Nothing, it might be imagined, could be more inoffensive than the use of the sacred monogram.  But there were some at the beginning of the period, both Dissenters and Puritan Churchmen, who looked very suspiciously at it.  They ranked it, together with bowing at the name of Jesus and turning eastward at the Creed, among Romish proclivities.  ‘What mean,’ Barnes had said towards the close of the previous century, ’these rich altar-cloths, with the Jesuits’ cypher embossed upon them?’[917] So also that worthy man, Ralph Thoresby, had expressed himself ‘troubled’ to see at Durham, among other ‘superstitions’ ’richly embroidered I.H.S. upon the high altar.’[918]

In Charles the First’s time the Ritualistic party in the Church of England used sometimes to place upon the altars of their churches crucifixes and an array of candlesticks.[919] After the Restoration the former were never replaced.  The two candles, however, interpreted as symbolical of the divine and human nature of the Lord, were by no means unfrequent in the churches of the last century, especially during its earlier years.  Mr. Beresford Hope speaks of an old picture in his possession, of Westminster Abbey, referred to the beginning of the eighteenth century, in which candles are represented burning upon the altar.[920] This, at all events, was most unusual.  Bishop Hoadly, writing against the Ritualistic practices of some congregations, speaks of ’the over-altars and the never-lighted candles upon them.’[921] In Durham Cathedral, which by traditional custom retained throughout the century a higher Ritual in some respects than was to be found elsewhere, the ‘tapers’ of which Thoresby speaks[922] were probably more than two in number.

The credence, or side table, upon which the sacramental elements are placed previously to being offered, in accordance with the rubric, upon the Lord’s Table, had been objected to by many Puritan Churchmen.  Provision was rarely made for this in eighteenth-century churches.  It is mentioned as somewhat exceptional on the part of Bishop Bull, that ’he always offered the elements upon the Holy Table himself before beginning the Communion service.’[923]

Puritan feeling had very unreasonably regarded the cross with almost as much jealousy as the crucifix.  This idea had, in the last century, so far gained ground, that the Christian emblem was not often to be seen, at all events in the interior of churches, and that those who did use it in their churches or churchyards were likely to incur a suspicion of Popery.  An anonymous assailant of Bishop Butler in 1767, fifteen years after the death of that prelate, made it a special charge against him that he had ’put up the Popish insignia of the cross in his chapel at Bristol.’[924]