The Dean of Durham, Dr. Lake, has written a rather
striking letter to this week's Guardian, in which he describes the greatest offenders " against not only this but almost every other Publiz- Worship Act," as follows :—" If there is any meaning in the word ' law,' or any force in the judgments of our highest tribunals,. it cannot be doubted that at present no parties Are more dis- tinct offenders against not one, but almost every ' Public Worship Act' of the Church of England, than the Bishops and (I must add) ourselves of the Cathedral Chapters. For the law which orders the cope to be used in cathedrals and collegiate churches by Bishops, Deans, and Canons, has been more constantly re- peated than perhaps any other law in the Church of Englan3. It was ordered in the Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth ; it was ordered again in the Advertisements of Elizabeth, that the principal minister shall wear a cope ;" a decent cope' is again ordered in the Canons of 1603-4 ; it is again enjoined in the Act of Uniformity of MU ; and lastly, it was pronounced emphatically by the highest legal and ecclesiastical authorities in the Purchas judg- ment in 1871, that the cope is to be worn in ministering the Holy Communion on high feast-days in cathedrals and col- legiate churches.' To this last judgment are attached the names of two Lord Chancellors, Lord Chelmsford and Lord Hatherley, of the present Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of London." As coming from a Dean, that is a rather striking and frank confession, and we think it might prove to Bishop Ryle that those who live in glass houses ought to abstain from throwing stones. Dr. Ryle will say, perhaps, that he does not so much object to the wearing of Eucharistic vestments, so long as those who wear them mean nothing by wearing them. Only if he did say this, he would transfer the discussion from the region of outward observance to the region of subjective feeling ; and to justify people who perform unmeaning acts, and condemn people who perform the same acts ex ammo, would hardly be consistent with English ideas of justice.
Previous page
