Take a case in illustration. Say you treated thus the Decalogue, or any part of it. Take the Sixth, Seventh, or Eighth Commandments: suppose you left them to be printed in the Prayer Book still; but by “a simple and positive enactment” set men free from obedience to them, or rather prohibited obedience to them, until further order be taken. Would they be thus repealed so far as human enactment goes, or would the Prayer Book still remain unchanged in respect to them? Or, still better, look to the Fourth Commandment—I say better, because the others are negative, and this is positive. “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.” Grant that it were still permitted to be printed in the Prayer Book, and recited in church; but then that there were “a simple and positive enactment” restraining men from keeping it holy; prescribing and requiring a uniformity of work, according to custom widely prevailing, reminding us that a careful observance of the Lords Day had become obsolete; that long custom to the contrary had abrogated the usage, and now it was expedient to restrain it. Would this be no alteration? Would this be no repeal of the Decalogue, or change in the Prayer Book? Oh! but the Bishop says the restraint is only “until further order be taken.” Well, what is the force of this? Whatever hope it may hold out in the future, is it any _qualification_ even, for the present? Surely not. Whilst the “simple and positive enactment” lasts, the former law is repealed. Besides, how much hope does it hold out, even for the future? If the Bishop’s temper and counsel are to prevail, I must affirm _none_. For we have seen that not merely the more violent enemies of Ritual, but even the Bishop himself, whom we must assume to represent its more moderate opponents, I say he himself is _not for waiting_ to give those who are certainly more nearly maintaining and obeying the law than those who clamour against them, even the chance of making good their position in the eye and mind of England. He will not do this at present, when there is at least a fair presumption that in the main the law is in their favour, but he will hold them out a dim hope of something turning up propitiously for them in the future; when he has thrown all his weight and influence into the scale against them, and when, if he can have his way, he will pass a “simple and positive enactment” to condemn them, and alter adversely their _status_ in the Church! He will have them put down now with the strong hand, by legislation framed expressly and on purpose to catch them for their obedience to the existing law; but they may console themselves with the thought that “all contemplation of a future when further order might be taken concerning the questions now under consideration would not be authoritatively excluded.” Well, put the consolation at its best; make what you may of it; avoid, if you can, bitterly laughing at such a mockery of hope. But even then, turn to the state of things if such an enactment take place; “a simple and positive enactment,” forbidding such “ornaments of the Church and ministers thereof” to be used “as were in use by the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI.;” and I ask again (for this is our real and great question) What would be the condition of the Book of Common Prayer? Would it be what it is now, or would it be changed? Would the present rule be “in abeyance”—that is, much unused, but still the law—or would it be repealed? What is the difference between the proposed remedy and repeal? It would be as if you made “a simple and positive enactment” that, “until further order,” no man should be arrested for debt; no man taken up for theft or violence; no man prosecuted for treason; no man hanged for murder. You may call this, abeyance of the law in those cases, but it is a misuse of the term. A thing is _in abeyance_ which for any cause happens to be _disused_, not when it is by enactment _forbidden to be used_; as a title _is in abeyance_, not when there is no heir (in which case it is _extinct_), but when the heir is unknown, or the pretensions of two or more claimants undetermined; when the heir is not _forbidden_, as the heir, to take it if he _be_ the heir, but only whilst there may be doubt whether he be the heir or not. But here, it is assumed by the very act of legislation that something is known to be the law, so that you despair of getting rid of it but by altering the law; and therefore that, though it is known to be the law, and for the very reason that it is known to be the law, it is to be prohibited and excluded. Can any man in his senses be made to believe that this is not repeal?