CONVOCATION AND THE RITUALISTS.
THE Convocations of Canterbury and York have been in
session during the week, and in both the Lower House has done its best to justify hostile criticism. If bodies which in law, if not in fact, represent the Clergy wish to make their meetings interesting, or their action respected, they must not shirk the question which at this moment most nearly concerns the peace and well-being of the Church of England. If what has been said in either Convocation about Mr. Green's imprison- ment is weighed, and not simply measured, it will be seen that, for all practical purposes, it has been completely shirked by
the Clergy. In the Northern Convocation, which first took the subject in hand, the Lower House adopted a gravamen and a reformandum. The gravamen declared that Mr. Green's imprisonment is a perplexity and a scandal ; the reformandum asked that the Bishops would do something to get him out. The Archbishop of York replied with much promptitude that the Bishops would do nothing of the kind, and much as we regret Mr. Green's imprisonment, we have no doubt that the Bishops are right. What is the use of getting Mr. Green out of prison, if nothing is done to prevent his getting into prison again ? Mr. Green has made no secret of his intention to do as soon as he is out of prison the same things for doing which he has been put into prison. If he were allowed to officiate in his church to-morrow, he would use the very ritual which he has been ordered not to use. The Court would be again appealed to by the plaintiff in the case, and, as the law stands, it would have no option but again to declare him in contempt, and again to commit him to prison until he should have purged his contempt. There is nothing to be gained, therefore, by opening the prison door for Mr. Green, unless some means can be devised for keeping it more effectually closed against him in the future than it has been in the past. To the particular suggestion offered by the Lower House of the Northern Convocation—that the Bishops should go to the foot of the Throne, and there demand the release of Mr. Green—the Archbishop of York gave the conclusive answer that the case of persistent disobedience to the lawful com- mands of a competent tribunal is not one for which the clemency of the Crown can properly be invoked. Mr. Green's imprisonment is preventive, not vindictive. It is inflicted to ensure that he shall not disobey the law in future, not to punish him for having disobeyed the law in the past.. When the request of the Lower House had been refused, they passed a resolution recommending that diversities of ritual and teaching should be " appeased " by the pastoral authority of the Bishops. As this resolution was seconded by the Dean of Carlisle, we are loth to suppose that there was not more to be said for it than appears. But we are at a loss even to imagine how the pastoral authority of the Bishop of Manchester could have been exercised so as to " appease " the diversities be- tween Mr. Green and the Church Association. The problem how to arrange that fire and water shall live peaceably side by side will certainly not be solved by an arrangement by which one shall " appease " the other. In the Northern Con- vocation, therefore, the position of the Ritualist question is this :—The Lower House has suggested two inadequate methods of dealing with it, both of which the Upper House has wisely rejected. In the Southern Convocation, things have gone somewhat differently. Here the Upper House has taken the initiative, and, on the motion of the Bishop of Peterborough, has passed a resolution declaring that Mr. Green's imprisonment is "unnecessary for the vindication of the law, and in excess of the latest legislation on the subject of Ritual uniformity." The Bishop of Peterborough does not quarrel with the law as it stands, or find fault with the Church Association for enforcing it. His only difference with them has reference to the particular means theyhave employed to enforce it. Why, he says in effect, are you so foolish as to lock Mr. Green up, when, if you had only waited for three years, you would have been able to deprive him ? Mr. Green turned out of his living would be a much less interesting, and consequently a much more deterrent, spectacle than Mr. Green allowed to retain his living, but thrown into gaol for doing what he conceives to be his duty in it. The Archbishop of Canterbury entirely concurred with the Bishop of Peterborough, and the Upper House adopted the resolution with only two dissen- tients. Thus an immense majority of the Southern Bishops have, at last, taken up a perfectly intelligible position in the controversy. The Ritualists are not to be held worthy of even the smallest toleration. The Bishops do not wish to alter the law ; on the contrary, they wish to see the law carried out in the most stringent way possible. All their anxiety is that it should be enforced quietly and effect- ively, not as at present, noisily and ineffectively. They are annoyed by the sight of Mr. Green imprisoned, but they would not be in the least annoyed by the sight of Mr. Green deprived. That they would recognise as a satisfactory and well-merited penalty,-4 penalty neither unnecessary for the vindication of the law, nor in excess of the latest legislation on the subject of Ritual uniformity.
It is no business of ours to criticise the action of the Bishops in this case. If they are right in the estimate which they must be supposed to have formed as to the vitality of Ritual- ism, they are probably well advised in what they have done. If the Bishops had thought that Ritualism was increasing in the Church of England, and that those who ask toleration for it were more likely to get a hearing than at any previous period, we may be quite sure that they would not have calmly proposed that every Ritualist against whom a suit has been successfully instituted should be deprived of his benefice.
The efficacy of the Episcopal method will entirely depend upon the zeal and the strength of the Ritualist party in the Church of England. If the Ritualists are numerous and in earnest, they will not submit to the deprivation of their ministers, and they will probably find some outsiders like our- selves, who care nothing for Ritualism in itself, but only for the toleration of Ritualism as a legitimate form of Church opinion; to help them. They will probably refuse to recognise the validity of a sentence of deprivation, as they have before refused to recognise the validity of a sentence of suspension. They will continue to regard the deprived incumbent as the rightful holder of the bene-
fice, they will find money to enable him to open a chapel, in which the services to which they have been accustomed may still be carried on ; and when the Bishop refuses to license this chapel, they will disregard his refusal, and dispense with his permission. In this way, they will drift by degrees into the position of a Free Church. If, on the other hand, they acquiesce in the deprivation of their Clergy, and in the prohibition of the services they care for, the whole aspect of the situation will rapidly change. The Ritualist Clergy will not go on provoking deprivation, if it turns out that their con- gregations accept the alterations made by the new Incumbents, and, grateful for small mercies, see in the prohibition of Vest- ments for the Clergy only an occasion for thanksgiving that the choir have been allowed to retain their surplices.
Here and there, the conflict will continue for some time longer ; but as a general rule, the Incumbents presented in the room of the deprived Ritualists will obey the law, and the things forbidden by the Ridsdale and Purchas judgments will be quietly discontinued. This, no doubt, is the belief of the Bishops ; and as the Lower House of the Southern Convocation has given no active sign of dissent, it must be supposed that, so
far as it represents the Clergy, it is their belief also. In that case, we shall undoubtedly have to admit that we were wrong in claiming toleration for the Ritualists. It is impossible to help those who will not help themselves, and the first step towards obtaining toleration for Ritual diversities is for those who demand it to show that they esteem those diversities to be genuinely important. That the Lower Houses of Convoca-
tion will contribute anything to the pacification of the Church on the basis of toleration is hardly to be expected, but we shall watch with interest the action of the Ritualist laity, in presence of this plain-spoken determination of the Bishops to see the Ritualist Clergy driven one by one from their livings, rather than take the least step towards making the law more elastic, or the Church more comprehensive.
Previous page
