III.

JOHN HOOPER AND THE ORIGIN OF THE VESTMENTS

QUESTION, 1550.

JOHN HOOPER, the distinguished preacher, having been nominated Bishop of Gloucester early in 1550, refused to be consecrated in the usual episcopal dress of rochet and chimere, with the cope or chasuble for more sacred services, besides the surplice. This was the prologue to one part of the great ecclesi

1 The chimere was a long scarlet robe, worn loose down to the feet; and the rochet a fine white linen vestment covering the shoulders. The cope is another The great medieval cathedrals were form of cappa, the low-Latin for great coat. cold, and the clergy kept on their over-coats, like sensible men, for comfort in officiating. Gradually a mystical reason grew up around the usage, and the dress acquired a symbolical meaning.

For the benefit of some of our readers, it may be well to indicate the mysteries of a full ecclesiastical millinery wardrobe. Beginning from the INSIDE, we find these seven vestments. (1) The cassock, or long, close-fitting, black, sleeved priests' dress, with broad cincture round the waist. (2) Over this, the amice (amictus), an oblong square of fine white linen round neck and shoulders, tied across the breast. (4) The stole, or richly embroidered (3) Over this, the alb, or long white tunic. SCARF round the neck, and hanging to the knees. (5) The maniple, something buttoned to the sleeve of the alb. (6) The chasuble, which is THE vestment par excellence, resplendent with ornaments called orphreys, and adapted in colours to the season, for which on less solemn occasions (7) the cappa, or COPE, is substituted. Dean Stanley's famous passage in his Christian Institutes reveals the sublunary side of this goodly wardrobe:-"They are the dresses of the Syrian peasant or the Roman gentleman, retained by the clergy when they had been left off by the rest of society, just as the Bishops long preserved the last relics of the flowing wigs of the time of Charles II.; as the Blue-coat boys recall the common dress of children under Edward VI.; as Quakers retain the sober costume of the Commonwealth ; as a clergyman's bands,-which have been regarded as symbolical of the cloven tongues, of the two Testaments, of the tables of the Law,-are but the remains of the turndown collars of the time of James I. Their very names bear outward witness to the fact that there was originally no outward distinction whatever between clergy and laity. They thus strike, if they have any historical significance at all, at the root of the vast hierarchical system, of which they are now made the badges and ornaments. The alb is but the white shirt or tunic, still kept up in the white dress of the Pope, which used to be worn by every peasant next his skin, and in southern countries was often his only garment. A variety of it, introduced by the Emperors Commodore and Heliogobalus, with long sleeves, was, from the country The pall is the pallium, the whence they brought it, called the dalmatica.' woollen cloak, generally the mark of philosophers, wrapped round their shirt like a plaid or shawl. The over-coat in the days of the Roman empire, as in ours, was constantly changing its fashion and name; and the slang designations by which it was known have been perpetuated in ecclesiastical vocabulary and are used with

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astical drama in England's history. To an inconsiderate mind, it may seem amazing that a question of dress,-a matter of man-millinery,-should have played so prominent a part in English Church Reform. Yet not without reason, if without sufficient justification, did this subject of ministerial attire in discharging official duties assume portentous dimensions. Things are not what they seem; and when we look into causes and cease judging according to mere outward appearances, we have little difficulty in understanding the deep meaning of such a controversy. These garments (whatever their name. and origin) were understood to have been adopted from, and moulded on, the fashion of the Jewish priesthood's attire, and were held in the Romish Church to be emblematic of the sacrificial efficacy of a real Christian priesthood inherent in the clergy. SACERDOTAL and NON-SACERDOTAL views of the ministry were struggling together for a foothold in the English Establishment. By the sure instinct which sees loyalty or disloyalty in a coloured ribbon, or that associates great issues and principles with a flag or other regimentals, did both parties fasten on the vestments question as vital. The Wars of the Roses-red or white, the blue banner of the Covenant, or any other emblematic device before which the blood of thousands has been shed, are but exemplifications of the same instinct. To those whose anxiety centred in a pure Gospel, and who sought guarantees for having it ministered in scriptural simplicity, the question whether any priestly element should attach to the clergy was primary and fundamental. Like the larger, though later, controversy on Church polity, with which it got to be intermingled and ultimately absorbed, this battle of the vest

bated breath, as if speaking of things too sacred to be mentioned. One such overcoat was the cape, or cope, also called pluviale, the water-proof.' Another was the chasuble, or casula, the little house,' as the Roman labourer called the smock-frock in which he shut himself up when out at work in bad weather. Another was the caracalla, or caraca, or casaca, the cassock brought by the Emperor, who derived his own surname from it when he introduced it from France.' The surplice is the barbarous garment, the over-fur,' super-pellicium, only used in the North, where it was drawn over the skins of beasts in which our German and Celtic ancestors were clothed. It was the common garb-the white coat (cotta candens)-worn by the regular clergy, not only in church, but in ordinary life. No thought had entered the mind of the Church, even at that time (4th century), of investing even the most sacred personages with any other than ordinary dresses."

ments had several beginnings in Edward's reign and later. But it found its foremost exponent and embodiment in the martyr-Bishop. Hooper and Knox were kindred spirits, and both of them were thoroughgoing and advanced Reformers. "The only difference between Hooper's puritanism and Knox's was, that Hooper was an Episcopalian Puritan, and accepted a bishopric (on conditions), while Knox was a Presbyterian Puritan, and declined one altogether." Hooper's episcopacy, however, was of the mildest type; and he may be reckoned the father and founder of those who, under the name of moderate Puritans, Calvinians, Low Churchmen, or Evangelicals, have kept by the National Establishment, loving its devotional forms, and yet striving to repress its worst features, by enhancing its Protestant aspect, increasing its spiritual efficiency, and enlarging its Reformation principles. There was no one more steeped in these views than John Hooper, or more disposed to carry them out to their uttermost limit. Originally a Cistercian monk, he had eagerly imbibed the new doctrines; and being in danger on the passing of the Six Articles law, he had escaped to Zurich, and studied under Zwingli's noble successor, Henry Bullinger -a name that, however it may have been ignored, is not only that of a remarkable man, but of one who, above all other foreign divines, was foster-father and sponsor of the earlier and purer English Reformers and Reformation, as the Zurich letters remain to show. Some extracts from these will sufficiently indicate Hooper's mind and position. Writing to Bullinger in December, 1549, he says:

"Although our vessel is dangerously tossed about on all sides, yet God in His Providence holds the helm, and raises up more favourers of His word in his Majesty's Councils, who, with activity and courage, defend the cause of Christ. The Archbishop of Canterbury entertains right views as to the nature of Christ's presence in the Supper, and is now very friendly towards myself. He has some Articles of Religion to which all preachers and lecturers in divinity are required to subscribe, and in these his sentiments respecting the Eucharist are pure and religious, and like

1 Lorimer's Knox, p. 34.

These, which we have cited often already, were in part first printed by Burnet (History of Reformation), but now in full, and admirably edited for the Parker Society, along with the Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, 2 vols.

your own in Switzerland. We desire nothing more for him than a firm and manly spirit. Like all the other Bishops in this country, he is too fearful about what may happen to him!"

In the following March he writes about Ridley :-

"We do not water and plant in vain. There has lately been appointed a new Bishop of London, a pious and learned man, if only his new dignity do not change his conduct. He will, I hope, destroy the altars of Baal as he did heretofore in his Church when he was Bishop of Rochester."?

And then he protests against the first or unrevised service book, as

"So very defective, of doubtful construction, and, in some respects, indeed, manifestly impious. I am so much offended with that book, and not without abundant reason, that if not corrected, I neither can nor will communicate with the Church in the administration of the Lord's Supper."

Yet he adds, "Many altars have been destroyed in this city since I came here;" and he describes the "most wonderful and numerous concourse of people" attending his ministry, for he had speedily become the most popular preacher of London. His advanced views and his pronounced style of enunciating them were quite to the taste of the strongly Protestant young King; and had they been spared to act together a few years longer, the Royal Supremacy would probably have been modified, the Prelatic theory in its high form definitely renounced, a wise toleration established, and the Reformation consistently carried out. For in all these particulars Hooper held most distinct and enlightened views of his own; in some of them he was much in advance of his time: while his spiritual ideas and tastes were altogether Puritan. To his lasting honour be it said, that he had thoroughly grasped the principle of religious

1 This itself is sufficient to prove, what has often been doubted or mystified, that the view of Cranmer and of the English Communion Office, which he revised with his own hand, is exactly that of the Helvetic Consensus of Bullinger and Calvin, and therefore of Bucer, Knox, etc.

* For Ridley's injunctions at his first visitation of his Rochester diocese in 1550, that curates, churchwardens, and questmen should "set up the Lord's board after the form of an honest table decently covered," see Burnet's History of Reforma

toleration, and was able clearly to enunciate it, and was ready to act on it long before it had dawned on other minds. Thus he writes in one of his earliest treatises :

"As touching the superior power of earth, it is not unknown to all of them who have readen and marked the Scripture, that it appertaineth nothing unto their office to make any law to govern the conscience of their subjects in religion. Christ's kingdom is a spiritual one. In this neither King nor Pope may govern. Christ alone is the Governor of His Church, and the only lawgiver."1

His views of Church polity and prelacy are equally decisive,

"God hath bound His Church, and all men that be of His Church, unto the Word of God. It is bound unto no title or name of men, nor unto any ordinary succession of bishops or priests; longer than they teach the doctrine contained in Scripture, no man should give hearing unto them."

Or again,

"Christ and His Apostles be grandfathers in age to the doctors and masters in learning. Repose thyself only on the Church that they have taught thee by Scripture."

He is not less pronounced and explicit on "The form how to celebrate the Lord's Supper," declaring,

"The outward preparation, the more simple it is, the better it is, and the nearer unto the institution of Christ and His Apostles. If the minister have bread, wine, a table, and a fair table-cloth, let him not be solicitous nor careful for the rest, seeing they be no things brought in by Christ, but by Popes; unto whom, if the King's Majesty and honourable Council have good conscience, they must be restored again; and great shame it is for a noble king, emperor, or magistrate, contrary to God's word, to detain or keep from the devil and his minister any of their goods or treasure, as the candles, vestments, crosses, altars! For if they be kept in the Church as things indifferent, at length they will be maintained as things necessary."

1 Early Writings of Bishop Hooper, p. 280. (Parker Society, 1843.) And this was no mere passing sentiment; it grew with him in force, till in one of his last letters, written from prison to the Convocation, he rings it out in this fashion: "Cogitate apud vos ipsos, an hoc sit piorum ministrorum ecclesiæ officium vi, metu et pavore corda hominum in vestras partes compellere. Profecto Christus non ignem, non gladium, non carceres, non vincula, non violentiam, non bonorum confiscationem, non reginæ majestatis terrorem media organa constituit quibus veritas verbi sui mundo promulgaretur; sed miti ac diligenti prædicatione evangelii sui,” etc.—Later Writings of Hooper, p. 386. (Parker Soc., 1852.)