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 A LETTER 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. AND EIGHT EEV. 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, 
 
 ON THE XATK 
 
 PURCHAS JUDGMENT." 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM GUESLEY, 
 
 VICAE OP ALL saints', BOTNE RILL. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOSEPH MASTERS, 78, NEW BOND STREE'l' 
 
 MDrCCT.XXl.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED BY J. MASTERS AND SON, 
 
 ALBION BUILDINOS, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE, E.C.
 
 A LETTER, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 My Lord Bishop, 
 
 I hope your Lordship will pardon my boldness in 
 addressing you. I should not have ventured on such 
 a step, but that I have been specially requested to do 
 so, perhaps because I am a surviving member of the 
 old Church party of thirty or forty years back, and 
 have not followed altogether in the steps of the more 
 modern Ritualists, though admiring their great zeal 
 and energy. 
 
 The special point on which I desire to address your 
 Lordship is the decision of the Court of Final Appeal 
 in respect to the position of the Celebrant at the Holy 
 Eucharist. If anything is more likely than another 
 to cause a disruption or large secession from the Eng- 
 lish Church, or to cause many attached members to 
 waver in their allegiance, and cast in their lot with 
 those who desire disestablishment and consequent dis- 
 endowment, it would be the carrying into effect the 
 decree of the Court on this point. Such is the state 
 of feeling, I am persuaded many men would give up all 
 their worldly position, or even submit to martyrdom, 
 rather than alter a practice, which as they believe in-
 
 volves a sacred truth. And this is not only the feel- 
 ing of many of the Clergy, but of a large body of 
 sincere and earnest laymen also. 
 
 It will be said, perhaps, Tf the Judgment is accord- 
 ing to law we cannot help it. Those who will not 
 submit must take the consequence. 
 
 Allow me then very briefly to advert to the merits 
 of the question. Your Lordship will, I think, agree 
 with me, that all our great English Divines, or a large 
 number of the chief among them, regard the Holy 
 Eucharist as a Feast upon a Sacrifice, not a Sacrifice 
 in the sense of continual slaying the Holy Victim, but 
 in the sense of continually presenting to the Father 
 the Victim once slain for the sins of the world. 
 
 To give one instance out of very many : Bishop 
 Taylor, in his Holy Living, says at the time of the 
 Oblation : *' We sinners, Thy unworthy servants, in 
 remembrance of Thy Hfe-giving Passion, Thy Cross 
 and Thy pains, Thy death and Thy burial, ... do 
 humbly present unto Thee the present Sacrifice of 
 remembrance and thanksgiving." Similar expressions 
 may be found in many other of our old divines. The 
 notion was, that as the great Sacrifice of the Cross 
 was typified and prefigured by the sacrifices of the 
 Mosaic law, so it was commemorated and applied to 
 the souls of men by the Holy Eucharist, which they 
 scruple not to call a Sacrifice. 
 
 But in so great a mystery how can it be expected 
 that all men should understand alike ? The mind of 
 man is not capable of grasping its infinite greatness. 
 In eflfect some men, as we know, especially dwell on 
 the Feast or Communion, some more on the Sacrifice. 
 These diff^erent views naturally superinduce some dif- 
 ference of ritual. Those who feel strongly the neces- 
 
 , uiuc :
 
 sity of setting forth the idea of Sacrifice, prefer to 
 stand at the centre of the altar, in the act of conse- 
 crating, as a recognized symbol of the doctrine. Those 
 who principally dwell upon the Communion celebrate 
 at the side or end. There is another class of persons 
 who while recognizing equally the Feast and the Sa- 
 crifice, yet believe that the doctrine of the Sacrifice 
 had been unduly obscured of late, and celebrate at 
 the centre of the altar, in order to bring back to its 
 right place the too much neglected doctrine. 
 
 What I desire respectfully to present before your 
 Lordship is this, — that our Church in her formularies 
 purposely allows both these opinions and both these 
 forms of ritual. Let me quote the rubric before the 
 Prayer of Consecration : '* When the Priest, standing 
 before the Table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine, 
 that he may with the more readiness and decency 
 break the Bread before the people, and take the Cup 
 into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecra- 
 tion." Here the Priest is directed to stand before the 
 Table. To require him to stand at the north end 
 would be more inconvenient, as w^ell as contrary to 
 general usage. Observe also particularly, that it is 
 not said that he shall return to the north side. Some 
 of the Clergy having arranged the necessary things 
 return to the north end for the Consecration, but some 
 do not. Now why should the Court restrict the 
 liberty which has been so long allowed ? Why should 
 they impose a rule which the Church does not im- 
 pose ? for it is evident that no precise rule is given. 
 Is it not almost certain that the framers of the rubric 
 have purposely left it open ? There were the same 
 parties in the Church then as now. It was surely 
 meant to include them both.
 
 This view, I think, is corroborated by an expression 
 which we find in the prayer after the Communion. 
 We beseech our Heavenly Father " graciously to re- 
 ceive our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." To 
 this one party would attach precisely the same mean- 
 ing as " the Eucharistic Sacrifice ;" but others would 
 maintain that it meant no more than that praise and 
 thanksgiving were offered. I do not express any 
 opinion as to which party is right. In fact, I be- 
 lieve that both are right and both are wrong ; both 
 hold a true doctrine, but both have a tendency to 
 exclude an equally true one. But what I ask your 
 Lordship to consider is, whether this almost necessary 
 defect in the apprehension of so mysterious a subject 
 was not purposely provided for by the compilers of our 
 formularies, and whether it was not their deliberate 
 intention to include both within the Church. In the 
 case of Mr. Voysey, recently decided, it was very pro- 
 minently set forth by the Court that when passages 
 in Holy Scripture, or in the formularies of the Church, 
 are doubtful, it would not be just to enforce one alter- 
 native to the exclusion of the other. Does not the 
 decision in the Purchas case seem to go directly against 
 this principle, and peremptorily to decide a point which 
 has notoriously been taken differently by different 
 parties ? 
 
 I observe that in the recent judgment it is said, 
 "Their Lordships incline to think that the rubric was 
 purposely framed so as not to direct or insist on a 
 change of position in the minister which might be 
 needless." But surely when their Lordships express 
 so much doubt and hesitation, it is but just that the 
 defendant should have the benefit of the doubt, and 
 that a number of earnest and zealous men should not
 
 be compelled to adopt a practice which they conscien- 
 tiously disapprove, when the whole question is so diffi- 
 cult of decision. 
 
 There is another part of the recent judgment which 
 will cause very great uneasiness, — in fact, will dis- 
 please and annoy all parties equally, — nay, it will 
 cause worse than annoyance. It will give a colour of 
 ridicule to the whole affair. While the Ritualists are 
 debarred from wearing their favourite vestments, the 
 Low Church party will have to wear the surplice 
 which they so much dislike in the pulpit, and what 
 will be still more annoying to many cathedral digni- 
 taries, the long disused copes. Already the secular 
 press turns the matter into ridicule. Would it not be 
 well to devise some means to prevent all this scandal 
 and irreverence ? 
 
 If I am rightly informed, the action of the Court as 
 it stands at present is simply in the form of advice to 
 the Queen to pronounce judgment. Whether judg- 
 ment has been pronounced, I am not aware. Pro- 
 bably Her Majesty consults on the matter with her 
 constitutional advisers before pronouncing. In so 
 very grave a case, pregnant with so much danger, would 
 it not be competent for your Lordship, in conjunction 
 with other Bishops, to address the Queen and request 
 her to pause before she ratifies the judgment ? If, 
 unfortunately, it should already be completed, the 
 only remedy seems to be that which many persons 
 have long hoped for, namely, the action of Convoca- 
 tion and Parliament, by which these matters may be 
 well considered, and settled on a satisfactory basis, as 
 in the last settlement of 1662, the points in question 
 being first debated and passed in Convocation, and 
 then confirmed by Act of Parliament, and the rubrics
 
 8 
 
 of the Prayer Book be revised by competent and un- 
 deniable authority, which all would be ready to ac- 
 cept. 
 
 If the matter rests as it is, and the recent judgment 
 is insisted on, a greater blow will be struck at the 
 unity and permanence of the Church, than any which 
 recent days have witnessed. It would be well for the 
 authorities both in Church and State to consider 
 whether they may not be making the same sort of 
 fatal blunder which has caused so much loss to the 
 Church, by the expulsion of the Wesleyans from her 
 communion. Surely it would be the wiser course to 
 endeavour to conciliate and retain a body of earnest 
 and devoted men, rather than outrage their feelings 
 and drive them from us. 
 
 I have the honour to be 
 
 Your Lordship's faithful servant, 
 WILLIAM GRESLEY. 
 
 PHIXTKD BY J. MASTERS AND SON, ALBION BUILDINGS. BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.
 
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