The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1838.

ARCHES' 2OURT.-(THIS DAY.)I

THE CASE OF THE WIDOW WOOLFREY.
THE OFFICE OF THE JUDGE PROMOTED BY THE REV.
JOHN BRIM'S V. MARY WOOLFREY.-JUDGMENT.

Sir HIRBERT JENNaIt gave judgment to-day in this im
portant case. The case had been very fully argued, upon
the third Session ef the term that had just expired, and the
Court thought it due to the arguments to take some time
to consider of the judgment it should pronounce, and also
for the purpose of locking into the authorities that had been
cited in support of the views taken by the Counsel on each
side. The Court would have been ready to have given
judgment on the bye-day of the Term, and would have
done so, but for the occasion of Counsel being elsewhere,
and it being an unusual thing to deliver a judgment, espe-
cially in a criminal case, in the absence of the Counsel
who had argued it, when the Court found that
it was impossible to deliver judgment, it appointed
the present, as it had the power to do under the
statute, an additional Court day, for the purpose of enabling
it to give judgment in so important a case. Unfortunately
however, it happened on this day, as on the last, that Coun-
sel were absent at the Privy Council, but the Learned
Judge could not now consider that as a reason for further
postponing his judgment. In the present case, the office of
the Judge had been promoted by the Rev. John Breeks,
the vicar of the parish of Carisbrooke, in the diocese
of Winchester, and the province of Canterbury, against
Mary Woolfrey, for the purpose of having her ad-
monished and lawfully corrected in her manners
and excesses, for having unduly erected a certain
tombstone in the Church-yard of the parish Church of
Carisbrooke, having on it an inscription contrary to the
22d Canon of the Articles of the Church of England.
That was the tenor of the decree served upon Mrs. Wool-
frey, who had been cited from that Court under the autho-
rity of the Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester,
in which the parish Church of Carisbrooke was situated,
and without which authority that Court could not have
interfered or taken cognizance of the case. The Chancel-
lor of the diocese having thought proper to refer the case
to that Court, it had no other course to pursue but to
' accept the letter of request. It was not contended, indeed
' it was admitted, in the present case, that if the inscrip-
tion was of the character attributed to it in the citation,
namely, contrary to the articles, and canons, and doctrines
of the Church of England, it was admitted if such was its
character, that no person could have a right to erect such
a tombstone, as it impugned the doctrines of the
Church of England. It had been further admitted, if
the case was made out to be such as it was represented
in the citation, the party was liable to be punished for the
offence, and admonished against the excesses that had been
committed. The question, therefore, which that Court
was called upon to decide was, whether the inscription had
been properly inscribed in the citation. The inscription
was not set forth in the citation, but it was contained in
the articles brought in by the party citing. The question
was, whether the inscription was properly stated in the
citation, because he (Sir H. Jenner) was of opinion that
the offence of having erected the tombstone without consent
did not arise upon the face of the citation ; the question
was confined, as it appeared to him upon the citation to the
legality or illegality of the inscription. Upon looking at
the articles he found the inscription set forth in the second
article to be—" Pray for the soul of Joseph Woolfrey," and
" It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead ;"
and an addition was made on the tombstone, stating the
chapter and verse from which the latter part of the in-
scription purported to be taken, namely, the second chapter
of Maccabceus, 12,46. Now in a criminal case, it wasclear the
burthen of the proof of the character and the description
of the offence committed lay with the complainant. In the
present case the complainant was the incumbent of the pa-
rish of Carisbrooke, and the question arose whether the
minister of that parish was an improper person to institute
proceedings of the nature of the present, for the purpose
of removing that which, if truly described, was certainly a
matter of scandal to religion. Now to the incumbent be-
longed the superintendence of the Church and the Church-
yard, and it was the duty of that person to see that every-
thing there was conducted with decency and propriety, and
it was further his duty to take care that the Church and
Church-yard were not made the means of disseminating
doctrines inconsistent with the articles and canons of the
Established Church. With these preliminary observations
the Learned Judge would proceed to consider the articles
brought in ; they purported to contain a statement of the
law and the facts to which that law was to be applied. The
first article related to the inscription on the tombstone, and
was to the effect that by the 22d article of the Church of
England, agreed upon by the Archbishops of Canterbury
and York, and the other Bishops and Clergy in Council
assembled in 1562, the Catholic religion, its rites and for-
malities, was declared to be repugnant to the Word of
God, and it then stated that the tomb or head-stone con-
tained doctrines against the principles of the Church of
England, and that the person who had caused it to be
erected ought not only to be peremptorily admonished, but
punished and corrected for her excesses. The article further
stated the propositions of law applicable to certain facts sup-
posed to exist, and those propositions had been admitted by the
Learned Counsel who argued the case on the part of Mrs.
Woolfrey. The 2darticle set forth thefacts, that Mary Wool-
frey, in 1838, erected the tombstone to the memory of her hus-
band, Joseph Woolfrey, and the inscriptions on that tomb-
stone were alleged in the article to be contrary to the
Articles of the Church of England, particularly to the 22d
Article. The article then went on to allege, that notice
had been given to Mrs. Woolfrey to remove the stone,
and it further alleged that she had refused to do so, and
that Mrs. Woolfrey had admitted that she caused the
stone to be erected. The next article contained a copy
of the inscription, and the other articles,with the exception of
the last, were merely of a formal nature. The last article
prayed that Mrs. Woolfrey might be peremptorily admo-
nished, punished, and corrected, for her excesses. Now,
the law principally relied upon as establishing the facts
that the inscription on the tomb-stone was contrary to the
canons and articles of the Church of England, was to be
found in the 22d canon of the Council held in 1562. In
Ist and 2d articles, there was a general reference
made to all the other Articles and Canons and Constitu-
tion of the Church of England, but the principal canon
relied on was that to which the Learned Judge had just
adverted ; but for the purpose of supporting the present
question it was right also to refer to any of the other
canons, and, consequently, in the course of the arguments
in the present case the 35th Article relating to the reading
of the Homilies was adverted to, as were also the Articles
upon Prayer, the latter of which was particularly relied
upon. Now, as he (Sir H. Jenner) understood the argu-
ments addressed to the Court in support of the articles,
it was argued that the 22d Article, in declaring the Romish
doctrines of purgatory to be against the Word of God,
also declared that the offering up of prayers for the dead
were against that Word, because the two facts were so
blended together as to render it impossible to separate
them, and that therefore the inviting of passers by to pray
for the dead was an illegal inscription. The point upon
which the whole question turned was, whether the prayer
for the dead was so connected with the Romish doctrine
of purgatory as to be essentially and necessarily included
in it. It might be true, and no doubt it was so, that the
doctrine of purgatory included the practice of prayer for the
dead ; but it did not follow that the consistency of the pro-
position held throughout, namely, that the prayer for the dead
was consistent only with the rites of the Romish Church. if
that fact were made out, there would be an end of the pre-
sent case, and the Court would be justified in removing the
tombstone, and punishing the party who had erected it.
It was to this point that the whole of the arguments of the
Counsel upon each side were directed. Many authorities
had been cited, according to the different views taken by
Counsel, and to many of those authorities it would be ne-
cessary for him to advert. The Counsel had very properly
abstained from entering into the theological part of the
question; it would have been improper in his (SirH.Jenner's)
opinion
for them to have done so, and equally so on
the part of the Court to take upon itself to inquire whe-
ther the doctrines of purgatory, as professed by the Romish
Church, were proper or not, that question had been already
settled, it had been decided to be repugnant to the Word
of God ; such was the law, and he was bound to abide by
it. Then the question was whether inviting the passers by
to pray for the dead was or not prohibited by the Articles
or the Canons or any other Articles of the Church, The
Court could not go beyond the terms of the Articles, and
must decide whether the offence was made out under
the Articles. The question was shortly this—
was praying for the dead involved in and combined
with the doctrine of purgatory, and with the view to the
decision of that ques lion the first thing to be inquired into
was what the doctrine of purgatory in the Romish Church
was laid down to be by the decree of the General Council :
now as far as he (Sir H. Jenner) had been able to learn it
did not appear that any General Council, with respect to
the doctrine of purgatory, had sat until the Council of Flo-
rence in 1438, and that Council had pointed out the doc-
trine by its decree. That was afterwards followed up by
the decree of the Council of Trent in 1568. He (Sir H.
Jenner) in what he had stated did not mean to say that the
doctrine of purgatory had not been received before that time,
but it would seem that it was first introduced in the 3d or 4th
century ; it was at first, however, doubtfully received, and
was not properly established till the papacy of Gregory VIII.
The doctrine then, which was so introduced, and which was
declared to be repugnant to the Word of God, by the 22d
article of the canon is, that there is a place called purgatory,
where the souls of the pious are tormented for a certain
time, and cleansed, in order that the entrance may lay open
to them in their eternal home. That seemed to be the
general summary of the doctrine of purgatory, as so 4.-
in those canons, and professed in sort h
the P--
umish Church. Now
it was able a part' ^ _•
mesh doctrine that the pains of purga-
tory might be alleviated or shortened by the prayers of the