But the very definite wording of the Rubric is fatal to this interpretation.
1. In the first place it says nothing about the First Prayer Book; and its careful wording throughout makes it unlikely that it should say one thing when it meant another. This part of the Rubric was composed, not by Cosin, but in 1559; ten years only after the publication of the First Prayer Book. Elizabeth must have known the date of her brother’s accession, and of the First Prayer Book. What so simple as to refer to it?[1]
2. That First Prayer Book was not in use during any part whatever of the second year of Edward vi., and therefore the Ornaments of that Book could not possibly have been the ornaments used by authority
- ↑ Indeed Archbishop Sandys (then Bishop of Winchester) wrote at the time, ‘The Parliament draweth towards an end; the last Book of Service is gone through with a Proviso to retain the Ornaments which were used in the First and Second years of Ed. vi.’ Sandys himself disliked the ornaments and continued, ‘One gloss upon the text is that we shall not be forced to use them.’ It did not occur to him to gloss the text by a reference to the First Prayer Book.
splendour we receive from the light of Christ’s blessed Gospel. Bene B. Lutherus in formula missae sive Communionis, quam Witten-burgensi Ecclesiae anno superioris seculi vicesimo tertio praescripsit, Nee candelas (inquit) nec thurificationem prohibimus, sed nec exigimus; esto hoc liberum.
‘The particulars of these ornaments … are referred not to the fifth year of Ed. vi … for in that fifth year were all ornaments taken away (but a surplice only) … but to the second year of that king when his Service-book and Injunctions were in force by authority of parliament. And in those books many other ornaments are appointed; as, two lights to be set upon the altar or communion-table, a cope or vestment for the priest … and those ornaments of the Church, which by former laws, not then abrogated, were in use, by virtue of the statute 25 Henry VIII. [1533-4], and for them the provincial constitutions are to be consulted, such as have not been repealed.’
Thus Cosin refers the Rubric, not to the First Book only, but also to the statute of 1533, and to the Injunctions of the first year of Edward vi., 1547. Even the latter expressly forbade ‘the varying of any other rite or ceremony in the Mass (until other order shall be provided),’ which order was provided by the First Prayer Book, published in 1549. That Prayer Book, however, abolished very little (see p. 23). The mistake that people make in this connection is to confuse the ornaments mentioned by the First Book with those in use under the First Book; it is clearly the latter that Cosin means.
