THE CHURCH AND THE NONCONFORMISTS.
WE publish to-day the first portion of an article by one of the ablest and most experienced of ecclesias- tical lawyers dealing with a matter which we have often discussed in these columns—the right of a parishioner, whether Conformist or Nonconformist, and whether con- firmed or unconfirmed, to partake of the Communion in his parish church, provided that he is not an open and notorious evil liver. That, and that alone—we dismiss the obsolete ground of repulsion in regard to depraving and denying the Royal supremacy in causes ecclesiastical —is the only ground on which he can be repelled. It is not merely a question whether a clergyman can give the Communion to an unconfirmed person without incur- ring any legal penalty or legal censure, lay or ecclesiastical, but whether a clergyman has any authority to repel on the ground of non-confirmation. And here we may note that "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer" does not give a bare "opinion," but supports his view with a minute, learned. and impartial examination of the authorities that govern the case. He also sets forth the traditional policy and practice of the Church of England—a policy and practice which up to a very few years ago had always been in favour of the open Communion, and against shutting the gates of the National Church on persons who do not usually conform to the services of the Church of England, or who were not in their youth brought up among Conformists and presented to a Bishop for con- firmation.
In our issue of to-day "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer" deals with the main issue. In the concluding portion of his article, which we shall publish next Saturday, he deal, with the objections commonly brought against his view, and sums up the existing law in four "conclusions." These conclusions show that there is a statutory right conferred by the rubrics of the Communion Service on all parishioners to present themselves to receive the Lord's Supper, and that there is no lawful cause of repulsion except that mentioned in the prefatory rubric. Important as is our contributor's carefully considered opinion in view of the controversy over the open Communion at Kikuyu, a matter which is about to be inquired into by the Lambeth Committee, it is infinitely more important in view of the agitation in favour of Disestablishment on the ground that the Church of England cannot claim to be a National Church. It is this aspect of the question, indeed, that has always made us regard the point as one of extreme moment. It may be remembered that some four or five years ago, in dealing with the problem of Welsh Disestablishment, we pointed out how substantial wee the claim of the Church of England to be the Church of the whole nation, and to stand between us and the great evil of a secularized State. We further pointed out that the law, in Fuller's phrase, " unchurches " no man, and that every Christian inhabitant of England is a member of the
Church, and can at any time make good his claim upon her ministrations. No one has any power to drive him from the Church or to deprive him of his rights in the Establish- ment. The fact that he belongs to some other ecclesiastical body, or usually fails to conform to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, has no effect whatever in depriving him of his churchmanship. The law rightly names him a Nonconformist. It never describes him or treats him as a person who has been excluded from, or has lost his rights in, the National Church. The Church, in fact, is as wide as the whole nation.
In reply to our article setting forth the share possessed by the Nonconformists in the Establishment, a Welsh lady, a Wesleyan by birth and conviction, denied the validity of our argument in favour of the National Church by telling her own story. Living far away from any place of worship belonging to the Wesleyan Church, she had been in the habit of attending Communion in the parish church, the vicar making no objection to her presence. After she had exercised her rights in this way for several years, a newly appointed vicar repelled her from the Communion Table solely on the ground that she had not been confirmed—a repulsion with which, apparently, the Bishop of the diocese agreed. "You will thus see," she told us in effect, " that your argument is unsound. I have been proved to have no rights in the National Church unless I am willing to be confirmed, which I am not." In answer we told her that she had been illegally deprived of her rights, that the clergy- man and the Bishop had no power whatever to make confirmation a condition of her receiving the Communion, and that they could repel her on no ground except that of open and notorious evil living. We held, in fact, that to require her confirmation was totally illegal, and, though without his learning and wealth of precedent, took exactly the view of the rubrics taken by "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer." A good deal of controversy 'followed in the columns of the Spectator, but though at the time we appeared to have very little support from lawyers, we felt sure that we had proved that no clergyman would commit any offence, civil or ecclesiastical, by giving the Communion to unconfirmed persons, just as it is always given to foreign members of the Royal Family who have not received episcopal confirmation, and that the governing rubric was the rubric in the Communion Service, and not that in the Confirmation Service. When, however, we found that so high an authority as "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer" not only upheld our view, but even amplified it and extended it, we were moved to ask him to place his learning at the disposal of the readers of the Spectator and of the country in general in order to reinforce our point that the Church is the Church of the whole nation, and that parishioners cannot be "unchurched" by action such as that which the vicar and the Bishop took in the case of the Welsh lady mentioned above. And here we may say that, though for various reasons he does not think it desirable to give his name, "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer " stands well-nigh unrivalled in his experience of ecclesiastical causes during the last thirty or forty years. He has, besides, occupied "high judicial offices" both in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts.
What makes the opinion of "An Ecclesiastical Lawyer" of special value is the strictly judicial temper in which it is written. It is evident that the writer's desire is simply to state the law exactly as it exists, and nothing else. He is not trying to show what the law ought to be, but setting forth what it actually is.
Though we shall make no attempt on the present occasion to recapitulate the arguments of "An Ecclesias- tical Lawyer," we desire to deal shortly with one point. When his article is concluded it will be seen therefrom that the confirmation rubric has, and was meant to have, only a special and local application. Its object is to encourage and support the institution of confirmation, and with it the proper religious instruction of young persons, not to repel any person of an age of discretion from receiving the Communion. The rubric in question also clearly deals with those whom we may call Conformist children—i.e., those who are under the direct care and within the instructional sphere of the clergy of the Church, those, in fact, who can be described as the Church's "own people" or flock in a special degree. Before such children are fully grown up every effort should, of course, be made to complete their religious instruction. Provisions and restrictions made in regard to their preparation and instruction cannot, how- ever, be transferred to adults who were not when young amenable to similar influences, were not, in fact, the Church's " own people" in that special sense of which we have spoken. When the question ceases to be one of Church children, and has reference to adults of discreet age, then the Communion rubrics, and the Communion rubrics alone, govern the case. But those rubrics say nothing whatever in regard to confirmation. They ignore it, both when they are insisting upon the obligation on all parishioners to attend the Communion, and when they are laying down the very narrow grounds upon which alone parishioners can be repelled. If it had been meant to place confirmation on almost the same level as the Communion Service, which is what a section of the Church are now inclined to do, the Prayer Book would clearly have put want of confirmation in the foreground of the reasons for repulsion.
But even if it could be shown that there is nothing in the point that the confirmation rubric refers only to persons brought up in the sphere of Church influence, and if it could be proved that the rubric was meant to have a general application, it would still be necessary to hold that the rubrics in the Communion Service are the governing provisions. Conflict between two rules of law or two statutes are, of course, by no means unknown. They may, indeed, almost be said to be common. When they do occur the Courts of Law have to make up their minds, by a general view of the circumstances, which is the governing or deciding provision. Who can deny that, if the situation were of this kind, the Courts would find that the decisive rule is that of the rubrics attached to the Communion Service—the rubrics which place upon all parishioners a particular obligation, but make no reference to want of confirmation as a ground for repulsion ? To put the matter in a rough-and-ready way, the rubrics tell us that children ought to be confirmed, but that adults must go to Communion, and can only be hindered from doing so if they are notorious and open evil livers. It is true, of course, that the obligation to go to Communion has become, and rightly become, obsolete, like many other ecclesiastical injunctions. This fact need not, however, in the least prevent our referring for argu- mentative purposes to the obligation when interpreting the rubrics and considering whether absence of confirma- tion can be made a ground for repelling persons of a discreet age. Before we leave the subject we want to make it quite clear that we have never desired, nor do we desire on the present occasion, to argue in the very slightest degree against the rite of confirmation, or to represent it as other than a most useful and beautiful institution. Though we greatly object to the attempts to turn con- firmation into a sacrament, to use it as a test of church- manship, or to employ it to narrow the Church and destroy her national character—in a word, to use it as a scourge for the backs of Nonconformists—we fully recognize the wisdom and sound policy of the Bishops and clergy, wherever it is possible amongst their own particular flock, in securing to children the advantages of special religious instruction before they reach the age when they are fit to receive the Communion. As a grade in religious instruction confirmation is no doubt exceedingly valuable. Also, and this was no doubt what gave it its great strength in the Reformed Church of England, it is of use in preventing children of tender years being taken to the Communion Service as they are taken to the Mass —i.e., before they are able to understand the meaning of the Lord's Supper, and when they might easily fall into a superstitious attitude towards the rite in question. The Elizabethan Reformers clearly looked upon confirmation as a most valuable bulwark against the Communion of young children. By all means, then, let confirdtation be maintained in the Church of England. As long as it is not used as a weapon for narrowing the Church, and excluding from participation in the spiritual benefits of the Establishment Nonconformists who desire to make use of the ministrations of the National Church, it is an instrument of religious culture which deserves our deepest reverence and respect.
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