MR. MACCOLL'S REPLY TO HIS CRITICS.*

MR. MAcCom, does not bear the somewhat unworthy taunts and imputations of his critics with quite sufficient equanimity. With a historical case so strong as his, it would have been wiser, we think, to display greater imperturbability, and not to indulge quite so much in the chastisement of unfair, and to say the truth, not always very gentlemanlike, expressions. The Quarterly Re- viewer, or, if Mr. MacColl is to be believed, Reviewers (for he seems to hold that the reply to his book, so far as it affected the judgment in the Purchas case, was a composite affair), had done more harm to themselves than to him, by their very liberal impu- tations of ignorance and bad faith, and when he had demolished their case, he had better have left the characterisation of their offensive remarks on his supposed moral and historical sins to the good-sense of his readers. And above all, it was a mistake, after completely absolving the Judges in the Purchas case from any sug- gestion of dishonesty, to use language, in the course of this reply itself, which might very fairly be supposed to imply such a charge. "Certainly," says Mr. MacColl, "I have accused the Court" [the Court of Appeal] "of inaccuracy,' and I intend in this preface to sustain that accusation by some important additional evidence. But I challenge the production of a single sentence out of my book which can be construed into a charge of 'dishonesty' against the Supreme Court. On the contrary, I have frequently gone out of my way to disclaim any such accusation" (pp. 8 and 9), and he quotes a passage from his book in support of this statement. But in a subsequent page of this publication we find him saying :—

"Now let the reader observe the manner in which authorities are used in the Porches Judgment. Bishop Cosin inquires, 'Have you a

• The Reviewers Reciewedin a Preface to the Third and Revised Edition qf Lawlessness, Banrctotalism, and Ritualism. By Malcolm MaeColl, MA.. London : J. T. Hayes. large and decent surplice for the minister to wear at all times of his public ministration in the church ?' Here is conclusive proof, argues tho Court, that eosin, one of the framers of the Ornaments Rubric, had not a suspicion that the Rubric sanctioned the vestments. The connection between their Lordships' premisses and their conclusion is not very obvious, as I have shown. But it so happens that Cosin does say, not or twice, but frequently, that the Ornaments Rubrics sanctions the vestments and all the other ceremonial of the second year of Edward ;- and he says emphatically that the 'other order' of Elizabeth's Act of Uni- formity 'was never yet made,'—that' other order,' namely, on which rests the legality of the Advertisements, according to the Purchas Judgment. But this important evidence the Court entirely ignores. When Cosin's meaning can be twisted into the service of the Court, it is twisted with avidity, and he is quoted as a great authority. When eosin flatly con- tradicts the conclusions of the Court, he is an authority whom it is not worth while to quote."

Now, in ordinary parlance, when we speak of a man's evidence being "twisted with avidity " into somebody's service, and declare. that the same somebody finds the same man's evidence an item which it is not "worth while" to quote when it tells against him, we are not supposed to be speaking very respectfully of the somebody in question. If Mr. MacColl had really been as sedulous to guard himself from impeaching the Court of Appeal's good faith as he believes himself to have been, he might have commented on the defective knowledge of Cosin implied in this use of his authority where it is not to the purpose, and neglect of it where it is, without suggest- ing that there was any " twisting " in the matter. If the Court

of Appeal had really done what Mr. MacColl here credits it with having done,—used a mere uncertain inference from Bishop COBin'S

statements to prove one thing, while suppressing, as a matter which it was not "worth while" to state, the direct evidence given by the same witness to the opposite effect, it would have been sheer dishonesty. And when Mr. MacColl allows himself to impute such conduct to the Supreme Court, he must not be sur- prised to find his critics charging him with intending to accuse- it of dishonesty, however earnestly he repudiates this intention..

The truth is that though Mr. MacColl is not as unscrupulous an the critics to whom he replies, he and they alike look at the issues before them with that bitterness which controversy on these subjects seems to excite. We feel no doubt at all that Mr. MacColl meant what he said when he disclaimed charges of dishonesty against the Supreme Court of Appeal, but we have no doubt also that his animus against that Court is so keen, that he is unable to weigh his words, and when he- means to indicate nothing but the unconscious partiality of bias, he really says what any one else would understand as implying the conscious partiality of unscrupulous advocates trying to bolster up a rotten case with worthless evidence. Observing this incon- sistency of Mr. MacColl's, we cannot but give his opponents the benefit of the same discolouring atmosphere through which he- himself obviously sees things, and suppose that in the very free- and unscrupulous charges which they have brought against him, they have meant no more than Mr. MacColl himself meant when he-

accused the Supreme Court of greedily "twisting" Bishop eosin's,

evidence into a plea for their own case, while not deeming it 'worth while' to quote that which would have proved their plea to be valueless. As a rule, when controversialists discuss these- matters, it would be safer to assume that when they charge fraud; they only mean a violent bias, and when they charge vulgarity or truculence, they only mean a deficiency in fastidiousness and' courtesy.

For the rest, it seems to us that, at all events as regards the eucharistic vestments, Mr. MacColl has sustained by very im- portant additional evidence the case which his book established,

—that "the Advertisements," by which, according to the Purchas: Judgment, it was supposed that Elizabeth meant to abolish all

the vestments except the surplice, and, in cathedral churches, the cope, were really intended to enforce against the Puritans a. minimum of ritual, not to veto against the Papists an excess,— that they were meant to make the surplice compulsory on those who detested even so much as a surplice, and not to abolish the chasuble, alb, and cope in the places where those still legal vest- ments were habitually used. lUr. MacColl reminds us that the Queen was anxious to restore the First Book of Edward VI. in its entirety, but that she was overborne by the necessity of making concessions to Puritan influence. The Second Book of Edward VT.. was accordingly restored, but with the omission of the rubric- which abolished the vestments, and the substitution of one which restored the ornaments of the First Book. This rubric was en- forced by an Act of Parliament which hinted at some supple-

mentary provisions; and on the evidence as to what was expected to be the nature of these supplementary provisions, Mt MacCon comments as follows :—

"Is there any contemporary evidence to show that anybody in the reign of Elizabeth understood this 'other order' to mean some curtail- ment of the provisions of the Rubric? Not a scrap. Is there any evidence to show that anybody at the time understood it as promising or menacing an addition to the prescription of the Rubric ? There is. For example, George Withers, writing about 1566, says, 'The cere- monies which, as was above stated, were retained in the Church at the first reformation of Edward, are restored under the same name. Power, moreover, was given to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever additional ceremonies they might think proper ; and they immediately afterwards both discontinued the ordinary bread heretofore used in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and for the sake of a newer reformation adopted the round wafer, after the pattern of that used by the Papists.' Withers was one of the leaders of the Puritans, and here we have his testimony, written after the Advertisements were in full force, that not only was the restoration of the Vestments then a fact, but that the 'other order' of the Act of Uniformity meant imposi- tion of additional ceremonies, not the diminution of any of those therein prescribed. In another letter, written in August, 1567, he says, 'Moreover, there is power given by Act of Parliament to the Queen and the Archbishop to introduce whatever ceremonies they please into any Church in the kingdom.' And this is the natural interpretation of the other order' promised in the Act, for it goes on to explain, that 'if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church, by the misusing of the order ap- pointed in this book, the Queen's Majesty may by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan ordain and publish such further ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advancement of God's glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's Holy Mysteries and Sacraments."

Further, Mr. MacColl asks why the Advertisements were not en- forced when they were first put out, and in whose interest they were not enforced; and he shows that it was the Puritans who complained of them, not the Papists, and that it was in the interest of the Puritans that the enforcement of them was delayed. Of this Mr. MacColl gives what unprejudiced people will think ample evidence. Indeed the Advertisements never had apparently, as such, any statutory force at all. But whatever force they had was certainly, exerted not against the ceremonialists, but against those who were vehemently opposed to ceremony. As regards the proof that the obligatory character of the Ornaments Rubric which Elizabeth restored was recognized long after the Ad- vertisements had been issued, indeed long after Elizabeth's death, Mr. MacColl produces evidence which seems to us quite final in his remarks on the recommendation of the Lords' Committee of 1641 :—

" My next proof is the recommendation of the Committee appointed by the House of Lords in 1641 to revise the Rubrics and report upon the alleged innovations of Laud. The leading men among the Peers were at this time almost face to face with the Revolution, and it is evident that, with a view to preserve their own order, with which the Church and Crown were so intimately connected, they determined to remodel the Prayer-book, and to abolish almost everything except the Episcopal office. Some of the leading divines of the period were also prepared to throw masts and rigging overboard, doubtless in the hope of saving at least the hull of the ship. The Committee consisted of ten earls, ten bishops, ten lay barons, and they were empowered to associ- ate with them as many learned divines as they pleased.' They availed themselves of this permission, and among the divines chosen may be named Archbishop 17ssher, and Drs. Prideanx, Warde, Twisse, Racket, Sanderson, Brownrigg, White, Holdsworth, and Calamy. Prideaux, Sanderson, Brownrigg, and Racket were afterwards promoted to the Episcopate. Warde was one of the translators of the Bible, and after- wards Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, an office in which he was succeeded by Holdsworth. If then the Advertisements had superseded the Ornaments Rubrics, it is simply inconceivable that all the learned divines in England in the year 1641 should have been ignorant of the fact, and that there ihould have been nobody in the kingdom who had sufficient knowledge to set them right. Yet this is the conclusion forced upon us by the Parches Judgment For among the statements and recommendations in the Report of the Lords' Com- mittee in 1641 are the two following:—l. It is asserted that High Churchmen were in the habit of quoting 'the Injunctions and Ad- vertisements of Queen Elizabeth, which,' says the Report, are not in force, but by way of commentary and imposition.' This proves two things: first, that the Advertisements had no legal force ; secondly, that such force as they had was understood to be in the interest of the High-Church party. That is precisely my argument. 2. The Com- mittee suggested 'whether the Rubric should not be mended, where all vestments in time of Divine Service ore now commanded, which were used 2 Edward VI.' Here then are ten earls, ten bishops, ten lay barons, and with them a goodly band of the most learned and eminent divines in the kingdom ; and they declare that 'all vestments' which were used 'in the second year of Edward VL' were still lawful in 1641, and

not lawful only, but 'commanded.'" •

With regard to the Eastern position of the celebrant, Mr. MacColl's evidence is also strong, though not perhaps quite so conclusive as it is with regard to the vestments. But on the whole, we do not doubt that he makes out his case that the Court of Appeal when it gave judgment on the Pardus case, without hearing argument on the Ritualistic side, and with a very im- perfect knowledge of the ecclesiastical history of the Rubrics, made considerable blunders in its judgment ; and that the Ritualists had an unanswerable case for the legality of some important practices which the Court of Appeal condemned. But we differ widely from Mr. MacColl when he assumes that because the legal position of the Ritualists is strong, or rather would be strong, if the Court of Appeal had not made a con- siderable blunder,—after all, law is law, whether it rests on blundering history or not, till it is reversed or repealed,—there- fore the High-Church party can go on victoriously using a cere- monial which revolts the great number of the worshippers, and can, as Mr. MacColl rhetorically says, scatter its opponents "like chaff before the wind." At least, if they do, the High-Church party will also succeed, we fear, in scattering the laity like chaff before the wind ; for the laity will not at all understand the argument that because the Reformation did its work very slowly, and has not yet reformed the Rubrics, therefore the Rubrics ought still to be what Elizabeth made them. The High Anglicans persuade themselves that the recent opposition to the Athanasian Creed was a dead failure. We suspect Mr. MacColl knows more of the ecclesiastical history of the Rubrics than he does of the popular history of our own times, if he sincerely thinks so. The Athanathan Creed carries no belief with it at all amongst the English laity, and if the English laity do not make much fuss about it, it is because they do not think themselves committed to it. But it is not those preachers who mould themselves by the Atbanasian Creed who really mould the faith of the people of England. And be their legal position what it will,. it is not priests who wear gay chasubles and stoles, and attach a high religious value to those fineries, who will sow anything but a sort of scornful surprise among the laity to whom they minister. Let the history of the Ornaments Rubric be argued again, by all means, and the law decided more conformably to history, but unless the High-Church party show a moderation of which we see but little sign in using their probable victory, or unless Par- liament interferes to modify the results of the victory, it will take no conjuror to tell that they will do more to get the Church of England disestablished and disendowed in a year or two after the victory is achieved, than the Dissenters have done in two genera- tions of eager and enthusiastic agitation.