C. p. 34.
It will immediately occur to the reader that this particular point as to the burial service, as well as many others here touched upon, have been already handled in the most masterly way by the Bishop of Exeter, in his letter to the Primate. I suppose I hardly need say I have entertained no so absurd notion as that I could surreptitiously plagiarize from such a source; but I may perhaps be allowed to explain, that I should not have ventured upon the same ground at all, had it not been for a further object in my remarks than that which appears to have been most prominently before his Lordship’s mind in writing. I have been concerned in my particular argument, not so much to clear our services from being supposed to require the “charitable construction” asserted by the Privy Council, as to draw out in somewhat greater detail the points which show the marvellous inapprehensiveness (as it appears to me) displayed by the Court on the whole subject-matter with which they had to deal.
D. p. 35.
“The question must be decided,” says the Court, (Judgment, p. 9,) “by the articles and liturgy, and we must apply to the construction of those books the same rules which have long been established, and are by law applicable to the construction of all written instruments. We must by no means intentionally swerve from the old established rules of construction, or depart from the principles which have received the sanction and approbation of the most learned persons in time past, as being on the whole, the best calculated to determine the true meaning of the documents to be examined.” It may be worth while, in reference to their treatment, especially of the office for private baptism, to append here a few words of the rule of construction as laid down by Blackstone. “The construction shall be upon the entire deed, and not merely upon disjointed parts of it, so that every part, if possible, shall take effect, and no word but what may operate in one shape or another.” (Comm. ii. 379.) It is manifest there was no impossibility, nay, no difficulty, in such a construction of the office for private baptism as should allow “every part” to “take effect;” such also that there might be “no word but what should operate,” so far as merely making that service agree with the other; the only difficulty was to give every word its effect, if both were to lead to a particular conclusion.