XIV.—SHOULD THE CHURCH REMAIN ESTABLISHED?
From the great concerns of the State it is natural to come to the Church, and when that point is arrived at, the problem of disestablishment at once arises. “Can the Church be disestablished?” is a question sometimes put, and the answer is plain, for that answer is “Most certainly,” and a further question “Where is the Act establishing the Church?” as if the non-production of such an enactment would prevent Parliament from severing the link which binds Church and State, may be replied to by another. Supposing one asked, “Where is the Act establishing the monarchy?” would the non-production of that measure prove that it is not a parliamentary monarchy under which we live? By the Act of Succession, Parliament “settled” the monarchy; by various Acts in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Charles II., Parliament has “settled” the Church. There is no authority in this realm higher than Parliament; and if Parliament chooses to “unsettle” either monarchy or Church, it can do so.
This is no new-fangled Radical idea; it is an old Whig principle. Charles Fox, in a debate just a century since, observed, while favourable to the principle of religious establishments, “If the majority of the people of England should ever be for the abolition of the Established Church, in such a case the abolition ought immediately to follow.” Macaulay, in his essay on Mr. Gladstone’s youthful book on “Church and State,” was clearly of the same opinion. And Lord Hartington, in his declaration a few years ago that if the majority of the people of Scotland desired disestablishment their desire ought to be satisfied, completed the chain of Whig traditional opinion.
If upon such a matter one is not content to swear by the Whigs, the verdict of the bishops may be accepted. Dr. Magee, of Peterborough, has declared that “Our Church is not only catholic and national: she is established by law—that is to say, she has entered into certain definite relations with the State, involving on the part of the State an amount of recognition and control, and on the part of the Church subjection to the State.”
The very use of the common term “The Church of England as by law established” involves recognition of the fact that what the law has done the law can undo. And if any one doubts the power of Parliament in this matter, let him read a table of the statutes passed in the session of 1869, and he will find that the most important of all of them was “An Act to put an end to the Establishment of the Church of Ireland.” Now, the legal position of the Irish Establishment and the English Establishment was identical. Is any further proof required that, if Parliament chooses, the latter can at any moment be severed from the State?
It is sometimes said that Nonconformist bodies are equally established with the Church because they are subject to the law, as regards the construction of their trust-deeds, and other matters, of which the courts of justice have occasionally to take cognizance. But that is as if it were argued that all persons who come within the enactments affecting the relations between employer and employed should be considered servants of the Crown as well as those engaged in the government offices. The difference is plain: the law regulates all, the Government employs only some. The Crown appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury, but has no right to choose the President of the Wesleyan Conference; Parliament can deal with the salaries of the bishops, but cannot touch the stipend of a single Congregational minister.
There being no doubt that, if the people will, the Church can be disestablished, a further question remains, “Ought it to be so dealt with?” and the reply in the affirmative is based upon the lessons of the past, the experiences of the present, and the possibilities of the future.
The Church, though possessed of every advantage which high position and vast wealth could supply, has failed to be “national” in any true sense of the word. So far from embracing the whole people, it has gradually become but one of many sects; and, had it not been for the efforts of those who conscientiously dissented from its doctrines and its practice, a great portion of the religious life we see in England to-day would not have existed. Further, and from the time of its settlement on the present basis, it has been the consistent friend to the privileged classes, and foe to any extension of liberties to the mass of the people. In defence of its position and emoluments it has struck many a blow for despotism. The harassing and often bloody persecutions of Nonconformists and Roman Catholics in England and Wales, and of Covenanters and Cameronians in Scotland, were undertaken at its desire and in its defence; while the hardships and indignities inflicted for centuries upon the Catholics of Ireland were avowedly in support of “the Protestant interest”—a Protestantism of the Establishment, in which the Presbyterians were allowed little share. In its pulpits were found the most eloquent defenders of the English slave trade, which was from them declared to be “in conformity with principles of natural and revealed religion;” and when Romilly strove to lessen the horrors of the penal code, its bishops again and again came to the rescue of laws the disregard of which for the sanctity of human life can in these days scarcely be conceived. And when it was proposed to give to some extent the government of the country to the people whom it mainly concerned, it was the bishops who threw out the first Reform Bill.
At this present the efforts of the better men within the Establishment are hampered by the State connection. It cannot bring its machinery into harmony with the growing needs of the time without appealing to a Parliament in which orthodox and heterodox, Catholic and Atheist, Jew and Quaker, Unitarian and Agnostic sit side by side, and to which a Hindoo has twice narrowly escaped election. By a Prime Minister dependent upon the will of this body its bishops are chosen; by a Lord Chancellor equally so dependent are many of its ministers appointed. Because of the necessity for going to Parliament for every improvement, little improvement is made. Private patronage is left untouched; the scandal of the sale of livings remains unchecked; criminous clerks are often allowed to escape punishment because of the cumbrous methods now provided; and disobedient clergymen defy their bishops and go to prison rather than conform to discipline, the law which permits persistent insubordination and provides an unfitting penalty remaining unaltered because Parliament has too much to do to attend to the Church.
As to the future, things are likely to be worse instead of better. Then, as now, the connection between State and Church will injure both—the State because it is an injustice to all outside the Establishment that a single sect should be propertied and privileged by Parliament, and the Church because it is as a strong man in chains attempting to walk but only succeeding to painfully hobble.
In how many ways disestablishment would benefit the Church, let Dr. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, declare:—“(1) It would doubtless give us more liberty, and enable us to effect many useful reforms. (2) It would bring the laity forward into their rightful position, from sheer necessity. (3) It would give us a real and properly constituted Convocation. (4) It would lead to an increase of bishops, a division of dioceses, and a reconstruction of our cathedral bodies. (5) It would make an end of Crown jobs in the choice of bishops, and upset the whole system of patronage. (6) It would destroy all sinecure offices, and drive all drones out of the ecclesiastical hive. (7) It would enable us to make our worship more elastic, and our ritual better suited to the times.” True, the bishop adds that the value of these gains must not be exaggerated; but if disestablishment can do even as much good as this to the Church, it cannot be the bad thing some of its opponents would have us believe.
But it is sometimes urged that if the Church were disestablished, there would be no State recognition of religion, and England would become un-Christian. Is not this a technical rather than a real argument? Would the number of Christians in this country be lessened by a single one if the Church were deprived of State support? Was not the same thing said when Jews were admitted to Parliament and Atheists claimed admission? And has England ceased to be Christian because Baron de Worms is sitting on one side of the Speaker and Mr. Bradlaugh on the other?
A more real argument is that disestablishment would break up the parochial system; but those who use it impute a discreditable lukewarmness to their own community. Seeing what the Wesleyans, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the other dissenting denominations have done to spread religion in every village in England and Wales; what the Free Kirk has accomplished in Scotland; and what the Roman Catholic Church has effected in Ireland—and all without a penny of State endowment, and dependent alone for success upon the gifts of their members—is it to be believed that the adherents of the Episcopal Church, among whom are included the wealthiest men in the country, will permit that institution to perish for lack of aid? Is not experience all the other way? Is not that of Ireland in particular a striking testimony to the wisdom of substituting the voluntary system for State support? Upon this point the testimony of two Irish Protestant bishops is abundant proof. The Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin averred, in 1882, that “no one could look attentively upon our Church’s history during the last ten or twelve years without perceiving that, by the good hand of God upon them, there had been a decided growth in all that was best and purest and most important. Never in his recollection had their Church been more clear or united in her testimony to Christian truth, or more faithful in every good word and work;” and Lord Plunket, the Archbishop of Dublin, has congratulated his clergy that disestablishment saved the Church from being involved in the land agitation, adding, “The very disaster which seemed most to threaten our downfall has been overruled for good.”
The question is likely, however, to be considered a more immediately pressing one for Scotland and Wales than for England. In Scotland it is the Presbyterian and not the Episcopalian form of Christian government which is State supported; and the fact that forms so opposed in striking points of doctrine and practice should be established on the two sides of the Tweed, is an interesting commentary upon the system generally. When the majority of the members for Scotland demand disestablishment, and press that demand upon us, it will as assuredly be granted as was the like demand from Ireland just twenty years ago. And “the Church of England in Wales”—supported by a small minority, and never enjoying the confidence of the body of the people—should similarly be dealt with, according to the wish of the Welsh parliamentary representatives.
The continued existence of the Church of England as an establishment is the largest question of all, and it is one which politicians will have to face, if not this year or next year, yet in the early years to come. It is only its continued existence “as an establishment” which is in dispute, for it would be a slanderous imputation upon its sons if it were said that a withdrawal of State support would cause its collapse as a religious body. The very strides it has made during the last few years, which are sometimes urged in its defence, have been made not by State help but by voluntary effort; and if that voluntary effort had free scope, the good effect would be greater and more lasting.
What is wanted is that which Cavour asked, “A Free Church in a Free State,” for both would be benefited by the process, and particularly the former. When the late Lord Beaconsfield was asked why, in the height of Tory reaction, he made no effort to re-establish the Irish Church, he replied that there was a difference between cutting off a man’s head and putting it on again. But the illustration was imperfect, for it is a strange kind of decapitation which strengthens the patient; and that was the effect in Ireland. And the Irish Church was not only disestablished but disendowed. In the mind of the practical politician the two processes are inseparable.