THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT AND ITS

RESULTS.

FOUR months ago we ventured to make a prophecy relative to the subject of this article. In the first number of this Review, in some comments on the Church of England, we made bold to say that the important case then before the Supreme Court might not, after all, terminate so very hopelessly for High Church interests as might be generally assumed.1

The result, we think, has proved that our anticipations were correct. One of our most fair-judging daily papers, that is considered generally to represent moderate High Church views, claims the judgment as 'substantially a victory for the High Church party,' and speaks of the two questions that have been decided in favour of that party as of infinitely more importance than the questions that have been decided against them.' This, of course, is not the opinion of the partisan papers on either side, nor does it coincide with the views of the silly and reckless persons who speak of the judgment as 'an outrage done to common sense,'' a depraving of the Book of Common Prayer,' and so forth-but it does represent what is generally felt by the sober, silent, and influential body that make up the larger half of the English Church. The fact remains that we are decided gainers' is the summary of an intelligent serial journal that may be considered to be a fair exponent of the views of the upper, but still reasonable, stratum of the High Church party.

The grounds for such a statement are sufficiently obvious. The only usage about which the more reasonable members of the party were thoroughly anxious has not been pronounced illegal, and, though not perfectly cleared from all ambiguity, will most probably never again come up in any future legal proceedings. The celebrant can now occupy during the prayer of consecration (provided only that his manual acts are fairly visible) that position which the historical churchman, rightly or wrongly, regards as the link of usage that connects him with the past. The mid-table position is certainly tolerated, and a modus vivendi recognised for the High Church

Nineteenth Century, No. 1, p. 64, March 1877.

party in reference to an item of ritual observance on which they lay great stress, but which, as the bishops observed in a comparatively recent pastoral address, has never been formally declared by the Church to have any doctrinal significance.

We may then certainly claim that the expectation in reference to the general issue has proved to be correct, and that the easily made forecast has been verified.

But can we say that our comments as to the nature of the judgment have proved equally correct? What we ventured to say was that the form of expression in which the decision would be formulated would be wise, convincing, and conciliatory.' Can we claim that every one of these epithets has been substantiated by the general tenor of the judgment of the 12th of May? It will be the object of this article to answer this question, and to place before the general reader an equitable estimate of a judgment on which the well-being of the whole future of the English Church depends more completely than we may be now able to realise.

We may anticipate the result of our considerations by saying that, as regards the three epithets which we have used, there is no doubt that the first has been verified; and that of the many criticisms that the judgment has undergone, few, if any, have been so marked by partyspirit as to deny that it has been not only politic but wise, and that its wisdom will be felt the more its reasoning and details are analysed. That it is also conciliatory is to be seen on every page. The whole tone of the document is considerate. The other side is stated with a fairness and frankness which not only inspire the reader with confidence, but predispose him to accept the result, whatever it may prove to be, with something more than acquiescence. Is it, however, convincing? Here we hesitate. The judgment is transparently clear, flawlessly reasoned, and eminently fair; but it does not carry with it complete conviction. It seems to fail just where the real difficulty presents itself. The ornaments rubric appears to give a clear and specific direction, and the judgment, by its very fairness, helps us to recognise this with additional distinctness; but when we come to the really formidable question, Why, then, is any one wrong in obeying the rubric?' we feel that the answers are too subtle, and the explanations too deficient in simplicity, for any mind 'except that of a professional interpreter. In reading the judgment we feel ourselves out-reasoned and out-argued, but at the same time not fully convinced. Our reason seems forced one way, but our instincts take the other. This is the unfortunate impression which the judgment has produced on many candid minds, and this it is which we shall endeavour to deal with in the following pages, and, as far as we have the power, not only to analyse but to rectify.

6

And there is the more reason for attempting to do this, as the result at which the judges arrived is increasingly felt by all reasonable

and candid persons to be right, and alone completely consonant with the various historical facts and documents that have been brought under consideration. In the first place the unhesitating language of the distinguished men who, at least, formed the majority of the tribunal, cannot fail to produce, as it has produced, a very strong impression on the minds of impartial readers. When men of the great legal knowledge, high character, and singular acumen of the present Lord Chancellor tell us that they have not felt any hesitation as to the decision at which they ought to arrive, all persons who have any ordinary modesty must feel persuaded that, somehow or other, these eminent persons must be right, even though they themselves may fail distinctly to see it. And this has obviously been felt by all the really competent critics who have carefully reviewed the judgment. The mere party gladiators that have used the foolish and violent invective, in lieu of more effective weapons, against this judgment, to which we have already alluded, simply count for nothing. Their folly and violence put them altogether out of the consideration of reasonable people, and leave us quite free to regard their comments on the judgment as simply and entirely unworthy of any answer, and only deserving to be treated with the charitable and equitable censure of complete silence. We revert then to the assertion that all competent critics, though not all sympathising with the final ruling on considerations of policy, have not failed to feel the evident correctness of the law of the judgment. To take a single instance, we may notice that, in the probably best and clearest of the adverse criticisms on this judgment that appeared soon after its promulgation, the admission is frankly made that there is strong reason to think that the framers of the ornaments rubric did mean the rubric to be qualified in the manner which the judgment specifies. And similar admissions have been made in every intelligent criticism that we have yet seen.

The legal result is thus apparently felt to be right, and sometimes even admitted to be so; and yet the plain fact seems to remain, that, to use the words of a venerable and well-known leader of High Church opinion, the judgment does interpret in a non-natural sense the rubric upon which the judgment turns;' or, to take the language of a recent resolution affirmed by some 300 clergymen, that the judgment is clearly contrary to the plain meaning of the rubric.' And yet it cannot be denied that the framers of the judgment have this substantial fact in their favour, that there is not a shred or scrap of evidence that the learned persons who originally formulated the rubric, or that the Church and nation, either at the time or for 200 years afterwards, ever understood the rubric as permitting the use of vestments to the parish priest. It has, indeed, been assumed by as learned an ecclesiastical judge as Sir Robert Phillimore, that the Puritan party at the Savoy Conference objected to this particular rubric as being of dangerous import and possibly bringing back the

vestments; but this misapprehension was rectified by the Purchas judgment, and the fact may now be said to remain unchallenged, that for 200 years nobody ever claimed this rubric as either expressly or inferentially directing the parish priest to use the vestments. Nay, more, as shall be clearly shown in the sequel, it would have been strange indeed if it had been otherwise. How any one who can understand the difference between a broad declaration as to the general usage of the Church of England (our present rubric) and a special direction to each individual minister (the rubric of the two former Prayer Books) could ever have supposed that the present ornaments rubric either directs or permits every individual minister, parochial as well as capitular, to use the vestments, is to us one of the most remarkable instances of ecclesiastical hallucination to be met with in the history of the last quarter of a century. There is not a word in the rubric which can be forced into implying that the rubric is to be regarded, or ought to be regarded, as a specific directory rubric for the guidance of the individual minister. It states generally the usage of the Church of England; and, in the retention of the cope and surplice, that usage remains to the present hour.

But all this shall be set forth plainly and, we hope, convincingly in a later portion of the article. At present we are only noticing the judgment in its broad and general aspects, and in the light in which it appears to have been generally received by the majority of friends and foes. And this, we fear, must be conceded, that it is hardly fully convincing. It has placed before the Church several important and incontrovertible facts, but in its conclusions it does not seem to have made quite the best of them. It has safe premisses to rest upon, but the completed argument is not thoroughly persuasive. The threads are strong, but they are not drawn together as sharply as they might have been, and one of the strongest threads--this is the chief comment we venture to make on the document-has not been drawn in at all. The result is, as we have already said, that the judgment does not fully satisfy even those who wish to be satisfied; and yet the feeling remains that the decision is right, and that, if one could only get to a right point of view of the whole details, one could see it oneself, and with no great difficulty make others see it also. Let us try if we can find this point, and, by a plain consideration of the judgment, indicate where the framers of it appear to have stopped a little short, and how, consequently, they failed to be guided completely up to the spot where the undoubted difficulties of the case all ultimately disappear.

Let us, then, now turn to the document itself, and consider it somewhat in detail. Let us, however, in doing so prescribe to ourselves this very necessary rule-not to be tempted to wander into the many mazes of historical and archæological minutia which lie on every side of us. All the facts carefully winnowed are now before

us. All the subordinate points, legal and historical, are now pretty accurately ascertained. We have thus nothing more to do than to take the judgment in our hands, and examine for ourselves, in a plain and common-sense way, not merely whither it ultimately leads us, but what is the precise nature of the path along which we are brought to our legal destination.

The Committee of Privy Council had, it will be remembered, four points under their consideration-the legality or otherwise of the vestments; the position of the minister, in reference to the Lord's table, during the prayer of consecration in the Communion Service; the lawfulness of a crucifix over a chancel screen; and the use of wafer bread for sacramental purposes. It is only in regard of the first and second of these points that there can be said to be any really great interest; and of these two it is again only the first in which the criticisers of the judgment are especially exercised. In reference to the second point-the eastward position-all reasonable people are perfectly satisfied. Though the judgment does not expressly declare the legality per se of the eastward as well as of the northward position of the chief officiating minister, it does undoubtedly so far leave the eastward position presumably not illegal (unless the manual acts are hidden from view) that it is not at all likely, as we have already said, that the question will ever again be raised in the courts. We may therefore dismiss from our present consideration everything except what relates to the vestments, contenting ourselves simply with the remark that all unprejudiced members of the Church of England must be thankful for decisions on these questions which must not only commend themselves to the good sense of the community, but must also, when the smoke of controversy has blown away, go very far towards bringing peace to all who desire to have peace in our Church at the present time. A great many foolish and provocative comments have been made even on these portions of the judgment; but of these it is really not necessary to take any notice whatever. There are unreasonable people in the Church, and we suppose there will be unreasonable people to the end. They may even have their uses-probably foolometric-in the body corporate; but, however this may be, they are certainly persons on whom all argument is wasted, and to whose criticisms it is really waste of time to pay the slightest attention.

We confine ourselves, then, to the subject of the vestments, and to the tenor of the judgment on this hotly contested question.

Passing over the introductory sentences in which the Judicial Committee indicate the desirableness and even necessity of reviewing a decision that might, not unnaturally, have been regarded as final, we come to the statement of the argument of the appellant. This, we learn, may be summed up in three syllogistic sentences. (a) The ornaments rubric in the Revised Prayer Book of 1662 is now the only law as to the vesture of the clergy. (b) It authorises the use