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A Journal of Religion, Politics, Literature. and Art.

No. 1.-VOL. I.]

THE

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1876. [PRICE THREEPENCE.

OUR DANGERS AND DUTIES.

suffragans and those of all the clergy, to a new Parliamentary Judge (over whom they henceforward have no shadow of control), is simply an act of treason to their Master. An English General who did likewise on a field of battle would be deservedly shot as a traitor to his Sovereign. And if there had been any of the peers in the House of Lords, who had grasped the great question at issue, when the P.W.R.A. was being passed, the Archbishops would have been deliberately impeached. But there were none. English Politics are so much a matter of chicanery and compromise now-a-days, that even the Tories, having packed away their old principles, are paralyzed and powerless. The noble and convenient policy of "Drifting" is the easiest of adoption; and, in these times, the most reasonable to work. Hence the silent Revolution was accomplished with only slight obstruction and unimportant hindrances.

HE ordinary Englishman, never over-fond of change, is somewhat tardy in realizing a new and altered position. Take the case of the scientific iron-clads, for example, certain (as Experience has told us, though few admit the warning,) to sink and go to the bottom in a conflict or a collision; ugly vessels which have efficiently destroyed British seamanship such as existed in the days of Rodney, Howe and Nelson; and which, in any coming war, having gone down with all hands and drowned their crews, will leave the defence of our almost unprotected shores to forts, gunboats and the militia. Some of the wisest and most thoughtful of our naval authorities know and allow all this. But, as one of them recently remarked to us, "Scientific quackery must have its day. Absurdity in construction must triumph by disaster; and then John Bull will perhaps open his eyes, Happily, however, for both Church and State, a few men, kick the quacks overboard, realize the damage which has laity as well as clergy, see the danger and are resolved to meet been done, and swear a little because he has to pay for it." Or it. They may not succeed. Possibly they will not. Some contemplate the other service. Mr. Cardwell, as everybody more far-sighted than their brethren, come forward as volunnow admits, did more to destroy the efficiency of the English teers in a forlorn hope; who (holding firmly to principle) will army than the modern Quakers or the great Napoleon. Yet speak out when others are dumb; who will act while others are he was rewarded by a peerage; and now the poor British paralyzed; and who decline to brag and fiddle while the City is in taxpayer is involved in a huge expenditure to undo and repair flames. Principles, however, are always better than numbers. what Mr. Cardwell did and destroyed. These men have confidence that when people's eyes are fully opened to the new position which Dr. Tait's Revolution has illegally effected, union and co-operation must begin in earnest. They have no belief whatsoever in existing organizations, guided by feeble one-sided men, of stammering words and wilful weakness;-long ago convicted of incompetence, and only tolerated because their hands grasp the accumulated sinews of war.

So it is in matters ecclesiastical. At Mr. Disraeli's recommendation, Dr. Tait was made Archbishop of Canterbury. The appointment of Mr. Buckstone to be Bampton Lecturer, or of Lord Russell to command the Channel Fleet, would not be more incongruous. The then Bishop of London, a strong Liberal, an unsuccessful schoolmaster, no theologian, and having no ecclesiastical experience; a violent partizan at Oxford (where he had for his allies the leading latitudinarians, who drove Dr. Newman out of the National Church,) he has certainly accomplished a perfect and complete Revolution. Men may shut their eyes and not choose to see it; may drug their consciences and not allow it; but, with the Public Worship Regulation Act on the Statute Book,-there it is! And what renders this Revolution so alarming is that none of the Bishops appear disposed to admit the evil. Of course, until this is done, no remedy can be tried and no amendment effected. The Diocesan Courts of the various Bishops (as far as regards all practical questions,) are abolished. The right of a Presbyter, articled for any breach of the law as regards Divine Service to be tried in them, is altogether gone. An appeal to the Arches' Court (in case of miscarriage of justice in the Diocesan,) is rendered out of the question. For there is no Arches' Court to which to appeal. There is not the least reason why, in Dr. Tait's novel enactment, the new Parliamentary Judge might not have been the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Judge Advocate-General, or the Chairman of the Board of Works. These exalted officials have just as much as, and no more spiritual authority in causes ecclesiastical, than Lord Penzance. His Lordship has none, for this reason:-Neither a corporation nor a person can give what it does not possess. Parliament possesses no spiritual jurisdiction whatever, and, by consequence cannot bestow any. So with the Archbishops, their jurisdiction is a trust; and they can no more give it away absolutely and without power of recall, than they can dispose of their Sees' temporal possessions to their wives' poor relations. Being ignorant of both the Constitutional and Canon Law themselves, they may respectively delegate their inherent right of interpreting Canon and Statute Law to a judge of the Arches' Court or the Chancery Court of York-for there are general precedents both at home and abroad for this, and no one would quarrel with them; but to have assisted in suppressing their own Provincial Courts, and to have handed over their rights, the rights of their

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As regards our dangers we need scarcely stay to depict them. They abound. Persecution has commenced: not, at present with rack or faggot; but by concussing and overbearing the consciences of Churchmen at the suggestion of our rulers. The Archbishop, who if he had clung to the ancient misbelief of his forefathers in the (to him) unattractive land of his natural birth, might have become the Parish Minister of a Scotch burgh or a successful country-town attorney-nothing more. Here, alas! by the recommendation of Mr. Disraeli, he is Primate of All England. He has forged an efficient weapon for all Anti-Erastians: and what Dr. Ellicott calls "the majestic progress of the Law" will soon begin its onward march and do its efficient work. The sooner and more efficiently, the better.

As regards our duties, it must be first remembered that the laity and the clergy sink or swim together; and that the former, in rejecting this new and odious Erastianism, can by a broad and bold policy most efficiently help the latter. Only three courses are open to the clergy. Firstly, abject and complete submission to the dictates of the bishop of the diocese, which ought to be secured beforehand, on every detail, in writing; so as to avoid ruinor costs and temporal ruin,throwing all the responsibility of change and disorganization of congregations on him. Secondly, a calm and resolute repudiation of the New Court; a determination not to recogmize or plead before it, but to suffer eventual deprivation; and, thirdly, that complex and unintelligible policy which the English Church Union (against his own better judgment, as is reported,) has so fatally advised Mr. Ridsdale to adopt. We do not venture to predict what may be the eventual upshot of the adoption of either course-except this, certain and speedy Disestablishment. A communion framed on the new Tait model, with Lord Penzance for its spiritual Pope, infallibly expounding Public Opinion,-neither deserves, nor is likely, to live. It must ere long be buried in the unconsecrated Cemetery of departed Impostures.

[WITH A SUPPLEMENT.

4

Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that men, while awaking to the danger of a catastrophe and collapse any day, are looking about them for a remedy and a refuge? We do not, of course, allude to the noisy handful of fear-stricken Disclaimers, who, with such delightful consistency, have in a panic eaten their former words and hastily flung away what tattered shreds and patches of principle they once owned. The British Public, and Catholic Churchmen abroad, from very different standing-points, have each measured the value of their words, and duly noted their questionable consistency. Their counsel and aid would be very feeble reeds indeed, on which to lean. But we do allude to the hundreds of clergy and thousands of laity, brought up in the old Tractarian school, whose principles and piety are alike true and commendable; who are shocked week by week at the change which has taken place in the tone and temper of an extreme party, which was once led by gentlemen, and had the reputation of being at least Christian in its thought and language. Many of these desiring to compare opinions, after facing difficulties, and to look on to the future, are with us in cordiality and action. The need of Union is forcibly pressed upon them: not simply Reunion at Home-a good work, but a work at which its well-meaning promoters have begun at the wrong end of the difficulty, but Reunion between ourselves and the rest of Western Christendom. For they feel this need increasingly. In England the Education of the poor is now taken out of the hands of the Clergy. The churchyards of the National Church will soon be open to the preachers of unclean sects and to the frowsy orators of Atheism. Even the Tory Leaders are evidently preparing to betray the Church, and are only waiting to do the work decently and with some plausibility. The miserable minority of thirty-one is an ominous warning. And, of course, the principle of the churchyard being national property will soon be applied to the churches. Churchmen should remember that Dissenters own a principle and stick to it through thick and thin; carrying it out by hook or by crook on every reasonable and unreasonable occasion; whereas their own "great leaders" and advisers are too often at sixes and sevens, never know their own minds two minutes together, and are either eaten up with complacent self-satisfaction or are weakened by over-confidence or personal jealousies. The following from the Congregationalist, describing their supposed relations to church and churchyards, may be of use as indicating the Dissenting policy:

"A section of the parishioners were content to celebrate worship according to the rules of the Book of Common Prayer, and they have been permitted for a time to have the exclusive use of a building which was intended for the use of their neighbours as well as themselves. What can be more reasonable than that, while this privilege is granted them, they should be required to keep the building in repair? As was suggested the other day at Derby, this principle explains the restoration, not only of parish churches, but of ancient Cathedrals, which is going on all over the country. When property is held under a repairing lease, and the lease is about expiring, the tenant is very busy in putting the premises in a tenantable condition; and the universal restoration of churches shows that our tenants not only recognize the obligation imposed upon them by law, but are resolved to discharge their obligation in a very handsome manner."

If the Secularist, Anabaptist, and Infidel combine, must not those who claim to hold the Catholic Faith combine likewise?

Now, as regards Reunion, -on the basis of a common principle, to be faithfully applied by both parties to the transaction,-nothing could be more pressingly necessary or practically beneficial. Wherever there is a community claiming to be a part of the One Family of God, yet inherently weak because of its isolation, let the principle of Authority be admitted on both sides, and then honestly put into practice. Without this nothing can be done. The two communions, which are the largest, most venerable and most influential in the world, are the Church of Rome and those Oriental Churches which pay deference to the Patriarch of Constantinople; and it would be a most wise and blessed step for members of the Church of England to endeavour to secure Reunion with either. But such single action would only be one step. Reunion with both is what is needed; not by reason or actions of unworthy compromise or politico-Ecclesiastical need, but on some common and recognized principle.

And this is quite out of the question,-quite a dream, a mere chimera, unless some plain and obvious principle of Authority is admitted. In any such scheme, apart from such a principle, who could treat for the Church of England? Who for the Church of Rome? Who for the communions of the East? Then again: Have the Colonial Churches, founded from England, any duties to the See of Canterbury? If so, what are they, and what are their character and limits? On what principle do they rest? And, if Canterbury reasonably claims some moral authority over the provinces of Canada, South Africa and Australasia,- a point on which Archbishop Tait is said to feel strongly,-how can the claims of Rome, who founded Canterbury,-claims which have been consistently and reasonably advanced for fourteen centuries,-be passed over? Has His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (saving the rights of that new noble Lambeth functionary, Lord Penzance), no ecclesiastical superior in the world? To advocate Corporate-Reunion, therefore, apart from, and independent of Rome, is a fantastic phantasy and an impossible aim. Those, of course, who prate about the Scarlet Lady and infallibly explain the Apocalypse, the ordinary Protestant with a mental twist and a moral obliquity-are quite consistent, however intellectually ridiculous in their grotesque attitudes as prophets of evil. They have declared the Pope to be the "Man of Sin" and themselves to be the Elect of God. So cadit quæstio. But the English Churchman of the type of Cosin, Wake and Keble, unable to adopt the Protestant theory, reasonably holds that of the Thirtieth Canon of 1603, which asserts that it is was far "from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France and Spain," &c. This Canon, of course, may now be asserted to mean no more than the insincere and wordy wail over the loss of the "Godly discipline" of "the Primitive Church," which is yearly droned out amongst us "at the beginning of Lent," -a discipline which apparently stands no more chance of being restored under present circumstances than the Saxon Heptarchy. But the Canon certainly marks out a boundary within which it is perfectly lawful for English Churchmen honestly to take their stand; while it satisfactorily defines a moral and legal position which cannot for one moment be left undefended, and which, in the future, may be found of immense practical importance.

The clergy-indeed, all Churchmen-have been betrayed by those who were put into places of position and influence, The perhaps with the express objects of betraying them. old foundations have been deliberately removed. Our Pastors, without their consent, without Convocation being consulted, and in the face of Protests, have had new and illegal conditions forced upon them from without, whether they like them or not. By brute force their ordination-compact is violently broken. The moral contract, therefore, no longer binds. This being so, self-preservation, the first law of Nature, steps in; so that if the course of Drs. Tait and Thomson's Erastian-car be not marked out and prepared for, spiritual death must surely supervene. We all need, therefore, to be up and doing.

THE COURT OF DIVORCE AB OFFICIO ET BENEFICIO.

A

FALLACY offers obstructions to the elucidation of truth similar to those which a shoal puts in the way of navigation. THE PILOT, therefore, cannot be better occupied, than in pointing out to Church men certain very egregious fictions and fallacies which Lord Penzance has recently formulated in defence of the jurisdiction and powers which he professes to wield.

It is perhaps an unusual circumstance for a judge on the bench to set about proving that he is what he professes to be: it is possible to "protest too much" and the spectacle irresistibly reminds us of Jacob dressed up in goatskins to represent Esau, or of the domestic quadruped which clothed itself in a lion's skin and was imagined to be a lion till it opened its mouth. In the case of Lord Penzance and the office which he holds, the process of putting on the skin has been necessarily carried on in public; and there have been people who from the first have obstinately declared that all the efforts made by Parliament, in a moment of panic, prejudice, and passion, to clothe a purely secular Judge with spiritual authority, would be of no avail. This has led Lord

Penzance into an attempt to prove that he really is what the Act of Parliament calls him, "Judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and York." We must assume that the defence which he makes is the best that can be made in behalf of his office; and we now proceed to examine and refute it for the benefit of our readers.

Lord Penzance first of all states the case against himself in four propositions which he undertakes to disprove. Whether he succeeds in doing so, our readers will judge for themselves. They are stated by him as follows:-1. "That this Court is a new Court." 2. "That its authority is independent of the Church." 3. "That the Bishops' Courts, which ought properly to entertain such questions as those now before me, have been by Parliament suppressed: " and 4. "That a lay tribunal has been set up in their place, to sit in judgment not only upon ritual, but on soundness of doctrine and the mysteries of religion."

Lord Penzance affirms, and we call attention to his words, "that every one of these four propositions is absolutely incorrect in fact." We accept the issue, and proceed to show that the first proposition, viz., "that the Court over which he presides is a new Court" is absolutely correct. We shall deal with the others on a subsequent occasion.

"In the first place," his Lordship goes on to say, "the Public Worship Regulation Act did not from one end to the other of it create any new Court, or indeed any Court whatever."

Instead, however, of beginning at "one end" of the Act, his Lordship carries us per sultum to the seventh section. We prefer to examine the contents of the previous sections before following his Lordship into the seventh.

Now our readers must bear in mind that the Act is a composite measure, consisting partly of the original measure introduced by the Episcopate, and which we may call the Bishops' Bill, and partly of Lord Shaftesbury's scheme of Clergy Discipline, which was substituted by the House of Lords for the Bishops' scheme, and dovetailed into the skeleton of the original measure by the efforts of Lords Cairns and Selborne. It is this heterogeneous character of the Act, and the fact that it was passed for a different object from that which was pretended, which are the cause of all the quibbles, fictions, misstatements, and fallacies which have been resorted to in its support. The first six sections belong to the Bishops' measure, with the seventh Lord Shaftesbury's scheme begins: this has to be borne in mind in order to understand the way in which the Act contradicts and stultifies itself.

The fourth section plainly distinguishes proceedings taken under the Act from proceedings taken under the Clergy Discipline Act. The next section provides that "nothing in this Act contained, save as herein expressly provided, shall be construed to affect or repeal any jurisdic-| tion which may now be in force for the due administration of ecclesiastical law." These sections evidently contemplate the co-existence of two different systems of Clergy Discipline: one, that which existed before the passing of the Act of 1874, and the other, that which is contained in that Act, of which the eighteenth section expressly provides that persons proceeded against under one system shall not be liable to proceedings under the other. The seventh section, which Lord Penzance quotes, enacts that within six months after the passing of the Act the two Archbishops shall appoint a person having certain specified qualifications to be "a Judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and York."

It is, however, also provided in this section, that the choice of the two Archbishops must be made, subject to the approval of the Crown; and that if they do not appoint within six months, the Crown may appoint a person to be such Judge.

It is further enacted that the person thus appointed should, on the first vacancy in those offices, become ex officio Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury and of the Chancery Court of York, which are respectively the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and York.

These provisions and the difficulties connected with them are wisely ignored by Lord Penzance, who taking so much of the section as suited his purpose, says, "At the time the Statute passed there were very learned Judges (sic) presiding in each of these Courts, though they have both since then retired, and the enactment which thus created a

new Judge to be a Judge in both of them, without defining his relation to the existing Judges, may be fairly criticised on that score, but is not open to the opposite charge of having created a new Court."

We give this wonderful passage in extenso. It is inaccurate in point of fact, and it reveals an appalling amount of. ignorance as to the nature of Provincial Courts in a personage who claims to be Judge of two such Courts at one and the same time.

The Provincial Judge is the delegate or representative of the Archbishop, wielding the jurisdiction of the Archbishop in contentious causes. That jurisdiction cannot be given by the Archbishop to two different people acting independently of each other, any more than a sixpence can belong to two different people at one and the same time. Two Provincial Judges, armed with co-ordinate and independent powers, are as impossible in one Province as two Archbishops, or as two Ambassadors of France in England. Lord Penzance is not accurate either when he says that at the time of the passing of the Statute there were "Judges" in each of the Provincial Courts: there was but one Judge in each Court and there could be but one.

The theory, then, that after his appointment Lord Penzance was an additional Provincial Judge, will not bear the test of examination. Now we invite the attention of our readers to the following point :-Suppose Sir Robert Phillimore, instead of consenting to become a Divorce Judge, had continued for his life-time Dean of Arches, and had outlived Lord Penzance: it is evident that the latter could never have been Dean of Arches: yet, unless he was to draw his large salary for doing nothing, he must have heard cases under the Public Worship Act, must have tried and condemned clergy, in the capacity so queerly described in the Act as a Judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury and York, hereinafter called the Judge."

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But if the person "hereinafter called the Judge' could not be, as we have shown, a Provincial Judge, while the office of Provincial Judge in each Province was not vacant, it follows that he must have been a new kind of Judge, and a new kind of Judge involves "a new Court."

The main question, however, which needs consideration, is whether it was within the competence of Parlia ment to provide that this person "hereinafter called the Judge" should become ex officio Official Principal of the Provincial Courts. That the two existing Archbishops should be willing to accept this provision settles nothing; for the Act infringes the inherent rights not only of themselves, but of their successors, for whom they were only trustees, and whose rights they could not therefore give away.

What is the Provincial Court? The Provincial Court is the Court of the Archbishop of the Province. It is, in the ancient language of the law, "a Court Christian," a part of the Church's organization. The State can, of course, give to this Court, or to any other "Court Christian," any secular powers which it may choose to give, just as it can give a Bishop a seat in the House of Lords; but it cannot alter the constitution of a Court Christian or create an additional judge of a Court Christian, any more than it can alter the Bishop's spiritual office or turn a Dissenting preacher into a priest of the Church. This was well put by Mr. Canon Carter of Clewer, to the great wrath of the Times. The State cannot make a thing be so-and-so by merely calling it so-and-so; this is the attribute of Omnipotence. Parliament might if it were so minded enact that Sir William Harcourt should, on the next vacancy, become ipso facto Archbishop of Canterbury; and Sir William might think himself Archbishop and comport himself accordingly with great unction; but the whole thing would be a fraud and a delusion.

Unfortunately, the nature of the office of judge of the Provincial Court is not so well understood as that of Archbishop. The Provincial judge is the Archbishop's representative, deriving his authority from the Archbishop, quá Archbishop, and not from any Act of Parliament or civil authority whatever. The institution belongs to the internal machinery of the Church. Parliament may, of course,. persecute it or favour it; it may forbid the Provincial judge under pains and penalties to exercise his office, just as it may forbid a priest to teach the Gospel or to baptize; and in each case the individual servant of the Church has to choose between Christ or Cæsar; but Parliament cannot make a

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