Remarks upon the First Report of the Royal Commission on Ritual in connection with the integrity of the Book of Common Prayer: A lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Brighton Branch of the English Church Union, Nov. 27, 1867Mayow, Mayow Wynell
Religion
Remarks upon the First Report of the Royal Commission on Ritual in connection with the integrity of the Book of Common Prayer: A lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Brighton Branch of the English Church Union, Nov. 27, 1867
Mayow, Mayow Wynell
Church of England. Book of common prayer; Great Britain. Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Rubrics, Orders, and Directions for Regulating the Course and Conduct of Public Worship, &c, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland; Ritualism -- History -- 19th century
The Bishop next touches upon another plan, which indeed is not a mode of
remedy (in the sense of making a change to meet the difficulty) at all,
which therefore does not lie open to the same objection. The Bishop,
indeed, dismisses it at once as hopeless and useless, though it remains
to be seen whether it really be so. I mean the due interpretation of the
law by the courts of law; which being done, to let the law alone, and the
Prayer Book alone, and the Church alone. However he continues;—“But,
lastly, it may be said, is all hope entirely past of finally settling the
question by an appeal to the law courts, and thence to that highest
tribunal that has already had the impleaded rubric before it, though
under a somewhat different point of view? Yes, I fear we must now say
that all hope is finally past. The knot cannot now be laboriously
untied; it must be removed by gentle drawing out on either side, or—it
must be cut. In the first place, the country at large would not now be
content to wait for what experience has shewn might be a long-delayed
issue. It would be urged that such delay would only aid the progress of
innovation, and that now when a Commission has been appointed and has not
recommended a reference to law courts, it would be a practical retracing
of steps that would seriously add to our present disquietude. To which
we may subjoin this comment—that even if a speedy reference to the
ultimate tribunal (by some thought possible) could be secured, the
decision now, after the startling evidence given before the Commission,
would not, it is to be feared, whichever way it might be, bring to us all
the blessing of peace and settlement. If it were _for_ the Ritualists, a
prompt effort would be made to set aside the rubric by legislation; and
then bitterness, struggle, and all the evils above alluded to, in
connection with a sense of injustice, would at once be in malignant
working among us. If it were _against_ the Ritualists, I now sadly fear,
after the painful language publicly used by many of them against those in
authority, and the disregard of the Convocation Resolutions of last year,
that they would decline to submit to the decision, force unwilling men to
put the law in action against them, accept the issue, and leave the
communion of the Reformed Church.”
There is much here from which I cannot do other than express most
strongly my dissent; for—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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