certainly as much at liberty to use the one as the other.
As a question of law, however, the matter is, I think, settled by the Rubrics, though the surplice is not actually specified. The Morning Service is to be read in the surplice, to the end of the Nicene Creed. Then follows the sermon. Singing is not prescribed: consequently singing was not intended at that part of the service, and it has only been introduced in order to allow the officiating minister to repair to the vestry. After sermon, the minister is to return to the Lord's Table, and read the Prayer for the Church Militant. This also must be read in the surplice. Now, as the Church does not prescribe singing, either before or after sermon, so as to allow of any pause for a change of dress, it appears scarcely possible to conceive, whatever the practice may be, that the surplice was not intended to be used in the pulpit, as well as at the communion table. As time is not allowed for a change of robes, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that one and the same dress was intended to be used throughout.
And why should a priest officiate in two dresses rather than a Bishop, who performs all the offices of the Church in the same habit. Whether he read prayers or preach, his dress is the same: and as the Church has not prescribed a second in the case of the Clergy, it is reasonable to suppose that she only contemplated one.[1]
- ↑ In College chapels, at least such is the case in Oxford, whenever a sermon is preached, the surplice is invariably used. If then the argument, that the Clergy are to preach in their academical dress, be sound, we might expect to see the adoption of the practice in the University. Yet it is only in the University Church, where the sermon is preached without the usual service, the audience
