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But now, having considered the Commissioners’ one reason, and their “opinion,” and their consequent recommendation, we must come a little more particularly to examine their proposed mode of operation.  It is true they here become vague and uncertain.  They think “it is expedient to restrain in the public services of the Church all variations in respect of vesture from that which has long been the established usage, &c.” and, “that this may be best secured by providing aggrieved parishioners with an easy and effectual process for complaint and redress.”—(Report, p. vii.)  But as to the details of this provision, as to “the best mode of giving effect to these conclusions,” they are not yet prepared with their scheme.

Perhaps this is all very natural, and it may be very fortunate.  We may be thankful that we have not a scheme devised, to carry out their proposal, as crude as the proposal and the Report itself.  But though these details are not before us, and we have a little respite before they come, we are not without some indication as to what they are likely to be; and we shall do well to use the time we have before they actually take definite shape, in providing as far as possible to thwart any pernicious principles which may be embodied in them.

Now I affirm, and I think I shall be able to shew, that the remedy to be provided for the “aggrieved parishioner,” by which he is to be enabled by law to make complaint of, and obtain redress as to variations in respect of vesture, (where being legal they yet displease him,) can only be by an alteration in the Book of Common Prayer.  I am not saying, remember, that a due and a great regard is not to be had for the feelings, and even the prejudices, of our people; though it can hardly be denied that it is very desirable these prejudices should be met, and these feelings directed by careful enlightenment, into a more reverent estimation of holy things, than prevailed some years since.  If the usage of Church ritual which reigned, say, thirty, or forty, or fifty years ago, had been stereotyped at any time as that which should be established for ever in our Church, we should certainly have had a state of things perpetuated which most of us would now regard as an immense spiritual misfortune, and at which we should be wholly ashamed and grieved.  But what we have to consider in relation to this Report is not at all this regard, on the part of the clergy, for the feelings of their people, but the putting into their hands a positive and express legal process of remedy and restraint, where any change from long-established custom, however accordant with the law, is proposed to be adopted.  And I say unhesitatingly, that such redress, redress of such a nature, for the so-called “aggrieved parishioner,” can only be by a repeal of the Rubric.  This surely is plain on the very face of the matter.  For the Prayer Book gives the law (Church Law and State Law in one) as to what vesture or ornament shall be used; and what power on earth can give the aggrieved parishioner a right or power to interfere with this law, as much statute law as any other thing in the statute book, but the repeal of the law?  There is no other conceivable mode.  What can restrain a priest from complying with the law of his Church and the law of the land? what can make it penal to obey it, but the repeal of the said law?  This may be done directly or indirectly.  It may be done explicitly or implicitly; but done it must be if any one or any number of aggrieved parishioners are to be empowered to restrain their parish priest from, not, observe, the mere impulse of his own fancy, but from an obedience to that which is the law of his Church, and the statute law of the land, as laid down in the Prayer Book.

This seems evident enough in the very nature of things.  And therefore if we value the Prayer Book as it is, and the status of the Church of England as in such large measure depending upon it, we have every right, and more than the right, the duty, to be up and stirring to defend it, under the assault upon its integrity which this, the present Report, threatens.  Indeed, under such intimations as we have, where “coming events cast their shadows before,” it seems to me that it would be absolute infatuation to wait until the attack is more matured, and the danger nearer, before organizing every mode and means of defence and resistance to that which is already so obviously impending.

But we are not even left to our own mere reasoning, or natural anticipations, to guide us to the mode in which the Commissioners must be prepared to carry out their opinion and recommendation.  We have a light thrown upon this, in a lucid commentary upon the bare Report, furnished us by one of the Commissioners.  I have already alluded to it.  The recent Charge of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol not only deals with the question of Ritual itself, but specifically, in relation to it, with the modes in which the recommendation of the Report may be carried out; and I will venture to affirm, even in the face of his Lordship’s disclaimer as to the mode which he himself advocates being an alteration in the Prayer Book, that there is not one of the courses suggested (except the course of leaving the matter to the decision of the Courts, which he at once rejects,) that does not involve a repeal, direct or indirect, of the rubric upon ornaments.  It will not be alien from, but indeed very much to, our purpose to take his statements in some detail, and see what they indicate as to the likely progress of the Commissioners’ work.  Bishop Ellicott’s Charge in this relation is very important, for it cannot but give us the key to what he at least will press upon his brother Commissioners when again they meet, and perhaps is now pressing upon them.

Let us turn to the Charge, and mark both its general tone and specific recommendations as to high Ritual.  Having adverted to the “deteriorating developement of the Ritual movement,” he says: [19]—“Reluctant as I am to enter upon a subject of such difficulty and controversy, yet I feel it my clear duty to place succinctly before you the present state of the question, to endeavour dispassionately to estimate the real amount and extent of the evil” (Bishop Ellicott has no doubts as to this term); “and, lastly, to consider the remedies that have been proposed, and the general counsel that may seem at this serious crisis most calculated to bring back peace to our now disquieted Church.”  Then, after an historical sketch, with remarks, shewing his lordship’s feelings upon the subject, and a brief—almost, as it seems to me, a needless—apology for the bishops for not having put down with a quick and strong hand certain presumably legal ornaments or usages, he proceeds to consider what may be done in the way of remedy for the evil, as he deems it, of Ritual representing doctrine, in the following terms:—

“Let us now,” he says, “leave the past, and with the past all antagonisms and recriminations, and rather as calm, earnest, and loyal sons of the Reformed Church of England, confer together as to what now remains to be done.  Let us soberly and dispassionately consider what measures seem wisest, what remedies most hopeful, at the present momentous crisis.  Let us clear the ground by considering briefly some courses and remedies that have already been proposed, and that probably will be reiterated with