13 JUNE 1868, Page 7

THE CROTCHETTY CHURCH LIBERALS ON THE IRISH CHURCH.

AMONGST the most remarkable political spectacles of our time are the apologies made by the genuine but crotchetty Church Liberals,---of whom Professor Brewer, of King's College, is perhaps the best specimen,—for the Irish Church. Professor Brewer wrote a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette of Monday, wherein he recited why he regarded Mr. Gladstone's propositions on the subject "with dismay,"—why he considered that they had been "foisted on the world" under the most atrociously "false pretensions,"—why, though wearing "the mask of liberty, they are most perilous to liberty,"—why, while vaunting " their justice," they are, to his thinking, "grossly unjust." Of course all sincere supporters of Mr. Gladstone's policy, who know, as almost all men know, that Professor Brewer is a very liberal Churchman, and a very able and learned man, read his letter with the sort of trepida- tion with which a schoolboy looks at his Latin composition after the schoolmaster has corrected it. They must have felt some surprise and some relief to find that Professor Brewer's grounds for the severe opinions we have quoted are something like those old-fashioned grounds for condemning Shakespeare's dramas, that they "violate the unities of space and time ;" or the equally striking grounds on which we have heard formal artists condemn the composition of a picture, that it does not illustrate the contrast between 'solitude' and 'confusion' by putting one stray sheep alone, and then grouping half-a-dozen more together at a little distance. Equally unreal and destitute of all practical significance is Professor Brewer's imperious but yet very cobweb-like objection to Mr. Gladstone's proposals that they will strike at the principle of the Royal Supremacy in Ireland. Even Mr. Disraeli's assertion that they will strike at " the principle of establishment," is more intelligible and more practical than that, for unquestionably they will strike at the "ab- stract principle of establishment," if there be such an abstract principle at all ; but Professor Brewer himself expresses a, doubt whether the abolition of the Irish Church will, or indeed can strike at the principle of the Royal Supremacy, though this seems to be his sole ground for objecting to Mr. Gladstone's policy. He tells us, with what seems to us undeniable accuracy, that the fact of a Royal Supremacy "is involved in the very essence of Sovereignty," and "though the Free Kirk man, the Roman Catholic, and the Dissenter, im- patient of such control, think they escape it by setting up Churches of their own, they are just as much amen- able to its authority as the Episcopal Churchman." And Professor Brewer might, we suppose, have proved this, if he had chosen, by reference to the fact that if any dispute arises amongst Free-Kirk men, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters, as to the legal power of any body in any of these Churches to control the actions of individuals, whether with regard to pro- perty or otherwise, the appeal to enforce obedience or con- formity to contract must always be, in the last resort, to the regular Courts of law and justice, which derive their authority formally from the Throne. Well, but if the Royal Supremacy can't be invalidated by Dissent, Free Churchism, Romanism, or any other species of ecclesiastical polity, why object to Mr. Gladstone's policy on the ground that it will invalidate what cannot be invalidated ? As far as we understand Professor Brewer's reply, it is that all these Free Churches, all Churches directly unregulated by the State, except so far as they are forced to appeal to the State to settle their internal disputes, are, inasmuch as they are not thus regulated by the State, in the position of criminals who break the law, to which, nevertheless, they are as amenable as ever. "A criminal," says Professor Brewer, immediately after that last sentence of his which we quoted, "may demur to the jurisdiction of the Court to which he is responsible. The Court may, for considerations of its own, forbear to inflict the penalties. But the jurisdiction remains the same : the Act of Supremacy is valid over all, though for wise reasons it may not be enforced against all. It is inalienable, however exercised, however forborne." We confess that, valiant State Churchmen as we are in all cases in which a State Church really satisfies a great national want, the vast and sweeping character of this extraordinary suggestion,—for it cannot be called an argument, —startles us beyond measure. What can Professor Brewer mean ? If he only means that, except by spontaneous and mutual consent, the members of all Churches, as of all families and other associations, can only enforce upon each other such obligations as the law, looking to their specific contracts, is willing to enforce, he states a truism which has absolutely no bearing on the question. The law will enforce on the Disestablished Anglican Communion any obligations which the members of that communion have • taken upon themselves, unless it thinks such obligations hurtful to the nation and State. The law cannot enforce more on the Established Anglican Communion. The only difference is that the State, in virtue of its grant of national property to a particular Church, lays down many con- ditions for that Church which it thinks it unwise and wrong to lay down for Churches which have sprung out of private efforts, and live upon voluntary subscriptions. The Royal Supremacy is enforced, as Professor Brewer truly says, in all Churches alike. But in a State Church, the State prescribes the theological conditions of association, as well as enforces those specific contracts the observance of which it requires from all associations, ecclesiastical or otherwise. There is no question therefore of resisting the authority of the State in any Church ; the only question is as to the extent to which that authority shall extend. Now does Professor Brewer really mean to contend, on the one hand, that every Church ought to ask the State to determine for it its theological con- ditions of association ? or, on the other hand, that the State should desire, or even, without desiring, be willing to prescribe, if requested, the theological conditions of a hundred various religious societies ? If he means as much as this, we stand positively aghast at his devotion to State control. If he means this, we cannot see why he should not wish the State to prescribe as well as enforce the conditions of association of every philanthropic society, every joint stock-company, every scientific institution. Yet if this is not his meaning, what can he mean by comparing Churches which do not accept but dislike active State-control, to criminals who demur to the jurisdiction of a Court to which they are yet amenable, and who, if not punished, are only let off their punishment for reasons of policy ? If Professor Brewer means anything at all by defending the Irish branch of the Anglican Church on the ground that it adopts, more frankly and truly than any other Church in Ireland, the principle of the Royal Supremacy, he means to intimate that other Irish Churches,— Romanist, Presbyterian, &e.,—which have tried to ignore this principle, are blamable for so ignoring it ; and that even if, for political reasons, it is wise to pardon them, it is none the less necessary to make them feel their comparative unworthi- ness. Is this the serious view of a sane politician ? Are Roman Catholics, whose first principle of ecclesiastical faith is the circulation of a certain sacerdotal grace through the whole hierarchy from its fountain in the Bishop of Rome, blamable because they do not ask the State to tell them the true limits of their theological comprehension ? If so, they are blame- able, not for distrusting the State, but for being Roman Catho- lics at all. It is pure nonsense to blame religious associations founded on one creed, for not applying to the State, which has lent its influence to the inculcation of another totally different creed, to regulate their theological terms of com- munion. Yet if no blame attaches to them for not adopting so silly and suicidal a course, why are they to lose all the benefit of a great national property, even though they constitute five-sixths of the nation, and why are the remaining sixth to monopolize that benefit ? Professor Brewer seems to deny this. He says rather transcendentally, and we must say to us quite unintelligibly, "The Established Church is the Church of all men,—of Dissenters, of Presbyterians, of Roman Catho- lics ;"—which is very like saying that dry ground is meant as much for the fishes as for the creatures of the land, and the air for moles no less than larks. The State Church is meant for any one who can use it, but if any Christian's belief is not adapted for it, it is clear that it is not adapted for him. It seems to us that State property is meant for the benefit of the State, and if five-sixths of the people of the State deny that they can derive any benefit whatever from a particular appropriation of it, without changing their religious nature, it is no use for Professor Brewer to point out eloquently that, if they would change their religious nature, they might avail themselves of it. You might as well reproach your horses with not availing themselves of the animal food provided for your dogs, and maintain that, though they would not eat it, as it was at their service all the same, they ought to be equally grateful for it. The whole character of Professor Brewer's argument, though it seems to fascinate a good many of our Church Liberals, is in the highest conceivable degree unreal and doctrinaire.

The plain truth is that if the Irish Church is disestablished to-morrow, there will be practically just as much and just as little of Royal Supremacy in Ireland as there was before. One rather insignificant sect will no longer, unless it chooses, recognize the comprehensive theological conditions laid down by our supreme Court of appeal in ecclesiastical causes, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, indeed may, on the contrary, if it wishes, adopt stricter theological conditions of its own, to which, when so adopted, the lay tribunals will hold its members bound. In that case, undoubt- edly, the spiritual freedom of one small religious body in Ireland will be pro tanto diminished, and members of the pre- sent Anglican communion who desire this spiritual freedom, will have to keep out of the new communion, and set up, if they are numerous enough, a communion of their own, which shall agree to be bound only by the doctrinal decisions of the Courts of the United Kingdom. We admit to Professor Brewer that if this result follows disestablishment, and so far as it does so, there will be a small set-off against the good results of Mr. Gladstone's proposals. But to talk of this making any tangible change in the degree of recognition accorded to the Royal Supremacy in Ireland is ridiculous. And as to Professor Brewer's assertion that it will break up the last protection against the tyranny of sects, nothing can be more absurd. Will not the State defend any individual's religious liberty, even though he stands utterly alone in his profession of faith, as much as ever ? If any number of per- sons who have valued the comprehensive character of the State Church choose to associate themselves voluntarily on the theological basis of the existing State Church, will not they be as much protected as ever? Professor Brewer, in his passion for Royal Supremacy, seems to us to rave about the abstractions of a dream. The tangible change proposed by Mr. Gladstone, is to reappropriate national pro- perty to a truly national purpose, by which the bulk of the nation may not only be benefited, but know that they are benefited,—which even Professor Brewer will admit they do not at present. The Royal Supremacy remains just where it was,—a fact, so far as it asserts that no other law can overrule the law of the United Kingdom; the only difference being that the State waives its right of determining what that law shall be in respect of a given religious community, in favour of the members of that community, though still maintaining and defending the liberty of every individual to choose whatever worship and profess whatever creed he honestly prefers.