The Rigsdale Judgment: The Testimony It Affords to the Protestant Character of the Church of England

Church Association Tract 60

In undertaking to offer some observations on the testimony given to the Protestant character of the Church of England by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in their Judgment on the appeal in the Folkestone Ritual Case (Ridsdale v. Clifton), I begin by expressing my belief that, quite irrespective of this Judgment, the Protestantism of our National Church has been all through its past history and policy since the epoch of the Reformation, abundantly manifest.

The protesting Articles of the Church—her appeal in every instance to Scripture—the chastened fervour of her Communion Service—the whole framework of her Liturgy, from which are discarded all petitions to Saints or Angels, and through which prayer is addressed and worship offered only to the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—and still further, the Homilies of the Church, containing “godly and wholesome doctrine,” in which the leading errors of the Romish Church and her entire system of sensuous worship are authoritatively condemned, with a power of argument and emphasis of expression which leave nothing to be desired—all these forbid the entertainment of the slightest doubt by any intelligent or unprejudiced mind, as to the Protestantism of the Church of England. When to this it is added that the great fundamental laws (by which the English Church has been established), as set forth in the memorable year of 1688, when the nation was referred to in the Bill of Rights as “This Protestant Kingdom” stamp indelibly upon it the distinctive name and character of true Protestantism.

Even those outside the pale of the National Establishment must admit the impossibility of denying the fact, that however the Church may be assailed either from within or from without, by secret intrigue or by open hostility, it still bears on its very front the signs and tokens that it is the Church of the Reformation, and therefore, is in direct antagonism to the false pretensions and arrogant assumptions of the Church of Rome. Keep reading.