order to "comprehend" the Puritan party, to the exclusion of the Romanists; and now its omission took place in order to comprehend the Romanists, at the risk of driving out the Puritans.

But why do we now find the "Declaration" restored to its old place? What was the motive of so remarkable a rehabilitation in 1662? It is easy to discern it. The circle of Church evolution and change had then returned into itself. In 1662 the old policy of conciliating and comprehending the Puritans instead of the Catholics was again in season-was again the key of the situation. To this policy the "Declaration on Kneeling" was again indispensable, and again, therefore, this most remarkable Rubric was restored, in substantially the same form, to its vacant place. Nor has its history yet exhausted itself. It has retained its recovered place through all the changes of the last two centuries, only to come forward into new significance and importance in our own day. The last chapter of its history was written only the other day in the long discussions, and the fateful decision of the Bennett case. Its simple but trenchant language was often quoted in the pleadings, and passed into the body of the judgment itself: "As concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, they are in heaven, not here. For it is against the truth of Christ's true natural body to be in more places than in one at one time.”

Nor is the history of "The Black Rubric," we may be sure, yet ended. We cannot, indeed, be so bold as to predict what the last chapters of its long, eventful story are likely to be, and whether it is its destiny to suffer a second ejectment, to be followed by a second restoration. But of one thing we may be quite sure that as long as the Protestant evangelical character of the Church of England is to be maintained, the “Declaration on Kneeling" can never again be cast out of the Liturgy; and that as long as it retains its long-recovered place, it will never be possible to deny that the written doctrine and ritual of the Church of England are those of a truly Reformed Church, through whatever phases of doctrinal decay and liturgical corruption the inside non-conformity of some of its many parties may have yet to pass. If it is true that the members of a Church may often be better than the written teachings and the authorized practice of the Church itself, the converse is no less true-that a Church may

often be purer in both respects than some of its parties and many of its members.

We do not write here polemically-we refer only to facts of history, past, present, and no doubt also future. In judging of all churches alike in Christendom, this palpable distinction between the written and the unwritten factors of their history, condition, and prospects, must be kept in view; and, though in all churches alike, present and growing corruption and declension are ill compensated by the purity of their standards, still it is the inestimable value of such pure standards that so long as these are preserved to a Church, though, to use the beautiful figure of Isaiah, there may be "a great forsaking" of these for a time, "yet in it there shall be a tenth, and it shall return; as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves."

ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III.

1. Note on the "Register of the Privy Council," or the "Council Book."

IN view of the use which is made in the narrative of this chapter of the "Register of the Privy Council," it is important to notice that though it is often referred to by historians under the name of the "Minutes of Council," it is not really a book of Minutes in the ordinary sense of that term, and was not intended to be a record of that character when the use of it was revived by Henry VIII. and his Council, after long discontinuance. "On the 10th of August, 1540," writes Sir Harris Nicolas, editor of "Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England," vol. vii., preface, pp. 1-13, "an order was taken and determined by his Majesty, with the advice of his Highness's Privy Council, that there should be a clerk attendant upon the said Council to write, enter, and register all such decrees, determinations, letters, and other such things as he should be appointed to enter in a book, to remain always as a ledger," &c. . . . "The Register of the Council of Henry VIII. therefore resembles the Book of the Council of the times of Henry V. and VI., in which the decrees rather than the deliberations of the Privy Council are entered, and it consequently differs materially from the original Minutes of the same period, which often contained the individual opinions of the members upon the business which happened to be discussed." In the reign of Edward VI. the "Register" or "Council Book "Council Book" continued to be drawn up in the same way as during the reign of Henry VIII. It contains no Minutes of the deliberations, or "of the individual opinions of the members," only the "orders," "warrants," "letters" of instructions, or other executive documents, in which the deliberations of Council issued. A Book of Minutes was also kept, and

is very often referred to in the "Register" as a distinct record; but unfortunately these Minutes appear to be hopelessly lost. It is no proof therefore that any particular subject of business was not brought before the Council, e.g., the Memorial or Confession of Knox and others on the subject of kneeling in the Sacrament, that no mention is made of the incident in the "Register" or Council Book. All that is to be looked for there is what is actually found-the " Order" for the publication of the "Declaration on Kneeling" in the Prayer-book about to issue to the Church. The "Minutes of Council," containing all the deliberations which preceded the "Order," were a distinct and additional record, the loss of which can only be regretted, not repaired.

2. On certain Writings of John A'Lasco which have a bearing upon the English Reformation.

The earliest in date of these writings is a letter or memorial addressed by John A'Lasco, as superintendent of the three foreign Protestant congregations in London to Archbishop Cranmer, in which he earnestly presses for his consent and sanction to the introduction among these congregations of the administration of the Lord's Supper to communicants in a sitting posture, and without the use of the vestments common in England. It was first published, without Cranmer's name, in Gabbema's "Epistolae Illustrium Virorum," A.D. 1669, and was reprinted by Gerdesius in his "Scrinium Antiquarium," tom. ii. pars. ii., who had no difficulty in perceiving that it was to Cranmer that it must have been addressed, and in the year 1551. "Neque autem est dubium," he writes, "quin, licet Gabbema eum non nominet, Thomas Cranmerus sit idem ille ad quem haec epistola est data, quippe quod ex universo ejus argumento satis conficitur." The reasonings of this long and interesting paper bear a strong resemblance to those of Knox in the Confession presented to the Privy Council. The following sentences may suffice as a specimen of the whole :

"Si negari non potest Christum Dominum mensae accumbentem accumbentibus etiam suis apostolis coenam suam administrasse, sic ut accubitus ille a parte totius actionis illius mysticae excludi non possit, Quae Ratio nos movet ut eam actionis Do

minicae partem ab ipsius institutionis in mandato illo (Hoc facite) excludere quam includere malimus? Equidem rectius fecerimus si id mandato huic includamus, quod Evangelistae ipsi in parte actionis memorant, quam si id nulla authoritate nullaque justa ratione innixi excludamus.

"Cum sciamus horribilem esse in Papae Ecclesia Coenae Dominicae profanationem, atque ipsius doctrinam ali confirmarique genuum ista in coenae usu flexione, quam adhuc plerisque locis observatam fuisse videmus; et nostri officii sit publice testari modis omnibus nos ab ea idolatria abhorrere, adeoque et illi adversari quantum omnino possumus; nulla vero esse possit aptior testificatio alieni animi nostri ab illa idolatria quam publicus in Coena Ecclesiae Consessus, ab ipso praesertim Christi exemplo apostolicaque observatione petitus, merito illum sane instaurare observareque deberemus."

We gather from this paper that A'Lasco had hitherto been unsuccessful in bringing over Cranmer to these views, and that the latter had made use of the same answers to his arguments as those which we find in Cranmer's letter to the Privy Council in reply to Knox; so that the subject was no new one to the Archbishop at the date of that letter, and he had already fully made up his mind upon it in 1551, although he appears, on other grounds, to have at length acceded to the earnest and repeated requests of A'Lasco and his numerous flock, which in truth they were entitled to claim under the terms of the King's grant of the church of Austin Friars.

In the following year, 1552, John A'Lasco published an important work, entitled "Brevis et dilucida de Sacramentis Ecclesiae Christi Tractatio," to which was appended a reprint of the "Consensus Tigurinus" of 1549-the sacramental doctrine of which the Polish reformer cordially approved. The work was addressed to Edward VI. in a dedication, of which a considerable portion will be found translated in Strype's "Ecclesiastical Memorials of King Edward VI.," vol. ii. part ii. pp. 34-36. The book is now very rare, but a copy of it exists in the Grenville Library, British Museum. It appeared at the critical time when the first Prayerbook of Edward was undergoing revision, and it must have contributed much to prepare the minds of the Church's rulers for the changes which were soon after introduced into the Communion office. Its influence also is very palpably seen in some parts of