ANGLICAN RITUAL

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 881, 29 July 1910, Page 6

ANGLICAN RITUAL

THE USE OF' VESTMENTS. By Telcjraph—Press Association—Copyright. Sydney, July 27. • The Anglican Archbishop of . Sydney, and Primate of Australia (Dr. Wright), has declared the use of vestments to be ..legal.

The nbove statement is, of course, only the opinion of the Archbishop of Sydney, and not a legal decision on tho question. The Privy Council, however, about the 'middle of tho nineteenth century, declared that vestments were illegal, but the decision met with much hostile criticism, and has never been accepted by the High Church party. They base their position on what is known as the Ornaments Rubric in the Prayer Book, and contend that in order to make the oucharistic vestments illegal, tho PrivyCouncil had to'read a . "not" into that rubric. Mr. i'. C. Eeles, F.R.Hist.S., commenting on the Privy Council's decision, states that it was "grounded on the amazing argument that the Advertisements of 15C6 (which, in prescribing tho vesture of the clergy, make no mention of vestments), over-rode the rubric of !)(i years later." Lord Chief Baron Kelly is said to have remarked that it was a judgment of policy, and not of law, and he and two others of the Privy Council desired that their dissent from tho judgment should be publicly recorded, but Lord Cairns refused to allow it. Mr. Herbert Paul, in his "History of Modern England," gives the opinion of another of the judges on the Judicial Committee,

Lord Justice Amphlett, "as impartial as finy judge could be," who declared with great-emphasis, that "it was a' flagitious judgment." The late Dr. Stubbs (Bishop of Oxford),.one of the greatest constitutional historians of modern times, went so far as to say. "Tho judgment is a very disgraceful affair. . . It is a falsification of documents." Tho Archbishop of Sydney takes his stand upon the Privy Council's judgment, and states that until it is reversed it must bo obnyetl; but in several other Australian dioceses, and in many English dioceses, tlio bishops decline to take action against clergymen using vestments, and tho Lower House of Convocation of recently declared almost unanimously ill favour of thnif optional (Use. Sydney is a very Low Church diocese, and the trouble there has arisen over the appointment of a rector for St. James's Church, one of the most nourishing churches of Sydney, where advanced ritual has been in uso for many years. A deadlock has existed over this appointment for several months, the clergymen named by the parish nominators being regarded as too "High Church" by the diocesan -nominators. As no agreement could be arrived at tho appointment, had eventually to be left in the hands of ■ the Archbishop.