20 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



and preserve order. Mr. Tooth posted on the 

 door of the church a declaration asserting that 

 he was the lawfully and canonically instituted 

 priest of the parish, "not inhibited therein, 

 nor deprived thereof, by any lawful and canoni- 

 cal authority," declaring all ministrations there- 

 in other than his own to be schismatical, and 

 " an invasion and robbery of the rights of the 

 Church of England," and exhorting the con- 

 gregation to permit no public ministration or 

 discharge of pastoral duties among them other 

 than his own. On the 13th of January, 1877, 

 an order was issued by Lord Penzance, de- 

 claring the defendant contumacious, and com- 

 mitting him to jail. On the following Sunday, 

 however, Mr. Tooth held three early services, 

 after which an order was posted by the bishop 

 of the diocese (Rochester), prohibiting the 

 opening of the church or the ringing of the 

 bells. The bishop appointed another clergy- 

 man to serve at the church, but Mr. Tooth 

 refused to permit him to be admitted. He 

 was imprisoned in Horsemonger Lane jail on 

 the 31st of January, where he continued in 

 confinement until February 17th, when, the 

 clergyman deputed by the bishop having 

 gained possession of the church, he was re- 

 leased, on the ground that the object sought 

 by his imprisonment had been gained. Mr. 

 Tooth then went abroad, but returned in May, 

 and issued a declaration that all the services 

 which had been conducted in the church since 

 his removal from the parish were schismatical, 

 null, and void, and held a service in the church 

 on the 13th of May. Mr. Tooth's position on 

 the points of law in his case, upon which his 

 conduct was based, was sustained by the vol- 

 untary society called the "Church Union." 

 This society, at a meeting held in February, 

 adopted resolutions reciting that, while it ac- 

 knowledged the authority of all courts legally 

 constituted in regard to matters temporal, it 

 denied that the secular power had authority 

 in matters purely spiritual ; declared " that 

 any court which is bound to frame its deci- 

 sions in accordance with the judgments of the 

 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or 

 any other secular court, does not possess any 

 spiritual authority with respect to such deci- 

 sions. That suspension a sacris being a purely 

 spiritual act, the English Church Union is pre- 

 pared to support any priest not guilty of a 

 moral or canonical offense who refuses to rec- 

 ognize a suspension issued by such a court;" 

 professed a willingness to submit itself to the 

 duly constituted synods of the Church ; and, in 

 regard to the matters under dispute, appealed 

 to the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, 

 and the interpretation which had been put 

 upon them by the Convocation of Canterbury 

 in 1875. Bishop Claughton, of Rochester, 

 having been transferred to the See of St. Al- 

 banvthe Archbishop of Canterbury, in June, 

 became pro tempore administrator of the dio- 

 cese. He invited Mr. Tooth to take Episcopal 

 advice concerning his course, and communi- 



cated to him as the action of a purely spiritual 

 body, whose jurisdiction he should acknowledge 

 on the questions at issue, a resolution which 

 had been passed by the Convocation of Can- 

 terbury, to the effect that no alteration from 

 the long-sanctioned and usual ritual ought to 

 be made without the sanction of the bishop of 

 the diocese being first had. Mr. Tooth replied 

 that he had searched the records, but had not 

 been able to find "any such canon, constitu- 

 tion, or ordinance, provincial, or other synodi- 

 cal act, promulgated by convocation, or by his 

 grace himself," as the archbishop had men- 

 tioned. The archbishop referred him to the 

 record of the proceedings of the two Houses 

 of Convocation on the 13th and 15th of Feb- 

 ruary, 1867, as containing the resolution which 

 he had mentioned, and inquired if he objected 

 to its validity because it had not become law 

 by receiving the sanction of the civil power, 

 adding that, by the law of the realm, except 

 in cases where the civil power steps in, no 

 decision or judgment of convocation could 

 answer such conditions as might be supposed 

 from Mr. Tooth's expression of his views to be 

 deemed by him indispensable. Mr. Tooth re- 

 plied that the proceedings quoted did not con- 

 stitute a synodical act of the province, because 

 they had not been passed or promulgated as 

 such ; but, had such a synodical act been passed 

 by convocation, or promulgated by the arch- 

 bishop, or put in use, the fact of the state's 

 having refused to recognize it as a canon would 

 have made no difference in the respect with 

 which he should have treated it. The arch- 

 bishop summed up as the reasons for which 

 he considered Mr. Tooth bound to abstain 

 from the ritual observances which were com- 

 plained of against him : 



1. Because of the obedience which you owe to 

 the law of the Church of England, as interpreted by 

 the Archbishop's Court and the Supreme Court of 

 Appeal. 



2. Because you are formally called upon by me 

 as your bishop, in virtue of your oath of canonical 

 obedience, to conform to the order which, as acting 

 Bishop of Rochester, I hereby lay upon you. 



3. Because, if through some scruple of conscience, 

 to me inexplicable, you feel a difficulty in paying 

 due obedience either to the law of the Church and 

 realm, as interpreted by the courts, or to the bishop 

 set over you in the Lord, the decision of convocation 

 to which I have referred you seems to afford on your 

 principles a solution of the difficulty in which you 

 have involved yourself. 



I should be sorry to believe that you desire to act 

 in contravention alike of the law, the bishop's order, 

 and the express decision of the two Houses of Con- 

 vocation. 



Mr. Tooth reiterated his determination to 

 disregard the judgment of the court, insisting 

 that there was no law or valid declaration of 

 the Church to sustain it. 



Mr. Tooth obtained from the Court of Queen's 

 Bench, in July, a rule calling on Lord Pen- 

 zance to show cause why a writ of prohibition 

 should not issue against him. The application 

 for this rule was based upon the allegation that 

 the judgment prohibiting the applicant from 



