The Archbishop of Canterbury has replied to the memorial , signed
by the Dean of St. Paul's and the other moderate High- Churchmen, to which we called attention last week, ma letter which fights shy of the representations that memorial contained. He cannot follow, he says, "the exact meaning" of some parts of the statement; and especially he does not think it distinguishes between ecclesiastical matters judicial and ecclesiastical matters legislative. Re supposes the main object of the address to be to insist that any legislative change affecting the doctrines or ceremonies of the Church shall always be submitted to Convocation, and this, the Archbishop contends, is a principle which has not recently been violated ; that Convocation has been asked to advise about rubrical legislation, for instance, and is taking a very long time about it. There the Archbishop certainly got a little the advan- tage of the m,emorialists ; but he evaded their main point,—that *Convocation ought to have co-ordinate power with Parliament over, any such legislation, nothing being recognised as ecclesiastical law, which had not received the sanction of both bodies. No doubt that would be a vast revolution in principle, and could only be justified if Convocation had become a very different body to what it now is. But the Archbishop was quite "non-committal" on this central issue. Like too many of our prelates at the present day, he skilfully glided round the difficulty on which mainly the memorial turned.
Previous page
