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LETTER

PARISHIONERS OF ST. SAVIOUR'S.
BY THB EIGHT KEV.
THE LORD BISHOP OF BIPON. •
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WITH AN
APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS.

LONDON:
FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON,
st. paul's church yard, and Waterloo place.
1851.

LONDON :
gilbert & rivington, printers,
st. John's square.

LETTER,
8fc. Palace, Ripon, May, 1851.
My Christian Friends and Brethren,
It is impossible for me to review the events
which have occurred in the parish of St. Saviour's
since the consecration of your church, without
feelings of real sympathy with you, under the
various trials and perplexities in which you have
been, from time to time, involved. And my con
cern in the events is the greater, because I have
myself been instrumental in exposing you to some
of them, by severing from you, on two different
occasions, ministers whose self-denying labours,
especially at a period of prevailing pestilence, had
united some of you to them by the bonds of
a strong and grateful affection. But believing,
as I had full reason to do, that their minds were
infected with dangerous errors in point of doctrine,
I was compelled by an imperative sense of the
a 2

duty I owed to yourselves and to the Church,
to exercise acts of discipline, which, imperfectly
informed, as you doubtless were, as to the extent
and magnitude of the evil which I was remedying,
would be regarded by you with much of sorrow and
surprise. The justice, however, of all my misgiv
ings as to the dangerous tendency of those prin
ciples and practices, has been fully manifested by
subsequent occurrences, since five, out of the six
clergymen to whom I allude1, have now openly
embraced the corruptions of the Church of Rome ;
and have thus sufficiently proved how culpable
I should have been, and how negligent of the spi
ritual interests of yourselves and your families, had
I not interfered in both instances, by my influence
and authority, and protected you from dangers of
which you were hardly sensible. The language
in which I addressed you in the beginning of the
year 1847 2, is still more applicable at the present
time ; and if I had then reason to make the asser
tion, I have still stronger grounds for now assuring
you, that "you are, yourselves, scarcely conscious
of the dangers you have escaped ; and, that it is
for me, as your spiritual father, to step forward
1 Rev. Richard Ward, Rev. George Case, Rev. Thomas Min
ster, Rev. George G. LI. Crawley, Rev. S. Rooke-besides the
Rev. G. McMullen and the Rev. Mr. Coombes, both of whom
officiated temporarily at St. Saviour's.
2 Reply to the Address of the Parishioners of St. Saviour's
Jan. 22, 1847.

in your behalf, lest your affection for the individuals
should blind you to the perilous tendency of that
system which it has been attempted to establish
at St. Saviour's, foreign as it is to the spirit of
our Church, and calculated gradually to familiarize
you with many of the reprobated sentiments and
practices ofthe Church of Rome."
Nor can I refrain from lamenting the failure that
has thus far attended an undertaking which, when
it was first proposed to me, I could not help regard
ing as an unlooked-for opportunity of providing
for the spiritual instruction of the inhabitants of
one of the most destitute parts of the town of
Leeds ; and I was then willing to hope that it would
promote the great objects which I had in view,
when I laid the foundation of your school, four
years previous. Happy, indeed, would it have been
for the Church, and for yourselves, had you con
tinued under the teaching of that diligent and affec
tionate pastor 3, who in those early days, instructed
you in the pure verities of the Catholic faith, without
tempting you into the perilous paths which lead to
Rome, or encumbering the Ritual of our Reformed
Church with pompous ceremonies, at first, perhaps,
intended to illustrate, yet never failing, ultimately,
to obscure the truths which they would symbolize.
But, even prior4 to the consecration of your
3 The Rev. George Hills, M. A., Incumbent of Great Yar
mouth, and Honorary Canon of Norwich.
4 See Appendix, p. 21.

church, I had too manifest indications of the ten
dencies it was wished to foster there : and it was
not long before I discovered that it was the object
of the founder to try an experiment ; to force a
system of his own imagining, copied to a certain
extent from mediaeval practice, upon the Church
at Leeds. I forewarned those engaged in it, that
such an attempt would only serve to hinder rather
than help the progress of the Church of England
among the destitute population ofthe West Riding:
and the result has fully confirmed my predictions.
As regards the district itself, the amount of the con
gregations proves the poor success that has attended
the effort, while the alarm and antipathy it has
excited, has alienated from the Church of England
many who would otherwise have been embraced
within her fold.
Meanwhile, many of you, as I have observed,
were scarcely sensible of the consequences likely
to result from such a system ; and, in reference
to this point, I cannot but feel that you have been
somewhat hardly used by many of your spiritual
guides. Where persons are well versed in the
niceties of theological language and controversy,
they can easily detect any fallacies or mis-state
ments presented to them, and can reject the erro
neous impressions which would otherwise be con
veyed by the ambiguity of language. But the mass
of the population of St. Saviour's district had
almost every thing to learn, and would be generally

unable to discern the subtle mischief lurking, as
well in the language addressed to them, as in the
ceremonies practised in their church ; or to detect
the fallacies thus presented to their minds. My
own experience of the teaching at St. Saviour's
enables me to explain to you what I mean. Those
who are acquainted with the expressions sometimes
used by our earlier divines, are well aware that the
term " sacrament " is occasionally applied by them,
in a lower and secondary sense, to some of the more
solemn ceremonies of our Church and sacred func
tions of her ministers, though they were not or
dained by Christ Himself, and not invested with
any outward sign of inward grace given. In this
lower sense, are the ordinances of marriage and
absolution sometimes mentioned as sacraments.
Presuming upon this fact, one of the preachers
who has lately addressed you from the pulpit of
St. Saviour's, has taught you that confirmation, ab
solution, unction, holy orders, marriage, baptism,
and the Lord's Supper, are all sacraments ; no line
being drawn between those outward and visible
signs of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us,
ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby
we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us there
of, and "those five commonly called Sacraments"
(as our XXVth Article declares) which "are not to
be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being
such as have grown partly out of the corrupt fol
lowing of the Apostles, partly are states of life

allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not like
nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's
Supper." Now our received notion of a sacrament
is, that it is one of those means of grace which are
generally necessary to salvation ; and the impres
sion naturally produced upon your minds must be,
that it would be just as dangerous to neglect ex
treme unction, as to neglect Baptism or the Lord's
Supper : and, remembering the teaching of another
of your Preachers 5, you would draw the inference
that you were as much bound to come to a priest
for private absolution before receiving the Holy
Communion, as to go to the Holy Communion
itself. Again, the word "penance" was sometimes
used in earlier days to signify "repentance." It
is now generally understood to mean certain out
ward acts of mortification and self-inflicted pain.
But, I find you have been instructed that "pe
nance " is the means of forgiveness of actual deadly
sin ; and that deadly sin after baptism must end
in spiritual death, unless " penance " be resorted
to 6. It is possible that the preacher might mean
"repentance," when he used the word "penance;"
but, I have no doubt, that the idea conveyed to
your minds would be, that the voluntary infliction
of some pain or privation on the body was as
necessary to salvation, as the exercise of faith and

Appendix, p. 36. (Extract from sermon of Rev. S. Rooke.)
Appendix, p. 50.

real repentance. Once more ; each individual who
partakes of the Holy Communion does, in one
sense, offer a sacrifice to God ; the sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving ; as well as the reasonable,
holy, and lively sacrifice of himself, his soul, and
his body; and, in a secondary and inferior sense,
every act of worship is propitiatory, as tending
to procure and perpetuate our reconciliation with
God, through the merits and mediation of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Under the colour
of such expressions as these, you have been taught
that so often as the Holy Communion is celebrated,
there is a sacrifice made for sinners at the altar,
which aids them in obtaining pardon 7 ; your minds
are thus prepared to believe in a local corporeal
presence ; so that our blessed Lord, clothed with his
human body, and sitting at the right hand of God,
(where we are taught He is to remain until He
comes in glory to judge both quick and dead,) is
nevertheless corporeally present, is corporeally sa
crificed and offered up so often as the Holy Eu
charist is celebrated. You are thus easily led on
to pay the most profound adoration towards the
table of the Lord's Supper, which you are taught
to regard as an altar upon which your Saviour
daily descends to be offered up once more as a
victim ; and, when you have advanced thus far,
another of your ministers is emboldened to preach
7 Appendix, p. 50. 3.

10
to you the undisguised doctrine of transubstantia-
tion 8. I will adduce one more instance only of
that insidious mode of teaching, which has been
gradually preparing you for the full adoption of
Romish error. Because private confession and
absolution are, in some special cases and under
circumstances of special limitation, allowed by our
Church, authority has been claimed for the practice
of pronouncing it a duty incumbent upon all who
wish to come to the Holy Communion, to address
their private confessions to a priest, and receive
private absolution from him previously9. I need
say no more to prove to you the absolute necessity
which was laid upon me, of banishing such danger
ous teaching from my diocese, even although I
knew such a step would inflict much pain upon
many a grateful heart; nor will it now, I trust,
be difficult to persuade you that those are not
in truth your best friends who would endea
vour to perpetuate these evils among you; who
come and tell you that nothing is to be altered
in that ceremonial which has been the hand
maid to such delusions as these. Your eyes must
now, surely, at length be opened to the danger
of such a system ; and you will thankfully accept
such changes in the mode of conducting your ser
vices, as shall deliver you from the snares which
8 Appendix, p. 50. 8.
9 Appendix, p. 36. (Extract from sermon of Rev. S. Rooke.)

11
that novel ritual laid for your feet. From the re
currence of the dangers to which you were exposed
under the ministry of your late deluded teachers, it
will be my duty to protect you, as far as in me lies ;
and I earnestly hope, both for your sakes, and
for the sake of those who may come to minister
among you, that I shall not be met in that spirit
of evasion and resistance which characterized the
dealings with their Bishop of the parties who have
lately deserted their flock, and have openly em
braced those errors for which they were preparing
you and your children.
As however, before their departure, they used
their utmost endeavours to prejudice your minds
against myself, in the matter of the investigation
which I instituted as to their alleged principles
and practices, it is right that I should give you
the opportunity of judging how far their censures
upon their Bishop's conduct were merited.
They have reproached me for affording them so
short a time between the announcement of the
charges and the inquiry. It was for their sakes that
I named an early day ' : for what accused party,
who was conscious of his innocence, would not wish
for an early opportunity of meeting his accusers face
to face ? And if they now plead that the notice was
too short, why did they not remonstrate at the time,
1 See Appendix, pp. 29, 30, 31, for further particulars on
points connected with the statement of the St. Saviour's clergy.

12
asking me to postpone the investigation till some
later period, that they might have more leisure to
prepare their defence, instead of leaving me to con
clude that they were quite willing to enter upon the
matter at once, and were satisfied with the course I
was adopting ? But as they now plead want of pre
paration, it might be supposed that some symptoms
of it must have been evident at the time. Far
otherwise : they had a great array of witnesses on
the spot ; and the moment the examination of the
first adverse witness was finished, there were parties
ready to be produced, who should invalidate his tes
timony, and pronounce him unworthy of credit.
They endeavour to leave upon your minds the
impression that I had engaged a legal gentleman to
examine and cross-examine on the side of the ac
cusers, and had not allowed the accused to have a
similar advantage on their side. This is not the
fact. I brought with me (as every Bishop does on
such an occasion) one of my officials to act as my
assessor ; and in this instance, I requested my deputy-
registrar, Mr. E. J. Teale, to take down the evidence,
and to see that it was done in a regular and legal
manner. It was not his province to examine, or
cross-examine, the witnesses — that was the business
of the accusers and the accused, each being left to
make the best of their own cases as they could. Mr.
Teale, who was taking the evidence, asked only now
and then such questions as were necessary to elicit
the exact meaning of a witness, before he entered his

13
answer on the minutes. The well known high
principle and integrity of that gentleman, are quite
sufficient to vindicate him from having allowed him
self to take part in any sinister proceedings ; and it
was remarked by one present, in reference to the
few questions he was obliged to put, that if he had
been retained on the side of the St. Saviour's clergy,
he could not have done them more service than he
did, from the evident impartiality with which he
acted on the occasion.
Again, they would lead you to believe that I had
purposely summoned, as my assessors in the in
quiry, such ofthe clergy of Leeds as were the " most
active and keen partisans" against them. Now, Dr.
Hook was present, as rural dean and vicar of the
parish of the vestry of which the inquiry was held ;
but to the best of my recollection, he never opened
his lips during the ten hours that I sat there. The
Rev. E. Jackson was present, as clerk in orders of
the church in the vestry of which we were as
sembled ; and he certainly did not break silence
until an assertion was made by Mr. Minster, which,
from facts with which he was acquainted, seemed
to him to involve dishonesty and equivocation.
All the other clergy were avowedly present as accu
sers ; and to reproach me with having summoned
tjaose parties to assist me in the investigation, is as
reasonable as if the criminal at the bar were to re
proach the judge with having been so unfair as to
summon, as his assessors, the adverse counsel, and

14
the adverse witnesses in the cause. I simply bade
the accusers meet the accused face to face: the
accused well knew that the rest of the clergy pre
sent, whom they have designated as active partisans,
had come prepared to adduce charges against them
selves, and were not summoned by me for any other
reason than because they had announced their in
tention of making those charges.
The authors of " the Statement" have asserted,
that facts important to their justification were
omitted in the minutes of the evidence, and that the
entire evidence, and even name, of one witness, are
left out. They do not give the name of this wit
ness, and profess themselves unable to supply from
memory the facts which were unrecorded. Such
charges as these it is impossible to meet in any other
way, than by a simple assertion, that my own me
mory is equally unable to supply these alleged
omissions of important facts ; I must beg leave
therefore to doubt, until proof be adduced, that any
such facts have been omitted.
I am charged with having permitted one of the
accusing clergy to swear in my presence. I can
merely deny all consciousness of any oath having
been so taken by him ; and assure you, that the rest
of the clergy present have emphatically contradicted
the truth of the assertion to this effect, in " the
Statement" put forth by the accused.
I believe I have now gone through every par
ticular on which any charge of " unfairness" has

15
been grounded by the complainants 8 : and seeing the
very grave character of those imputations, you
would imagine, that at the close of proceedings
which they have thought fit to characterize as a
mere mockery of justice, they would surely have
evinced some signs of indignation, some marks at
least of dissatisfaction. Quite the reverse. At the
conclusion of the investigation, Mr. Minster was the
first to rise and tender to me, in the most courteous
manner, his thanks for my conduct throughout the
inquiry ! I am reluctantly, therefore, driven to the
conclusion, that had my decision been favourable to
the accused, my proceedings would have been com
mended as a model of fairness — an instance of the
promptest justice. But knowing, as you well do,
the way in which they have since stigmatized them,
I leave yourselves, the diocese, and the Church, to
judge how far they have obeyed the apostolic pre
cept of " speaking the truth in love." For my own
part, I shall refrain from saying more, than that
their conduct has verified, in a remarkable and very
painful manner, the statement which I had made in
my episcopal charge three months only previous,
that " the nearer persons approach to the Roman
system, the more will their powers of judgment be
perverted, their moral sense blunted, and an ob
liquity of moral vision superinduced, blinding them
more and more to the simplicity of Christian truth,
3 See Appendix, p. 31, for further details.

16
and estranging them more and more from the sin
cerity of Christian practice 3."
And what more striking evidence of this can be
adduced, than that which you have yourselves so
recently witnessed in the conduct of those ordained
ministers of the Church of England, your late pas
tors, who one day professed the most affectionate
attachment for their flock, and declared that by their
Divine commission they stood in the place of God,
dispensing to you pardon and forgiveness by the
power of the Keys ; the next, openly deserted those
objects of their professed affection, and even ri
diculed the high pretensions on which they had
before insisted with such apparent earnestness and
solemnity. You, indeed, and others, may have been
surprised at the suddenness of their departure ; to
me it was no matter of astonishment, knowing, as
I well did, the lengths to which they had advanced
in Romish doctrine and Romish practice, and being
persuaded that they would scarcely venture to con
front the indignation that would assail them, if they
attempted to remain where they were after such
discovery had been made.
Towards persons so grievously fallen, the feelings
of compassion and of pity are the most natural and
becoming. Their fall, however, will convey a very
valuable lesson, not to yourselves only, but to

3 Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Ripon, in
September, 1850. — Rivingtons.

17
others also. On you it cannot but forcibly impress
the danger of any approach towards the errors of
the Church of Rome, while it reconciles you
to the loss of spiritual guides who have proved
themselves unworthy of your attachment, in having
tampered with your highest interests, and brought
you into such imminent peril. To many others, it
will, I hope, give a timely warning, that if they
choose to venture into paths which have proved
so often fatal, they can have no security that
their own footsteps slip not in like manner ; that
if they will lead themselves into temptation, they
must not expect to be delivered from evil ; that
falling by insensible degrees, they are likely to be
given over to a strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie.
After such painful experience as you have had
in the history of your former ministers, I can have
little fear that you will forsake the Church of your
fathers, wherein the pure word of God is preached,
and the sacraments duly administered, for a Church
which forbids free access to God's holy Word, and
suffers you not to " search the Scriptures," in obe
dience to your Saviour's will; which would rob
you of half the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
withholding the cup of which your Saviour has
said, " Drink ye all of this ;" which bids you wor
ship as mediators and intercessors, deceased mortals
who cannot hear your prayers, still less answer
them, to the neglect of the one only Mediator

18
between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ;
which enthrones the Virgin Mary as the queen of
heaven, making her a principal object of adoration
and worship.
That you, my Christian friends, may be pre
served from such dangerous deceits as these, and
may be enabled to walk, by a living faith, in the
paths of safety and of peace, wherein Holy Scrip
ture and our Church would guide you, is the sin
cere prayer of
Your faithful and affectionate father and friend,
C. T. RIPON.

POSTSCRIPT.

London, June, 1851.
The publication of this Letter has been delayed,
until the decision of His Grace the Archbishop of
York was known on Mr. Beckett's appeal against
my Revocation of his licence. His Grace has now
confirmed that Revocation ; and I can only regret
that Mr. Beckett did not accept the offer I have re
peatedly made to him, of retiring from his curacy,
in order to place himself under some discreet Cler
gyman, in assisting whom he might regain that
confidence in him, which his acquiescence in all the
recent proceedings at St. Saviour's has so materially
impaired. To have passed over, without the most
serious animadversion, such proceedings in the
matter of confession as were elicited during the in
vestigation, would have been tacitly to sanction the
existence, in my own Diocese, of some of the chief
evils of the confessional. It is not for me to dis
courage such communications between a pastor and
his people, as the latter may voluntarily seek for
purposes of spiritual edification : and as regards the

20
subject of private confession and absolution, a fair
interpretation of the language of our Church, as
quoted by me in my letter to Mr. Minster, will meet
all exceptional cases. But should any proceedings,
tending either immediately or remotely to make
confession and absolution the rule and not the ex
ception, be attempted in my Diocese, they will meet
with my strenuous opposition. If such be permitted,
it will be in vain that our Church has in her present
Prayer Book, advisedly and significantly omitted
those directions on the subject, by which in a former
Liturgy she sanctioned their general use. C. T. R.

APPENDIX.

As it may be profitable to introduce a more detailed account of
the history of St. Saviour's than could be well given in the Letter
to the Parishioners, I subjoin the following elucidation of some
of the points touched upon in it.
Previous to the consecration of St. Saviour's church, which
took place in the autumn of the year 1845, a very lengthened
correspondence had been carried on between Dr. Pusey and myself
upon various points connected with the decorations and arrange
ments of the church. Among other objectionable matters ear
nestly insisted upon by him — such as stained glass, representing
the Virgin Mary crowned ; another design, in which the Virgin
Mary was seated in the centre, and the Apostles kneeling round
her as the Holy Ghost descended upon each (for all which
Dr. Pusey strenuously contended, but which I refused to allow ;)
there was an inscription on the communion plate, containing
a prayer for the dead ; a wooden cross of some feet high, which it
was proposed to place over the chancel screen ; and an arrange
ment whereby the prayers were to be said either within or just
in front of the chancel screen, the officiating clergyman's back
being turned to the congregation. I refused to consecrate the
church until I was satisfied upon all these points. The cross,
therefore, was not put up over the screen. Compliance with my
injunction respecting the place from which the prayers should be
said, was promised ; and it was settled that the officiating clergy
man should face the south, if prayers were said east of the
congregation — or face the east, if they were said in the centre of
the nave. The prayer for the dead was ultimately erased from
C

22 appendix.
the communion plate, and every other point was yielded, not,
however, until the correspondence had lasted for nearly a year,
and swelled to the size of a thick octavo volume.
Notwithstanding the directions given as above, an attempt was
made by the first incumbent, the Rev. Richard Ward, to carry
the officiating clergy within the chancel, and to have the whole
of the prayers said from that part of the church which is sepa
rated from the congregation by a massive wooden screen. I in
terfered, and the evil was redressed.
On All Saints'-day, 1846«, the Rev. G. McMullen, of Oxford,
preached a sermon in St. Saviour's church on the intercession of
saints, which contained certain passages that I censured ; and on
the 1st of January, 1847, the Rev. Mr. McMullen, offended at
this censure, and three laymen with him (two of whom had been
living at St. Saviour's), joined the communion of the Church of
Rome. Having the greatest reason to be dissatisfied, as well on
points of doctrine as of ritual, with many of the recent proceed
ings at St. Saviour's, I induced the Rev. Richard Ward, the
incumbent, and his remaining curate, the Rev. George Case, to
resign their respective offices. Thus, within about fifteen months
after the consecration of St. Saviour's, had matters arrived at
such a point, that it was deemed essential to effect the removal
of all who had taken part in those proceedings. The Rev. George
Case joined the Church of Rome about a year since. The Rev.
Richard Ward joined that communion within the last six weeks.
Dr. Pusey and his co-trustees proceeded to appoint to the
vacant benefice.
The Rev. A. P. Forbes succeeded to the incumbency; but
being elected before long Bishop of Brechin, the Rev. Thomas
Minster was appointed his successor, and was instituted to the
Vicarage in April, 1848. A few months after this, I had reason
to suspect that a regular system of confession was taught and
practised at St. Saviour's. From the great secrecy enjoined on
those who were submitted to it, there was great difficulty in
obtaining distinct proof; but having, both by correspondence
with Mr. Minster and in conversation with him, ascertained his
views, and having explained my own, I thought it better, in

appendix. 23
January, 1849, to address the following letter to Mr. Minster, in
answer to a long one on his part, in which he quoted passages
from various divines of the Church of England, who spoke of
confession and absolution as part of the system of that Church,
and who therefore, as he contended, bore him out in the practice
which he advocated. " Palace, Ripon, January 23, 1849.
"Dear Sir,
" I should have communicated to you before this my
judgment upon the defence you have endeavoured to establish in
behalf of your avowed practice of regular private confession and
absolution, had not other transactions connected with St. Saviour's
meanwhile come to my knowledge, upon which I thought it
better at the same time to animadvert.
" I have carefully considered the justification you have at
tempted, of your acknowledged system of periodically confessing
your parishioners, and then administering the form of absolution
extant in the Service for the Visitation of the Sick ; but in all
the arguments you adduce and authorities you quote, I find
nothing whatever to support you in your proceeding, although
you assert (but without offering any proof) that the Church of
England strongly recommends the practice (as I understand
you to mean) of habitual and periodical private confession and
absolution. "You bring forward many quotations from individual divines
of the Church of England, to show that, in their opinion, the
practice referred to is allowed in our Church. The sum and
substance of them all may be fairly considered to be expressed
in the passage you quote from Bishop Morton's Catholic Appeal.
Indeed this may rather be taken as a fair sample of the whole,
because it is the deliberate enunciation of the system of our
Church in controversy with a Romish antagonist ; and the tenor
of the argument would lead our champion to state his case as
strongly as possible in that direction which would most favour
your views. He states that ' the power of absolution, in general
and in particular, is possessed in our Church ; where, both in
the public service, is proclaimed pardon and absolution upon
C 2

24 APPENDIX.
all penitents; and a private applying of absolution unto par
ticular penitents, by the office of the minister.' We have here
reference obviously made, first, to public forms of absolution in
the Daily Service and Office for the Holy Communion ; and,
secondly, to the particular cases specified in the Service for the
Visitation of the Sick, and in the Exhortation to the Holy Com
munion. In this statement of the author's, I of course entirely
acquiesce, and acknowledge that there are certain rare and
special instances in which our Church sanctions the practice of
private confession and absolution. But, as regards the former
of the special cases referred to, you cannot fail to have observed
how carefully fenced and guarded is the permission there ex
pressed. The conditions are such as will assuredly make it a
case of very rare occurrence. The special private confession of
the party's sin is to be invited only if he feel his conscience
troubled with any weighty matter ; and the form of absolution
which follows, is only to be used if the sick man humbly and
heartily desire it. But, mark how entirely you deviate from the
wise and cautious counsels of your Church. You assume to your
self the power of setting aside these her jealous restrictions, and
use this form of absolution indiscriminately for all persons,
whether sick or well, whether specially troubled with any weighty
matter, and on this ground, humbly and heartily deserving it
or not. Because the very rare exception is allowed, you claim
the right of making the exception the rule, and of turning the
special permission into a general licence. How would it fare
with law, government, or discipline in general, if such a principle
as this were universally acted upon ?
" You plead, however, the exhortation in the Service for the
Holy Communion as your further authority ; but the passage
you refer to does in fact contain the most direct refutation of
your practice. For, in the first place, the passage alluded to
applies to those only who cannot quiet their own consciences,
in preparation for the Lord's Supper, by private exercises of
penitence and faith, but require further comfort and counsel ;
and, instead of supplying you with any form of absolution of
human composition, it directs you to afford them the benefit of

APPENDIX. 25
absolution by the ministry of God's Holy Word, by pointing out
to the troubled in conscience those numerous passages in Holy
Writ, which give assurance of pardon and absolution to all who
heartily believe, and truly repent ; such, for instance, as the
four texts which immediately succeed the absolution in the Com
munion Service. Secondly, the special directions given for the
particular case, clearly contradict the notion that our Church
countenances any system of periodical private confession to a
priest ; for the directions would be entirely superfluous if
habitual confession were contemplated as the rule and not the
exception. "Then you have recourse to another argument (but the
necessity of resorting to such a plea shows the extreme weak
ness of your cause), and you plead that the persons who come to
you for private confession and absolution are sick — sick in mind
and at heart ; and, therefore, to be included among those to
whom the Church will allow you to use the form of absolution
for the Visitation of the Sick. That such persons are in a
morbid state of mind is indeed most true ; seeing that they fail
to derive sufficient assurance of God's power and will to pardon
them, when they hear the word of pardon and absolution pro
nounced in church by Christ's appointed minister, but must
needs come and crave that pardon in the closet and confessional
of the priest. It is for you, as being under Christ, the physician
of their souls, to bring such persons to a more healthy state of
mind, and to apply the fitting remedy to their morbid condition,
instead of encouraging it, and thus teaching them to undervalue
the public form of absolution prescribed by our Church.
" If it really were, as you state, that the Church of England
1 strongly recommends ' such proceedings as yours, and if the
passages from the learned divines whom you quote do really
uphold the system at present pursued at St. Saviour's in this
matter, why have you not attempted to show how consistently
they acted up to the principles of the Church, and their own
principles; what respect they paid to the strong recommenda
tion of their Church ; what powerful precedent you have found
in their ministerial life for assembling your flock, bbth' young

26 APPENDIX.
and old, periodically in your study, to pour forth, on their knees,
their confession to you, and to receive from you the words of
absolution ? Surely the absence of all such precedent among the
learned writers you quote, shows how erroneous is the interpre
tation you have put upon their language. For three centuries
since the Reformation, have the clergy of the Church of Eng
land, as a body, renounced this Romish practice of periodical
private confession ; and it has been reserved for a few young and
inexperienced ministers in our day, to venture on this most
perilous path without any direction or authority from their
Church, which would not have failed to lay down wise and
well-considered rules to guide her ministers in this most difficult
of all tasks, had she ever intended them to receive private con
fessions, otherwise than under the special circumstances of rare
occurrence above alluded to.
" I take this occasion, therefore, to admonish you and all your
coadjutors at St. Saviour's, to confine yourselves in this matter to
that which the Church of England distinctly authorizes. If you
are invested with the ministry of reconciliation, and are, in that
capacity, commissioned to administer absolution, you should
remember that while your Church invests you with the com
mission, she at the same time prescribes to you the mode of
exercising it. She gives you specific directions as to the two
occasions on which you may receive private confessions and
pronounce private absolution, and to these occasions I hold you,
as a dutiful son of your Church, bound to limit yourself, and
to abandon totally your present avowed system."
On the receipt of this letter, Mr. Minster distinctly promised
unreserved obedience to its injunction.
Another complaint made to me regarding St. Saviour's, was
on the subject of the erection of a tombstone in the churchyard,
with a prayer for the soul of the deceased inscribed upon it,
notwithstanding my refusal to allow of a prayer for the dead, in
the case of the communion plate. I pointed out to Mr. Minster
the animus of the Church of England, as evinced by the
omission of the prayer for the dead, at the end of the prayer

APPENDIX. 27
for the Church militant, and the substitution of praise on behalf
of those who had departed in the faith, as well as by other con
siderations, expressing, at the same time, my own disapproval of
the erection of tombstones with prayers for the dead upon them.
Mr. Minster pointed to the Wolfrey case in proof that the
Church of England did not condemn such a practice ; otherwise,
as he argued, the Bishop of Winchester would have been allowed
to remove the gravestone in the above-mentioned case. This,
then, was my second protest against an evidently systematic
attempt to establish precedents for this repudiated practice.
In the beginning of the year 1850, a representation was made
to me, that, notwithstanding the order given at the time of the
consecration of the church as to the place where the prayers
should be said, and the position of the minister, under two
different contingencies, as above stated, the prayers were con
stantly said by the minister facing the east, in front of the
chancel screen, with his back turned to the congregation ; and
that, in many instances, he was in consequence inaudible or
unintelligible. It was also stated that the large cross over the
rood screen had been put up, although, as above observed, it had
been forbidden. On remonstrating with Mr. Minster on these
two points, he pleaded to the latter, that the order for its erec
tion was given by a curate in his absence, while ignorance was
pleaded as to the original prohibition ; and, as to the former,
to my great surprise, Mr. Minster asserted that the prayers
were so said before he became incumbent, and he believed had
always been so said, since the consecration. I expressed my
great displeasure and deep concern to find so strong a spirit of
self-will and insubordination prevailing at St. Saviour's, and
repeated the order respecting the place and position of the
minister in saying prayers. Mr. Minster pleaded custom ; and
said his people would be greatly unsettled and shaken, were the
present arrangements and mode of carrying on the services to be
reversed ; adding, he must throw all the responsibility on me,
should any ill effects arise from changes in the established
customs of the place— customs be it observed, and arrange
ments of very short standing, in contradiction to my express

28 APPENDIX.
previous orders. I replied, that I was quite willing to under
take the responsibility, and insisted upon the change as to the
mode of saying the prayers. In the spring of 1850, I was
informed that a very unusual mode of performing the Baptismal
Service existed at St. Saviour's ; that the whole clergy present,
with the choristers, walked down in procession to the font (at
the proper time for baptism), the boys bearing lighted tapers in
their hands ; and that, after the administration of the sacrament,
they returned in the same order, singing the Nunc Dimittis as
they walked up the church again. Mr. Crawley was then in
charge of the church, Mr. Minster having been absent for some
months on account of ill health ; and the statement was referred
by Mr. Minster to him. Mr. Crawley pleaded the additional
solemnity given to the sacrament by this ceremony, — its im
pressive effect, and urged that it was no light thing to disturb the
minds of the people by a change. I required that there should
be no candles, and no Nunc Dimittis in procession. Mr. Crawley
promised the orders should be duly attended to.
About the same time I visited St. Saviour's ; finding the outer
door of the church open, I walked up to the chancel door ; this I
found locked, though an express prohibition had been formerly
given against keeping it locked. Ignorance of this prohibition
was pleaded by Mr. Crawley.
Some of the above particulars may, perhaps, seem trifling to
those who do not look beyond the surface ; they are, however,
mentioned, not only as indicative of what I could not but con
sider a determination to carry out a particular system of their
own, as far as possible, irrespective of their Bishop's representa
tions and remonstrances ; but as significant of a deeper meaning,
which meaning is distinctly at variance with the doctrine of the
Church of England : and therein consists the importance of
watchfulness in these particulars. For this reason also have I
found it very necessary to be vigilant, because it seems to be
the principle of the clergy of St. Saviour's, to introduce
some unusual practice or ceremony without the knowledge
of the Bishop, to carry it on as long as they can, and when
it is discovered, to plead custom and the danger of impairing

APPENDIX. 29
devotional feelings. The justice of my apprehensions have been
fully illustrated by their subsequent open defection.
After this repeated experience of their conduct, I felt myself
compelled to say, in a communication which I made to Mr.
Crawley, in June, 1850, that the proceedings of the clergy of
St. Saviour's were of such a character as to destroy all my
confidence in them ; and that their study seemed to be how far
they could evade their Bishop's known wishes, without violating
the letter of the law.
In October, 1850, the anniversary of the consecration of
St. Saviour's church took place, and a number of clergymen
assembled there for the commemoration of it. It appears that
they had a discussion as to the present position of the Church of
England, and among other resolutions adopted unanimously
by the twelve there met together, were the two following : —
" That the very existence of the English Church involves the
principle of her submission, in matters of faith to the Church
Catholic." " That her national history, previous to the Reformation, indi
cates that such submission can only be made through the medium
ofthe Papal See."
These resolutions threw no small light upon the tendencies of
the clergy of St. Saviour's.
Not long after this, the first communication was made to me
on those matters which led to the recent proceedings. I was
already engaged in preliminary inquiries as to the reports which
I had heard of objectionable practices at St. Saviour's, when I
received an address from a large majority of the clergy of
Leeds, requesting me to institute inquiries into the doctrines
and practices then prevailing at St. Saviour's church. I ac
cordingly notified to the complainants, as well as to the St.
Saviour's clergy, that I would attend at the vestry of the parish
church, on Friday, the 13th of December, at twelve o'clock, to hear
any charges that might be preferred, and give the St. Saviour's
clergy an opportunity of refuting them.
Now the clergy of St. Saviour's are stated by Mr. Beckett
to have joined in requesting me to " issue a commission of

30 AFPENDIX.
inquiry (under the Church Discipline Act, I presume), before
which witnesses might be examined, and the truth found out."
But this was not a case for a commission of inquiry. The
charges affected the curates of St. Saviour's and another clergy
man who was officiating there by permission, but without
licence ; and the proper mode of proceeding was under 1 and 2
Victoria, c. 106, sec. 98; which empowers the Bishop, "after
having given to the curate sufficient opportunity of showing
reason to the contrary, to revoke summarily, and without
further process, any licence granted to any curate, and to
remove such curate for any cause which shall appear to such
Bishop to be good and reasonable, provided always that any
such curate may, within one month after service upon him of
such revocation, appeal to the Archbishop of the province, who
shall confirm or annul such revocation, as shall appear to him
just and proper." It was quite competent to me, therefore, to
have satisfied myself that the charges were well founded, and
then to have issued the notice of the intended revocation, unless
the parties accused could show reason to the contrary. It
seemed to me, however, the fairest mode of proceeding, to give
the accused the opportunity of confronting and cross-examining
the accusers before any notice of the intended revocation was
issued, as well as the opportunity of showing cause against the
revocation between the issue of the notice, and its final exe
cution ; — and this was the course adopted. The request for
inquiry from the body of Leeds clergy was agreed to on
Monday, the 9th of December last ; the following week I was
to be engaged in the examination of candidates for holy orders,
and the week after was Christmas week. I deemed it painful to
the parties concerned to postpone the inquiry till the beginning
ofthe year, and therefore resolved to devote Friday, the 13th, and
Saturday, the 14th, to this object, giving due notice to the seve
ral parties that I should attend at the vestry of the parish church
at twelve o'clock on the former of these days. I repaired thither,
accordingly, accompanied by my deputy registrar, Mr. Teale,
whom I wished to be present, not only to assist me in taking
minutes of the proceedings, but also to see that the examination

APPENDIX. 31
of the several witnesses was conducted in conformity with the
usual practice in legal inquiries ; and I may conscientiously assert
that his presence on the occasion was at least as favourable to the
clergy of St. Saviour's, as to the adverse party. The fullest
opportunity was afforded them for cross-examining each adverse
witness ; and for producing as much testimony on their own side
as they pleased. The one witness, Mrs.  , on whom I
grounded the charge against Mr. Rooke and Mr. Beckett, was
about two hours under examination ; — that examination was
divided between the latter part of one sitting and the opening of
the second, so that there was an intervening evening for devising
the means of shaking her evidence. Every attempt was made,
but in vain, to invalidate her simple straightforward testimony ;
and no imputation was ever cast upon her general integrity. At
the close of the second day, after the sittings had lasted in all
ten hours, I announced my willingness to return to Leeds on the
Monday, in order to give the accused party every opportunity of
producing further evidence if they wished it. But, being in
formed by Mr. Minster, that the remaining witnesses were to
prove that confession was not made indispensable prior to the
reception of the Holy Communion, I said I would take that for
granted, and would assume that many were allowed to com
municate without having gone to confession, and received abso
lution previously. It was then agreed on both sides that the
examination should terminate ; and I distinctly stated, that if my
offer to resume it were declined, the evidence under considera
tion must be considered as closed on both sides ; it being, at the
same time, left open to Mr. Minster and his curates to address to
me any letter they pleased, by way of final reply. Before I left
the room, Mr. Minster was the first to tender to me spontaneously
his thanks for the part I had taken.
Having duly weighed the whole evidence, I considered that the
testimony of Mrs.  by itself, and apart from that of any other
witness, placed in the clearest light the system pursued at St. Sa-
vioui's in respect of confession, and it is here subjoined : —
M  A  , the wife of  .
" We have resided in the parish of St. Saviour's five years next

32 APPENDIX.
February. I was a candidate for confirmation in the year 1849.
Mr. Rooke and Mr. Beckett instructed me before my confirma
tion. After I had been under Mr. Rooke's instruction he directed
me to go to Mr. Beckett, that I might confess to Mr. Beckett.
I went to Mr. Beckett accordingly. He asked me my com
mandments. He asked me to think over what I had done, what
sins I had committed ; and he asked me if I had been dis
obedient to my parents, and if I had ever been running out at
nights, and caused my parents uneasiness on that account. He
then asked me if I had had any indecent connexion with any
young men, and if I had had any thing to do with any person but
my husband, and if I had had any thing to do with my husband
before I was married to him. I made a confession to him of
such sins as I could remember to have committed. He then
replied he was sorry, and would pray for me. He told me to
kneel down, and he would absolve me. I knelt down, when Mr.
Beckett held his hands over my head, and, in doing so, he
touched me, which alarmed me, and I jumped up. He said to
me, ' Don't be alarmed, I won't hurt you.' I knelt down, and
he then said he would give me a blessing. I thought I heard
him saying something to himself, but I could not distinguish any
words. When I rose up from my knees Mr. Beckett shook
hands with me, and I left the room. It was in the middle room,
called Mr. Minster's room. Before this happened, Mr. Rooke
had told me that he was not a priest, and that I was to go to
Mr. Beckett to absolve me ; that was the reason of my going to
him at that time. I felt very much ashamed of the questions
put to me by Mr. Beckett, and was greatly distressed. 1 never
told my husband to this day what were the questions which
Mr. Beckett had asked me. Shortly afterwards Mr. Rooke
came to our house, and told me he was about going to the
Bishop of Ripon to be made a priest. He told me I was to
prepare myself for confession, and that I was to go and confess
to him when he returned, that I might take the sacrament on
Christmas-day. I had not been to Mr. Rooke before he called
upon me. I did not call upon him on his return. He came to
our house, and asked me the reason why I had not been to con-

APPENDIX. 33
fess to him. I said I had been to dine at my mother's on
Christmas-day. He asked me if I had been to the sacrament.
I told him I had not. He called upon me one day shortly after
wards, but some person being in the house, he asked me to go
down to the vicarage. I went down to the vicarage the same
night about seven o'clock. We had a good deal about confession.
I told him my husband did not hold with confession, and would
not allow it. He said I must think about it myself. I replied,
That I thought if a person confessed to God Almighty it was
sufficient. He said he and the other clergymen were set there
to teach us. I replied, I did not believe any one could forgive
sins but God Almighty. He then asked me if I believed the
Testament ? I said, I did. He then said, Had I never looked at
that portion of Scripture in which our Saviour, before he as
cended into heaven, gave his disciples power to forgive sins ?
I said, Yes ; but I thought our Lord only gave them that power
because they had dwelt with Him upon earth, and I did not believe
any body had that power now. He replied, Oh, yes, if our sins
are ever so great, and they were confessed humbly, they (mean
ing, as I supposed, himself and their clergymen) were able to
forgive them. Mr. Rooke was apparently offended with me,
and I told Mr. Beckett so, and afterwards Mr. Rooke called
upon me again. Upon one occasion, the last but two or three,
Mr. Rooke said, You must not think when you come to confess
to me that you come to a man like yourself, but to confess to
God Almighty, they being set there as chosen by Him. I never
went to confession after the first time. I never came to holy
communion except immediately after my confirmation. The
reason why I did not do so was, that I had understood from Mr.
Rooke that they did not admit persons to holy communion except
they had previously confessed a day or two before. At the time
I told my husband I had been to confession he was displeased,
and I mentioned it to Mr. Rooke ; he replied, I had no right to
tell any body I had been to confession. I told him I thought we
ought to tell our husbands every thing. He said, True, they
should not be deceived ; but confession was a thing we ought not
to tell them — it concerned our souls, and not our bodies. I told

34 APPENDIX.
Mrs. Hardisty, either the same night or the next morning after
I had confessed to Mr. Beckett, the questions that had been put
to me. I was much distressed."
Cross-examined by Mr. Rooke.
" I had been ill before my confession to Mr. Beckett. I was
very miserable when I came away. I did not feel relieved in my
mind after confession. I cannot say I felt a weight off my mind.
I did not feel as I hoped to have done after what you had said.
I thought I should have felt as a new person. I was unhappy
on account of the questions which had been put to me."
Cross-examined by the Rev. Thomas Minster.
"Did you at the time of confession feel more deeply than
before?" " I cannot say that I felt that I was any more pardoned by
confession." " Did you not at your confession and before shed many tears ? "
" I shed many tears to think over the crimes I had done and
the questions put to me."
" Did those questions make you think much of your sins ? "
" Yes, sir."
" Did you ever feel your sins so much before ?"
"No, sir; I had never thought of all these sins so much
before." " It seems, then, that these questions created in you a feeling
of sorrow and repentance ? "
" I felt troubled, and was anxious to know whether I had done
right in confessing to man or not."
" Did you feel, then, at the time much sorrow and repentance ?"
" Yes ; I felt sorry for my sins, but not that true repentance
I ought to feel."
" Seeing that you felt repentance and sorrow on these ques
tions being put to you, you could not suppose that Mr. Beckett
put these questions from an improper motive ? "
" He never used any improper actions towards me, but the
questions were very indelicate ones."
" Did he question you on the whole ofthe commandments?"
" Yes, sir."

APPENDIX. 35
" Do you suppose those questions were put to you from an
indelicate motive ? "
" I hope not. I never saw any thing."
Cross-examined by Mr. Rooke.
" Did I ever tell you that confession was compulsory before
coming to holy communion?"
" No, sir."
" Were you ever refused the holy communion because you had
not previously come to confession ? "
" By what you said to me I understood that I was not to come
without confession."
" Did I recommend confession before coming to holy com
munion?" " Yes, sir."
" Did I not state to you when once in your house, when talk
ing of the difficulties of confession on your part, that it was better
to come to holy Communion without previous confession, rather
than stay away from holy communion altogether?"
" I remember a conversation something to that effect. I did
not understand that I was to go to communion without going to
confession." Now from this evidence, I gathered,
(1st) That Mrs.  offered herself as a candidate for confir
mation in 1849, but never offered herself as a subject for the
confessional. (2nd) That after a certain period of examination, she was
directed by Mr. Rooke to go to Mr. Beckett for confession and
absolution. (3rd) That Mr. Beckett received her under these circum
stances, though not spontaneously offering herself, but being
required so to do ; and that he made her submit to confession, as
well as to painful and indelicate questioning ; that he then told
her to kneel down, and that he would absolve her.
(4th) That Mrs.  was told by Mr. Rooke that she ought
hot to tell her husband that she had been to confession ; still less
to tell him what had passed in confession.

36 APPENDIX.
(5th) That Mr. Rooke pressed Mrs.  to go to confession,
even after he knew that her husband disapproved of it.
(6th) That Mr. Rooke pressed her on the subject of confession
in such a way, as to leave her under the impression that she
never ought to go to holy communion without going to confession
to a priest previously ; and that, in consequence, she never went
to holy communion more than once, through dislike of confession.
Now that such has been the public teaching at St. Saviour's,
is evident from the following extract from a sermon of the Rev.
S. Rooke's, which was handed in to me during the investigation,
and which I had an opportunity of perusing together with the
evidence. Having enumerated other grounds of complaint pre
ferred against the clergy of St. Saviour's, he (addressing the
whole congregation) proceeds to say ; " Another grave charge
brought against us is that we teach it to be a duty that you
should confess your sins to your priest, by way of preparation
for receiving the blessed sacrament and for dying, in order that
you may receive the benefit and blessing of absolution. Even
our good Bishop has asked with surprise if it be true that we do
so — extraordinary to say ; why, of course it is true, how could it
be otherwise ? In the Prayer Book, the Church puts the instruc
tion into our very mouths ; for open your books at the first
exhortation in the Communion Office, which begins, ' Dearly
beloved, on — day next I purpose through God's assistance . . .'
and at the end of it the priest is commanded to say to each of his
flock, ' Let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned
minister of God's word, and open his grief, that by the ministry
of God's holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution.' "
It will not fail to be observed, that Mr. Rooke entirely omits all
mention of the special circumstances and conditions, under which
parties are to come to their minister.
Upon the above premises I inhibited Mr. Rooke, who was
not licensed, from ministering any longer, either at St. Sa
viour's or in my diocese ; and I addressed the following letter
to the Rev. H. F. Beckett, which led to the correspondence
subjoined.

APPENDIX. 37
" Palace, Ripon, December 23, 1850.
"Rev. Sir,
" Upon a careful review of the evidence laid before me
during the recent investigation, I feel myself compelled by an im
perative sense of duty to inform you, that unless you can show
cause to the contrary, I shall, in ten days from this date, revoke
your licence as curate of St. Saviour's. I do this, because it
appeared in evidence which you did not contradict, and could not
shake by any cross-examination, that Mr. Rooke, who was then
a deacon, having required a married woman who was a candidate
for confirmation to go for confession to you as a priest, you
received that female to confession under these circumstances, and
that you put to her questions which she says made her feel very
much ashamed and greatly distressed her, and which were of
such an indelicate nature that she would never tell her husband
of them." In this practice you ought to have known that you had no
authority from your Church ; and you could not fail to be aware
that it was in direct opposition to an express written injunction
on my part, sent to the vicar, with a desire that he would com
municate it to his coadjutors at St. Saviour's.
" I am desirous of assuring you, as I have already assured Mr.
Rooke for his part, that I am very sensible of your zealous
labours during the recent visitation of the cholera ; but while this
impression in your favour makes the present communication the
more painful to me, it does not diminish the strong sense of duty
which urges me to pursue the line of conduct I am adopting.
" I am, Rev. Sir,
" Your faithful friend and servant,
"C. T. Ripon.
" Rev. H. F. Beckett."
On Monday, the 30th of December, Mr. Beckett had an
interview with me, which produced the following letter :—
" St. Saviour's, Leeds, January 3, 1851.
" My Lord,
" In the interview I had with your Lordship on Monday,
you expressed a wish that I should state what I had to say in
D

38 APPENDIX.
writing. I now proceed, therefore, briefly to put before your
Lordship the reasons for which I think you ought not to with
draw my licence as curate of St. Saviour's.
"Your Lordship's charge against me (said to be founded on
the evidence of Mrs.  ) is, — that I received her to confes
sion, and asked her questions which, she says, made her feel very
much ashamed and greatly distressed her, and which were of
such an indelicate nature that she would never tell her husband
of them. Your Lordship further says, that in this I ought
to have known that I have no authority from my Church, and
that I could not fail to be aware that it was in direct opposition
to an express written injunction on your part sent to the vicar.
" Your Lordship is of course aware that I am not at liberty to
speak of what occurred between myself and Mrs.  , further
than to state that I only asked her such questions as I thought
necessary to enable her to see her true condition in the sight of
Almighty God. ' To the pure all things are pure ;' and I am
very sure that my questions were so framed as not to suggest
any impure thought to the mind of the penitent. Mrs.  ac
knowledged before your Lordship that her shame and distress
arose from the sense of her sinfulness, and although she after
wards tried to account for this sense of sin by her previous ill
ness, it must have been evident to your Lordship and to any
unprejudiced person, that she did so only to avoid the acknow
ledgment of any good she had derived from confession, though
she had before allowed that she was benefited by it. Your Lord
ship cannot but see that Mrs.  's not mentioning what had
passed between her and myself to her husband is nothing at all
to the purpose, since no woman would, I suppose, ever tell her
husband what had passed in her confession.
" I believe, my Lord, that I have full authority from the
Church for every thing that I have done and taught during the
three years I have been at St. Saviour's. I must be allowed to
say, my Lord, that with the invitation to confession in the Ex
hortation to Holy Communion, and the express direction re
specting it in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, it is not
too much for us to think that we have express authority to hear

APPENDIX. 39
confessions from the Church. The asking of questions according
to the discretion of the confessor, is, your Lordship must see,
absolutely necessary to make confession of value to those who
have recourse to it.
" Your Lordship gave express leave to Mr. Minster, for him
self and curates, to hear the confession of sick persons, and of
any who should come to them before communion. Your Lord
ship will also remember your direction to us respecting confirma
tion — to present no persons to you whom we did not believe to
be resolved to live a Christian life, and prepared to come to
communion immediately after. In preparing persons for con
firmation I have had especial regard for this direction, and have
treated them as preparing for their first communion. I consider,
therefore, my Lord, that I was obeying your express injunction,
rather than acting in direct opposition thereto, in receiving
persons to confession before their confirmation.
" In conclusion, permit me, my Lord, again to state that my
whole conduct and teaching at St. Saviour's has been in strict ac
cordance with the doctrine and discipline of the English Church.
If your Lordship think otherwise, it seems to me that I should claim
no more than that charitable consideration and fatherly protection
which belong to your Lordship's office, if I were to ask to be shown
this before I am visited with your Lordship's displeasure.
" Your Lordship put it to me as an alternative, on Monday,
that either the practice of confession at St. Saviour's must be
stopped, or your Lordship resign your office. If this practice
be, as I believe, according to the intention ofthe English Church,
I leave it to your Lordship to conclude which of us ought to re
tire ; and I cannot but add that it is a great injustice to me, and
to the people to whom I minister, if I am to be thrust out of my
position in this private way, without any proof that I have con
travened the doctrine of the Church.
" I remain, my Lord,
" Your very faithful servant and son in Christ,
" H. F. Beckett.
" To the Right Reverend
the Lord Bishop of Ripon."
D2

40 APPENDIX.
To this I replied in the following terms : —
"Palace, Ripon, 4th January, 1851.
"Rev. Sir,
" In the admonition which I addressed to the clergy of
St. Saviour's in the year 1849, on the subject of confession, I de
sired them to confine themselves strictly in that matter to the
two rare exceptions referred to in the Exhortation to the Holy
Communion and in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick.
You try to bring Mrs.  's case under the category of those
who, being unable by the exercises of self-examination, confes
sion to God, and repentance, to come to the holy communion
with a quiet conscience, require further counsel or comfort, and
spontaneously come to a minister to open their grief. The evi
dence clearly proves that Mrs.  's was not such a case, and
that I was fully justified in saying that in that instance you had
no authority from your Church, and were acting in direct oppo
sition to an express injunction on my part.
" You misunderstood what I said on the subject of resigning
my office. I said that I would rather resign my office than
sanction of my own authority such a practice of confession as
that in use at St. Saviour's, as proved by Mrs.  's evidence.
" I see, therefore, no cause whatever for refraining from the
revocation of your licence, which revocation I have signed and
forwarded to Mr. Teale, at Leeds, by this post.
" I remain,
" Your faithful friend and brother,
" C. T. Ripon.
"Rev. H. F. Beckett."
The revocation was accordingly served on Mr. Beckett, and
also an inhibition forbidding him to minister in my diocese,
which produced the following letter : —
"St. Saviour's, Leeds, January 8th, 1851.
" My Lord,
" Permit me to say that I do not ' try to bring Mrs.
 's case under the category of those who being unable by the
exercises of self-examination, confession to God, and repentance,

APPENDIX. 41
to come to holy communion with a quiet conscience, require
further counsel or comfort, and spontaneously come to a
minister to open their grief.' I simply say, that it is within that
category, and I think that the evidence does not at all show it
to be otherwise.
" Mr. Rooke asked me whether I would hear Mrs.  's
confession if she should come to me. I said I would. Mrs.
 came to me, and I heard her confession, knowing at the
same time that she intended to come to holy communion on the
next Sunday. I thought then, my Lord, and I yet think that I
was acting clearly within your Lordship's injunction, and under
the direction of the Church. With this impression I received
your Lordship's letter of the 23rd ult. with great surprise. I am
surprised, my Lord, that you should act towards me as you are
acting, in a manner which I cannot but consider tyrannical and
unjust. You have the power, my Lord, to revoke my licence,
but in my conscience I believe that you are acting against the
authority of the Church in using that power. I still hope that
your Lordship will see this, and restore me to my position as
curate of St. Saviour's. " I remain, my Lord,
" Your very^obedient servant and son in Christ,
"H. F. Beckett.
" The Right Reverend
the Lord Bishop of Ripon."
The next communication I received from Mr. Beckett was a
note enclosing a copy of the appeal which he had addressed to
his Grace the Archbishop of York..
This appeal substantially rested on the objections taken by
Mr. Beckett to Mrs.  's evidence. He did not, however, in
the slightest degree, impeach the statements made by her, or in
validate the conclusions at which I had arrived respecting him
self; so that while there really remained nothing therein for me
to combat, the appeal itself served to establish, even yet more
clearly than before, the justice of my inferences, by showing
how reluctantly Mrs.  went to confession ; going only

42 APPENDIX.
because she was directed to do so, and that after some remon
strance. Perhaps Mr. Beckett might strive to argue that Mr.
Rooke merely advised her to go to confession, while Mrs.  's
expression is that he directed her to go. What shape Mr.
Rooke's advice would probably assume, may be judged of by re
ferring to his positive teaching on the subject of confession in the
passage quoted above from his sermon, as well as from the way
in which, as Mrs.  states repeatedly in her evidence, he
pressed her to confession, and in such terms as led her to believe
that she ought not to go to holy communion without previous con
fession. In reference to this subject, the following address to Mr.
Minster and his reply will, I think, clearly show that such views
of confession, so extensively entertained among the parishioners of
St. Saviour's as they are represented to be in these documents,
could not have been produced merely by the public reading of
the Exhortations to the Holy Communion, or by any teaching
that would be consistent with the injunction contained in my
letter of January, 1849, to which obedience was promised by
Mr. Minster. The way in which that promise was evaded, will
sufficiently appear from the reply of Mr. Minster. And the two
documents taken in connexion with the evidence of Mrs. 
and the passage from Mr. Rooke's sermon will strongly support
the conclusion at which I had before arrived, that a system of
private confession and absolution unknown in the Church of
England since the Reformation until the present day, must have
been studiously inculcated and practised at St. Saviour's.

TO THE REVEREND THOMAS MINSTER, M.A., VICAR OF
ST. SAVIOUR'S, LEEDS.
" Reverend and Dear Sir,
" We, the undersigned, have a few subjects on which
we desire to express ourselves in real earnest to you, at
this time when we seem on the point of losing blessings which
cannot be compensated to us ; we mean the blessings we have

APPENDIX. 43
been granted as members of your congregation, and communicants
of your Church.
" It might seem that we ought to address ourselves to the
Bishop of the diocese, at this distressing time, to whom, as our
chief pastor, we have been taught to look for guidance and sup
port in all spiritual difficulties. We hope our not doing so will
not be taken amiss ; but on a former occasion we tried to
approach his Lordship, and felt that we were not understood.
We know that it is not the great distance in point of temporal
rank, between his Lordship and us, which would of itself deprive
us of his sympathy ; for the especial kindness and tenderness of
his ministry to other poor is well known to us. But, indeed,
dear Sir, the hearts of men of every rank, when they are sorely
wounded and depressed as ours are, need to open themselves to
some one who cares to enter into their religious feelings, and to
understand what are their principles and convictions. You
we have known, sir, and you know us, and to you, therefore, we
wish to express very plainly what we now think and feel.
" From the consecration of St. Saviour's to the present time, we
have been increasingly conscious of the presence among us of
that sacramental religion, which, though we had known, we had
not so fully realized before.
" We do not allude exclusively to what has so greatly edified,
so deeply taught us, brought home the truths of religion so
clearly and practically — the striking and significant ritual of your
Church, and its devotional appearance ; but we allude further to
the careful training we have received in that which really is the
inward life of what goes on before our eyes. The solemnity con
nected with your ordinary administration of Holy Baptism, has
seemed nothing else to us than the necessary consequence of the
doctrine which you and our other pastors have been the instru
ments of God's inworking in our souls, viz., that in that sacra
ment we are regenerate and born anew, grafted into the body of
our Lord, and made the children of God. It has but fulfilled,
in some measure, the gracious purpose of reminding us that we
received, in our baptism, the gift of the regenerate nature, and
experienced in our own persons the fruitfulness of the Incarna-

44 APPENDIX.
tion of the Son of God. Thus we have been saved from much
of the disquietude which the gainsayers of this doctrine have
occasioned, by having been ourselves carried into its truth fully,
clearly, and habitually. For, secondly, you taught us that it
followed, as a necessary consequence, that creatures so allied to
a ' Divine Nature,' needed a supply of nourishment, of the
same nature, to sustain and give growth to that of which they
had partaken. We learnt, accordingly, to believe that in the
sacrament of the Eucharist we are fed with the very body and
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it has been our inestimable
privilege to adore, not the elements of bread and wine, but his
presence in them.
" One other subject we feel called upon, by certain late pro
ceedings, to speak of: — it is the subject of confession. We
dwell upon this the more earnestly, because many of us have felt
the unutterable relief which our Lord has authorized his priest
hood to confer on the contrite. We have no wish to judge those
who are not yet prepared thus to avail themselves of the ministry
of reconciliation ; but we do most earnestly protest against the
unwarrantable attempt of strangers to take from us that which we
esteem a most essential portion of our baptismal birthright. We
complain of the means which have been used to obtain informa
tion respecting our private practices in this particular, visits and
inquiries to which persons of higher rank would not have been
exposed; We complain, also, of the manner in which witnesses
were examined, some of whom are of so worthless a character
that we cannot but feel indignant that their evidence should have
been allowed to weigh against persons whose office is so sacred,
and whose character is so irreproachable.
"We say that we have had full confidence in our pastors, and
we are sure that their conduct has been such as to justify our
confidence; and to encourage all whom God has so called to un
burden the load of sorrow which your faithful teaching has
taught them to discern in a conscience guilty of deadly sin.
" And as, day by day, that teaching has led us to enter deeper
into ourselves, to hate sin, to love righteousness, to seek cleansing
for our souls when the reception of our blessed Lord would

APPENDIX. 45
otherwise be to them condemnation, so that such reception might
become health, strength, and perseverance to eternal life, so does
the present unkind (at least to us unkind) attack upon this doc
trine and practice, make it imperative on us to pray that neither
the one nor the other may be removed from among us. We
know you have not obliged us to submit to confession, but we
solemnly protest against its being placed out of the reach even of
those who have not yet been prompted to seek it. And we
hereby affirm that a life of confession once begun is too precious
to be broken off without the greatest injury ; perchance, alas !
even the ultimate ruin of the soul. In this respect, then, we
earnestly appeal to your well-known and tried sympathy with us.
We have gone on a course which cannot be given up without
sorrow and loss.
" And insignificant as the world may think us, we yet feel we
have a right to claim what you have so truly taught us is, as
Catholics, our birthright. We earnestly trust that, even if we
are deprived for a time of the public ministrations of our pastors,
they will not wholly desert us, but will continue to afford us
access to this needful blessed ordinance which we cannot now
think of losing.
" Though we have reason to suppose that the number of com
municants at St. Saviour's, if not larger, is quite as large, in pro
portion to the population of the parish, as that of any church in
the immediate neighbourhood, yet, doubtless, we are very few in
comparison with the multitude in Leeds, who either have no
religion, or only such as teaches them to regard ours with hatred
and contempt, to deny what we believe, and to ridicule what we
revere. Our entreaties, therefore, that our Christian privileges
may be continued to us, may easily be drowned in the clamour
of those in whose sight such privileges are superstitious, hateful,
and degrading. We are poor, also, and cannot, therefore, ask
you and your fellow-labourers, who willingly share with us the
lot of poverty, to defend our privileges in the Church's courts ;
though such a course, were it open to us, would be joyfully em
braced, not merely as a duty, but with all the anticipations of

46 APPENDIX.
success which the most perfect confidence in the righteousness of
our cause could give. We are also powerless, without station,
influence, or any other means of causing our sense of the injury
done us to be felt : we may, therefore, be trampled on with im
punity ; we have not the weapons, even if we could use them, of
those who boast themselves against us ; our complaints have no
sting for those who stand well with the world ; they do but
express the helpless anguish of our hearts. Yet we cannot
forget that numbers are no test of truth in the sight of God ;
that the prayer of the poor entereth into his ears, and He will
not despise their cry : and that out of weakness He has been
pleased, in times past, to bring forth strength.
" We shall not cease, therefore, to pray Him to have mercy on
us ; to turn the hearts of those who have slandered us, and the
ministry to which we owe so much ; and to preserve us, in such
way as seemeth best to Him, the blessings which we humbly
confess we have neither used nor valued as we ought.
" We shall pray for you also, dear sir, and for our other dear
pastors, whom we love in the Lord, and from whom we still
trust, if it be his holy will, that we shall not even yet be sepa
rated. And whether in tribulation or in joy, we shall ever be
" Yours, in grateful affection, &c."
Signed by 660 persons, of whom about 220 are communicants \

THE VICAR'S REPLY.
„ *, „ " Markington Grange, Jan. 9th, 1851.
"My dear Friends,
" I need not say that I am deeply gratified by the kind
and touching address which you have sent me. Your firmness,
1 Of the numbers here stated by Mr. Minster, there were 249 who could
not s.gn their names ; of the rest, the great majority appeared to be of such
class, in point of education, that they must have been unable to comprehend
the document they were invited to sign ; and still less competent to have
composed it.

APPENDIX. 47
moderation, and devotion to Catholic truth, in the heavy trial
which has come upon us, afford me a comfort greater even
than that which I derive from so timely a proof of your affection
to your pastors. If you continue firm, moderate, and faithful,
there is room to hope, even yet, that our sorrow shall be turned
into joy.
" One topic in your letter requires a particular expression of
my sympathy. I refer to the remission of sins after confession,
which you truly call a portion of your baptismal birthright.
" It is right that you should understand fully how the Bishop's
authority on this point has been exercised. In 1849 his Lord
ship enjoined the clergy of St. Saviour's to confine the practice
of confession, among their people, to the two cases of persons in
tending to communicate and sick persons. It was possible to
understand the Bishop's words in the former of these cases, in
such a sense as would permit the clergy to receive the confession
of any earnest-minded person who would wish to make it, and
the clergy thought it only dutiful to his Lordship to do so. But
the result of recent proceedings establishes the fact that the
Bishop intended us not to receive the confessions of any in
health, unless they actually were deterred from coming to holy
communion by a sense of their sins, even though it might he
that they ought to have been so deterred, or again had not of
themselves thought of holy communion at all. It follows as
one consequence of such intention, that in the worst of all cases
(that, namely, in which men living in sinful forgetfulness of God
are ignorant of the duty of communicating), his Lordship would
have us neither recommend nor receive confession (whatever im
pression in the providence of God may have been made upon the
sinner's soul), except in the solitary and rare instance of a sick
bed repentance. He makes bodily sickness a necessary con
dition to the use of this divinely-appointed means of grace on the
part of those who are sick in soul.
" Another effect ofthe Bishop's intention is to deprive of con
fession those devout communicants who greatly desire it, because
their own experience testifies the blessedness of its regular and

48 APPENDIX.
systematic use, and whose apprehensions at the thought of losing
it you express when you say that 'a life of confession once
begun is too precious to be broken off without the greatest in
jury, perchance, alas ! even to the ultimate ruin of the soul.' In
the desire of such persons for the continuance of confession, and
their fears if they withdraw from it, I need scarcely say that I
entirely sympathize. But how are we to deal with the inter
posed authority of our Bishop ? If he is right in treating the
directions of the Church of England, not as instances of, but as
rare exceptions to, her own rule on the subject, then indeed his
Lordship will have done much to make our course clear. For
then he will have proved that the Church of England, sub
stituting for the Catholic rule a false one of her own, denies to
her members what our Lord Himself, in Holy Scripture and by
the voice of his universal Church, has provided for the souls of
such as need it ; and then it will be my duty to endeavour,
as well by word as by example, to lead you to seek elsewhere
that great gift, the denial of which by our Church would of
itself destroy her claim to be your guide. But if the Bishop is
wrong {as we fully believe he is) in supposing that the Church of
England does not in this particular follow the rule of the
Church universal, then we have to perform the more difficult
duty of so dealing with his authority as not to contradict or dis
obey that of our Church.
" I shall, with pleasure, transmit your address to the Bishop,
with a copy of my answer, and shall inform his Lordship that I
join in your complaint relative to the unfairness of the investiga
tion with regard to the clergy of St. Saviour's '-
" The sickness with which it has pleased God to visit me
alone hinders me from being among you, and consulting with
you, in this trying emergency. As it is, I can but commit you
and those who have been hitherto my fellow-labourers among
you — whom you have, in my judgment, most wisely and pro-
1 The inconsistency between this statement on the part of Mr. Minster,
and his tender of thanks to the Bishop, at the conclusion of the investiga
tion, cannot fail to be remarked.

APPENDIX. 49
perly entreated not to desert you — to the protection and guidance
of Him who careth for you. In whom I remain,
" Your ever affectionate pastor,
(Signed) " Thomas Minster.
" To the parishioners of St. Saviour's,
communicants, and other members
of the congregation."
There yet remains one point in Mr. Beckett's appeal which I
must not omit to notice. He stated that there were several
denials and exculpations given by himself and his fellow-curates
which were not put down as part of the evidence, and upon this
he founded a request that his Grace the Archbishop of York
would grant a fresh hearing in his case. But it is evident that
such denials as Mr. Beckett alludes to do not form a part of
evidence, and therefore ought not to have been inserted in the
minutes. It is not enough for the accused party simply to deny
the truth of an assertion ; he should prove its falsehood, either by
the cross-examination of the adverse witness, or by producing a
fresh witness or witnesses on his own side. Yet, in truth, I did
in my own mind allow the simple denial of one of the accused
parties to counterbalance the lengthened testimony of one of the
witnesses, as I think that accused party could not fail to have
perceived. But Mr. Beckett did not, and could not, assert that
any such alleged denials and exculpations had reference to the
evidence of Mrs.  . The complaint is, therefore, futile as
regards the only evidence on which I grounded my proceedings.
In conclusion, I would observe, that there were various
concurrent circumstances in the present case which called
unquestionably for promptness and decision in dealing with
it. In the course of the investigation, or, at any rate, before
the date of my letter to Mr. Beckett of the 23rd December,
I had the most convincing proof that the system of confession,
as practised at St. Saviour's, was but part of a general system
there carried out, which, if allowed to proceed unchecked,
would over-ride the Reformation of the 16th century, and turn
the Articles of our Church into a dead letter. Strong as my

50 APPENDIX.
convictions on this subject might have been before, I never could
arrive at such tangible proofs of it as have recently been dis
covered. The following is a summary of the doctrines which I
now ascertain to have been preached and taught at St. Saviour's
within the last few months, and of which I have written evidence
under the hands of the preachers.
1. — That it is the duty of each member of the congregation
to go to a priest for confession and absolution before he
receives the holy communion.
2. — That there are seven sacraments of the Church.
3. — That the communion table is the throne of God, and the
Lord's Supper is the sacrifice of the altar.
4. — That no one can be considered a faithful minister or mem
ber of the Church who does not preach or practise the
duty of praying for the souls of individuals departed, that
Jesus may have mercy on them.
5- — That the great misery of the sinner is losing the interces
sion of the saints and the aid ofthe sacrifice of the altar (no
mention being made of the intercession of the one
Mediator between God and man).
6. — That penance is the means of forgiveness of actual deadly
sin.
1- — That deadly sin, after baptism, must end in spiritual death,
unless penance be resorted to, and unless persons confess
their sins to one of Christ's physicians, by which is meant,
a priest.
8.— That, after the consecration of the elements, the bread is
no longer bread, the wine no longer wine — but the body
and blood of Christ: (a statement made by the Rev.
G. L. Crawley, for which his licence was revoked, and he
did not appeal).
And the clergy of St. Saviour's practically carrying out this
teaching, did, last year, celebrate with extraordinary solemnity
the Romish festival of Corpus Christi.
I may also add, as I have before stated, that from St. Saviour's,
in the autumn of last year, there issued an invitation to yield sub
mission to the Pope.

APPENDIX. 51
I could not, then, consider the conduct of Mr. Beckett, in his
dealing with the confession of Mrs.  , as an isolated act, to be
viewed by itself, but as connected with a variety of other circum
stances, justifying and demanding decisive measures. I am quite
conscious that I incurred a deep responsibility in adopting the
course on which I resolved ; but it was a responsibility imposed
upon me by the laws of the Church and realm, and I could not
shrink from its exercise. I counted the cost : I well weighed
the issue on either side, and I deliberately came to the conclu
sion, that no alternative was left me save to act as I have done :
dealing with each ofthe parties concerned according to the differing
features of their several cases. In Mr. Beckett's I deal with the
case of confession, wherein I certainly hold that what may justly
be termed moral compulsion has been used ; and, if in this instance
I had hesitated to have recourse to a decided measure, I must
knowingly and wilfully have sanctioned the establishment in my
own diocese of a system, which, however seductive it may seem
to morbid and sensitive minds, however satisfactory its results
may appear for a short season, is essentially destructive of the
peace of families, and saps the foundations of morality among
nations. There is here no question of a little more latitude in
this or that direction within the recognized limits of the Church
of England : the question is, whether Bomish doctrine, ritual, and
practice shall supplant those of our own Church ; whether our
Reformation shall be sacrificed to an extravagant abuse of private
judgment, which takes upon itself to pronounce what is Catholic
and what is not, and insists upon distorting the natural sense of
our Articles, if it seem at variance with the private interpretation
which some individual puts on certain passages in the Fathers.
I cannot conclude without asserting that I entirely acquit Mr.
Beckett, as well as the St. Saviour's clergy in general, of any de
praved motives in adopting the line of questioning proved to have
been followed in confession ; and I willingly tender to them all
my cordial thanks for the self-denying zeal which they, in com
mon with the clergy of Leeds in general, manifested during the
late visitation of the cholera. At the same time, this exemplary
conduct cannot blind me to the peril of the course they have

52 APPENDIX.
been pursuing. Again and again have I warned them of its pro
bable issue, but in vain. I deplored their infatuation, and the
consequences which I knew must ensue from their self-will and
insubordination ; and I can with truth say, that the exertion of
these acts of necessary discipline has cost me more pain than any
I have ever been called upon to exercise. But the cup of
suffering is filled by themselves, and they, in truth, are alone
responsible for its bitterness.
C. T. RIPON.

THE END.

Gilbert & Rivington, Printers, St. John's Square, London.