I.

No. 3, Vol. 1.

Practical Politics.

N opinion has been industriously promulgated of late that party distinctions haye ceased in public life, and that there are no contested principles between the two great political connections of the State. Simultaneous with the propagation of this doctrine has been the most systematic and successful assault in Parliament upon the Church of England that it has encountered since 1640.

An assault upon the Church of England is an assault upon the English Constitution. Are both parties agreed in assailing the English Constitution, or are both agreed in defending it? If the first, let it be known; if the second, the Church cannot be in danger. Both parties cannot be agreed in defending the Church, because measures attacking its rights, its privileges, and its offices, have led, in both Houses of Parliament, to divisions; and, in the House of Commons, to divisions warmly, and often closely, contested. As regards the status and authority of the Church of England, there is, there fore, in Parliament a vehement struggle of power and opinion.

We believe that, throughout the great body of the clergy and laity of the country, there is no difference of opinion upon this subject. What then has occasioned the contrariety between the country and Parliament?

Upon this point it is of vital importance that clear ideas should prevail. They alone can explain past mistakes, make us comprehend our present position, and prevent future mischief.

When Sir Robert Peel, in 1834, re-formed the Tory party, under the title of Conservative, the maintenance of the Church of England, its rights, and privileges, and duties, was a chief element of that reconstruction. On his accession to power he may have recommended some measures for this purpose, the policy of which some may have questioned, but the sincerity of that purpose no one then ever doubted, or now doubts; nor the equal truthfulness of the great body of his followers. Among the pupils and colleagues of Sir Robert Peel were men like Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Herbert, and Lord Lincoln, who were, not only from education, conviction, and sentiment, attached to the Church, but who had ever

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recognized in its authority one of the surest supports of Constitutional government.

During the four years that elapsed from the severance of Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues from the Tory party these gentlemen never relinquished the persuasion that, ultimately, the Tory party, from its want of leading men, must recall them to their former posts, and, consequently, no change took place in the mode and spirit with which they surveyed and considered Church questions. But after the death of Sir Robert affairs in this respect soon changed. Both the formation of Lord Derby's government, deemed by them always impossible, and the means by which that ministry was defeated, to which they principally contributed, alike convinced the followers of Sir Robert Peel that the long-contemplated resumption of their former posts in the Tory party was a result more difficult and doubtful than once assumed to be. In a semi-liberal position, acting with Lord John Russell and Sir William Molesworth, but presided over by Lord Aberdeen, their great object was to secure for their section the support of the Church, or, at all events, to prevent its being given to their Tory opponents. Hence the public dogma that Church questions were not to be party questions, and the private combination that they should be managed by a transcendental coterie, which took such an empyrean view of the Church and its affairs that it never deigned to remember that it was the Church of England-a coterie mainly and necessarily sitting on the Conservative side of the House, but secretly sympathizing with Mr. Gladstone, and believing that, under his magical manipulation, Liberalism would in due season become Conservative.

Five years of this management ended in antiChurch measures being carried every year in the House of Commons by overwhelming majorities, in the resisting power of the House of Lords being strained to the utmost-the Whig leaders, in spite of their once passionate protestations, deserting the Church; a bench of bishops, without influence or authority, surrendering at discretion; and eventually Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Herbert, and the Duke of Newcastle, taking office under a Premier pledged to the unconditional abolition of Church-rates.

It was in the midst of this anarchy that some who ventured to believe that the opinion of the country, in matters ecclesiastical, did not agree with that of Parliament, resolved to test the accuracy of their conjecture, and to make some effort to elicit

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the expression of that public opinion. They knew that half the House of Commons had been returned by Conservative constituencies, and they sought to bring the influence of those constituencies on representatives who, from timidity, or carelessness, or indifference, had failed in upholding one of the most ancient, one of the most beneficial, and still one of the most powerful, institutions of the country.

The moment this appeal was made and responded to the Church and its affairs assumed a totally different position in Parliament. The House of Commons, which is the most practical assembly in the world, recognized that the Church was a party question; to wit, that its friends were disciplined and organized, for party means that and nothing else; the management of affairs was snatched from the feeble transcendentalists, and placed in the hands of the leader of the Tory party and his colleagues, men accustomed to study public opinion, and to discipline and guide it. Committees of laymen circulated admirable tracts; Church Unions, in which clergy and laity acted in concert, sprang up in every district; every rural deanery became the focus of a spirited and enlightened confederacy; the archdeacons lent the wide-spreading influence of their complete and venerable organization; a bold, but, as it turned out, a prudent and successful policy was enforced in the recess of every year, after the parliamentary campaign, by individuals of authority; Churchmen petitioned the Legislature from every parish in the kingdom in favour of their rights and privileges; and in three years, the affairs of the Church being managed in Parliament according to the wise traditions of our public life, the majorities for the abolition of the rate were, in due course, absolutely converted into a minority, and the crowd of measures, all cunningly devised by the Nonconformist conspiracy, to modify, and ultimately abrogate, the status of the Church of England, were triumphantly defeated.

The mode in which the majority against Churchrates was gradually diminished in the House of Commons, not merely in successive sessions, but by various votes, at various stages, in the same sessions, until last year it was defeated by the casting vote of the Speaker, and this year the minority absolutely converted into a majority against unconditional repeal in the same House which three years before had carried that repeal by a majority of eighty, is an instructive lesson to those engaged in public life, and proves how nicely those who are responsible for the conduct of a parliamentary party must distinguish between factitious clamour and public opinion. Without the support of that public opinion, parliamentary tactics, and parliamentary discipline, may be of little worth; but it is equally true that, without the necessary skill and method, public opinion in politics is often disregarded and defied.

There has been, very recently, a pertinent illustration of the advantages of a disciplined Church party in the House of Commons in the instance of Sir M. Peto's Burial's Bill, a measure as pernicious as the abolition of Church-rates, and more offensive. For some reasons, which we have never yet penetrated, but, as we understand, against the advice of the leader of the Tory party in the Lower House,

the Burials' Bill had been permitted to be read a second time, in order that it might be referred to a Select Committee. The great body of the Tory party were dissatisfied and alarmed at this course; but it was represented to them that their dissatisfaction was without foundation, and their alarm had no sufficient cause. It was "all right;" and they were assured that the Burials' Bill would come out of the Select Committee shorn of all the provisions which might outrage Churchmen, and yet in a form very conciliatory to Dissenters. The Burials' Bill came out of the ordeal in question with all its odious features unchanged, and with this additional danger, that its third reading would be moved in the House of Commons sanctioned by a verdict which that House seldom cares to question, the judgment of its own Select Committee. It is probable that the House of Lords would have saved the Church of England from this intolerable infliction; but for a Nonconformist assault upon the Church to be defeated only by the House of Lords is itself a great triumph for Dissent. A defeat in the House of Commons defeats a principle; a defeat in the House of Lords only gains time.

To reject a bill recommended by the Select Committee to which it had been referred was no easy task, but it was one which the Tory party was advised to attempt. The advice was sound, the spirit of the party high, its discipline perfect. The friends of the Church attended on the critical night in great force, and Sir M. Peto, anxious to avoid a shattering defeat, when the moment arrived, withdrew the Burials' Bill, on the plea of the lateness of the session, without a struggle.

It appears to us that, from the foregoing circumstances, only one conclusion can be drawn-that Churchmen should identify themselves with that party in the State which upholds the Church of England as part and parcel of the English Constitution. The position of the Dissenters with reference to the Church is not that which prevailed in the last century and the earlier part of the present. The Dissenters have no grievances. The principle of toleration is completely developed. But toleration no longer satisfies the Dissenters: they require equality; and, without a grievance, they demand privilege. If the Dissenters possessed in this country a great preponderance of wealth and population, the irresistible influence of circumstances might in time occasion a revolution which would break the golden link between Church and State, and change and degrade the whole character of our political and social institutions. But that is not the case. The great preponderance of wealth and population is still on the side of the Church, notwithstanding the backsliding of a timid and yet conceited age. But the Dissenters are determined, unanimous, powerfully organized, and little scrupulous. They possess a greater influence over the borough constituencies than their numbers in relation to the general population authorize. Their politics are practical; and when the politics of a minority are practical, a speculative majority, dwelling in the twilight of theory, will ultimately fall a victim to the noonday energy of busy and determined men. To prevent such a catastrophe is the main object of this journal. In the intense com

petition of a Constitutional country the Church must organize its forces, like the other institutions of the land. The Church of England is a party question; but the formation of that party should be broad and deep, and it should successfully assert its national character by the variety, and the value, and the vigour of its elements.

The Judgment in the Court
of Arches.

HE publication of Essays and Reviews is an epoch in the history of the Church of England for two reasons. First, because the book is an organized attempt to revive Latitudinarianism within her pale in some systematic shape; with such adjuncts as should ascertain and fix a fundamental and a fatal change in the recognized position of her ministers. Second, because the resistance which the book has necessarily called forth is slowly but steadily issuing in a clearer perception and recognition of the ways in which this and all like attempts are to be met on the part of

the Church.

It is to the want of this perception and recognition, where it still exists, that is to be traced much of the dissatisfaction with which the judgment of the Judge of the Court of Arches has been received by Churchmen. We say much, not all; for the judgment, though based, as we conceive, upon the sound principles of administration of the law, has been, from excess of caution, strained in the direction of those principles further than the case will legitimately bear. One or two instances of this we shall notice presently. Meantime we revert to the ground of so much of the dissatisfaction as is not legitimate. There has been and is still in the minds of many Churchmen-and under our past and present circumstances it is not unnatural-a confusion between two processes which are in their nature distinct, but which are, both of them, of necessary application, in a Church established by law, to the case of a book such as Essays and Reviews. The first process is Judgment in Synod. The second process is Judgment in the Court Ecclesiastical, and, if there is an appeal, then in the Appeal Court. Now the first is a thing long in abeyance, and has recollections about it which prejudice the revival of its use; but which, if they were in themselves just true, which they are not, have no bearing upon the present case. We are not, however, concerned with these quasi-historical recollections now; and notice them only because of their share in creating the prejudice and producing the confusion.

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Now men who confuse in this way have expected from the Court of Arches what they cannot properly have at its hands, even though it be the Court of the Archbishop. And they have expected it the more because their want is a real want, their grievance a real grievance; the want must be satisfied, the grievance redressed somehow or other; and, at present, they do not quite know where else to look for satisfaction and redress. They see a suit instituted in the Court of Arches and an in

dictment preferred in many counts against certain

of the writers of Essays and Reviews. In their reverence for Holy Scripture, in their love for the Church, in their anxious care for the precious deposit of the Faith, it seems to them a hard and dangerous and scandalous thing that the accused, being criminal upon each and all the counts of the indictment, should not be found guilty upon each and all the counts of the indictment. They forget, rather they have not yet learnt, that in a Church established by law there are, not one but, two distinct jurisdictions, having, each of them, its own peculiar function and duty in dealing with every such offence; and which, when both have been applied to it, but not otherwise, satisfy the whole case, The Church in her corporate capacity has to be relieved by the act of her corporate representation, in all cases of sufficient gravity and extent, from the imputation which lies upon her of complicity in the publication of an unsound and dangerous book by one or more of her ministers. It is her function and her duty to examine and, if she see cause, to condemn the book. In condemning the book the Church does not reconstruct, but republishes her profession of Faith; and in this way, while she saves her own position, she warns all her children against the seduction of the heresy or heresies contained in the book. This is a procedure in Synod; the primary duty of a Church in every such case, It is to be taken in hand at the first fitting opportunity, and is to be carried through irrespectively of the other manner of procedure, if such be taken also. If procedure in Synod be neglected, or be evaded for any cause, the Church is committed to and is, as it were, an accomplice in respect of the heretical book, because the one way supplied in the good Providence of God for meeting the evil by the Church in her corporate capacity is not taken by the Church in her corporate capacity. No virtual condemnation, such as that by the individual members of a Synod, or such as that of one part of the Synod but not of the other, can come into the place of a Synodical Judgment. Much less any condemnation by private members of the Church, however learned, eminent, and excellent. Much less, again, any sentence of the Court Ecclesiastical; because it is not the function of the Court Ecclesiastical to republish the profession of the Church's Faith. The function. of the Court Ecclesiastical, whether in the first or the last resort, is to say whether the offence charged come within the four corners of the law of the Church, not necessarily as the Church has that law, but as it has been made the law of the land by act of the Crown in Parliament. The procedure here is a criminal procedure against the alleged offender as a citizen who has been admitted into possession of, and has had the undisturbed enjoyment of a certain benefice or benefices guaranteed to him by law upon and under certain conditions. Has he broken the conditions, as these have been defined and ascertained by the law? This is the question for a Judge of the Court Ecclesiastical and for the Court of Appeal. The answer to it will be governed by the same considerations which govern the answer in every criminal procedure in an English court of law. If upon any count of the indictment there is room for the accused to escape, then, so jealously does the law guard the temporal interests of the

accused, however the judge may be persuaded of his criminality, let him escape. If there is no such room, let him be found guilty.

The Judge of the Court of Arches has taken this view of his position and of his function. Doubtless there is very much to be said for it. He has considered, and it appears to us with reason, that the fact of the Court being the Archbishop's Court does not exempt it from the operation of those general rules which govern all cases of criminal justice. He has, therefore, with a precise and unsparing hand narrowed down the ground upon which he stands, and contracted the limits within which it is competent to him to exercise his jurisdiction. It may be said, and, we think, said with truth, in the present case, that he has erred in excess of precaution and care for the temporal interests of the accused. That he has, ex abundante cautela, acquitted when, by his own showing, he was bound to have condemned. For example, he has admitted with one hand the Collects as legal evidence of the doctrine of the Church; with the other hand he has rejected the Epistles and Gospels. Again, he has admitted with one hand the most stringent notion of Inspiration as being the doctrine of the Church; with the other hand he has rejected the power of condemning the teaching that the facts of the Inspired Books are fables: i.e. he has acquitted what is called Ideology in all its worst and most dangerous extravagance. But all this, though it be a great mistake, and full of evil consequences to the Church, unnecessarily entailed upon her by this judgment-if it stand-does not affect the principle of his procedure. It is only a misapplication of that principle. The principle is the confining his jurisdiction, as in a criminal cause, within the narrowest possible limits.

Having then done this, the judge has, not in form indeed at this stage of the proceedings, but in substance and effect, found both the accused parties guilty upon certain principal counts of the indictment. In other words, having done all that he was bound to do, and, as appears to us, some things which he was bound not to do, for the protection of the accused, he has found that it is impossible, in the discharge of his duty, to acquit. Accordingly, we have now what amounts to a distinct legal condemnation of offences alleged to have been committed by these two writers of Essays and Reviews, "contrary to the Articles of Religion and in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer," upon the points following:

1. Inspiration. 2. Justification.

3. Propitiation.

4. Eternal Judgment.

It is curious to note how, over and above all this, the Judge has allowed himself in many primary points to condemn morally where he has acquitted legally. Whether in so doing he has acted consistently with himself, and with the position he has so carefully taken, is more than doubtful. It seems to us that he has fallen here into the error of confounding the functions of a Court and of a Synod; and has assumed to himself, what does not appertain to him, the exercise of both functions.

Upon the grounds above stated it appears to us

that if there is room for some dissatisfaction and alarm, there is more room for thankfulness at this stage of the proceedings upon both the accounts which have made the waiting for this judgment a very anxious waiting. Not only in respect of what it has done, but also in respect of what it has not done, the judgment is good. For what it has done, it has clearly established three things:-1. That Essays and Reviews is a book such as it is not competent for a man (or men) holding the position of a beneficed Minister of the Church of England to write and publish. 2. That if a Minister of the Church of England write and publish such a book, or part of such a book, and do not retract the heresies therein contained, he must take the legal consequences of his legal position. 3. That a beneficed Clerk may not republish another man's heresy without distinctly condemning it. In respect of what the judgment has not done, the result is that the necessity of judgment in Synod upon the contents of the book generally, and specially upon those which the law does not touch, is become a conclusion which it is no longer possible for a Churchman to resist reasonably or to evade faithfully.

For till this judgment appeared there was some room for saying, according to the loose and shallow dogmatism of the day, that the judgment would satisfy the case one way or the other, and that there was no necessity to look to anything else. This was plainly what it was in the interest of the accused to say; and there were others, not their friends, who did not incline to look judgment in Synod in the face, and tried in this way to get rid of it. Now the Judge of the Court of Arches has cut away the ground from under the feet of all objectors of this class. He has made his position too narrow to hold any one besides himself; and your loose dogmatist is driven to look about him a little for something else to stand upon. Looking about him he finds that there are many offences, besides those which affect the legal position of a minister of the Church of England, which are injurious to the general soundness of the body and of every member of it. That the law does not pretend to deal with all such offences; assuming of some of them that they are too unnatural to occur; of others, that it would be difficult to define them with the necessary precision; of others again, that they are the result of the abuse of a liberty which, in its use, is lawful. On the other hand, if the law did pretend to deal with all such offences, and if it were a necessary consequence of every such offence that the offender should be brought before a court of law, still the Church in her corporate capacity has her own independent action to take; her own proper office and function to discharge in respect of every such offence. The discharge of such office is imperative upon the Church. It is not a thing in respect of which the Church has a choice, to do, or not to do, except so far as to say whether the case is of sufficient gravity, which no man disputes of the present case. office the Church discharges in her Synod. Speaking in her Synod she republishes her profession of Faith where it has been assailed or compromised, under circumstances which make the assault or the denial of sufficiently grave importance. She warns all her children to "walk more warily in these

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dangerous days." The civil penalties of the offence she remits, in the first instance, to the Court Ecclesiastical; in the last instance, to the Appeal Court. So far as the offence comes within the purview of the law, the law will deal with it. The Church's own part remains. She has her own law to satisfy; her own trust to discharge; her own deposit to guard; the good thing committed to her by the Holy Ghost to keep. It is hers, and hers only, to republish her profession of Faith, and to warn her children.

This has not yet been done. The Synod has not yet spoken. It has been a grievous error, but it is not too late to repair it. Let it be done, that the Church be not found unfaithful. Let it be done, and God will prosper it to the keeping whole and undefiled the Catholic Faith by the Church of England, even though there be among her Ministers those who reject and trample upon that Faith, but cannot be visited with legal penalty.

If the conclusions we have drawn respecting the paramount necessity of proceeding to judgment in Synod in this case with all convenient speed be sound and true, as we believe them to be, we trust that no considerations will be allowed to prevent their being acted upon steadily, to the relieving of many consciences and to the silencing of many enemies. It may not be competent to the Court of Law to defend the Holy Scriptures from injurious assault and irreverent insinuation, scattered with unsparing hand throughout the pages of a book which "handles" all things "freely," "in a becoming spirit:" the Church must take that charge upon herself. The Court of Law may not be able to say that it is a crime to teach that the facts of Sacred Books, which the Court itself allows to be Inspired, are fables: the Church must set her mark upon the sin. The Court of Law would maintain the building, but in some particulars cannot interfere to prevent the loosening of the foundation: the Church must keep watch and ward. Because the words "Messianic prophecy" are not found in the Articles of Religion, the Court of Law finds itself with regret unable to vindicate the application to Jesus Christ of "all things written in the Law, and the Psalms, and the Prophets concerning Him:" the Church in her Synod must beware how she fail to supplement and make good what may be a necessary defect of the Court of Law.

The Session of 1862.

Y the time these lines meet the public eye the ordinary business of Parliament will be practically concluded. The lamentable distress which prevails in the manufacturing districts, by entailing an extraordinary duty upon the Legislature, has caused the session to be prolonged beyond that period at which it was expected to terminate; while it is still possible that such news may reach us from America as will justify Government in reconsidering the question of mediation before Parliament is prorogued. But, with these two exceptions, our real work is over; and, as both of them stand

apart from the general business of the session, we shall take our survey of the year's legislation without waiting the event.

Although it has been customary to consider this session as a singularly uneventful one, it will not be found, on close investigation, quite so barren as it it seems. It is true that we have had an unusual number of long discussions terminating without a division. But if these have been of such a nature as either to elicit or to create public opinion, so as to afford a more certain basis of operation at a subsequent period, the time which they have occupied will not by any means have been wasted. Such results have in our opinion been achieved upon several most important subjects. On our Revenue and Expenditure, on our National Defences, on Public Education-to say nothing of those subjects on which real party fights have taken place, such as Church-rates, and other ecclesiastical questionsthe people of this country have both taught and learned a good deal during the last six months. Although, therefore, not many tangible results form the trophies of our late session, yet it is unfair to deny that it has been upon the whole an instructive one. The hunters may have brought home little game; but a large breadth of country has been carefully surveyed and opened up, and light has been let in upon various tangled masses of prejudice and ignorance.

On the great subject of our National Defences the first serious debate took place upon the 31st of March. At that time both Parliament and the public were under the whole influence of the encounter which had recently taken place between the Merrimac and the Monitor, and there was a general cry for the abandonment of stone forts, and the devotion of all our resources to the completion of ironcased ships. Lord Palmerston, however, influenced by a variety of considerations, such as that a single experiment was not absolutely decisive, that forts would at all events prevent the approach of transports and the landing of troops, and that contracts had been already signed for the formation of the condemned works, sought to moderate the excitement occasioned by the battle in James River, and persevered in his original plans. Events favoured him as usual. In less than three weeks from the first debate upon the subject the iron target at Shoeburyness was splintered by a smooth-bore gun, and the public driven back upon the old persuasion that both forts and guns were essential to the national defences. Accordingly, when Sir Cornewall Lewis, on the 21st of June, introduced his Fortifications' Bill into the House of Commons, it was no longer so much the question of ships versus forts in which the House seemed interested, as in the broader question of the unusual expenditure involved. It was wisely urged by Mr. Disraeli that larger sums should not be expended on our armaments than can be raised by regular taxation, and that loans for such a purpose in time of peace are indefensible. At the present moment, however, considerations of this nature fall upon a deaf audience. The nation just now is in a sort of after-dinner mood when expense is forgotten, and he is the most popular who is for running up the longest bill. Sir Cornewall Lewis's resolution was carried; and there