Letter to Parker (see pp. 126-8) afford the strongest presumption that Elizabeth never did effect such a repeal.

One of the last references to Elizabeth's Reign, which the Dean of the Arches makes, relates to Grindal's Letter to Zanchy in 1571 (see p. 262): that Letter, he considers, proves that the Cross was not in use, else "such a precisian as Grindal "would have been loud in his complaints of it—it would "have formed a prominent grievance with him :" and, further, that "If the Cross had been removed otherwise than by law, "he could not have used the words 'the law hindered the "removal." But, with submission, I reply-first, that no one contends, so far as I am aware, that the Cross was in general or even partial use in 1571; and next, that while Grindal's words do describe the general state of the Law then, he is only applying that Law to the, then pending, Vestiarian controversy; but that, anyhow, if disuse shews legal prohibition, then Sir John Dodson's argument would prove too much by shewing that various Vestments, at that very time notoriously abandoned, owing to the Puritanism of Grindal himself, no less than that of others, were unlawful as well as the Cross.

other occurrences of Elizabeth's

Reign.

Whitgift; James

Of the learned Judge's reference to Whitgift's and King His reference to James's replies to the Puritans, it appears to me unnecessary 1st; to say more than I have already said at pp. 296, Note a. and 314-16 as I venture to think, with all possible respect for Sir John Dodson's opinion, that his observations upon those occurrences leave my argument from them entirely unimpeached.

66

:

It is, I think, to be regretted that the Dean of the Arches met the argument drawn from the general revival of Crosses in Charles the First's time with no other reply than that they remained until 1641, when they were removed by "order of the House of Commons ;" because his words have given an apparent (though one must feel a most unintentional) sanction to one of the most illegal proceedings which English History records.

The learned Judge terminates his discussion on the subject of Crosses by referring to the proceedings connected with the last Revision of the Prayer Book and the Act of 1662: he

Order of Com

munion temp.

Charles 1st.;

Baxter; and
Cosin,considered.

Duties of Churchwardens,

quotes Baxter's objection to the Rubric on Ornaments (see p. 442) and the passages from Cosin's Notes cited and referred to at p. 455, and then he remarks "We have his "several enumerations of the Ornaments he conceived "legalized under it. Was it credible that Cosin would "have omitted all mention of the Cross if he had con"sidered it to be a legalized Ornament?" To this it may be replied that neither does CoSIN enumerate some other Ornaments which he undoubtedly considered legal, e. g., Pictures, Eagles, Litany Desks, which were equally the abhorrence of the party which broke dow the Crosses in the great Rebellion while the very fact of that abhorrence was surely a sufficient reason to induce the Bishop not to mention them or anything else which might aggravate the already numerous complaints of the Presbyterian party.

Into the subject of Stone Altars and Credence Tables, the learned Judge declined to enter beyond referring to the Decision of his predecessor, Sir H. J. Fust, and abiding thereby.

The question of Altar Frontals and Altar Linen, Sir J. Dodson disposed of by treating it as a matter of Discretion for the Ordinary whose Judgment, as he said, had "been obtained" in "the "Consistorial Court:" but then as the Rubric, which commits such a discretion to the Bishop, also allows an Appeal to the Archbishop, it would seem not unnatural that the Archbishop's Judge should deal with the case, even though it was not a matter" of very grave importance."

In closing this review of Sir John Dodson's arguments, I venture, with great diffidence, to raise one question, as bearing not only upon this case, but also upon the general relation of Clergy to Churchwardens in reference to Church Ornament and Decoration: it is this-have we not, on all sides, assumed too much, that Churchwardens have to do with providing Church Ornaments, beyond seeing that the Parishioners find what is required of them; or are free to interfere with such Decoration of the Church as the Minister shall think fit to use, subject to the Discretion of the Ordinary? I have no wish to undervalue the Office of the Churchwarden, and should be sorry to see its legitimate power

as to Ornaments, &c., perhaps over-rated.

crippled; but we live in days when, what I must call, its tyrannical exercise over the Parochial Clergy has been so glaring in such numerous cases, that there is an absolute necessity for defining with more accuracy the position, relation, and duties of these Officers of the Church of England. Having thus considered at length, and with no material conclusion. omission, I hope, the Judgment of the Dean of the Arches, I am wholly unable to discover any ground on which the learned Judge could affirm, as he did, the Decision of the Court below; and one cannot therefore but indulge some faint hope that Decisions, the same in tenor and effect, based on such entirely contradictory, and, as I trust I have shewn, such unsatisfactory, grounds, may be reversed or materially modified in the FINAL COURT OF APPEAL to which they have been carried-THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE, OF HER MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.