The Lord Chancellor read on Tuesday the very important (and
unanimous) decision of the Judicial Committee of the- Privy Council in the case of "Read and others versus the- Bishop of Lincoln," to which we have called attention in. another column. The judgment declares that it is not right for even a Court of Final Appeal to exclude fresh light and treat its own previous judgments as irreversible ; and points. out that in the Ridsdale case it established the precedent of admitting such fresh light even when it led the JudiciaP Committee to reverse a previous judgment. The judgment then goes on to recognise in the strongest way the light which the Archbishop's judgment had thrown upon the meaning of the various rubrics of the Church, and their authority, and the supposed duty of omitting any former practice which is not re-enacted anew in the reformed Prayer-Book,—and especially on the question whether or not the penal con- sequences now contended for as involved in continuing such practices in default of any such re-enactment, are really to be regarded as fairly involved in the legisla- tion of the Church ; and then the Judicial Committee affirm all the Archbishop's judgments. We cannot too strongly express our satisfaction at this signal triumph of the compre- hensive principle. It means, not that such ritual as the Archbishop's judgment sanctioned shall be enforced, but that it shall be tolerated as well as the defective ritual of the Low Churchmen. Whatever Archbishop Benson may have achieved. as Primate, he has undoubtedly done the most comprehensive of the orthodox Reformed Churches, most brilliant service as a masterly and most learned ecclesiastical Judge.
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