NOTES ON THE JUDGMENT OF THE Judicial Committee of the Privy Council IN THE APPEAL HEBBERT v. PURCHAS, DELIVERED FEBRUARY 23, 1871. BY THE REV. THOMAS WALTER PERRY, (Member of the Royal Commission on Ritual, 1867-1870.) VICAR OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, ARDLEIGH, ESSEX. BIBLIOTHER •JUN 1878. SODLEIANA LONDON: J. MASTERS & Co., 78, NEW BOND STREET. ALEXANDER ΤΟ JAMES BERESFORD BERESFORD-HOPE, ESQ., D.C.L., &c., M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. MY DEAR MR. BERESFORD-HOPE, Your great interest, shewn for so many years, in all questions touching the Law and Practice of Ceremonial and Ritual in the Church of England, would alone have been a sufficient reason for my asking permission to Dedicate to you this Volume relating to that subject. I might also have mentioned, as another plea, the pleasant recollections of our co-operation during the 108 Meetings of the Royal Commission on Ritual, from June 17, 1867 to June 28, 1870. The real ground, however, of my application wasthat at your instance I undertook, in 1871, to prepare some Notes on the Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the Case of Hebbert v. Purchas, when a re-hearing of it was about to be applied for, on the ground that, owing to circumstances, the Argument had been ex parte; and, consequently, the Court lacked the advantage of that fuller information which discussion by opposing Counsel would, no doubt, have elicited for the guidance of their Lordships. There was, as you know, a strong and wide-spread conviction, that this Judgment of the Final Court of Appeal in Causes Ecclesiastical, affecting seriously, as it did, the future of the Church of England, could not be regarded practically as merely a Decision against one of her Clergy, personal though it was in Legal strictness. |