PARLIAMENT AND THE CHURCH.
[To TER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In several of the Australian colonies, commencing with Victoria, about twenty years ago, the local Legislatures have passed Enabling Acts," giving power to the bishop, clergy, and lay representatives in each colony or diocese to meet in " Church Assembly " or " Synod," and regulate the affairs of the Church styled (though non-established)" the United Church of England and Ireland-" within such colony or diocese. In moat cases, possibly in all, these Enabling Acts contained clauses giving express-authority to the Church Assembly or Synod to create its own tribunal for the trial of ecclesiastical offences. There is no doubt that ihe Legislatures which passed these enactments did thereby gratify the wishes of Churchmen, but this was not their only object in passing them. Rather, the matter commended itself to them as one of public utility, and they were the more -disposed to deal with it through having learned the inconvenience of handling the quasi-ecclesiastical questions which came before them from time to time. The result has been satisfactory. The Diocesan Synods have worked -very creditably, and their acts have teen respected by the members of the Church which they con-
cern as having the force of law. (I pass over the case of the diocese of Adelaide, which stands by itself as having declined, or at any rate, not obtained, any enabling Act from the local legis- lature, and preferring to work its Synod upon a principle of " consensual compact.")
May I ask you, Sir, or your readers to consider whether there is anything in the nature of the case to prevent the Imperial Parliament from taking action similar to that which has been taken by the Colonial Legislatures? In other words, would the tremendous question of "Disestablishment " be necessarily in- volved in the passing of an Act of Parliament enabling the Church of England to regulate her own affairs through her own Diocesan and National Synods ? Might not the substance of Establishment be still secured by such safeguards as the retention of the appointment of Bishops and Deans in the hands of the Crown, with others that might be expressly mentioned? I heartily agree with your correspondent, Mr. Archer Gurney, that the introduction of the lay element would be essential to the very existence of a governing body such as the nation or the Parlia- ment would trust. It was so in the Colonies, and it would be so still more in England. No possible reform of Convocation short of this vital change in its constitution, would suffice to support its claim to be the governing body of the Church. But supposing this point to be conceded, and the clergy and laity to be freely and fully represented in a Church Synod, might not Parliament see the wisdom of entrusting such a Synod with very wide powers of government ; and might not the Church, so governed, or govern- ing itself, still continue to be the Established or National Church?
My name would carry no particular weight, if I were to sub- scribe it to this letter. It may suffice to say that until lately I held office in a colonial diocese, but am now
A NORFOLK VICAR.
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