THE RITUALISTS AND THE LAW.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—If it be not too presumptuous in an anonymous writer to join in the discussion between yourself and Dr. Liddon, will you allow me, with your wonted courtesy, to draw attention to one point which seems important? Dr. Liddon says, in his letter to you, that the Rubrical Law of the Church of England, as interpreted by Mr. Dale, " although not as interpreted by the Privy Council Committee," authorises the use of vestments; and in your article on the subject you argue that Mr. Dale, in adhering to his interpretation in spite of the decisions of the Privy Council, is assuming an unauthorised " supremacy." Even if this were a full statement of the case, Mr. Dale would only be following the example of John Hampden, who, when the highest tribunal gave an obviously unfair decision, did not wait for fresh legislation, but fell back upon statute law. But has Dr. Liddon stated Mr. Dale's case as strongly as he might have done ? 1 have not a copy of the Ridsdale judgment by me, but unless I am much mistaken, the Judges, so far from differing from Mr. Dale's (or rather Mr. Ridsdale's) interpre- tation of the rubric, entirely endorsed it, and declared that if that rubric were the ultimate authority, vestments would be compulsory. Thus the question at issue is not one of the inter- pretation of the " Ornaments Rubric," about which there is now practically no dispute, but it turns upon the legality of the attempt of the Privy Council to enforce obedience to the "Advertisements," of which, until that judgment, few of us had ever heard, at the cost of disobedience to the plain directions of the Prayer Book, which is part of the Statute Law of the Realm, and the authority by which the Clergy bind themselves at their ordination to abide. Into the further question of the true meaning and authority of the Advertisements I need not go; thanks to the researches of Mr. Parker, that, too, is practically decided. But the point to which I would fain draw attention is simply this : even supposing that the Advertisements were con- trary to the Ornaments Rubric, it would not affect Mr. Dale's position ; the Prayer Book, not the Advertisements, is the law, both civil and ecclesiastical, by which he is bound, and in the interpretation of the Prayer Book, the Privy Council (whatever may be its authority) agrees with him. It is for this reason that I do not think myself guilty of a paradox in signing myself,
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