institution was Divine, and was given by the Almighty Himself to His own chosen and peculiar people.  None but a fool would say that the Church of the Jews had any connection with the system of Popery.  Nor will any sensible man pretend that the Reformation of the 16th century was occasioned by the dress or ecclesiastical order of the Church of Rome; which are in no respect more splendid or imposing than the usages of the Oriental Churches.” [27b]

And, further on, after having examined various points of evidence as to the principles and law of the Church of England in the matter, he adds, “to my mind, therefore, the legal position of our English brethren in this matter of Ritualism is justifiable as to its main design, and stands on a far higher ground of Scripture, law, and reason, than that of their adversaries.  So long as the great doctrines of the Reformation are faithfully preached by the clergy I can see no danger that a solemn, rich, and attractive ritual will ever lead any one to Popery.  Is it not more reasonable to believe that the restoration of the old ceremonial which existed in the second year of Edward VI. would give our Church the advantage which now forms the most alluring characteristic of Rome? . . .  Has not truth as good a right as falsehood to be adorned with beauty?  And is it to be questioned that religion should favourably affect the senses, in order that it may better reach the soul?” [28a]

3.  But, to return more directly to Bishop Ellicott; I must enter my protest against, and state my most absolute disbelief in, the correctness of his opinion as to the last danger indicated in the passage last quoted from his Charge, as to what would be the conduct of the ritualistic clergy under a legal settlement of points in dispute. [28b]  It may be, indeed, that if judgment should go in favour of the Ritualists their opponents would be stirred up to any conceivable pitch of madness; but I must wholly disclaim all belief that the great mass of those who have adopted a high ritual would do other than accept the decision of the law courts, if duly arrived at.  Even with our present most unsatisfactory Court of Final Appeal, I should expect this, though it might be under protest; but I do not believe they would refuse to submit to the decision, I mean as to ceremonial, or persist in usages declared to be not warranted by the present law of the Church.  It would, of course, be another thing if any attempt were made to tie up their hands, or shut their mouth, as to doctrine; but in regard merely to ceremonial I do not believe they would justify the Bishop’s confident prediction, “force unwilling men to put the law in action against them, accept the issue, and leave the communion of the Reformed Church.”  I do not believe this for a moment as the effect of a legal decision, duly given, or as duly as it can be at present, as to what the law really is; dealing only, I say, in its terms, with ceremonial, even though we should all perceive, it may be, that it had a connection with doctrine.  Still this would not be the making a new doctrine, but only declaring that the law of ceremonies was less favourable to the expression by symbolism or otherwise of certain doctrines than it had been supposed to be.  This, I think, they would endure.  What might be their conduct, if you alter the law on purpose to catch them when they were not offenders under it; if you change the Book of Common Prayer in an uncatholic direction, in a matter touching doctrine; if you do this for a party purpose, and to uncatholicize the Church of England, I do not pretend to say.  I will venture no prophecy as to what some might be led to do under such an aggravated condition of injustice.  I do not myself say, I do not myself think, that they ought, even then, to “accept the issue, and leave the communion of the Reformed Church.”  But it needs no ghost to tell us that such action taken on the uncatholic side would be a step towards making catholic-minded men despair of the Church of England; and if England’s Convocations and Legislature should do this, you may well judge, my friends, if they will not have gone near with many to sever the last strand of the rope which held them to her.  No man, I will venture to say, leaves her till he despairs of her; and to alter the Prayer Book in a Puritan direction, and for a Puritan purpose, directly at the bidding and for the interest of Puritan innovators, is unquestionably the way to make men despair of her.  And awful, indeed, must be the responsibility of any one who has any hand or takes any part in so doing!

But Bishop Ellicott comes next to the scheme of which he himself approves, not indeed as free from all difficulty, but as the best mode which he can think of to relieve the “Aggrieved Parishioner;” and as one which he imagines to be free from the imputation of repealing any part of the Prayer Book.  We must give the proposal in his own words.  Having, as we have seen, rejected all the former plans mentioned, he says:—“We are thus flung back on the difficult question: Is there any other course or measure that may still be suggested, and that can with any degree of hope be followed, in the present emergency?  In attempting to answer the serious question, we must obviously base our answer on the sober and considerate Report of the Royal Commission, and test it by its degree of accordance with the two clearly defined principles of that Report.  The two principles are—First, that it is expedient to restrain all variations in respect of vesture from what has long been the established usage, on account of the grave offence so given to many; Secondly, that aggrieved parishioners ought to be provided with an easy and effectual process of complaint and redress.”  Then noticing that the Report makes “an inferential but important recognition of the fact that the innovators are of two classes—the one regarding the vestments as symbolical of doctrine, the other as furthering a desire to do honour to the highest act of Christian worship” (which after all seems to be a false division, for those who desire to do this honour to the highest act of Christian worship consider it, I apprehend, to be the highest act of Christian worship, and are anxious to pay it this honour on account of the doctrine), the Bishop proceeds,—“The two parties do not agree in the view they take of the meaning and design of Eucharistic vestments, but they do agree in the admission that they are not essential to the Sacrament.  As, then, that which is admitted to be not essential is certainly an innovation on prevailing custom, and being so certainly does give grave offence, it surely must be pronounced right, fair, and reasonable, calmly and considerately, but still firmly, to restrain the innovation, at any rate until further order be taken by authority, even though the innovation may be able to plead to the letter of a law long ago left in abeyance, and practically abrogated by custom.”

It is not unworthy here of remark how we have again cropping-up the old story of the vestments being “not essential to the Sacrament,” and “giving grave offence;” the fallacy and one-sidedness of which one argument of the