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 REESE LIBRARY 
 
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Cj&e ^tate anH CSf €bmcfi 
 
 THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: 
 HIS SIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 
 
THE STATE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CHUECH 
 
 v^ or THE '^ \ 
 
 UlTIVERSITY^ 
 
 HON. AETHUK ELLIOT, M.P 
 
 Hontion 
 MACMlLLAN AND CO, 
 
 1882 
 
 The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved, 
 
E s- 
 
 LONDON : FEINTED BY 
 6P0TXISW00DB AND CO., NEW-STEEET SQUAEB 
 AND FAELIAHENT 8TEEET 
 2^ t ^ d 
 
PEEFACB. 
 
 In the following pages, where it has been necessary to 
 touch at all upon historical topics, I have endeavoured 
 to confine myself to what is generally admitted, rather 
 than to follow the lead of any controversial writer. In 
 Reeves' History of Enghsh Law, and in the constitutional 
 histories of Mr. Hallam and Mr. Stubbs will be found, 
 related or referred to, ample matter it is believed to 
 support general statements of an historical character con- 
 tained in this work. 
 
 As regards Ecclesiastical Law, Parish Law, and the 
 more purely legal aspects of the subject included under 
 * State and Church,' I have had to examine the works of 
 many legal writers. To Sir R. Phillimore's recent work 
 on Ecclesiastical Law are referred those readers who 
 wish to study in detail this branch of the subject. 
 
 As regards Scottish history I have in the main relied 
 upon Burton's * History of Scotland.' 
 
 The existing position and circumstances of the Esta- 
 blished Churches of Great Britain, favourite subjects with 
 controversial writers, it is not easy to find impartially 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 dealt with outside the contents of Bhie-books and ParKa- 
 mentary returns. It is not the object of this work to 
 accumulate full and precisely accurate statistics, and I 
 have merely made use of such information as I think can 
 be relied on to present a general picture of the two great 
 religious institutions of the country sanctioned and sup- 
 ported by the State. 
 
 I must express my thanks to Mr. C. F. Jemmett, 
 B.O.L., of Lincoln's Inn and the Inner Temple, for his 
 great kindness in rendering me valuable assistance in 
 revising the more legal portions of this work. 
 
 A. D. E. 
 
 May 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rise and Progress of the National Church . 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 The Royal Supremacy . . . .19 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 Clergy and Laity . . . .23 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Church Law and Church Courts . . 40 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Parochial System . . . .55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Prayer-Book and Thirty -nine Articles . 66 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Revenues of the Church . . .78 
 
Vlil CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 The Church Building Commission and the Eccle- 
 siastical Commissioners . . .98 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Appointment op Dignitaries and Patronage . 110 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 * Established ' and ' Free ' Churches . . 124 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Church of Scotland . . . 139 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The Church of Scotland (continued) . . 156 
 
t 
 
 'university 
 state and chuech. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 The relationship that exists between State and Church 
 in the United Kingdom at the present day is so peculiar, 
 and differs so much from what we find existing in early 
 times, that it will be necessary, in order to explain it, 
 to take a short retrospect into the religious history of 
 this country. In early times, the mere conception that 
 various religions and Churches could grow up side by 
 side and flourish within the same State would have 
 seemed an impossible one. Throughout Western Christen- 
 dom, up to the date of the Reformation, there was but 
 one religion and one Church, and for many years after 
 the reformed faith had prevailed over a large portion of 
 Europe, the form of religion decided upon and ' established ' 
 in each State became the State religion, all others being 
 either actually persecuted or subjected to civil disabilities 
 of a greater or less degree. When the universality of the 
 prevailing form of Christianity was for ever destroyed by 
 the Reformation, it was found, doubtless, to the sur- 
 prise of many reformers, that the assertion of the right of 
 
 B 
 
2 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 private judgment against the claims of authority was as 
 antagonistic to the pretensions of the newer hierarchies 
 as it had shown itself to Papal deci>ees or Episcopal 
 councils. The transition from the conception of one 
 religion throughout Christendom to that of one religion 
 for each State was a considerable one ; but the later 
 transition, which has been less noticed because more 
 quietly accomplished, from a state of things where a 
 ' national ' religion was alone professed and tolerated by 
 each nation, to a condition of society where all religions 
 are treated by the State as exactly on the same footing, 
 where, in short, each man's religion is treated by the 
 State as a matter solely within his own cognisance, and 
 with which it will not meddle, is as wide a transition 
 as the former, and the consequences which its com- 
 plete accomplishment will bring about it is for the 
 future fully to reveal. As the principles of toleration 
 made but slow progress after the triumph of Protes- 
 tantism, so the later principle of complete religious 
 equality between all religions and all sects follows but 
 slowly upon the removal of civil disabilities. In some 
 countries this principle has already triumphed ; and it 
 cannot be doubted that in all countries it is gaining 
 ground. In the United Kingdom at the present day 
 we find in England one form of Protestantism ' estab- 
 lished ' and closely connected with the State ; in Scot- 
 land another form of Protestantism also 'established,' 
 though much less closely connected with the State ; and 
 in Ireland a system of complete religious equality where 
 each religious body or sect, unfavoured and unprotected 
 by the State, manages its own affairs in the way it 
 
1.] CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 3 
 
 thinks best. This state of things would have seemed 
 impossible to our ancestors of pre-Reformation times, 
 when men were as naturally members of the one 
 Church as they were citizens of their own country; 
 and when, as for many centuries was the case, the only 
 persons not of the State religion were the Jews, who, 
 after all, were foreigners as well as infidels. The Church 
 of England was then not merely a part of the nation, 
 but was the nation itself, considered in its religious 
 aspect; and to be put by the Church outside its own 
 communion was to forfeit at the same time all the rights 
 of citizenship. 
 
 It has been pointed out by several eminent writers 
 that the form of ■ expression, ' the Established Church,' 
 has given rise to a mistaken impression popularly en- 
 tertained, viz., that at some time or other the law 
 founded or set up the Church; whereas in fact the 
 institution grew in the same way that other parts of 
 the Constitution have grown. The Church never was 
 established, in the sense in which the Education Depart- 
 ment or the Post Office have been established. It is as 
 much part of the original Constitution of the country 
 as the monarchy, which, in point of fact, it long pre- 
 ceded. Its position is, of course, defined and regulated 
 by law, but it does not owe its origin as an institution 
 to any definite act of the legislature or other sovereign 
 authority. 
 
 "When, in the seventh century, England was still di- 
 vided among the several Saxon kingdoms of the Heptarchy, 
 Christianity, which had almost disappeared with the 
 overthrow of the Roman power, was again revived by 
 
 b2 
 
4 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the mission of Augustine. So rapidly did the new religion 
 spread among the people, that by the middle of the eighth 
 century it had been accepted in each of the kingdoms and 
 the whole country had been divided into dioceses, which 
 were grouped into the two provinces of Canterbury 
 and York. The monks who had accompanied Augus- 
 tine, and their successors, spreading by degrees further 
 and further from their central establishments, carried 
 their religion into the remoter districts. Yet the 
 nation, or rather the nations, were converted, so to 
 speak, from above; the kings and rulers being gained 
 first, and their subjects following.^ 'The State,' in fact, 
 adopted the new religion, whose ecclesiastical system 
 thus became founded on a political basis. Dioceses are 
 said, in the first instance, to have been commensurate 
 with kingdoms, and parishes with townships. By the 
 end of the eighth century ecclesiastical conclaves had 
 been held, and the payment of tithe had been ordered 
 by a legatine council with the sanction and approval of 
 the King. 
 
 The northern part of England, however, owed its 
 Christianity rather to the Scottish monks from lona 
 than to the Roman followers of Augustine. The Scottish 
 religious practices, like those surviving among the British 
 in Wales, were of the Greek rather than of the Koman 
 type. In the much-disputed question of the celebration 
 of Easter, as well as in the peculiar form of monkish 
 tonsure, the Celtic Christians followed the Eastern 
 
 ^ See the interesting account given in Milman's Latin ChHi- 
 tianity, bk. 4, cap. iii. ; of the conversions of the kings of Kent 
 and of Northumberland. And Mr. G. Harwood's Disestahlishment. 
 
I.] SEPAKATION OF JUEISDICTIONS. 5 
 
 Church. As time went on the Koman practices every- 
 where ultimately prevailed, and it would hardly have 
 been necessary to refer at all to Celtic Christianity were it 
 not that a party in the Church of England at the present 
 day attaches importance to whatever tends to show the 
 early independence of the English Church as regards 
 Roman authoiity and its closer connection with Greek 
 Christianity. 
 
 Down to the time of the Norman Conquest the 
 Church of England remained peculiarly a national church, 
 honouring its own saints, observing its own festivals, 
 and conducting its services in the national tongue. Little 
 interfered with by the Churches of the Continent, it 
 developed itself spontaneously with the growth of the 
 nation; and, after the Saxon rule was ended by the 
 invasion of William the Conqueror, the Church for long 
 kept alive the recollection of popular rights and liberties, 
 and as a body showed in the prolonged resistance to 
 Papal claims that its national character had not been 
 lost. 
 
 The Papal influence, nevertheless, from the Conquest 
 to the Keformation, supported by the monasteries and 
 with many of the principal ecclesiastics devoted to its 
 service, endeavoured steadily to extend itself at the ex- 
 pense of the liberties of the local Church as well as 
 of the national independence. Throughout Europe the 
 tendency was more and more to centralize ecclesiastical 
 authority and power at Rome. 
 
 With the reign of the Conqueror came a sharp divi- 
 sion between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. 
 Probably in Saxon times there had been very little 
 
6 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 distinction recognised between these jurisdictions ; but 
 now we find, by an ordinance of the Conqueror, that the 
 bishops are forbidden to hold pleas 4e legibus ejnscopa- 
 libus in the Hundred Court, or to submit to the judgment 
 of secular persons any cause relating to the cure of souls. 
 Henceforth, whoever had offended against the Episcopal 
 laws was to answer the cause and do what was right 
 towards God and the bishop, not according to the law 
 used in the Hundred, but according to the Canons and 
 the Episcopal law^ and any sentence of excommunication 
 v/hich the bishop might pass was to receive the full 
 support of the royal authority. The separation of juris- 
 diction thus begun, tended to become wider and wider. 
 Pontifical decrees and Church law having for their object 
 to enlarge the authority of the ecclesiastical tribunals 
 succeeded, to a great extent, in establishing the exemp- 
 tion of the clergy from the common law and the ordinary 
 law-courts of the country. Not content with this, the 
 spiritual courts claimed exclusive control over many of 
 the most important matters of civil life. It was their 
 province to decide upon all questions of wills, of legiti- 
 macy and of marriage, and a claim was even set up to 
 judge of contracts, on the ground that breach of faith was 
 a spiritual offence of which the spiritual court should 
 have cognisance. To limit the encroachments of the 
 clergy the kings in early times, by their constitutions 
 or their charters, endeavoured to define the limits of 
 ecclesiastical authority, and in later days many Acts of 
 Parliament were passed with the same object. When it 
 was open to anyone arraigned or convicted of crime be- 
 fore a lay tribunal to claim exemption from its jurisdic- 
 
i.J JEALOUSY OF THE SEE OF EOME. 7 
 
 tion and be handed over to the ordinary {i.e., the 
 bishop), * to claim his clergy/ as it was called, the sole 
 test being his capacity to read, ' quod legit ut clericus 
 ideo tradatur ordinario,' we may imagine to what a de- 
 gree the authority of the King's courts had been reduced. 
 
 And there were many other points in which, even in 
 the most orthodox times, the State and the ecclesiastical 
 authority differed. It was not only that the nation did 
 not like to see its common law, with its marked feature 
 of trial by jury, continually limited by the encroach- 
 ments of a rival and foreign system, whose ultimate 
 court of appeal was outside the kingdom. A disKke 
 was also naturally felt to the system of Papal exactions, 
 and of Papal patronage, to the filling of dignified and 
 lucrative positions in the National Church with foreign 
 ecclesiastics, and to the assertion of Papal authority, 
 assented to by an English king, that his crown was held 
 under the feudal supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, for 
 which tribute was justly due. These feelings, whether of 
 a practical or sentimental nature, prove that, however 
 much in one sense Church and State may in orthodox 
 days have been composed of the same individuals, the 
 rivalry between those who leaned to ecclesiasticism and 
 those who leaned to nationalism must necessarily have 
 been a keen one. 
 
 The first chapter of Magna Charta stipulates that the 
 Church of England (Anglicana Ecclesia) shall be free 
 and have her whole rights and liberties inviolable ; one 
 of the most valued of which was the right of the Chapters 
 and religious houses to elect their bishops and abbots, 
 instead of having a choice forced upon them by the King 
 
8 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 or the Pope. Again, the jealousy of foreign interference 
 is shown in the preamble to a statute of Edward I., 
 which recites that the Church of England was founded 
 by the kings and nobles of the realm for their instruc- 
 tion and that of the people ; that sees and rents had been 
 appropriated by the said foundei-s to the prelates and 
 other beneficed persons, that thence resulted the right 
 of collation and presentation claimed by the King and his 
 nobles, that the higher order of such clergy constituted 
 a considerable part of the King's great council to advise 
 him in national affairs, and that consequently ifc was a 
 grievance that the Bishop of Kome should, invading the 
 rights of others, grant dignities to cardinals and other 
 men, who were aliens, as if he were the patron ; and, 
 therefore, it was enacted that all elections to Church pre- 
 ferments that were elective should be free as in time past. 
 But not only did the clergy possess its separate judi- 
 catories, in which was administered its own system of 
 law ; it constituted also a separate order ■ in the State, 
 exempt from the taxation of Parliament, claiming to 
 legislate for itself in the convocations of the provinces of 
 Canterbury and York, and regularly summoned along 
 with the Parliament to aid the Crown with its supplies. 
 In ecclesiastical affaiis down to the Reformation the 
 supreme legislative authority was disputed between the 
 State, i.e., the King and Parliament, the Pope, whose 
 legate and representative in England was usually the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Church of Eitgland, 
 speaking through its constituted authorities in its pro- 
 vincial or national assemblies. Till the fall of the mitred 
 abbots under Henry VIII., the ecclesiastical element in 
 
I.] HENEY VIII. AND THE PAPACY. 9 
 
 the House of Lords considerably outnumbered the tem- 
 poral Peers. The clergy, moreover, were possessed of 
 immense wealth. Though not endowed territorially by 
 the law, which indeed had often endeavoured to check 
 the acquisitiveness of the Church, the monasteries 
 and ecclesiastical corporations had become possessed of 
 enormous estates through the piety of donors and testa- 
 tors, and through the rule that property once devoted to 
 religious uses could not again, without sacrilege, be applied 
 to secular purposes. Nevertheless, under Henry V. 
 many of the monasteries of alien monks had been sup- 
 pressed, and their lands annexed to the Crown, and, 
 again, as a consequence of the visitations of Cardinal 
 Wolsey, corrupt establishments had been destroyed and 
 their wealth applied to the purposes of public education. 
 It is calculated that these religious houses at one time 
 owned nearly one-fifth of all the land of the kingdom ; 
 and in Scotland, a much poorer country, it is probable 
 that they were, proportionately, better endowed, thanks 
 in great measure to the piety of the canonised King 
 David, whose magnificent foundations have made him 
 known to posterity as a ' sair saint for the Crown.' 
 
 'The English dispute with Rome did not arise out 
 of any strictly religious difierence between the Pope and 
 the King. The latter had earned from the former the 
 title of Defender of the Faith, for the vigorous orthodoxy 
 with which he had attempted to confute the doctrines of 
 Luther ; and, however anxious Henry proved himself to 
 diminish the Papal authority in England, and however the 
 necessity of his struggle with Rome may have forced him 
 to side with the Protestant party, he always remained 
 
10 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 attached to those Catholic doctrines which specially 
 roused the hostility of the Reformers. In short, his 
 policy was to overthrow the Papal power, not to attack 
 the doctrines of the Romish Church, and whatever policy 
 he pursued, he found his Parliament ready to give him its 
 support. Appeals to Rome were abolished by a statute, 
 which declares, ' in maintenance of the ancient law of the 
 land,' that all questions of divorce, matrimony, tithes, 
 &c., should be finally determined within the King's 
 jurisdiction, and not elsewhere, in spite of any excommu- 
 nications or interdicts to the contrary. And by subse- 
 quent Acts it was provided that for the future appeals 
 should be brought from all the ordinary ecclesiastical 
 courts in England and Wales to the King in Chancery, 
 and that upon every such appeal a commission should be 
 directed to such persons as should be named by the King 
 (afterwards known as the Court of Delegates), that all 
 existing canons, constitutions, and ordinances not re- 
 pugnant to the laws and customs of the realm or to the 
 King's prerogative should continue in force as before, 
 that bishops should be appointed by royal letters patent,^ 
 and that the King should be taken to be 'the only 
 supreme head on earth of the Church of England, 
 called Ecclesia Anglicana, and should have all authority 
 thereto annexed to reform and correct all errors, heresies, 
 and abuses which may be amended by any spiritual 
 jurisdiction whatsoever.' And this, at a time when Par- 
 liament was imposing the punishment of death on any 
 one denying the doctrine of the Real Presence, and making 
 it felony to preach in favour of the marriage of priests 
 1 31 Henry VIII. c. 9. 
 
I.] THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. 11 
 
 or against the celebration of the mass. The Royal supre- 
 macy was thus to be substituted for the Papal supremacy, 
 but the Church was otherwise to be left a complete 
 organisation, with its own laws and its own courts, inde- 
 pendent of all authority but the King's. Henry VIII. 
 had made this very plain even before the actual rupture 
 with Rome ; for when some of the clergy had declared 
 that an Act of Parliament withdrawing ' benefit of clergy ' 
 from murderers and robbers was contrary to the law of 
 God and to the liberties of the Church, he refused to delay 
 judgment till the matter had been referred to the Pope. 
 ' By the order and sufferance of God we are King of Eng- 
 land, and the Kings of England who have gone before us 
 never had any superior but God alone, and therefore know 
 that we will maintain the right of our crown and temporal 
 jurisdiction, as well in this point as in others, in as ample 
 a manner as our predecessors have done before us. And 
 as to your decrees, we are well assured that you your- 
 selves of the Spiritualty act in contradiction to the words 
 of many of them, as has been shown you by some of 
 our spiritual counsel on this occasion. And besides you 
 interpret your decrees at your pleasure; therefore we 
 will not conform to your will and pleasure more than our 
 progenitors have.' The King was evidently of opinion 
 
 That men can construe things after their fashion 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves ; ^ 
 
 and whether right or wrong in this belief his eminently 
 
 Tudor speech is a good illustration of the spii'it which 
 
 caused and maintained the rupture with the See of 
 
 Rome; but whether the motives of Henry, Edward, 
 
 ^ Julius Ccesa?'. 
 
12 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 and Elizabeth were cliiefly religious or chiefly political, 
 the course that was pursued by them and their Parlia- 
 ments, in breaking up the monasteries, in expelling 
 the mitred abbots from the House of Lords, and in 
 exalting and enforcing the royal supremacy in all 
 ecclesiastical matters of importance, gave a blow to the 
 power of the clergy in the State, and to the authority 
 of that oi'der even in things ecclesiastical, which has 
 reduced it to a very different position to that it formerly 
 held. In England, more probably than elsewhere, the 
 Keformation was under the guidance of temporal and 
 political rulers, rather than of religious enthusiasts, and 
 the character thus originally impressed on the English 
 Protestant Church — and its habit of looking to political 
 as much as to purely ecclesiastical or religious con- 
 siderations — have been very marked throughout its later 
 history. It was in the reign of Elizabeth that the 
 Church of England finally assumed its present shape. 
 By that time the Articles of Keligion, and even the 
 Prayer Book, had substantially assumed their present 
 form, and had received the sanction of Parliament. Yet 
 though Elizabeth's acts of supremacy, of uniformity, and 
 of assurance, secured the Protestant establishment, it was 
 due to her personal predilections for Roman ritual and 
 external ceremonial prevailing over the wishes of her 
 subjects, and even over those of her most distinguished 
 bishops, that those observances were retained which led to 
 the great Nonconformist separation from the Anglican 
 establishment. The legislation of her reign, like that of 
 her brother and father, shows clearly that it was then 
 held to be the unquestioned duty of the ruling authority 
 
I.] ECCLESIASTICAL PRETENSIONS. 13 
 
 of the nation to impose and uphold one form of religion. 
 All ministers were to use the Book of Common Prayer ; 
 all persons were to resort on Sundays to the parish 
 churches ; and neither Act of Parliament, nor determina- 
 tion of any religious or ecclesiastical cause under its 
 authority, was to be adjudged heretical or schismatical, 
 in spite of any ecclesiastical decree or canon to the con- 
 trary. Jesuits and seminary priests were expelled the 
 kingdom, and it was even made high treason to convert 
 anyone to the Poman religion ; but this was later in the 
 Queen's reign, when the Protestantism of the Parliament, 
 which was much more decided than that of the sovereign, 
 had got fuller sway. Extreme Churchmen of different 
 religious communities were equally zealous in claiming 
 the assistance of the State, and in repudiating its au- 
 thority. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign Archbishop 
 Parker sent for Mr. Wentworth, a distinguished Puritan 
 member of Parliament, to ask him why the House of 
 Commons had put out of the Prayer Book the ' articles 
 for the homilies, consecration of bishops and such like.' 
 ' Surely, Sir,' said I, * because we were so occupied in 
 other matters that we had no time to examine them, 
 how they agreed with the word of God ! ' * What ! ' said 
 he, ' surely you mistake the matter : you will refer your- 
 selves solely to us therein ! ' ' No ! by the faith I bear 
 to God,' said I, ' we will pass nothing before we under-"^ 
 stand what it is ; for that were but to make you Popes ; 
 make you Popes who list,' said I, * for we will make you 
 none. And sure, Mr. Speaker, the speech seemed to me 
 to be a Pope-like speech, and I fear lest our bishops do at- 
 tribute this of the Pope's Canons unto themselves ; " Papa 
 
14 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 non potest errare.' " ^ That this pretension of the Church 
 to dictate true religion to the nation, and then to have 
 the support of the arm of the State, was as strongly put 
 forward by the extreme Presbyterians as by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury is evident from the declaration made 
 by their leader Cartwright that it was the duty of the 
 Sovereign ' to protect and defend the councils of his 
 clergy, to keep the peace, to see their decrees executed, 
 and to punish the contemners of them, but to exercise 
 no spiritual jurisdiction. It must be remembered that 
 civil magistrates must govern the Church according to 
 the rules of God prescribed in His word ; and that, as 
 they are nurses, so they be servants to the Church ; and 
 as they rule in the Church, so they must remember to sub- 
 mit themselves unto the Church, to submit their sceptres, 
 to throw down their crowns before the Church — yea, as the 
 Prophet speaketh, to lick the dust off the feet of the 
 Church.' Fortunately, ecclesiastical pretensions of this 
 sort, from whatever side they have come, have never found 
 any permanent favour with the English people. Xeither 
 was the royal claim to personal supremacy as evidenced 
 above by King Henry's words likely to remain unques- 
 tioned, when monarchs of less ascendency than the Tudors 
 found themselves at issue with subjects who had become 
 more alive to their rights and liberties than those who 
 had gone before them. Towards the end of Elizabeth's 
 reign, she had ordered her Parliament not to meddle with 
 religious matters till they had been considered by those 
 better able to understand them ; but after her death that 
 
 ' D'Ewes's Parliamentary Histwy, quoted in Hallam's History 
 of England. 
 
r.] CHAEACTERISTICS OF THE STATE CHURCH. 15 
 
 change began which has gradually transformed the per- 
 sonal action of the monarch into what we should now 
 call the constitutional action of the crown : in which the 
 action of the crown represents the highest expression of 
 the will of the State. 
 
 The policy of the Tudor sovereigns and the claims of 
 extreme Episcopalians and of extreme Presbyterians have 
 been here dwelt upon, because they appear to illustrate 
 conflicting theories of Church government, with which, in 
 a slightly modified form, we still have to deal. There are 
 still among us Churchmen of different religious communi- 
 ties who would wish the State to be no more than their 
 servant, and who consider themselves entitled to treat 
 with contempt the law of the land, because it does not 
 conform with what they may choose to consider the law 
 of their Church. There is, on the other hand, a pre- 
 dominant sentiment in the public mind that the nation 
 at large is concerned in the conduct and position of the 
 Established Church, and that the final authority in 
 things ecclesiastical as well as temporal must be the will 
 of the nation as expressed in the laws which it has 
 made, or in the constitutional action of the Crown. 
 
 Since the times of which we have been writing, the 
 relationship of the Church towards the State has under- 
 gone considerable change, yet this is not so much in conse- 
 quence of changes introduced into the constitution of the 
 Church of England itself, which, indeed, remains much 
 as it was, as of the very different position in which those 
 who are not members of that Church now find themselves. 
 Nonconformists and Dissenters having early succeeded in 
 getting their religion tolerated, have at last acquired all 
 
16 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 the civil rights enjoyed by orthodox Churchmen. We 
 shall see later in this work in what the * Establishment 
 of the Chm^ch ' now consists, and how it differs from the 
 purely voluntary system of ChurcK government which 
 has sprung up around it. The National Church, in the 
 old sense, of the whole nation considered in its religious 
 aspect, it has, of course, now no claim to be; since a 
 very large portion of the community looks for its re- 
 ligion to other Communions, and does so without being 
 visited by any penalty or disqualification by the State ; 
 but it remains, nevertheless, so far the National Church 
 that the nation, through its Parliament and through its 
 ordinary courts of law, is the supreme power which 
 regulates it, that its ministrations, religious services, and 
 churches are open to all citizens alike, and that a large 
 portion of its wealth and support is derived not from 
 voluntary sources, but from the provisions anciently made 
 to provide for the old State religion. It will suffice for 
 the present to point out that the principal characteristics 
 of the connection between Church and State in England 
 are :— 
 
 1. The royal supremacy. 
 
 2. The subordination of the Church to Parliamentary 
 Control. 
 
 3. The presence of the archbishops and bishops in the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 4. The national endowment of the Church. 
 
 5. The accessibility of the Church to all who may 
 wish to avail themselves of its ministrations. 
 
 The Establishment is further brought into relationship 
 with external influence by ' Church patronage,' as will be 
 afterwards explained. 
 
1.] TOLEEATION AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 17 
 
 To summarise shortly what has been said, we find 
 in the earliest times a Church very national in character, 
 and of thoroughly spontaneous growth, which, from the 
 Norman Conquest down to the Reformation, it had been 
 the object of the Popes, supported by the monkish orders 
 and by some of the higher ecclesiastical dignitaries, to 
 render subject to the See of Rome. Hence the struggle 
 in English, as in Continental history, as to investitures, 
 rights of patronage, papal exactions, and the like. We 
 find the clergy constituting a separate order in the State, 
 exempt from Parliamentary taxation, and to a great 
 extent from the control of the ordinary courts of law; 
 whilst from their own ecclesiastical courts the ultimate 
 appeal lay to the Pope. Thus, long before there was 
 any serious question of a change taking place in 
 the religion of the country, we find a fierce and pro- 
 longed rivalry between the State and the ecclesiastical 
 organisation which centred in Pome. Henry YIII. 
 substituted his own for the Papal supremacy, and, the 
 religious Protestantism of his successor being in favour 
 with the growing sympathies of the country, the change 
 which Henry had intended to create in the relationship 
 of the English Church towards Pome developed itself 
 under those who came after him into an absolute rupture 
 between the Roman Catholic religion and that of the 
 English nation. With the final rupture with Rome 
 and the reformation of religion came the alienation of 
 much Chvirch property, the suppression of the monastic 
 orders, and, practically speaking, the fall of the clergy 
 as one of the orders of the State. For some time after 
 the complete overthrow of Roman authority we find it 
 
 c 
 
18 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the accepted theory of the State that it should prescribe 
 and enforce what it deemed the true religion ; while re- 
 ligious leaders, such as Laud in England and the Cove- 
 nanters in Scotland, differing as to which was the true 
 religion, agreed that the State should use its authority 
 to enforce the doctrines and system which ' the Church ' 
 should prescribe. This extreme Church view, however, 
 did not prove very acceptable to the English people; 
 and we find a tendency steadily increasing, from the first 
 manifestation of Protestant Nonconformity down to the 
 present time, to diminish and ultimately to abolish all 
 civil distinctions between those of different religious per- 
 suasions. Hence the spread of the principle of tolera- 
 tion and the growth of that of religious equality. 
 
II.] 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 
 
 The supremacy of the Crown of England in matters 
 ecclesiastical has been claimed by Lord Chief Justice 
 Hale as being part of the old common law,^ and it was 
 certainly recognised by statute at a very early date. But 
 in what sense this ' supremacy ' was understood when 
 the Papacy was undoubtedly in fact the spiritual head 
 of the Church, it is not very easy to discover. At the 
 present day it is by virtue of her supremacy that the 
 sovereign convenes, regulates, and dissolves all ecclesias- 
 tical convocations, which without her summons could 
 not lawfully assemble for business. It is by virtue of her 
 prerogative that she nominates the higher dignitaries of 
 the Church, and it is due to her supremacy that a iBnal 
 appeal lies from all the ecclesiastical courts to the Queen 
 in Council. The actual expression of ' Supreme Head 
 of the Church and clergy of England ' appears first in the 
 petition of Convocation to King Henry YIII. to relieve 
 them from the penalties to which they were exposed. 
 The petition was followed by the statute called the Act 
 of Submission, which, having recited this recognition of 
 
 1 Hale's History oftlie Common Lam. See also Cawdrey's 
 Case, 5 Coke, p. 75. 
 
 C2 
 
20 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the royal supremacy by the whole clergy in Convocation, 
 in order to make assurance doubly sure, enacted that the 
 King should be reputed the ' only supreme head in earth 
 of the Church of England, and should have annexed to 
 the imperial crown of this realm as well the style and 
 title thereof, as all jurisdictions, authorities, and commo- 
 dities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the 
 Church appertaining.' ^ 
 
 Convocation, however, had only in fact recognised 
 *the Headship, so far as was permitted by the law of 
 Christ, a qualification not taken any notice of by the 
 Act of Parliament. The sense in which the supremacy 
 is now understood is further developed by the Thirty- 
 seventh Article of Keligion (which is binding by virtue 
 of the authority both of Convocation and of Parliament), 
 where it is explained that though the sovereign is recog- 
 nised as the ruler of all ecclesiastical estates and degrees, 
 she is not to be supposed to have had given to her any 
 spiritual authority to perform the duties of the Christian 
 ministry. Again, by the Canons ^ and constitutions of 
 the Church of England the recognition of the supremacy 
 is very full, as the * King's power within his realms ' is 
 declared to be * the highest power under God, to whom 
 all men do by God's laws owe most loyalty and obedience, 
 afore and above all other powers and potentates in the 
 
 * This Act was repealed under Mary, but the Eoyal supremacy 
 was restored in the first year of Elizabeth. 
 
 - See Canons I. and II, 1603. These Canons published by the 
 royal authority somewhat alarmed the House of Commons, which 
 resolved that the Kings of England had no power to alter reli- 
 gion, or to make any laws concerning it, otherwise than in 
 temporal matters, that is by consent of Parliament. 
 
\ 
 
 II.] KING AND CHUECH. 21 
 
 earth.' And the next Canon, in order to elucidate the 
 nature of the royal authority in causes ecclesiastical, 
 explains that it is the same that' the godly kings had 
 amongst the Jews, and the Christian emperors of the 
 primitive Church/ And should any one be so bold as to 
 impeach the royal authority, he is to be excommunicated 
 12)80 facto f and not to be restored until he has repented 
 and revoked ' those his wicked errors.' It need scarcely 
 be stated that any action of the Crown, in the exercise of 
 its prerogatives, whether in ecclesiastical matters or in 
 civil, whether in judicial or administrative business, must 
 be constitutional; that is, it must be taken upon the 
 advice of a responsible Minister, or on that of an esta- 
 blished tribunal. This relation of the Crown to the 
 Established Church is peculiar to England. In Scotland 
 the Church has always guarded itself against any admis- 
 sion of a temporal ' Headship,' and in Ireland the royal 
 authority withdrew from all interference in ecclesiastical 
 matters when the Establishment was put an end to in 
 1869. At the union in 1801 it was enacted that the 
 Churches of England and Ireland were for ever to form 
 one Protestant Episcopalian Church, and this was to be 
 a fundamental part of the union between the two coun- 
 tries ; but this legislative attempt to bind futurity of 
 course was not allowed to hamper the nation, a couple 
 of generations afterwards, in pursuing a policy which it 
 considered both just and expedient. We need not say 
 more here with reference to the supremacy, the operation 
 of which will appear incidentally in later portions of this 
 work ; but it should be noticed that it is due in great 
 measure to this connection between the Church and the 
 
22 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 Head of the State that the voice of statesmanship has 
 been so often heard in England above the clamour of 
 ecclesiastics. It has, in fact, given an importance to the 
 lay element in the nation, to whtich an unchecked episco- 
 palian system would have denied a hearing. 
 
 Such being the relation between the Church and the 
 Sovereign, it is natural that some security for the religion 
 of the latter should be taken by the law. Accordingly it 
 is provided that the Sovereign must be ' Protestant,' and 
 that his entering the Roman Communion or marrying a 
 Papist is to forfeit the Crown and absolve his subjects 
 from their allegiance. Every Sovereign ' on coming to the 
 possession of the Crown shall join in communion with 
 the Church of England as by law established,' ^ and in 
 the Coronation Service, which must be performed by an 
 archbishop or a bishop of the Established Church, the 
 Sovereign undertakes ' to maintain the laws of Cod, the 
 rue profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant reformed 
 religion established by law,' and to ' preserve to the 
 bishops and clergy of the realm, and to the churches 
 committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges 
 as by law do or shall appertain unto them.' ^ 
 
 » 12 & 13 William III., cap. 2, section 3. 
 2 1 William & Mary, cap. 6. See also the Act of Union of 
 1706. 
 

 ^<-^. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CLERGY AND LAITY. 
 
 The Church consists of clergy and laity, though the 
 word has been too often employed as if ' the Church ' was 
 synonymous with ' the clergy.' It was said by one Dean 
 of Westminster, and the saying has been quoted with 
 approbation by another, ' that though it might be thought 
 an absurdity to call the large body of the laity " the 
 Church," to the exclusion of the clergy, it is a far greater 
 absurdity to call the small body of th« clergy " the 
 Church," to the exclusion of the laity.' 
 
 The clergy, then, are those members of the Church 
 who are specially set aside by its own rules and by the . 
 law of the land to perform its services, to conduct its 
 ministi'ations, and to teach its doctrines. Their privi- 
 leges and their disabilities, their duties and their rights, 
 in short, their whole status in the community at large, 
 are part of the general law of the kingdom. 
 
 That larger portion of the Church called the laity is 
 much less clearly defined. Originally all were members 
 of the Church, for, as we have seen, the State for long 
 refused to recognise any diversity from its own religion. 
 
 I J. It is still true that all subjects of the Crown are entitled 
 k to the benefit of the services of the established clergy ; 
 
24 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 aU alike may enter the national churches, and use the 
 national churchyards. No one can be debarred but by 
 himself from participating in the advantages offered by 
 the Establishment. Still, at the present day, we have 
 to recognise the fact that the State religion is but one 
 among many ; that its services are rejected and its doc- 
 trines disputed by other Churches, and thus, that though 
 all citi2lens have the legal right to avail themselves of 
 the religious ministrations provided by the State, it is a 
 right which only a portion of the subjects of the Crown 
 are in a position, as a matter of fact, to make use of. 
 What constitutes lay-membership of the Church of 
 England it is not easy to say. The expression is not 
 one to which any legal definition has been given. As 
 regards creed, the late Dean of Westminster tells us 'that 
 the only test^ in fact, of membership in the English 
 Church is the Apostles' Creed.' Some, on the other hand, 
 might prefer to limit true membership to communicants, 
 or even to such as comply with the injunction of the 
 21st Canon, as to receiving the Communion at Easter, 
 and on two other occasions in each year. For practical 
 purposes the meaning generally attached to the expres- 
 sion seems the best, viz. that all are laymen of the 
 Church of England who signify a general assent to its 
 doctrines and practices by customarily using its minis- 
 trations. ^ 
 
 Thus any calculations as to the numbers of the laity 
 
 must be necessarily of a very vague character, and may 
 
 veiy likely even mislead ; for, as has been already stated, it 
 
 is not to any limited body, hut to all who may require it, 
 
 * See Blunt's Book of Chureh Larc. 
 
III.] CHUECHES AND CLERGY. 25 
 
 that an Established Church offers its assistance and opens 
 its doors. The number of church-goers may be got at 
 (very roughly) by taking account of the . number of 
 churches, and of sittings provided. In 1876 the Church 
 of England could reckon about 16,000 churches, and this 
 has been calculated as providing, in all probability, nearly 
 6,000,000 sitings ; while in the same year it was esti- 
 mated that there was one church to every 1,500 of the 
 population. 
 
 The other portion of the Church, namely, the clergy, 
 it is much more easy to number. 
 
 In 1876 a Select Committee of the House of Commons 
 was appointed, to which the Public Worship Regulation 
 Bill was referred, and a statement of the numbers of the 
 clergy taken from the Clergy List was laid before it. 
 This showed their total number of all grades to amount 
 to nearly 25,000. It is worthy of notice that, in com- 
 parison with the enormous grow^th of population in recent 
 years, there has been nothing like a proportionate in- 
 crease in the numbers of the clergy. In 1811, when the 
 population of England and Wales did not much exceed 
 10,000,000, the number of the active clergy was about 
 16,000, while in 1871, with a population considerably 
 over 22,000,000, the same class did not number much 
 over 19,000. 
 
 The clergy are those who have been admitted into 
 holy orders, of which the Church of England recognises 
 three kinds, viz. those of bishops, priests, and deacons ; 
 and no one is permitted to take upon himself the office 
 of public preaching or of exercising the ministerial func- 
 tions until he has first been * lawfully called,' and author- 
 
26 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 ised to the performance of the duty. The ministerial 
 capacity can be bestowed only by episcopal authority, 
 and by the . imposition of hands ; it being the belief of 
 the Church of England that the division of the ministry 
 into three orders, and this method of bestowing spiritual 
 authority to exercise ministerial functions, were prescribed 
 by the Apostles at the very foundation of the Christian 
 Church.^ Yet though this view is that of the English 
 Prayer-Book, and, therefore, sanctioned both by Convoca- 
 tion and Parliament, it is, nevertheless, in conflict with the 
 researches which modern writers (and among them many 
 distinguished English clergymen) have made into early 
 Christian history. The late Dean of Westminster, after 
 stating that during the first century and a half of the 
 Christian era the words ' bishop ' and ' presbyter ' were 
 used as convertible terms, remarks upon the diminished 
 significance now attaching to the fierce controversy once 
 waged between ' Episcopacy ' and * Presbyterianism.' ' It 
 is as sure that nothing like modern episcopacy., existed 
 before the close of the first century, as it is that nothing 
 like modern Presbyterianism existed after the beginning 
 of the second. That which was once the Gordian knot 
 of theologians has, at least in this instance, been untied, 
 not by the sword of persecution, but by the patient 
 unravelment of scholarship. No existing Church can 
 find any pattern or platform of its government in those 
 early days.' 
 
 The Divine right of episcopacy, as it has been called, 
 i.e., the theory that no priestly or ministerial authority 
 can be bestowed except by means of the imposition of 
 
 ' See Preface to the Ordination Service. 
 
III.] HOLY OKDEES. 27 
 
 hands by a bishop or archbishop, was probably unheard of 
 in the Reformed Church of England till the end of Eliza- 
 beth's reign. A few years before, Presbyterian ministers 
 had lawfully held English benefices ; but Divine right in 
 ecclesiastical as well as in civil affairs was loudly asserted 
 in the days of the Stuarts, and ultimately triumphed, 
 when, upon the restoration of Charles II., the Act of 
 Uniformity expressly stipulated that no one, unless episco- 
 pally ordained, should hold any ecclesiastical place, bene- 
 fice, or promotion in the English Church. 
 
 No one can exercise any of the functions of any 
 order of the ministry unless he has been ordained accord- 
 ing to the form contained in the English Prayer-Book, 
 or unless he has received episcopal ordination elsewhere. 
 The orders bestowed by a bishop of the Episcopalian 
 Churches of Scotland, Ireland, the British Colonies, or of 
 the United States of America, are recognised as sufficient, 
 and a clergyman belonging to any of those bodies would 
 be permitted to officiate in this country, and to hold 
 ecclesiastical preferment, upon taking and subscribing the 
 oaths and declarations imposed upon the English clergy, 
 and upon being duly licensed by a bishop of the Church 
 of England. The orders, again, bestowed in the Roman 
 Catholic Church are also so far recognised, that one of 
 their clergy upon recanting his errors and joining the 
 Established Church would be enabled to exercise the 
 ecclesiastical functions without being re-ordained. The 
 validity of the orders conferred by the Greek Church 
 would probably be also recognised. 
 
 The admission into the ranks of the clergy, though 
 regulated by law, is entirely in the hands of the bishops, 
 
28 ■ STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 and the lay power at no time asserted any claim to 
 give ecclesiastical authority to those who have not first 
 been received into one of the three orders of the Church. 
 The ability to convey the spiritual authority to a minister 
 is an incident of the episcopal character. Yet the making 
 of a bishop is virtually the function not of any ecclesias- 
 tical authority, but of the Crown (as will be afterwards 
 explained), acting upon the advice of a responsible 
 Minister. 
 
 The regulations as to the admission into the different 
 orders of the clergy have for their object to secure proper 
 fitness in those who are to exercise the clerical functions ; 
 and we accordingly find strict rules laid down as to the 
 age, character, orthodoxy, and learning of candidates for 
 holy orders, and even further precautions taken intended 
 to secure obedience of the clergy towards the bishop of 
 their diocese and the law of their country. A deacon, in 
 the absence of a faculty from the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, is required to be of at least twenty-three years of 
 age; a priest must be twenty- four, and a bishop thirty; 
 whilst as regards deacons and priests, only those are allowed 
 to be ordained who can bring satisfactory evidence to the 
 bishop of their moral character, of their education, and 
 of their orthodoxy; and it is further provided that no 
 candidate is to be admitted to holy orders unless he has 
 provided himself with a sphere of duty in which to 
 exercise his office, such for instance as that he has been 
 nominated to some curacy, or unless he is a fellow of a 
 college at Cambridge or Oxford, or is a Master of Arts 
 of a certain standing resident at either University. 
 Before ordination, moreover, every candidate is required 
 
I 
 
 111.] PKIESTS AND DEACONS. 29 
 
 to declare that he assents to the doctrine of the Church 
 of England as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer 
 and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion ; that he will use 
 in the service of the Church the form of the Prayer- Book 
 and none other, except in so far as it shall he ordered by 
 lawful authority. He has to take the ordinary oath of 
 allegiance to the Queen, and to swear * that he will pay 
 true and canonical obedience to his bishop and his suc- 
 cessors in all legal and honest commands.' A deacon, 
 when duly ordained, is qualified to act as an assistant 
 to the priest, but is not endowed with an independent 
 authority to perform the higher offices of the ministry, 
 such as the pronouncing the absolution or the consecration 
 of the Sacrament. To the office of deacon it apper- 
 tains to assist the priest in Divine service and in the 
 administration of the Holy Communion, to read the 
 Scriptures in church, t6 preach if Hcensed by the bishop 
 so to do, to baptize infants in the absence of the priest, 
 and generally to assist the latter in the benevolent 
 and charitable work of the parish ; but on the other hand 
 he is strictly forbidden by the statute law to hold any 
 benefice, or to * consecrate and administer the Holy 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,' under a penalty of 1001. 
 By the reception of priest's orders the deacon ulti- 
 mately acquires from the bishop the full spiritual capacity 
 to exercise the duties and functions of a Christian pastor ; 
 and, again, before receiving this second ordination, the 
 candidate is required by the law to satisfy the same 
 test of fitness, orthodoxy, loyalty, and willingness to 
 obey his bishop, which we have seen were prescribed for 
 the candidate for deacon's orders. The order of priests, 
 
30 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 thus constituted, forms the great body of the clergy, and 
 with it specially rests the parochial and ordinary work of 
 the Church. So irrevocably set apart from the rest of 
 the community used the law to regard the clergy, that 
 till the year 1870 it gave full effect even in temporal 
 matters to the theory of the indelibility of orders, — ' Once 
 a priest always a priest,' — following the 76th Canon of 
 1 603, which, upon pain of excommunication, forbids the 
 minister to put off his spiritual character, ' or afterwards 
 to use himself as a layman.' In former times the clergy 
 constituted a separate order of the State, which was regu- 
 larly convoked like the other orders of the State to aid 
 the King with grants of supplies, being itself exempt 
 from the taxation of Parliament. We have seen how 
 in pre -Reformation days the clergy were exempt, to a 
 great extent, from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribu- 
 nals of the country, the ecclesiastical courts having suc- 
 cessfully endeavoured to widen their authority ^t the 
 expense of the King's courts. The privileges of the 
 clergy, however, are now-a-days not great, nor are their 
 civil disabilities many ; thus a clergyman is not liable to 
 serve on a jury, neither can he be elected as alderman, 
 town councillor, or member of Parliament ; he cannot, 
 while holding any religious office, enter into trade, nor 
 without the written consent of his bishop may he farm 
 more than eighty acres of land, under penalty of being 
 deprived ; neither probably would the general sentiment 
 of other professions approve his admission among them 
 as a member, while he still retained the position of a 
 clergyman. Lately, however, his position has been im- 
 proved, since by the Clerical Disabilities Act of 1870 any 
 
iir.] THE BISHOPS. 31 
 
 clergyman having first resigned any benefice, prefer- 
 ment, or dignity he may hold, may, by deed enrolled 
 in Chancery, entirely divest himself of all the disabilities 
 and privileges with which, as a clergyman, he had 
 been clothed, and may free himself from the control of 
 his bishop and from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiasti- 
 cal courts, and, in short, may for all purposes re-assume 
 the legal status of a layman. 
 
 In the English system there are many gi'adations of 
 rank from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan and 
 Primate of all England, down to the stipendiary curate. 
 At the head of each of the two provinces of Canterbury 
 and York, into which England and Wales is divided, is an 
 archbishop, who is bishop of his own diocese as well 
 as archbishop of his own province. The province of 
 Canterbury has always been by far the more important 
 of the two, though the growth of population in recent 
 years in the North of England is being met to some 
 extent by a strengthening of the northern episcopate, and 
 hence the creation within the present reign of the three 
 new Sees of Manchester, Ripon, and Liverpool, within 
 the bounds of the province of York. And as the arch- 
 bishop is the head of all the clergy within his province, 
 so in each diocese is the bishop the head of all his clergy 
 within it, with authority to visit every part of it in order 
 * to inspect the manners of the people and clergy/ ^ with 
 power to ordain priests and deacons, to consecrate churches, 
 and to confirm children. To the judicial authority of 
 the archbishops and the bishops over the clergy it will 
 
 * Blackstone. 
 
32 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 be necessary to refer when we deal with the ecclesiastical 
 courts. 
 
 The two archbishops, and the Bishops of London, 
 Durham, and Winchester, sit in the House of Lords. 
 Of the remaining bishops only the twenty-one senior 
 bishops are Lords of Parliament. The lords spiritual, 
 thus consisting of twenty-six bishops, constitute one of 
 the * three estates of the realm,' whose assent is in 
 theory required to give validity to an Act of Parliament. 
 In practice the lords spiritual and temporal are merged, 
 forming together the House of Lords, and the assent of 
 each estate is not required. The bishops, though thus 
 Lords of Parliament, are not in all respects upon the 
 same footing as other members of the peerage. Their 
 blood is not * ennobled.' Therefore a bishop's wife is not 
 a peeress, and a bishop, should he be charged with 
 felony, is not to be tried by the House of Lords or by a 
 jury of peers, but by an ordinary jury. The Bishop of 
 Sodor and Man is not a spiritual peer.^ 
 
 Subordinate to the bishop is the dean and chapter, 
 constituting a corporation, the individuals composing the 
 chapter, i.e. the canons,^ being clergymen reserved for 
 
 " By virtue of a statute of Henry VIII. it is lawful to conse- 
 crate ' suffragan bishops ' for certain towns named in the Act, 
 and accordingly Bishops of Dover, of Nottingham, of Bedford, 
 and of Guildford have been so consecrated. These ' suffragans ' 
 are appointed for the purpose of assisting the bishop of the 
 diocese in the episcopal duties of his ofEce. They are not 
 spiritual peers of the realm, nor are they entitled to sit in the 
 Upper House of Convocation. 
 
 2 Each member of a chapter in a cathedral is now known by 
 the title of ' canon. Such canons as have assigned to them for 
 their support a fixed proportion of the cathedral revenue are 
 called 'prebendaries.' — 3 & 4 Vict. cap. 113, § 1. 
 
III.] CHUECH DIGNITARIES. 33 
 
 the service of the bishop's cathedral from the general 
 settlement made of the clergy through the different 
 parishes of the diocese.^ In the case of some collegiate 
 churches, however, such as Westminster Abbey and the 
 Free Chapel of St. George's, Windsor, the dean and chapter 
 is found existing independently of cathedral or bishop. 
 
 Thus, at the cathedral or episcopal church of each 
 diocese we find a complete establishment of cathedral 
 clergy. Within the province of Canterbury are twenty- 
 three dioceses — viz. Canterbury, London, Winchester, 
 Oxford, Bangor, Bath and Wells, Ely, Exeter, Glouces- 
 ter and Bristol, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, 
 Salisbury, Worcester, St. David's, St. Alban's, St. Asaph, 
 Peterborough, Chichester, Norwich, Rochester, Truro. 
 
 And within the province of York are eight dioceses, 
 — viz. York, Durham, Chester, Carlisle, Manchester, 
 Ripon, Sodor and Man, Liverpool. 
 
 Another ecclesiastical dignitary (described in the old 
 Canon Law as the Bishop's Eye), superior to the paro- 
 chial clergy, is the archdeacon, an official appointed by 
 the bishop, whose duty it is to visit the clergy within 
 his archdeaconry originally as a kind of assistant of the 
 bishop, but now as an officer of the Church invested 
 with an independent authority of his own. Every diocese 
 is divided into archdeaconries, and each archdeaconry 
 into rural deaneries, but any judicial authority a rural 
 
 * The bishop is empowered to appoint ' honorary canons/ to 
 come immediately after the actual canons in dignity, but who 
 receive no pay and have no seat on the chapter. 
 
 Clergymen may be also appointed by the chapters (sometimes 
 by the dean) to be * minor canons.' 
 
 D 
 
34 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 dean may have formerly possessed has now fallen into 
 disuse. 
 
 Leaving now the dignitaries of the Church, we come 
 to the rank and file of the clergy distributed throughout 
 the whole country, upon whom mainly depends the active 
 work of the Church, viz. the parish clergy, including 
 rectors, vicars, perpetual curates, and assistant curates. 
 To the rector, vicar, or perpetual curate belongs the 
 ' cure of souls ' of the parish. According to Blackstone, 
 the rector is properly called * a parson,' persona ecclesim^ 
 ' one that hath full possession of all the rights of a paro- 
 chial church; and this appellation, however much it may 
 be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate 
 use, is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honour- 
 able title that a parish priest can enjoy.' The incumbent, 
 whether rector, vicar, or perpetual curate, is generally 
 bound by law to reside in his parish, unless his absence 
 is permitted by the special licence of his bishop. To 
 his duties, his position in the parish, and the provision 
 made by law for his support, we shall have occasion here- 
 after to refer; at the present time it is sufficient to 
 explain that the vicar came into existence in Koman 
 Catholic days, in cases whei-e the full rights of the rector 
 to tithes and offerings had been appropriated ^ as it was 
 called, by certain spiritual corporations, such as the 
 monasteries. These bought up and acquired the ad- 
 vowsons, and obtained what were called appropriations 
 of the benefices to themselves, and became thus in law 
 themselves parsons of the parish; whilst in order to 
 provide for the religious wants of the people they in some 
 cases appointed a curate or deputy, who was called the 
 
III.] RECTORS AND VICARS. 35 
 
 vicar, at a stipend paid by the appropriators themselves, 
 to perform Divine service and administer the sacraments. 
 These vicars were gradually by statute law ^ given a more 
 secure position, and vicarages received separate endow- 
 ments, measures having been taken very early to prevent 
 the parish from being starved of its ecclesiastical pro- 
 visions by the greed of the religious houses. At the 
 time of the Reformation it is said that one-thii'd of the 
 churches in England had been thus appropriated. 
 
 In some cases of appropriations not only the tithes 
 and offerings of the rectory were appropriated, but in 
 addition the appropriators acquired under the terms of 
 the appropriation the cure of souls within the parish 
 and performed the duties of the church by their own 
 members. Where this was the case the above-men- 
 tioned statutes as to the endowment of vicars were con- 
 sidered not to apply, and no separate provision was ever 
 made in favour of the officiating minister. 
 
 Upon the dissolution of monasteries and other reli- 
 gious houses under Henry YIII., the appropriations 
 were by Parliament vested in the Crown ; many of them 
 were subsequently re-granted to subjects, and hence for 
 the first time appear upon the scene * lay impropriators,' 
 
 ^ Especially by statute 4 Henry IV. cap. 12, the object of 
 which was to secure to the vicar permanency of position and 
 sufficient endowment. The perpetual curate must be in priest's 
 orders, as he has the * cure of souls.' The assistant curate need 
 only be a deacon. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that all incumbents of parishes 
 where the churches have been built under Church Building Acts 
 and who are not rectors, * shall, for the purposes of style and 
 designation only, be deemed to be vicars.' — 31 Sc 32 Vict. cap. 117, 
 §2. 
 
 d2 
 
36 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 as they are called by the law, i.e. persons who own as 
 their private property the tithes and endowments which 
 once belonged to the religious houses. 
 
 Usually the lay impropriator acquired, in addition to 
 the emoluments of the impropriate rectory, the right 
 to present a clergyman to the vicarage on a vacancy 
 occurring, and the presentee upon induction became 
 entitled to the emoluments derived from the separate 
 endowments of the vicarage. But where the religious 
 house had itself possessed the cure of souls in the parish a 
 lay impropriator was compelled to nominate some clergy- 
 man to take charge of the parish, and to pay him a 
 stipend. Such clergymen and their successors are called 
 perpetual curates. They must be licensed by the bishop, 
 but they do not require institution or induction. Under 
 a recent Act they have to make the same subscriptions 
 and declarations as spiritual rectors and vicars.^ 
 
 The rector, therefore, is the incumbent of a parish in 
 full possession of all the parochial tithes and dues. The 
 vicar, on the other hand, receives only a portion of the 
 original emoluments of the parish, the rest having been 
 appropriated. In modern times, owing to the growth of 
 population, it has become customary in many parishes for 
 the rector or vicar to obtain the assistance of one or more 
 clergymen, who must be licensed for the work by the 
 
 1 The ' perpetual curate ' was not within the benefit of the 
 Acts, but he is now no longer removable at the will of the 
 impropriator, and practically his position as incumbent is similar 
 to that of a vicar. It sometimes happens, however, that the 
 patronage to a perpetual curacy is vested by ancient custom in 
 the parishioners, who in that case elect their incumbent when a 
 vacancy occurs. 
 
III.J 
 
 THE CLERGY. 
 
 37 
 
 bishop of the diocese. These are not entrusted with the 
 cure of souls, nor have they any definite parochial posi- 
 tion. Their duty is simply to assist the parish clergyman 
 as assistant-curates. 
 
 We have now mentioned the various grades of the 
 active clergy — the Church dignitaries, including arch- 
 bishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, canons, and the 
 parochial clergy, whether rectors, vicars, perpetual or 
 assistant curates ; but there are many clergymen not 
 on ' the active list,' so far as work of an ecclesiastical 
 character is concerned, who must also be enumerated, such 
 as fellows of colleges, schoolmasters, and teachers ; while 
 there are also many who are still in law clergymen, since 
 they have been ordained, and have not divested them- 
 selves of their spiritual character, but who to most intents 
 and purposes, so far as their occupations and habits of 
 life are concerned, may be regarded as laymen. 
 
 The whole muster of the clergy for the year 1875 has 
 been sjiven . in a tabular form as follows : ^ — 
 
 Church dignitaries 
 Incumbents holding benefices 
 Curates .... 
 
 Clergy in cliurclieSy ^"c. 
 
 Schoolmasters and teachers 
 Chaplains, inspectors, &c. . 
 Fellows of universities, missionaries, 
 Unattached clergy 
 
 OtJier clergy . 
 Total clergy . 
 
 &c. 
 
 172 
 
 13,.300 
 5,765 
 
 19,237 
 
 709 
 465 
 434 
 
 3,893 
 
 5,501 
 24.738 
 
 ' Taken from the evidence of the Eev. Canon Ashwell, given 
 before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the 
 ' Public Worship Facilities Bill, 1875.' 
 
38 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 The clergy have in each province the right of meeting 
 by their representatives in Convocation, an assembly 
 which we have seen can be summoned, prorogued, and 
 dissolved only by the sovereign, as supreme head of the 
 Church. In the province of Canterbury Convocation 
 comprehends two houses — the upper, composed of the 
 archbishop and the bishops of dioceses within the pro- 
 vince ; and the lower, containing all the deans and arch- 
 deacons of the province, one proctor or representative 
 sent up by each chapter, and two proctors elected by the 
 parochial clergy of each diocese. In the province of 
 York, however, both houses of Con\-ocation sit together, 
 and the two proctors representing the parochial clergy 
 are elected by the clergy of each archdeaconry, instead 
 of by the clergy of each diocese. 
 
 The object of the summoning of Convocation origi- 
 nally being the taxation of the clergy as an order, its 
 constitution is unlike that of those Church councils 
 which in other countries have legislated for the Christian 
 community. This assembly of the clergy differs essen- 
 tially from those councils or synods composed wholly of 
 bishops which, in accordance with the true Episcopalian 
 theory, have met in other countries to declare the doc- 
 trines or the discipline of the Church. The laity, again, 
 have no place in Convocation either directly or through 
 representatives, as is the case in the governing councils 
 of the Church of Scotland, where, in accordance with the 
 Presbyterian theory of Church government, the clergy 
 and laity meet and deliberate together. In the present 
 day the authority of Convocation is extremely limited, 
 its enactments being binding on the clergy only, and 
 
111.] CONVOCATION. 39 
 
 then only on condition of their having obtained the royal 
 approval, and of being in conformity with the law of the 
 land, which, incorporating, as it does, the whole of the 
 Prayer-Book, leaves to Convocation little scope for in- 
 dulging ia ecclesiastical legislation. 
 
 From the year 1717^ down to the present reign the 
 practice was followed of proroguing Convocation by 
 Royal authority immediately after it assembled in each 
 year. Hence its power of discussion was withdrawn, as 
 well as its power of legislation, down to our own time. 
 Under the present practice discussion is permitted, but, 
 except on a few occasions, the Crown has not allowed to 
 Convocation any legislative authority. 
 
 ^ It was in this year that violent discussion arose over the 
 writings of Dr. Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, and it was due to 
 the warmth of the ' Bangorian controversy,' as it was called, 
 that the practice mentioned in the text was pursued. 
 
40 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 CHURCH LAW AND CHURCH COURTS. 
 
 Having in the last chapter dealt with the composition of 
 the Church, including clergy and laity, let us now turn 
 to the laws by which the Church is governed and to 
 the courts administering them. Every member of the 
 Church, whether lay or clerical, is, of course, in the 
 present day subject to the ordinary law of the land as 
 administered in the regular courts of justice. It has 
 long ceased to be possible for anyone to claim exemption 
 from this jurisdiction by reason of any ecclesiastical pri- 
 vilege. The ecclesiastical person, whether bishop, dean and 
 chapter, or parson of the parish, has his civil or temporal 
 rights, just as the layman, be he Churchman or Dissenter, 
 has. He owns property, he makes contracts, his own rights 
 may be infringed, or he may infringe the rights of others. 
 He thus may claim the protection of the civil courts 
 and against him such courts may give redress. But 
 besides what are recognised as the civil rights of every 
 subject of the Crown, there exist certain other rights 
 and relationships which have, or are supposed to have, 
 a specially ecclesiastical character, and ai-e, therefore, the 
 subject of the ecclesiastical law. It is not long since all 
 causes of a matrimonial and testamentary character were 
 
IV.] CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL JUEISDICTION. 41 
 
 exclusively dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts. Mar- 
 riage having been in Roman Catholic times treated as a 
 sacrament, and long after the Reformation having been 
 still considered as in the main a religious matter, ques- 
 tions arising out of this relationship naturally came to 
 be dealt with by the spiritual courts. Testaments also 
 fell within their exclusive jurisdiction, and so remained 
 long after all testamentary causes, even in some Roman 
 Catholic countries, were decided by the civil judge. 
 
 By the legislation of 1857 and 1858, however, ques- 
 tions of marriage, of legitimacy, and of divorce were 
 withdrawn from the old jurisdiction, and the trial of 
 testamentary causes from the old prerogative court of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, and a new statutory tribunal, 
 the Court of Probate and Divorce, was created. 
 
 There were some rights which might be enforced by 
 either temporal or spiritual court — as, for instance, that 
 of the parson of a parish, whether spiritual rector or lay 
 impropriator, to tithes. But the temporal courts jealously 
 guarded their jurisdiction even in such cases where a right 
 of property was in dispute, insisting that they, with the 
 assistance of juries, could alone judge of these. 
 
 So, again, with regard to a Church-rate duly im- 
 posed, the ecclesiastical courts had power to enforce its 
 payment. But now, with regard both to tithes and Church- 
 rates, the authority of the spiritual courts is practically 
 withdrawn ; for, as will be seen hereafter, a rent-charge has 
 taken the place of tithe, which in cases of non-payment 
 may be distrained for ; and Church-rates have ceased to 
 be enforceable at all, and have become nothing but mere 
 voluntary payments by those who like to contribute to 
 
42 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 the maintenance of the fabric of the Church. ^ There 
 may be other rights enforceable by suit in either ecclesias- 
 tical or civil court — as, for instance, the right of an in- 
 coming incumbent to claim damages from his predecessor 
 for non-repair or injury suffered or done to the parsonage 
 house. But in the present day it may be said with tole- 
 rable accuracy that the functions of the ecclesiastical courts 
 are almost solely limited to maintaining — 
 
 1. The orthodoxy and discipline of the clergy ; 
 
 2. The regulation of matters affecting church seats, 
 the fabrics of the churches, and the churchyards ; 
 
 whilst their authority over the laity has practically ceased 
 to exist. 
 
 But though the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts is 
 now so small, it would be a mistake to suppose that 
 ecclesiastical law is non-existent; on the contrary, the 
 common law of England recognises the ecclesiastical law, 
 and in many a case before the ordinary courts of justice 
 the rights of parties will still turn upon it. Thus in 
 1844 the House of Lords had to decide whether a mar- 
 riage by a Presbyterian minister was a valid marriage at 
 common law, or whether it must necessarily have been 
 performed by a clergyman of the Church of England. 
 To assist them to a conclusion great researches were 
 made into the constitutions and canons of foreign and 
 English councils and convocations, with the result that 
 three of the learned lords held that such a marriage 
 
 ' Though this is so as to newly imposed Church-rates, the Act 
 for the Abolition of Church-rates, 1868, contained provisions pre- 
 serving the old system in certain specified instances, generally of 
 only local application. 
 
IV.] LAWS GOVERNINa THE CHURCH. 43 
 
 was good, while three others held that it was no marriage 
 at all. 
 
 The law governing the Church of England in any 
 of its relations must be Statute law, Common law, as 
 interpreted by the judges of the land, or the Queen's 
 Ecclesiastical law, a portion of which is derived from 
 Canon law, accepted in this country from abroad as 
 being binding here, or which, being of English origin, 
 owes its validity to Parliamentary sanction or to its 
 conformity to the c®mmon law. The canon law is, in the 
 main, founded on the civil law, i.e. the law of the Roman 
 empire. As to the civil and canon law, '■ their force and 
 efficacy do not depend on their own intrinsic authority. 
 They bind not the subjects of England, because their 
 materials were collected from Popes or Emperors, were 
 digested by Justinian or declared to be authentic by 
 Gregory. These considerations give them no authority 
 here ; for the legislature of England doth not, nor ever 
 did, recognise any foreign power as superior or equal to 
 it in their kingdom, or having the right to give law to 
 any the meanest of its subjects; but all the strength that 
 either the Papal or Imperial laws have obtained in this 
 Jrealm is only because they have been admitted and re- 
 Iceived by immemorial usage and custom in some par- 
 Iticular cases and some particular courts, or else because 
 [in some other cases they are introduced by consent of 
 Parliament, and then they owe their validity to the 
 statute law.' ^ 
 
 A certain distinction must be noticed between the 
 older and more modern canons, for by the Act of Sub- 
 
 * Blackstone, Commentates. 
 
44 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 mission (25 Henry VIII.), revived in the first year of 
 Elizabeth, it was enacted that ' such canons, constitutions, 
 ordinances, and synodals provincial, being already made, 
 which be not contrarient or repugnant to the laws, 
 statutes, and customs of this realm, nor to the damage 
 or hurt of the King's prerogative royal, shall now still 
 be used and executed as they were afore the making 
 of this Act, till such time as they be viewed, searched, 
 or otherwise ordered and determined ' by a commission 
 of thirty-two persons to be appointed or provided by the 
 Act. No authorised revision was ever made under these 
 Acts, and hence the whole of the then existing Canon 
 law, as limited by the clause above quoted, has statutory 
 validity given to it. Canon law, however, of a later date 
 stands in a different position. The question has arisen 
 in connection with later ecclesiastical law how far the 
 important canons of the year 1603, approved by the 
 Crown, are of binding effect. Lord Hardwicke answers 
 this on the general principles of the Constitution, viz. 
 that they do not bind the laity. ' No new laws can be 
 made to bind the whole people of this land, but by the 
 King with the advice and consent of both Houses of Par- 
 liament, and by their united authority ; neither the King 
 alone, nor the King with the consent of any particular 
 number or order of men, have this high power. To cite 
 authorities for this would be to prove that it is now day. 
 The binding force of these Acts of Parliament arises from 
 that prerogative which is in the King as our sovereign 
 liege lord, from that personal right which is inherent 
 in the Peers and Lords of Parliament to bind themselves 
 and their heirs and successors in their honours and 
 
IV.] BUKKE ON A STATE CHURCH. 45 
 
 dignities, and from the delegated power vested in the 
 Commons as the representatives of the people; and 
 therefore, Lord Coke says, they represent the whole 
 Commons of the realm and are trusted for them. By 
 reason of this representation every man is said to be a 
 party to, and the consent of every subject is included 
 in, an Act of Parliament ; but in canons made in Con- 
 vocation and confirmed by the Crown only, all these are 
 wanting except the royal assent ; here is no intervention 
 of the Peers of the realm nor any representatives of the 
 Commons.' Modern canons, however, as has been already 
 explained in the last chapter, have a certain limited opera- 
 tion over the clergy. Practically, Parliament is the only 
 authority which can legislate for the Church of England. 
 
 It is essential to the character of every Church that it 
 should have a fixed creed. The limits of belief may be 
 more or less wide, but limits there must be which divide 
 it from other Churches and sects, and from unbelievers. 
 Again, in each Church more or less uniformity in pub- 
 lic worship is always required. It is a necessary condi- 
 tion of an Estahlished or State Church that this creed 
 and this form of worship and ritual should have the 
 approval not only of its own actual members, but of the 
 State itself. 
 
 When in 1772 an attempt was made by some of the 
 clergy to be relieved from the necessity of subscribing' 
 the Thirty-nine Articles, Burke declared in the House 
 of Commons : ' Kothing can be clearer to me than that 
 forms of subscription are necessary for the sake of order, 
 decorum, and public peace. By a form of subscription 
 I mean a general standard, which obtains throughout 
 
46 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the whole community, and not the partial creed of this 
 or that bishop by whom a priest happens to be 
 ordained. . . .' 'These gentlemen complain of hard- 
 ships . . . let us examine a little what that hardship 
 is. They want to be preferred clergymen in the Church 
 of England as by law established, but their conscience 
 will not suffer them to conform to the doctrines and 
 practices of that Church; that is, they want to be 
 teachers in a Church to which they do not belong, and it 
 is an odd sort of hardship. They want to receive the 
 emoluments appropriated for teaching one set of doc- 
 trines, while they are teaching another. A Church in 
 any legal sense is only a certain system of religious 
 doctrines and practices, fixed and ascertained by some 
 law, by the difference of which laws different Churches 
 (as different commonwealths) are made in various parts 
 of the world ; and the Establishment is a tax laid by the 
 same sovereign authority for the payment of those who 
 so teach and so practise. For no legislature was ever 
 so absurd as to tax its people to support men for teaching 
 and acting as they please, but by some prescribed rule. 
 The hardship amounts to this, that the people of 
 England are not taxed two shillings in the pound to 
 pay them for teaching as Divine truths their own par- 
 ticular fancies.' ^ 
 
 * Nearly forty years later Lord Stowell used similar language 
 in giving judgment against a clergyman proceeded against under 
 the statute 13 Elizabeth, cap. 12, which enables the bishop to 
 deprive any ecclesiastical person for advisedly maintaining any 
 doctrine contrary to any of the Articles. To maintain that this 
 was an obsolete Act was * the idlest of conceits, for it was as 
 much in force as any in the whole statute-book. ... It was 
 
IV.] CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 47 
 
 Most people hold in the present day that it is for 
 the good both of clergy and laity that the limits of 
 orthodoxy should not be very rigidly drawn, and that a 
 certain latitude of opinion should be allowed within the 
 Church ; but Burke's words remain, nevertheless, true 
 in forcibly representing that what is taught by a State 
 Church must be decided by the State, not by the clergy, 
 nor even by the Church in the widest meaning of the 
 word. 
 
 The procedure when charges are made against clergy- 
 men in the ecclesiastical courts for offences against the 
 laws ecclesiastical is now regulated entirely by two Acts 
 
 essential to the nature of every Establishment, and necessary for 
 the preservation of the interests of the laity as well as of the 
 clergy, that the preaching diversities of opinion should not be 
 fed out of the appointments of the Established Church ; since the 
 Church itself would otherwise be overwhelmed with the variety 
 of opinion which must in each case arise out of the infirmity of 
 our common nature. . . . What would be the state and conduct 
 of public worship if every man was at liberty to preach from 
 the pulpit of the Church whatever doctrines he may think proper 
 to hold ? Miserable would be the condition of the laity if any 
 such pretension could be maintained by the clergy. As the law 
 now is, everyone goes to his parochial church with a certainty of 
 not feeling any of his solemn opinions offended. If any person 
 dissents, a remedy is provided by the mild and wise spirit of 
 toleration which has prevailed in modern times, and which allows 
 that he should join himself to persons of persuasions similar to 
 his own. But that any clergyman should assume the liberty of 
 inculcating his own private opinions in direct opposition to the 
 doctrines of the Established Church, in a place set apart for its 
 own public worship, is not more contrary to the nature of an 
 established church than to all honest and rational conduct. . . . 
 It cannot, therefore, be maintained that the Church is liable to 
 the reproach of persecution if it does not pay its ministers for 
 maintaining doctrines contrary to its own.' 
 
48 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 of Parliament passed in the present reign, viz. the Church 
 Discipline Act of 1840 and the Public Worship Regu- 
 lation Act of 1874. Therefore where proceedings are 
 taken against clergymen for the promulgation of erroneous 
 doctrine, disobedience to the rubrics and regulations of the 
 Prayer- Book, immorality and drunkenness, brawling in 
 church, unduly refusing to administer the Sacrament, 
 &c. &c., these Acts must be strictly followed, and it in no 
 respect ousts the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts 
 that the offence committed may be or has been the subject 
 of an indictment at common law. Thus, where a clerk in 
 holy orders had been tried and convicted of forgery, he 
 was subsequently proceeded against in the ecclesiastical 
 courts, which passed a sentence of deprivation. By the 
 Act of 1840 the institution of proceedings depends upon 
 the discretion of the bishop, who may, where a clergyman 
 is charged with an offence, or who is the subject of 
 public scandal, appoint five commissioners to inquire 
 whether a primd facie case appears to exist for taking 
 further proceedings. Upon their report to the bishop, 
 he may, if both parties to the suit consent, at once pass 
 such sentence as the law authorises. If, however, a 
 primd facie case having been established, the bishop or 
 the person complaining wishes to proceed further, articles 
 of charge, specifying the offences alleged, must be drawn 
 up and served upon the defendant, and his trial will then 
 take place in the court of the bishop. The bishop, 
 however, if he likes, may by letters of request send the 
 case for trial at once to the court of the archbishop of the 
 province. The dissatisfied party has the right of appeal 
 from the court of the bishop to that of the archbishop, 
 
IV.] CHUECH DISCIPLINE. 49 
 
 and from that of the archbishop to the Queen in 
 Council. 
 
 This Act extends to cdl ecclesiastical offences com- 
 mitted by clergymen. The Act of 1874 is much less 
 wide in its scope, as it only has reference to a limited class 
 of offences, viz. the introducing unlawful ornaments or 
 making unlawful alterations in the church, the using by 
 the clergyman of unlawful vestments, or the neglecting 
 to use those that are prescribed by law, and the non- 
 observance of the directions of the Prayer-Book as to the 
 ordinances, rites, and ceremonies therein ordered. The 
 later Act in no respect alters the law, except as to 
 procedure, its object being merely to simplify and shorten 
 the procedure of the ecclesiastical courts when dealing 
 with these specified offences. Proceedings under it, 
 moreover, can only be taken by persons who have a 
 special interest in the due observance of the law, namely, 
 by the archdeacon, by one of the churchwardens, or by 
 three parishioners of the parish. By consent of both 
 parties the bishop, unless he is of opinion that further 
 proceedings should not be taken, may, after considering 
 all the circumstances of the case, give final judg- 
 ment ; but in case of a failure of consent, the bishop is 
 to send the matter for trial at once to the archbishop 
 of the province, who will transmit it to the judge of the 
 provincial courts for his decision. The Act also em- 
 powers the parties to the suit to obtain the opinion of the 
 judge upon legal questions arising in the course of the 
 proceedings, and the judgment given by the bishop is 
 to be in conformity with his opinion. It is left optional 
 
50 STATE AND CHUECH. [ckap. 
 
 to parties complaining to proceed under either statute. 
 As before, appeal lies to the Queen in Council. 
 
 But it is time now to explain what is the constitution 
 of the three ecclesiastical courts we have mentioned, viz. 
 the bishop's court, the archbishop's court, and the Privy 
 Council, which have cognizance of ecclesiastical offences. 
 The court of the bishop of the diocese, called also the 
 diocesan court, or the consistory court, or court Christian, 
 was the original court of first instance in the diocese, of 
 which the bishop appoints the judge, the * Judex crdi- 
 narins^ by virtue of his ofiice ; whence he is called ' the 
 Ordinary.' In this court the bishop himself does not 
 preside in person, but by the judge so appointed by him, 
 who is called his ' ofiScial principal,' or ' the chancellor of 
 the diocese.' ^ 
 
 The archbishop's court, or the provincial court, is in 
 the province of Canterbury known as the Court of 
 Arches, so called because it was anciently held in the 
 church of St. Mary le Bovj (Sancta Maria de Arcubus), in 
 the city of London, and in the province of York as the 
 Chancery Court of York, and is presided over by the 
 official principal of the archbishop. The Public "Wor- 
 ship Act of 1874 makes a change in respect to the 
 provincial courts, as it empowered the two archbishops, 
 with the approval of the Crown, to appoint from time 
 to time any person who has been a judge of the High 
 Court of Justice, or a barrister of ten years' standing, 
 being a member of the Church of England, to be judge 
 
 ' By the Canons of 1603 a chancellor must be at least 
 twenty-six years of age, and a Master of Arts or a Bachelor of 
 Laws. 
 
IV.] APPEAL TO THE QUEEN. 61 
 
 of the two provincial courts, and the judge so appointed 
 was at once to succeed to the offices of official principal 
 of the Arches Court and judge of the Chancery Court of 
 York on vacancies occurring. Lord Penzance, who was 
 appointed under the Act, has become under these pro- 
 visions official principal of the Arches Court, and judge 
 of the Chancery Court of York, and not merely ' the 
 judge' under the Public Worship Act. 
 
 The ultimate court of appeal in all ecclesiastical cases 
 is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which 
 since "William lY.'s reign has taken the place of the 
 Court of Delegates. The delegates were commissioners 
 named by the King under the statute 25 Henry YIII. 
 c. 19, which abolished appeals to Pome, but instead of 
 these enabled * the party, for lack of justice in the arch- 
 bishop's court, to appeal to the King in Chancery ; ' and 
 in all cases under the Church Discipline Act and Public 
 Worship Act it is requisite to the constitution of the 
 Judicial Committee that an archbishop or bishop be 
 present at the heaiing of the appeal.^ The ecclesiastical 
 courts have no authority to do more than interpret 
 the law of the Church, such as they find it. They 
 cannot declare what is true doctrine any more than 
 
 * Under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 an Order in 
 Council was issued in that year, providing that one of the arch- 
 bishops or the Bishop of London, along with four other bishops 
 to be appointed according to a certain rota, should attend as 
 assessors at the hearing of ecclesiastical cases before the 
 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When any eccle- 
 siastical case is to be heard the five assessors for the time being 
 are to receive a summons to attend, and no such case is to be 
 heard unless there be at least three of such assessors present at the 
 hearing. See Order in Council, November 28, 1876. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 they can prescribe what are the rules of discipline or of 
 ritual which the clergy must follow. These matters are 
 determined by law, which it is their province to expound ; 
 and in cases of difficulty or doubt they show a wise 
 tendency not to be over rigid in attaching a very definite 
 construction to special or isolated expressions, drawn 
 from the standards or regulations of the Church, without 
 paying due regard to the general effect of these standards 
 or regulations taken as a whole. We shall have occa- 
 sion to notice later in this work that there is much in 
 the nature of a compromise between conflicting views 
 in the system of the English Church, and that Lord 
 Chatham spoke with point when he referred to ' the 
 Popish liturgy, the Calvinistic articles, and the Arminian 
 clergy of the Church of England.' 
 
 The Privy Council has declared of itself that it is 
 * constituted for the purpose of advising Her Majesty in 
 matters which come within its competency, but it has no 
 jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or 
 what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the 
 Church of England. Its duty extends only to the con- 
 sideration of that which is by law established to be the 
 doctrine of the Church of England, upon the true and 
 legal construction of her acts and formularies, and it is 
 not the duty of any court to be minute and rigid in cases 
 of this kind.' If, therefore, a charge is brought against a 
 clergyman of piiblishing false doctrine, the court must be 
 clearly satisfied that the doctrine complained of, into the 
 full meaning of which the court will inquire, is contrary 
 to an expressly declared doctrine of the Church. Many 
 points are left open to the private judgment of every 
 
IV.] ECCLESIASTICAL COUETS. 63 
 
 Churchman, and the Articles are not to be taken to con- 
 tain the whole of Christian doctrine. Hence, upon a 
 matter where the Articles are silent, or are ambiguous, 
 each Churchman may hold his own opinion, unless the 
 point is clearly decided by the rubric or formularies. 
 It has upon such principles of interpretation been 
 declared that it is not penal for an English clergyman 
 to express a hope of the ultimate pardon of the wicked 
 nor to teach that it is not the doctrine of the Church that 
 every part of the Scriptures upon any subject whatever, 
 however unconnected with religion or morality, was 
 written under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Interpretation, therefore, is the function of the Privy 
 Council and of the other ecclesiastical courts. They do 
 not presume to lay down doctrine on such questions as 
 ' verbal inspiration,' or ' everlasting damnation,' but they do 
 examine as to what are the doctrines expressed by the 
 Church, and they interpret these upon the same rules 
 of construction as are applied to the construction of 
 statutes or written documents. The action of the courts 
 is similar in many cases that have arisen in recent year^ 
 on the much less important, though not less vexed, ques- 
 tions connected with ritual. Whether prostration by the 
 clergyman before the elements is lawful, whether lighted 
 candles should be allowed upon the Communion table, 
 what dress should be worn, and on what occasions, by 
 the officiating clergy, at what point of the compass from 
 the table the clergyman should take up his position, what 
 sort' of bread should be used for the Communion, if, and 
 how high, it should be elevated, whab sort of tablecloth 
 should be used to cover the Communion table, are all 
 
54 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 questions which have exercised the greatest legal intellects 
 of the present reign. But no judge of the Privy Council 
 has considered himself empowered with reference to these 
 matters, to declare what in itself ought to be done. The 
 inquiry has always been strictly limited to what has been 
 prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, or otherwise 
 authorised as the law of the Church. 
 
 When it has been proved that a clergyman has 
 committed the offence charged, the court proceeds to 
 pronounce a sentence of greater or less severity according 
 to circumstances. Generally speaking, where there has 
 been misconduct the court may admonish the offender to 
 abstain for the future from the conduct complained of ; 
 or it may suspend him from performing his clerical 
 functions, and from receiving the emoluments of his 
 benefice, and this suspension may be for a longer or 
 shorter period ; or it may deprive him of both office and 
 benefice. Disobedience to an admonition renders the 
 offender guilty of ' contumacy ' or contempt of court, 
 which is punishable with imprisonment until he has 
 been absolved by the court. Under the Public Worship 
 Begulation Act, disobedience to the monition of the court 
 is followed by an order inhibiting the incumbent from of- 
 ficiating within the diocese for three months and until he 
 undertakes to obey it in the future. If, however, the in- 
 hibition continues in force for three years, the benefice 
 becomes void, and another incumbent must be appointed. 
 
 In case of non-residence, and in one or two other 
 specified cases, the clergy are made liable by statute to 
 special penalties, and to have a portion of their emolu 
 ments sequestrated, as it is called. 
 
v.] 55 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 
 
 We have seen in an earlier chapter how the whole 
 country became divided into dioceses. These again be- 
 came subdivided into parishes, each under the care of 
 a resident clergyman. It is by the due working of the 
 parochial system, by the energy and character of the 
 parochial clergy, that the Church makes the importance 
 of its work felt_, and spreads its beneficial influence 
 through the nation. For ecclesiastical purposes, a parish 
 is that local area which is committed to the charge of 
 one parson, or vicar, or other minister having care of 
 souls therein. Though in its origin the parish was pro- 
 bably framed upon the old township, it soon became a 
 purely ecclesiastical division, and the parochial officers 
 were ecclesiastical also. The churchwardens with the 
 parishioners in vestry assembled, presided over by 
 the clergyman, managed the affairs of the parish and 
 administered the parochial funds. Gradually the ten- 
 dency increased to treat the parish, for purposes of local 
 administration, as a civil as well as an ecclesiastical 
 division; and it in particular acquired statutory au- 
 thority to impose rates to provide for its poor and 
 
56 STATE A^'D CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 to elect officers to collect and administer the funds 
 belonging to it ; whilst on the parish from the earliest 
 times the old common law had always imposed the duty 
 of maintaining and repairing the public roads. 
 
 Thus the parish was of later origin than the diocese. 
 Gradually the Church spread itself out from the cathe- 
 dral cities, each of which constituted a nucleus from which 
 fresh efforts were made ecclesiastically to conquer the 
 country adjoining. As churches were built in one 
 locality after another, the district adjacent to each be- 
 came in time the parish. After the Norman Conquest 
 no doubt many of the churches were built by the lords 
 of manors ; and it is still frequently the case that where 
 there is a manor, the parish bounds and the bounds of 
 the manor coincide, or that several manors are exactly 
 included in one parish. It never happens that a manor 
 contains more than one parish. Hence it has been 
 thought that in such cases the lord of the manor must 
 have made his tenants provide for the due service of 
 worship in his church by making them specially appro- 
 priate their tithes in its favour, instead of paying them 
 into a common fund to be distributed by the bishop of 
 the diocese. In some of the larger parishes it happened 
 also in early times that an additional church was founded 
 for the accommodation of parishioners, known as a ' chapel 
 of ease,' or chapel 'belonging to the mother church,' 
 which chapel was sometimes used merely for Divine 
 service ; but in other places it was found invested with 
 nearly all the privileges of a parish church. In either 
 case the officiating minister of such a chapel is at common 
 law the nominee of the incumbent of the parish, unless 
 
v.] • OKIGIN OF PARISHES. 57 
 
 where the duties of the chapel are performed by the in- 
 cumbent himself or the assistant curate. 
 
 The origin of these ecclesiastical divisions being of 
 such ancient date, their boundaries could (until recently) 
 only be determined by evidence of immemorial usage ; 
 and to perpetuate a due recollection of the parish limits 
 there yearly took place the well-known ' perambulation 
 of the bounds.' In the case of a disputed boundary at 
 the present day, authority has been given by statute to 
 the Inclosure Commissioners to inquire into the matter, 
 and to set out and define the proper bounds of parishes, 
 when they are engaged in enclosing common land. 
 When first these ecclesiastical districts grew up round 
 the newly founded churches, it is probable that the 
 size of each depended to some extent upon the power- 
 of the minister and his church to provide for the reli- 
 gious requirements of the district. But where in many 
 parishes population enormously increased, yet the re- 
 ligious establishment of the parish remained the same, 
 it was found absolutely necessary to make further legis- 
 lative provision to meet an inadequacy with which the 
 occasional building of chapels-of-ease had proved itself 
 quite unable to cope. Hence, at the beginning of the 
 present century, it became the practice to pass Church- 
 building Acts, by which in populous districts churches were 
 established, and under the authority of which church- 
 building commissioners divided and set out new parishes 
 for all ecclesiastical purposes. These powers, still further 
 extended, are now vested in the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners, a newly established but most important corporate 
 body, whose organisation and duties it A^ill be necessary 
 at another place fully to explain. 
 
68 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 It may be roughly stated that the number of churches 
 and chapels of the Church of England amounted in the 
 year 1801 to between 11,000 and 12,000, in the year 1851 
 to between 14,000 and 15,000, and amounts at the present 
 time to about 16,000; while we find that the number of 
 ecclesiastical districts created since 1857, under statutory 
 authority, amounted in 1874 to nearly 1,300. The incum- 
 bent, to use the most general term, whether rector, vicar, 
 or perpetual curate, is the ecclesiastical head of the parish. 
 Associated with him are two * churchwardens,' parochial 
 authorities appointed for a year by the minister and 
 parishioners (that is, ratepayers of the parish) jointly; 
 or who, in case the minister and his parishioners dis- 
 agree, are appointed one by the minister and the other 
 by the parishioners.^ Minister, churchwardens, and 
 parishioners constitute for ecclesiastical purposes the 
 legal conception of ' the parish.' In the minister is 
 vested the freehold in church and churchyard and the 
 ecclesiastical profits of the parish for his life, or until 
 his tenure is forfeited by non-fulfilment of the conditions 
 imposed by law. Church wardens,^ remarkable as being 
 the only laymen who are permitted to take any direct 
 part with the clergy in business of an ecclesiastical cha- 
 racter, are described by Blackstone as * the guardians or 
 keepers of the church and representatives of the body 
 of the parish.' They are trustees of the moveable goods of 
 the church, and their functions are to see to their proper 
 
 * It seems that the ordinary has a right to reject a church- 
 warden if the parishioners elect an improper person. 
 
 2 Churchwardens were made overseers of the poor by the 
 43 Eliz. 
 
v.] PARISH VESTRY. 59 
 
 maintenance, to the proper repair of the fabric of the 
 church itself, and to preserve order during Divine ser- 
 vice. 
 
 The method of appointment above mentioned is laid 
 down in the 89th Canon of 1603, and in the modern 
 parishes established by Act of Parliament the sanction 
 of the legislature is given to the canonical system. So 
 far, however, as the canons enjoin the churchwardens 
 to act as censors of the morals of parishioners by re- 
 porting offences to the bishop they may be treated as 
 having become obsolete. In order that the church- 
 wardens might perform their legal duty of maintaining 
 the fabric of church and churchyard, the parishioners 
 in vestry assembled were entitled to impose a rate ; 
 and this was, in fact, the great function of the vestry 
 considered in its ecclesiastical character. Church rates 
 may still be imposed as before, but the payment of the 
 rate has been made voluntary by the Church Rates Aboli- 
 tion Act of 1868, so that the parish vestry is now in 
 ecclesiastical afFaii's an assembly enjoying an extremely 
 limited authority. 
 
 Before anyone can fill the important place of parish 
 clergyman, priest's orders must of course have been ob- 
 tained, as without these no clergyman can be entrusted 
 with the cure of souls. We have already shortly noticed 
 the conditions and qualifications imposed by law on 
 those seeking ordination. The priest thus duly ordained 
 must in ordinary cases be presented by the patron of the 
 living to the bishop of the diocese for his approval. The 
 bishop, after examining the qualifications of the presentee, 
 which is usually done by the bishop's chaplain, admits him 
 
60 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 if these are found sufficient, and then by institution 
 commits to him the cure of souls within the parish. 
 Subsequently, by induction, the presentee is actually put 
 into legal possession of the temporalities of the benefice, 
 in the same way as a purchaser of a freehold obtained 
 the fee by actual ' livery of seisin.' When the bishop him- 
 self presents, presentation and admission become merged 
 in one act known as collation. In some cases presentation, 
 admission, and induction are all dispensed with, the 
 appointment of the incumbent being made by the patron 
 by simple deed. Such benefices are called donatives, and 
 exist in cases where the patron, having founded a church, 
 has, with the royal licence, kept it all to himself, free from 
 the visitation of the ordinary. Though the incumbent's 
 position resulting from either of these methods of pre- 
 sentation is that of freeholder for life, in parish church 
 and churchyard, yet it is very much in the character of a 
 trustee for the parish, since the common law gives every 
 parishioner the right of using the church for purposes of 
 Divine worship and the churchyard as a place of burial. 
 The rights of the minister on the one hand, and of the 
 people on the other, are of course mutually restrictive. 
 The minister, for instance, may pasture the churchyard, 
 but subject always to the right of any parishioner to 
 have the pasturage broken up for the purpose of burial. 
 The incumbent may authorise or refuse the erection of a 
 tombstone, though his discretion on such a matter is 
 liable to be overruled by the ordinary. 
 
 "Whilst the church and the churchyard are thus 
 put by the law at the service of any parishioner who 
 may wish to use them, so also are the offices of the in- 
 
v.] ADMISSION OF INCUMBENT. 61 
 
 cumbent himself. He is a public officer, and it his duty 
 as well as his privilege to baptize, to marry, and to 
 administer the Sacrament, and other rites of the Church, 
 to all who are lawfully entitled to claim them. This has 
 always been the case at common law, and a recent statute 
 has still further enlarged the public rights in the national 
 churchyards by enabling those who have the right of 
 burial to substitute for the Church of England, burial 
 service formerly obligatory, if any service were used at 
 all, ' such Christian and orderly religious service as to 
 their friends should seem best.' 
 
 Every step in the process of assigning a clergyman to 
 his special field of labour is defined and regulated by 
 law. The right of the patron to present is considered a 
 right of property, and hence comes within the jurisdiction 
 of the temporal courts ; the right of the bishop to admit 
 or refuse the patron's presentee is not one of mere dis- 
 cretion, for the bishop must have such reasons for his 
 refusal as the law will approve. Not long ago a pre- 
 sentee duly presented (who had been for some years a 
 parish clergyman) was refused institution by the bishop 
 on the ground that his chaplain upon examination had 
 found him non idoneus et minus sujfficiens in literaturd. 
 The official principal of the Arches Court (Lord Pen- 
 zance) held that the bishop was bound to show in iJchat 
 the presentee fell short of the lawful standard, so that 
 * the court might consider and decide whether the stan- 
 dard of learning set up by the bishop was such a standard 
 as was required by law as a condition precedent to the 
 clerk's right to be instituted.' 
 
 In order to secure the public services of the incumbent 
 
62 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the law provides against his residence out of the parish, 
 or his absenting himself from it without the licence 
 of his bishop for more than three months in any one year, 
 by forfeiting in such cases a proportion of his income, and 
 by preventing him in general from holding more than 
 one benefice at the same time. But however careful the 
 law may be in these respects, it is impossible for mere 
 law to compel performance by a parish clergyman of the 
 very indefinite but most important duties which he 
 owes to his parish. He who is really worthy of his place 
 will not be satisfied with conforming to mere legal or 
 episcopal requirements. He has to befriend the poor 
 and the distressed, to visit the sick, to appease quarrels, 
 to keep his richer neighbours informed of cases where 
 their assistance may be given to those who are less fortu- 
 nate, and to point out the way in which this assistance 
 can best be given. To this high standard of efficiency 
 his own conscience can alone compel him. In popular 
 parishes it is now usual for the clergyman to obtain the 
 assistance of one or more curates, licensed by the bishop, 
 in priest's or in deacon's orders, to whom he gives such a 
 stipend as may be agreed upon, or, in cases where, from 
 infirmity or other lawful cause, the bishop has seen fit 
 to allow the incumbent to remain absent from his parish, 
 a stipend regulated by Act of Parliament with regard 
 to the largeness of the population and the parochial 
 endowments. 
 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the importance to 
 the country of the efficiency of this parochial organisation. 
 Whether in the crowded parishes of our large towns, or 
 in the remote districts of a thinly populated county, the 
 
v.] THE PAKISH CLEEGYMAN. 63 
 
 clergjraan should be the most useful of residents. In 
 many districts he is often the only resident of any social 
 position that the parish has to boast of, and still more 
 often the only one whose avocations bring him into 
 frequent relations with the poor. Whatever changes 
 may come about in the course of time in the relationship 
 of Church and State, there is no reason to fear but that 
 in its main lines, a system of parochial ministration, from 
 whatever sources it may draw its support, will be main- 
 tained. 
 
 It is striking to find the various aspects in which this 
 position of a parish clergyman is regarded by the law. 
 The ' cure of souls ' one would suppose was ' a trust ' of 
 the highest importance, and upon this principle the law 
 endeavours to guard against a clergyman for corrupt and 
 selfish ends possessing himself of any benefice. Before a 
 bishop is allowed to institute any presentee to a cure of 
 souls, he must require the presentee not merely to take 
 the oaths of allegiance and canonical obedience, but also 
 to make a declaration that he has not * made any pay- 
 ment, contract, or promise of any kind whatsoever, 
 which to the best of his belief is simoniacal, touching the 
 obtaining of his preferment.' Yet patronage, that is the 
 right of appointing to these positions of trust, is as we 
 shall see hereafter, treated by the law as the private pro- 
 pei*ty of the patron, which he may sell or mortgage, as 
 his desires or necessities tempt him. And the distinc- 
 tions between a simoniacal and a lawful contract we 
 shall see are somewhat finely drawn. The incumbent 
 when fully vested with the cure of souls may not divest 
 himself of it without the consent of his bishop, and 
 
64 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 contracts entered into beforehand by which he was to 
 vacate the benefice at some particular time, or in favour 
 of some particular individual, were once held to be 
 simoniacal, and therefore void ; but now, by the statute 
 law, 'resignation bonds,' as they are called, are valid, 
 if made with the patron before presentation, binding the 
 incumbent to resign in favour of one of certain near 
 relatio7is of the patron ! ^ 
 
 Provision has also lately been made for allowing 
 an incumbent to resign with the bishop's consent, on 
 account of ill-health, and on certain other specified 
 grounds, after he has been at least seven years in 
 the benefice, on a pension of one- third of its revenues. 
 
 The position in which the incumbent finds himself as 
 to remuneration, and the way in which this remuneration 
 is provided, will have to be explained hereafter. In the 
 main the tendency, since the times immediately following 
 the • Reformation, has been to improve both socially and 
 pecuniarily the position of the country clergyman. From 
 various causes he is now better paid than formerly, not 
 only positively but also relatively to the general growth 
 of rural incomes. His social position in the days of 
 Charles IT. is familiar to all who have read the brilliant 
 chapter of Lord Macaulay describing the England of the 
 Restoration, when the country parsons were chiefly 
 persons no wealthier, and hardly more refined, than 
 small farmers or upper servants, who thought it a treat 
 to be invited to dinner in the squire's servants' hall, and 
 who probably aspired to the hand of the lady's maid. 
 
 ' 9 George IV. 94. 
 
v.] IMPEOVED CONDITION OF PAKOCHIAL CLERGY. 65 
 
 Complaints are sometimes heard in the present day of a 
 falling off in the status of the clergy, but these, it may 
 be hoped, are made by those who are always observing a 
 falling off in much besides the clerical status. On the 
 other hand, an eminent living writer tells us, in lan- 
 guage sufficiently favourable to our modern clergy, that 
 ' in England the accomplishments of a scholar and the 
 refinement of a gentleman, blending with the pure and 
 noble qualities of a religious teacher, have produced a 
 class type which is rarely sullied with fanaticism, and is 
 probably, on the whole, the highest, as it is the most 
 winning, that has ever been attained.' ^ 
 
 The manner in which the beneficed clergy are remu- 
 nerated, and the system by which clergymen are ap- 
 pointed to their livings, will be referred to hereafter. 
 
 ' W. E. H. Lecky, Bise of Batwnalism in Europe. 
 
66 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 THE PRAYER-BOOK AND THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 
 
 We know that before the Keformation various liturgies 
 were used in the different dioceses of England, and the 
 present Prayer-Book, set forth in 1662, represents the last 
 attempt made by the legislature to establish throughout 
 the country a uniform liturgy and ritual in sympathy with 
 the prevailing feelings of the people. Edward YI. found 
 on his accession that these liturgies were numerous and 
 tending to increase, and it was his object by the Book of 
 Common Prayer to substitute for these different ' uses/ as 
 they were called, one form of liturgy which should alone 
 be sanctioned by Parliament. To this end he appointed 
 Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to deliberate upon 
 the matter with ' certain of the most learned and discreet 
 of the bishops and other learned men of the realm.' The 
 different service books were collected, translations from 
 the Latin were made, prayers and ritual which seemed 
 superstitious were omitted, and changes introduced 
 wherever an alteration, in the opinion of the Commis- 
 sioners, would bring the liturgy more into conformity 
 with pure religion and the primitive usages of the Christian 
 Church. The whole was then reduced to a single 
 volume, now known as Edward YI.'s First Prayer-Book, 
 
 i 
 
VI.] THE PKAYEE-BOOKS OF EDWAED VI. 67 
 
 which forms the basis of the one now in use. Whether 
 this book ever received the approval of Convocation is 
 uncertain; but Parliament gave it in the year 1549 its 
 full sanction, and caused it to supersede as the sole 
 religious service-book of the country, the * Uses of Sarum, 
 of York, of Bangor, of Lincoln,' and all the other liturgies 
 then known in England.^ A year later a form of service 
 for the consecration of bishops, priests, and deacons was 
 added, also by authority of ParKament.^ The Puritan 
 portion of the community, however, almost immediately 
 began to express great dissatisfiiction with the retention 
 in the authorised worship of much of the distinctively 
 Roman service and ritual, which had been discarded by 
 the Protestants of the Continent, and which was generally 
 distasteful to the more ardent reformers. In particular 
 the retention of the very vestments worn by Pomish 
 bishops and priests in the celebration of the Mass as the 
 lawful officiating dress of a Protestant ministry in per- 
 forming the service of the Holy Communion, irritated 
 the susceptibilities of a mainly Protestant nation. A 
 desire, in which the King and his council thoroughly 
 sympathised, for a simpler and more Protestant ritual 
 being thus generally felt, the Prayer-Book was referred 
 for revisal to a second Commission, consisting to a great 
 extent of the same members who constituted the previous 
 one. In the year 1551 this Commission finished its 
 labours; and a revised Book of Common Prayer, now 
 known as Edward YI.'s Second Prayer-Book, was pub- 
 lished, which, having obtained the approval of Parliament, 
 was made by Statute 5 & 6 Edward VI. c. 1, the sole 
 ' 2 & 3 Ed. VI. c. 1. 2 3 & 4 ^^^ yj, c. 12. 
 
 f2 
 
68 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 liturgy that might lawfully be used. By this new book 
 vestments were abolished, and the surplice made the 
 proper officiating dress of the parish clergy. The sign of 
 the cross was no longer to be made in the Communion 
 service in the consecration of the elements, nor was it to 
 be employed in the celebration of marriage, nor in the 
 Confirmation service ; while a service for the exorcism of 
 evil spirits contained in the First Book was entirely 
 omitted in the Second. Prayers for the dead were like- 
 wise omitted, as was the name of the Virgin from those 
 prayers in which it appeared among the names of the 
 saints.^ These changes show clearly enough the religious 
 tendencies of those who substituted the Second for the 
 First Book of Common Prayer. On the accession of 
 Elizabeth it became necessary, in the first place, to put 
 an end to the retrograde legislation of the intervening 
 reign of Queen Mary, whose object it had been to re- 
 establish the Roman religion. Her statutes concerning 
 religion were accordingly repealed en hloc, and Elizabeth 
 endeavoured to return to the state of things existing at 
 the end of Edward's reign, and once more to establish a 
 Protestant uniformity. Accordingly, Elizabeth's Act of 
 Uniformity ^ enjoined the use of Edward's Second Book, 
 into which were introduced a few slight modifications, and 
 forbade under severe penalties any nonconformity with 
 its provisions. Elizabeth's private sentiments, as is well 
 known, inclined her to a ritual more elaborate than that 
 
 ' The Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution 
 with which the service now begins first appeared in the Second 
 Book. In the First Book, the service began with the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 ■^ 1 Eliz. c. 2, A.D. 1559. 
 
VI.] THE PEAYEK-BOOKS OF EDWARD VI. 69 
 
 in favour with the majority of her subjects ; and it is 
 probably due to her personal predilections that, as regards 
 the much-vexed question of vestments, no permanent 
 settlement was effected by her Statute of Uniformity. 
 This statute, as we have said, revived the more Protestant 
 Second Book of Edward, but it nevertheless contained a 
 proviso that the ornaments of church and minister which 
 were prescribed by the less Protestant First Book of 
 Edward should be retained until fresh regulations were 
 made on the subject in the manner specified in the Act. 
 A few years later this was done upon the advice of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and several of the bishops ap- 
 pointed Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes under the 
 Great Seal, by the issue of regulations duly sanctioned by 
 the Queen, called the * Queen's Advertisements,' for the 
 purpose of ensuring due order in the public administra- 
 tion of the common prayers, and ' partly for the apparel 
 of all persons ecclesiastical.' These Advertisements, 
 which rendered the use in parish churches of vestments 
 other than the surplice illegal, were rigidly enforced ; and 
 having been issued in pursuance of an Act of Parliament, 
 were thus made part of the law of the land, and, except 
 so far as affected by later legislation, still remain law. 
 It is worthy of notice that Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, 
 which passed after the most strenuous opposition in Par- 
 liament, was opposed by the whole bench of bishops, and 
 that it expresses itself as having been enacted * with the 
 assent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assem- 
 bled,' instead of using the more common form of the 
 ^ Jjords spiritual ^lid temporal in Parliament assembled.' 
 In the reign of Elizabeth, while the liturgy was thus 
 
70 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 assuming the shape it now bears, the Articles of Religion, 
 which, to the number of forty-two, had been first pub- 
 lished by Convocation in 1552, were also reduced to 
 their present shape and number. In 1571 they were 
 finally approved by the Queen and Convocation, and were 
 so far sanctioned by Parliament that subscription to such 
 of them as aflfected true Christian faith or the doctrine 
 of the sacraments was made compulsory on all ministers 
 of the Church.^ 
 
 Upon the accession of James I. was published a very 
 important code of regulations, which had been drawn up 
 by Convocation, and was duly authorised by the King, 
 viz., the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of 1603. 
 These canons, having never been confirmed by Par- 
 liament, in accordance with principles which have been 
 already referred to, are binding only on the clergy, and 
 only so far as they are not repugnant to the general law 
 of the land. For the most part they were framed upon 
 pre-existing canons, and they give full recognition and 
 acceptance to the Book of Common Prayer as then 
 authorised by Parliament. 
 
 It is, however, the Act of Uniformity of Charles II. 
 (13 & 14 Car. II. c. iv.) which in the main defines the 
 present position of the Established Church. So far as 
 that Act imposed disabilities and penalties for non-con- 
 formity, it has indeed undergone much change; but it 
 still remains the governing statute which regulates the 
 lawfulness of doctrine and worship in the National Church. 
 Immediately after his restoration King Charles had ap- 
 pointed under the Great Seal a commission of bishops 
 
 1 13 Eliz. c. 12. 
 
VI.] THE PRAYER-BOOK OF 1662. 71 
 
 and other divines once more to review the Prayer-Book, 
 and to make such alterations as they thought expedient. 
 When this had been done the King further submitted the 
 revised book to the Convocations of the two provinces 
 for their approbation. Finally, in the year 1662, Parlia- 
 ment gave its approval, ' annexing and joining ' the Book 
 of Common Prayer to the Act of Uniformity. This 
 original book was in manuscript, and in the year 1819 it 
 is known to have been still among the Parliamentary 
 records, but for many years afterwards it was entirely 
 lost sight of, in spite of diligent search repeatedly made 
 for it. It was recently discovered almost by accident, 
 and is now in the keeping of the House of Lords. 
 Under the Act the various cathedrals and collegiate 
 churches in England and Wales were to be provided with 
 true printed copies of this book, exemplified under the 
 Great Seal of England ; and copies similarly exemplified 
 were also to be kept at the Tower of London, in the Court 
 of Chancery, and at Westminster Hall in each of the 
 Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer ; 
 and these ' sealed books,' as they are called, are made by 
 the Act itself ' as good records ' as the manuscript book 
 actually annexed thereto. The Prayer-Book of 1662, 
 with its rubrics, is therefore part of the statute law. It 
 contains the whole of the Liturgy, Psalter, Creeds, the 
 Services for Baptism, Marriage, Burial, Consecration and 
 Ordination of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and for 
 other occasions. The Thirty-nine Articles do not form 
 part of the sealed books, but owe their position as a 
 standard of the Church to other independent authority.' ^ 
 
 * They were recognised by Charles II.'s Act of Uniforniity, 
 as well as by 13 Eliz. c. 12. 
 
72 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 Thus there have been three Books of Common Prayer 
 recognised by Acts of Parliament, which, in accordance 
 with the desire for uniformity of worship, the legislature 
 has endeavoured exclusively to impose upon the nation — 
 
 1. The First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. 
 
 2. The Second Prayer-Book of Edward YI., differing 
 considerably, and in the Puritanical direction, from the 
 former one ; and which itself received a slight modification 
 in one or two passages by Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. 
 
 3. The Prayer-Book of 1662; by conformity to which 
 in the present day questions of orthodoxy, of doctrine, of 
 worship, and of ritual are tried. 
 
 The spirit of compromise which has always been 
 characteristic of the Church of England is very con- 
 spicuous in its Prayer-Book, whose framers must have 
 sought to comprehend within the fold of the Church 
 Protestants of various descriptions, whether leaning to 
 Calvinistic doctrine on the one hand or to an almost 
 Boman ritual on the other. And in the desire to effect 
 a wide comprehension, the Prayer-Book and the formu- 
 laries of the Church are still expounded by the Ecclesi- 
 astical Courts, carrying out, in short, the views expressed 
 in the Preface first prefixed to Edward's Second Book, and 
 still retained, viz., ' that it hath been the wisdom of the 
 Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her 
 public liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, 
 of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness 
 in admitting, any variation from it ; ' for as, on the one 
 hand, some changes have done more harm than the mis- 
 chief they were meant to cure, ^ so on the other side the 
 particular form of Divine worship and the rites and cere- 
 
VI.] SPECIAL SEEVICES. 73 
 
 monies appointed to be used therein, being in their own 
 nature indifferent, and alterable and so acknowledged, it 
 is but reasonable ' that such changes as may be deemed 
 expedient should be made by the proper authority. 
 
 However, from that day to this, though nearly two 
 centuries and a quarter have passed away, the Book of 
 Common Prayer has remained almost entirely unchanged ; 
 the Book annexed to the Act of Uniformity and the 
 sealed books are still the standard ; and though there can 
 be no doubt that orthodox members of the Church of 
 England in 1882 differ in many respects from orthodox 
 Churchmen of 1662, the letter of the law remains almost 
 the same. The Prayer-Book and all its contents, and the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, are alike beyond the reach either cf 
 the royal supremacy or the authority of ecclesiastical 
 councils. The only loophole through which alteration 
 might creep in would seem to be the proviso of section 
 25, which permits in all the prayers affecting the King, 
 Queen, or Royal progeny, a change of name to be made 
 by * lawful authority ' to suit the necessities of the 
 time ; this authority in the present day being a royal 
 command under counter-signature of the Secretary of 
 State. Nevertheless, in spite of the strictness of the 
 statute, and in spite of the oath taken by every clergyman 
 to use the form of the Prayer-Book ' and none other,' 
 except so far as lawfully authorised, it has been usual to 
 add by royal authority special prayers and special ser- 
 vices on suitable occasions. In this way a day of solemn 
 fast was ordered, and a service provided, during the na- 
 tional troubles caused by the Indian mutiny, and a day of 
 thanksgiving for the peace at the end of the Russian war. 
 
74 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 Even services intended to be permanently used have been 
 added without dispute to the Prayer-Book, and for cen- 
 turies have had the full sanction of the law. The Service 
 of Thanksgiving for the Happy Deliverance of King 
 James and the Three Estates of England from the 
 bloody-intended massacre of the Gunpow^der Treason ; 
 the Service of Prayer with Fasting on the day of King 
 Charles the Martyr, and the Service of Thanksgiving 
 for the Kestoration, are none of them contained in the 
 sealed books. The religious observance of those days was 
 enjoined by Act of Parliament, but the services were 
 framed in pursuance of the royal command, and added to 
 the Prayer-Book.^ The service for June 20, the accession 
 of the Queen, was published by her command the very 
 day after her accession, under the signature of Lord J. 
 Bussell, the Secretary of State. The usage, therefore, is 
 thoroughly recognised of adding when required by royal 
 command special services or prayers to the ordinary 
 services of the Church ; such services or prayers being 
 in practice framed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 
 1859 both Houses of Parliament addressed the Queen 
 against the further observance of January 30, May 29, and 
 November 5, and in consequence a statute was passed 
 repealing the Acts relating to these days, and subsequently 
 by royal command the services for St. Charles the 
 Martyr, the Restoration, and the Gunpowder Plot were 
 ordered to be omitted. We may take it, therefore, that 
 the Act of Uniformity and the oath required by the clerical 
 Subscription Act should be understood in a somewhat 
 
 ' This service was framed upon that published by Queen 
 Anne. 
 
VI.] LAW GOVEENING THE CHUECH. 76 
 
 limited sense, viz., that no prayers or services should be 
 used in substitution of those prescribed by the Prayer- 
 Book, leaving it in the power of the Sovereign to make 
 in the proper manner such additions as from time to 
 time might seem desirable. 
 
 In the present reign two statutes have been passed, 
 namely in the years 1871 and 1872, which have made 
 certain modifications in the Prayer-Book of 1662. The 
 Prayer-Book (Tables of Lessons) Act and the Act of 
 Uniformity Amendment Act have rearranged the Lessons, 
 or portions of Scripture to be read at moining and evening 
 service, and provided a shortened form of service instead 
 of the full service formerly prescribed. The passing of 
 the latter Act through Parliament, followed (as did the 
 Act of 1662) the report of a Royal Commission appointed 
 to consider the matter; and the consideration of the 
 subject had also been referred by the sovereign to Convo- 
 cation. The precedent of 1662 in the Act of Uniformity 
 was thus closely followed in the Act of Uniformity 
 Amendment Act, 1872. The stages were, first, reference 
 of the matter to a Eoyal Commission for report ; secondly, 
 submission of this Report to Convocation ; thirdly, legisla- 
 tive sanction. While the statute law has thus received some 
 slight amendment, the canons of the Church of England 
 have also in our own time undergone modification, though 
 of no very great importance; for in the year 1865 the 
 Convocations of the two provinces, under licence from the 
 Crown, framed four new canons instead of the 36th, 37th, 
 38th, and 40th of those of 1603. The object sought was 
 to bring the canons imposing oaths and declarations on 
 those about to enter the ministry into conformity with 
 
76 STATE Al^D CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 the requirements of the Clerical Subscription Act of that 
 year. These new canons were subsequently promulgated 
 by the Crown. 
 
 We have seen in an earher chapter ' how the Church 
 is governed by statute law, common law, and ecclesiastical 
 law. The first, where it is found explicit, prevails over 
 the other two. Several of the principal statutes affecting 
 the position of the Church have already been referred to, 
 including the Acts of Uniformity of Edward, Elizabeth, 
 and Charles II. The common law is that which is ex- 
 pounded as law by the judges of the temporal courts, 
 either as being the result of cases already decided, or as 
 being deduced from accejited principles, or as being con- 
 sistent with recognised usage. 
 
 The ecclesiastical law is that law which is adminis- 
 tered in the ecclesiastical courts, and consists in part of 
 such canons and constitutions ecclesiastical as have been 
 allowed by general custom within the realm. As so laid 
 down, it forms the * Queen's Ecclesiastical Law.' 
 
 Among the sources from which the Queen's ecclesi- 
 astical law is derived may be mentioned the eccle- 
 siastical constitutions enacted in the national synods 
 presided over by Papal legates in the reign of Henry 
 III., and the canons enacted from time to time by the 
 Convocation of Canterbury, and accepted as a whole 
 under Henry YI. by the province of York, and also such 
 foreign canon law as was formerly accepted in this coun- 
 try. The great depository of such portions of the canon 
 law as ever acquired any force in England is the collec- 
 tion of Lyndewode. The validity of so much of it is 
 
 > Ante, p. 40. 
 
VI.] LAW GOVEENING THE CHUECH. 77 
 
 recognised by Statute 25 Henry YIII. as before men- 
 tioned.^ Finally, there is the modern canon law, such as 
 the Canons of 1603, as amended in 1865. Besides these 
 sources of law notice must be taken of those regulations 
 due to royal authority. Such are the injunctions of 
 Edward YI., the injunctions of Elizabeth, and the 
 advertisements of Elizabeth. The latter have been al- 
 ready mentioned, and appear to owe their authority in 
 part to a provision of the Act of Uniformity, 1 Elizabeth, 
 c. 2 ; while her injunctions and those of Edward, whether 
 their issue was or was not originally within the authority 
 of the Crown would probably be now taken as law where 
 their prescriptions had been obeyed, and where they have 
 not been repealed by subsequent Acts of Uniformity or 
 other statutes. 
 
 Thus, to sum up the results of this chapter, we find 
 the position and character of the National Church care- 
 fully defined, first of all by Acts of Parliament which 
 authorise and incoiporate the Prayer-Book and give a 
 sanction to the Articles of religion. Next, we find in 
 existence and of more or less authority, first, a body of 
 church law; and, secondly, a collection of royal edicts 
 issued by Edward, Elizabeth, and James T. Thirdly, we 
 find added to the Prayer-Book by royal authority in 
 accordance with recognised usage, such special prayers 
 and services as from time to time the necessities of the 
 country have seemed to require. And, last of all, we 
 have common law, based in the main upon usage and in- 
 terpreted by the judges of the civil or ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 * Ante, p. 44. 
 
78 STATE AND CHUBCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 THE REVENUES OF THE CHUSCH. 
 
 It is necessary to point out, before inquiring into the 
 endowments of the Church and the provisions made for 
 its support, that Hhe Church' as a whole is, strictly 
 speaking, not the owner of any property at all. It is 
 not a corporate body capable of holding land or other 
 property. As we have seen, the Church includes laity 
 as well as clergy ; but, in this wide yet true meaning of 
 the word, it is without organisation, and its limits have 
 never been legally determined. It is true that the clergy 
 are, unlike the laity of the Church, a well-defined body 
 of individuals ; and though they once constituted an order 
 of the State, with many more rights and privileges than 
 they now possess, they do not, nor did they at any time, 
 constitute a corporation in the eye of the law. The 
 priesthood as a whole was always incapable of owning 
 property, though the different persons of which that order 
 was composed might own or acquire property, under the 
 conditions prescribed by the law, which from time to time 
 has undergone considerable changes with reference to this 
 subject. 
 
 The Church includes a large number of corporations, 
 without being a corporation itself. When people speak 
 
yii.] LANDS AND TITHES. 79 
 
 of the wealth or the estates or the revenues of * the 
 Church,' they mean the whole of the wealth, estates, or 
 revenues belonging to the different ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tions included with it. Each bishop, dean, and chapter, 
 or parson of the parish, is a distinct corporation, with 
 extensive rights of property ; but there is no body of 
 persons known to the common law capable of owning 
 property on behalf of the Church at large. ^ When, 
 therefore, we speak of the property of 'the Church,' we 
 mean the ecclesiastical wealth of the country shared 
 among the different ecclesiastical persons whom we have 
 already mentioned. The dean and chapter or the parson 
 hold lands and tithes, just as any other corporation, 
 aggregate or sole, may hold them ; that is, they hold ' to 
 them and their successors,' instead of ' to them and their 
 heirs/ like the lay owner of an estate in fee simple. No 
 outside authority, with the exception of Parliament, can 
 affect these proprietary rights. The life estate of the in- 
 cumbent in his glebe and tithes, is as entirely beyond 
 the reach of any action of bishop or church-council, so 
 long as he does not seek to alienate it, as is the squire's 
 in his paternal acres ; though, unfortunately, the general 
 use of the expression ' Church property ' has made common 
 a belief that there is a sort of general ownership on the 
 part of the Church, which, in fact, has no existence. 
 
 Having warned our readers against the danger of 
 misapprehension of this convenient way of describing the 
 ecclesiastical wealth of the country, we may point out that 
 the revenues of the Church of England are derived from 
 the rents of land, from fines on renewals of leases of Church 
 
 * See chap. viii. 
 
80 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 estates, from glebe and augmentation lands, from tithes 
 now converted into a rent-charge, from surplice fees, from 
 pew rents, and from some other sources of inconsiderable 
 emolument.^ The income derived from pew rents is no 
 part of the ancient ecclesiastical revenues, as in all old 
 parishes every parishioner has a common law right to 
 a sitting in the parish church without payment. As we 
 shall see hereafter, pew rents are of modern origin, being 
 part of the system introduced during the present century 
 by the Church Building Acts. In the main, therefore, 
 the wealth of the Church consists in the present day of 
 lands and of the tithe rent-charge ; and it is now time 
 to explain the position of the Established Church in 
 relation to these very valuable endowments. Both were 
 acquired in very early times ; but there is this very im- 
 portant distinction between them, namely, that the landed 
 estates are due to Royal and private benefaction, for no 
 general territorial endowment of the Church was ever 
 made by law ; while the tithes were a legal provision ex- 
 pressly made for the maintenance of the national religion. 
 The extensive estates that came into the possession of 
 the Episcopate, and of the deans and chapters, prove the 
 generosity and piety of the sovereigns of England and the 
 more wealthy among their subjects. We have already 
 seen how, at the time of the Reformation, one-fifth of Eng- 
 land was in the hands of the religious houses ; and long 
 before that date the growing extent of Church lands had 
 alarmed the King and Parliament. It was during the 
 two centuries following the Norman Conquest that the 
 largest alienations of lands to the ecclesiastics took place, 
 * See Revenues of tlie CJiurch of England, by Rev. M. Cove. 
 
VII.] LANDS AND TITHES. V,^ 81n^^\,^ 
 
 these lands thereby becoming freed from feudal serTO^. iS^ ' 
 
 from contributing to the defence of the country, and frofS'jK^ ^i 
 
 the liability to forfeiture and escheat; events which . *fl» ^ 
 
 would again have brought them into the hands of the 
 
 king or feudal lord. Alienations * in mortmain,' therefore, 
 
 being opposed to the interests of the King and nobility, 
 
 were forbidden by Parliament, which enacted that grants 
 
 of land to the rehgious houses, and afterwards to other 
 
 religious corporations, such as the bishops, should be void, 
 
 unless made with the royal license. In feudal times this 
 
 ecclesiastical tenure of land was of two kinds, one known 
 
 as frankalmoigne or free alms, the other as tenure by 
 
 divine service. The tenure of frankalmoigne was the 
 
 only tenure to which no fealty or services attached, 
 
 whilst when lands were held by tenure by divine service 
 
 the only duty the tenants had in general to perform was 
 
 fealty and the saying of prayers for the souls of the donor 
 
 and his heirs, which the law considered a higher service than 
 
 that of any of the ordinary feudal tenures.^ It was by 
 
 one or the other of these tenures that the old monasteries 
 
 and religious houses held their lands, and by tenure of 
 
 frankalmoigne the parochial clergy hold their glebes at 
 
 this day. Against the stringency of the Mortmain Acts 
 
 the ecclesiastics struggled for a time with great ingenuity 
 
 and with considerable success ; but the general principle 
 
 insisted upon by Parliament ultimately prevailed — that 
 
 without a license from the Crown, lands could not be 
 
 acquired by the Church. Other statutes have forbidden 
 
 the alienation of land by the Church ; but in modern 
 
 times, for the sake of convenience, several exceptions 
 
 * Blackstone. 
 G 
 
82 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 have been introduced to this general principle of the 
 inalienability of land, whether by or to ecclesiastical 
 ' persons.' Thus, much attention has recently been given 
 to the important object of improving the position of the 
 parish clergy. Hence a grant of land, to form an addition 
 to the incumbent's glebe, may be made, though only to 
 the extent of a very limited number of acres. And, in 
 order to improve the residence houses of the clergy, the 
 restriction on alienation is further relaxed ; for the bishop 
 or the incumbent has under certain circumstances autho- 
 rity to raise the requisite funds by burdening the benefice. 
 
 Two important corporations, to which reference will 
 be made hereafter, viz. the governors of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, now exist, 
 through whose intervention lands may be granted for 
 ecclesiastical purposes and in favour of a special benefice. 
 Under the Church Building Acts, new ecclesiastical 
 districts were allowed to be endowed with lands by 
 benefactors to the value of 300?. a year. Provisions have 
 also been made to facilitate exchanges of Church lands. 
 All these statutory provisions, however, merely prove 
 the generali^ty of the rule to which they form exceptions. 
 And the law still, subject to these exceptions, forbids the 
 indiscriminate granting of lands without the license of 
 the Crown, either in favour of any benefice or for the 
 endowment of any ecclesiastical corporation. 
 
 Whilst the Church lands, or at least by far the 
 greater portion of the landed estates, were owned by the 
 dignitaries of the Establishment, viz. by the bishops and 
 the deans and the chapters, the tithes and the glebes 
 formed the great provision for the maintenance of the 
 
A'li.] TITHES. 83 
 
 parochial clergy. As regards the management and dis- 
 tribution of the episcopal and the capitular estates, 
 immense changes have taken place in the last half- 
 century, as a consequence of the extended ^enquiries into 
 the whole subject of Church revenues, which began in 
 1832. From this time dates a centralising tendency in 
 the management of the affairs of the Church, which, how- 
 ever essential to its obtaining the full use of its resources, 
 is entirely foreign to its original constitution and the 
 fundamental principles of its government. 
 
 Tithes are defined as being 'the tenth part of the 
 increase yearly arising and renewing from the profits of 
 lands, the stock upon lands, and the personal industry 
 of the inhabitants.' The first kind, such as those of crops 
 and wood, were called prsedial tithes ; the second, as of 
 wool, milk, pigs, &c., being partly the natural produce, 
 and partly due to the keeping, industry, and diKgence of 
 the owner, were called mixed tithes ; while the last kind 
 was known as personal tithes, being the tenth part of the 
 profits of certain trades and fisheries, and being exigible 
 only by special custom where they were claimed, and not 
 by the common law. Prsedial and mixed tithes were the 
 tenth part of the gross produce, while personal tithes, 
 when clairiiable, were the tenth part of the net proceeds 
 of the occupation. Tithes are generally classed under 
 the division of great tithes and small tithes; the prse- 
 dial tithe of hay, corn, and wood being included 
 under the former, and personal tithes under the latter 
 head. This classification is of importance; for where 
 there are appropriations, primd facie, the rector is held 
 entitled to the great and the vicar to the small tithes. 
 
 g2 
 
84 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 Hence it often happens that very poor hvings are found 
 in combination with the finest and largest parish chui'ches, 
 which, in the days before the Reformation, had belonged 
 to some wealthy abbey or priory. But now the scale of 
 the endowment is no longer proportionate to the magnifi- 
 cence of the Churchjthe great tithes, on the suppression of 
 the old religious houses, having been acquired, and being still 
 enjoyed by some layman, who, so far as parochial endow- 
 ments are concerned, is in law the rector of the parish. 
 
 Thus tithes were in the main a tenth of the increase 
 from the land. However valuable the land might be, 
 as, for instance, from its mineral wealth, if the value was 
 not derived from increase, it was not titheable. In time& 
 when agriculture was much more exclusively the business 
 of the nation than it has since become, the tithe repre- 
 sented a large proportion of the annually produced wealth 
 of the whole country ; while in the present day the rent 
 charge, which represents tithe, falling almost entirely 
 upon agricultural land, leaVes uncharged the most 
 valuable land in the kingdom, i.e. the town land and the 
 mines. The owner of a thousand acres of land in the 
 country finds it burdened with what is, compared with 
 the rental of the land, a heavy charge to support the 
 National Church; whilst the owner of an equal area 
 in the colliery districts, though he may only contribute 
 a sum in proportion to the yearly income he would 
 have received if his property had been agricultural land, 
 pockets a rent roll of perhaps many thousands a year. 
 Up to 1836 tithe was payable in kind, or by special 
 composition in lieu of it. It was the business of the 
 farmer to set aside every tenth sheaf of corn for the 
 
Yii.] TITHES. 85 
 
 tithe owner, so that a comparison might be made be- 
 tween that and the nine-tenths which were his own 
 share. With regard to milk, it was settled that it 
 should be tithed by the giving up of the whole milking of 
 every tenth day ; while the method of tithing wool, the 
 young of cattle, sheep, (fee, was also laid down. Some 
 crops of modern introduction, such as flax and hemp, were, 
 on the other hand, tithed under Act of Parliament at a 
 fixed rate of so much per acre. But the characteristic of 
 common law tithe was that it was the tenth of the increase, 
 and was payable by the cultivator in kind ; and so it gene- 
 rally remained till the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836.^ 
 This magnificent provision by tithes for the support 
 of religion was of no very early institution in Christian 
 countries. It does not appear to have been known before 
 the end of the fourth century ; but its adoption through- 
 out Christendom at length became general. In all 
 countries ecclesiastics were enthusiastic in its support, 
 and united in prescribing to their Christian flocks a 
 strict obedience to the Divine command, contained in the 
 Mosaic law, to the children of Israel. * All the tithe of 
 the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit 
 of the tree, is the Lord's ; ' and the same rule was applied 
 
 * In the City of London, and in some instances in other large 
 towns, the tithes or annual amounts payable in lieu of tithes are 
 regulated by the provisions of local Acts of Parliament. , The 
 payments in lieu of tithes in the City of London are, except in 
 the cases of a few parishes, outside the provisions of The General 
 Tithe Commutation Acts, and although now commuted in, it is 
 believed, every instance for a fixed annual sum, were originally, 
 except when a less rate was payable by custom, 2s. dd. in the £ 
 on the rental. 
 
86 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 to the flocks and the herds by the same law.^ An autho- 
 rity and antiquity such as this might seem sufficient ; yet 
 it did not satisfy the more ardent admirers of the insti- 
 tution. One of them, in a work full of information, to 
 which reference will often be made hereafter, preferred 
 to attribute it to a still earlier period in the world's 
 history — in fact, to the earliest period of which the 
 nature of the case will permit. Dr. Morgan Cove, Pre- 
 bendary of Hereford, in his * Essay on the lie venues of 
 the Church of England,' writing in 1816, suggests that 
 the institution of tithe must have been contained *in 
 some unrecorded revelation made to Adam, and by him 
 and his descendants delivered down to posterity.' But, 
 laying aside mere theory founded upon the keen apprecia- 
 tion of its intrinsic merits, the tithe system in England 
 undoubtedly dates from the earliest times. The payment 
 of tithe was ordered in this country by ecclesiastical 
 councils at the end of the eighth century ; and on the 
 continent of Europe, at about the same time, was pre- 
 scribed by an ordinance of Charlemagne, which appro- 
 priated it in four portions — to relieving the poor, main- 
 taining the fabric of the church, supporting the bishop, 
 and endowing the parochial clergy. In the middle of the 
 ninth century a general council for the whole of England, 
 lay and ecclesiastical, was held at Winchester, at which 
 were present the various kings and magnates of the land ; 
 and by this assembly a general tithe was ordered to be 
 levied in perpetuity for the maintenance of religion. 
 Thus the claim of the Church to tithes is older than the 
 monarchy. In England the tithes seem to have been 
 
 > Leviticus xxvii. 30-32. 
 
VII.] TITHES. 87 
 
 originally paid to the bishop for distribution among 
 the clergy of his diocese, though it was permitted to the 
 tithe-payer to select the ecclesiastical recipient of his 
 tithes. After the Conquest, the lords of manors in many 
 cases secured the payment of tithes within the manor to 
 the support of the nearest parish church, while in other 
 cases they were paid to the religious houses, no doubt 
 usually on condition of the latter performing masses for 
 the souls of their benefactor and his heirs. This practice 
 of the arbitrary consecration of tithes, as it was called, 
 becoming very common, threatened to withdraw from the 
 parochial clergy the provision intended for their support. 
 It was, therefore, forbidden, with the authority of the 
 Pope, in the time of King John; and now for many 
 centuries the tithe has been regarded as being primd facie 
 the lawful provision made for the parson of the parish. 
 
 Thus from a very early period the land was burdened 
 by the law with the charge of providing for the parochial 
 clergy. Still some land was exempt; for that which 
 produced no profit was not titheable by reason of its 
 unproductiveness; while lands owned by the religious 
 houses were also held free from the charge, a freedom 
 which, when the impropriation to private purposes of the 
 abbey lands took place at the Keformation, the King and 
 the Parliament showed themselves anxious to preserve.^ 
 Hence it is still the case that lands which were once 
 abbey lands are not liable to tithe. 
 
 ^ 31 Hen. VIII. c. 13 provided that persons coming into posses- 
 sion of abbey lands should hold them discharged from all tithes, 
 as they had been when belonging to the suppressed religious 
 houses. 
 
88 STATE AND CHURCH. [coiap. 
 
 It is evident that the general acceptance of the 
 principle of tithe would enable the clergy to claim their 
 proportion of produce, though arising from crops unknown 
 to the country at the institution of the tithe system, as also 
 from land which only the advance in the knowledge of 
 agriculture had at length been able to render profitable. 
 The cultivation of hemp and flax, turnips and potatoes, 
 was not known in England till centuries after the tithe 
 of corn and grass had been imposed. Nevertheless the 
 Church was entitled to its tenth in kind, or to some fixed 
 payment in lieu of it. How small an extent of England 
 was under cultivation even three centuries ago writers 
 have endeavoured roughly to estimate. A statute of 
 Edward VI. impliedly provided that barren and waste 
 ground, which had hitherto paid no tithes by reason of 
 its barrenness, should, after conversion into arable or 
 meadow, be still exempt from the burden of tithes of 
 corn and hay till seven years had elapsed from the com- 
 pletion of the improvement. By the common law such 
 land would have become titheable immediately; and no 
 doubt the statute was passed to limit the discouraging 
 effect which such a law must have produced on agricul- 
 tural improvement. Thus it is that in consequence of the 
 imposition of tithe upon new products, and its extension 
 to new lands, the parochial endowments of the Church 
 are at the present day in great measure drawn from sources 
 which were not fully available to the clergy of earlier times. 
 It has been calculated that no less than three-fourths of 
 the cultivated land of England has been reclaimed since 
 the above-mentioned statute of Edward VI. ; and, 
 though possibly this may be an over-estimate, there can 
 
Til.] TITHE RENT-CHAEGE. 89 
 
 be no doubt of the immense extension of agriculture that 
 has taken place. ^ 
 
 The inconvenience of levying in kind from the 
 cultivators of the soil a tenth of its produce at length 
 induced Parliament to substitute a rent -charge for the 
 tithes formerly payable. It was a further objection to 
 the tithe that, being a fixed proportion of the gross 
 produce, it took no account of the increased expenditure 
 which could alone render a larger produce obtainable 
 from the land. The whole j^'^ojit due to the farmer's in- 
 ci-eased outlay might be swept away by the tithe-owner. 
 
 In modern times, even before the passing of the 
 general Act, a money composition was, in practice, paid 
 in most parishes instead of tithes in kind. This was 
 under . the authority of private Acts of Parliament, of 
 which some two thousand are said to have been passed, 
 or by virtue of agreements made between the tithe-owner 
 and the tithe -payers. The former, however, if a spiritual 
 rector or vicar, could not bind his successors by such an 
 agreement ; so that, on an incumbency being vacated, it 
 often happened that uncertainty and dispute arose as to 
 the amount claimable. 
 
 In the year 1836, therefore, the Tithe Commutation 
 Act was passed, with the object of fixing once for all the 
 burden to which lands were subjected, and of substituting 
 a regular money payment for the inconvenient payment 
 in kind. Commissioners were appointed to calculate the 
 average value of tithes, or of the composition in lieu of 
 them, in each parish of England during the preceding 
 
 * See Title Deeds of the Churcli of England^ by the late Mr. 
 Edward Miall, 5th edit. 
 
90 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 seven years, and upon this basis to commute the tithes 
 into an annual money payment, which, however, was to 
 vary with the current price of corn. Payment was to 
 be half-yearly, and each payment was to be the value at 
 existing prices ^ of the amount of wheat, barley, and oats 
 in equal shares, which could have been purchased in 1837, 
 at the then existing prices, by half the annual rent-charge 
 fixed by the Commissioners. In short, the Commissioners 
 fixed the value of the tithes in so much corn in each parish, 
 and the present half-yearly payment is the value at 
 present prices of that quantity of corn. Hence the 
 tithe-owner's income will no longer be afiected by increased 
 or diminished fertility ; the charge has been fixed once 
 for all ; but it will nevertheless increase as the price of 
 corn increases, and diminish as it declines. ^ 
 
 It will be seen that this statute, important as it is, 
 makes no change either in the subject titheable or in the 
 destination of ecclesiastical revenues. It preserves the 
 exemptions of lands formerly the property of the religious 
 houses and of glebe, and it expressly provides that any 
 
 * Official prices are to be published in the London Gazette 
 twice a year, and each half-yearly payment is to be made upon 
 the basis of the last declared prices. 
 
 * The Tithe Commutation Acts do not include personal 
 tithes, and, accordingly, they were not commuted by the Com- 
 missioners. It should also be mentioned that, with regard to 
 lands coming under hop or garden cultivation, provision was 
 made by the Acts for the future fixing of an ' extraordinary 
 rent-charge ' in addition to the ordinary charge for tithe. These 
 provisions, in consequence of which, as soon as land was culti- 
 vated for the above-mentioned purposes, it became subject to a 
 heavy burden, have caused much dissatisfaction, as tending to 
 check the profitable employment of land. See Keport of Select 
 Committee of House of Commons, 1881. 
 
VII.] TITHES. 91 
 
 right to the rent-charge shall be subject to all the same 
 liabilities to which the right to tithes was formerly 
 subject. In case of non-payment this rent-charge 
 may be distrained for by the owner, who is further em- 
 powered, after a certain time, in case of insufficient distress 
 being found on the premises, to take the lands in execu- 
 tion, and keep possession of them till his claim is satisfied. 
 It may be mentioned that the tithe system grew up 
 in Scotland in Koman Catholic times, as it did in Eng- 
 land, and was fully authorised by Parliament. The 
 Teinds, as they are there called, were parsonage or vicarage 
 teinds, corresponding to the great and small tithes, and 
 were payable in kind. At the Reformation parsons and 
 vicars ceased to exist, but the teinds, or what remained 
 of them, were rendered liable to the charge of supporting 
 the minister of the parish, a charge which they still bear. 
 Under Charles I. a commission was appointed to value 
 the teinds, which, by Act of Parliament, were to be taken 
 at one-fifth of the rental. Thus the value of the teinds 
 of a parish depends to a great extent upon whether the 
 valuation was made when land was of small value, or in 
 more recent times. The whole of the teinds, howe^ver, 
 are not, any more than the tithes in England, the pro- 
 perty of the Church. The Crown, or other titular cor- 
 responding to the lay impropriator or lay rector in England, 
 absorbed the larger portion of the wealth of the Church. 
 The minister is paid by a stipend upon the tiends. Where 
 the whole tiends have not been already exhausted, they 
 remain subject to a claim by the minister (which is not 
 allowed oftener than once in twenty years) to the aug- 
 mentation of his stipend out of the 'unexhausted teinds;' 
 
92 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 i.e., in fact, out of the rents hitherto received by the 
 heritors (the owners of land) in the parish. It is the 
 business of a division of the Court of Session, known as 
 the Teind Court, to consider and decide upon such ap- 
 plications for augmentation, and to allocate the proper 
 proportion of the stipend upon the different heritors of 
 the parish. There is, therefore, this distinction between 
 English tithes and Scotch teinds : that the rent-charge 
 which now represents the former is a property actually 
 set apart and belonging to its owner, whether ecclesiastical 
 or lay, and is altogether beyond the control of those who 
 have to pay it, viz. tJie occupiers of the land. In Scot- 
 land, however, the minister has in many parishes an 
 inchoate right to claim from the owners of parochial 
 land a contribution from its profits, which up to the time 
 of the decision of the augmentation suit they had a right 
 to consider their own. The extreme complexity and 
 expense of the proceedings necessary to the prosecution 
 of an augmentation suit, and the uncertainty of the 
 locality (i.e. apportionment) of stipend by the court upon 
 the different heritors, have lately attracted notice, but 
 the efforts hitherto made to remedy a discreditable con- 
 dition of the law have so far been unavailing.^ 
 
 In England by special custom the clergyman of the 
 parish is often further entitled to the payment of certain 
 offerings and fees, such as Easter dues and surplice fees, 
 or to a fixed sum in lieu of them. 
 
 Reasons have been given for the belief that the wealth 
 
 ' Papers on Teinds and Fiars Prices, by Mr. Nenion Elliot, 
 S.S.C. A Bill for the purpose of simplifying the law was intro- 
 duced by the Government last session, but was withdrawn. 
 
VII.] EPISCOPAL AND CATHEDKAL KEVENUES. 93 
 
 of the Church has grown enormously with the progress 
 of the nation. Till 1832 no official estimate was ever 
 made of the ecclesiastical revenues or of their expenditure, 
 but in that year a Koyal Commission was appointed to 
 enquire into the revenues and patronage of the Church 
 of England and Wales. In 1 835 their first report was pub- 
 lished, and in that and the succeeding reports a thorough 
 examination was made into the position of the Establish- 
 ment, and many suggestions were put forward for the 
 consideration of Parliament, a large number of which 
 were subsequently given effect to. The previous unofficial 
 calculations of the income of the Church must have been 
 far within the mark. The Bishop of Landaff, quoted by 
 Dr. Cove, put the lohole revenues of the Church in 1780 
 from all sources, including the incomes of the Bishops 
 and other ecclesiastical dignitaries and of the paro- 
 chial clergy, and even the revenues of the Universities 
 of Oxford and Cambridge and their respective colleges, 
 at one and a half millions. Dr. Cove himself, thirty or 
 forty years later, estimates the income of the beneficed 
 clergy alone, then occupying about ten thousand rectories 
 and vicarages, at two and a half millions, the gross 
 revenue of the bishops at 130,000?., and that of the 
 cathedral and collegiate churches at 275,000?. The 
 revenues of the Church were calculated by the Eoyal 
 Commissioners above referred to on the basis of a three 
 years' average ending on December 31, 1831 ; a period 
 of years manifestly far too short to give a certain average 
 where much of the income was derived from fines on 
 renewals of leases for lives and for long terms of years. 
 The gross annual income of the two archbishops and 
 
04 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 twenty-five bishops, then constituting the episcopate, 
 was estimated at 181,600^., and the net income, after 
 allowing for expenses of collection, salaries of officers, 
 rates and taxes, &c., was put at 160,300^. The revenues 
 of the cathedral establishments derived in the main from 
 rents, tithe rent-charges, fines, profits of land, of woods, 
 quarries, and mines, were similarly investigated, and 
 were found to amount, exclusive of Bangor and Sodor 
 and Man, which were without endowed chapters, to a 
 gross annual income of 217,000?., or a net annual income 
 of 158,000?., to which should be added the large revenues 
 of tbe establishments of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter's, 
 Westminster (Westminster Abbey), and of St. George's 
 Chapel, Windsor ; each of which, though without a 
 bishop, possessed a complete chapter, the latter, indeed, 
 being more richly endowed than any cathedral with the 
 exception of Durham. 
 
 At the same date the net income of the beneficed 
 clergy, numbering about 10,700, was estimated at 
 3,055,000?., without taking into account the pay of as- 
 sistant curates. So much for the revenues of the Church 
 as estimated by Dr. Cove in 1816, and by the Church 
 Commissioners in 1831. So many changes have been 
 made in the last half-century in the organisation of ec- 
 clesiastical corporations, and in the distribution of Church 
 revenues, that it is difficult to compare with accuracy 
 the relative financial condition of affairs then and now. 
 The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have become the 
 treasurers, and to some extent the governors, of the 
 Establishment; and the changes that have taken place in 
 consequence will have to be explained later in this work. 
 According to an estimate made in the year 1877 — 
 
Til.] QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY. 95 
 
 The incomes of the two archbishops and 
 
 28 * bishops amount to . . . £163,000 
 The incomes of 27 chapters to . . . £123,000 
 „ the parochial clergy, then taken 
 at 13,300, to £4,277,000 
 
 without taking into account the vahie of the episcopal 
 palaces, or the residences of cathedral dignitaries or of 
 the parochial clergy. ^ 
 
 It would, however, be a great mistake to attribute 
 the growth of Church revenues merely to the increased 
 value of Church lands and of the tithe rent-charge. 
 Other assistance on a large scale has been given. In 
 particular, efforts have been made to increase the value 
 of the poorer livings by the establishment of an endow- 
 ment known as Queen Anne's Bounty, by Parliamentary 
 grants and by voluntary contributions ; all of which in 
 modern times have added greatly to the revenues derived 
 from the original ecclesiastical provisions of lands and 
 tithes. 
 
 The great poverty of the country clergy for a century 
 and a half after the Reformation has already been noticed. 
 It was not till the rise in the value of land in the eigh- 
 teenth century that any very real improvement took 
 place. In the time of Queen Anne it was reckoned that 
 six thousand livings were of no greater value than 601. a 
 year, and hundreds were worth less than 201. a year. It 
 
 * This was before the bishopric of Liverpool was founded. 
 
 ' These are the estimates given by Mr. Martin in his very 
 careful work on the Property and ReveniLcs of the Chiirch of 
 England. They are based in the main on official returns, on 
 calculations based on the clergy lists, and on a statement sub- 
 mitted by Canon Ashwell to the House of Commons Committee 
 on Public Worship Kegulation Bill, 1876. 
 
96 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 was, therefore, determined by the Queen, upon the advice 
 of Bishop Burnet, to give up in perpetuity her revenues 
 in firstfruits and tenths, amounting to about 17,000^. a 
 year, for the augmentation and maintenance of the poor 
 clergy. These revenues had been, before the Keformation, 
 drawn from the English clergy by the Pope, and had 
 once amounted to a much larger sum. Henry YIII. 
 annexed these by statute to the Crown, which he regarded 
 in this, as in so many other matters, as the lawful heir 
 to the Holy See. Thus it has come to pass that a revenue 
 originally extorted from the clerical estate by the Papal 
 legate Pandulph, in the time of King John, and to the 
 payment of which much parliamentary opposition had 
 been shown, was again to be used for the beneJSt of the 
 national clergy. 
 
 The Statute 2 and 3 Anne, c. 11, gave effect to the 
 good intentions of the Queen. A corporate body, still 
 existing, known as the ' Governors of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty,' was formed, which, after getting rid of certain 
 pensions and charges with which the royal revenues 
 were burdened, proceeded, in the year 1713, to dispose of 
 the annual balance for the purposes intended. From 
 that time to the present day augmentations of the poorer 
 livings ^ have been continuously made out of the funds at 
 the disposal of the governors, which have been largely 
 added to by private benefactions and by parliamentary 
 grants. 
 
 The former were called forth by the action of the 
 governors in meeting with the sum of 200^. from their 
 
 ' The governors were in the first instance to apply the funds 
 in augmenting livings of less than 10?. a year. 
 
VII.] QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY. 97 
 
 fund an equal amount voluntarily bestowed. Legal 
 restrictions were removed, so as to enable a donor or 
 testator to devote land or other property for the purpose 
 of improving the condition of the poor clergy, by assigning 
 it to the governors, who were to give effect to the special 
 directions of the benefactor, or, failing such directions, 
 to apply it in the same manner as the rest of their fund. 
 By the year 1825 the private benefactions received by 
 the governors had amounted to 850,000^., and in the 
 following half-century to about 400,000^. more. 
 
 In 1809 the House of Commons voted the sum of 
 100,000^. to be added to the funds of the corporation, 
 and this grant was continued annually till 1,100,000^. 
 had been contributed from the national exchequer. On 
 the whole, it may be taken that the receipts of the 
 Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, from all sources 
 since its establishment, considerably exceed four millions 
 of money. 
 
98 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CHURCH BUILDING COMMISSION AND THE 
 ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 Hitherto mention has been made of ecclesiastical re- 
 venues or income, but the Church is, of course, also in 
 possession of property, largely added to by private gene- 
 rosity and by national expenditure, which is not taken 
 account of in any estimate of annual profit. It would 
 be absurd and impossible to put a money value on the 
 cathedrals, churches, and chapels of the Established 
 Church. At the same time it would be to give a very 
 false notion of the position of the Church towards the 
 State, to omit all mention of the sources from which, as 
 regards its edifices, the Church of England finds itself so 
 magnificently endowed. 
 
 In the main the wealth of the Church in this respect 
 was inherited, or rather acquired, at the time of the 
 Keformation, from the Roman Catholics who had created 
 it. The Roman Catholics and the English nation had 
 been formerly one and the same. When the nation, for 
 the most part, ceased to be Catholic, these edifices, like 
 other endowments devoted to the religious instruction of 
 the people, became the property of the Protestant Church 
 of England as by law established. Since then many 
 
VIII.] STATE AID AND VOLUNTARY EFFORT. 99 
 
 millions have been spent in repairing, in enlarging, and 
 in adding to the number of national churches ; the funds 
 having been provided from ecclesiastical revenues, or by 
 private benefactions, or have been raised by Acts of 
 Parliament. Afcer the Great Fire of London the Legisla- 
 ture imposed a rate for the purpose of rebuilding and 
 restoring the churches of the metropolis, a tax on coals 
 being considered of all ' ways and means ' the most suit- 
 able for providing money for that great work, the re- 
 erection of St. Paul's Cathedral. In more modern times, 
 when it has been thought needful, the assistance of Par- 
 liament has been given, by a general grant out of the 
 national purse. Keference has already been made to 
 the system started in the year 1818 by the statute which 
 established the Church Building Commission. The policy 
 of this and the subsequent Church Building Acts, and of 
 similar statutes, was to vest in a corporate body authority 
 to rearrange old parish bounds and create new parishes 
 and districts, to ascertain where there was the greatest 
 need of fresh church accommodation, and to lay out such 
 sums as Parliament might vote in supplying the deficiency. 
 In the year 1818 a sum of one million was granted for 
 this purpose. Seven years later, this being found in- 
 adequate, it was supplemented by a further grant of half 
 a million. 
 
 At the same time voluntary efforts on a large scale 
 were being made with the same object. In the year 
 which saw the rise of the Church Building Commission, 
 an Incorporated Society for Promoting the Building 
 and Repairing of Churches and Chapels was established, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 which in the fifteen following years had expended nearly 
 200,000?., raised entirely by private subscription; and 
 the expenditure of this sum, chiefly in the enlargement 
 and repairing of existing churches, had occasioned the 
 outlay of at least 900,000?. more on the part of those 
 who had received the Society's assistance.^ 
 
 Still, great as were the efforts made, they did not 
 keep pace with the difficulties entailed by the immense 
 growth of the population. It will be easily understood 
 that the regular revenues of the Church drawn from the 
 sources enumerated in the last chapter would, from the 
 changed circumstances and condition of the nation in 
 modern times, be often of least avail where they were 
 most required. The enormous increase of the population, 
 and its tendency to collect in the large towns, had pro- 
 duced a state of things with which the Establishment was 
 quite unable to cope. It was not that the resources of 
 the Church were small, but that they were badly applied. 
 It was impossible to make the superabundance of means 
 existing in one place supply the deficiency existing in 
 another. It was the same throughout the whole ec- 
 clesiastical organisation. The inequality of the endow- 
 ments of the various sees, the extensive provisions made 
 for the establishments of cathedrals and collegiate churches, 
 the wealth enjoyed by the incumbent of a parish where 
 there was nothing to do, while in the next parish there 
 was practically no provision at all to meet the religious 
 wants of a large population — these and many other defects 
 of the ecclesiastical system had long attracted attention) 
 and at length called loudly for a remedy. 
 
 J Second Report of Church Commission, March 1836. 
 
VIII.] EEPOET OF KOYAL COMMISSION. 101 
 
 The I'eal state of affairs was not fully known till the 
 reports of the Koyal Commission appointed by Wil- 
 liam TV. were made public. The income of the Episco- 
 pate was found sufficient to provide, on an average, 
 6,000/. a year to each see. But how was this distributed ? 
 So as to give over 19,000Z. a year apiece to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham; over 11,000/. 
 a year to the Archbishop of York, and to each of the 
 Bishops of London, Winchester, and Ely; while Rochester 
 had to put up with less than 1,500/., and Landaff with 
 but 900/. a year. The revenues of the cathedrals and 
 collegiate churches were on such a scale that the Com- 
 missioners had no hesitation in reporting that the objects 
 of those institutions might be fully secured and continued, 
 and their efficiency maintained, consistently with a con- 
 siderable reduction of their revenues, a portion of which 
 should be appropriated towards making a better provision 
 for the cure of souls. The deficiency of church accommo- 
 dation in the big towns, and the dearth of clergy, caused 
 almost a denial of religious instruction to the population 
 of many parishes, so far at least as the State Church w^as 
 concerned. In four parishes of London and the suburbs, 
 containing over 160,000 persons, there was church ac- 
 commodation for little over 8,000, while in the same 
 district there were but eleven clergymen ; and this 
 notwithstanding that so much had been done by private 
 generosity and by Act of Parliament to increase the 
 number of churches and chapels and to augment benefices 
 throughout the kingdom. In many parishes the income 
 was too small to suppoi-t a clergyman, so that the work 
 was often done by the incumbent of another parish, thus 
 
102 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 giving rise to another evil, that of non-residence and the 
 holding of a plurality of livings by one clergyman. 
 Nearly 300 livings were found to be of less value than 
 50^. a year, rather more than 2,000 less than 100^., and 
 about 3,500 less than 150/., and in many of these in- 
 cumbencies there was no house for the incumbent. At 
 the other end of the scale were nearly 200 livings 
 enjoying an income exceeding 1,000/. a year, the most 
 valuable being that of Doddington, in the diocese of Ely, 
 where, owing to the reclamation of fen land, the tithe had 
 enormously increased. The net income of this benefice 
 was put by the Commissioners at over 7,000/. a year, 
 while a living in the diocese of Durham was put at nearly 
 5,000/. To remedy such a state of things, many im- 
 portant recommendations were made. The episcopate 
 was not to be increased, the creation recommended 
 of the two new sees of Manchester and Ripon being 
 counterbalanced by the union recommended of Bristol 
 and Llandaff and of Bangor and St. Asaph. And in 
 many cases the boundaries of the dioceses were to be 
 varied, so as to make a fairer division of episcopal super- 
 intendence and labour. The incomes of the bishops were 
 to be equalised after reserving a higher pay for the arch- 
 bishops and more dignified sees, and a method of doing 
 this was suggested. Cathedral establishments were to 
 be reduced ; and the creation of a perpetual body was re- 
 commended, which should receive from sees and cathedrals 
 the excess of revenue beyond their fixed requirements, 
 should apply these funds in a specified way, and should 
 carry into execution the changes required. 
 
 In the main the recommendations of the Commis- 
 
viii.] THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS. 103 
 
 sioners were carried out, though as to some of the details 
 the Commissioners themselves changed their opinions, as 
 in advising the union, which ultimately took place, of the 
 sees of Bristol and Gloucester, instead of Bristol and 
 Llandaff as first proposed. The sees of Bangor and St. 
 Asaph were ultimately kept separate, and the bishopric 
 of Sodor and Man, which" it had been intended to add to 
 the diocese of Carlisle, was after all preserved as a distinct 
 diocese out of deference to the dissatisfaction expressed by 
 the Manxmen at the idea of losing their bishop. The re- 
 commendation of the Church Commission, however, which 
 in importance outweighed all the others, was given effect 
 to at once ; viz. that which advised the creation of a per- 
 manent body in whose hands surplus Church revenues 
 should be allowed to accumulate, so as to form a fund 
 out of which payments for specified purposes might be 
 made. By the Statute 6 and 7 William lY. c. 77 a per- 
 petual corporation with a common seal was constituted, 
 under .the name of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and 
 to their body as subsequently modified have been given 
 from time to time more and more extensive powers, till 
 it has become in reality for many purposes the execu- 
 tive authority of the Established Church. The original 
 composition of this corporation under the Act of 1836 
 seemed almost to contemplate its becoming a department 
 of the State, so closely were its members connected 
 with the Government of the day. The First Lord of the 
 Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, a Secretary of State, the 
 Lord President of the Council, and the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, with the Archbishops and the Bishops of 
 London, Lincoln, and Gloucester, with three distinguished 
 
104 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 laymen named in tlie Act, formed the original Ecclesias- 
 tical Commission, and provision was made that in sup- 
 pl}dng vacancies the proportion of laymen to bishops 
 should be preserved, and that the former should of neces- 
 sity be members of the Church of England. Four years 
 later, however,^ a great change was made in the composi- 
 tion of the Commission, all the bishops being added to 
 it, the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the Master of 
 the Rolls, and the Judge of the Admiralty Court, the 
 Deans of Canterbury, Westminster, and St. Paul's, and 
 four laymen, of whom two were to be appointed by the 
 Crown and two by the Archbishop of Canterbury, security 
 as before being taken for the churchmanship of the lay 
 members. In the year 1850 the Queen was empowered 
 to add two laymen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 one,^ to the Ecclesiastical Commission, whose special 
 business it should be as Church Estates Commissioners 
 to consider and conduct, on behalf of the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, all matters having reference to the sale, 
 the leasing, the exchange, and the general management 
 of lands. The effect of these changes was not merely 
 to create a preponderance of the spii'itual over the lay 
 element in the Commission, but to withdraw the general 
 management of business from the latter, of whom a large 
 proportion rarely or never attended its meetings.^ 
 
 1 See 3 and 4 Vict. c. 113. 
 
 -' The first Estates Commissioner receives a salary of 1,200Z. 
 a year, and the Archbishop's Commissioner a salary of 1,000Z. a 
 year, while the second Commissioner is unpaid. 
 
 '3 See the effect of these changes in the constitution of the 
 Commission, examined by Mr. Martin, ProjjerUj and Ecvenues of 
 Mnglish Church, p. 118 et seq^. 
 
VIII.] THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS. lOo 
 
 The necessity of dealing with the Church revenues 
 as a whole has bean pointed out, if its great resources 
 were to be made the most of. But, at the same time, 
 nothing could be less in accordance with the fundamental 
 principles of the English Establishment than the creation 
 of a perpetual corporation to hold as trustee for the Church 
 at large a fund derived from the different and independent 
 ecclesiastical estates of which that Church was composed. 
 No wonder that such a change, however beneficial in itself, 
 should excite the fears of the timid, some of whom almost 
 attributed to the Spiritual Commissioners treachery to the 
 Church, whose best interests they were in truth serving. 
 The great principle of the inviolability of the Established 
 Church, so it was said, had been given up ; the principle, 
 namely, that the Church as a corporation possesses no 
 property which is applicable to general purposes, but 
 that each particular ecclesiastical corporation, whether 
 aggregate or sole, has its property separate, distinct, and 
 inalienable. ' The wealthier endowments of our ecclesias- 
 tical corporations aggregate, the reward and dignified 
 ease of many who had spent their lives in the arduous 
 discharge of the duties of their profession, and the induce- 
 ments alike to the higher ranks of society and to brighter 
 talents to undertake those duties, and which had rendered 
 the body of our clergy so superior to those of other 
 countries, were overthrown and ruined without a struggle. 
 . . The regrets, however, came too late .... and the 
 Church could not complain of a spoliation ' which its 
 own members did not courageously resist, and so forth. ^ 
 Eortunately these regrets were too late ; and the nation 
 ' Cripps, Laws of the Church and the Clergy. 
 
106 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 in general, and the members of the Church of England 
 in particular, have great reason to be thankful for the 
 bold criticisms and the decided policy of the Church and 
 Ecclesiastical Commissions. 
 
 It would be far beyond the limits of such a work as 
 the present to give in any detail an account of the opera- 
 tions of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. They dealt, 
 to begin with, with the episcopal revenues, estimating 
 the vali.e of the estates of each, and requiring, on the 
 happening of a vacancy, that the new bishop should pay 
 over the whole episcopal income after deducting the 
 annual sum fixed upon as a sufficient endowment for that 
 see. The Commissioners thus became, by the receipt of 
 revenues from the richer sees, possessed of a considerable 
 fund, called the Episcopal Fund, out of which they were 
 able to augment the poorer bishoprics. By a change of 
 system in 1860, however, the Commissioners, on a vacancy 
 occurring, were to become possessed of all the estates of 
 the vacant see, and were then to assign lands sufficient 
 to produce the statutory revenue required. A similar 
 policy was followed with respect to the capitular estates, 
 it being the intention that the incomes of the dignitaries 
 of the Church should be on the statutory scale, and 
 should be derived from landed estates reannexed by the 
 Commissioners to each bishop and each dean and chapter. 
 The income derived from the cathedral estates by the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners far exceeded the revenues 
 the cathedrals had received from the same lands ; and as 
 the advice of the Commissioners greatly to reduce cathe- 
 dral establishments was followed by the Legislature, the 
 former soon found themselves in possession of a large 
 
VIII.] INCOMES OF ECCLESIASTICAL DIGNITAKIES. 107 
 
 fund, called the Common Fund, out of which the general 
 objects aimed at were to be provided. 
 
 The net income of the estates of the see of Canterbury 
 (to take an example), in 1851, was about 24,000^. ; and the 
 statutory emoluments of the Archbishop having been fixed 
 at 15,000^., the Commissioners thus received a revenue 
 of 9,000^. per annum. But the receipts derived by the 
 Commissioners from their better management of the 
 capitular estates, and from the reduction of cathedral 
 establishments, were far larger than resulted from their 
 operations upon the episcopal revenues, and hence the 
 Common Fund at the disposal of the Commissioners soon 
 became very considerable. 
 
 The statutory scale of episcopal income is now for 
 the 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury 
 
 . £15,000 per annum. 
 
 York 
 
 10,000 
 
 Bishop of London . 
 
 . 10,000 „ 
 
 „ Durham 
 
 8,000 „ 
 
 Winchester . 
 
 6,500 . „ 
 
 while the average income of the remainder of the bishops 
 is between 4,000^. and 5,000^. 
 
 The regular establishment of a cathedral in modern 
 times now consists of a dean and four canons, though there 
 are several where a larger number of canons is allowed. In 
 the different establishments the incomes of the dignitaries 
 differ considerably, one dean enjoying 3,000^. a year and 
 several over 2,000?., while the average income of the 
 whole number of deans is about 1,500?. and that of the 
 canons about 750?. After the rearrangements of the 
 episcopal incomes had been completed, there was still a 
 
108 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 balance remaining. This was added to the Common 
 Fund, with which in the year 1851 the Episcopal Fund 
 was merged. From time to time greater authority has 
 been given to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Thus 
 in 1856 they acquired the extensive powers of the Church 
 Building Commissioners, above referred to. It is their 
 function to endow churches, to create districts, to aug- 
 ment livings, and to manage landed estates the whole 
 rental of which exceeds 850,000?. per annum. 
 
 In their last report ' they glance at the position and 
 prospects of the Common Fund, and at the work they 
 have accomplished in the forty years elapsed since its 
 establishment. 
 
 They tell us of nearly five thousand benefices aug- 
 mented and endowed, partly in annual payments, partly 
 in lands, and partly in improvement of parsonage-houses, 
 these augmentations amounting to ' about 620,000Z. 
 per annum;' and they tell us of another sum of 145,000?. 
 a year, received from private benefactors and administered 
 by them for the same purpose. Thus the total increase 
 in the incomes of benefices made through the instrumen- 
 tality of the Commissioners amounts to 765,000?., or to 
 such an income as would be derived from a capital sum 
 of about 23,000,000?. 
 
 To sum up the position of the Church towards its 
 endowments, we find large property held by the bishops, 
 by the cathedrals, and by the parochial clergy ; while the 
 new corporation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners also 
 holds very large endowments in land and money, to be 
 applied in the manner directed by Parliament. What 
 
 ' 33rd Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 1881. 
 
VIII.] INCOME OF THE CLERGY. 109 
 
 the total income of the Church may be, as drawn from 
 these various sources, it is less easy to calculate than the 
 amount directly expended in the remuneration of the 
 established clergy. We find the actual income of the 
 whole episcopate, and of the deans and chapters, to be 
 under 300,000^. a year, while the income of the paro- 
 chial clergy, as we have already seen, may be taken at 
 4,270,000^., and this estimate is exclusive of the value of 
 the episcopal, cathedral, and parochial residences occupied 
 by the clergy. 
 
110 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 APPOINTMENT OP DIGNITARIES AND PATRONAGE. 
 
 Without, it is hoped, going into greater detail than was 
 necessary, some idea has been given in the last two 
 chapters of the wealth of the Established Church, and the 
 sources whence it is drawn. There is much said in the 
 present day of the poverty and of the hardships of the 
 clergy ; and with nearly 1,200 livings of less than 100/. a 
 year, it is evident that the parochial provision is often 
 quite inadequate for the support in an independent posi- 
 tion of a parish minister of the attainments and calibre 
 desired. If he does his duty efficiently, he will have but 
 little time, even if he possesses the primary qualifications, 
 to better, by his own exertions in other directions, his 
 pecuniary position. When Wanington and his friend 
 Arthur Pendennis found but few clients willing to 
 clamber up the three pairs of stairs to their chambers in 
 the Temple, they had no difficulty in discovering another 
 market for their wares. They lived to a great extent, as 
 so many of the junior and poorer members of their pro- 
 fession have done, by the pen. When, on the other hand, 
 the Vicar of Hogglestock, on the 130/. per annum of his 
 Cornish living, had to encounter the penury and disease 
 
IX.] THE MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION. ill 
 
 which were afflicting his household, neither his scholar- 
 ship, which as his only wealth he endeavoured to share 
 among his children, nor his pride, diminished his or their 
 sufferings, or enabled him the better to succeed in the 
 ' struggle for existence.' ^ In comparing the remuneration 
 of different professions or trades, account must be taken 
 of the very different conditions under which they are 
 practised. As regards remuneration, officers of the army 
 after twenty years' service are possibly in no better posi- 
 tion than that at once attained by their old schoolfellows 
 who on leaving college had entered the ranks of the 
 clergy. Had the above-mentioned vicar instead of the 
 Church selected the army as his career, he would have 
 been earning as Lieutenant Crawley for many years from 
 120Z. to 140^. per annum, and as Captain Crawley but 
 little over 200/., which after providing himself with 
 uniform and other necessaries, would have left less 
 than nothing for Mrs. Crawley and the children. In all 
 probability the Captain, unless a man of private means, 
 would have remained a bachelor; but this prudent 
 course, even if to the taste of the clergyman himself, is 
 not one which in a Protestant country public feeling 
 would approve the clergy in general pursuing. The 
 country requires a married clergy; and in this respect 
 it must be confessed that the clergy show no unwilling- 
 ness to respond to the expectations formed of them. 
 All must agree that the low scale of payment in many 
 livings is absolutely discreditable to the Church ; yet it 
 cannot be said that upon the whole, taking one profession 
 with another, the clergy are ill-paid. It would be a 
 
 ^ TroUope's Framley Parsonage. 
 
112 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 doubtful benefit to tlie nation and to the Church itself 
 that those who enter the ranks of the clergy should be in- 
 fluenced in the main by the desire to obtain some lucra- 
 tive office or rich benefice ; and a low scale of reAvard, if 
 it tends on the one hand to make the ministry attractive 
 as a mere profession only to the very poor, may be 
 expected to tend on the other to exclude those of higher 
 position and greater means unless they are acting under 
 the influence of higher motives than those of pecuniary 
 profit.^ Still, it would be a mistake against which all 
 history, ecclesiastical and lay, warns us, to suppose that 
 the clergy as a body (however much individual clergymen 
 may rise superior to selfish instincts) are less acted upon 
 by worldly considerations and ambitious motives than 
 other classes of men ; and it may therefore be useful to no- 
 tice some of the professional advantages which the career 
 of a clergyman presents; and this without intending 
 
 ^ In connection with this subject it would not be fair to omit 
 all mention of the assistant curates, who are sometimes most 
 . wretchedly remunerated for very hard and most useful work. 
 Still, on entering the Church the young curate cannot be worse 
 remunerated than ' unpaid attaches,'' most barristers, and young 
 officers in the army, since it is only under exceptional circum- 
 stances that in any of these professions any profit can for some 
 time be earned. As regards the curates, there is some reason to 
 believe that, on the average, they are no worse off than the 
 poorer incumbents. 
 
 It is said that the pay of 5,000 curates is probably equal to 
 that of any 5,000 incumbents that could be chosen. (See letter 
 to the Times of February 4, 1882, from 'An Incumbent,' based 
 on the statistics of the Financial Reformer's Almanac.) Of 
 course in the profession of clergymen, as in other professions, 
 there are nvimerous ' failures ' to be lamented. 
 
 See also provisions in favour of assistant curates contained in 
 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106. 
 
IX.] THE MINISTKY AS A PEOFESSION. 113 
 
 to suggest that in the wealthy Church of England more 
 
 than in other churches is there to be found a superfluity 
 
 of those — 
 
 Who, for their bellies' sake, 
 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.* 
 
 In the last chapter, reference was made to a complaint 
 that the clergyman's position was ceasing to be attractive 
 to men of the higher and more cultivated classes of 
 society, in consequence of the diminution of those rewards 
 to which formerly so many of them were enabled to look 
 forward. At the present day, with thirty-two bishoprics, 
 to twenty-six of which life peerages are attached, with 
 some thirty deaneries, and with one hundred and thirty- 
 four canonries, with a dozen livings of over 2,000^. a year, 
 and with many more of over 1,000^., it can hardly be said 
 that the prizes of the profession are either too few or too 
 poor. But when it is recollected that other places of con- 
 siderable emolument, and of very great dignity, are almost 
 monopolised by the clergy — such, for instance, as the head 
 masterships of the large public schools, and the headships 
 of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge — it may be doubted 
 whether in any profession the generality of its members 
 have a better chance of reaching an enviable position than 
 have the clergy of the Church of England. It is true that 
 very many livings are wretchedly poor, but there are some 
 two thousand worth more than 500^. a year ; and it is 
 the common experience of everyone that throughout the 
 length and breadth of England, if the stranger observes a 
 more than usually commodious, snug, and unpretending- 
 looking little coimtry house, with its gardens and grounds 
 1 Milton : Lycidas. 
 I 
 
114 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 neatly kept, affording every indication of modest comfort, 
 the chances are, that on inquiry he will find that the 
 fortunate owner is the parish clergyman. 
 
 It is now time to explain the system by which appoint- 
 ments of church dignitaries are made, and the way in 
 which, and the persons by whom, clergymen are selected 
 to fill incumbencies. 
 
 To begin with the bishops, it seems that they were in 
 early times throughout the whole of Christendom elected 
 to their sees, laity as well as clergy taking part in the 
 election. Afterwards the right of election was confined 
 to the clergy, and it has already been noticed how the very 
 first clause of Magna Charta reserved to the monasteries 
 and cathedrals the right freely to elect their abbots and 
 bishops. The king was not to refuse his assent to their 
 choice without reasonable and lawful cause. The election 
 of the bishop by the dean and chapter was thus the 
 regular practice in England, and so continued after the 
 Reformation, except during the reign of Edward VI., who 
 was enabled by Parliament to dispense altogether with 
 such election, and to appoint by royal letters patent. Ever 
 since Edward YI.'s reign, however, this election has been 
 a mere form, the appointment being virtually made by the 
 Crown. Upon the occurring of a vacancy in any see a 
 conge d'elire, or permission to proceed to an election, is 
 despatched to the dean and chapter by the sovereign ; but 
 this is accompanied by royal letters missive, in which is 
 designated the person whom the chapter is to elect. In 
 case of the chapter refusing to elect, it will, under 25 
 Henry YIII. c. 20, incur the penalties of a praemunire, 
 and after the lapse of a certain number of days the Crown 
 
IX.] APPOINTMENT OF BISHOPS. 115 
 
 may appoint by letters-patent. As regards the late Irish 
 Establishment, bishops were appointed at once by letters 
 patent ; and the appointments to the new English sees, 
 «uch as Triu-o, St. Albans, Liverpool, &c., where there 
 :are as yet no chapters in existence, are made in the same 
 fashion. 
 
 In the first session of the present Parliament a Bill 
 was introduced ^ into the House of Commons for the 
 purpose of abolishing the system of coTige d^eli7'e, and 
 of giving to the- Crown the power to appoint to all 
 bishoprics by letters patent. It was rejected by a small 
 majority upon the second reading after a short and in- 
 teresting debate, in which it was strongly urged that the 
 retention of the mere form of election, connected as it is 
 with a religious ceremony, is, if not absolutely irreverent, 
 but little better than a delusion and a sham, and that 
 of all methods of appointment, that by the Crown upon the 
 «,dvice of the Prime Minister duly responsible to Parlia- 
 ment is the best that can be found. On the other hand, it 
 was contended by several members that the form should be 
 retained, in the hope that in time the election would be- 
 come a reality — an expectation which it is safe to predict 
 will never be verified so long as the connection between 
 Church and State is maintained. 
 
 When the bishop has been appointed in the manner 
 specified, he receives consecration at the hands of the arch- 
 bishop and two other bishops; the presence of three 
 bishops being necessary for the due transmission of the 
 E])iscopal authority in its spiritual aspect to the bishop 
 •elect. The form of service to be used on these occasions 
 
 » By Mr. Monk, June 1, 1880. Rejected by 97 to 72. 
 i2 
 
116 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 is contained in the Prayer-book, and is therefoi-e sanctioned 
 by the Act of Uniformity. 
 
 In former times deans were, like bishops, elected by 
 the chapters in pursuance of a conge cVelire from the 
 Crown, accompanied with letters missive of recommenda- 
 tion ; but the independent action of the chapters in such 
 a case did not, as in Episcopal elections, render them liable 
 to a praemunire ; and as regards all deaneries in England 
 in the present day, whether of cathedrals or collegiate 
 churches, the appointment is made by the Crown by 
 letters patent without any election at all. 
 
 The appointment to canonries is made either by the 
 Crown, by the bishops, by the Lord Chancellor, or by the 
 universities, the patronage of by far the larger number 
 being vested either in the bishops or in the Crown. To 
 whomsoever the patronage of these high ecclesiastical 
 dignities is given, it is to be exercised with a regard to the 
 intei^sts of the public and of the Church, and not to be 
 made use of as a means of private gain by the patron, who, 
 as we have seen, is either a member of the Government^ 
 and as such responsible to Parliament, or a high officer of 
 the Church, whose position renders his action matter of 
 public interest and observation. 
 
 It would hardly have been necessary to notice as a 
 characteristic of the ecclesiastical patronage just mentioned 
 that its possession is treated as a public trust rather than 
 as private property, were it not that unfortunately a very 
 different and extraordinary state of things exists with re- 
 gard to other very valuable patronage of the Establishment, 
 to which it is now time to turn our attention. We 
 have already seen that the total income of the beneficed 
 
IX.] PATRONAGE. 117 
 
 clergy exceeds 4,000,000^. a year. Thus both from the 
 largeness of the pecuniary interests involved, and the im- 
 portance of the duties the parochial clergy have to per- 
 form, the right of appointing to benefices, and the way 
 in which the right is exercised, are matters of great 
 public interest. This right of patronage, as it is called, 
 has never in England been exercised by the parishioners 
 themselves, except in a few instances,' nor have they 
 ever set up any claim to control in any way the action of 
 the person who has the right to appoint their spiritual 
 teacher. A claim to veto the appointment of an unfit 
 presentee, a protest against the ' intrusion ' into the parish 
 of an obnoxious pastor, such as have roused in Scotland 
 the strongest feelings of the people, have never disturbed 
 the rights which the law of England recognises in the 
 owner of patronage. This absence of all wish on the 
 part of the people to have any voice in the selection of 
 the parish minister, who exists for their benefit, and 
 whose character and qualifications are to them of the 
 highest importance, it is diflicult to understand ; unless 
 indeed they are willing to accept the humble position of a 
 flock towards its pastor even in such a matter as this, not 
 caring for a change in the law which, as the Scotch poet 
 says,— 
 
 Would give the brutes the power themselves 
 To choose their herds.' 
 
 "Whatever the reason, there is no popular check in 
 England upon the rights of patrons, and but little legal 
 
 ' As for instance in the case of the perpetual curacy of 
 Clerkenwell. 
 
118 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap, 
 
 security taken that the right should be even decently- 
 exercised. ' 
 
 In times immediately before the Keformation lay 
 patronage was practically unknown/ appointments to the 
 cure of souls being made by the ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tions, bishops, deans and chapters or religious houses ; but 
 upon the large transfer of property from ecclesiastical to 
 lay owners under Henry YIII., much of this patronage 
 also changed hands, and at the present day the patronage 
 of about half of the benefices of the kingdom belongs to 
 private individuals. The patronage of the rest is in the 
 hands of the Crown, the Lord Chancellor, the bishops^ 
 the cathedral authorities, the universities, and their col- 
 leges. Of these the bishops and cathedral authorities 
 own by far the largest share. 
 
 Before referring to the way in which the patrons 
 exercise their rights, the right itself must be explained. 
 "What is patronage ? It is the right of appointing to a 
 benefice having the cure of souls, on the occurrence of a 
 vacancy. This right may be unlimited j i.e., it may be a 
 right to appoint whensoever and as often as a vacancy may 
 
 ' This appears to be the correct view, speaking generally, of 
 the parochial incumbencies. No doubt there were some cases 
 where, in consequence of having handsomely endowed a church, 
 the lay benefactor claimed the patronage. On the other hand, 
 the view taken by most legal writers, including Blackstone and 
 Sir Robert Phillimore, is that even with regard to the original 
 parochial divisions, lay patronage dates from the earliest times. 
 The account given in the text, how^ever, seems more consistent 
 with the theory held among Roman Catholics about gifts made 
 to the Church. And Mr. Martin says there can be no doubt of 
 its correctness; (See Proj^erties and Hevemws of the Chwch of 
 5-) 
 
IX.] SIMONIACAL CONTEACTS. 119 
 
 occur ; or it may be confined to a right to appoint to the 
 benefice when it next falls vacant. 
 
 This former right of patronage is called an advowson, 
 while the latter one is known as a right of next presen- 
 tation. Certain distinctions are made between these, but 
 both advowsons and next presentations are treated as pro- 
 perty, and as such may be sold, or mortgaged, or left by 
 will, or in case of intestacy will descend to the heir-at-law 
 of the deceased. There are some owners of advowsons 
 who, while having a full right of property, so as to be 
 able to transfer them to others, are yet themselves not 
 permitted by the law to appoint to the benefice, should it 
 become vacant. Thus if the patron be a Roman Catholic 
 or a foreigner, in the first case the presentation would be 
 made by one of the universities, in the latter case by the 
 Crown. But should the patron be a Jew, he would be as 
 fully entitled to present to the vacant benefice as if he 
 were Archbishop of Canterbury.^ 
 
 The general law of the Church considei:s the corrupt 
 presentation of a clergyman to a benefice, in return for 
 money or reward, a grievous sin and heresy. The Statute 
 Law of England, and the Common Law also, subject to 
 penalties the perpetrators of such nefarious transactions. 
 The conduct of Simon the sorcerer, visited with the 
 severest condemnation by St. Peter, has remained through- 
 out the whole history of Christianity and among all its 
 branches a warning for those who would purchase for 
 
 ' But should a Jew hold an office under the Crown to which 
 belongs a right of patronage, the right is to devolve upon the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being. 21 & 22 Vict. 
 0.49. 
 
120 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 money spiritual powers, thereby becoming guilty of the 
 crime of * Simony.' Every clergyman, on being presented 
 to a living by the patron, has to make the declaration 
 against simony of which mention has already been made 
 (ante, p. 58). Nevertheless the only check upon the free 
 traffic in livings in the English Church, is that a clergyman 
 is not permitted to buy' a next presentation, and that no 
 one is permitted to sell a living which is actually vacant.^ 
 A clerg3nnan may buy an advowson and present himself 
 as soon as the vacancy occurs, and may if he likes after- 
 wards sell the advowson. A patron may sell an advowson 
 or next presentation when the present incumbent is 
 tottering to his gi-ave, the prospect of ' immediate pos- 
 session ' of course greatly enhancing the price. This 
 traffic in livings is not necessarily carried on in the 
 dark, nor is it only occasionally resorted to here and 
 there by a shameless patron or priest. On the contrary 
 it is systematic, and carried on in the face of day. The 
 ' Ecclesiastical Gazette,' a monthly journal sent to every 
 clergyman whose name appears in the Clergy List, contains 
 advertisements of livings to the number of perhaps eighty 
 or a hundred per month. The cure of souls is frequently 
 at a public auction knocked down to the highest bidder. 
 The agency in livings is as recognised a business as is 
 house agency in London. It has been calculated that 
 there are perhaps two thousand livings of the Church on 
 sale, some by public auction, but far the greater number 
 by private contract. Th e advantages testified to by the 
 
 ^ The advowson might be sold, but the next presentation 
 would not pass by the sale. 
 
w 
 
 
 IX.] TRAFFIC IN LIVINGS. \\<^ ^M^^^" 
 
 advertisers, are generally such as high pay and rjgl^jwi^rlr^ ■ ^ 
 
 picturesque neighbourhood and good society, opportunities ^ a ^ 
 
 for indulging sporting tastes, and so forth ; while- 9^Ta jJS' 
 
 course the prospect of 'immediate possession' turniu"^ 
 
 on the age or infirmity of the existing incumbent is the 
 
 element of most importance in the bargain. The presentee 
 
 may be unfit, but the law regards as sacred the private 
 
 rights of property of the patron, and is not easily enlisted 
 
 in the interests of the parishioners. Hence the bishop has 
 
 generally as a matter of fact no power to refuse admission to 
 
 any clergyman duly presented by the patron. It is needless 
 
 to observe that scandals such as these have called forth 
 
 the condemnation of the bishops, and of many distinguished 
 
 churchmen, yet it is astonishing that the general feeling 
 
 of members, lay or ecclesiastical, of the Church of England 
 
 in an age when the sale of pocket boroughs is looked back 
 
 upon as a sign of the defective morality of our ancestors, 
 
 and when the sale and purchase of promotion in the army 
 
 shocked the public sense of right as much as it interfered 
 
 with the welfare of the service, should tolerate with 
 
 equanimity such a disgraceful practice, or should leave for 
 
 a single year unchanged the laws which permit it. It is 
 
 also most remarkable, that notwithstanding the impetus 
 
 towards reform which has been given by the bishops,^ 
 
 the efibi-ts made in the House of Commons to remove this 
 
 scandal from the Church have been chiefly due to dis- 
 
 * See Report of House of Lords' Committee on Patronage in 
 1874, of which the Bishop of Peterborough was Chairman. It is 
 impossible to use stronger language than that of some of the 
 Bishops in condemnation of this trafl&c. 
 
122 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 senters.^ The Lords Committee of 1874, which brought 
 to light many abvises connected with the traffic in livings, 
 nevertheless reported in favoui* of the maintenance of the 
 system of private patronage, as tending to secure among 
 the parochial clergy a fair representation of the different 
 sections and views of churchmen ; a variety essential to 
 the existence of the Establishment, and difficult of attain- 
 ment in any other way. 
 
 With regard to the patronage vested in the colleges of 
 Oxford and Cambridge, the regular practice used to be to 
 fill up the vacancy in a living by appointing the senior 
 fellow of his college without any particular reference to 
 the needs of the parish or the qualifications of the senior 
 fellow ; but in these days, though this is still the rule, it is 
 not uncommon to make exceptions to it where it would 
 lead to the appointing of an unfit incumbent.^ 
 
 Under recent statutes which have been passed to meet 
 the want felt by a growing population for new churches 
 and new ecclesiastical districts, and in the efforts to 
 add to the value of poor livings, considerable increase in 
 the amount of private patronage has been brought about. 
 Thus, when a district is created under the new Parishes 
 Acts, the patronage, though to begin with it is vested in 
 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is to be assigned to any 
 
 ' See the two speeches of Mr. Leatham in the House of 
 Commons, June 26 1877, and February 12, 1878. 
 
 - See Evidence given to the Lords' Committee, and see also 
 the clever sketch of * the Kector ' in the Chronicles of Carlingfordy 
 where that worthy but fossilised hero is the victim of the old 
 college system of appointing to a cure of souls in a country 
 parish, for which a quarter of a century of life as a resident 
 fellow in the university had utterly unfitted him. 
 
IX.] TEAFFIC IN LIVINGS. 12S 
 
 benefactor wlio will permanently endow the living with 
 money or land up to a certain proportion of the whole. 
 Again, the Lord Chancellor is empowered by another 
 statute to seiriivings of which he is patron, and out of the 
 purchase money to increase the endowment of the living 
 sold, or to add to that of other poor livings in his gift. 
 There is therefore no sign of any growing public dissatis- 
 faction with the system of the appointment of the clergy 
 to their spheres of duty by laymen; but it is to be 
 hoped that means will be discovered to ensure the proper 
 exercise by the latter of the privileges which the law gives 
 them. 
 
124 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 CHA.PTEII X. 
 
 ^ ESTABLISHED ' AND * FREE ' CHURCHES. 
 
 The sources whence the Church derives its wealth have 
 been enumerated, and the system upon which its revenues 
 are distributed among the dignitaries, and rank and file, 
 of the clergy has also been described. Let us consider 
 whether there is anything peculiar in the nature of its 
 ownership of property, due to the fact of its being * the 
 established,' that is the national Church. A large portion 
 of the wealth of the Church is, as we have seen, directly 
 derived from its Roman Catholic predecessor, while another 
 very large portion is derived from the continued applica- 
 tion of the tithe principle, no longer in favoui* of the 
 Roman Catholic, but entirely for the benefit of the Pro- 
 testant religion as established by law. A third portion 
 of its endowments has been provided out of general 
 taxation, and a fourth by voluntary benefactions. Every 
 church in England, except the Established Church, 
 whether Catholic, Protestant, Greek, or Jew, is sup- 
 ported solely and entirely by voluntary contributions, 
 or the proceeds of former contributions. The Cathe- 
 drals of Canterbiury, Durham, Salisbury, and West- 
 minster Abbey were not erected by persons professing 
 
x.l INHEEITED WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. 125 
 
 either a beUef in the Thirty-nine Articles, or obedience 
 to the Act of Uniformity. The Koman Catholic looks at 
 these splendid buildings with as much sorrow as admira- 
 tion, feeling that his religion has been robbed of its 
 grandest monuments, erected on spots hallowed by the 
 mii'acles or the martyrdom of its saints. The Protestant 
 dissenter may feel, on the other hand, that his own ex- 
 clusion is somewhat hard when he calls to mind that it 
 was in these buildings that the whole nation for centuries 
 worshipped, whilst, after all, those in whose favour he is 
 excluded are, from the religious standpoint of the old 
 persuasion, fully as much heretics as himself. 
 
 In the beginning of his ' History of the Thirty Years' 
 War ' Schiller illustrates the difficulty that arises, when a 
 religious community splits into two antagonistic sections, 
 by referring to the difficulties of private inheritance. 
 Where two brothers have shared the possessions they have 
 inherited from their father, and one of them at length 
 determines to leave the paternal home, it becomes neces- 
 sary to make some division of the inheritance. Their 
 father, since he could not foresee, had not made any pro- 
 vision for the separation of his sons. So, for more than a 
 thousand years the wealth of the Church had been steadily 
 accumulating out of the benefactions of an ancestry, who 
 were quite as much the ancestors of the son who leaves his 
 home, as of the son who stays behind. The endowments 
 had belonged to the Catholic Church, because there was 
 none other in existence ; to the eldest son, because he 
 was as yet the only son. But at length the question 
 arises : does the right of primogeniture exist in the 
 Church 1 Could Lutherans be excluded from sharing in 
 
126 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 wealth in part created by their ancestors, simply for the 
 reason that at the time of its creation there was no dis- 
 tinction between Lutherans and Catholics 1 
 
 So in England, it can hardly be maintained that 
 the nation, on becoming in the main Protestant, was 
 not justly entitled to employ for its religious purposes 
 in a different form the resources it had previously 
 devoted to the maintenance of the only form of religion 
 then known to it. And as with the original breach 
 between Catholics and Protestants, so with the more 
 recent separations from the established religion. In each 
 case it is for the State to determine upon the equity 
 and expediency of dividing the inheritance, or of making 
 such fresh arrangements as the welfare of the whole 
 nation in the altered condition of affairs may require. It 
 is supposed by some persons, that the Church of England 
 rightly asserts a claim to the sole heirship of the old 
 Koman Catholic Church, because it is in spite of all 
 changes the same church ; this being very different (so it is 
 said) from the relation of the Presbyterian Establishment 
 in Scotland to its Koman Catholic predecessor, where 
 there was a breach of continuity which prevents the re- 
 formed Scotch Church having an equitable claim to any 
 such inheritance. The true heirs in that country would 
 not be the Church, but rather that body of Episcopalian dis- 
 senters who adhere to the purified form of the old religion. 
 All this rests upon the strangest misconception of what 
 constitute the true title-deeds of a State Church. 
 
 The fact that the Church of England is Episcopalian 
 and the Church of Scotland Presbyterian gives no better 
 or more equitable claim to the former than to the latter 
 
X.J VOLUNTARY ASSISTANCE. 127 
 
 churcli to enjoy the endowments of the old Roman 
 Catholic religion. It is not by virtue of its holding a 
 special creed : bnt in consequence of the creed it holds 
 recommending itself to the nation as a whole, that a 
 church can claim the exclusive benefit of national endow- 
 ments, or the appropriation to itself of a portion of the 
 general taxation. The expression * national endowments* 
 as applied to the revenues of the Established Church is 
 therefore an accurate one, and serves to point out the 
 great distinction that exists between these and the private 
 property of individuals or of voluntary societies. The 
 cathedral and the parish church are in a sense national 
 institutions quite as much as they are places of worship 
 of a particular denomination of Christians. 
 
 The tendency, however, in the present day is for the 
 Church to rely more and more on voluntary effort, and 
 less on State assistance. It may be confidently predicted 
 that Parliament will never make another grant out of the 
 public purse to build fresh churches for the Establishment. 
 Yet it is not found that there is any deficiency of money 
 available for such a purpose. On the contrary, the flow 
 of benefactions is said to be inexhaustible ; and in the 
 seventeen years previous to 1875, the sums voluntarily 
 contributed to the building of churches in the newly 
 created ecclesiastical districts amounted to nearly five 
 millions of money. In our own times church rates have 
 been abolished, the money expended upon the repair of 
 ordinary parish churches being now obtained entirely 
 from voluntaiy contributions. And as with church 
 building and church repairing, so with many other objects 
 of the Church, has it become the tendency to trust to pri- 
 
128 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap, 
 
 vate generosity to supply the requisite funds. "We have 
 seen how the efforts of Queen Anne's Bounty board and of 
 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to increase the endow- 
 ment of poorer livings have been seconded by voluntary 
 assistance. Only a few years ago, an entirely voluntary 
 society was started by Lord Lome with a similar object, 
 viz., to increase the value of small livings up to 2001. a 
 year. The Bishop of London's Fund, depending entirely 
 on subscriptions and collections, has received in the eigh- 
 teen years of its existence over 650,000^. for the purpose 
 of building and repairing churches and schools, improving 
 clergymen's houses, providing mission-rooms and scripture 
 readers, and otherwise aiding the parochial work of the 
 metropolis. It would be impossible to mention all the 
 voluntary associations which contribute their assistance 
 to carrying on the work of the Church. It is no exaggera- 
 tion to say, with the author ^ already so often quoted, that 
 at the present day the growth of the Church of England, as 
 shown in the erection of new places of worship, has come 
 to be mainly dependent on voluntary contributions. So 
 with the increase of the Episcopate. Three years ago an 
 Act of Parliament was passed, enabling the Queen by 
 Order in Council, to create four new bishoprics, viz., 
 Liverpool, Newcastle, Wakefield and Southwell, so soon 
 as endowments to the extent of 3,500^. per annum should 
 be provided. In the main these were to be obtained by 
 private benefactions, though to some extent they were to 
 be assisted by deductions from the income of other sees, 
 and from other revenues of the Church. The two first of 
 these have been already founded. 
 
 1 Martin, Revenues of the Church of England. 
 
X.] VOLUNTARY ASSISTANCE. 129 
 
 It need hardly cause surprise, if, when the Church 
 takes to relying so much on the voluntary contributions 
 of its own members, it should become more impatient of 
 external control. Still it should not be forgotten, that 
 gifts are made by benefactors with their eyes open to a 
 national institution, and the largeness of the contributions 
 may show satisfaction with this character of the Church 
 as often as preference for the special religious characteris- 
 tics of a particular denomination of Christians. In short, 
 a benefactor, while wishing to devote his property to 
 religious purposes, may prefer to bestow it in a manner 
 where he may reasonably expect that national, rather 
 than sectarian interests will be considered ; and for this he 
 may look for some security in the influence exercised by 
 the State over the Church with which it is connected. 
 Thus though in modern times the National Church draws 
 a large revenue from sources exactly similar to those from 
 which Free Churches draw their supplies, yet because the 
 former is the State Church, its property is held subject 
 to the conditions, and to be applied to the purposes which 
 the State prescribes as best conducing to the welfare of 
 the nation ; that is, as Lord Palmerston shortly put it, 
 ' the property of the Church belongs to the State.' ^ 
 
 To discuss, still less to advocate, political changes in 
 the constitution or connection of Church and State, does 
 not of course come within the object of this work, which 
 is simply to explain the meaning of existing institutions, 
 and the principles apparently involved in them. And it 
 is for this purpose only that reference is now made to 
 the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. In that 
 
 ^ House of Commons' Debates, 1856* 
 K 
 
130 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 country we have the means of making a comparison 
 between the status of an ' Established ' Church, and of 
 the same church when ' Disestablished,' or freed from 
 all connection with the State. It was the object of the 
 Government, and of Parliament in 1869 to sever entirely 
 the connection between the Church and the State in 
 Ireland, and to make the former a voluntary association, 
 on an equal footing with the other Free Churches of the 
 country. How was this done 1 What changes, in short, 
 did the Irish Church Act of 1869 bring about in the 
 Church of Ireland, to transform it from a State Church 
 into a Free Church 1 In the first place the ecclesiastical 
 corporations, sole or aggregate, were dissolved ; the bishops 
 were to lose their seats in the House of Lords ; the Crown 
 was to give up its right of appointing church dignitaries, 
 and its other patronage.^ Patronage was taken from 
 owners of advowsons, who were duly compensated. Bishops, 
 clergy and laity were empowered to appoint a represen- 
 tative body, which was to be incorporated by Her Majesty 
 as the governing body of the Church. The ecclesiastical 
 courts and the ecclesiastical law were abolished, and all 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction was to cease. As regards property, 
 the intention was to vest the whole in a tepaporary com- 
 mission with full protection for life interests, and in- 
 structions to re-endow the church body with the churches, 
 and glebe houses, and with what were called ' private 
 endowments,' i.e. all endowments made by private indi- 
 viduals to the church since 1660 : whilst due provision 
 was also made for the maintenance of those historic 
 buildings of the church, which as ' national monuments ' it 
 
 ' In Ireland the sale of livings, which is such a scandal to 
 the Church of England, was very rare. 
 
X.] DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE lEISH CHUKCH. 131 
 
 was the interest of the country at large should be efficiently 
 maintained. 
 
 On January 1, 1871, as Mr. Gladstone in bringing 
 in the Bill stated it, * the ecclesiastical courts in Ireland 
 would be abolished, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Ire- 
 land would cease, the ecclesiastical laws in Ireland would 
 no longer bind by any authority of law, the rights of 
 peerage would lapse on the part of the bishops, and all 
 ecclesiastical corporations in that country would be dis- 
 solved,' and hence ' disestablishment of the Irish Church 
 would he legally completed.^ 
 
 Thus the Irish Church acquired a new constitution ; 
 its governing authority being no longer the Parliament of 
 the United Kingdom, but a general Synod consisting at 
 present of two Houses which sit together, viz., the House 
 of Bishops, in which the twelve prelates have seats, and the 
 House of Bepresentatives in which there are two hundred 
 and eight clerical, and four hundred and sixteen lay repre- 
 sentatives. And this organisation was created, not by Par- 
 liament, but by the members of the Church, and is subject 
 to such alterations as the Synod itself may think it right 
 to make, without being subject to the control of any 
 external authority. 
 
 The Act of 1869 effected a great change in the con- 
 stitution of the Irish Church, and a considerable transfer 
 of property to national purposes other than those to 
 which it had been previously dedicated. The abolition 
 however of the ecclesiastical law, and of the jurisdiction 
 of the ecclesiastical courts must be explained, as its effect 
 might otherwise be supposed to be much greater than was 
 actually the case. Mr. Gladstone, in the speech already 
 
 It 2 
 
132 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 referred to, explained, that although the ecclesiastical laws 
 were to lose their force as laws, in which respect they 
 bore a relation to the whole community, yet they would 
 continue to exist as a form of voluntary contract, which 
 would bind together the bishops, clergy and laity of the 
 church, till they should be duly altered by the new repre- 
 sentative governing body, which the members of that 
 church were to appoint. And in accordance with this 
 intention, the Act of 1869 provided * that the present 
 ecclesiastical laws of Ireland, and the present articles, 
 doctrines, rights, rules, discipline and ordinances of the 
 said church, subject to future alterations, should be bind- 
 ing on members of the church, as if such members had 
 mutually contracted and agreed to abide by and observe 
 the same, and should be capable of being enforced in the 
 temporal courts in relation to any property which was 
 reserved by the Act to the church or its members, as if 
 such property had been expressly conveyed in trust, to 
 be held by persons bound to obey the said ecclesiastical 
 laws, articles, doctrines, rights, rules, discipline and 
 ordinances of the said church.' 
 
 Thus the Irish Disestablishment Act affected, first the 
 Church Constitution, secondly the Church Laws, and 
 thirdly the Church Property. In lieu of the Church 
 Laws, the same regulations as to doctrine, discipline, &c., 
 were to be valid among members of the Church, as contract. 
 
 The Church of Ireland in consequence of this great 
 statute became a 'Free Church.' But the expression 
 ' Free Church ' has given rise to a popular misapprehen- 
 sion as to the total exemption of voluntary religious 
 societies from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts of 
 
X.] CONTRACT INSTEAD OF LAW. 133 
 
 law. Where property and civil rights are at stake, in the 
 last resort, those tribunals to which alone all citizens must 
 })erforce submit, will of necessity have to decide between 
 conflicting parties. By the general assent of the members 
 of any religious communion, recourse to the secular courts 
 may be avoided, but in case of dispute waxing warm, 
 general assent is just that element which is wanting. 
 The members of Free Churches, like those of other asso- 
 ciations, are bound together by contract, and in case of an 
 alleged and denied breach of contract, or in case of a dis- 
 puted construction of contract, who is to decide ! What 
 could appear to be more outside the cognisance of an 
 ordinary court of law than the question whether doctrines 
 preached by the minister of a Free Chui'ch are the true 
 doctrines of that church, or more within the province of 
 that church itself to decide than the question who should 
 officiate as minister in its own church ? Yet these are 
 matters which in the last few years the courts of law 
 have had to determine. Property is left on trust to be 
 applied to certain religious purposes specified in the trust 
 deed. It may be that the Thirty-nine Articles are re- 
 cited, or referred to by the deed. If so the question may 
 arise, are the doctrines preached in conformity with the 
 doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles ? A few years ago 
 the officiating minister of a congregation of Particular 
 Baptists was dismissed from his chapel and charge by the 
 majority of his congregation, hut he disputed the lawful- 
 ness of the dismissal, and persisted in attempting to enter 
 the chapel, from which he was excluded by force. Thus 
 a point was reached when, whatever may be said about 
 the independence of voluntary churches, it became neces- 
 
134 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 sary for a ' mere court of la,w ' to decide who was the true 
 minister of a congregation of Particular Baptists. Each 
 party to the dispute was equally ready to ' appeal to 
 Csesar ; ' the minister promptly indicting his opponents 
 before a criminal court for rioting, and the congregation 
 applying for an injunction in Chancery, to restrain their 
 accuser from entering the chapel, or from acting as their 
 Tninister, 
 
 The court examined the trust deed, inquired as to 
 whether the action of the congregation was within its pro- 
 visions, and ultimately decided in favour of the minister. 
 In a civilised country, there can be no freedom from the 
 obligations created by contracts, and that extreme inde- 
 pendence which some would claim for religious associa- 
 tions is little better than a dream. 
 
 We have seen in an earlier chapter how the construc- 
 tion of the Ecclesiastical Laws of England, and of the 
 articles, doctrines, ordinances, &c., of the Established 
 Church, is the duty of the ecclesiastical courts, and 
 ultimately of the Privy Council. Were these laws, 
 articles, doctrines, &c., made vahd by way of contract 
 merely, it is by no means clear that they would be either 
 differently construed or less rigidly enforced. The prin- 
 ciples of construction are the same in the Privy Council 
 as in the High Court of Justice ; and it is abundantly 
 clear that the authority of the latter could not be ex- 
 cluded. In case of dispute it would be with a Free 
 Church of England as it was with the Particular Bap- 
 tists, and as it has been with many other Free Churches. 
 A clergyman persists, it may be, upon preaching doctrines, 
 or officiating in a manner, contrary to the provisions of 
 
X.] CONSTRUCTION OF TEUST DEEDS. 135 
 
 the trust deeds. One of two things must happen ; either 
 agreement with the adversary, and that quickly; or a 
 riot at the church door, with ' Caesar ' in the person of 
 the inevitable policeman, or represented by an order of a 
 * mere court of law.' The importance of the change effected 
 in the position of a church by disconnection with the 
 State, depends of course upon the closeness of the connec- 
 tion that previously existed, and upon the principles 
 adopted in carrying out disendowment. In Ireland the 
 change wa§ very considerable, as the influence of the 
 State exerted through the royal prerogative, through lay 
 patronage, and through parliamentary control, was very 
 great, and disestablishment in that country was necessarily 
 followed by the creation of a new church organisation. 
 
 In such a case, on the other hand, as that of the Church 
 of Scotland, with its own organisation complete from the 
 Kirk Session to the General Assembly ; without any royal 
 supremacy, for the relationship of the Crown to the 
 Church of Scotland is a purely ornamental one, and with 
 its patronage within its own control, it is difficult to see 
 what serious change in the position of the church would 
 be caused by an Act of mere Disestablishment. It is true 
 that parliamentary control according to constitutional 
 theory is as supreme over the Scotch Establishment as over 
 that of England, or as over that of Ireland before 1869. 
 But most assuredly any attempt on the part of Parliament 
 to exercise such a superintendence over the affairs of the 
 Scotch Church, as it without hindrance exercises over 
 that of England, would raise a protest against ' Erastian- 
 ism ' from the Northern Church such as no Parliament 
 would like to face. As has been pointed out earlier in 
 
136 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 this work, the formularies, ritual, &c., of the English 
 Church are contained in the Prayer Book, which is incor- 
 porated with the Act of Uniformity, a statute wliich 
 Parliament has several times amended during the present 
 reign. In England there is no other supreme governing 
 authority but Parliament; for Convocation of course 
 cannot be considered in that light, possessing almost no 
 recognised power, and not even containing, like the present 
 disestablished Church of Ireland, and the Church of 
 Scotland, any representation of the lay element in the 
 church. State endowment, on the other hand, is to the 
 Scotch, as to any other church, a matter of great import- 
 ance, and affects the interests of the nation at large as 
 well as of the church itself. 
 
 It is not desirable here to enter upon any controversial 
 topics, further than is necessary to explain our subject ; 
 but from what has already been said, readers may be left 
 tio judge whether the policy of religious equality as pur- 
 sued in Ireland can justly be described as a destruction 
 or an abolition of the church whose connection with the 
 State was completely extinguished by the Act of 1869. 
 
 The actual and material differences which exist 
 between the status of an ' Established ' and a * Free ' 
 Church have been above mentioned, yet it is not intended 
 to suggest that there are not many other considerations 
 of importance, though of a less tangible nature, which 
 may greatly influence the judgment to be formed upon 
 the results arising from the connection of Church and 
 State. By many persons supreme importance is attached 
 to what is called the ' national recognition of religion. 
 
X.] ESTABLISHED AND FREE CHURCHES. 137'^ 
 
 and to these such a statute as that of 1869 appears to be 
 nothing less than an Act of National Apostacy. Yet is 
 it not true, as Sir Koundell Palmer, no enemy of Esta- 
 blished Churches, in the debate on the second reading of 
 the Irish Church Act, expressed it, that national religion 
 is the reHgion of the people who constitute the nation ] 
 Is it anything different from the sum of the religion of 
 individuals, and is this necessarily less, under a system of 
 voluntaryism than where a ' state ' religion prevails 'i Is 
 Ireland nationally or individually a less religious country 
 at the present day than it was before 1869 '? The ques- 
 tion of Establishment vers^^s Voluntaryism must be looked 
 at from both sides, as affecting the nation as a whole, and 
 as affecting the special church under consideration : but 
 before such questions as these can be answered, it would 
 be well to apprehend clearly the main points of distinction 
 between an established and a voluntary system, to eluci- 
 date which, without going into too great detail, has been 
 the main object of the present chapter. 
 
 It has been said that the National Church offers a 
 ^ standard from which to dissent,' and thus its position 
 regulates and steadies, and moderates the action of those 
 under the influence of religious enthusiasts, whose extra- 
 vagance, as in the United States, would otherwise know 
 no bounds. On the whole, the political system, as it affects 
 religion, must be considered with reference to the existing 
 condition of things. At one age and in one country a State- 
 supported religion may be of the greatest benefit, or be 
 almost essential, to the national welfare, whilst at another 
 age, or in another country, the State connection may do 
 
138 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 more harm than good. The day is past when constitutions 
 either in State or Church can be regarded abstractedly, as 
 being absolutely perfect, and fit for immediate and uni- 
 versal application upon their own intrinsic merits, without 
 regard to the special necessities of the time, or to their 
 probable practical working. 
 
XI.] 139 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 In Scotland the growth and history of the Church were 
 very different from what we have seen in England. 
 The former country owed its early Christianity not to the 
 Roman monks who accompanied Augustin, but to the 
 missionary efforts of St. Columba and St. Kentigern, 
 better known by his Celtic name of St. Mungo. The 
 Celtic Christianity thus spread through the country 
 differed in several respects from the Roman pattern, and 
 it was not till after the lapse of centuries, and the intro- 
 duction of English influences and customs, caused by the 
 influx of fugitives from the South at the time of the Nor- 
 man Conquest, that Christianity of the purely Roman 
 type gained the ascendant. Of all the exiles none exer- 
 cised such influence as Margaret, sister of Edgar Athel- 
 ing, who, after the expulsion from England of the Saxon 
 line of sovereigns, fled to Scotland, where she became the 
 wife of Malcolm Canmore. To St. Margaret and to her 
 son St. David it was mainly due that a religion of the 
 type established in England prevailed over the old Celtic 
 system of the Culdees. Melrose, Holy rood, Kelso, Dry- 
 burgh, Jedburgh, and many other abbeys owed their 
 foundation to King David, as did a large proportion of 
 
140 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the Scottish sees. The constitution of Glasgow was copied 
 from Salisbury, that of Dunfermline from Canterbury, that 
 of Melrose from Rievaulx, in Yorkshire. As time went 
 on the ecclesiastics acquired in Scotland, as in England, 
 immense wealth and influence. They wielded great power 
 in the Estates, and often furnished to the Sovereign his 
 chief adviser in the person of a cardinal or archbishop. 
 The bishops in Scotland were not, as in England, a con- 
 stituent part of one House of Parliament only, leaving 
 the other free from their influence. In the Northern 
 kingdom, it may perhaps be necessary to remind English 
 I'eaders, the estates of the realm formed but one assem- 
 bly, or, as Andrew Fairservice put it, *in puir auld 
 Scotland's Parliament they a' sat thegither, cheek by 
 jowl, and then they didna need to hae the same blethers 
 twice ower again.' ^ The bishops, moreover, formed a 
 portion of that all-important committee of Parliament 
 called the Lords of the Articles, which in fact absorbed 
 within itself the greater share of Parliamentary autho- 
 rity. 
 
 The ecclesiastical courts in Scotland, as in England, 
 had acquired large authority over purely civil matters, 
 their sentences of excommunication, or ^letters of curs- 
 ing,' to use the common expression, being the favourite 
 process by which the obligations of contract were en- 
 forced, a process duly supported by the civil power. In 
 Scotland, certainly not less than in England, had the 
 vices of the ecclesiastics in the age preceding the Kefor- 
 mation excited general indignation and disgust ; and thus 
 before attacks upon the Koman Catholic doctrines had 
 1 Roh Roy. 
 
XI.] GKOWTH OF PEOTESTANTISM. 141 
 
 become formidable, the excessive power and wealth of 
 the ecclesiastics had excited general envy, and their cor- 
 ruption had called forth rebukes from the best of the 
 Churchmen themselves, and from Parliament. Great 
 effect was probably produced in the popular mind by 
 the sharp satires of those play-writers ^ who chose as 
 their favourite theme the vicious life of the religious 
 orders. Thus when the war of doctrine at length burst 
 forth, the Reformers found a powerful ally in the feeling 
 of enmity to the priesthood which was widely spread 
 among the people. 
 
 James V. did not die till the year 1542 ; yet through- 
 out his reign King and Parliament, while inclined to 
 favour reforms, were thoroughly orthodox in their 
 attachment to the doctrines of * Holy Kirk.' Queen 
 Mary was but a week old at her father's death, and in 
 the first Parliament of the new reign the attention of the 
 Estates was called by the Regent to the fact that there 
 was ' a spreading of heretics, mair and mair, in the realm, 
 sawand damnable opinions contrair to the faith and laws 
 of Haly Kirk ' and to the laws of the land. Nevertheless 
 throughout the whole of Mary's reign the Protestant 
 doctrines continued to spread. 
 
 * The most famous of these was old Sir David Lindsay of the 
 Mount. Readers of Ilarmion may remember the description of 
 the Lord Lyon King at Arms in Canto IV. — 
 * How in the glances of his eye 
 
 A penetrating, keen, and sly 
 
 Expression found its home ; 
 
 The flash of that satiric rage 
 
 Which, bursting on the early stage, 
 
 Branded the vices of the age 
 
 And broke the keys of Rome.' 
 
142 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 It would be of course quite impossible in such a 
 work as the present to give even the merest sketch of 
 the history of the Scotch Reformation, but two or three 
 characteristics may be pointed out which strongly distin- 
 guish it from the English Reformation, and which 
 have had much to do with the making of the Scot- 
 tish Church system of the present day. In England 
 the rupture with Rome was created by Henry YIII. 
 His son was an ardent reformer. Elizabeth's throne 
 depended upon her power to resist the Roman Catholic 
 powers of the Continent and the Romanist intrigues of her 
 own subjects. The Reformers in the matter of popular 
 influence followed rather than led the monarchs and their 
 statesmen. Cranmer, in order to please the King, ransack- 
 ing the universities for precedents and arguments in favour 
 of the divorce of Queen Catharine, was a Church reformer 
 of the English kind. John Knox dictating to Queen Mary 
 at Holyrood, with the sympathies of the Scotch people on 
 his side, was a reformer of a very different kind. The 
 Scotch Reformers were great popular leaders, as well as 
 preachers of a reformed religion. In Scotland during Mary's 
 minority and during her reign the Court was closely con- 
 nected with the Guises and the French Court, and had afc 
 heart the objects of the Catholic League. The Scottish 
 Church had in its early days to struggle hard against Popery, 
 and in later times against prelacy, and these struggles 
 were closely interwoven with the arduous contest of the 
 nation against absolute monarchical power and arbitrary 
 foreign dictation. Duiing the reigns preceding the Re- 
 volution of 1688 the Church found strong supporters 
 among all who valued their rights as free citizens, or 
 
XI.] THE LOKDS OF THE CONGKEGATION. 143 
 
 who as Scotchmen resented the exercise of English con- 
 trol. Hence its national character during these trying 
 times formed a marked contrast with that of the Episco- 
 palian or foreign system which succeeding sovereigns 
 tried so hard to establish north of the Border, and it was 
 at length found that presbyterianism, though subjected 
 to the severest persecution, could not be suppressed. 
 Like the burning bush seen by Moses, which is still the 
 emblem of the Scottish Church, though on fire, it was 
 not consumed.^ 
 
 A few words must be said upon the Scottish Keforma- 
 tion, and the ultimate triumph of a moderate presbyte- 
 rianism over an episcopalian system. 
 
 Before the year 1560 Protestant doctrines must have 
 made great way among the people. Knox had been loudly 
 preaching that the Pope was Antichrist, and that by the 
 law of Heaven the Roman Church had no right to the 
 teinds. Nevertheless in 1558, by the burning of Walter 
 Mill at St. Andrews, the adherents of the old faith showed 
 that they had still the power as well as the will to perse- 
 cute, and hence, for mutual defence, the Lords of the Con- 
 gregation, as the leading men among the Protestants were 
 called, bound themselves together by bond or covenant to 
 resist oppression. They and Knox determined freely to 
 practise their religion by the regular reading in all the 
 parishes on Sundays of the Book of Common Prayer {i.e. 
 Edward's Prayer-Book), and to petition the Sovereign to 
 establish the Protestant religion. 
 
 In consequence of the reliance of the Queen Regent on 
 
 1 The well-known emblem of the Scotch Church is the 
 * Burning Bush,' with the motto, 'Nee tamen consumebatur.' 
 
144 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 a French army, and the despatch of English troops by 
 Elizabeth to assist the Lords of the Congregation, an 
 entirely new direction was given to public feeling in 
 Scotland, where hitherto the strongest sentiment of the 
 nation had been hostility to their ' auld enemies of Eng- 
 land.' In the year 1560 the Queen Regent died, and Queen 
 Mary returned to Scotland, to find on her arrival that Par- 
 liament had accepted the Protestant confession of faith, had 
 suppressed the mass, and had in fact given full effect to the 
 petition of Knox and the Lords of the Congregation. Seven 
 years later, after Mary had ceased to reign, these statutes, 
 which hitherto had been without the Koyal assent,^ were 
 confirmed by the Estates under the regency of Murray. 
 After the death of Knox and throughout the reign of 
 James VI. the contest between Presbytery and Prelacy 
 inclined sometimes to the one side and sometimes to the 
 other. The early Scotch Reformers, and Knox among 
 them, had regarded Popery rather than Prelacy as the 
 enemy of the Reformation, and had seen the importance 
 of maintaining terms of friendship and alliance with the 
 Reformed Church of England. 
 
 The Reformers had had among them a large proportion 
 of the infl.uential classes, but times underwent a change and 
 many of the nobles and landowners, who had been ready 
 enough to give assent to the Protestant Confession of 
 Faith, began to look with a much more doubtful eye on the 
 provisions of the Books of Discipline ; particularly as they 
 affected the utilisation of the old ecclesiastical revenues for 
 Knox's three great objects, the support of the ministry, 
 
 ' It is not clear that in Scotland the Royal assent was essential 
 to the validity of Acts of the Estates. 
 
XI.] EPISCOPACY IN SCOTLAND. 146 
 
 the education of the people, and the relief of the poor. 
 The Church had early organised itself into a gradation of 
 Church courts, much like the system of the present day ; 
 but Parliament forbore for many years to suppress en- 
 tirely the Episcopal hierarchy which had previously pre- 
 vailed. Hence arose a curious combination of systems. 
 Though archbishops and bishops were recognised, their 
 authority was limited and they were made subject to the 
 courts of the Church and to the General Assembly. The 
 territorial classes favoured the Episcopate for reasons 
 which did them little credit ; and the Scotch public appears 
 to have been fully alive to the motives at work. If the 
 immense estates belonging to the unreformed Church were 
 to be utilised for the benefit of the E-eformers and the nation 
 as contemplated by Knox, the large number of landowners 
 who had already benefited by an absorption of Church 
 property would have to part with their recently acquired 
 wealth. It was the aim, therefore, of a considerable part 
 of the aristocracy to maintain Episcopal dignitaries with- 
 out allowing them to receive more than a small propor- 
 tion of the revenues of the sees. The revenues would 
 in this way not be dispersed, and arrangements could 
 be made with each bishop on appointment by which, 
 in return for a small stipend, a large share might be 
 retained by the lay owner of what was formerly Church 
 property. In short, many of the nobility favoured the 
 Episcopill system, but wished to leave to the bishop as 
 small a portion as was possible of the old endowments. 
 
 The Church, however, whenever it could find an oppor- 
 tunity of freely avowing its sympathies, declared steadily 
 against prelacy. The very names of arckbishop and bishop^ 
 
 L 
 
146 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 dean, chancellor, and chapter seemed to be ' slanderous 
 and offensive, to the ears of many of the brethren appear- 
 ing to sound of Papistry.' ^ 
 
 The mind of James vacillated. In the year 1592, after 
 his marriage with a princess of Denmark, he inclined 
 towards Presbytery. The Parliament repealed the * Black 
 Acts ' of eight years earlier which had authorised Episco- 
 pacy, and once more re-established the Presbyterian polity. 
 But James, supported by a nobility still hungering after 
 the wealth of the Church, turned later in his reign again 
 towards Episcopacy; an inclination which his removal to 
 England tended to strengthen. The Divine-right Bishop 
 of the Court of St. James naturally proved a more agree- 
 able courtier than the Scottish Keformer standing up 
 boldly for the subjects' right of resistance to a sovereign 
 who should * exceed his bounds.' The King, who a short 
 time before had declared the English service to be ^ but an 
 ill-said mass,' now became devotedly attached to the Eng- 
 lish poUty and ritual. Scotch ecclesiastics came to London 
 to receive at the hands of English bishops, and in the 
 authorised fashion, the true apostolical succession. In 
 their own country the term applied to these mock 
 bishops, viz. tulchans, showed the popular appreciation of 
 motives which undoubtedly brought many powerful allies 
 to support the Episcopal system.''^ Efforts were also made 
 to force upon the Scotch certain practices of English ritual 
 and religious observance. They were to take the com- 
 munion on their knees, and were to observe Christmas 
 
 ^ General Assembly at Perth, 1572. 
 
 2 The tulchan was the stuflfed calf, employed in milking, to 
 induce the cow readily to yield her milk. Here the bishop was 
 the tulchan ; the Church was the cow, milked of her revenues for 
 the benefit of the nobility. 
 
XI.] POLICY OF AKCHBISHOP LAUD. 147 
 
 and some other days as religious festivals. James would 
 have gone still further in this direction had he listened to 
 the advice given even then by Laud to make * that stub- 
 born Kirk stoop still more to the English pattern.' 
 
 But James was wiser than his son, and dared not 
 ' play fast and loose with his word.' He perceived 
 clearly, as he tells us himself, that Laud ' knew not the 
 stomach of that people ; but he himself called to mind 
 the story of his grandmother the Queen Regent, who 
 having been inveigled into breaking her promise, never 
 again saw good-day, but from thence, being much 
 beloved before, was despised by her people.' 
 
 Thus the attempt to set up Episcopacy under James 
 was associated with the most sordid motives.^ Charles 
 pursued the same ends, but with greater steadfastness of 
 purpose. Not only was he determined to have bishops ; 
 he intended them to exercise real episcopal power, and to 
 enjoy the old ecclesiastical revenues, a policy which once 
 more drove the territorial classes into hostility to the 
 Episcopalian system. But the efforts of Charles under 
 the guidance of Laud were not confined to setting up 
 Episcopal organisation and authority, and recovering for 
 the bishops the Episcopal revenues. Laud and the newly 
 created Scottish bishops revised the English Prayer-Book, 
 introducing a few changes in the Romanist direction, 
 and drew up a Book of Canons for the government of 
 the Scottish Church and clergy, and the King in right 
 of his alleged prerogative ordered general obedience 
 
 ^ The motives operating towards the setting up of Episcopacy 
 in Scotland are very forcibly pointed out in the Duke of Argyll's 
 Presbytery Examined. 
 
 l2 
 
148 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 and uniformity to both Service Book and Canons. The 
 history of the riot in St. Giles's, caused by the attempt 
 of the surpliced Dean of Edinburgh to read the new 
 liturgy on the famous Sunday of July 1637, is known 
 to all. The liturgy was lightly credited to Laud, and 
 Laud himself was popularly credited with the intention 
 of restoring Popery. The worshippers at St. Giles's 
 thought it was the mass itself which they heard 
 sounding in their ears. Protestant enthusiasm spread 
 through the country. The following year the National 
 Covenant was after religious services enthusiastically re- 
 newed in the Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh and 
 subscribed by multitudes throughout Scotland. ' Noble- 
 men, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and com- 
 mons ' took a solemn oath to maintain the Protestant reli- 
 gion, and to stand by and defend the King and the laws, 
 and pronounced their abhorrence of Papistry and their 
 detestation of the Eoman Antichrist. 
 
 The party of the Covenanters, which soon comprised 
 nearly the whole of Presbyterian Scotland, was not 
 satisfied with demanding the withdrawal of the Service 
 Book and Canons j they asked also for a free Assembly 
 and a free Parliament. The General Assembly met in 
 the Cathedral Church of Glasgow, in November 1638, 
 with the sanction of the King and in the presence of his 
 Commissioner, but business had hardly begun before it 
 became clear that the views of the Sovereign and of the 
 Assembly were irreconcilable. The latter was determined 
 to put the bishops upon their trial, and entirely to subject 
 them to the assemblies of the Church. The former not 
 only opposed these demands, but refused to allow the 
 presence of elders or laymen in Church councils. A 
 
XI.] THE WESTMINSTEE ASSEMBLY. 149 
 
 crisis had now come. The Eoyal Commissioner withdrew 
 from the Assembly and dissolved it in the King's name. 
 But the Assembly, among whom were no fewer than 
 seventeen peers, and many of the most influential men, 
 lay and clerical, in Scotland, refusing to disperse, at once 
 re-established the Presbyterian polity, abolished all the 
 Acts of the late packed Assemblies of King James, and 
 condemned the Service Book and Canons. 
 
 These proceedings of the great General Assembly of 
 Glasgow were ratified the following year by the Estates. 
 
 "When the war broke out between the King and the 
 Parliament of England, the Puritan party saw the neces- 
 sity of gaining as an ally the powerful army of Scotland. 
 Hence the Presbyterians and the Puritans began to draw 
 closer together, but it was not till after the Covenant, 
 now become the * Solemn League and Covenant,' had 
 been accepted by the English Parliament, as an inter- 
 national agreement binding on the three kingdoms, that 
 the Scottish army was put in motion. Popery and pre- 
 lacy were to be extirpated, if necessary, by force, and 
 religion was to be reformed after the pattern of the best 
 Reformed Churches. 
 
 The religious contest was now shifted from Scotland 
 to the meeting of the Assembly of Divines in the Jeru- 
 salem Chamber at "Westminster. Here, after long debate 
 and careful examination, the main standards of the Scotch 
 Church were decided upon — the Confession of Faith, and 
 the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. These were intended 
 as the final settlement of Presbyterian doctrine, not merely 
 for Scotland, but for England and Ireland also, through- 
 out which countries there was to be but one Church. 
 
150 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 The Westminster Assembly had, of course, no direct 
 authority to prescribe doctrine to the Scotch people. 
 Indeed, the Scotch Commissioners had not even a place 
 within that Assembly. The three ' standards ' ^ above 
 mentioned, which form the religious basis of the National 
 Church and of the other Presbyterian Churches of Scot- 
 land to this day, owed their authority to the General 
 Assemblies of the Scotch Church of the years 1647 and 
 1648, by which they were examined and approved, the 
 Estates subsequently ratifying the Acts of the Assemblies. 
 Hopeful as at this time appeared to be the prospects of 
 Presbytery, it was not long before it was seen that that 
 system had no chance of becoming predominant in Eng- 
 land ; whilst in Scotland very shortly afterwards Crom- 
 well used his soldiers to disperse the General Assembly, as 
 he had used them to disperse the Parliament of England. 
 Though deprived of its General Assembly, the Church 
 in other respects enjoyed a fair amount of liberty during 
 the Protectorate, and on the restoration of Charles II. 
 Churchmen confidently anticipated that the Presbyte- 
 rian polity would be re-established in all its complete- 
 ness. To bring this about the Church sent Commissioners 
 to London. But the King bore no love to Presbytery, and 
 Sharpe, one of the Commissioners, after a short stay in 
 London, returned, not for the purpose of establishing 
 the Church on a Presbyterian basis, but to spend the 
 remainder of his days as the primate of its hated rival — 
 
 * The Confessions of Faith and the Catechisms are but ' sub- 
 ordinate standards ' of the Presbyterian Chu rches, the Holy- 
 Scriptures themselves constituting the true standard, and con- 
 taining the * only rule of faith and manners.' 
 
XI.] PEELACY IN SCOTLAND. 151 
 
 namely, as Archbishop of St. Andrews. The first Par- 
 liament of the Restoration repealed by one sweeping 
 enactment all the Acts passed since 1640, including those 
 in favom* of the Presbyterian system. Scotch ecclesias- 
 tics once more journeyed to London to receive fresh 
 inspiration in the orthodox fashion from the imposition 
 of English Episcopal hands, and to renew in their own 
 country the stream which, for the second time, had 
 almost run dry. From the Restoration to the Eevolution 
 of 1688 the attempts of the Crown never slackened to 
 thrust upon the Scotch people the obnoxious prelatic 
 system of England, with the natural result of making 
 prelacy the more odious to the nation, from the per- 
 secution with which it was accompanied. 
 
 In the present day few enlightened Presbyterians 
 think that Episcopalian church government is necessarily 
 associated with civil tyranny in the State, but it un- 
 doubtedly happened in Scotland that from incidental 
 causes the triumph of prelacy was throughout closely 
 connected with the cause of absolute monarchy, or with 
 the selfish objects of a greedy aristocracy. ISTone who 
 read the history of Scotland during the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries can wonder that in that country 
 Episcopacy acquired a bad name. In the first half of the 
 eighteenth century such importance as that religious sys- 
 tem still retained was due more to its political connection 
 with Jacobitism than to its ecclesiastical character, and 
 when the Hanoverian line of monarchs had become firmly 
 established Scotch Episcopalianism rapidly ceased to be 
 an element of any weight in either the civil or religious 
 life of the nation. 
 
152 STATE AND CHUKCH. [chap. 
 
 The statutes passed in Scotland after the Revolution 
 are to the Scottish Church what the statutes passed in 
 England after the Restoration are to the English Church. 
 We have seen how the legal position of the Church of 
 England was defined and its Prayer Book authorised by- 
 Charles II. 's Act of Uniformity. By a statute of William 
 and Mary the Westminster Confession of Faith having 
 been read to the Estates, was ratified and confirmed, all 
 previous Acts against Popery and Papists were revived, 
 and Presbyterian Church government and discipline were 
 established — ' that is to say, the government of the Church 
 by Kirk Sessions, Presbyteries, Provincial Synods, and 
 General Assemblies.' ^ This was giving legal efiect to the 
 Church's Claim of Right, in which it was declared that 
 * prelacy and the superiority of any office in the Church 
 above presbyters is, and hath been, a great and insup- 
 portable grievance and trouble to this nation, and con- 
 trary to the inclinations of the generality of the people 
 ever since the Reformation ; ' a claim which had been 
 to some extent already given effect to by the Act of the 
 previous session abolishing prelacy. In 1693 the Con- 
 fession of Faith was made obligatory upon all ministers 
 of the Church, and a few years later, when the dread 
 of the effect of a union with a prelatic kingdom upon 
 religious orthodoxy was affecting the minds of most 
 Scotchmen, it was imposed in addition upon all pro- 
 fessors in the Universities and teachers in schools. It 
 is narrated that not merely the Confession ,of Faith, 
 but also the other Westminster standards were to have 
 been brought before the Scotch Parliament ; but that 
 » Act 1690, c. 5. 
 
XI.] THE PEESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT. 153 
 
 the House, after hearing the first, * grew restive and 
 impatient, and could stand out no longer,' and it is certain 
 that the Parliamentary minutes record an agreement to 
 leave out of the Act all mention of the Larger and the 
 Shorter Catechism. 
 
 The Covenant was not renewed ; on the contrary, it 
 was entirely ignored, to the intense disgust of the extremer 
 section of Presbyterians, who would not listen for a 
 moment to the suggestion * that the inclinations of the 
 generality of the people ' should be consulted when the 
 question seemed to them to be one of obedience or of 
 disobedience to the decrees of Heaven. The Covenanter of 
 the old type rejected the notion that ' vox populi ' was 
 necessarily, or even probably, * vox Dei.' He himself knew, 
 without a shade of doubt crossing his mind, what was 
 the will of God ; and he had seen himself, and had found 
 in the Scriptures, many instances of the people being in 
 flagrant opposition to the injunctions of the Most High. 
 
 Owing, however, in great measure to the wisdom of 
 WilHam III., the form of religion established was a 
 moderate Presbyterianism. The Confession of Faith was 
 the sole statutory doctrinal standard of religion in Scot- 
 land ; yet, in fact, the basis of the general religious 
 instruction given in that country to ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred Presbyterian children has been and is, 
 not the Confession of Faith, but the Shorter Catechism. 
 In short, as far as the masses of the people are concerned, 
 the Shorter Catechism, taught in all the Presbyterian 
 schools, constitutes the true religious creed of Scotland. 
 
 William was desirous of making the Scotch Establish- 
 ment more widely comprehensive of the various existing 
 forms of Protestantism than the Chui-ch was willing to 
 
154 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 allow ; and it was some time before he understood the 
 full meaning of the Church's claim to independence, and 
 of its vigorous repudiation of ' the headship ' of any 
 earthly sovereign. The King endeavoured to force upon 
 the Church courts, and upon the General Assembly itself. 
 Episcopalian clergymen who accepted the Confession of 
 Faith and were loyal to the new Constitution. But that 
 the King or the civil authority should prescribe who were 
 to be members of the General Assembly was accounted 
 the rankest Erastianism, the boldest invasion of the rights 
 of the Church, and so strained in consequence did the re- 
 lations become between Church and King that the Royal 
 Commissioner actually dissolved the Assembly without 
 appointing a day for its reassembling. It was two years 
 before it met again on the summons of the Crown ; and 
 then it was only by timely concession from the King that 
 a rupture was avoided and the crisis passed. From that 
 time to the present the Genera! Assembly has been 
 annually held, and the Crown and the Church have 
 continued on amicable terms. But the exist ingpractice 
 of adjournment invented by the Royal Commissioner and 
 the Moderator of the first General Assembly after the 
 Revolution, still bears witness to the claim of ^ supre- 
 macy' made by both Church and King. At whose 
 summons should the Church assemble, at the King's or 
 at its own 1 Every year, when the General Assembly has 
 completed its business, a day is appointed for its meeting 
 the year following, by the Royal Commissioner * in the 
 name of the Queen ' and by the Moderator * in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ.' And as Commissioner and 
 Moderator have agreed to select the same day, no awk- 
 ward question arises. 
 
XI.] THE PEESBYTEEIAN SETTLEMENT. 155 
 
 When the union between the two kingdoms was 
 in contemplation, the Scotch were naturally afraid that 
 their established religion might suffer in consequence 
 of their representatives being outnumbered by those 
 of England in the Parliament of Great Britain, and 
 that it would be in the power of future Parliaments to set 
 aside the devolution Settlement of the Church. Hence 
 they endeavoured to accomplish an impossibility, viz. to 
 bind their posterity for ever. By the ' Act of Secu- 
 rity' of 1705 the intention of the Scotch Parliament 
 was to secure * unalterably the true Protestant religion 
 as then professed within the kingdom,' and it was 
 therefore enacted that the said religion, and Hhe 
 worship, discipline, and government of this Church, 
 should continue without any alteration to the people of 
 this land in all succeeding generations.' Future 
 sovereigns of Great Britain on their accession were to 
 swear to maintain the said settlement of religion, and 
 the whole Act of Security was to be a * fundamental and 
 essential condition of any treaty or union to be con- 
 cluded between the two kingdoms, without any alteration 
 thereof, or derogation thereto, in any sort, for ever.' In 
 1707 these provisions were incorporated in the English 
 and Scotch Acts ratifying the Union, each of which 
 declared that the above-quoted Act of Security, along with 
 the Articles of Union, should ' be and continue in all time 
 coming the sure and perpetual foundation of a complete 
 and entire union of the two kingdoms.' ^ 
 
 ' Notwithstanding all these precautions, the Act of Security 
 has been amended, and partially repealed by a statute of the pre- 
 sent reign dealing with the religious tests which the former Act 
 strictly imposed upon the office-bearers of the Scotch Universities. 
 
^56 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND (continued). 
 
 The Presbyterian form of government finaUy estab- 
 Hshed by the Kevolution settlement remains substantiaUy 
 unchanged to the present day. The basis of the whole 
 system is the Kirk Session of the Parish, in which the 
 minister presides as moderator, and in which two or 
 more elders selected from the male communicants, who 
 are also heads of famihes, have seats. By various Acts 
 of Assembly it has been made incumbent on elders to 
 accept the Confession of Faith, though by the statute 
 law no test of orthodoxy is imposed upon the lay 
 members of any of the Church Courts. The Court next 
 in order above the Kirk Session is the Presbytery, 
 which comprises all the parishes within its bounds. The 
 members of the Presbytery are the parish ministers 
 and elders, or rather the minister and one elder from 
 each parish. If there is a University within the bounds 
 of the Presbytery, the Professors of Divinity (if they 
 are ministers) also have seats. The bounds of Presbyteries 
 as well as their number have been fixed by the General 
 Assembly. Presbyteries vary greatly in size. That 
 of Edinburgh, for instance, comprises between forty and 
 fifty parishes, and that of Glasgow more than seventy 
 
XII.] THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 167 
 
 parishes, while in thinly populated districts a Presbytery- 
 contains, perhaps, only half a dozen parishes. At the 
 present time the Presbyteries number eighty-four. Next 
 above the Presbyteries are the Provincial Synods, of which 
 there are sixteen, each comprising within its bounds a 
 certain number of Presbyteries. The members of each 
 Synod are the members of the Presbyteries within it. 
 
 Above the Synods is the General Assembly, at once the 
 Supreme Legislature of the Church and the Supreme 
 Court of Appeal in all ecclesiastical causes. This, the 
 governing body of the Church, is constituted out of 
 representatives of both clergy and laity. Each Presby- 
 tery sends two or more ministers and one or more 
 * ruling elders ' to the Assembly ; each of the Poyal 
 Burghs sends an elder; and each of the Universities 
 sends, as it chooses, either a minister or an elder. In the 
 present day the Churches of India in connection with 
 the Church of Scotland also have representatives in the 
 Assembly. By the statute of 1690 referred to in the last 
 chapter it was stipulated that the General Assembly 
 should be allowed to meet periodically, and should be 
 composed of ministers and elders in the manner it should 
 appoint in accordance with ' the custom and practice 
 of Presbyterian government throughout the whole 
 kingdom ; ' that it should have power to censure erring 
 ministers, to redress all Church disorders, and to deprive 
 any minister, whom it might convict or find con- 
 tumacious, of stipend and benefice. The constitution of 
 the General Assembly and its system of legislating have 
 been framed by its own ' Acts of Assembly.' One of these, 
 known as the Barrier Act of 1697, in the main regulates 
 
168 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the procedure to be followed in legislating for the Church ; 
 its object being, by requiring the reference of ' overtures ' 
 — that is, proposals accepted by the General Assembly — to 
 the Presbyteries for report to the G-eneral Assembly of the 
 year following, to ensure that measures should not pass 
 into law till the general opinion of the Church in their 
 favour has been obtained. But, as this would cause con- 
 siderable delay, it is a common practice for the Assembly 
 to pass ' interim Acts,' which become valid at once, and 
 so remain unless they are rejected by the Assembly of 
 the year following for not having obtained the general 
 support of the Church. The Assembly meets every 
 year in Edinburgh in the month of May, and its 
 business is conducted in the presence of a Lord High 
 Commissioner representing the Crown, who is usually a 
 Peer connected with Scotland, but not necessarily or 
 usually a member of the Church. His functions are 
 of a purely ornamental kind. When the General Assem- 
 bly is not in session business is conducted by the Com- 
 mission of Assembly, which meets at fixed periods, or 
 if desirable upon the mere summons of the Moderator. 
 
 Whilst the Church repudiates all inequalities of rank 
 among ministers, there is thus a regular gradation of 
 Church Courts from Kirk Session to General Assembly. 
 The judicial authority of these Courts consists in their 
 power to inflict spiritual censures upon members of the 
 Church and to depose ofiending ministers, who thereby 
 become at once deprived of their parochial emoluments. 
 The minister, however, cannot be made amenable to a 
 lower court than the Presbytery ; for, as we have seen, he 
 is himself moderator of the Kirk Session, and when he is 
 absent from it no business can be transacted. From Kirk 
 
XII.] THE COUETS OF THE CHURCH. 169 
 
 Session to Presbytery, from Presbytery to Synod, from 
 Synod to General Assembly an appeal lies ; and this is 
 not merely at the instance of a dissatisfied party, for the 
 superior court has jurisdiction to bring before itself for 
 review the decisions of an inferior tribunal. So long as 
 the decisions of these Church Courts are given in the 
 lawful exercise of their judicial powers, and in matters 
 purely ecclesiastical, they are not subject* to the review 
 of any civil court whatever. No appeal Hes from the 
 General Assembly to the Court of Session, to the House 
 of Lords, or to the Crown. But should the Church 
 Courts overstep their limits and abuse their powers, 
 the Court of Session will give redress to an injured 
 party against what it considers ^ the illegal sentence of an 
 ecclesiastical court. 
 
 In many respects the authority which a Presbytery 
 exercises over the parishes within it is analogous to the 
 authority of a Bishop over his diocese. In case of 
 breach or neglect of duty by a minister, or of his being 
 the subject of public scandal or suspected of heretical 
 doctrine, it is to the Presbytery in the first instance that 
 he must render account; whilst in the purely ecclesiastical 
 function of ordination to the ministry the Presbytery 
 in Scotland corresponds to the Bishop in England. It 
 is the Presbytery which, after due examination into the 
 morals, orthodoxy, and learning of a candidate, licenses 
 him to preach the Gospel, and the licensee, then known 
 as a probationer, though incapable of administering the 
 Sacraments of the Church, is in most other respects 
 
 ^ The real power resides in that authority which defines for 
 practical purposes the limits of the rival tribunals. 
 
160 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 qualified to exercise the ordinary ministerial functions. 
 The probationer, after a period of trial, must once more 
 establish his fitness before a Presbytery, must declare his 
 assent to the Scriptures as containing the only rule of 
 faith and manners, his acceptance of the Confession of 
 Faith, and his determination to maintain the Presbyterian 
 form of Church government. The power to administer 
 the Sacraments, the complete authority of a true minister 
 of the Church, is bestowed, as in England, by the impo- 
 sition of hands, the hands of the Presbytery in Scotland 
 transmitting to the new minister much the same spe- 
 cies of spiritual authority which in England can only be 
 communicated by the hands of the Bishop. The ceremony 
 of ordination takes place when the new minister for the 
 first time enters upon the charge of a parish. 
 
 Besides the extensive judicial powers possessed by the 
 Church Courts, legislative authority of a wide though 
 rather indefinite kind also belongs to them. In the 
 present day their authority, whether judicial or legislative, 
 is at all events limited to members of the Church. But 
 this was by no means the view that the Church itself took 
 in the earlier part of last century, when the Presbytery 
 of Edinburgh discharged from his clerical functions an 
 Episcopalian clergyman for using the English ritual, 
 which had been abandoned by the Scotch Episcopalians 
 and by the Bishops themselves for the greater part of a 
 century. The clergyman who disputed the authority of 
 the Presbytery was sent to prison, and the Court of 
 Session fully supported the legality of the action of the 
 Church. The House of Lords, however, reversed the 
 decision of the Court of Session, and a Toleration Act, 
 
xiT.] AUTHOEITY OP THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 161 
 
 subsequently passed, put such stretches of authority for 
 ever beyond the reach of ecclesiastical intolerance. 
 
 The much vexed question of the independence of the 
 Church cannot be adequately discussed here. It is easy to 
 lay down general principles, very difficult to apply them 
 in particular cases. ' The General Assembly/ it is said, 
 ' may define or explain articles of faith, condemn heretical 
 opinions, and make canons for the better establishment 
 of the government and discipline of the Church, provided 
 its resolutions be consistent with the laws of the realm 
 from which the National Church derives its whole au- 
 thority.' ^ Again, the courts of law have decided that the 
 General Assembly has no power to pass Acts aifecting civil 
 rights and patrimonial interests, or to alter the law of the 
 land, and in such cases the Court of Session will give rehef. 
 The question of the legal validity of an Act of Assembly 
 enabhng a congregation to veto the appointment of 
 a presentee whose patron had a right by the statute 
 law to present, raised for the consideration of the Scotch 
 Courts and the House of Lords the whole relationship 
 between Church and State in Scotland. The decisions 
 of the Courts, limiting the ' independence ' claimed by the 
 Church as one of its fundamental principles, caused the 
 disruption of 1843. These decisions have nevertheless 
 made it clear that absolute independence cannot exist in 
 a National Church — that is to say, in a Church which 
 belongs to the nation. Where there is a State Church, 
 the Church and its officers hold certain definite positions 
 recognised by the law of the land, and it is vain to 
 expect the State entirely to forego its authority in 
 ^ Erskine's Institutes of the Law of Scotland. 
 
 M 
 
162 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 matters which so intimately affect its own interests. 
 * When two authorities are up ' confusion can only be 
 avoided by the one or the other eventually becoming 
 ' supreme.' The contest in Scotland ended in the legal 
 victory of the State over the ecclesiastical authority of 
 the Established Church. An Act of Assembly is in law 
 waste paper, if it is in conflict with an Act of Parliament, 
 and the law laid down by the Court of Session is, until 
 overruled, as much entitled to obedience as an Act of 
 Parliament. The history of the dispute between Church 
 and State, which ended in the Disruption and the rise of 
 the Free Church, conclusively proves that an Established 
 Church is necessarily subordinate to the State if differ- 
 ences arise between them. 
 
 A similar conflict is seen at the present day in England, 
 though there the contest lies not between civil and 
 religious legislatures and tribunals, representing State 
 and Church, as it did in Scotland, but rather between the 
 only legislature and tribunals which exist, on the one 
 hand, and the claim of the individual clergyman to be 
 a law unto himself on the other. Whilst, however, the 
 Church of Scotland can no longer successfully maintain 
 its absolute independence, enough has been said to show 
 how much greater in fact is its power of legislating and 
 adjudicating on its own affairs than that possessed by 
 the sister Church in England. Parliamentary interference 
 with the affairs of the Church of Scotland, if carried any 
 length, would raise an outcry against Erastianism amply 
 sufficient to bring such interference to an end, or, if it 
 continued, to cause a fresh disruption, and even the down- 
 fall of the Church. If attention is paid rather to what 
 
XH.] CHUECH INDEPENDENCE. 163 
 
 exists in practice than to mere constitutional theory, 
 that which will most strike an impartial inquirer is the 
 slightness of the hold of State over Church in Scotland, and 
 how small virtually is the difference of position in that 
 country between an * Established ' and a * Free Church ' 
 in everything not connected with the subject of endow- 
 ment. 
 
 If the control of State over State Church is in Scot- 
 land very slight, it would be a mistake on the other hand 
 to suppose that the non-established churches enjoy 
 absolute freedom. The Free Church, for instance, there 
 is strong reason to believe, is absolutely tied down to its 
 standards, so that a majority of its General Assembly, 
 however large, cannot legislate so as to modify them. 
 The Free Church, as is well known, was in 1843 strongly 
 opposed to the voluntary principle. The United Pres- 
 byterians are pure voluntaries. A projected union of the 
 Free with the United Presbyterian Church a few years 
 ago was decried by a section of the former as a defection 
 from the principles of 1843. Had this project been per- 
 severed with it may be that a division would have taken 
 place in the former Church. And if so civil interests and 
 a large amount of property would have been involved in a 
 dispute which only the courts of law could have settled. 
 The opinion of very eminent counsel was taken, with the 
 result of its being ascertained that in point of law the 
 Free Church General Assembly, instead of being • inde- 
 pendent,' is strictly limited by the principles of 1843.^ 
 
 ^ See speech by Dr. Begg at Inverness, March 24, 1882 
 Anyone who takes an interest in the legal status of Churches, Es- 
 tablished and Free, considered in relation to their creeds, should 
 
 m2 
 
164 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 A Royal Commission appointed in the year 1834 to 
 inquire into the condition of religious instruction in 
 Scotland collected a vast mass of information. In the 
 opinion of the Commissioners no institution that ever 
 existed had at so little cost accomplished so much good 
 as the Church of Scotland. And at the present day 
 though there is much dissatisfaction expressed with the 
 existing position of the Church, it stands free from those 
 reproaches which have often been truly made against other 
 State Churches. The sale and purchase of livings, though 
 legal till 1874, was rarely practised in Scotland, public 
 sentiment, the feeling of patrons and ministers, and 
 the limited nature of the right of patronage possessed by 
 the patrons, all combining to render such a traffic generally 
 impossible. * Fat livings ' have no existence in the North. 
 There are no spiritual lords of Parliament, with their 
 incomes of many thousands per annum, to render more 
 glaring the inequality between the lot of fortunate 
 and unfortunate followers of the sacred calling. On the 
 contrary, the Church of Scotland, democratic or repub- 
 lican in constitution, has preserved not merely an equahty 
 of rank among its ministers, but also a very general uni- 
 formity of moderation in the scale of their remuneration. 
 In creed, in forms of service, in system of government, 
 the Church has been such as the Presbyterians of Scotland 
 of all denominations have always approved and still 
 approve. Though Dissent now prevails to a very large 
 extent, the dissatisfaction of Dissenters with the Church 
 
 read Mr. Taylor Innes's Law of Creeds in Scotland. There, and 
 in Lord Cockburn's Journal, will be found a discussion of many 
 problems the "interest of which is by no means limited to Scot- 
 land. 
 
XII.] THE PEESBYTEEIAN CHURCHES. 165 
 
 has not been due to any differences upon such matters as 
 these, and the voluntary Churches that have arisen hold 
 precisely the same creeds, pursue precisely the same forms 
 of public worship, and are governed upon precisely the same 
 system as the National Church. As the late Dean of West- 
 minster said of the Presbyterian Churches to an Edinburgh 
 audience,^ ' theirs is a uniformity which Rome might 
 have enjoined and which Lambeth might envy.' Those 
 who have left the Church have on the whole been more 
 rigidly orthodox than those who have stayed behind. 
 They have gone out not in search of greater freedom for 
 themselves, but because they could no longer remain in a 
 Church tainted with the Erastian character and the reli- 
 gious laxity inseparable from a State connection. In the 
 last and greatest of the secessions, that of 1843, the Free 
 Church in the very act of seceding did, it is true, strongly 
 assert the principle of a National Establishment. But it 
 was a claim of a kind to which in the present day it is 
 impossible for the State to yield ; for the aUiance con- 
 templated between Church and State was to involve in all 
 matters affecting the national religion an * independence ' 
 on the part of the former authority which left nothing 
 but absolute subservience to the latter. 
 
 It is not necessary to give any account of the various 
 secessions from the National Church, or to describe the 
 position which the voluntary Churches have attained, but 
 it is important to recognise the existing state of things, 
 viz. that the religious welfare of the people of Scotland is 
 now-a-days to a very large extent cared for by voluntary 
 
 ^ Lecture on Church of Scotland to Edinburgh Philosophical 
 Institution. 
 
166 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. 
 
 religious societies, which find in the zeal of their members 
 and in the freewill ofierings of their friends ample resources 
 for carrying out the work once supposed to be dependent 
 upon State aid. The National Church, great as are the 
 benefits which it has brought to the nation, is in fact 
 but one among several Churches which go far to rival it 
 in numbers, in wealth, in activity, and in usefulness. 
 Hence the weakness of its position, not as ' a Church,' 
 but as claiming a position which by force of circum- 
 stances and through no fault of its own has become an 
 exceptional one. 
 
 The resources of the Church of Scotland and the num- 
 ber of its members may be roughly estimated. 
 
 The wealth of the Church, due to its connection with 
 the State, consists of teinds, of receipts from burgh funds 
 in some town parishes, of churches,' of manses and glebes, 
 and of grants from the Consolidated Fund. The parishes 
 are nearly one thousand in number,^ and estimating the 
 value of the manses and glebes at 50,000^., the whole 
 provision out of State funds made for the clergy may be 
 taken at between 320,000^. and 350,000^. per annum, the 
 great bulk of which is supplied by the teinds. In this 
 revenue is included the sum of 16,O0OZ. paid annually 
 out of the Exchequer under certain Acts of Parliament 
 authorising the augmentation of small stipends. The 
 only other sums provided by the nation are the annual 
 
 ^ Churches and manses are maintained in repair out of money 
 raised by assessments upon the heritors. If the manse is in a 
 very dilapidated condition, the heritors may be compelled to 
 erect a new building. 
 
 2 If * Quoad Sacra ' parishes be reckoned the number of parishes 
 would be much larger. 
 
XII.] VOLUNTAEY SUPPOET OF EELIGIOIfinr lif ^ *, ^/V 
 
 grants of 2,000?. to the Royal Commissioner, of 2,00W. to '>^ ^ V 
 the General Assembly to provide ' itinerating preacK^i^' ^^ «* 
 and of 1,000?. to pay certain incidental expenses connd™^^^^ ^ 
 with the annual meeting of the General Assembly. ^^;>5*« -^ 
 
 In Scotland as in England the Established Church 
 draws very largely from voluntary sources. The number 
 of churches belonging to the Scottish Establishment 
 exceeds fifteen hundred, and, as those depending in any 
 degree upon State aid are about one thousand, the re- 
 maining five hundred must rely on voluntary support. 
 Since 1845 the Church claims to have created more than 
 three hundred new parishes, many of them with manses 
 and with an average stipend of 120?. per annum, provided 
 entirely by the freewill ofierings of its friends. The 
 total sums voluntarily raised for all purposes, including 
 increase of stipends, church building and extension 
 endowment of new parishes, home and foreign mission 
 work, and the like, amount, roughly speaking, to about 
 the same figure as those provided by the State. Thus, 
 without pretending to give absolutely accurate statistics, 
 there is reason to believe that the whole income of the 
 National Church may be put roughly at something under, 
 but approaching to, 700,000?. per annum, of which one half 
 is provided by the State and the other half out of the 
 present and past liberality of Churchmen.^ Putting the 
 average annual income of the Free Church as low as 
 500,000?., and of the United Presbyterians at 350,000?., 
 
 1 The late Mr. Baird settled 500,000Z. on the National Church 
 to meet the spiritual destitution of the people. It is to be 
 expended in promoting sound religious and constitutional 
 principles, based upon Holy Scripture as interpreted by the 
 standards of the Church of Scotland. 
 
168 STATE AND CHUECH. [chap. 
 
 the whole coming of course entirely from voluntary 
 sources, it becomes evident how small is the proportion 
 of assistance provided by the State for the maintenance of 
 religion in Scotland.* 
 
 As regards the number of members of the National 
 Church, it is impossible to make any safe estimate, for 
 no official census has been taken since 1851. On one 
 Sunday in that year, out of 944,000 attendances at church, 
 the Church of Scotland had 351,000, the Free Church 
 292,000, and the United Presbyterians 159,000. 
 
 The recent returns furnished to the newspapers by un- 
 official persons as to church attendance have been much 
 questioned, and could hardly be taken as a proper basis of 
 calculation. In the last few years, however, Parliamen- 
 tary returns have been obtained of the number of persons 
 entitled to take part in the election of ministers on the 
 occurring of a vacancy, a system which in 1874 was sub- 
 stituted for patronage. The electors in each parish are the 
 communicants and adherents.^ In 1 874 the communicants 
 numbered 460,000. In 1878 they numbered 515,000. 
 These figures have been much criticised. On the one 
 hand it is said they are too small, as in many cases only 
 showing the numbers that actually communicated in one 
 
 » At the last meeting of the Free Church General Assembly 
 the receipts for the preceding year from all sources and for all 
 purposes amounted to nearly 600,000^. During the same year 
 the United Presbyterians raised nearly 400,000Z, 
 
 2 The electorate is such as would rejoice Mr. Jacob Bright, 
 ladies forming a majority of the electors in every parish in 
 Scotland. Men of full age are in a very decided minority, 
 owing to the number of women and children among the com- 
 municants. Adherents must be of full age. 
 
XII.] THE ESTABLISHED CHUKCH. 169 
 
 year, instead of the whole number on the Communion roll. 
 On the other hand it is maintained that they are far too 
 large, the rolls, through carelessness, not having been 
 properly ' purged ' in cases of death or other disqualifica- 
 tion.^ The complete accuracy of these returns is of no 
 great importance. There is no doubt that the National 
 Church has a large following and an able and hard-work- 
 ing ministry, and just as little doubt that outside its 
 limits is to be found much of the energetic Presbyteri- 
 anism of the country. It has been shown conclusively 
 that Scotch Presbyterianism can work and thrive and 
 grow rich without receiving the slightest aid from 
 national funds. The future position of the State Church 
 depends upon the practical wants of the people of 
 Scotland and upon the spread among them of voluntary 
 principles and the desire for religious equality. Upon 
 such broad considerations rather than upon the rivalry 
 of difi'erent sects will the future religious system of that 
 country be ultimately settled. 
 
 Whether an Established Church be a ' scriptural ' or 
 ' unscriptural ' institution is not a question about which 
 those who care to dispute are ever likely to agree, and it is 
 certainly not one which need be discussed here. Again, 
 the value of a ' State recognition of religion ' is considered 
 a matter of the highest importance ; by many persons of 
 much more importance than the mere right of the ministry 
 to endowments out of State funds ; but of what, in fact, 
 this recognition consists beyond the presence of the 
 
 2 See article by Principal Kainy in the March number of the 
 Contemjporary Review of 1882. 
 
170 STATE AND CHURCH. [chap. xii. 
 
 Koyal Commissioner in the General Assembly it is very 
 difficult to ascertain. At all events the object of the 
 present chapter has been simply to deal with the facts of 
 the case, and not to speculate either upon the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture or upon remote consequences. 
 
 Endowment is something tangible and intelligible to 
 all. The word * Establishment^ on the contrary, appears 
 to convey very different ideas to the minds of different 
 people, exciting among many Dissenters an exaggerated 
 hostility to a Church singularly like their own, and 
 among many Churchmen an apparent belief that the 
 religion of the nation depends upon the connection being 
 preserved between Church and State. It may be safely 
 predicted that the religious interests of Scotland will 
 depend in the future, as indeed they do mainly at present, 
 not upon any State connection or recognition, whatever 
 it may amount to, but upon the efforts made by the 
 Presbyterian Churches out of their own resources, volun- 
 tarily raised, to minister to the religious wants of the 
 Scottish nation. 
 
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 A SERIES OF SHORT BOOKS ON 
 
 HIS RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 
 
 This series is intended to meet the demand for acces- 
 sible information on the ordinary conditions and the 
 current terms of om* political life. The affairs of 
 business, contact with other men, the reading of news- 
 papers, the hearing of political speeches, may give a 
 partial acquaintance with such matters, or at least 
 stimulate curiosity as to special points. But such 
 partial acquaintance with the most important facts of 
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 majority of men find within their reach. 
 
 The series will deal with the details of the 
 machinery whereby our Constitution works and the 
 broad lines upon which it has been constructed. The 
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 administered, whether imperial or local ; of the rela- 
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 electoral body, and its functions and constitution and 
 
The English Citizen — continued. 
 
 development. ; of the great scheme of national income 
 and its disbursement ; of State interference with the 
 citizen in his training, in his labour, in his trafficking, 
 and in his home ; and of the dealings of the State with 
 that part of property which is, perforce, political — the 
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The English Citizen — continued. 
 
 The following are the titles of the volumes : — 
 
 ^ 1. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT. H. D. Teaill, D.C.L., 
 late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. [Beadi/. 
 
 ^ 2. THE ELECTORATE AND THE LEGISLA- 
 TURE. Spencer Walpole, Author of * The History of 
 England from 1816.' [Ecady. 
 
 / 3. LOCAL GOVERNMENT. M. D. Chalmers. 
 
 ^ 4. JUSTICE AND POLICE. C P. Ilbert, Legal Member 
 of Council in India, late Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, 
 and F. Pollock, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, &c. 
 
 y 5. THE NATIONAL BUDGET: THE NATIONAL 
 DEBT, TAXES, AND RATES. A. J. Wilson. 
 
 [Readi/. 
 
 - 6. THE STATE AND EDUCATION. Henry Craik, 
 M.A. 
 
 ^ 7. THE POOR LAW. Rev. T. W. Fowle, M.A. [Ready. 
 
 L 8. THE STATE IN RELATION TO TRADE. T. H. 
 
 Farrer. 
 
 / 9. THE STATE IN RELATION TO LABOUR. 
 
 W. Stanley Jevons, LL.D., M.A., F.R.S. [Beady. 
 
 - 10. THE STATE AND THE LAND. F. Pollock, late 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. [In the press. 
 
 ' 11. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. Hon. A. D. 
 Elliot, M.P. [Ready. 
 
 12. FOREIGN RELATIONS. Spencer Walpole, Author of 
 
 ' The History of England from 1815.' [Ready. 
 
 13. (1) INDIA. J. S. Cotton, late Fellow of Queen's College, 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 (2) COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES. E. J. 
 
 Payne, Fellow of University College, Oxford. 
 
 MACMILLAN" & CO., London. 
 
#pimott^ of tl^e ^re^^. 
 
 ' Mr. Traill gives a chapter to executive government under the con- 
 stitutional system, another to the cabinet, and then one apiece to the 
 great offices of state. . . . The scheme Mr. Traill has carried out with 
 a great deal of knowledge and in an excellent manner. ... A clear, 
 straightforward stjle enables him to put his knowledge in a way at 
 once concise and lucid.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 ' A valuable little work, and will be found full of important infor- 
 mation which should be widely known and studied.' — City Press. 
 
 'If all the other contributors who are to follow perform their 
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 taking being successful. . . . Perhaps we may best convey what we 
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 inform himself how England was really governed in the nineteenth 
 century, Mr. Traill's book is the first we should put in his hands.' 
 
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 through all those stages with which we are now familiar, and he does 
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 The information is always full and clear, and there is very little of 
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 have superseded. . . . His work is a remarkably concise statement on 
 the whole question in its bearings on the rights and responsibilities of 
 English citizens.' — Athenjedm. 
 
 ' Mr. Fowle's treatise is a valuable little summary. ... It is worthy 
 of a wide circulation.' — The Academy. 
 
 * He has produced a masterly little treatise. ... At once historical, 
 comparative, and statistical, it will interest all who wish to under- 
 stand the important questions on which it treats.' 
 
 Manchestee Examinee. 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., London. 
 
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