'Use and custom, the best interpreters': an 18th century Anglican defence of imagery

Continuing with extracts from The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), we turn to its discussion of how the strictures of the Book of Homilies regarding imagery are to be understood in the context of the use and custom of the Church of England since the Reformation. The Ornaments of Churches quotes Sir Joseph Jekyll, a leading parliamentarian of the early 18th century, who became Master of the Rolls (a judicial role) in 1717.  

I believe it will be admitted, that no more is intended by that Subscription, but that the Doctrine contained in the Homilies is right in the Main, and not that every Sentence of them is so: For in this last Senfe, I believe, never any Divine subscribed the Articles [regarding the Homilies], and it will be hard to name any Preacher or Writer of Note, who has not contradicted some Passages or other in them; nay as to one, the general and  approved Practice of the Church is against: it; I mean that Passage which condemns the Use of Organs in Churches. 

Jekyll was, of course, entirely correct. The 'Homily on the Place and Time of Prayer' did indeed condemn the use of organs in churches, implying that they had been removed:

Alas gossip, what shall we now do at Church, since all the Saints are taken away, since all the goodly sights we were wont to have, are gone, since wee cannot hear the like piping, singing, chanting, and playing upon the organs that we could before. But (dearly beloved) we ought greatly to rejoice and give God thanks, that our Churches are delivered out of all those things which displeased God so sore.

Elizabeth's 1559 Injunctions, of course, had declared otherwise, ensuring that choral music contained in the reformed Church of England:

because in divers collegiate and also some parish churches heretofore there have been livings appointed for the maintenance of men and children to use singing in the church, by means whereof the laudable science of music has been had in estimation, and preserved in knowledge; the queen's majesty neither meaning in any wise the decay of anything that might conveniently tend to the use and continuance of the said science ... wills and commands, that first no alterations be made of such assignments of living, as heretofore has been appointed to the use of singing or music in the church, but that the same so remain.

The condemnation of the use of organs by the Homily, therefore, must be understood in the context of the use and custom of the Church of England since the Reformation, a use and custom in which the organ and choral music served, rather than obscured, common prayer. Jekyll is then further quoted on similarly understanding the Homilies strictures regarding imagery:

Contemporary Practice ... which is one of the best Expounders of the Meaning of any Law, did neither destroy all coloured Windows, though Images were in them, in the Queen’s Time, nor abstain from setting up of new, both in her and in King James his Time.

A footnote further expounds this understanding of the Homilies:

But though these Passages seem, prima Facie, to disclaim all Use of Organs, yet it is evident they ought to be understood with the same kind of Restrictions and Limitations, as those concerning Images. The general Use of Organs, no less than of Pictures in Church Windows, was permitted and approved of throughout the whole Kingdom, at the Time when the Homilies were authorized to be read; but all corrupt superstitious Abuses, and all idolatrous Practices, were absolutely abolished. 

Jekyll's point - itself, of course, of significance in view of his legal mind and judicial role - is then summarised regarding the interpretive role and significance of use and custom:

both in our Ecclesiastical Canons and in the Statutes of our Realm, Use and Custom, I apprehend, have been generally acknowledged to be the best Interpreters of their Words and Intentions, whenever any Thing is problematical or ambiguous. In the Case of painted Glass in the Windows of Churches, wherein Evangelic Histories have been delineated, the Practice hath been in their Favour ever since the Reformation. Should it therefore be conceived that either in the Doctrines of our Church, in the Commands of our Laws, there is any Thing really dubious in this Point, such an universal Practice should undoubtedly be admitted as the justest Explanation of both, and as the most authentic Approbation which could be given.

To exalt passages in the Homilies above the authorised usages of the Church of England since the Reformation is a strange form of textual fundamentalism, entirely ignoring how these texts were read, interpreted, and wisely moderated by Church and Crown, parliament and parishes over centuries. Use and custom consistently demonstrated how the Church of England since the Elizabethan Settlement employed modest, decent imagery in the decoration of its churches and cathedrals, understanding the condemnations of the Homilies to be directed at imagery which obscured rather than served the Gospel.