chancel screens, 149. Chapels, domestic, 155. Chardon, Dom C. M., on reunion, 414. Charles, King, the Martyr, portraits in churches, 130 ; Second Founder of Manchester, 144. Chasuble, question of its identity with the cope, 361 ; when used in the Roman Church, 362 ; shape of, in the East, 364 ; by whom worn, 364 ; definitions of, 365. Chesterfield, Lord, 2, 3. Children, asking blessing of their parents, 168. Choir offices, see Service Church, R. W., on the " Church party," IS- Church Societies, 281. Churches ; furniture and decorations of, 119; building, 151; free and open, 154 ; reverence to, 172. Churton, R., on Apostolical Succession, 388. Christmas, observance of, 204 ; ending of, 210 ; Wesley's daily celebration during, 30. Cibber, CoUey, The Nonjuror, 19. Clayton, prays for the young Chevalier, 38. Clayworth, number of communicants at, 38, 39 ; communion for the sick at, 66. Cleaver, William, on the Eucharist, 74. Coke, William, attends daily service, 98. Colleges, Theological, 304. Collier, J., unauthorised giving of absolu- tion, 272. Comber, Thomas, on the Eucharist during the Rebellion, 21, 24 ; daily Eucharist, 25 ; Eucharistic doctrine, 69 ; on daily service, 82 ; on confession, 270. Commandment, fifth, 168. Commandment, fourth, 243. Communicants, number of, 37. Communion, received fasting, 50 ; mode of reception, 56 ; use of Amen, 61 ; sign of the cross, 63 ; general, at Christmas, 205 ; refusal of, 256 ; salutation of fellow-communicants, 63. See also Eucharist. Communities, religious, 282. 422 INZ. Compton, Henry, on confession, 268 ; as- sists building a Greek church in Lon- don, 396 ; supports scheme for Greeks at Oxford, 397-400. Confession, in Lent, 2i8, 252 ; general notes on, 252 ; private, 263 ; practice of individuals, 263 ; recommended in books of devotion, 217, 267 ; opinion of divines, 270. Confessor to the Household, office of, 276. Constitution of the Church, 390. Cookery, for Lent, 213. Cope, question of its descent from the chasuble, 361 ; use of, by the Easterns, 363 ; vague use of the word, 365 ; use of, at coronations, etc., 369. Cornwallis, Henry, on fasting Communion, 52. Coronations, copes in use at, 370. Corpus Christi, use of the expression, 46- 91. Corruption, public, 3. Cosin, John, his last Communion, 66 ; observance of Sunday, 233 ; on con- fession, 267 ; epitaph of, 317 ; on prayer for the dead, 321 ; devotional works of, 341. Cowper, William, attends daily service, loi ; contempt for Dr. Johnson, 226 ; dislikes Whole Duty of Man, 338 ; hymns from Madame Guyon, 350. Creed, turning to the East at the, 177. Creighton, Robert, vestments shown in his effigy, 373- Cripplegate, St. Giles', rules for a guild at, 309. Cross, sign of the, at Communion, 63. Crosses, 145. Cnjus animcE, etc., use of the expression, 316. Cunninghame, Sir William, project for a convent, 288. Daily service, 77, see Service. Daubeny, Charles, 12, 15 ; on the constitu- tion of the Church, 392. Deacon, Thomas, Nonjuror, 18. Dealtry, William, 13. Decadence of twentieth century, 3, 149, 195. Defoe, Daniel, on daily service at Exeter, lOI. Degradation, of bishops, 253 ; of priests, 254. Delany, Mrs., on daily prayers in the King's chapel, 103 ; description of a private oratory, 159. Devotion, books of, 338 ; attacked by Hoadly, 44 n. Dillon, Arthur, Archbishop of Narbonne, 10, 24;;. Discipline and penance, 252. Discussion amicale, 417. Disturbing the minister, 189. Drunkenness, public penance for, 258. Doll, procession with, at Hucknall Torkard, 209. Domine non sum dignus, use of, 58. Dorrington, T., on saluting fellow-com- municants, 64 ; his Reformed devo- tions, 341, 350. Dover, treaty of, 406. Doyle, Dr., bishop of Kildare, on reunion, 418. Dryden, his play Limberham, 104. Dubois, Cardinal, Archbishop of Cambray, 10. Dudley, Mrs., ceremonies at her funeral, 195. Dupin, EUies, correspondence with Wake, 413. Duppa, Bryan, on prostration, 60. Durham, use and disuse of the cope at, 372. East, turning to, at the creed, 177; at Gloria Patri, 178, 179. Easter, observance of, 227. Edward VL, reprint of Communion service of 1549, 13 ; grants a dispensation from fasting, 226. Ejaculatory prayer recommended by Bp. Butler, 172. Elizabeth, Queen, opinions on the adver- tisements of, 353, 354. Epiphany, observance of, 209. Epistle side, use of the expression, 188. Epitaphs, etc., 316. Epworth, statistics as to number of com- municants at, 39. Essay towards a proposal for Catholick Communion, 411. Eucharist, the, 21 ; frequency of during the Rebellion, 21 ; private, 22 ; daily, 25 ; weekly, 30 ; monthly, 35 ; numbers at, 37 ; non-communicating attendance, 41 ; ceremonies, 41 ; early celebrations, 48 ; at Christmas, 208 ; opinions on, 66; sacrifice, 69; " table prayers," 75. See also Communion. Eudes, J., on condition of churches in France, 122. Evelyn, John, 13 ; use of expression via- ticum, 45 ; at Whitehall, 48 ; on the Eucharist, 67 ; has holy table placed altarwise (1662), 119 ; at St. James' Piccadilly, 127 ; chooses his confessor, 263 ; project for a religious society, 281 ; scruples with regard to the test, 408. Evensong, see Service. Evergreens, use of, at funerals, 195 ; at Christmas, 203. Excommunication, 257 ; for marrying in a time forbidden, 360 ; threat of, in a.d. igoo, 262 ; avoidance of excommuni- cate person, 258. Eyre, John, strict observance of duties, 106. Family Prayers, 86. Fell, Bishop, on daily service, 81. F^n^lon, Archbishop, adaptations of his works, 347 ; on the Church of England, 410. Fiddes, R., on reverence to images, 145 ; on confession, 121. Fielding, H., chief citations from his works : Amelia, 267 ; jfourney from this world, 215 ; jfoseph Andrews, gg, 267, 315 n. ; Love in several masques, 320 ; Modern husband, gg ; Temple beau, gg ; Tom Jones, 4, 156, 266 ; True patriot, 23g, 245. Fleetwood, William, on repairing churches, 121 ; observance of Sunday, 235. Ford, James, use of Amen at reception of Communion, 62 ; on the Eucharist, 75 ; conduct in church, i8g. Fox, Francis, on daily Eucharist, 27 ; re- ceives Communion weekly, 33. France, condition of churches in, 122 ; royal arms in a church, 130 ; thoughts of reunion with church of, 412. Francis of Sales, St., adaptations of the works, 347. Frederick I., King of Prussia, efforts to secure episcopal succession from Eng- land, 382, 404. " Free and open " churches, 154. Freeport, Sir Andrew, his foundation, g7. Frontals, see Altar. Fuller, William, gift of an altar-cloth to Lincoln Cathedral, 136 ; of candle- sticks, I4g. Funerals, igs ; copes in use at, 371. Gandolphy, Peter, his Liturgy, 415. Gandy, Henry, ceremonies at his funeral, ig6. Geneva, professors at, and the University of Oxford, 402. George L, offers to pay Bishop Wilson's law-costs, 256. George II., funeral of, ig7, 372. George III., reception of Communion, 50 ; his Sunday parties, 240 ; letter to Corn- walhs, 242 ; Athanasian creed, 242. George IV., last moments, 46; baptism, 167. Gibbs, James, church-builder, 152. Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, 11 ; on the Ornaments rubric, 356. Gilbert, John, Archbishop of York, 8. Gisma, impenitent thief, 43. Glanville, J., sermon on CathoUck Charity, 408. Glass, painted, case at St. Margaret's Westminster, 132. Gloria in excelsis, omitted, ig3, ig4. Gloria Patri, method of saying, 128. Gloria tibi Domine, before the Gospel, 180. " Glory " over altar, I2g. " God rest his soul," use of the expression, 315- Godolphin, Mrs., reception of Communion, 24 ; at daily service, g4 ; her son baptized, 164 ; observance of Lent, 213 ; of Sunday, 235 ; chooses her confessor, 263 ; religious vocation, 283. Goldsmith, Oliver, 4 ; daily service at Bath, 100 ; on sermons, ig2. Good Friday, observance of, 224. Gospel, standing at the, 181 ; in Rogation procession, 230. Gotchan, Archbishop of, in England, 400. Gown, used for preaching, 377 ; outdoor dress, 378 ; pudding-sleeved gown, 380. Grabe, Dr., from Prussia, joins Church of England, 328. Granville, Denis, restores weekly Eucharist at Durham, 22, 23 ; letter to on neglect of daily service, in ; fasting days, 215 ; his confession, 265 ; form for hearing confessions, 26g ; project for a semin- ary! 305 ; recommends Roman devo- tional books, 33g. Gravestones, in Wales, 320. Greeks in Oxford, 396-400. Greek Church in London, 395. Gu^ranger, Dom Prosper, g. Guilds, 2gi ; occupations of some of their members, 2g5. Hacket, Dr., on gifts of altarcloths for Lichfield Cathedral, 137. Hale, Sir Matthew, on kneeling at prayers, 183. Hare, Francis, on the authority of the Church, 3gi. Hardy, Samuel, on daily Eucharist, 27 ; doctrine on Eucharist, 71. Harlay, F. de, Archbishop of Paris, 10. Hart, Richard, on " table prayers," 75-6. Hawkins, Sir John, on depravity of the clergy, 105. Head, baring of, in Church, 171. Hearne, Thomas, observance of Lent, 215 ; Good Friday, 224 ; on prayer for the dead, 325. Heber, Reginald, on prayer for the dead, 332. 424 iNr. Henley, John, his Primitive Liturgy, 29. Heraldry in churches, 138. Herring, Archbishop, and bones of St. Anselm, 9 ; on daily Eucharist, 26 ; fasting Communion, 55. Hey, J., on confession, 275, 276. Hickeringill, Edmund, on ceremonies, 42 ; ridicules reverence to altar, 175 ; on the restored service, 369. Hickes, George, his Devotions, 18 ; on reverence to the altar, 175 ; his office for the dead, 328. High Church School, the old, 10 ; accused of Popery, 11 ; at Manchester, 34. Hildesley, Mark, directions for observance of Lent, 215 ; training of his clergy, 306 ; on dress of clergy, 381. Hill, Samuel, on Apostolical Succession, 385 ; catholic principles, 391. Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, etc., 7, 8, 10 ; objects to certain devotional books, 44. 339- Holy Week, meaning of, 221. Hopton, S., on Amm at reception of Com- munion, 62 ; devotional works of, 322, 323. 341- Home, George, Bishop of Norwich, 12, 15 ; on Charles Leslie, 17 ; Eucharist, 74 ; daily service, 86 ; on " calling names," 102 ; visit to an ill-kept church, 124 ; on choral service, 188 ; Sunday, 238 ; confession, 275; quotes Prudentius, 350. Horneck, Anthony, Eucharist at Savoy chapel, 49 ; supports guilds, 293 ; rules for a guild, 308. Horsley, Samuel, 12, 15; on Charles Leslie, 18 ; observance of feasts and fasts, 222 ; on constitution of the church, 392- Hospitality, at Christmas, 206. Houseling cloth, use of, 56. Host, use of the expression, 46. Howell, William, devotional works, 341. Huxley, T. H., on the nineteenth century, 3. Hyde, Anne, reasons for her conversion to Romanism, 406. INETT, John, on daily Eucharist, 26. " Injunction touching the Surplice," 375. Insincerity of Whigs, 191. Invocation of Saints and Angels, 333. Irving, Washington, 156. Jackson, John, attends daily service, 100. Jones, William, of Nayland, 12 ; on Charles Leslie, 17 ; Eucharist, 75 ; Apostolic succession, 389. Johnson, John, on the Eucharist, 24 ; fast- ing communion, 53 ; sacrifice, 71 ; prayer for the dead, 326 ; Ornaments rubric, 355. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 4, 5, 13 ; on the Nonjurors, 16 ; reception of Com- munion, 36 ; receives not fasting, 55 ; hospitality to a fellow-communicant, 63 ; on daily service, 91 ; life of G. West, 102 ; on Bodville Church, 121 ; sermons, 192 ; observance of Holy Week, 225 ; Sunday, 243, 244, 246 ; his penance, 261 ; on the religious life, 290 ; prayer for the dead, 329 ; prayers of the dead for the living, 334 ; Apos- tolical succession, 388 ; differences in religion, 419. Johnson, Samuel, "Julian" Johnson, de- gradation of, 254. Judas and White Kennett, 129. Kempis, Thomas i, translations of the de Imitatione, 346. Ken, Thomas, on daily service, 82, 88, 95 ; confession, 265, 268 ; draft for epitaph, 319. Kennett, White, on Church principles, 9 ; ceremonies, 43 ; caricatured in an altar-piece, 129. Kettlewell, John, reception of Communion, 36 ; observance of Lent, 213. King, James, his Sacramental Devotions, 59 ; use of Amen on communicating, 61. King, John G., on the Greek Church, 401. Kneeling at prayers, 183. Knowledge, human, uncertainty of, 3. Knox, Alexander, 13 ; on reunion, 419. Lake, Edward, author of Officium Enchar- isticum, 5, 339 ; on fasting communion, 52 ; reception of communion, 61 ; bowing to the altar, 64 ; daily service, 80 ; fasting in Lent, 217. Lamb, Charles, 4. Lamb, Mary, 107. Lamplugh, Thomas, gifts to Thwing Church, 137. Laney, B., on daily service, 79. Lathbury, D. C, 15. Latin hymns, 350. Latitudinarians, their sermons, 190. Laud's ecclesiology, triumph of, 119. Law, William, his Serious Call, 5, 340 ; his principles, 8 ; on the Eucharist, 28 ; daily service, 84 ; condition of churches, 123 ; private oratories, 158 ; fasting in Lent, 215 ; observance of Sunday, 238 ; the religious life, 288. Le Courayer, P., on Anglican orders, 414. Leigh, Theophilus, his " distinctive vest- ment," 361. Lent, 211 ; discipline, 252. Leslie, Charles, Nonjuror, his works, 17 ; his answer to Bossuet, 410. INDEX. 425 L'estrange, Hamon, 13 ; on the Eucharist, 67 ; confession, 270. Lewis, Thomas, on beautifying churches, 130. Lights, at Christmas, 207, 208 ; Epiphany, 209; Candlemas, 211. Lincoln, diocese, in 1800, 40. Litany Desk, 149, 161. Lloyd, Charles, Bishop of Oxford, 13. London, Churches with Weelsly Eucharist, 30; tables of daily service, 107-110. Lowth, William, on daily Eucharist, 26 ; Apostolical succession, 387. Lyndwood, Provinciate, 253. Macaulay, T. B., contempt for Dr. John- son, 226. Maids, College for, 283. Maimbourg, L., writings to further reunion, 409. Manchester, influence of Nonjurors at, ig ; Peploe's efforts to put down High- Church practices at, 34 ; daily service at, 80, 93. Maniple, the " distinctive " Eucharistic vestment, 366. Manners and customs, 164. Marriage, seasons for, 260. Marsh, Herbert, on confession, 276. Marshall, Nathaniel, on Apostolical Suc- cession, 386. Mary IL, gift of altarcloth to Canterbury, 137 ; her last confession, 265. Mattins, see Service. Maundy Thursday, observance of, 223 ; order of service, 247. Maynard, Lady, her confession to Ken, 265 ; her private oratory, 342. Melbourne, Lord, on the Churches of England and Rome, 419. Melville, M. R., project for reform of Book of Common Prayer, 13 ; proposals for fast days, 227. Methodists, the early, 297. Mistletoe, ceremony with, at York, 206. Missa caiechumenorum, compared with " table prayers," 76. Mitres, carried in hand, 371 ; on effigy, 374- Monmouth, Duchess of, 24. Montagu, Elizabeth, 8. Montagu, Lady Mary W., noi to be taken out of commandments, 2 ; on the hypocrisy of her time, 99. Montazet, A. M. de. Archbishop of Lyons, 9- Montesquieu, on the disappearance of re- ligion, 2. Morden, Sir J., appoints daily service at Morden College, 96. More, Hannah, her observance of Sunday, 240 ; on Roman devotional works, 345- Morer, Thomas, use o{ Agnus Dei, 58. Music, 187 ; amongst the Methodists, 188. Mutilations of daily service, 95; letter on, III. Nash, Beau, ceremonies at his funeral, r98. National Society, foundation of, 13, 303. Nelson, Robert, 13, 37 ; his Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, 5, 339 ; mode of receiving Communion, 56 ; on the Eucharist, 67, 70 ; Sunday, 234 ; re- ligious societies, 296 ; seminaries, 305 ; prayer for the dead, 326 ; re- ceives Archbishop of Gotchan, 401. Newcastle, Duke of, his religious prin- ciples, 102. Newman, J. H., dedicates a work to Dr. Routh, 14 ; was taught Apostolical Succession, 390. Nicene Creed, and the Greek Church, 400. Nicholls, William, on fasting Communion, 52 ; Ornaments rubric, 355. Nobody's friends, 301. Non-communicating attendance, 41. Nonjurors, the, two classes of, 16 ; re- lations with the Eastern Church, 401. Norwich, copes in use at, 370. O SACRUM convivinm, 63. Octave, use of the expression, 47, 205. Offerings, at funerals, 200, 201. Oratories, 156. Organs, 185 ; disliked by Puritans, 42, 44, 128 ; approved by Churchmen, 43 ; mentioned, 227, 369, 374. Ornaments rubric, 351. Outdoor dress of clergy, 378. Owen, E., observance of Easter in Wales, 227. Oxford, revival of Church Service at (1660), 77 ; Balliol College, a " nest of Jaco- bites," 262 ; Corpus Christi and Brase- nose, copes in use at, 370 ; Gloucester Hall a Greek College, 396. Pallium, 367. Paliner, Sir William, his Origines Litur- giccB, 13. Parents now called by Christian name, 171. Parker, Matthew, 368. Parliament, first, in Pandemonium, 20 «. Parsons, Robert, adaptations of his works, 349. Passion week, meaning of, 221. Pater noster, use of the expression, 47. Patrick, Symon, weekly Eucharist at Peter- borough, 23 ; daily Eucharist, 26 ; 426 INDEX. numbers of communicants, 37 ; daily service, 81, 82 ; confession, 264. Pattison, Mark, on the period of 1688 to 1750, I ; 1750 to 1830, 4. Pavements, marble, round altar, 120. Pearson, on the Creed, 13 ; on Apostolical Succession, 382. Penance, 252 ; public, 257 ; particular ex- amples of, 278. Peploe, Dr., his visitation at Manchester, 34- Pepys, Samuel, at Whitehall, 41, 48 ; against ceremonies, 42 ; is asked for a blessing, 169 ; on bowing to the altar, at Windsor, 173 ; organs, 185 ; end of Christmas, 210 ; fasting in Lent, 212 ; the Restoration clergy, 253 ; witnesses a public penance, 258. Percival, T., letter to the Manchester clergy, ig ; on turning to the east, 179. Peterborough, Weekly Eucharist at, 23. Petrucci, P. M., adaptations of his works, 348. Pew-rents at St. James' Piccadilly, 35. ■ Pews, 154. Philippopolis, Archbishop of, in England, 400. Pictures, use of, 145 ; in oratories, 159 ; over altar, 128. Piety and morality amongst the people, 4. Pococke, R., on the music at Selby Abbey, 188 ; seminary in diocese of Man, 307. Potter, John, on daily service, 84 ; constitu- tion of the Church, 390. Platonnes, 285. Plygan, in Wales, at Christmas, 207. Pope, A., on Berkeley, 11 ; Easter, 227. Prayers for the dead, 315. Processions, at funerals, 196. Prostration, practice of, 60. Pruen, Th., his Illnstraiion of the Liturgy, 87 ; on the Ornaments rubric, 358. Psalms, reading, sung, 188. Pufendorf, on reconciliation of Protestants and Papists, 405 Pulpit against Reading Desk, 191. Pulpit obscuring altar, 148. Purple, episcopal colour, 380. Pusey, Dr., on observance of daily service, 107. Pyle, Thomas, chaplain to Hoadly, 7. Randolph, John, founds National Society, 13 ; on the Ornaments rubric, 357. Rattling Clubs at Church, 155. Rennel, Dr., his sermons, 192. Reservation for sick, 64. Respect to betters, 168. Reunion, attempts at, 393. Reverence to altar, 64, 173. Richards, Thomas, 85 ; on secret ejacula- tions, 172. Richardson, Samuel, in the Rambler, 4 ; Clarissa Harlowe, 99, 316 ; Sir Charles Grandison, 156, 165, 169, 290. Ripon, early Eucharist at Cathedral, 50 ; Rogation processions at, 231. Rogation processions, an order for, St. Asaph diocese, 249. Rogationtide, observance of, 228. Romaine, numbers of communicants at his church, 38. Roman Catholics, testimony of, 106, 140 ; their works adapted, 345. Rome, efforts at reunion with, 406. Routh, Martin J., book dedicated to him by Newman, 14 ; draft for his epitaph, 318. Rubrics, disregard of, 359, 360. St. Asaph, diocese, in 1806, 40. Sacrifice, Eucharistic, 69 ; mentioned, 175. Saints, invocation of, 333. Salutations, exchange of, in church, 63, 64, 172 ; mentioned, 377. Sancroft, Archbishop, on daily service, 82. Sanderson, Robert, his last confession, 264. Saussure, C. de, on English Churches, 126, 141 ; vesture of the clergy, 370. Scarf, black, 378 ; mentioned, 376. Schools, charity, 6. Sconces, branched, 144. Scott, Sir Walter, 4 ; on English Churches, 125. Scupoli, Lorenzo, 349. Seeker, Thomas, 11 ; on daily Eucharist, 26 ; " table prayers," 76 ; observance of Church seasons, 203 ; " stationary days," 214 ; Sunday, 235 ; confession, 274 ; dress of clergy, 381. Sermons, 5, i8g ; Old High Church, 15. Service, daily (Mattins and Evensong), 77 ; after ithe Restoration, 77 ; recom- mended by authority, 79 ; as offered by the clergy, 87 ; as attended by the people, 94 ; in the King's chapel, 103 ; practised by Dissenters, 104 ; table of, in London and Westminster, 108-110 ; evening service at funerals, 196, 200 ; children's at Bath (1787), 202 ; early, at Christmas, 207, 208. Sexes, separation of, 150. Sharp, John, on Apostolical Succession, 386. Sharp, Thomas, on the Ornaments rubric, 356. Shepherd, John, on organs, 187. Sheppard, Jacobite, would receive com- munion daily before attempting to as- sassinate George L, 29. INDEX. 427 Sherlock, Thomas, on Hoadly, 8 ; " less of the popish confessor," 11 ; on places of amusement in Lent, 195. Shish, Mr., his asceticism, 195. Sikes, Thomas, a precursor of the Oxford movement, 13. Smith, Thomas, on the Eucharist during the Rebellion, 21 ; on the Greek church, 396 ; on reunion in general, 410. Smollett, T., confession, in his novels, 267. Snape, Dr. Andrew, answers Hoadly, 8. Sobieski, Princess, her portrait in an altar- piece, 131. Societies, Church, 6, 281 ; " Religious," 291 ; rules, 308 ; for the reformation of manners, 301. Society for promoting Christian knowledge, established, 6, 303. Society for promoting the Enlargement and Building of Churches, 304. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, established, 6, 303. Sparrow, Anth., on fasting Communion, 51 ; communion for the sick, 65. Spinckes, SicTi Man Visited, 18. Spiritual Reading, Books, 339. " Spiritually dead," 262. Sprat, Thomas, on daily service, 83. Standing, at the Gospel, 181 ; at 2nd lesson when from Gospel, 182 ; at prayer, 184. " Stationary days," 214. Stearne, J., rules for confession, 272. Stebbing, H., on daily service, 85. Stephens, Edward, his vagaries, 28, 29 ; proposals for a convent, 286 ; on the Greeks at Oxford, 399. Stepney, private communions at, 22 h. Stevens, William, 12, 13, 15; on the Eucharist, 68 ; founds club of " No- body's friends," 301 ; on Apostolic Succession, 388 ; authority of the church, 391. Stillingfleet, E., on the Eucharist, 70 ; Apostolical Succession, 383. Stole, 366. Strype, John, diet in Lent, 214. Suicides, burial of, 198. Sunday, observance of, 232. Surplice, 374 ; attempts to suppress, 375 ; used in preaching, 356, 377 ; disliked by puritans, 43 ; mentioned, 193 ; "in- junction," 375. Swift, Jonathan, on Bishop Berkeley, 11; restores weekly Eucharist at Dublin, 33 ; on Queen Anne's reception of communion, 35 ; at early service, 49 ; on negligent clergymen, 97 ; his private oratory, 158 ; on Lent, 218 ; takes part in a deprivation, 257 ; on Mrs. Astell's Platoiiues, 285 ; religious societies, 302 ; " God rest his soul," 315 n. Symson, Matthias, on Apostolical Succes- sion, 385 ; on the Catholic Church, 390- Synge, Edward, his tract on reunion, 414. Table, holy, replaced altarwise, 119. " Table Prayers," 75. Tablet on Anglican Evensong, 106. Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, 10. Tapers, at funerals, 197, 372 ; sham, on altarpieces, 128, 160. Taylor, Jeremy, his Holy Living, 5, 339 ; on fasting communion, 51 ; daily service, 79 ; prayer for the dead, 325. Tenison, Thomas, use of devotional pic- tures, 145. Theological Colleges, 304. Thoresby, Ralph, on daily service, 104. Thorndike, Herbert, school of, 16; on the Eucharist in England, 24 ; Reserva- tion, 65 ; penance, 252 ; confession, 270 ; prayer for the dead, 324 ; Church triumphant, 333. Tillotson, his sermons, 5. Tomline, Sir G., on the Eucharist, 75 ; daily service, 87 ; confession, 276. Trimnell, Charles, on monthly communion, 35- Truro religious society, 299. Tunicles, 365 ; in the east, 361 n. Turner, Daniel, use of Agnus Dei, 59. Turner, Francis, on daily service, 81. Uffenbach, Z. C. von, on Trin. Coll. Cambr. Chapel, 120. Unbaptized, Eucharist, given to, 193. Uncovering head in church, 171. Unusual practices, 193. Van Mildert, W., on the Apostolical succession, 389. Vestments, 351. Viaticum, use of the expression, 24, 45. Vincent, Vi^illiam, on church music, 188. Voluntaries, 184. Waddington, George, on prayer for the dead, 332. Wake, W., on daily service, 83 ; confession, 271 ; prayer for the dead, 325 ; letter to Patriarch of Jerusalem, 401 ; Swiss protestants, 405 ; correspondence with Ellies Dupin, 413. Wakes, 199. Wales, condition of churches in, 121 ; funerals, 200. Walker, S., founds a religious society at Truro, 299. 428 INDEX. Walpole, Horace, abuses High-Church bishops, II ; on Lord Westmoreland's Chapel, 152 ; description of a peniten- tiary at Christmas, 204. Walpole, Sir Robert, 2, 3, 6. Warner, Ferd. , on the Ornaments rubric, 355- Warner, Lady, teaching received by, 407. Warner, Richard, use of Amen on receiving Communion, 62. Washing of the feet, on Maundy Thurs- day, 247. Wasse, Joseph, his Reformed Devotions, 323, 350- Waterland, on the Eucharist, 71, 72. Watson, Joshua, 13, 15. Watson, Richard, Bp., 7, 10 ; on free and open churches, 154 ; decides on ques- tion of a " mixed " marriage, 402. Watson, Thomas, Bp., suspended, 253. Watson, William, on the Ornaments rubric, 353. Week's preparation, 5, 339. Wesley, John, on daily Eucharist, 30 ; his early projects, 299 ; on prayer for the dead, 329 ; Apostolic Succession, 388. West, Gilbert, his religious principles, 102. Westmoreland, Earl of, his chapel, 153. Wetenhall, Edward, his Enter into thy closet, 63, 156 ; on Sunday, 234 ; con- fession, 258. Wharton, Henry, n. Wheatly, Charles, his Rational Illustra- tion, 13 ; on turning to the east, 179 ; gloria Hbi D amine, 181 ; confession, 272 ; prayer for the dead, 321, 326 ; Ornaments rubric, 355 ; copes and tunicles, 365. Wheler, Sir George, on daily Eucharist, 29 ; daily service, 95 ; separation of sexes, 150 ; private oratories, 158 ; practices at Church in Spitalfields, 193 ; convents, 285. Whigs, dogmas of, 7 ; gluttony, 7 ; tyranny, 20 ; hinder weekly communion, 34 ; disliked by churchmen, 190. Whiston, W., his expulsion from Cam- bridge, 255. Whitefield, George, on daily Eucharist, 29, 30 ; at Manchester (1738), 37 ; at St. BarthoIomevi''s (1748), 38. Whole Duty of Man, 5, 338. " Wicker basket," 193. Willis, T., attendance at daily service, 94. Willoughby de Broke, Lord, on number of communicants, 37. Wilson, Thomas, 10 ; on the Eucharist, 71 ; fasting, 216 ; Sunday, 236 ; case of Mrs. Home, 256 ; George \. offers to pay his costs, 256 ; on confession, 274 ; institutes a seminary, 306. Winchester College, fasting days at, 215. Windham, William, reception of Com- munion, 50. Wine, amount of used at Eucharist, 57. Wix, Samuel, on reunion, 418. Wolley, Hannah, recipes for dishes in Lent, 212. Wolverhampton, Rogation processions at, 230. Wood, Anthony, on daily service at Oxford, 77 ; observance of Lent, 219 ; Roga- tion processions, 229 ; Sunday, 233. Wood, Thomas, Bishop of Lichfield, sus- pended, 253. Woodeford, Samuel, his Precum prival- arum horarium, 342. Woodroof, Dr., Principal of Gloucester Hall, Oxford, 397. Woodward, J., Rise and progress of Re- ligious societies, 294. WooUey, Hannah, see Wolley. Worcester, restored service at, 78. Wordsworth, John, Bp., on communion for the sick, 65. Wordsworth, William, 13. Wren, Matthew, Bp., use of Amen at re- ception of Communion, 61 ; on the Ornaments rubric, 351. Young, Arthur, contrasts French and Eng- lish clergy, 105. ABERDEEN : THE UNIVERSITY PRESS D9H tssi m m I ' I 1 aSS m ^^^^ 1 i ''iu i-feMBBoBl 1