8 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



and to its decision, when duly pronounced, I am pre- 

 pared to bow. Meanwhile, I am anxious, as far as 

 may be, without raising partisan passion or animosity, 

 calmly to await that decision. 



To another address he replied : 



My course of action has not been dictated by any 

 desire to strain the principles of episcopal authority, 

 but simply to secure obedience to the law, as the only 

 guarantee of the stability of our beloved church, and, 

 indeed, of the rights and liberties of churchmen. 



In May, the Archbishop of York issued a 

 monition to the Rev. G. C. Ommanney, Vicar 

 of St. Matthew's, Sheffield, directing him to 

 discontinue eight specified ritualistic prac- 

 tices. The archbishop's requirements were 

 as follow : 



1. To use pure wine, and not wine mixed with water, 

 in the holy communion. 2. To use ordinary wheaten 

 bread in all celebrations of the holy communion, and 

 not bread pressed so as to resemble wafer bread. 3. So 

 to proceed in the acts of the holy communion that the 

 congregation may see his acts. 4. To refrain from pros- 

 trating or bowing low over the elements at the time of 

 celebration. 5. To refrain from making the sign of the 

 cross over the elements at the time of celebration. 6. To 

 discontinue the ceremonial of elevation of the paten and 

 the cup. 7. To permit no person not licensed by the 

 archbishop to officiate in any manner at the holy com- 

 munion , whether such person be caDed server or by any 

 other title; and 8. That the washing and cleaning of the 

 vessels used in the holy communion shall not take place 

 in the service, but in some place apart. 



The observance of these rules was demanded 

 in virtue of the vicar's promise of canonical 

 obedience. Mr. Ommanney, in a published let- 

 ter, declared that he did not intend to abandon 

 the eastward position, the mixing of water and 

 wine at the communion, and the washing of the 

 chalice ; but that, in order to promote peace in 

 his parish, he was willing to give up making 

 the sign of the cross and other practices that 

 did not interfere with his conscientious con- 

 victions. 



The Archbishop of York, in a letter to the 

 church- wardens of the parish on the subject 

 of the monition, pointed out that no person 

 had a right to interfere and put a stop by force 

 to ceremonies in churches. 



Reorganization of Ecclesiastical Courts. A royal 

 commission was appointed in May, 1881, to 

 inquire into the constitution and working of 

 the ecclesiastical courts under existing stat- 

 utes. The principal object of its work was to 

 frame a plan for such a reconstitution of the 

 courts having cognizance of ecclesiastical mat- 

 ters as would remove the objections entertained 

 by a large party in the Church to having ques- 

 tions of doctrine and ritual decided by lay 

 judges. An analysis of the report of the com- 

 mission was published in August. The essen- 

 tial features of the scheme proposed in it are 

 the establishment of an exclusively ecclesiasti- 

 cal jurisdiction in the courts of first instance 

 and the postponement of the intervention of 

 lay authority to the court of final resort. Un- 

 der its provisions, the Diocesan Court and the 

 Provincial Court, which were practically de- 

 stroyed by the Public Worship Regulation Act, 

 will be restored to their original vitality. 



While by the Public Worship Regulation Act 

 the co-operation in prosecution of three ag- 

 grieved parishioners was required as initiatory 

 to the beginning of proceedings against a cler- 

 gyman charged with offending in doctrine or 

 ritual, the act proposed by the commission 

 makes the right to begin an action open to 

 any one, and unrestricted. It is then left dis- 

 cretionary with the bishop whether he shall 

 allow the complaint to be prosecuted or shall 

 stop it at once. If it is allowed to proceed, the 

 bishop may, with the consent of the parties, 

 deliver a final judgment ; if this consent is not 

 given, the case is carried before the Diocesan 

 Court. This court will consist of the bishop, 

 with the chancellor of the diocese, or some 

 other person learned in the law, as legal as- 

 sessor, and a theological assessor to be chosen 

 for the occasion by the bishop, with the ad- 

 vice of the dean and chapter. From this court 

 an appeal may be taken to the Provincial 

 Court, where it may be heard, at the discre- 

 tion of the archbishop, by the official principal 

 of the province, or by the archbishop himself, 

 with the official principal as assessor, in which 

 case the archbishop is empowered to appoint 

 any number of theological assessors, not ex- 

 ceeding five, to sit with the court. The theo- 

 logical assessor must be either a bishop within 

 the province, or a professor, past or present, of 

 one of the English universities. From the 

 Provincial Court an appeal will lie to the 

 Crown, which is to exercise its prerogative 

 through an entirely new court, composed of 

 " a permanent body of lay judges, learned in 

 the law," of whom not less than five shall be 

 summoned for each case, by the lord chancel- 

 lor, in rotation. In doctrinal cases, this court 

 may, only on demand of one or more of its 

 members, consult experts, namely, the arch- 

 bishop or bishops of the province, or of both 

 provinces. The court shall not be bound to 

 give the reasons for its decisions ; but, if it does 

 state its reasons, each judge shall deliver his 

 own judgment separately ; and only the bare 

 words of the decree shall be legally binding. 

 On this feature of the proposition, the report 

 furnishes the explanation: "Considering how 

 widely different a matter the legal interpreta- 

 tion of documents must often be from the defi- 

 nition of doctrine, we hold it to be essential 

 that only the actual decree, as dealing with the 

 particular case, should be of binding authority 

 in the judgments hitherto or hereafter to be 

 delivered, and that the reasoning in support of 

 those judgments and the obiter dicta should 

 always be allowed to be reconsidered and dis- 

 puted." Should a clergyman refuse to obey 

 the sentence of a church court, he is to be pun- 

 ished, not by imprisonment, but by a tempo- 

 rary suspension. A second disobedience shall 

 be followed by another suspension, and diso- 

 bedience for the third time by suspension until 

 the court is satisfied. Disobedience to a sen- 

 tence of suspension may be visited, after three 

 months' notice, with deprivation ; and any cler- 



