ATTACKS ON THE LAMBETH JUDGMENT.
[TO THE EDICOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' SIR,—A friend has called my attention to two severe articles in your paper, in which I am misrepresented as to matters of fact. That, I submit, is beyond the bounds of legitimate criticism. For example, you say that I "affirm the contrary" of your position,—viz., that the Injunctions of 1559 enjoined an " altar-wise " position of the table. That is a complete misapprehension. For I rely on the fact that the Injunc- tions of 1559 were of even date with the Prayer-Book of 1559, to prove that the " north-side rubric " contained in the- latter had from the very first a recognised reference to the short " side " of the table. It was precisely on that ground that I complained of the Lambeth Judgment for concealing the statement made by their own. earliest voucher—viz., the " Sur- vey of the Book of Common Prayer "—that the Injunctions of 1559 ordered the "table to be placed like an altar." Also, I complained that in a short quotation, they had omitted twelve- words out of twenty-six without any mark of elision, though the omitted words proved a north-south placing of the table- to have been the known use of " the Surveyor's " own day. The very point of these strictures lay in the fact that I agreed with Laud in thinking that from the first the north-side rubric had related to tables understood to be commonly, if- not uniformly, placed crosswise : so far was it from being true,. as twice stated in the Lambeth Judgment, that Laud allowed' Williams's statements as to a continuous lengthwise usage " since the Reformation." On the contrary, Laud traversed the allegation of fact, and was supported in so doing by both. Convocations. Again, you unfairly describe my comments on the dangerous vagueness of the Lambeth ruling as to a secret" mixing of the chalice, as being a " gibe." But I am completely borne oat by one of the Lambeth Assessors. Speaking en cathedra, in his Diocesan Synod on October 31st, 1888, Bishop. John Wordsworth said :—" There was a way for total ab- stainers to meet the difficulty,—viz., by mixing a large pro- portion of water with the wine." (Salisbury Diocesan Gazette,. 1888, p. 146.) In 1851 I visited St. Ninian's, Perth, several times. On those occasions, the celebrant stood in the ante-Communion Service at the north end, but facing eastward,—a use which I have since seen adopted elsewhere, but which impressed me
much at the time. I made a diagram of it in a memorandum- book still in my possession, so that I can speak confidently as to the facts. You, however, misrepresent me as having described a "northern position " as being in use ; my actual words were " eastward, at the north side."
You say :—" North side' is a common technical expression for the north-west corner of the altar. It was so used before the Reformation, and the usage continued after the Reformation." Fortunately for me, this theory is condemned as untenable and untrue in the Lambeth Judgment itself, at p. 42 of Macmillan's edition.
The Consecration Service proposed by the Norfolk Nonjuror Tisdale in 1703, so far from being evidence of the mind of the Church, was superseded in actual use by an authorised form put forth shortly after by the Upper House of Canterbury Convocation (Cardwell, Synod, II., 819). Every one of the points you rely upon in Tisdale's form was struck out of this authorised form. Moreover, Tisdale was not chaplain, as you say, to the reviser of the Prayer-Book (Hugh Lloyd, who died in 1667), but to William Lloyd, who was at that time the recognised leader of the Nonjuring schism.
Your quotation from " Jeremy Taylor" is irrelevant for two reasons. First, Taylor was not in any way connected with " the revision of the Prayer-Book ; " second, he never published this apocryphal manuscript, which first saw the light in 1848. The evidence of its genuineness is, moreover, of the slenderest; and there is no reason to think that Jeremy Taylor himself ever adopted the Eastward position at the Lord's table, notwithstanding this curious and, I will add, semi-pagan treatise on what the writer calls " the practices of the High Church." Probably, like Wheatly, the writer, who- ever he was, was content with a theoretical advocacy of the practice at the entry of and exit from church, and at services other than Holy Communion, while, like Wheatly, continuing to face south at the " Communion time." This was so common, that such inconsistency need not surprise us, any more than the fact that those who now advocate eastward worship on general grounds, nevertheless confine their own adoption of it to the Mass time.
As to "Oughton," it is simply an error to say that he gives consecration services " in which not only the Eastward Posi- tion is prescribed, but altar-lights and the mixed chalice." He does not so much as hint at "altar-lights," and, as Mr. Droop publicly pointed out in 1875 (I adopt his words) :—
"After carefully looking through the services in Oughton (which, by-the-way, are all from the one Diocese of London), I have failed to find any evidence whatever of the use of the Eastward Position during the Communion Service. On the other hand, it will appear (Oughton, Vol. II., p. 268) that Mountaigne (1622) stood a Septentrionali mensal parte (northwards of the table) at the beginning of the Communion Service, and (p. 274) that Laud's chaplains knelt (1631) unus ex aquilonari, alter as boreali parte, and (p. 258) that Gibson (1729) stood in the same position ex boreali parte dicta menace even for the consecration' service, where Andrews, Laud, and Wren, being free from the rubrics of the Com- munion Service, admittedly adopted the Eastward Position."
May I point out also that you were quite unwarranted in saying that "the rubric which I stigmatise as fraudulent is in the book of 1552 "? For I had printed the two side by side for comparison, and Wheatly's remarks on the importance of this (unauthorised) change in 1559 as to the " accustomed place" are certainly just. He did not know that both this rubric and the "ornaments rubric" (so called) of 1559, as printed, were illegitimate and illegal substitutions for the 1552 rubrics, respectively, which had just been re-enacted by Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. Lord Selborne, Mr. James Parker, the Privy Council in their Ridsdale Judgment, and Canon Swainson, are among those who would have had to share with me the displeasure of " Great Eliza" for pointing out that it was ultra vires for even the Queen herself to tamper with the text of a book just enacted by Parliament. The alteration of the Purchas judgment made by the Lambeth Court cannot be justified by the alleged necessities of the oratio obliqua: for the change (which they did not make) of " is " into " was " could alone satisfy that require- ment ; whereas the illegitimate alteration of " has " into " had " transfers the inquiry from the existing usages of living churches into a mere collecting of conjectural suppositions from rival antiquaries. Lastly, let me say that I did not rest the illegality of the order of 1633 upon the Repeal in 1554 of the 26th Hen. VIII., cap. 1. The word " because " is your own, and has no counterpart in my argument. I merely instanced the lack of Parliamentary authority as one of several specified points of difference between two orders of the Crown which the Lambeth Judges supposed to be exact parallels. If any of your readers take up my pamphlet, they will be astonished to find that I did not contend it was illegal to place the table crosswise, but that the " illegality " con- sisted in forbidding its removal at "the Communion time." In that respect, the order of 1633 was " in violation of the rubric, injunction, and canon," all of which contemplated or prescribed such a removal. The undue length of this letter prevents my dealing with the attitude of the Bishops at the Savoy Conference ; but the subject is discussed from my point of view, and very ably, too, by " An English Presbyter " in " Questions Suggested by the Lambeth Judgment," Part II., just published by Mr. Vivid', of Maidstone, which answers by anticipation every one of your strictures on this head.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[To correct Mr. Tomlinson's errors seriatim would require another article, and that is not necessary, inasmuch as he merely opposes assertions to proofs. We will therefore test his trustworthiness by a few crucial examples. In his pam- phlet (p. 7) he says that " it would be perfectly legal, under the new ruling of the Spiritual' Court, to administer five drops of wine, secretly mixed by somebody, somehow, in a flagon of water !" The mark of exclamation in this quota- tion is Mr. Tomlinson's. We characterised the assertion as an irreverent gibe. The Lambeth Judgment says of the mixed chalice, that " the wine is the dominant part," and that the mixture means " putting a little water to the wine." Mr. Tomlinson, without quoting the Judgment, says that it sanc- tions "five drops of wine, secretly mixed by somebody, some- how, in a flagon of water," and he marks his own deliberate perversion by a note of exclamation. He now quotes Bishop John Wordsworth as saying that "there was a way for total abstainers to meet the difficulty,—viz., by mixing a large proportion of water with the wine." But what has the private opinion of Bishop John Wordsworth to do with the Lambeth Judgment ? And does Mr. Tomlinson seriously maintain that " a large proportion of water " is equivalent to " five drops of wine in a flagon of water" It is waste of time to reason with a man who can argue in this fashion. On the strength of having " visited St. Ninian's, Perth, several times in 1851," he asserts that "the celebrant stood in the ante-Communion Service at the north end, facing eastward." The present writer attended the services at St_ Ninian's every Sunday for eight months of that year, and is therefore in a position to give a flat contradiction to Mr. Tom- linson's memory. A " north-end position, facing eastward," is, moreover, a position (except at the Creed and Gloria), that has never existed anywhere but in Mr. Tomlinson's imagina- tion. " Adopting " the extraordinary inaccuracies of Mr_ Droop, Mr. Tomlinson affirms that there is not in Oughton's collection of special services "any evidence whatever of the use of the Eastward Position during the Communion Service.' We refer our readers to Oughton's " Judiciorum," Vol. IL, pp. 254, 266, 268, 273, 274, where they will find abundant disproof of Mr. Droop's audacious assertion. Let one example suffice. In a form of service given by Oughton, the celebrant,. " genibus flexis, et manibus versus orientem in ccelum levatis, hujusmodi orationem Bolus habuit," &c. Jeremy Taylor's tract is included in the standard edition of his works, the editor of which, aided by competent experts, including the late Bodleian Librarian, had no doubt of its genuineness. As to the Savoy Conference, the Bishops' answer can only mean the Eastward Position, and so the Puritans understood it- The "Forms of Consecration of Churches," &c., which Tisdale, published, were, as he states, " no novelties, but forms. generally used since the Reformation," and he was not chaplain to the Nonjuring Bishop Lloyd, but to his namesake of Worcester, who, so far from being a Nonjuror, was Almoner to William III. All that Mr. Tomlinson says on that subject is absolutely incorrect, and there is nothing in Cardwell to- justify any of his assertions, but rather the contrary. Tisdale certifies that one of the " Forms of Consecration " which he gives was used by Archbishop Bancroft in 1685. In that service, the Bishop is " standing before the midst of the altar," and his two assistants at the "north and south sides," as. we explain these expressions in our next paragraph. Yet Mr. Tomlinson declares dogmatically that the Eastward Position was unknown till the reign of Queen Anne !
Another correspondent is entitled to some of our reasons we can only give samples) for saying that "`north side' is a common technical expression for the north-west corner of the altar," both before and after the Reformation. The Sarum and Bangor missals have the following rubric :—" Deinde acciperit textum, scilicet librum Evangeliorum, et hnmilans se ad sacer- dotem stantem coram altari, versa facie ad miridiem its dicat : Jube, domine, benedicere.' " Here we have the deacon looking southward at the celebrant "standing before the altar" and asking him for his blessing. The rubric in the Hereford missal is the same, except that the proposition is ante instead of -coram, and that the deacon, for a• reason to be presently explained, looks northwards. In the will of Maud, Lady Manley, in 1438, there is the following direction :—" My body to be buried in the church, on the south aide of the altar, where the Gospels are usually read." But the Gospels were never read at either end of the altar. Down to the close of the fifteenth century the Gospel was usually read on the south side of the altar,—that is, at the south-west part of the front; the right and left of the altar being taken from the arms of the celebrant. After the fifteenth century, the arms of the Crucifix decided the position, and reversed the practice. There is abundant evidence that " side " retained this meaning after the Reformation. The Coronation Service is an instance. The Queen listened to the sermon sitting in her chair " on the south side of the altar." But a rubric which immediately follows says :—" On the south side, east of the Queen's chair, nearer to the altar, stand the Dean and Prebendaries of West- minster." Here "south side" clearly means in front of the south-west corner of the altar, and a picture of the Coronation in our possession puts the matter beyond a doubt. The argu- ment of the Lambeth Judgment on this point seems to ns the only weak point in that most able and most learned document. —En. Spectator.]
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