The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-13 00:00:00

THE RITUAL JUDGMENT.

It will be remembered that on iiecemner SO a meeting
of High Church clergy was held, to consider the judgment
given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie,
and that a committee was appointed to draw up
a report, to be presented to an adjourned meeting on
Jannary 12. The committee consisted of the following
gentlemen :—Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, T. W. Perry, J. H.
Molyneux, Dr. F. G. Lee, C. J. Le Geyt, E. L. Blenken-
sopp, T. T. Carter, 11. J. Nihill, Dr. Littledale, the
Hon. C. L. Wood, Mr. J. D. Chambers, and Mr. R.
Brett.

The adjourned meeting was held yesterday afternoon, at
Freemasons' Tavern, and was very largely attended.
Great excitement prevailed, inasmuch as it had transpired
that Dr. F:G. Lee, one of the committee, intended to
move an amendment to the report.
After prayers the chair was taken by Archdeacon
DENISON, who said they were that day assembled
for the performance of an important duty. The rev.
gentleman then referred at some length to the late judg-
ment, and said the question they had to consider was
whether the decision in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie
was to be obeyed or resisted. The matter bad been most
deeply considered, and the committee had come to the
conclusion of submitting to the judge, under protest,
until the law of the land as so laid down should
either be altered or amended. The result of the delibera-
tion of the committee would be found embodied in the
third resolution accompanying the report. (Hear, hear.)
He thought the conclusion of the deliberations of the com-
mittee would be to unite them all in a strong
bond of brotherhood, and in which they would
duly consider what was to be done for the
future. (Hear, hear.) The report was divided into
two parts. One was the presentation of a memorial to the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the clergy, and the
two Houses of Convocation ; and the other was the string
of resolutions stating what it was proposed to be done at
the present meeting. The committee had made their
report with no flinching or sparing hand. (Loud cheers.)
There was not a single word in the report either
with regard to submission or resistance to the law of the
land—(hear, hear)—and he would take the liberty of
telling the meeting what they could do with regard to the
report, and also what they could not do. They could
either firstly adopt, or secondly reject, or thirdly set
aside, or fourthly refer it back to the committee for further
consideration ; but the meeting could not do that which
WAS technically called amending it. The voice of the
majority would decide what was to be done, and by that
the meeting ought to be governed, because the voice of the
majority could only bind those who agreed with it.
(Hear, hear.) He would take that opportunity of stating
that he was no advanced Ritualist, but he was one
who liked order, decency, and magnificence in theworship
of the Lord of Lords, where that magnificence was desir-
able, but he was in favour of that magnificence combined
with simplicity. (Hear, hear.) But whilst that was his
view of the matte; he did not find fault with
those who did not take a similar view. What
he did contend for was the liberation of the
Church as by law established by the Reformation.
(Hear, hear.) It was a most extraordinary thing that in a
country where all was free the National Church was the
only thing that was not so— (loud cheers)—and he counselled
his brethren not to rest until they ridded the Church
of God in that land from the Court of Final Appeal.
(Loud cheers). Having announced that the mover and
seconder of the resolutions would be limited to fifteen
minutes, other speakers to ten minutes, the rev. gentle.
man resumed his seat by calling upon Mr. Turner to read
the Report of the Committee.
This report is a very long document, occupying seven
quarto printed pages, and is signed by Archdeacon
Denison. It takes the form of a memorial which the
committee recommend to be addressed by the clergy and
laity of the Church of England to the archbishops and
bishops of England and Wales, and to the two Houses of
Convocation of Canterbury and York. Six resolutions
are appended.
The first portion of the memorial is brief, and deals
with the constitution of the Court of Final Appeal. This
court is condemned as "faulty in two essential parti-
culars." First, it has been appointed by Parliament to
deal with questions of the doctrine and discipline of the
Church without the sanction of the Representative Assem-
blies of the Spiritualty asked and obtained ; second, it
contains no adequate representation of the Spiritualty
(see 24th Henry VIII., c. 12), or of persons versed
in theological, liturgical, and ecclesiastical questions.
It was only through an oversight in legislation that
the present court deals with questions of doctrine
and discipline, and it is a serious defect that those
of its members who dissent from the judgment of the
majority do not publicly state the grounds and reasons of
such dissent at the time of delivery of the judgment.
The second portion of the memorial occupies the greater
part of the report, six pages out of seven, and is a learned
argument against the correctness of the law laid down by
Lord Cairns. The memorial says " the judgment
in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie, December 23,1868,
is in itself open to the gravest complaint, and supplies a
fresh illustration of the soundness of the objec-
tions above alleged." In the first place, the for-
bidding of altar lights cannot be reconciled with the
one uniform and continuous appeal of the Church of
England to primitive and Catholic usage, which appeal
pervades the Acts of Uniformity and royal proclamations
during the reigns of Edward VI., Elizabeth, James 1.,
and Charles 11., as well as the' Prayer-book, the Articles,
the Canons, the Homilies, and in the principle of which
appeal has always been considered to lie the distinguishing
feature and the glory of the Reformed Church of
England. Several citations in support of this assertion
are made from the 30th Canon, the Homily concerning the
sacrament, the preamble of the Act of Uniformity,
Edward VI., the declaration of Queen Elizabeth in 1569,
which was ordered to be read in churches after the
Northern rebellion, and the Preface to the Prayer-book,
where it is said, " We have rejected all such alterations as
secretly striking at some laudable practice . . of the
whole Catholic Church of Christ." The Judicial
Committee admitting " the very ancient and general
use in the Church of these symbolical lights,"
the judgment places the memorialists in this
position : that if they are for the future to adhere
to the above declarations of the Church of England they
must hold that the decision of the Court of Appeal is
wrong. If they accept that decision they must disregard
the declarations of the Church. This disregard of primi-
tive usage is the more to be deprecated because it is
opposed to the encyclical address of the Lambeth Confe-
rence, wherein the bishops exhort the clergy to " hold
fast the creeds and the pure worship and order which
of God's grace ye have inherited from the Primitive
Church." The memorialists proceed to skew that
the judgment practically imposes a new prohibitory and
penal law, and that without the consent of the Legisla-
ture. First, by declaring for the first time since the
Reformation that the altar lights are not ornaments, and
are therefore illegal, and by arbitrarily extending the use
of the word "ceremony." Second, by interpreting the
words of the rubric "in the second year of the reign of
King Edward V 1.," to mean solely the "first Prayer-
book," which was not published until the third year, and
by rendering it illegal and criminal to use
- any " ornament " not specifically mentioned iti
that Prayer-book or in the present, although authorised
by other statutes in force in that same second year.
Third, by now condemning and inflicting punishment
for the use of an accessory which is known to have been
used at various intervals since the Reformation, and held
by many competent authorities to be legal. Four la by
enforcing, under penalties, rigid adherence to the rubrics,
although some of the directions require discretion in their
application, and forbidding any additions which general
consent has long sanctioned. The memorial then goes on
to deal at considerable length with the historical question
of the value of the injunctions of Edward VI., 1547. It is
then pointed out that, even on the ground taken by the
judgment, there must have been a period of 103 years,
from 1559 to 1662, during which certain manual acts were
performed and considered lawful, although not-upthorised
by the Prayer-book of the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity.
The judgment referred to the Westertou v. Liddell
decision ; bathe Court of A ppcal has already departed from
the principle of that decision, since it has sanctioned the
use of altar cloths of various colours, althoughnot sanctioned
in the rubric. The memorial goes on to complain that
whereai in former judgments the principle of expediency
rather than of strict law has been adopted, so as to include
as many persons as possible within the pale of the Church,
in the present judgment that principle has been reversed,
and the effect is to restrict the liberties of a large class of
Churchmen. How far the principle of liberty was
intended to ho adopted is shewn by various pas-
sages quoted from State papers and Burnet's " History of
the Reformation." It is next shewn that by laying down
the rubric of 1662 as the solo exhaustive directory for
public wolship, the judgment has by implication, (a), made
several long-established usages illegal, (b), revised and
made compulsory several neglected usages, and left the
clergy totally without guidance in many cases. Thirteen
of the first class of instances, nine of the second, and five
of the third are given. Among the second-class are daily
prayer, the use of Eucharistic vestments, the
use of Episcopal vestments, and the pastoral staff,
the posture of standing before the Lord's Table
throughout the whole of the consecration prayer, the ex-
clusion from communion of persons who have not given
notice to the curate, proceeding against persons expelled
from communion, immersion at baptism, and public
catechising. On these accounts the memorial urges that
" while a partial or one-sided enforcement of the principle
of the judgment would be a grievous ifijustice,pn the other