THE FATE OF THE PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION BILL.
WE have always held firmly to the belief that the Public Worship Regulation Bill could not be carried or worked, without the introduction of some concession to those various parties in the Church who have now gained some- thing like a prescriptive right, as it were, to a certain relaxa- tion of the existing rubrical rules. And now that the Bishop of Peterborough has abandoned—professedly on the most flimsy grounds, really, we suspect, solely because there was no sufficient hope of carrying it—his proposal that certain " arguable " issues as to the conduct of public worship should be "neutralised," we say deliberately that we are quite sure that the Bill cannot pass the Commons, and that if it could, it can- not be worked. Why the High-Church party continue to protest against the Bill, it is, to our mind, very difficult to understand. They would unquestionably gain more by it, as it stands, than any other party in the Church. No doubt, they might possibly be compelled for a time, perhaps even permanently, to read the prayer of consecration in the Communion Service at the North end of the table. Again, the extreme men amongst them would be obliged either to leave the Church, or to omit their acts of adoration to the elements and their mingling of water with the wine. But the great mass of the High-Church party, who are, we suppose, represented by Dr. Pusey, do not care very much about any of these minutia. Dr. Pasey has told us that he never yet stood with his back to the congregation in reading the prayer of con- secration over the elements, unless he knew either that the people preferred this method of celebration, or that it was usual in the church. The High Churchmen, as a party, are not wedded to these minute practices, but they are attached to the Rubrics as a whole, especially those which we should account obsolete and in the highest degree undesirable in ordinary churches; and the Bill which the Archbishops have introduced, and which Lord Shaftesbury has amended, may be a very powerful instrument indeed in High-Church hands. If clergymen are prohibited under it from facing the East while consecrating the elements, they will be compelled under it to observe much more strictly the feasts, fasts, and daily ser- vices of the Church, to read the Athanasian Creed on all the days for which it is prescribed, to use the Commination Ser- vice, and to use without any mutilation the Baptismal Service; and all these things High Churchmen will be able to en- force under the Bill, by way of reprisals on any party which compels them to stand at the North end of the communion table, instead of with their backs to the congregation. We do not scruple to say that if the Bill as amended by Lord Shaftesbury could pass the House of Commons, and be put in force, it would in the first instance tell more powerfully on behalf of tolerably reasonable High Churchmen, than on behalf of all the other parties in the Church put to- gether. If it annoys Mr. Mackonochie, it will annoy still more Mr. Haweis and Mr. Stopford Brooke. If it weighs heavily on the ritual of Archdeacon Denison, it will weigh more heavily on the no-ritual of Dr. Ryle. Bishop Magee gave, for withdrawing his proposal as to "neutralised" terri- tory, the very odd reason that now that the cheap and sum- mary method of trying complaints by the Bishop proposed in -the Bill had been withdrawn, and a regular Judge sub- stituted who would interpret the law with authority, there was no longer the same reason for excepting from the action of the Bill, the "arguable ground" he had proposed to neutralise. That would have been very good sense, if it had been a matter of indifference what the law requires, as com- pared with the urgent need that nothing which is not really legal should be enforced. Of course, the Judge will in- terpret the law far more authoritatively and far better than an average Bishop. But unfortunately, what is needed is not by any means the rigid application of the law as it is. What is of all things needed is very often a clear relaxation of the law as it is, and such a relaxation cannot be got out of a judge, whose duty it is not to relax the law, but to declare and en- force it. However, it is no use speculating on what the Bill would produce, if it were carried. No Bill will ever be carried through the Commons for enforcing rigidly the Rubrical Law of the Church as it now exists. It is all very well to say that that would compel a reform of the Rubrics. When and how ? Could a direct. reform of the Rubrics be passed
who through Parliament, without the consent of the Clergy in their Houses of Convocation ? If it could, we should have secession by wholesale, such secession as would break up the Church:. Again, could such a reform of the Rubrics as Parliament would. desire to see be passed through such a body as Convocation at all/ Certainly not. You must get a reform of Convocation first, which would be an affair of years. And all this means that if this Bill were to pass as it now is, the existing Rubrics would be made matter of strict law, and their substance enforced for years before any change in them could be legally made. In other words, we should have not only Ritualists; but Low-. Church clergymen and Broad-Church clergymen in numbers suspended, and perhaps deprived of their benefices, for not obeying rules which the majority of Churchmen believe to be obsolete. Is the House of Commons likely to make such a blunder as that ?
The truth is that, from a different point of view, we heartily agree with Canon Liddon's statement at St. James's Hall, that "hundreds and thousands of Churchmen, as they read in the newspapers of this reiterated appeal to what is called law, interpret the appeal as merely meaning only so much law, so many recent decisions, or so many sections or sub-sections of recent decisions, as may by any possibility be brought to bear on a theological opponent." We agree with him that there has been a good deal of hypocrisy in the appeal to the rever- ence for law. And we say plainly that, for our own parts, we have not argued this matter as an appeal to the authority of law, but rather as an appeal for the extension of liberty. We believe that obsolete laws must be revised before it can be of any use to appeal to Englishmen's respect for law. They have a great respect for law which represents the living authority of the community or the State, but not any great respect for the authority of obsolete law. The real object to gain has been, as we have always urged, 'a greater liberty for the actual worshippers in any church, acting in concert with their clergyman, to regulate the ritual as they please, and a greater restraint on the clew when they are misrepresenting the great majority of their people in what they do. We have no objection at all, indeed we have proposed, to give genuinely High-Church congregations a greater liberty to adopt a High-Church ritual ; but then we have demanded an equal liberty for Low-Church and Broad- Church congregations to modify the ritual so as to suit their consciences too. Without some such mutual concession, a more stringent method of enforcing the existing law would be a pure - evil, and certainly not one likely to be sanctioned by the House of Commons. The truth should be recognised plainly. It is not a stricter observance of the actual law we want, but a consider- able relaxation of that law, and a strict• enforcement only of the law after it has thus been relaxed. It' is always well to look the facts straight in the face. And we quite agree with Canon Liddon that the recent agitation has been in large measure one carried on under false pretences. Let -it be that no longer.
Previous page
