THE MILES PLATTING JUDGMENT.
]3ARON POLLOCK'S decision in the Miles Platting Case must be taken as settling the question of law as to whether a Bishop has a right to subject a presentee to an interrogatory as to what he intends to do, if instituted to the living to which he has been presented, and to make his own course conditional on the answers to that interrogatory. It would appear from the judgment that if the interrogatory has reference to acts which the Bishop has good reason to fear the incumbent's doing, and which, if done, would be unlawful acts, and would subject the incumbent who did them to the censure of an Ecclesiastical Court, there is no reason to complain of the Bishop for offering the presentee a chance of satisfying him that he is mistaken in anticipating that the presentee will do those unlawful acts. Baron Pollock pointed out very candidly that the judgment which he gave led to this re- sult,—" That a Bishop may refuse a clerk presented to him upon grounds relating to acts of ritual, which, had they arisen in the case of a beneficed clergyman, according at least to modern practice, would have been dealt with in the first instance by monition, and not by deprivation. This, how- ever," he adds, "cannot affect the jurisdiction of the Bishop, although it is an argument for the exercise by him of due caution ; whereas, to hold that the Bishop had no jurisdiction would be to decide that however extreme in form or deter- mined in purpose past offences against ritual might be, the Bishop could not refuse, but must admit, although it might be obvious that in accordance with the solemnly expressed intention of the clerk, he would probably, if not certainly, continue a course which must lead to deprivation,—a decision which, in my judgment, would be repugnant to reason and un- fair alike to the patron, he presentee and the parishioners." That is very temperately put, and indeed the gone of the whole judgment, though we regret its drift, seems to us admirable. Throughout, Baron Pollock was most careful to say that, whether the Bishop of Manchester had exercised a wise discretiori in declining to give Mr. Cowgill a trial without previously questioning him at all, was not the issue, the only issue being whether the Bishop had a discretion and whether the grounds on which he exercised it were such as the law would admit to be sufficient. If this be so, though "the Bishop may not be bound to have acted upon them by reason of the judicial discretion which is vested in him," yet, "having acted on them, he has a good defence to the present action." Again, Baron Pollock said that the argument that Mr. Cowgill, as curate, had acted under the direction of his incumbent, and had never been admonished by his Bishop to discontinue his practices, "is not in my view matter which can affect the judg- ment of the Court, though it may properly be addressed to the discretion of the Bishop." In a word, the decision is this,— that whether it was or was not wise for the Bishop to act as he did, it was perfectly legal for him to do so, and that the preliminary interrogatory to which Mr. Cowgill was subjected must not be regarded as imposing new conditions over and above those which the law required, but only as having opened the way for him to remove doubts suggested by his former actions as curate of the parish to the living of which he had been presented. This is,—as we must assume, until it has been appealed against and reversed, not that we know anything of the prospect of an appeal,—a true view of the law of the case. But we must point out that it gives the sanction of the law to quite a new prospect of preliminary inquisition in the Church. We all know clergymen of influence,—we ourselves know one clergyman of influence whom we should much like to see promoted to the Bench of Bishops,—who do net read the Athanasian Creed, and who have been heartily supported by their flocks,—as Mr. Cowgill was by his congregation in
his Ritualistic practices,—in refusing to read it. Well, sup- pose such a man be nominated by the Crown to a Bishopric, and a eonge' d'ilire be sent down to the Dean and Chapter to elect him, is it not obvious that by the law as now defined, the Dean and Chapter in question would have a per- fect right to question him as to his reluctance, if enthroned in the Bishop's chair, to read the Athanasian Creed ; and would they not be supported in refusing to elect, if he persisted in his scruples on that head? Surely, what is good law for an incumbent is good law for a Bishop ; and the Dean and Chapter of any Cathedral who received the Queen's mandate to elect a particular incumbent to be their Bishop of whom it was notorious that he had never read the Athanasian Creed on the appointed festivals, would have, if Baron Pollock be right, a sound legal position in pleading that he had raised great suspicions of his conformity to the law of the Church by his previous practices as incumbent, and that unless he could satisfy them as to • his intention to obey the law strictly in future, they felt that they would be abusing their responsible position by electing him. However this may be, it is quite clear that if any such clerk is presented to the Bishop of Manchester for institution, he is bound, if he would not deal out unjust measures to different parties in the Church, to decline to institute him until he has satisfied himself by preliminary inquisition of his intention to keep the law, which he has hitherto broken, strictly in future.. Indeed, the case would be, from one point of view, very much stronger than the case of Mr. Cowgill. For Mr. Cowgill had been presented to a living in which, if he should break the law, he would break it without scandal to his parishioners, for in Miles Platting it was impossible to find three bond fide parishioners who objected to the breach of law. But in such a case as we are now putting, there would be no guarantee at all that a presentee who had been in the habit of omitting the Athanasian Creed with the consent of one congregation, would not cause a great scandal to his new Church by adopting the like practice. It is clear, then, that if the Bishop of Manchester is not willing to deal out the most unequal measure to different classes of law-breakers in the church, he is bound to subject any Broad-Church presentee known to omit the Athanasian Creed on the days on which it is appointed by the Rubric to be read, to a strict inquisition as to his future intentions on that subject, and to refuse to present him, if he does not answer them satisfactorily. Further, though it is well known that there are great difficulties about enforcing the law on Bishops, we cannot doubt that if Dr. Fraser himself is translated to another diocese, and if Baron Pollock'e law applies to Deans and Chapters in trouble about their new nominee, as well as to Bishops in trouble about their new presentee, the Dean and Chapter of that new diocese would have a perfect right to subject Dr. Fraser to a rigid inquisi- tion as to his intentions in regard to the cope. It is notorious that he has never worn a cope in his own Cathedral. It is notorious that the law requires him to wear a cope, in the performance of certain rites ; and so far as we can see, the Dean and Chapter which should treat him as he has treated Mr. Cow- gill, would be supported by Baron Pollock's judgment in declining to elect him without his previously pledging himself to change his course of action, and to wear a cope in future in all the rites in which it has been decided by law that he should wear one. Indeed, as it appears to us, the right of putting clergymen as to whose previous practice there is any proof of illegality, to the question as to their future intentions in the new positions to which they are appointed, is now solemnly sanctioned ; and as there are so very many clergymen, of all shades of opinion and practice, who have committed illegalities in their conduct of the Church services, this issue opens out a very formidable prospect for future inquisitions. The Church Association should be on the look-out to press on all Low-Church Bishops that they should strictly interrogate Ritualists who can be proved ever to have worn a stole, as to their intentions for the future before instituting them to a benefice ; while the Church Union might, if they chose,—fortu- nately, they have never chosen,—retaliate by urging on all High- Church Bishops to subject Low-Church presentees who have been guilty of the many deficiencies of ritual in vogue among the Evangelicals,—such as the failure to give the elements to each communicant individually, with a separate address to each, —to a strict interrogatory as to their future intentions on this subject. We fear that in point of fact there will be a great stimulus to the practice of rigid inquisition into the intentions of presentees or appointees of ecclesiastical offices, as a con- sequence of this decision. For we must remember that this is not a new practice in the Church, and that sixty years since it was much more common than it is now, though Bishop Fraser's precedent and Baron Pollock's judgment will probably effect a revival of it. Some of our readers will remember Sydney Smith's most entertaining essay on Bishop Marsh's inquisition into the faith of the Curates whom he was to ordain :—" The Bishop not only puts the questions, but he assigns the limits within which they are to be answered. Two inches to original sin, an inch and a half to justification, three-quarters to predestination, and to free-will only a quarter of an inch." We may have the same practice again, only instead of doc- trinal questions they will be ritual questions; two inches as to vestments, an inch and a half to the mingling of water with the wine, three-quarters to lighted candles, and to the elevated chalice only a quarter of an inch. It is a dangerous prospect for a Church such as ours, where there are law-breakers on all sides, and on the Episcopal Bench not a few. The sanction given to this sort of personal scrutiny into the purpose of the clergy to continue or discontinue the sins of the past, is one that threatens us with scandals, recriminations, and ample occasions of disgust.
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