4 JULY 1891, Page 26

THE LAMBETH JUDGMENT TESTED BY FACTS.* MB. ToisnmmoN's pamphlet is

very disagreeable reading. The tone in which he thinks it proper to criticise the judgment of

the Archbishop's Court deserves severe censure. The judg- ment is now sub judice, and it is, to say the least, inconvenient

to force a public discussion on it before the Court of Appeal has given its decision. That, however, is an indiscretion which might be passed over in silence if Mr. Tomlinson had observed the ordinary amenities of civilised controversy. He has not done so. He opens with a charge of partisanship, in- dividually and by name, against the Archbishop and his assessors, and he goes on to accuse them collectively of extra- ordinary ignorance and deliberate dishonesty. Now the questions in dispute belong to the region of liturgiology and ritual on the one hand, and of ecclesiastical history and

Canon Law on the other ; and every scholar knows, if Mr. Tomlinson does not, that Archbishop Benson is an expert in

the former case, and that Bishop Stubbs enjoys a European reputation in the latter. To sneer at the ignorance of such men in their own special subjects, and lecture down upon them in tones of dogmatic infallibility, is ludicrous. Mr. Tomlinson's accusations of deliberate dishonesty may be left to the judgment of the public. But a writer who adopts this tone towards such men ought to have been specially careful to show himself their superior in knowledge and fairness. How far Mr. Tomlinson has done this we shall leave our readers to

judge for themselves. The two pamphlets which we have eonpled with his give sundry examples of his ignorance and unfairness, and we will now proceed to illustrate and supple-

ment the list. To expose Mr. Tomlinson's errors and method of reasoning would require a pamphlet as long as his own ; but a few typical cases will suffiee as illustrations of the whole.

He accuses the Court of having garbled the language of the Purchas Judgment, and quotes the two judgments to sustain his accusation. But he succeeds, as " Pacificus " has pointed out, in proving only his own ignorance of English grammar.

In converting the direct language of the Parchas Judgment into the oratio oblique, the Lambeth Judgment has changed " has " into " had." ! Such is Mr. Tomlinson's first proof of dishonesty, • (L) The "Historical" Grounds of the Lambeth Judgment Examined. By J. T. Tomlinson. London: Shaw and Co. 1891.—(2.) Some Replies to Mr. Tomlinson's Pamphlet. By "Pacifions." London and Oxford: Parker. 1891. —r8.) Historical Notes on the Archbishop's Juqpneht, particu'arly in Reference to Mr. J. T. Tomlinson 'e Pamphlet. By Christopher Wordsworth, M.A., Rector of Tynehaan, Dorset. London : Longman and Co. 1891. and he emphasises it with capitals. One of his marginal headings is, " Fraud-rubrics of Elizabeth's printed P(rayer) B(ook) not law," and he attempts, unsuccessfully, to sub- stantiate his accusation by reference to only one rubric. It would have gone hard with Mr. Tomlinson if he had

lived and made that accusation in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He makes much of the Order in Council in 1633, which confirmed the decision of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's in favour of placing the altar permanently at the east end in the Church of St. Gregory in the City. This Royal Injunction Mr. Tomlinson calls " utterly illegal," because the "statutory power vested in the Crown by the

Supremacy Act of 26 Henry VIII., c. 1," was "repealed in 1554." If this is good law, it follows that all the Royal Injunctions since 1554 are illegal. Yet Mr. Tomlinson imme-

diately proceeds to give another reason for the illegality of the Injunction of 1633,—namely, that it " was in violation of the Rubric, of the Injunctions of Elizabeth, and of the Eighty- second Canon." But those Injunctions of Elizabeth were subsequent to 1554, and therefore "utterly illegal" according to Mr. Tomlinson. Again, was the Injunction of 1633 "in violation of the Injunctions of Elizabeth "? In the year 1536, a certain Mr. Burton published a book against what he con- sidered Popish practices in divine service. Among the rest he instances " praying with the face towards the East, where the altar standeth." To this attack Laud replied in a set speech before the Council of the Star Chamber. The proper position of the altar, he argues, is at the east end :—

" This appears by the Canon or Rule of the Church of England too, for it is plain in the last Injunction of the Queen that the Holy Table ought to stand at the upper end of the quire, north and south, or altar-wise. For the words of the Queen's Injunctions are these : ' The Holy Table in every Church [mark it, I pray you, not in the Royal Chappel or Cathedrals only, but in every Church] shall be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood.' " Laud goes on to give the particulars of a dispute on this question in a parish church in the diocese of Salisbury, and

he quotes the following order of the Bishop when called in, according to the rubric, to settle the matter :—

"By the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, and by Canon 82 under King James, the Communion Table should ordinarily be set and stand with the side to the east-wall of the Chancell."

For removing the altar into the body of the church without authority, the churchwardens of this parish were excommuni-

cated for a year and sent to prison, but were " absolved on submission." Yet Mr. Tomlinson calmly assures us that the

Order in. Council in 1633, in re St. George's by St. Paul's, "was in violation of the Rubric, of the Injunctions of Elizabeth, and of the Eighty-second Canon." He does not quote his authorities, and it is to be feared that his readers will not verify his assertions when he makes them with so confident an air. We have a notable instance of this in his treatment of the answer of the Bishops to the Puritans at the Savoy Conference. "The Minister turning himself to the people," said the Puritans, " is most convenient throughout the whole ministration." The Bishops replied:— "The Minister's turning to the people is not most convenient throughout the whole ministration. When he speaks to them in Lessons, Absolutions, and Benedictions, it is convenient that he turn to them. When he speaks for them to God, it is fit that they should all turn another way, as the ancient Church ever did ; the reason of which you may see, Aug., Lib. 2, de Ser. Dom. in monte."

Mr. Tomlinson tells his readers that, "in reality, all that the Savoy Bishops claimed was to make a distinction between addresses to God and exhortations to the congregation. They did not claim to pray eastward, but only to tarn another

way,'—i.e., to the table for prayer and to the people when addressing them." . "And we have not the smallest reason," he adds magisterially, " to believe that any one of them adopted the Eastward Position." Mr. Tomlinson, more suo, does

not quote the answer of the Bishops in full. Had he done so his readers could not have been misled by his argument.

"It is fit that they should all turn another way," excludes the possibility of the minister facing one way and the people another. But the Bishops referred the Puritans to a passage

in St. Augustine for the reasons of their answer. Did Mr. Tomlinson look up that passage ? If he did not, what right has he to dogmatise on the subject P If he did, he read the

following words :—" Cujus rei significandm gratia, cum ad orationem stamus ad orientem convertimur, nude ccelum

surgit." The Puritans did look up the passage in St. Augus- tine, and in their rejoinder they say :—" As for St. Augustine's reason for looking towards the East when we pray, we suppose you will not suspect we should be much moved by it."

Mr. Tomlinson must be presumed to have made himself acquainted with the elementary facts of the Savoy Conference, and therefore to have known that the question in dispute between the Bishops and the Puritans was precisely the East- ward Position. Yet he asserts, in the face of plain facts, that the Bishops "did not claim to pray eastward." And this, forsooth, is the writer who ventures to accuse the Archbishop's Court of concealing and garbling facts ! On the same page he declares, without offering any evidence, that in 1851 "the Use at St. Ninian's, Perth, then one of the most advanced' churches," was the northward position. As a matter of fact, the East- ward Position has always prevailed at St. Ninian's, Perth, and 1851 was no exception to the rule.

The whole of Mr. Tomlinson's argument on the Eastward Position and other disputed points is based on his assertion "that the First Prayer-Book made a break in the continuity of this [Real Presence] teaching as to the Lord's Supper." This he calls " the important point which the Judgment [of the Archbishop] slurs over." To this allegation he puts the marginal heading : "The Mass destroyed by the First Prayer- Book." Now, the Act which legalised the First Prayer-Book forbids the use of " any other form of Mass " than that of the First Prayer-Book, in which, moreover, the service of Holy Communion then prescribed is described as "com- monly called the Mass." Mr. Tomlinson's main reason for his astounding assertion seems to be that the doctrine of concomitancy ' existed in the Anglican formularies till the First Prayer-Book, and was then abolished. He quotes the following from one of the formularies of Henry VIII.'s reign : —" He that receiveth the Sacrament worthily under one kind, as under the form of bread only, receiveth the whole Body and Blood of Christ, and as many and great benefits of Christ as he that receiveth it in both kinds." The First Prayer- Book, Mr. Tomlinson tells us, did away with that doctrine. How, then, does he explain a rubric in the First Prayer-Book which says,—" And men must not think less to be received in part than in the whole, but in each of them the whole Body of our Saviour Jesus Christ "? Lights on the altar during the celebration of the Holy Communion, Mr. Tomlinson asserts, are illegal since the First Prayer-Book, because both the doctrine and ritual of the Mass were thereby abolished. And this important and fundamental fact the Court ignores." The proof which he offers is that the altar-lights symbolised " that Christ,' the Light of the World,' was then present, under the form of bread and wine,' on the high altar,' and within the Sacrament." Mr. Tomlinson respects the Judicial Committee as much as he despises the Primate's Court. But the Judicial Com- mittee ruled in the Bennett case :—" The Respondent main- tains a Presence which is (to use his own expression) real, actual, objective, a Presence in the Sacrament, a Pre- sence upon the altar under the form of bread and wine." " We find nothing in the Formularies to which the Respon- dent's position is contradictory or repugnant."

It is not necessary to track Mr. Tomlinson farther along the labyrinth of his errors. Professing to be a theological and historical argument, his pamphlet demonstrates the author's ignorance alike of theology and ecclesiastical history. We do not retort his numerous accusations of dishonesty and bad faith, for the ingenuous audacity of his accusations is a plain proof of genuine ignorance. His pamphlet appears to be based, not on a knowledge of books, but on a cursory study of indexes.