Charles Fox, in a debate just a century since, observed, while
favourable to the principle of religious establishments, "If the
majority of the people of England should ever be for the abolition of
the Established Church, in such a case the abolition ought immediately
to follow." Macaulay, in his essay on Mr. Gladstone's youthful book on
"Church and State," was clearly of the same opinion. And Lord
Hartington, in his declaration a few years ago that if the majority of
the people of Scotland desired disestablishment their desire ought to
be satisfied, completed the chain of Whig traditional opinion.
If upon such a matter one is not content to swear by the Whigs, the
verdict of the bishops may be accepted. Dr. Magee, of Peterborough, has
declared that "Our Church is not only catholic and national: she is
established by law--that is to say, she has entered into certain
definite relations with the State, involving on the part of the State an
amount of recognition and control, and on the part of the Church
subjection to the State."
The very use of the common term "The Church of England as by law
established" involves recognition of the fact that what the law has done
the law can undo. And if any one doubts the power of Parliament in this
matter, let him read a table of the statutes passed in the session of
1869, and he will find that the most important of all of them was "An
Act to put an end to the Establishment of the Church of Ireland." Now,
the legal position of the Irish Establishment and the English
Establishment was identical. Is any further proof required that, if
Parliament chooses, the latter can at any moment be severed from the
State?
It is sometimes said that Nonconformist bodies are equally established
with the Church because they are subject to the law, as regards the
construction of their trust-deeds, and other matters, of which the
courts of justice have occasionally to take cognizance. But that is as
if it were argued that all persons who come within the enactments
affecting the relations between employer and employed should be
considered servants of the Crown as well as those engaged in the
government offices. The difference is plain: the law regulates all, the
Government employs only some. The Crown appoints the Archbishop of
Canterbury, but has no right to choose the President of the Wesleyan
Conference; Parliament can deal with the salaries of the bishops, but
cannot touch the stipend of a single Congregational minister.
There being no doubt that, if the people will, the Church can be
disestablished, a further question remains, "Ought it to be so dealt
with?" and the reply in the affirmative is based upon the lessons of
the past, the experiences of the present, and the possibilities of the
future.
The Church, though possessed of every advantage which high position and
vast wealth could supply, has failed to be "national" in any true sense
of the word. So far from embracing the whole people, it has gradually
become but one of many sects; and, had it not been for the efforts of
those who conscientiously dissented from its doctrines and its practice,
a great portion of the religious life we see in England to-day would not
have existed. Further, and from the time of its settlement on the
present basis, it has been the consistent friend to the privileged
classes, and foe to any extension of liberties to the mass of the
people. In defence of its position and emoluments it has struck many a
blow for despotism. The harassing and often bloody persecutions of
Nonconformists and Roman Catholics in England and Wales, and of
Covenanters and Cameronians in Scotland, were undertaken at its desire
and in its defence; while the hardships and indignities inflicted for
centuries upon the Catholics of Ireland were avowedly in support of "the
Protestant interest"--a Protestantism of the Establishment, in which the
Presbyterians were allowed little share. In its pulpits were found the
most eloquent defenders of the English slave trade, which was from them
declared to be "in conformity with principles of natural and revealed
religion;" and when Romilly strove to lessen the horrors of the penal
code, its bishops again and again came to the rescue of laws the
disregard of which for the sanctity of human life can in these days
scarcely be conceived. And when it was proposed to give to some extent
the government of the country to the people whom it mainly concerned, it
was the bishops who threw out the first Reform Bill.
At this present the efforts of the better men within the Establishment
are hampered by the State connection. It cannot bring its machinery into
harmony with the growing needs of the time without appealing to a
Parliament in which orthodox and heterodox, Catholic and Atheist, Jew
and Quaker, Unitarian and Agnostic sit side by side, and to which a
Hindoo has twice narrowly escaped election. By a Prime Minister
dependent upon the will of this body its bishops are chosen; by a Lord
Chancellor equally so dependent are many of its ministers appointed.
Because of the necessity for going to Parliament for every improvement,
little improvement is made. Private patronage is left untouched; the
scandal of the sale of livings remains unchecked; criminous clerks are
often allowed to escape punishment because of the cumbrous methods now
provided; and disobedient clergymen defy their bishops and go to prison
rather than conform to discipline, the law which permits persistent
insubordination and provides an unfitting penalty remaining unaltered
because Parliament has too much to do to attend to the Church.
As to the future, things are likely to be worse instead of better. Then,
as now, the connection between State and Church will injure both--the
State because it is an injustice to all outside the Establishment that a
single sect should be propertied and privileged by Parliament, and the
Church because it is as a strong man in chains attempting to walk but
only succeeding to painfully hobble.
In how many ways disestablishment would benefit the Church, let Dr.
Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, declare:--"(1) It would doubtless give us
more liberty, and enable us to effect many useful reforms. (2) It would
bring the laity forward into their rightful position, from sheer
necessity. (3) It would give us a real and properly constituted
Convocation. (4) It would lead to an increase of bishops, a division of
dioceses, and a reconstruction of our cathedral bodies. (5) It would
make an end of Crown jobs in the choice of bishops, and upset the whole
system of patronage. (6) It would destroy all sinecure offices, and
drive all drones out of the ecclesiastical hive. (7) It would enable us
to make our worship more elastic, and our ritual better suited to the
times." True, the bishop adds that the value of these gains must not be
exaggerated; but if disestablishment can do even as much good as this to
the Church, it cannot be the bad thing some of its opponents would have
us believe.
But it is sometimes urged that if the Church were disestablished, there
would be no State recognition of religion, and England would become
un-Christian. Is not this a technical rather than a real argument? Would
the number of Christians in this country be lessened by a single one if
the Church were deprived of State support? Was not the same thing said
when Jews were admitted to Parliament and Atheists claimed admission?
And has England ceased to be Christian because Baron de Worms is sitting
on one side of the Speaker and Mr. Bradlaugh on the other?
A more real argument is that disestablishment would break up the
parochial system; but those who use it impute a discreditable
lukewarmness to their own community. Seeing what the Wesleyans, the
Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the other dissenting denominations
have done to spread religion in every village in England and Wales; what
the Free Kirk has accomplished in Scotland; and what the Roman Catholic
Church has effected in Ireland--and all without a penny of State
endowment, and dependent alone for success upon the gifts of their
members--is it to be believed that the adherents of the Episcopal
Church, among whom are included the wealthiest men in the country, will
permit that institution to perish for lack of aid? Is not experience all
the other way? Is not that of Ireland in particular a striking testimony
to the wisdom of substituting the voluntary system for State support?
Upon this point the testimony of two Irish Protestant bishops is
abundant proof. The Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin averred, in
1882, that "no one could look attentively upon our Church's history
during the last ten or twelve years without perceiving that, by the good
hand of God upon them, there had been a decided growth in all that was
best and purest and most important. Never in his recollection had their
Church been more clear or united in her testimony to Christian truth, or
more faithful in every good word and work;" and Lord Plunket, the
Archbishop of Dublin, has congratulated his clergy that disestablishment
saved the Church from being involved in the land agitation, adding, "The
very disaster which seemed most to threaten our downfall has been
overruled for good."
The question is likely, however, to be considered a more immediately
pressing one for Scotland and Wales than for England. In Scotland it is
the Presbyterian and not the Episcopalian form of Christian government
which is State supported; and the fact that forms so opposed in striking
points of doctrine and practice should be established on the two sides
of the Tweed, is an interesting commentary upon the system generally.
When the majority of the members for Scotland demand disestablishment,
and press that demand upon us, it will as assuredly be granted as was
the like demand from Ireland just twenty years ago. And "the Church of
England in Wales"--supported by a small minority, and never enjoying the
confidence of the body of the people--should similarly be dealt with,
according to the wish of the Welsh parliamentary representatives.
The continued existence of the Church of England as an establishment is
the largest question of all, and it is one which politicians will have
to face, if not this year or next year, yet in the early years to come.
It is only its continued existence "as an establishment" which is in
dispute, for it would be a slanderous imputation upon its sons if it
were said that a withdrawal of State support would cause its collapse as
a religious body. The very strides it has made during the last few
years, which are sometimes urged in its defence, have been made not by
State help but by voluntary effort; and if that voluntary effort had
free scope, the good effect would be greater and more lasting.
What is wanted is that which Cavour asked, "A Free Church in a Free
State," for both would be benefited by the process, and particularly the
former. When the late Lord Beaconsfield was asked why, in the height of
Tory reaction, he made no effort to re-establish the Irish Church, he
replied that there was a difference between cutting off a man's head and
putting it on again. But the illustration was imperfect, for it is a
strange kind of decapitation which strengthens the patient; and that was
the effect in Ireland. And the Irish Church was not only disestablished
but _disendowed_. In the mind of the practical politician the two
processes are inseparable.
XV.--WOULD DISENDOWMENT BE JUST?
The question, "Would disendowment be just?" is admittedly a crucial
point to determine when the whole subject comes up for settlement, for
there are many defenders of the Establishment who exclaim, "We are quite
prepared for the severance of the Church from the State, but only upon
condition that she retains her endowments."
But the two concerns cannot be separated. Supposing the Government
engaged an officer to perform certain functions, and that, in process of
time, finding these functions not fulfilled, it determined to sever the
connection, would the officer be justified in demanding not only
consideration for his long service and his life interests, but that his
salary should be paid to himself and his descendants in perpetuity,
though directly neither he nor they would again render service to the
State? If it be contended that the illustration is not applicable,
because the Church receives no aid from the State, issue can be joined
at once.
For what is the first question that naturally arises? It is as to the
source from which the Church originally derived her revenues. "Pious
benefactors, stimulated by the wish to benefit their fellows and save
themselves," is the reply of the average Church defender. But any
attempt to prove this fails. Does a solitary person believe that every
proprietor of land in each parish of England and Wales voluntarily and
spontaneously imposed a tithe upon his possessions? Is it not an
admitted fact that it was by royal ordinance such an impost was first
levied, and by force of law that it has since been maintained?
This most ancient property of the Church in England, the tithe, is a
law-created and law-extorted impost for the benefit of a particular
sect. As far back as the Heptarchy, royal ordinances were given in
various of the kingdoms of which England was composed directing the
payment of tithes; and that the far greater portion of these were not
voluntary offerings is indicated in Hume's account of the West Saxon
grant in 854. "Though parishes," he observes, "had been instituted in
England by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, two centuries before, the
ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes;
they therefore seized the present favourable opportunity of making that
acquisition when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne, and
when the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes and
terrified with the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any
impression which bore the appearance of religion."
When England became one kingdom, and tithes were extended by royal
decree to the whole realm, penalties soon began to be provided for
non-payment, Alfred ordaining "that if any man shall withhold his
tithes, and not faithfully and duly pay them to the Church, if he be a
Dane he shall be fined in the sum of twenty shillings, and if an
Englishman in the sum of thirty shillings;" and William the Norman,
speedily after the Conquest, directed that "whosoever shall withhold
this tenth part shall, by the justice of the bishop and the king, be
forced to the payment of it, if need be." These provisions are part of
the common law of England, and they effectually dispose of the idea that
the tithe was a voluntary offering which the farmer to-day ought to pay
because of the supposed piety of unknown ancestors.
The proceeds of the tithe--which originally, according to Blackstone,
were "distributed in a fourfold division: one for the use of the bishop,
one for maintaining the fabric of the church, a third for the poor, and
a fourth to provide for the incumbent"--were the first great source of
revenue to the Church; but in the course of centuries that revenue was
largely added to by gifts. It was not uncommon for a man to hand over
his property to a monastery upon condition that he was allowed a
sufficiency to keep him; while the money given for the provision of
masses for the dead was a considerable aid to the Church in the Middle
Ages. And as the monks were exceedingly keen traders, their wealth was
increased by farming, buying, and selling to a degree that at length
tempted the cupidity of a rapacious king. It was during that period that
our great cathedrals and all our old parish churches were built; and
when, because of a divorce dispute, the Eighth Henry resolved to cut the
Church in England altogether adrift from the Church of Rome, he adopted
a measure of Disendowment which, though not complete, was very sweeping,
and proved in the most absolute form the right of the State to deal as
it willed with the property of the Church.
In the preamble of the Act dissolving the lesser monasteries, it is
declared that "the Lords and Commons, by a great deliberation, finally
be resolved that it is and shall be much more to the pleasure of
Almighty God, and for the honour of this His realm, that the possessions
of such small religious houses, now being spent, spoiled, and wasted for
increase and maintenance of sin, should be used and committed to better
uses." The State in this asserted a right it had never forfeited, and
which, by successive Acts of Parliament, has been specifically retained.
No one to-day would defend the fashion in which Henry took property
which had been devoted to certain public uses and lavished it upon
favourites and friends. The main point, however, is not the manner of
disposal, but the fact that it could be disposed of at all; and when any
one doubts the power of the State regarding the property of the Church,
a reference to what Parliament has done in the matter is sufficient to
show constitutional precedent for Disendowment.
But though much was taken from the Church at the Reformation period,
much was left, and it was left to a body differing in many important
particulars from that which had been despoiled. As Mr. Arthur Elliott,
M.P., a Whig writer, observes in his book "The State and the Church,"
"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
Reformation, 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."
The new Act of Parliament Church--for it had its doctrines and its
discipline defined by statute--became possessed, therefore, of the
cathedrals, the churches, much of the glebe, and a large portion of the
tithe that had been given or granted to the Roman Catholic communion,
which had held the ground for centuries. And succeeding monarchs, with
the exception of Mary, so confirmed and added to these gifts that "the
Judicious Hooker" was led to exclaim--"It might deservedly be at this
day the joyful song of innumerable multitudes, and (which must be
eternally confessed, even with tears of thankfulness) the true
inscription, style, or title of all churches as yet standing within this
realm, 'By the goodness of Almighty God and His servant Elizabeth, we
are.'"
And it was not only "His servant Elizabeth" who, among monarchs since
the Reformation, has assisted the Houses of the Legislature to
pecuniarily aid the Church. Queen Anne surrendered the first fruits, or
profits of one year, of all spiritual promotions, and the tithe of the
revenue of all sees, in order to create a fund for increasing the
incomes of the poor clergy; but Queen Anne's Bounty comes straight out
of the national pocket, for, had our monarchs retained this source of
income, it would have been taken into account when the Civil List was
settled at the commencement of the reign, and at least L100,000 a year
saved to the Exchequer. And the nation has even more directly helped the
fund, Parliament having, between 1809 and 1829, voted considerably over
a million towards it.
But this is not all. Dealing merely with national money appropriated to
Church purposes during the present century, it may be added that in 1818
Parliament voted a million sterling for the purpose of building
churches, that in 1824 a further sum of half a million was granted for
the same purpose, and that a subsequent amount of close upon ninety
thousand pounds has to be added to the total. And not only by large
grants did Parliament help the Church. In the old days of Protection,
when almost every conceivable article was taxed, the duty chargeable on
the materials used in the building of churches was remitted, this
amounting between 1817 and 1845 to over L336,000. A drawback was also
granted on the paper used in printing the Prayer Book, and this, while
the paper duty was levied, could scarcely have averaged less than a
thousand a year. In small things, as in great, Parliament helped the
Church, for an Act of George IV. specifically exempted from toll the
carriage and horses used by a clergyman when driving to visit a sick
parishioner.
I claim, therefore, that the State has a right to dispose of such
property of the Church as was not given to it in recent times by private
donors, knowing it would be appropriated to the purposes of a sect; and
I claim it because the tithes were law-created, because the bulk of the
possessions passed from one communion to another by force of law, and
because the State has continued to pecuniarily aid the Church throughout
the centuries during which she has existed. And, if constitutional
precedent be demanded, they are to be found in abundance upon the
statute book, notably in the measures affecting the monasteries, the
Tithe Commutation Act, and the Act putting an end to the Established
Church in Ireland.
If it be urged, as it sometimes is, that, because the original royal
ordinance enforcing tithes was granted before our regular parliamentary
system was in existence, Parliament has no power to deal with it, it
must be answered that in all matters within these realms, touching
either life or property, Parliament is supreme. And, as bearing even
more directly upon the point raised, it may be added that rights of toll
and market, granted to boroughs by royal charter before Parliaments were
chosen as at present, have been altered and abolished by Parliaments
since; and that Magna Charta itself, signed many years before Simon de
Montfort called the first House of Commons into being, has been
modified, and often modified, since that event.
If further proof be wanted, not only of the power but of the will of
Parliament to interfere directly in the monetary affairs of an
Established Church, the Act disendowing the Irish Establishment eighteen
years ago, and another passed fifty years since, chopping and changing
the salaries of the English bishops, may be referred to. And, regarding
a further measure of the last half-century, the words of such a sturdy
Conservative as Lord Brabourne, used in a letter written in 1887, are
eminently satisfactory:--"The Tithe Commutation Act was nothing more nor
less than the assertion by the State of its right to deal with tithes as
national property."
But, it may be said, the property, whether contributed by private
benefaction or royal grant, was distinctly given to the Church, and
ought not, therefore, to be taken away. I dispute both points of the
contention. The property was allotted to a Church which acknowledged the
supremacy of the Pope, and it is used by one which abjures it; to a
Church possessed of seven sacraments, and used by one with only two; to
a Church believing in transubstantiation, and used by one holding that
doctrine to be a dangerous heresy; to a Church with an unmarried clergy,
and used by one in which the large families of the poorer parsons are
their stumbling-block and reproach; to a Church which performed its most
sacred mysteries in the Latin tongue, and used by one whose ceremonies
are delivered in a language understanded of the people. If it be true
that the Church to-day is the Church as it has always been, why, in the
name of common reason, was Cranmer, the Protestant, burned by Mary, and
Campion, the Jesuit, hanged by Elizabeth?
From the fact that the Church of England is not a corporation--that is,
it has not property in its own right, and what is possessed by its
members is vested in them not as proprietors but as trustees--there
flows the consequence that it is mainly the life interests of those
engaged in clerical work which have to be considered. And those life
interests will be considered and generously dealt with when the time for
disendowment arrives.