L I B RA RY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVE.R.SITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 OUGHT WE TO OBEY THE 
 NEW COURT 
 
 CREATED BY 
 
 THE PUBLIC VOESHIP EEGULATION ACT? 
 
 ORBY SHIPLEY, M.A. 
 
 « IF THE CAUSE BE SPIEITrAL . . . BOLDLY AND LAWFULLY WE MAY 
 EEFU3B TO ANSWER BEFORE ANY CIYIL JUDGE." 
 
 Koolcer, Boole viii. ^cc. Fol 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Ee,ised and Eeprinied from the Third Edition of the Contemporary Review, 
 June, 1875 ; with an Appendix. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING, 196, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1875.
 
 4 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 At such, a momentj it is not unfit to ask : What answer to 
 the Nation will the Church return now that the year of grace 
 has closed ? What reply will the Clergy make to Parliament 
 now that the twelve months^ reprieve has expired ? What will 
 they say to their flocks,, whom they have taught that Cheist's 
 Kingdom is not of this world ; and to the Worlds who knows 
 that they have so taught ? What will they say to their own 
 conscience^ which believes in the Catholic Church ; and to God, 
 Who knows they so believe? Are they prepared to witness 
 unmoved the personal and official abandonment of spiritual 
 authority and power^ in one word^ of Jurisdiction^ by their 
 bishops ? Are they prepared to accept from the State alone, 
 and in defiance of Church law, a purely secular tribunal for 
 purely spiritual causes ? Are they willing to accept, in any 
 case, from a member of the legal profession appointed under 
 the sole authority of Parliament, civil decisions on the mysteries 
 of the faith, the details of worship, the rules of Christian duty ; 
 and to obey such decisions, if the truth be thereby com- 
 promised? Are they willing to retain office and to exercise 
 sacred functions in a Church episcopal (speaking popularly) in 
 essence as well as in form, with, a fundamental element of 
 episcopal jurisdiction withdrawn under one aspect, and with 
 every shred of it torn away under another ? Are they content, 
 in a word, to become the servants of an Act-of-Parliament 
 Church — in responsible positions indeed, and highly honoured 
 of the world in their servitude ; but yet, in subjection, in all 
 they hold dearest and prize most highly and believe most firmly, 
 to the temporary ruling of an uncertain majority in the House 
 of Commons? Will they teach or cease from teaching; will 
 they act or cease from acting ; will they retain God^s worship 
 as the Church of Christ has ordered, or mould it after some 
 other fashion, according to the decisions of the State-made 
 judge ? Will they in morals, in ceremonial, above all in doctrine, 
 now consent to be bound by, where hitherto for countless ages 
 they have been free from, the decisions of an impalpable thing 
 called the National Will, as expressed by the unequivocal votes 
 of a popular assembly largely composed of Jews, Non- 
 conformists, and Infidels ? Will they obey man in the place 
 of God ? For such, stated in plain language, is the alternative 
 placed before the Clergy of the Established Religion. Such is 
 
 UIUC
 
 Created by the Pttblic Worship Regulation Act f 5 
 
 the conflict precipitated, prematurely and unwisely, by their 
 ecclesiastical superiors, between the Church and the World in 
 England. The position here indicated must be mastered 
 before any sober and w^ell-considered answer can be given to 
 the Question : Ought we to obey the New Court ? 
 
 It is fully time to attempt, at the least, to master this position 
 now that the eventful July ] st, 1875, has been passed — a date 
 which must be a turning-point in the history of the Church of 
 England, and may prove to be the beginning of a new era in 
 the history also of a Nation hitherto blessed by union with the 
 Church — chiefly for two reasons : 
 
 Firstly ; because it is an unhappy fact, in looking backwards 
 on the past twelve months, that we can point to no declaration 
 from our presumable leaders to help us, the rank and file of the 
 High Church party, to forma judgment on this momentous sub- 
 ject ; to no statement of principle to instruct us ; to no line of 
 action for us to follow. So far as the present writer can gather, 
 not one of our great men, whom we respect and to whom we 
 would listen, has uttered a sound or made a sign to influence 
 those who look to them for guidance at this juncture. No doubt 
 reasons sufficient to themselves have caused this silence, since 
 the Bill became law — for some of them spoke with no uncertain 
 sound at S. James^ Hall in 1874. Perhaps it indicates that the 
 time for teaching is over, and that the time for passive endur- 
 ance and suS'ering resistance has begun. But the silence can 
 be otherwise interpreted, both by friends and enemies. Perhaps 
 it is but the last proof, that the only leaders which the Catholic 
 party acknowledge, and whereui consist its supernatural power 
 and unprecedented success, are Catholic Principles. But, under 
 any hypothesis, the fact remains. The truths which are im- 
 perilled and denied have not been enforced afresh upon us, nor 
 defended before the world, nor even stated for discussion or 
 consideration. The course which we ought to adopt as an im- 
 portant and advancing party in the Church, or as units of the 
 party, has not been indicated. Shall we stand or fall together: 
 aud how will either alternative be practically possible ? Shall 
 we allow the weak to be overpowered or the unpopular to be 
 attacked : and how will the popular and the powerful amongst 
 us (for such there are) assist their brethren ? Shall wo directly 
 agitate for Disestablishment, and as a step to that end move fur
 
 6 Ought we to obey the New Caiirt 
 
 the relief of tlie bishops from their duties in the House of Lords : 
 or patiently await its inevitable, if not quick approach ? Shall 
 we^ as a last resource and in self-defence, in order to save our 
 conscience, retire into lay- communion — whatever that term may 
 import for us who are priests : or shall we remain at our posts, 
 individually disendowed and disestablished, turned adrift by the 
 power of the State, but yet ministering as priests to all who 
 shall privately come to us, and laying in each parish the foun- 
 dation of a Free Church of England of the future : or shall we, 
 as mere spectators, inertly witness the gradual but sure disinte- 
 gration of the old historical Church of England at the pleasure 
 of a non-Christian Parliament, whose will in spiritual matters is 
 now, for the first time, to be enforced as law? To these 
 questions we might reasonably have expected a reply from 
 distinguished men. It is not improbable that some of them 
 will find an active solution on the part of many persons, although 
 no verbal response has been made by our leaders. 
 
 Secondly ; because we now stand face to face with a New 
 Act of Parliament which necessitates its mastery. The position 
 involves no mere antiquarian research; no mere historical in- 
 quiry, legal or constitutional. We know the parentage of the 
 Act. We have witnessed its origin and growth. We are con- 
 scious of its development — its changes, amendments, contra- 
 dictions, and vacillations. We can conceive its efiects ; and have 
 been threatened with its terrors. Moreover, we are aware of the 
 lines of false temporary policy upon which the measure was 
 based, and the principles of truth ignored by its enactment : of 
 the expediency which will dictate its operation, and the rights 
 and powers invaded when it shall be enforced. 
 
 Two facts alone, it may be said at the outset, are suflScient to 
 discredit the Act of 1874 with all Church people. 1st : It vio- 
 lites the principle of the English constitution formulated by 
 Lord Coke, but acted upon from time immemorial, that "eccle- 
 siastical laws are to be administered by ecclesiastical judges,^' 
 and it may be added, in Ecclesiastical Courts. 2nd : It destroys, 
 partially and virtually in one case, wholly and absolutely in 
 another, the legal jurisdiction of the English episcopate, the 
 spiritual authority and power of our bishops. Hence, one may 
 be excused, however feeble the efibrt, for making an attempt
 
 Created by the Ptcblic Worship Regulation Act? 7 
 
 to answer the question of obedience at this crisis of the 
 Church. 
 
 For it is a crisis in the Churches career in this Kingdom of 
 England— a crisis of which we of middle age have not seen the 
 like, a crisis of which those who read history and study theology 
 have not heard the like. Theology need hardly be called to 
 supply evidence of the outrage inflicted upon the first principles 
 of the Christian Eeligion, in the mutual relation of the temporal 
 and spiritual powers. Any elementary catechism of the faith 
 will furnish materials for forming a right judgment. But his- 
 tory, though we have continual evidence in how many ways it 
 may be read, can produce no exact parallel to the present eccle- 
 siastical and civil paradox. Cases may be quoted, indeed, which 
 ofier a partial or one-sided resemblance. In the domain of 
 dogmatic truth, the episcopate of a province may have surren- 
 dered the deposit of faith, as in the wide- spread defection during 
 the Arian heresy. Whether or not this may be considered a 
 parallel instance to the action of the English bishops in regard 
 to their spiritual jurisdiction, it may be hoped that the parallel 
 extends to the cure as well as to the disease. For, under epis- 
 copal desertion, it was the priesthood and faithful laity who 
 preserved the sacred trust of Catholic truth in the early ages. 
 It may be by the suffering resistance of the clergy and the 
 passive endurance of the people that, in these latter times, the 
 authority and power of the bishops may be regained, and the 
 liberties of the Church may be restored. The present instance, 
 however, is unique in the annals of Christianity. It may be 
 more respectful to those in authority, and it is not less true to 
 fact, to conceive what the historian of the future will be forced 
 to record, rather than to state what contemporary criticism may 
 remark. The events which must appear on the page of history, 
 when relieved of the technicalities of the legist or politician, 
 are these : Firstly ; that the entire episcopate, as individual 
 bishops, of a National Church, in the nineteenth century of 
 grace, voluntarily surrendered to a non- Christian popular 
 assembly its own inherent and really inalienable spiritual rights 
 and powers. In other words, the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act of 1874, either virtually or absolutely, destroyed the legal 
 jurisdiction of the English bishops and archbishops. Secondly ; 
 that, as a consequence of the parliamentary action of the bishops.
 
 8 Ought we to obey the New Co%trt 
 
 again as individuals, spiritual causes were heard and spiritual 
 sentences were pronounced upon spiritual persons, subsequently 
 to July 1st, 1876, by a judge who was secular, and in a court 
 that was civil, under the sole authority of the temporal power. 
 In other words, that when the Act in question came into ope- 
 ration, it violated a fundamental principle of the Christian 
 Keligion, which had from the first been respected in the corpo- 
 rate union of Church and State. 
 
 The latter statement of the future historian needs no explana- 
 tion. Every lawyer admits its truth. A politician of the 
 eminence of Mr. Grladstone has repeated the dictum of Lord 
 Coke as applicable to these times. The former statement may 
 be annotated in its qualifications. The distinctions aimed at are 
 these : 
 
 The Public Worship Eegulation Act has virtually destroyed 
 the legal jurisdiction of the English bishops — because for 
 certain causes, namely, those contemplated by the Act, and 
 at the will and pleasure of three parishioners, the twenty-eight 
 Diocesan Courts of First Instance, which synchronize with 
 Christianity, are legally abolished. The Public Worship Eegu- 
 lation Act has absolutely destroyed the legal jurisdiction of 
 the English archbishops — because, for every cause, of doc- 
 trine, discipline, or ritual, it enacts the legal abolition of 
 the two Provincial Courts of Appeal at Canterbury and 
 York. 
 
 In the first case, the Act provides for the hearing and decision 
 of the cause by a lay judge appointed under the authority alone 
 of its own enactment. In the second, the Act distinctly states, 
 that " all proceedings (including necessarily questions of doc- 
 trine) thereafter taken before the judge (of its own creation) 
 . . . within the province of Canterbury, shall be deemed 
 to be taken in the Arches Court.''^ The same law applies to 
 the Chancery Court of York. In both provinces ^^ this section 
 shall come into operation immediately after the passing of this 
 Act,'^ and ^' whensoever a vacancy shall occur in the " offices in 
 question. 
 
 In view, therefore, of the virtual abolition ol the twenty- 
 eight Diocesan Courts in certain causes, and of the actual 
 abolition of the two Provincial Courts in every cause — both 
 at the instance of the bishops themselves — is it wide of the
 
 Created by the Pi^blic Worship Regnlation Act ? 9 
 
 mark to affirm that we are passing through a crisis in the 
 Churches career ? 
 
 Circumstances have made the writer conscious of a wide- 
 spread conviction amongst the clergy of almost every diocese, 
 that the authority claimed for the Court and method of proce- 
 dure established under the Public Worship Regulation Act is 
 contrary to the first principles of the Christian Religion. There 
 is good reason to believe that this conviction is shared by even 
 a wider range than personal observation has enabled him to 
 take. It is true_, that not to an equal extent is there agreement 
 as to the course of action which such a belief necessitates, or 
 suggests. But conviction must precede common action, to be 
 effective ; and it is an encouraging fact for the possible future 
 of the Church of England, that a large number of her most 
 faithful and zealous clergy concur on the ecclesiastical illegality 
 of this measure. They hold it to be subversive of the Churches 
 system. It is true, again, that the clergy in question do not all 
 agree in the reasons which lead to the common consent. Some 
 honestly confess that the subject of Jurisdiction is one which 
 has not been specially studied by them. Some are loyally un- 
 willing to think that the bishops themselves were really aware 
 of the legitiraate consequences of their unadvised action, or that 
 their action will have the fatal consequences which seem to be 
 inevitable. Others, with a matter-of-fact view of the case, con- 
 ceive that practically we are not much worse off" than before, in 
 the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; and that it were better 
 to be judged by an impartial barrister than by a bishop whose 
 impartiality might possibly be questioned. And others, again, 
 take a hopeful, not to say a sanguine view, that the New Act 
 will become, under possible contingencies, what many an old 
 law has proved itself to be, a dead letter. But all, more or less 
 firmly, hold that the measure of 1874 legally deprives the epis- 
 copate of spiritual authority and power which it is essential for 
 a Christian bishop freely to enjoy and use. Well may they 
 thus hold, if it be in any wise true that henceforth, in the Church 
 of tbis land, spiritual causes are to be decided by a lay judge in 
 a civil court created by the secular power. 
 
 These circumstances have induced the present writer to place 
 on record and to offer for consideration the foUowinor thoufj^hts on
 
 lo Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 the New Court for the trial of the ecclesiastical offences of 
 spiritual persons. Had the question been one of abstract theo- 
 logical truth on deep Christian verities, which required learning 
 for its discussion, he had not attempted to treat it. But the 
 elements of the faith alone are actually concerned, which lie on 
 the surface of religion. Had the question been one of intricate 
 State policy, or of obscure constitutional right, which required 
 professional training for its inquiry, he had not ventured to 
 touch it. But the elements of legal and political knowledge 
 only are necessarily involved, which are almost axiomatic. No 
 doubt hard theological propositions and difficult problems of law 
 and politics are, or may be, connected with any full treatment 
 of the subject, in its origin or in its results. No doubt both 
 divines and lawyers can import obscurity into the question and 
 display learning in the argument, which will have the effect, if 
 it were not the object, to confuse and blind. But the plain 
 statement of first principles, and their direct application, to- 
 gether with the resolute avoidance of collateral details which 
 hide the main issue, will enable any one of average mental 
 power and ordinary historical and theological acquirement, to 
 form a judgment in this matter if not unerringly right, at least 
 not seriously wrong. Under these conditions the writer ven- 
 tures to address himself to the subject of this paper with confi- 
 dence : ventures, because many would more effectively plead 
 for the faith ; with confidence, because none could be more cer- 
 tain of the premisses, nor more assured of the ultimate result. 
 
 With a deep sense of the gravity of the situation, and of the 
 responsibility which is inseparable from the task, he feels at 
 liberty to ask his brother clergy and fellow-countrymen : 
 Ought we to obey the New Court and method of procedure 
 created before our eyes, which legally violate the fuudamental 
 principles of the faith, and unconstitutionally cancel the con- 
 tract of our ordination vows ? To balance obedience against 
 disobedience to any de facto authority is at all times a dangerous 
 course to take. To a clergyman it is a painful one to be forced 
 to adopt. It can only be justified when the conscience is abso- 
 lutely convinced that it has to decide between what is due to 
 God, and what is claimed by man. Perhaps it were better in 
 uch a case to supply materials for a reply than directly to makes 
 answer to the question.
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regtdatio7i Act? 1 1 
 
 Materials may easily be supplied. But before tliey are fur- 
 nished, it may be well to consider in detail the substance of the 
 two chief objections already urged against the authority claimed 
 for the Court and method of procedure established under the 
 PubUc Worship Regulation Act. Tliere exists no Act of Parlia- 
 ment on the Statute Booh, in relation to the Church of Christ, 
 Gomparahle to the New Act 0/ 1874. This is beyond controversy, 
 whether the Act be viewed in regard to its subject matter; or 
 to the mode, objects, and results of its operation; or to the 
 authority which either alone created it, or was deliberately 
 ignored by it. 
 
 Let us define these points of comparison in order. 1. The 
 subject matter of the Act (so far as the present argument is 
 concerned) is the spiritual jurisdiction of the episcopate, in 
 questions of the doctrine, discipline, and ceremonial of the 
 Church. 2. The mode of its operation (under the like limita- 
 tion) is the unprecedented way, in either Church or State, in 
 which the lay judge of the new civil Court for the trial of eccle- 
 siastical offences is appointed, together with his method of 
 procedure. Its objects are the pronouncement of spiritual 
 sentences upon spiritual persons in a secular Court by a civil 
 judge. Its results are the confusion and intrusion in certain 
 cases, and the abolition in others, of episcopal jurisdiction, in 
 the same or different dioceses and Diocesan Courts. 3. The 
 authority (again with the same conditions) which was ignored, 
 it may be almost said which was defied, was the co-ordinate 
 authority of Convocation ; and the sole authority which enacted 
 it was that of Parliament. 
 
 There is no wish to deny that one or more of these elements 
 may be separately predicated of other legislative Acts affecting 
 the Church. But this admission gives additional force to thu 
 assertion, that all of them combined can be affirmed of no other 
 measure. For instance : (1) Convocation may not have been 
 consulted in relation to Acts of Parliament which bear upon the 
 temporal side of ecclesiastical questions : but, in relation to 
 their spiritual side, legislation similar to that of 1874 has never 
 yet been forced upon the Church in defiance of Convocation. 
 (2) The method of procedui-e in ecclesiastical causes has no 
 doubt been dealt with by Parliament. But it has only been so 
 dealt with of late years, and since the suppression of Convoca-
 
 1 2 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 tion ; never to the present extent, nor in the present manner. 
 And our complaint is this, that the new legislation affects much 
 more than mere methods of procedure. (3) The subject matter 
 of the Act has before been the object of legislation : but not 
 before has episcopal jurisdiction been tampered with, much less 
 has it been abolished, either in part or wholly. The last feather 
 turns the scale. It is the cumulative wrong of the Public 
 Worship Regulation Act which makes it intolerable in the eyes 
 of Churchmen. And in its composite wrongfulness consists the 
 force of the question : Ought we to obey the New Court which 
 it has created ? 
 
 Let us note these three points more closely. 
 
 1 . We may at once put aside all Acts of Parliam ent which 
 concern merely testamentary and matrimonial matters, questions 
 of time and money, forms of procedure and punishment, sub- 
 divisions of sees or union of parishes, and the creation of 
 suffragan bishops, as clearly without the range of the present 
 inquiry. We may also, of course, disregard all Acts which 
 merely gave legislative sanction to measures which possessed 
 the authority of Convocation, whether directly or indn^ectly; 
 and those which merely affixed legal penalties to the breach of 
 that which Convocation had already condemned as wrongful. 
 These Acts of Parliament, and there are a large number of 
 them, are essentially different, are different in principle as well as 
 in detail, from the New Act. Their omission from consideration 
 relieves us from a wide field of investigation. Beyond such 
 limits, it has been conclusively proved upon documentary 
 evidence, that ^' from the Reformation downwards " to the year 
 which witnessed the creation of the Final Court of Appeal, now 
 declared by the voice of the nation to be moribund, there is no 
 legislative action comparable to the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act. The only measure which in any degree resembles the 
 Act of 1874 (after the creation of the Court of Delegates, which 
 will be considered below), was the Act which permitted judges 
 of Ecclesiastical Courts to be married men, or being laymen to 
 exercise, under spiritual authority, legal jurisdiction. But such 
 relaxation from ancient rule did not affect the two points on 
 which our grievance against the New Act is based. It did not 
 violate the constitutional principle, before mentioned. It did
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regtdatioii Act? 13 
 
 not infringe tlie legal jurisdiction of tlie bishops, before 
 named. 
 
 Hence, the legislation by Parliament alone on the subject 
 matter of the Act of 1874 vitally affects the question : Whether 
 or not we ought to obey the Court and judge to which the Act 
 gave birth ? 
 
 II. Again : The mode, objects, and results of its operations 
 are, as an Act of the civil power alone, without parallel in the 
 history of the Church. Thus : 
 
 i. Viewed legally, how is the new judge appointed, to whom 
 we are expected to yield obedience in spiritual matters ? Of 
 course, solely under the authority of an Act of Parliament. 
 But, beyond this — by what instrumentality ? Before a reply be 
 given, it may be said, by an agency absolutely anomalous in 
 either Church or State. Not by the archbishops alone ; for the 
 civil power must be a consenting element in the appointment. 
 Not by the civil power absolutely ; for the archbishops, under 
 conditions, may nominate, and can in some sort be said to 
 appoint. By what agency then ? The Act is clear and decided 
 on this point : By that of the Crown, by Letters Patent in the 
 last resort : at any stage, subject to the approval of the Crown : 
 under certain conditions only, and still with the sanction of the 
 Sign Manual, by the joint action of the two primates. A chain 
 possesses the strength only of the weakest link. The Act of 
 1874 has only the power of its feeblest clause. Speaking 
 ecclesiastically, the weakest clause is the one which enacts that 
 "her Majesty may appoint,^^ "the Official Principal of the 
 Arches Court.''^ Such is the Statute law of England of to-day. 
 The two archbishops, if they concur in their choice, if they 
 concur within a period of six months, may nominate to the 
 vacant office — to be held "during good behaviour^'' by — "a 
 person,^^ " qualified ^^ as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 It need not be said, how irreconcileable is this matter of 
 nomination and appointment, even legally, with the consti- 
 tutional mode adopted from time immemorial in the Church of 
 England. Observe, the constitutional method, by which the 
 archbishop alone appointed his own Official Principal, was the 
 mode recognized by the State, legislatively, judicially, and 
 executively. The archbishop's Official Principal became one of
 
 14 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 the acknowledged judges of the land. But now, bearing in 
 mind theological dijBferences in high places, and the limited 
 number of persons really competent to act as an ecclesiastical 
 judge, it is not improbable that the two primates might dis- 
 agree in their choice, or might fail to agree within six months. 
 Even supposing agreement within the allotted period to be 
 possible, the Act still violates fundamental principles on the 
 appointment of an ecclesiastical judge. The judge represented 
 the mind of the bishop who appointed him. The bishop 
 appointed the judge on his own sole and individual authority. 
 These, heretofore, were common-places in Canon Law. They 
 are now both contravened by Act of Parliament. In no case, 
 in the future, will the judge of the Provincial Court be appointed 
 by the sole authority of the archbishop. Under favourable 
 circumstances, the new judge will essay, in the north and south 
 respectively, to reflect the opinions of two co-ordinate archi- 
 episcopal nominees. Under hostile, but not improbable circum- 
 stances, the new judge will reflect the policy of the leader for 
 the moment of the dominant faction in a popular and non- 
 Christian assembly. 
 
 ii. Viewed spiritually, what are some of the objects of the 
 New Court which we are ordered to obey ? The objects are at 
 least two-fold. Firstly; to pronounce decisions in spiritual 
 causes. Secondly; to enforce such decisions by spiritual 
 sentences. On the flrst, it might be enough to say — if we 
 again take the weakest link of the chain by which to test its 
 strength — that " a person " appointed by Letters Patent from 
 the Crown to be *"' a judge of the Provincial Courts,^' does not 
 strikingly fulfil Lord Cokeys canon of constitutional law, nor 
 the requirements of the law ecclesiastical. On the second, it 
 might suffice to note the scandal, which appears to be imminent, 
 of spiritual sentences being pronounced on spiritual persons in 
 Courts of Law, with an ecclesiastical title indeed, but as to 
 origin, authority, ^^ rules and orders,^^ j^dge, mode of procedure 
 and sentence, secular and civil. 
 
 But something more has to be said on a spiritual view of the 
 case. 
 
 First : What are the qualifications of the ^' person ^^ nominated, 
 whether by the sole will of the premier, or by a compromise 
 between the two primates, to the office of ^^ a judge of the Pro-
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regulation Act? 15 
 
 vincial Courts ^^ ? Here once more, tlie chain must be tested 
 at its weakest part. The Act itself may reply : ^' A barrister- 
 at-law who has been in actual practice for ten years." To a 
 Christian man, to one who holds the article of the Creed, " I 
 believe in the Holy Catholic Church," such an answer is 
 starthng. It would have been appalling, could the reply have 
 been made apart from the lowering influences which are 
 inseparable from the agitation connected with such a measure 
 as the Public Worship Regulation Act. Has it then come to 
 this, that the old traditional and historic Church of England, 
 is tamely content to see placed as '^a judge" in her Metro- 
 politan Court of Appeal in spiritual causes, ^'' a person " who 
 has practised ten years as an advocate at the common bar ? 
 Are her sons prepared to submit to the decisions of a secular 
 lawyer of ten years^ standing upon causes, moral, ceremonial, 
 or doctrinal, which of right ought to be brought before the 
 ancient and spiritual Provincial Courts ? Surely neither the 
 Church nor her loyal sons are so fatally Erastianized as to 
 recognize the judgments of a barrister-at-law on questions 
 which need the mature wisdom and learning of divines even to 
 entertain. 
 
 Second : What is the subject matter of the decisions of the 
 n,ew judge of the Provincial Courts ? The gravity of this 
 question can hardly be exaggerated. It has been supposed 
 amongst the clergy who will be made the first victims of the 
 new legislation, and it has been widely disseminated, that 
 together with other and even less dignified matters, of the 
 '^fabric, ornaments, and furniture " of the Church, questions of 
 '' mere ceremonial alone ^' will be decided in the newly-created 
 Court. Passing by the studied affront to Divine AVorship 
 which is intended by such a phrase, an affront which is offered 
 to all who believe with the Creed of S. Athanasius that " the 
 Catholic Faith is this, that we ivorship One God in Trinity " — 
 it may suffice to say that such a statement falls short of the 
 truth. Ceremonial, indeed, will be adjudicated upon in the 
 New Court ; but not ceremonial alone. Every question which 
 might have formerly come in appeal before the old legitimate 
 Provincial Court, may now be taken in the first instance before 
 the newly-made judge. The section which provides for the 
 appointment of the " person " to be '*" a judge of the Provincial
 
 1 6 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 Courts " came '^ into operation immediately after the passing of 
 the Act/' Hence,, on the first vacancy which occurs in the 
 office of the Dean of the'Arches^ any youthful barrister of ten 
 years' standing may be called to decide on the highest verities 
 and deepest mysteries of the Catholic Faith. This point has 
 not received the attention which is due to its supreme impor- 
 tance. It must not be forgotten that the Public Worship 
 Eegulation Act directly affects not only the discipline and 
 worship^ but also the doctrine of the Church of Christ. 
 
 iii. Viewed ecclesiastically, what may be the aspect which 
 the newly-created Court and the newly-made judge take, when 
 obedience to them in the matter of jurisdiction is claimed at our 
 hands ? Without straining overmuch the ancient theory of the 
 episcopate, it may be asserted with little danger of contra- 
 diction as an abstract principle, that, in the union of Church 
 and State, the integrity of a bishop's office demands two 
 conditions. Firstly; a bishop must have legal power to 
 pronounce spiritual sentences within the limits of his own 
 diocese. Secondly; his diocese must be free from the like 
 sentences being pronounced by any other bishop. 
 
 The first condition, it is obvious from a glance at the Act of 
 1874, is openly disregarded. If it be urged, it is only on questions 
 of which Divine Worship is the most important, that the bishop's 
 jurisdiction is withdrawn, we reply : Canon Law has ever in- 
 cluded the Worship of God amongst those questions which are 
 within the province of a bishop to decide. " I speak of canoni- 
 cal judgment " (says De Marca, quoted by Dr. Pusey), " where- 
 in the question was of faith, ceremonies, discipline of the clergy, 
 or any canonical question." This is the answer of a Churchman. 
 But there is another answer which a politician will respect. 
 The Act of 1874, in withdrawing the legal jurisdiction of the 
 bishop and placing it in the hands of one appointed by the 
 authority of the State, commits the constitutional blunder of 
 dividing the legislative and judicial powers. It would seem 
 that our legislators, whilst in some instances boastfully ignorant 
 of Church law, were equally forgetful of their own principles in 
 State-craft. What civil government could exist for a day, if 
 the authority for its legislative and judicial powers were 
 divorced ? Yet, this is the strange anomally which the State 
 attempts to force upon the Church. An authority which has
 
 Created by the Public Wo7'ship Regulation Act? 17 
 
 no power to make law assumes power to interpret law. In 
 other words, the State, which is powerless to legislate for the 
 Church, has usurped power to adjudicate for the Church in 
 spiritual matters. 
 
 The second condition needs no professional knowledge to 
 enforce. Its import is self-evident in relation to any well- 
 ordered civil community, and much more to the Divinely- 
 organized society of the Church. But into what ecclesiastical 
 confusion does the Pubhc Worship Regulation Act precipitate 
 the Church of England, in both its provinces and in all 
 its dioceses ? Into a disorder which is chaotic. Not only, for 
 the purposes contemplated by the Act, is the ancient eccle- 
 siastical jurisdiction of the twenty-eight comprovincial bishops 
 legally abolished, but the modern Parliamentary jurisdiction of 
 the two primatial sees becomes (1) confused in regard to them- 
 selves, becomes (2) intruded in regard to others. 1. For upon 
 what principle, civil or spiritual, it may be asked, does Canter- 
 bury combine with York in the appointment (subject to the 
 approval of the Crown) of a perambulating judge to serve in 
 two incongruous capacities ? The idea is foreign to every 
 principle of Canon Law. The reality is unknown to the history 
 of Christianity. From time immemorial in this Church and 
 Kingdom there have existed of ecclesiastical right and national 
 sanction, either with or without the official titles, tlie judge of 
 the Provincial Court of Canterbury, and f/ie judge of the Pro- 
 vincial Court of York. In the nineteenth century an Act of 
 Parliament has created a new thing in national law which it 
 seeks to graft upon Church law — ^^ a judge of the Provincial 
 Courts of Canterbury and York '' united. Such an abortion in 
 legislation is inconceivable to ecclesiastical procedure. It is a 
 worthy product of a popular assembly widely including Jews, 
 Nonconformists, and Infidels, which aspires to rule the Church 
 of Christ by the promptings of a National Conscience. 
 Jurisdiction, then, may be assumed to be confused. 2. It is 
 also intruded. For, even if we can admit the right, as the Act 
 has given power to the two primates to exercise a confused 
 jurisdiction in the appointment of a judge for their own Courts 
 of Appeal, two questions may fairly be asked by any of their 
 suffragans. Durham in the north and London in the south 
 may claim to know why the confused jurisdiction of Canterbury
 
 1 8 OugJit we to obey the New Cottrt 
 
 and York combined is intruded upon tliem ? Chester and 
 Cliicliester may seek to learn, upon wkat principle of Canon 
 Law such intruded jurisdiction is enforced in cases of First 
 Instance by means, be it observed in passing, of a Court of 
 Appeal ? It may be left to the authors of the ecclesiastical 
 chaos to answer both questions. 
 
 Hence, again, the legislation by Parliament alone on the 
 mode, objects and results of the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act, viewed in certain aspects only from a legal or spiritual 
 or ecclesiastical position, materially affects our reply to the 
 question : "Whether, or not, we ought to obey the New Court 
 and judge which the Act created ? 
 
 3. Once more: By the passing of the Act of 1874, the 
 authority of Convocation was not only deliberately ignored ; it 
 was over-ruled, and even to a certain extent defied. In this 
 fact is contained another element in any answer to the question 
 of obedience which may be made by a priest, whose ordination 
 vows pledge him, and only pledge him to ^^the discipline 
 of Cheist, as this Church and Realm hath received the same.^^ 
 Whatever may be the value of the declaration (of course it 
 lacked the sanction of the Upper House), the Lower House of 
 the Convocation of Canterbury decidedly pronounced against 
 the Bill then under debate. A Committee had been appointed 
 to consider the Bill. After proposing a large number of 
 amendments, extending over four closely printed pages, their 
 Report concluded as follows : " The Committee after having 
 . . . carefully considered the provisions of the Bill . . . deeply 
 regret that, even with the amendments suggested, they are 
 unable to recommend legislation in the manner proposed in the 
 Bill.''^ They also add a statesman-like corollary in favour of 
 the Church Discipline Act being repealed, and the existing 
 Consistory Courts being reformed, as suggested in their Report, 
 and as the only legitimate way to meet existing difficulties. 
 It is needless to say that the advice of Convocation was not 
 accepted. It was not even avowedly entertained. The Lower 
 House of the York Convocation indirectly arrived at a like 
 conclusion. 
 
 At this stage of the argument it is enough to point out a
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regulatioii Act? 19 
 
 dilemma in whicli tlie temporal power lias placed itself. The 
 Public Worship Regulation Act does one of two things. It is 
 a legislative Act which either only regulates ecclesiastical pro- 
 cedure, or effects more than the regulation of procedure. If it 
 does more than regulate procedure, as we hold that it does^ 
 from the history both of the Church and Nation of England, it 
 is clear that Convocation as a whole ought not_, upon constitu- 
 tional principles, to have been ignored, nor in one chamber at 
 least to have been defied. If it does less than legislate upon 
 first principles, as some of its defenders assume, i. e. if it only 
 regulates procedure, the following facts, brought to light by 
 the research and learning of the Rev. E. S. Grindle, in a recent 
 pamphlet,, entitled ^^ Canon or Statute,^^ (Hayes) published in 
 the form of a Correspondence with Lord Selborne, have to be 
 met and dealt with. He shows, from documentary evidence — 
 
 1st. That (with the exceptions above mentioned) '"''from the 
 Reformation downwards ^^ to the year 1717 ^^the discipline of 
 the Church and the constitution of the Ecclesiastical Courts 
 were regarded as within the province of Convocation. ■'' This 
 Mr. Grrindle proves, not only from the acts and records of Con- 
 vocation itself and ^'^the claims which that body made on its 
 own behalf, but also by the acts and admission of the Crown 
 and its responsible advisers. ^■' It need only be added, that the 
 State officially recognized such dealing with ecclesiastical pro- 
 cedure by Convocation by endorsing and acting upon it. 
 
 2nd. That " during the period in which legislative enact- 
 ments affecting the (procedure of the) Ecclesiastical Courts 
 were made by Convocatioo, the Statute Book is absolutely 
 barren of any such enactments made by Parliament. ^^ It is 
 only seventy years after the forcible suppression of Convoca- 
 tion that " we find legislative enactments, directly afiecting the 
 internal constitution of the Ecclesiastical Courts, made by Par- 
 liament without the assent of the Church/^ Mr. Grindle w^ell 
 adds : "The system thus begun in 1787 has brought the Church 
 to a state bordering on disruption. It is incompatible with 
 the profession of the Church of England that she is reformed 
 on the model of the Primitive Church." 
 
 How will the authors of the Public Worship Regulation Act 
 escape from this dilemma ? On the lowest view of the case 
 (one that a Churchman cannot accept), the recognized authority 
 
 B 2
 
 20 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 wMch, in tlie history of Church and State_, had hitherto decided 
 matters of procedure ought not^ on constitutional principles, 
 to have been ignored, much less defied. On the highest view, 
 in regard to the exercise of spiritual jurisdiction which has 
 been suppressed, the case of the Church against the State is 
 even stronger. 
 
 The last point to be noted in this place is the fact that the 
 Act of 1874 was passed by the sole authority of Parliament. 
 It would be sufficient to leave this statement to speak for itself 
 were it not that the ingenuity of some whose minds are ill at 
 ease may seek to elude the force of this plain position. They 
 may be wishful to apply a salve to their conscience. The sup- 
 posititious reasons alleged for obedience to the New Court and 
 judge may be hypothetically combated. For example : Men 
 may say that the Church came to the State and asked for 
 legislation ; and that Parliament having legislated at the 
 request of the bishops, the clergy are bound to obedience. 
 Men may say that the fact of the bishops having assisted to 
 pass the Act of 1874, and having secured a veto upon its 
 operation, either positively or negatively supplies a wanting 
 spiritual element in the gross ; and that the new judge work- 
 ing in harmony with the bishop of a diocese, or the bishop con- 
 firming the decisions of the new judge, supplies the element of 
 spirituality in any given case. Men may say that the old 
 Court of Arches and the old Judicial Committee possessed no 
 real element of spiritual authority, according to ancient prece- 
 dent; that the new Court of Arches and the new Supreme 
 Court possess none ; and hence that if obedience were paid to 
 the one, it is due to the other. Men may say that obedience 
 may be rendered under protest. 
 
 Take these reasons in order : (1.) The weakest of all of them 
 is the last — the argument in favour of protest. To act against 
 conscience under protest is the device of a feeble mind. But 
 supposing a protest offered — in what terms would it be made ? 
 to whom would it be given ? what would be the efi*ect of it ? 
 whom would it benefit in the future ? whom would it defend at 
 the present ? 
 
 (2.) The argument against the spiritual authority alike of all 
 the Courts is more difficult to answer. Somewhat will be said
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regtdatioyi Act f 2 1 
 
 on tliis hereafter. But tlie true answer is this : Under existing 
 circumstances we cannot wait^ in the matter of obedience at 
 least, until an authority be discovered against Tvhich no excep- 
 tion can be taken. We must have some recognized authority 
 to which to defer. The Arches Court possessed an element of 
 authority. It is bad policy to destroy one authority which 
 some acknowledged by creating another authority which none 
 will acknowledge. 
 
 (3.) The argument that the bishop, either before or after 
 the decision by a civil officer in a secular Court, can supjDly an 
 element of spirituality is difficult to grasp. Take the latter 
 case : How can the bishop confirm, or otherwise influence 
 for good, the secular decision ? This argument presupposes 
 that the bishop^s jurisdiction is legally destroyed. In what 
 Court then could the sentence be legally confirmed ? If there 
 be no such Court, would a parish priest feel bound to accept 
 the mere individual expression of his diocesan^s private opinion ? 
 If the sentence be not binding in conscience before, it could 
 not be binding after, such expression of episcopal opinion. 
 
 The negative argument (4.) in favour of submission to the 
 judge, from the fact that the bishops hold in their hands the 
 practical working of the Act, and by their veto, in any given 
 case, can suspend its operations, cuts two ways and proves too 
 much. If credit be claimed for any individual prelate for the 
 absolute suspension of the Act in his diocese, or against any 
 particular priest ; what sentence must attach to any other pre- 
 late who allows of its beino- enforced ? If credit be claimed 
 for the episcopal body which succeeded in securing the right 
 of veto j what verdict must be passed upon the order itself 
 which made such concession possible, by first voluntarily sur- 
 rendering to the will and pleasure of Parliament then* legal 
 jurisdiction ? 
 
 The positive argument (5.) in favour of obedience to the 
 Court, from the fact that the bishops assisted to obtain the 
 enactment of the Bill, and from the statement that the Church 
 asked the State to legislate upon a spiritual question, is founded 
 partly in truth and partly in fiction. The bishops, as spiritual 
 peers, undoubtedly co-operated in legalizing the New Court. 
 But neither the Church, nor any who represented the Church, 
 sought from the temporal power spiritual authority. Two
 
 2 2 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 ikcts tend to prove this assertion. 1st. In their corporate 
 capacity, as an episcopal coDege, the bishops took no action 
 whatever in the passing of the Act. To the minds of many, 
 such absence of corporate action is an evidence of providential 
 interference by the Divine Head of the Church. The Bill was 
 not introduced into the Upper House of Convocation. It is 
 clear, then, that the mere personal concurrence of individual 
 members of a corporate society cannot compromise, or in any 
 way commit, the body as an integral whole. 2nd. The idea 
 which has occurred to some minds, of a council of bishops 
 petitioning Parliament to pass the Act, is unreal. Nothing 
 comparable to a council, under existing ecclesiastical law re- 
 cognized by the State, could be held outside Convocation. 
 Whatever abstract opinion may be entertained on the relations 
 of the two bodies, or upon the privileges and powers of one of 
 them, there actively exist at the present moment, and there 
 have in fact existed time out of mind, two chambers in the 
 legislature of the Anglican Church, with co-ordinate powers. 
 The voice of the Established Church is to be heard in the com- 
 bined utterance of both Houses of Convocation, not in the 
 separate resolution of either. This is the law of prescriptive 
 right in the Church of England, and is part and parcel of the 
 English constitution. It is not needful to defend the position 
 from a theoretic standpoint. It is enough to say that in the 
 Anglican Communion the priesthood possesses, and has ever 
 possessed, in the matter of legislation, co-ordinate powers f^ith 
 the episcopate. Even if it could be affirmed that -the Upper 
 House of Convocation had petitioned Parliament to the end in 
 view, the Church would not have been compromised. But it 
 cannot be so affirmed. In truth, there was nothing comparable 
 to a council of the bishops taking action in the matter. There 
 was, it may be admitted, something very like a cabal. 
 
 Hence, the enactment by the authority of Parliament alone, 
 and the defiance of the rights and privileges of Convocation in 
 the passing, without its concurrence, of the Public Worship 
 Eegulation Act, further and most seriously affects our answer 
 to the question of obedience. 
 
 Materials may now be offered for making a reasonable and 
 consistent reply to the question of this paper. The main posi-
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regulation Act? 23 
 
 tion in tlie argument is now readied, and the two points of 
 leading importance may fitly be discussed under one liead. 
 The contention is this : The bishops have been deprived by the 
 authority of Parliament, not only without the consent but 
 against the will of the Church, of the legal jurisdiction which 
 is essential to the due and full performance of their episcopal 
 office. Such jurisdiction involves doctrine, and discipline, and 
 ceremonial. The Church has thereby suffered grievous spiritual 
 wrong. The two grave issues above stated are only the cause 
 and effect respectively of this central position ; and both effect 
 and cause are subsidiary to it. The virtual or absolute sup- 
 pression of the Spiritual Courts is the cause. That ecclesiastical 
 laws are not administered by ecclesiastical judges, nor in courts 
 really ecclesiastical, is the consequence. The clergy are inti- 
 mately, though by no means exclusively, affected by both. It 
 is a matter, spiritually, of far more importance to them than 
 the suspension of habeas corpus, or any other constitutional 
 principle affecting the laity. They have been deprived of a 
 prescriptive right which has been enjoyed by the Church, and 
 has been used legally with the support and consent of the State, 
 from time immemorial. The right is one which Parliament 
 did not, in any sense, give; and could not really take away. 
 It is one which existed inherently in the episcopal office before 
 Parliament assigned to it legal sanction. It is one which may 
 still be employed, had we bishops equal to the occasion of 
 choosing between Caesar and Cheist, even after Parliament has 
 withdrawn from it the sanction of the law. But the State, 
 though it cannot touch the principle in question, is all-powerful 
 to suppress its legal exercise. And this power it has exerted 
 to the full. The State has withdrawn from the bishops of the 
 Church legal jurisdiction which the episcopate has from the first 
 both enjoyed and used. This suppression of legal right, con- 
 summated without the consent and against the will of the 
 Church, is nothing short of a revolution. 
 
 The deprivation of spiritual right was, if the paradox be 
 allowed, parliamentary in form and unconstitutional in essence. 
 It has forced the clergy into an anomalous position whence they 
 can only escape by means which, in consequence of legislative 
 illegality, may appear to be, but are not lawless. It has left 
 the clergy in a position which has no parallel in the history
 
 24 Ought zve to obey the New Court 
 
 of English constitutional principles^ in at least three distinct 
 aspects. Even from a political standpoint these aspects are 
 worthy of note. 
 
 Firstly : The clergy have suffered deprivation of right by a 
 popular assembly into which they alone^ as a class, of all 
 Englishmen are disqualified from entering. As an order 
 entirely without representation in the House of Commons, Par- 
 liament has forcibly withdrawn, from them the prescriptive 
 right of centuries. 
 
 Secondly : The clergy have been thus in a sense outlawed, 
 whilst the legislative Chamber in which they both can sit and 
 are represented has been ignored by Parliament in the conduct 
 of the measure by which they have suffered. As a matter of 
 history, that Chamber had regulated the major part of the 
 procedure now, together with the right, swept away. But in 
 1874, though the course was urged. Convocation was not con- 
 stitutionally summoned to initiate, concur in, and confirm the 
 measure of suppression, nor has it had official opportunity to 
 oppose or condemn the Act synodically. 
 
 Thirdly : From the operation of these causes the clergy are 
 placed in a position which they never occupied in the times of 
 Tudor tyranny, which they have not occupied since the days of 
 the great Rebellion. As an unrepresented class and disquali- 
 fied order, they have been subjected to the jurisdiction of a 
 judge whose creation and tenure of office is based upon one 
 authority, whilst the law that he administers is based, and 
 almost wholly reared, upon another and difierent authority. 
 This has been effected not only without their consent, but, it 
 may be fairly added in view of the Report of Convocation, 
 against their will. The clergy will now execute their sacred 
 functions under the jurisdiction of a secular judge who inter- 
 prets spiritual law by the sole authority of the temporal power. 
 With an imperial government, the authority of the legislative 
 and judicial powers in spiritual matters have been separated. 
 Can a confusion more perfect, political and ecclesiastical, 
 severally and jointly, into which professional statesmanship has 
 fallen, be conceived ? It is one result of the enactment of the 
 Public Worship Regulation Bill. 
 
 These anomalies affect, in the first instance and to the largest 
 degree, the clergy. But they do not affect the clergy only.
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regulation Act? 25 
 
 In a body politic, as in a body spiritual, if one member suffer, 
 all the members suffer with it. It is impossible thus to deal 
 with a class, and much more with an order, of men of education, 
 position, and influence, unequalled as a whole in these charac- 
 teristics, who are located in every parish and collected in every 
 town of the kingdom, and to imagine that the evil will not find 
 you out. In one way at least the sin will come home to the 
 political conscience — perhaps sooner than is expected. It 
 requires neither a prophetic mind to predict, nor a legal mind 
 to perceive, endless and perhaps insuperable difficulties in the 
 practical working of a measure avowedly at issue with Canon 
 Law and not in harmony with even Parliamentary legislation 
 for the Church. The New Act was conceived in too secular a 
 spirit, it was too unskilfully drawn, it was too often revised, it 
 was passed too hastily — not to dwell on faults of greater 
 moment — to permit of its smooth course in the future. 
 
 The materials at disposal may conveniently be divided in ac- 
 cordance with the subject matter of them. There are at least 
 two ways in which the whole subject may be considered with a 
 view of arriving at a right decision. Answer may be made to 
 the question in relation to practical action, and in regard to 
 theoretic princij)le. It is possible that the reply may not be the 
 same in both cases. It is conceivable that a system theoreti- 
 cally vicious may work well ; or being indefensible in practice, 
 may yet be sound in principle. And in the various relations 
 between the temporal and spiritual powers, the obscurity fo 
 their origin and the difficulties of their adjustment, neither al- 
 ternative is improbable in the matter of recent secular legisla- 
 tion on ecclesiastical topics. In either case, any answer which 
 we can give must be w^eighted with conditions. But, if neither 
 alternative may be affirmed of the Public Worship Kegulation 
 Act, the reply to be returned must be unconditioned. If it 
 cannot be said, that the practice is good though the principle 
 is bad, nor that the theory is good though its action is bad — 
 but rather that action and principle are both hopelessly wrong 
 and vicious — then, the evidence against the Act of 1874 is cu- 
 mulative, and the verdict to be pronounced will be unanimous 
 and decided. We should have been fortified in such a verdict 
 had we been enabled to consider the evidence for arriving at it
 
 26 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 from both standpoints^ the practical and theoretic. Both are 
 of importance : and each without the other is, in a measure, 
 imperfect. The Kmitations of space, however, prevent the dis- 
 cussion of both; and a choice must be made. The evidence 
 against the New Act from a practical side is shorter, more 
 intelligible, less unattractive, and equally decisive. It need not 
 be said in regard to difficulties in history, theology, law, and 
 constitutional politics, that the practical view is not the harder. 
 But the argument from principle can be sustained, and would 
 be stated, did circumstances permit. Perhaps on another 
 occasion the present writer may have an opportunity of facing 
 these difficulties. Indeed some will be incidentally met and 
 answered in the concluding pages. But in the main, the prac- 
 tical argument only will be discussed ; and even upon its merits 
 alone a very decided answer must be given upon the claims to 
 our obedience possessed by the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act. 
 
 In order to estimate accurately the extent and gravity of the 
 practical change effected in the position of the Church by the 
 passing of the New Act, it is necessary to remember definitely 
 what position ecclesiastical jurisdiction occupied prior to its 
 enactment. This may be done, as far as possible, historically, 
 without pledging the present writer to approve of all that he 
 records — specially on three points. 
 
 1. It is beside the mark for him to express an opinion upon 
 the ecclesiastical validity of the Arches Court, or its legitimate 
 continuity as a spiritual power from ancient times. When 
 opinions are so much divided on this involved topie, it would 
 be presumptuous to dogmatize. He may add, however, that 
 enthusiasm for the spiritual validity of the Court has been 
 sensibly cooled, since the Dean of the Arches has so far 
 acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Lay Final Court as to 
 decline to hear questions re- argued before himself which had 
 been overruled by the Judicial Committee : and that, not on 
 principle, but from expediency ; not on questions decided after 
 full, but after an ex fcirte argument. This suicidal and 
 indefensible decision of the learned Dean has produced serious 
 injury to the cause, the full results of which cannot yet bo 
 realized. 
 
 2. It is needless for him to point out all the blots in the
 
 Created by the Public Worship RegtLlatio7i Act? 27 
 
 principle or details of the Churcli Discipline Act^ or in the 
 working of, or more truly in the absence of work in, the 
 Consistory Courts of the bishops. Convocation itself, in the 
 Eeport above quoted, having advocated the repeal of the first 
 and the reform of the last, the shortcomings of both need be 
 disguised by no Churchman. Least of all are we committed to 
 the Church Discipline Act which became law during the time 
 when Convocation was unconstitutionally silenced. 
 
 3. It would be a work of supererogation for any one to 
 attempt to undervalue, in ecclesiastical matters, the authority, 
 constitution, mode of procedure, or judgments of the Judicial 
 Committee of the Privy Council. The culpable ignorance 
 which its judgments display in questions affecting the Church; 
 the mis-statement of facts, perversion of history, confusion of 
 dates, tampering with documents and formularies of which it 
 has been guilty — exposed year after year by many independent 
 witnesses; and, more than all, the self-contradiction of its 
 pronouncements, and the wide-spread feeling against their 
 absolute impartiality (to speak gently) in unpopular cases, 
 have at length produced a re-action. Discredited even with 
 the author of its existence. Parliament has decreed its dis- 
 honoured fall and unregretted extinction. 
 
 In all three instances the writer would fain be free from being 
 supposed to approve because he fails to condemn. But unless 
 ecclesiastical discord be complete in the Church of England, 
 some point of departure must be found or made for our 
 investigation : and the existing order of ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction supplies the needful basis. Unless we have passed 
 ecclesiastically from one abyss of absolute chaos to another, 
 there must be the possibility of making comparisons between 
 what we were, and what we have become. And without 
 thinking that the former system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
 was faultless in practice, it may be shown that the present 
 system is infinitely worse. That, at least, was bearable. This 
 is felt to be intolerable. 
 
 It is now, as it always ought to have been, an accepted prin- 
 ciple with the High Church party, that the decision of a Lay 
 Court of Final Appeal cannot itself compromise the Church 
 which does not formally accept its decisions. However eccle- 
 siastically inconvenient, it is possible for a Church to subsist in
 
 28 Otcght we to obey the New Court 
 
 default of tlie existence of a Spiritual Court of Appeal higlier 
 than that of the Archbishop. In view of the marvellous revival 
 in the Church of England during the past half-century, it 
 might be said that a Church which lacked such authority could 
 rise from a very debased condition. We have reason to know 
 that this was a characteristic of the English mediseval system 
 of appeals — the decision of the Archbishop^s Court was, as a 
 rule, final. With ourselves, in any given case, where a Spiri- 
 tual Court superior to the Archbishop^s does not exist, a priest 
 may well be content to suffer wrong for the truth^s sake with- 
 out himself appealing to a Lay Court : or being himself taken 
 before the Secular Final Court, to suffer wrong upon the appeal 
 of others. He may elect to be governed by the decision of the 
 highest Spiritual Court of Appeal to which he has access : 
 and observe, without such a Court, a Church is deficient in an 
 essential element of spiritual jurisdiction. This is the true 
 answer to all taunts levelled against those who were content 
 to abide under the legal jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes of a 
 Lay Court of Final Appeal. It would have been a sufficient 
 answer in regard to the new Supreme Court of Appeal in 
 spiritual causes, had the Act of 1874 not been passed. But it 
 is not now. In the former case the clergy had a Bishop^s 
 Court in which to appear. They had an Archbishop^s Court 
 to which to appeal. If more was denied them, they suffered 
 spiritual loss indeed, but not spiritual death. And this 
 principle was applicable to the old Court of Delegates, is 
 applicable to the more modern Judicial Committee, and would 
 have been applicable to the new Supreme Court — all of 
 which Courts of Final Appeal stand on the same footing, 
 and none of which are spiritual. But the principle can go 
 no further than the present. It cannot be applied in the 
 future, in consequence of the enactment of the Public Worship 
 Regulation Bill of 1874. 
 
 At the date at which, by a legislative blunder avowed by its 
 authors, the Judicial Committee was, or was supposed to be, 
 entrusted by Parliament with final decisions on appeal in 
 spiritual causes. Convocation was forcibly silenced by the State. 
 This is important to be remembered. Convocation was silenced 
 also when the Church Discipline Act became law — the Act 
 which regulated ecclesiastical procedure until it reached its
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regiilatioii Act? 29 
 
 final stage. In regard to these Acts of Parliament_, tlie priest- 
 hood of the Church of England of that day, between five-and- 
 thirty and five-and-forty years ago, could not be credited with 
 much political foresight. They were regardless of the results 
 which might flow from the action of legislation on the Church : 
 and the results which actually flowed were wholly unexpected 
 by them. Those clergy who were ordained before the Bills 
 passed the legislature, had no representative and ecclesiastical 
 Chamber of their own to which to appeal. They were then the 
 only class of English citizens, Jews alone excepted — and they 
 remain so still without that exception — who were excluded from 
 the popular assembly which they were expected to obey. And 
 those who were ordained after the Acts came into operation, 
 were unconscious of the power which would be claimed by the 
 State over the Church ; how such power would be made to bear 
 on themselves ; how such power would be made a fulcrum for 
 the exercise of fresh civil encroachments. In short, Convocation 
 was in abeyance, and ecclesiastical matters did not then attract 
 the keen interest from without, nor excite the jealous scrutiny 
 from within, that they secure at present. The clergy ministered 
 as of old, or were newly ordained, in simple faith that they 
 were at liberty to minister " the doctrine and sacraments and 
 the discipline of Christ, as the Loed hath commanded, and as 
 this Church and Realm hath received the same.^^ 
 
 But it is otherwise now. Convocation is no longer gagged. 
 It has been revivified. It is in active operation, though it is 
 far from being re-organized. The clergy have caught the 
 spirit of the age. In their measure, they have become critically 
 alive to their privileges as an order, to their rights as citizens, 
 and to their influence as a force in the State. Men cannot 
 enter the priesthood unconscious of, or remain in it unaffected 
 by, the fact that, in spite of the remonstrance of one Chamber 
 of the spirituality, and that the representative Chamber, the 
 unconstitutional disregard of both Houses of Convocation has 
 resulted in this catastrophe — that the State alone has legislated 
 for the Church " as this Church and Realm hath not received 
 the same." 
 
 There is a further diff'erence between recent ecclesiastical 
 legislation and the legislation to which we, as clergy, have 
 given our assent by entering the priesthood of the Established
 
 30 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 Churcli. This difference is obvious over and above tlie fact 
 that Convocation was in abeyance at an earlier date ; and re- 
 mains after we have been pronounced uncritical^ or short- 
 sighted. It has been obscured or minimized by those who, 
 ungenerously not less than ineffectively, would elevate our 
 silent concurrence with the past into a precedent for inaction 
 now, or compliance in the future. But there is a point of 
 endurance at which a worm will turn. Speaking in general 
 terms, though definite language might be employed, modern 
 legislation in ecclesiastical causes has produced two results. 
 
 First : leaving untouched the ancient mode of procedure, in 
 the Spiritual Courts of First Instance and Appeal, Parliament 
 legislated on and altered the Secular Court of Final Appeal. 
 This change was made in the years 1832 and 1833. 
 
 Second : taking the Secular Court of Final Appeal of ^its own 
 creation as the standard of ecclesiastical procedure. Parliament 
 re-organized from below a system of appeal, on the summit of 
 which the Court now justly condemned was placed. This change 
 was made in the year 1840. 
 
 Now mark the difference. In both cases, although the last 
 stage in the appeal for spiritual causes was of temporal 
 authority only, the Archbishop^s Court of Appeal (the Arches 
 or Chancery Court respectively) escaped secular handling. It 
 was esteemed too venerable, if not too sacred, to be lightly 
 deprived of its prerogative and power. In both cases, again, 
 the Episcopal Courts of First Instance (the Diocesan Courts) 
 were maintained in their relative position, either in complete 
 or partial integrity. It was felt by legislators, even thirty 
 years ago, that Courts which had prescriptive legal rights of 
 many centuries, and in essence were coeval with Christianity 
 itself, ought not to be tampered with, much less suppressed at 
 the will of the House of Commons alone. In other words, in 
 spite of a Lay Court of Final Appeal (which we have seen to be 
 a misfortune, not a crime ; to involve spiritual loss, but not 
 death), the Church still retained, under indirect Parliamentary 
 confirmation, her Consistory Courts and her own Spiritual 
 Court of Appeal from 1832 to 1840. In spite of secular inter- 
 ference with mere modes of procedure, which practically re- 
 confirmed legislatively all that it did not alter; in spite of 
 Parliamentary legislation on the course and limit of appeals.
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regulatioii Act? 31 
 
 tlie Churcli of England still possessed Courts Christian of First 
 Instance presided over by her prelates, and Spiritual Courts of 
 Appeal presided over by her primates_, in every diocese and in 
 both provinces, from 1840 to 1874. Can the like be said now ? 
 It cannot, with truth. Is it, then, too much to affirm of the 
 measure which produced this result, that it has effected a revo- 
 lution? The Public Worship Regulation Act, originated by 
 the bishops, lays a firm and broad foundation for the future 
 Disestablishment of the Church of England. 
 
 In 1874 came the change which materially affects our position 
 as clergy of a Church established by law, who are also priests in 
 the Church of God. The change is one which certainly has 
 altered the legal status of the Church in this country in regard 
 to itself, and must alter its corporate relations with the State. 
 Perhaps no agitation from without, on the part of the Liberation 
 Society, has caused such a shock both to those relations and to 
 that status as the convulsion from within, at the will of Parlia- 
 ment. It is no exaggeration to say, that many a staunch and 
 respected ecclesiastic, not to speak of a large following of the 
 faithful laity, has been converted to opinions which others have 
 been maligned for advocating a little too early in the day. By 
 the change which has ensued from this act of legislation, from 
 a belief in the union of Church and State, they now perceive the 
 absolute necessity of a severance between Church and State. 
 For, to speak in general terms, the change was this : Whilst 
 adhering to a final appeal to the Crown in Council — though in 
 what form the Act is ominously silent — the legislation of 1874 
 produced two results, both of which are subversive of the first 
 principles of the faith. 
 
 Firstly : For certain spiritual causes, it swept away every 
 vestige of Episcopal Jurisdiction in the first instance which had 
 time-honoured sanction from the law. This, of course, involved 
 the correlative enactment that the clergy were to the like extent 
 removed from the spiritual jurisdiction of their legitimate 
 superiors in the Church. Moreover it ruled that, in the place 
 of the spiritualty deciding spiritual suits in a Spiritual Court, a 
 secular ^'^ person ^^ in a Civil Court should adjudicate upon the 
 things of God. 
 
 Secondly : In every spiritual cause. Parliament swept away 
 the right of appeal to the ancient and legitimate Provincial
 
 32 Ought we to obey the New Cotcrt 
 
 Court of the Arclibishop. Moreover it ruled that ^^ the judge ^^ 
 — any barrister of ten years^ standing at the leasts and appointed 
 in the last resort by the Crown — should preside over the New 
 Courts of Appeal. 
 
 In the place^ therefore^ of the old system of ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction which, with more or less exactness, has obtained in 
 England from the introduction of Chinstianity, and was pre- 
 served throughout the alterations effected from 1832 to 1840, a 
 system novel in itself, without precedent, without example, 
 equally unknown to canon and civil law, equally foreign to all 
 recognized jurisprudence in Christendom — has been forced upon 
 the spiritualty by the will and pleasure of the temporalty alone. 
 
 This is the revolution in Church and State which has been 
 effected by the Public Worship Regulation Act of the English 
 bishops in 1875. 
 
 At the expense even of repetition, it is needful to state these 
 points with all possible clearness. It is necessary for two 
 reasons. (1.) Because, both in and out of Parliament, members 
 of the legislature have allowed themselves to say, that the New 
 Act merely ^^ simplifies procedure ^^ in ecclesiastical matters; 
 whereas, in truth, it is " legally destructive of spiritual jurisdic- 
 tion.''^ (2.) Because, even amongst our friends some are suffi- 
 ciently credulous towards a transparent inaccuracy to accept 
 this lame and impotent excuse for tampering with divine things ; 
 whereas, to judge of the offence by the position of the offended, 
 a humble apology is due, with immediate satisfaction, to an out- 
 raged Church. If any point has been proved in the above 
 pages, it is this, that the exercise of lawful spiritual jurisdiction 
 has been suppressed in the Church of Cheist by the temporal 
 power alone. To a Churchman, nay to a Christian who has any 
 belief in the supernatural and its revelation to men, this sup- 
 pression involves a violation of first piHnciples in the Catholic 
 Faith. To him, and even to unprejudiced men outside the 
 Church, the withdrawal of jurisdiction is more than a simplifi- 
 cation of procedure. Indeed such language in the ears of either 
 sounds like a deliberate misapplication of terms. The require- 
 ments of place and power may necessitate verbal sophistry. 
 But we need not dispute over language. It is no question of 
 logomachy. Facts, not words, are what we denounce. It is
 
 Created by the Piiblic Worship Regulation Act? y^ 
 
 tlie fact of tlie abolition of legal jurisdiction of wMcli we com- 
 plain, not tlie language employed by peer or prelate to convey 
 this fact. If forced to use, in a non-natural sense — wbich one 
 at least of those who press this argument has in former days 
 condemned — the technical jargon of the Courts, we will say 
 that the so-called '^simplification of procedure*^ in spiritual 
 matters by the secular power alone involves a '' violation of first 
 principles ;" and we will ask : Ought we to obey the New Court 
 which by x^ct of Parliament ''' simplifies '* away the "principles '' 
 of the Catholic Faith ? 
 
 For instance : I . It is said by those accounted as friends of 
 the Church : — " Yes : It is true, that the New Act creates a 
 New Court, with a new judge and a new method of procedure ; 
 and that the authority of all — procedure, judge. Court, and 
 Act — are based upon the authority of the House of Commons. 
 But still, it is yet possible that any given cause may be con- 
 ducted under the sanctions of the old procedure. It is possible 
 to appear before the old judge, and to be convicted or acquitted 
 by the old Court : in other words, to be prosecuted under the 
 Church Discipline Act instead of under the Act of 1874.''^ To 
 this argument the rejoinder is obvious. If the apologist for 
 the suppression or abolition of the Church Courts by the 
 State affirms that the victim of persecution can exercise a 
 choice, under which form of procedure his enemy shall attack 
 him, then, the plea may be admitted. But, if the choice rests, 
 as it practically does rest, not with the defendant, but with 
 the prosecutor, then, the plea is fallacious. 
 
 2. It will be more respectful to the office of the one, and 
 more modest in regard to the position of the other, if the 
 present writer quotes without remark the words of two persons 
 of exalted rank who, iu this matter, can hardly be accounted 
 our friends. The opinions of both are concisely stated in the 
 pithy language of the Bishop (Fraser) of Manchester, in a 
 speech before the Diocesan Synod, November 26th, 1874, 
 ^' that by this Act, the law of the Church of England, what- 
 ever that was, had not been touched in one jot or tittle.^' This 
 exhaustive statement is a short and" easy method of settling 
 the argument- The Archbishop (Tait) of Canterbury and an 
 ex-Lord Chancellor (Selbornc) have also pronounced upon the 
 point. In his speech at the Diocesan Conference at Maidstone, 
 
 c
 
 34 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 held early in the present year^ an account of which appears in 
 the Guardian of February 8rd^ the Archbishop is reported to 
 have said: "The bunkum which was talked about a very 
 harmless measure^ which he had the honour of proposing in 
 the Upper House of Parliament^ produced the idea that there 
 was a greater dislike of obeying the law than really existed. 
 His sole object in proposing that measure was to obtain a quiet 
 and expeditious and inexpensive way of having the existing 
 law obeyed." The Archbishop adds,, in words which^ if not 
 misreported, contain a naive admission of truth : " It was 
 thought^ and not unnaturally^ that there was more in the Bill 
 than this/' Lord Selborne writes thus, in a letter which was 
 published in the Times : " The Bill will, if it passes, be merely 
 a measure for shortening and simpHfying to a certain extent 
 the legal procedure in a certain class of cases now cognizable 
 under the present cumbrous procedure of the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts." Lord Selborne adds : '^ All such enactments as to 
 procedure in ecclesiastical causes have, from the Reformation 
 downwards, been made by Parliament.■'^ Competent authorities 
 have pronounced that Mr. Grindle's historical demolition of 
 this statement, in the pamphlet above quoted, is complete. If 
 answerable, it has been unanswered. Pending any reply, one 
 would be tempted to inquire of either of these eminent persons 
 in Church and State : If the effect of the New Act constitutes 
 a change of procedure only, what would constitute a change of 
 principle ? 
 
 I. We shall be able, perhaps, better to realize what changes 
 have been wrought in our system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 if we call to mind how suits were conducted under the Church 
 Discipline Act of 1840. The record of them will more clearly 
 show whether we suffer now from a " simplification of pro- 
 cedure,'' or from a ''''violation of principle.^' The line of 
 conduct which the Act prescribed was somewhat involved, 
 and it is not easy to give an account of its action at once lucid 
 and full. This confusion arises from the discretionary power 
 vested in the bishop and the alternative course which may be 
 adopted, by either complainant or prosecutor, at different 
 stages of the suit. It will tend to perspicuity, if the discre- 
 tionary powers on the one hand, and the alternative course on 
 the other^ be overlooked ; and an average case be described.
 
 Created by the Ptcblic Worship Regulation Actf 35 
 
 A beneficed clergyman commits an offence ecclesiastical within 
 the range contemplated by the Church Discipline Act. A 
 complaint is lodged against him before the bishop of the 
 diocese. The bishop consents to investigate the complaint 
 judicially and issues a Commission of Inquiry. The commission 
 sits as a Court, hears counsel, and reports to the bishop that 
 there is ground for further proceedings. Neither party — and 
 this is hardly hypothetical — consents to abide by the decision 
 of the bishop; and the case proceeds judicially. The bishop 
 then hears the cause, the evidence being given upon oath, in 
 his own Consistory Court,with the assistance of three assessors 
 — one of whom " shall have practised not less than five years 
 in the Court of the Archbishop,^^ to secure on the bench one 
 member at least with a knowledge of ecclesiastical law. In 
 due course, sentence is pronounced by the bishop (the Act is 
 careful to add), ^''according to the ecclesiastical law.''' So far 
 as the diocese is concerned, the cause is finished. An appeal 
 in the first instance lies to the Archbishop in the Arches 
 Court, and from thence in the last resort to the Crown in 
 Council, and shall be heard (the Act is again careful to add) 
 before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 
 
 The present writer simply describes the order of procedure 
 as it existed. He offers no opinion on the ecclesiastical aspect 
 of the working of the Church Discipline Act. A liberal inter- 
 pretation of the wording of one clause in the Act suffices to 
 bring its procedure into harmony with ancient ecclesiastical 
 precedent. The twenty-third Clause enacts that " no proceed- 
 ing against a clerk in Holy Orders . . . shall be instituted in 
 any Ecclesiastical Court otherwise than is hereinbefore pro- 
 vided." This Clause at least is patient of, if it does not 
 necessitate, a meaning which would make the hearing of the 
 cause before the bishop to take place in the old Consistory 
 Court of the diocese. The cause may indeed be heard to some 
 extent differently in detail, but still it is to be heard in the 
 same Ecclesiastical Court. In other words, the procedure is 
 changed, but the principle remains unaltered. On the other 
 hand, the New Act, before it is enabled to legislate according 
 to the requirements of its promoters, is forced to anticipate a 
 preliminary objection. It rules, by Clause four, that " pro- 
 ceedings taken under this Act shall not be deemed to be sucb
 
 o 
 
 6 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 proceedings as are mentioned ^' in tlie above-named Clause in 
 the Churcli Discipline Act. This disavowal seems to point to 
 more than a change only of procedure. The Public Worship 
 Regulation Act absolutely sweeps away the identical spiritual 
 Courts which the Church Discipline Act specially confirmed. 
 If this be a ^' simplification of procedure/^ it is one which can- 
 not be distinguished from a "violation of principle.'^ Two 
 points, however^ are beyond dispute in the working of the 
 Church Discipline Act. In the first place,, under its provisions, 
 it was possible for a priest to be tried and to defend himself in 
 the Diocesan Court of his own bishop. And in the second 
 place, it was competent for him to appeal, and to abide by the 
 appeal, to the Provincial Court of his archbishop. 
 
 Thus, so far as a clergyman was concerned, justice might be 
 had in one Ecclesiastical Court and appeal lay to another. 
 Beyond this point a priest need not proceed ; and resting there 
 he enjoyed the like privileges in trial and appeal that the 
 English clergy of the middle-age Church enjoyed, neither more 
 nor less, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Neither 
 Court, indeed, as a fact, exactly corresponded with the ancient 
 Courts Christian. In matters of detail and procedure, or in 
 legitimate descent, or in questions of appeal, the existing 
 Courts were not identically at one with their predecessors. 
 But so far as they did represent the Courts whose name they 
 bore — and that was sufiicient to satisfy many holy and learned 
 men, and is infinitely more than the New Court and judge can 
 pretend to — the clergy and laity alike were free to use them, 
 were free to be tried by them, were free to appeal to them and 
 from them. 
 
 But for certain causes this freedom of priest and people in 
 the first instance has been virtually suppressed, and in the case 
 of appeal has been absolutely abolished. The faithful laity can 
 no longer bring to justice the unfaithful clergy before their 
 common ecclesiastical superior. Tlie priesthood can no longer 
 defend themselves from the interested attacks of a Society, of 
 doubtful legality but undoubted powers for mischief, in the 
 Court of their bishop ; can no longer appeal to the Court of 
 their 8.rchbishop. In behalf of this enforced powerlessness, it 
 is insufiicient to say that practically the Diocesan Courts were 
 unused, and the Arches Court had become a Court of First
 
 Created by the Piiblic Worship Regulation Act? 2il 
 
 Instance. At tlie most_, this only meets half tlie difl&culty; it 
 does not touch the abolition of the Provincial Courts of Appeal. 
 At the least, in regard to the Diocesan Courts, the Report of 
 Convocation furnishes one reply to the argument from practical 
 inaction : let the Consistory Courts be reformed, not suspended. 
 To abolish the Bishops^ Courts because they are in abeyance is 
 to endorse the maladministration of ecclesiastical law which 
 ought to be amended. To consent to the deposition of the 
 bishop from his own spiritual Court in favour of lay usurpa- 
 tion is to abandon the first principles of Christian jurisprudence 
 on the grounds of expediency only. The question is not 
 whether of the two, the layman or the cleric, will judge most 
 impartially: it is whether of the two is the right judge " as 
 this Church and Realm hath received the same.'''' In short, the 
 principle, at once constitutional and Christian, enunciated by 
 Lord Coke, which, with whatever partial obscuration, could be 
 deciphered in the lines of the Church Discipline Act, has been 
 entirely obliterated by the Public Worship Regulation Act. 
 
 II. How does this Act practically work ? It works in two 
 ways : first, in regard to the New Court, which takes the place 
 of the twenty-eight Diocesan Courts of First Instance; and 
 secondly, in regard to the jndge who fills the office (on a 
 vacancy) held by the two provincial judges of Appeal. The 
 earlier mode of action is the only one which need be described 
 at length. The later method may be dismissed in a single 
 period. Every cause which formerly came before the Court of 
 Arches and the York Chancery Court will henceforth (at the 
 first vacancy) be decided in the New Court by the new judge : 
 every cause — including questions of doctrine. Taking the same 
 average case as we traced in the Church Disciphne Act, and 
 avoiding as before both discretionary power and alternativ^e 
 courses, in what position are the clergy placed in regard to the 
 exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction at the present day ? A 
 beneficed clergyman commits an ofience, or commits no offence, 
 as the case may be, within the range contemplated by the 
 Public Worship Regulation Act. A complaint is lodged 
 against him by three parishioners (who for the purposes of pro- 
 secution are termed members of the Church of England) before 
 the bishop of the diocese. Tlie bishop within one-and-twenty 
 days sends a copy of the complaint to lue priest complained of.
 
 ;o 
 
 8 Otight we to obey the New Court 
 
 Within a farther period of one-and-twenty days the clergyman 
 — and this_, again, is hardly hypothetical — declines ^' to submit 
 to the directions of the bishop touching the matter of the said 
 representation/^ , Or if the priest consents, the promoter of the 
 suit declines. 
 
 The reasons which may induce either promoter or defendant 
 to declare himself unwilling to submit are not hard to imagine. 
 Apart from all secondary and personal reasons the following are 
 valid: (1) because the bishop is not authorized to hear the 
 cause and to give judgment upon it in his own Diocesan Court, 
 according to ecclesiastical usage, but is empowered only (under 
 the authority of the civil power alone) to arbitrate privately 
 upon the case ; (2) because the judgment he gives is practically 
 a private expression of individual opinion, without any spiritual 
 authority whatever, without appeal in the cause in question, 
 and without influence (by special provision of the Act) in any 
 other ; (3) because, in opposition to the procedure of the Church 
 Discipline Act, which offers more chance both of equity and 
 legality, the cause may be heard by the bishop alone, without 
 the advice of a preliminary commission, without the actual co- 
 operation of assessors learned in Church law, without the argu- 
 ments of counsel, without the evidence of witnesses ; (4) because 
 the procedure under this clause of the Act is utterly lax and 
 slovenly, the bishop being empowered " to hear the matter . . . 
 in such manner as he shall see fit,^^ perhaps in the episcopal 
 dining-room, and to " issue such monition as he may think 
 proper,-'^ possibly the opposite of " good and effectual in law," 
 and not '^ according to ecclesiastical law." 
 
 The prosecutor, or the prosecuted, or both, having declined 
 the mere private arbitration of the bishop, the mysterious per- 
 sonage called " the judge " appears on the scene. The mode 
 of his appearance is as irregular, according to judicial usage 
 whether civil or ecclesiastical, as many other provisions of this 
 eccentric Act of Parliament. The non-legal mind would have 
 supposed that, if the arbitration of the bishop were declined, 
 the bishop himself would be the proper State oflBcial to call to 
 his aid the superior powers of the secular judge. Here we 
 meet with what seems to be another instance of the careless- 
 ness with which the Bill was drafted, or the haste in which it 
 was altered, or the inconsideration with which it was conceived
 
 Created by the Public Worship Regidation Act? 39 
 
 — inexcusable in any case — for the bisliop, wliose Diocesan 
 Court has been usurped^ is not the legal official to summon the 
 secular judge, who is intruded into his sacred office. Red- 
 tapeism requires a medium between the episcopal victim and 
 the lay pretender. Wliether or not this may be an effort to 
 secure ecclesiastical centralization, the result is the same. The 
 bishop moves the archbishop ; and the archbishop moves 
 the judge; and the judge hears the matter''^ in anyplace/' 
 within certain limits, most convenient to himself. In company 
 with '''' the judge ^^ appears the not less mysterious sphere of 
 his labours, termed in the Act, " open Court.''' A '^ Provincial 
 Courts''' judge, apparently on the authority of the Act of 
 Parliament, even though there be no vacancy in the office of 
 the judge of cither the Provincial Courts of Canterbury or 
 York — the judge must be called. But even so august an 
 authority fails to create a name for the " open Court " in which 
 ^' the judge " sits. Speaking ecclesiastically, it clearly is not 
 the Canterbury Court of Ai^ches ; for causes from the Arch- 
 diocese of York may be taken before it. It is not the Chancery 
 Court of York ; for the Archbishop of Canterbury may join in 
 the appointment of the judge. Still less is it a Diocesan 
 Court, even though the cause taken before it is strictly dio- 
 cesan ; for no appeal lies to the archbishop, and the bishop of 
 the diocese, the victim of lay judicial intrusion, is an official 
 who is powerless even to demand the aid of the judge who has 
 usurped episcopal jurisdiction. As the learned editor of the 
 '' Handy -book of the Public Worship Regulation Act " tersely 
 expresses it, the reform effected by the measure ^' sweeps away 
 the unsatisfactory and dilatory processes of the Diocesan 
 Courts." But, whatever title may hereafter be assigned to the 
 nameless Court, the issues of the cause now rest in the hands 
 of the judge with unprecedented title who presides in it. In 
 due time the spiritual cause is heard by the lay judge, and a 
 secular judgment is pronounced on a spiritual matter. An 
 appeal from the judgment lies to the Crown in Council, though 
 in what form the Act is discreetly silent. This is a sketch of 
 the way in which the New Act of 1874 will work in ecclesias- 
 tical causes. 
 
 III. These changes in our system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 it is submitted with confidence, are changes in principle and
 
 40 Ought we to obey the New Court 
 
 not only in procedure. So far as our argument is concerned, 
 tlie variations effected by tlie Act of 1874 are variations in both 
 procedure and principle from civil law^ wbicli gave statutable 
 authority to canon law. They directly clash with the provisions 
 of the Act of 1840. They are at issue with the Acts of 
 1832-33. They are hostile to the spirit and letter of far 
 earlier confirmations of ecclesiastical process by the secular 
 power. As this paper deals with the practical aspect alone of 
 recent legislation, it may be enough to say_, that the Public 
 Worship Eegulation Act violates the system which has obtained 
 in the English Realm and Church from time immemorial. It 
 violates the system handed down, even in a partially mutilated 
 form, yet so far confirmed, by the Act which created the 
 Judicial Committee. It violates the system handed down, even 
 if unwarrantably extended, yet so far confirmed, by the Act 
 which created the Court of Delegates. It violates the system 
 accepted by Church and State as the exponent of both principle 
 and practice of canon law in even earlier ages by Magna Charta 
 and the Constitutions of Clarendon, which were confirmed 
 again and again in the reigns of successive sovereigns. In a 
 century impatient of the claims of antiquity it is needless to 
 trace the course of ecclesiastical jurisdiction above the date of 
 1164. The earliest existing charter of the Churches rights, 
 however, was not legislative in character, but declarative of a 
 system which was then time-honoured and respected by the 
 civil power. By the Eighth of the Constitutions of Clarendon, 
 to quote a living authority (Mr. Joyce, in his " Civil Power in 
 its relations to the Church ^^), "we see that as now (the final 
 resort excepted) the first step was from the archdeacon to the 
 bishop ; the second, from the bishop to the archbishop ; and 
 thirdly, for lack of justice before the archbishop, recourse 
 might be had to the king, by whose orders the controversy 
 was to be finally settled in the Archbishop's Court ; and neither 
 party mig^ht move for any further remedy without leave from 
 the Crown, i. e. neither might appeal to Rome from the Arch- 
 bishop^s Court without Royal permission.^' 
 
 This is the system which has practically been the law of the 
 Church, sanctioned by the State, for countless generations. It 
 is true that, in the reign of Henry YIIL, the Court of Delegates 
 was estabhshed which is supposed to have regulated the course
 
 Created by the Public Worship Reg2ilatio7i Act? 41 
 
 of final appeal to a Lay Court of Parliamentary creation. It is 
 true, also, tliat in the reign of William IV. the Court of the 
 Judicial Committee was established, which inherited all the 
 powers statutably conferred on the Court of Delegates. But it 
 is arguable — and if it may be permitted to refer to the writer^s 
 own words, it has been shown in a pamphlet entitled '^ Secular 
 Judgments in Spiritual Matters " (Masters) — that it is legally 
 doubtful if the Court of Delegates was intended, or possessed 
 statutable power, to decide spiritual cases in the last appeal. It 
 is an historical fact that during a career of three centuries, for 
 the first 156 years of its existence, no purely spiritual cause was 
 brought before it, and for the last 142 years none was decided 
 by it. In short, the Act of Henry, if not intentionally of a pro- 
 visional character, was, like the Act of Victoria, a legislative 
 miscarriage, a political blunder. If this be more than arguable, 
 the Judicial Committee, which only inherits the statutable 
 powers of the Court of Delegates, can lawfully decide in the last 
 resort on questions only which are ecclesiastical in character, 
 and not spiritual. But, whether or not this may be proved, 
 the earlier course of appellate jurisdiction from the bishop to 
 the archbishop which has remained intact, as statute law of 
 England for upwards of seven centuries — and which then had a 
 prescriptive right of at least five centuries more — has now been 
 arbitrarily altered without the consent and against the will of 
 the Church, by the sole authority of the temporal powder. In 
 such a case as this, the question once more forces itself upon 
 conscientious and loyal Churchmen, and specially upon the 
 clergy who believe in the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church of 
 Christ — Ought we to obey the New Court? 
 
 This question may now be answered. The reader will re- 
 member that one line of argument, the practical, has alone been 
 followed in the present paper. If only a portion of what has 
 been urged against the New Act can be maintained, there can 
 be no doubt of the reply which must be given. As no valid 
 objection can be raised against the argument in its main 
 features, any difierence of opinion on minor points may be 
 ignored. On this broad basis the writer takes his stand, 
 whether as Churchman or as citizen. In the latter position he 
 sees that the State has practically abolished the legal jurisdic-
 
 42 Ought we to obey the New Cotcrt, &c, f 
 
 tion of the English Episcopate which the bishops have enjoyed, 
 with the consent of the law, from time immemorial. In the 
 former, he believes that the Church has thereby been practically 
 deprived of spiritual rights, the exercise of which are essential 
 to a full adherence to the first principles of the Christian Faith. 
 Both positions are combined in the case of a clergyman of the 
 Established Church. He is forced as a matter of conscience, to 
 come to a decision on the subject. As the Question ultimately 
 resolves itself into one of obedience to God or man, the writer 
 can only, with much diffidence, yet with all earnestness, make 
 answer that. We cannot recognize the new judge, we ought not 
 to obey the New Court, created by the authority of the Public 
 Worship Regulation Act.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Extract from a Taper read before a Society of Priests at its A?i)iual 'May 
 Synod, 1875, hy the Rev. F. H. Murray. 
 
 Ix considering the authority of the Act, a line may be taken that 
 it is one enforced upon the Church by Act of Parliament alone with- 
 out any real consent, indeed against the protest of the Lower House 
 of Convocation, and so that it is not binding upon the conscience of 
 any Incumbent ; and it may be considered that atiy Bishop acting 
 upon its provisions is simply doing so to carry out a law of Parlia- 
 ment — acting as a State Officer, rather than in his spiritual capacity 
 as Bishop. This line may be taken, and it is in most respects an 
 entirely and sadly true one ; but can it and will it avoid the 
 difficulties under which we may be placed ? Will the Bishops suffer 
 it to be so regarded ? I suppose it may be answered, that they will 
 
 not, and that they cannot 
 
 But, as I intimated before, I do not see how we can, as Priests, 
 submit to plead before a Court w^hich is constituted simply by an 
 Act of Parliament, which has swept away all the Diocesan Courts, 
 and the jurisdiction of the Bishop in them : how can we consent to 
 appeal before a Court so constituted, which has no ecclesiastical 
 sanction or character, which is simply formed to enforce an obnoxious 
 Statute, and to make easy means of procedure against Priests ? It 
 may be said, and it is said, " This is only making easy instead of 
 costly means of procedure ; " but it is a new means, which will inter- 
 fere with and which will lay down the law upon the formularies, 
 worship, and internal discipline of the Church of Christ. Can 
 this be admitted as rightful ? Can pleading be consented to before 
 it ? Can its decision be regarded as binding upon the consciences 
 of Churchmen ? I think we must answer emphatically in the nega- 
 tive.
 
 44 Appendix. 
 
 II. 
 
 Extract from a Sermon preached before the English Church Union at its 
 Annual Commemoration, June, 1875, hy the Rev. Dr. Sanderson. 
 
 The Catholic Revival has, among other marvellous signs of the 
 favour of God, unquestionably brought out into strong prominence 
 the spiritual character and claims of the Church. This is an 
 inevitable consequence of restored vitality. After the torpor of 
 past years the mere functional exercise of life has stimulated the 
 consciousness of life. The Church has learned to know her own 
 Heaven-given powers by the use of them. We see now in one aspect, 
 as we never saw before, the Church and the world to be absolutely 
 irreconcileable. We see now, as we did not see fifty years since, 
 that the kingdom which Christ our Lord set up was not "of this 
 w^orld." In another aspect we are permitted to hope that the Church 
 may yet use the Civil Power for her own great ends. I say " for her 
 own great ends,'' and for nothing else. If she cannot profit by the 
 union, she must seek to break it off*. There must be no mistake 
 here. Nothing short of this can justify what seems, at first sight, 
 to be a departure from the first law^ of the Church's life, " My 
 kingdom is not of this world." The burden of the proof is ever 
 upon those of us who would maintain this apparent departure, not on 
 those who would gainsay it. Unless the Church can use the State 
 for the great purposes for which she sprang as a bride from the side 
 of the Second Adam, there can be no plea for the continuance of the 
 present relation of the Church to the State. The order of this 
 relation must in nowise be reversed. The Church must not be 
 used as a tool of the State, but the State must be used as an instrument 
 for the Church's work. The Church must not become a department 
 of the Home Office — a part of the mechanism of domestic adminis- 
 trative policy. She must watch any tendency towards this with the 
 utmost vigilance and suspicion. She must see to it that she asserts 
 her higher dignity, and claim that high and low, rich and poor, 
 kings and people, statesmen and artizans, lords and peasants, admit 
 her supremacy in all things spiritual. 
 
 But have not recent events shown that this border line has now 
 been passed ! — that a claim has been made by the State which the 
 Church cannot and dares not admit ! The Civil Power, without the 
 consent of the Church, has set up a claim to supremacy. God 
 forbid that I should exaggerate the dangers that may be supposed to
 
 Appe7idix, 45 
 
 come of the operation of the Public Worship Regulation Act I It 
 will nominally come into force in a fortnight's time from this. 
 But it needs no great foresight to assure ourselves that we may, if 
 we each do our work and trust God to care for His Church, as we 
 know He does, regard that date with unmoved tranquillity. 
 
 It is not so much the Bill itself, pernicious as it is, that we have 
 to fear, as that which underlies and supports it. It is the Erastian 
 temper which made such an Act possible — it is the language of the 
 popular press, and, if I may be permitted to add, the Court Policy 
 — which is really dangerous. We may be sure that the struggle 
 lies, not so much, except incidentally, in the question of Ritual, nay ! 
 nor even of Doctrine, as in the tendency of the State to exert such 
 control over the Church, as will result, if it be not thwarted, in an 
 
 absolute bondage to the Civil Power The danger of this Act 
 
 is rather in what it means than in its own inherent powers. We 
 may hope to elude its vicious operation. We may hope to minimize 
 its mischiefs. But, being what it is, an offspring of the spirit of 
 Erastianism, we must consider how it may be used. What principle 
 should guide us at this time ? 
 
 (a.) Now it has been urged that the New Court will not touch 
 Doctrine. But it will ; for it supersedes the Arches' or Arch- 
 bishops' Court, before which questions as to Doctrines of the Church 
 have come, and by which Doctrinal judgments have been pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 {h.) It may be urged that the New Court will only pronounce 
 what the Church herself holds, and cannot prescribe any general 
 principles on which she must base her teaching. But is not this 
 power to interpret the Church's faith a power which no secular 
 Court can be permitted to exercise? That a secular Court should 
 oi'der what Bishop and Priest may and may not teach, under the 
 form of interpreting the Church's Law, is not this a ministering to 
 the people such as to constitute an intrusion into the Church's own 
 spiritual office? 
 
 (c.) It has been said by many that they would not resist in behalf of 
 the mere externals of religion, but that they would reconsider their 
 position if ever Doctrine should be touched. But it has come to 
 this : The New Court claims to handle all the Doctrines of the 
 English Church. 
 
 (^.) And again how can Ritual be separated from Doctrine ? Ritual 
 and Doctrine go together. History shows that the abandonment of 
 Ritual results in loss of Doctrine ; and common sense shows that it 
 must be so. And those who have headed this attack on Ritual have
 
 46 Appendix, 
 
 said as much. " It was aimed," said they, "not so much at mere 
 Ritual as at the Doctrine which that Ritual symbolized, and meant 
 to teach to the people." 
 
 Here then we have an objectionable and injurious Act in it- 
 self. But we have more. We have it passed in an objectionable 
 manner. Nay, we have more than that. It is the fruit of a fatally 
 objectionable temper of the public mind. Behind it lies that spirit 
 which would make the Doctriue and Discipline of the Church take 
 shape and colour from the influence of varying beliefs, or rather 
 negations of belief, which may approve themselves from time to time 
 to what may be called the National Mind ! 
 
 Now I ask : Is not this reversing the very order which it must be 
 the aim of Churchmen to devote the labours of their life to maintain 
 — I mean that the Church must use the aid of the Temporal Powers 
 only so far as she can subordinate them to her own High Vocation 
 on earth ? 
 
 We have here an encroachment upon that order, the like of which 
 has not occurred for 200 years. What shall be done ? Speaking 
 generally, we should all say, " Where serious questions are at stake, 
 at all hazards men must stand firm ; not talk, but be prepared to 
 suffer, if need be. It is rather by their patient endurance than by a 
 wilderness of protests that the world will be taught ' What is truth.'" 
 
 III. 
 
 Extract from the Report of a Committee of Convocation on the Public 
 Worship 'Recjulation Bill. 
 
 The Committee appointed in obedience to the President's direction 
 report as follows : 
 
 While the Committee are of opinion that any further regulations 
 required for the administration of the laws relating to the perform- 
 ance of Divine Service according to the Use of the Church of 
 England should be by Canon rather than by Statute, and that the 
 most effectual way of enabling the Bishops to exercise their authority 
 over the Clergy would be to simplify the proceedings of their Courts 
 by canonical regulations, they beg leave to lay before the House the 
 following objections to, and amendments in, the Bill referred to them. 
 [Here follow the objections and amendments.]
 
 Appendix. 47 
 
 The Committee, after having carefully considered the provisions 
 of the Bill laid before them, deeply regret that, even with the 
 amendments suggested, they are unable to recommend legislation in 
 the manner proposed in the Bill. And they are further of opinion 
 that, if the " Church Discipline Act " were repealed, and the exist- 
 ing Consistory Courts were reformed, as suggested in this Report, 
 there would be little difficulty in dealing expeditiously with cases 
 contemplated by the Bill. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Extract from a Gravamen [considerably sJiortened] 'presented to Convoca- 
 tion 0)1 the Public WorsJiij) Regulation Bill. 
 
 That a Committee was appointed to consider the question of Clergy 
 Discipline in reference to the Bill for the Regulation of Divine 
 Service. 
 
 That the Committee consisted of members representing many 
 different views on theological questions. 
 
 That the Committee recommended several very important altera- 
 tions in the provisions of the Bill. 
 
 That this Report of the Committee contained the followino- strono- 
 expression of opinion. [Above quoted.] 
 
 That this Report was considered in the Lovv^er House of Convo- 
 cation, and sent up to the Upper House without any alteration. 
 
 That no heed was given to these recommendations. 
 
 That they consider (certain other) provisions of the Bill frau^-ht 
 with considerable danger to the peace and efficacy of the Church. 
 
 That they cannot allow themselves to be in the slightest deo-ree 
 implicated in giving any approval to the Bill in either its former or 
 present shape, and should it lead to grave and irremediable evils, 
 the blame must rest on others, not upon themselves ; — as far as is 
 consistent with the respect they owe to those above them, they ex- 
 press their entire dissent from the provisions of the Bill. 
 
 That they believe that, if representations were made by their lord- 
 ships of the Upper House to those who have the conduct of the 
 Bill, it might be withdrawn. 
 
 That, as the only body representing the Clergy of the Church of
 
 48 Appe7idix, 
 
 England in the Province of Canterbury, whose ministrations and 
 temporalities are so strongly affected by the provisions of the Bill, 
 they feel bound to make the request, and they most humbly and 
 respectfully do so. 
 
 [This Gravamen was signed by]'W. B. Ady, R. Seymour, G. Pro- 
 vost, H. P. Ffoulkes, P. Freeman, F. G. Ouseley, J. W. Joyce, 
 G. Rawlinson, J. Jebb, 1. S. L. Vogan, G. A. Denison, W. Butler, 
 F. Hockin, W. Fraser, J. P. Birkett, J. E. Phillips, A. Grant, 
 C. N. Knight, R. W. Church, T. Sanctuary, R. W. Miles, R. 
 Gregory, A. Compton. 
 
 
 GILBEKT AND RiyiNGTON, FIUNTEKS, ST. JOH.N S SQUARE, LONDON.