Lai:rummy, Cardif, 27th September 1858.
Bra—As Sir Arthur Elton has taken up the cudgels on behalf of his own resolutions, I will leave to him to discuss the immediate practical question with your correspondent who signs himself "A Political Dissenter." I wish rather to refer to the latter as an instance, in the case of a man who is clearly far from wanting in sense, of those historical confusions which have led to so many misconceptions about this and kindred subjects. Some parts of his letter I confess I do not understand; the last paragraph but one especially I have read over several times, and I cannot at all discern the writer's meaning. But he puts forth two propositions which are in- telligible enough, and upon which I wish, with your permission, to make a few remarks. He asserts that the "endowments at present enjoyed by the Episcopalian clergy stand upon a different footing from those which have been founded among the Wesleyans, Baptists, &c.; among other things, in this, that the first have all, without any exception, been created with the distinct under- standing that they were to be for the benefit of the whole public while they lasted, and subject at any time to the revision of Parliament." I should be extremely curious to see some historical proof of this "distinct understand- ing." The endowments in question are gifts which have been made at va- rious times from the sixth—in Wales we might probably go back to yet earlier times—to the nineteenth century. When King Ethelberht or one of his thegns gave an estate to the newly-founded see of Canterbury, I very much doubt his distinct understanding as to its liability at any time to the revision of Parliament. Your correspondent forgets that the Church of Eng- land is the oldest institution in England; it is older than either the monar- chy or the Parliament. In its earliest days it was clearly not co-extensive, still less identical, with the English nation, because a large portion of the English nation was still heathen. The Imperial Parliament has doubtless inherited all the rights, and probably more than the rights, of the Kentish Witenagemot ; I only doubt the existence of the ".distinct understanding." But your correspondent would probably argue that the endowment of the "Episcopalian clergy" dates, not from 2Ethelberht, but from Henry the Eighth. I mentioned the period 1520-60, to give full room for the whole of that series of events which we commonly jumble together under the name of "the Reformation." Your correspondent selects the particular reign of Henry the Eighth, and, if I rightly understand him, he asserts—which is the second proposition I wish to dispute—that the proceedings of that reign were analogous to a hypothetical transfer of the existing Church property in England to the Wesleyan Conference, "upon the trusts of the deed of John Wesley." I can see no analogy between and anything which happened in the whole period 1520-60, least of all between it and anything which hap- pened during the reign of Henry the Eighth. What Henry the Eighth did was to abolish the supremacy of the Pope, to suppress the monasteries, to reform certain practical abuses. He in no way innovated on the faith or on the ritual of preceding times. No transfer was made from one religious communion to another, because there was only one religious communion in the land. Gardiner might think change had gone too far, Cranmer that it had not gone far enough, but Cranmer and ..rdiner remained alike Bishops of the same Church of England. Under Henry there was no transfer at all, unless it were in those cathedral churches in which Henry substituted a Dean and Canons for a Prior and Monks. And in so doing, he only restored their ancient constitution, and, moreover, the new Chapters preached the same doctrines and practised the same ritual as their monastic predecessors. High mass was sung and tran- substantiation preached in Christ Church, Canterbury, as much under Cranmer and his Chapter as under Warham and his Convent. In fact the new society consisted, to a great extent, of the members of the old invested with new titles. The act by which the Church of England rejected the supremacy of the Pope and accepted that of the Sing, was emphatically a change made by an existing body, not a transfer from one body to another. It was in fact merely carrying a little farther the policy of all preceding English kings. The suppression of the monasteries had nothing to do with any religious change at all. Certain ecclesiastical corporations were abolished, certain ecclesiastical revenues were alienated, but no change of doctrine or ritual was made in those which survived. Earlier English kings had suppressed monasteries before, later continental kings have suppressed monasteries since, and have remained good Catholics all the same. Under Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, there were indeed important changes introduced both in doctrine and ritual, but nothing occurred to shake the legal continuity either of the whole Church or of its particular corporations. At each change a few deprivations took place in particular offices, but there was no transfer from one sect to another. The Church and nation which had rejected the Pope under Henry, received him again under Mary, Pole regularly succeeded Cranmer, and Parker regularly suc- ceeded Pole. In the diocese in which I now write, the Bishop, Anthony Eitchin, weathered every storm; appointed under Henry, he remained in Continuous peaceable possession till some years after the accession of Eliza- beth. And the great mass both of clergy and laity followed his example. From any theological point of view, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, their conduct was doubtless blameworthy. But it was politically intelli- gible enough, and at any rate, it supplies that formal and legal continuity which Is all that is wanted. There was no transfer from one set of men to another set of men; a society, legally identical throughout, changed its opinions and its practices. And, be it remembered, that the one class of en- dowments which were specially given to maintain a form of worship which the Reformed Church repudiated, were absolutely confiscated. Masses for the dead were abolished, and the Chantries were not transferred, but sup- pressed. For your correspondent's view that Church property was ever given to the nation as a nation, that it is at all " national " or " public " property, he has brought no legal or historical evidence whatever. Subject to the control of Parliament of course it is and ought to be, because er; thing in the lsingdom is and ought to be. Salm populi supevv„,„' kz ; to that ultimate necessity all right*, individual and co must bow. The State has a right, whenever public necessity requIrea.-3 meddle either with corporate or with private property, and of such ne004.— sity, it must itself be the judge. That a thousand cases will probably oftm. to Justify interference with corporate property for one which would just& interference with private property., makes no difference inprinciple. to di afia State had a perfect right to set made Thelluson's will ; it had an equl a rig. ht diminish the revenues of the see of Durham. But I believe that in duet' the latter, it was doing an act precisely analogous to the former, and in way analogous to voting money raised by taxation to Prince Albert or to Maynooth. Ecclesiastical property in short was given to the purposes of a certain re. ligious society which sometimes has and sometimes has not been coextensive with the nation. The English Church and nation were coextensive under Edward I. ; they were not coextensive in the reign of Penda, they are not coextensive in that of Victoria. Identical in your correspondent's sense, he cannot show that they ever were. According to your correspondent's view, the endowment of a bishoprick or an abbey was, like the payment of sol- diers or ministers, merely an application of a part of the revenue of the state to certain of its officers. But most certainly no founder, whether king or subject, from Ethelberht to Miss Burdett Coutts, ever took any view of the kind. It may be thought that I deal with the whole question in a dry, formai, and somewhat unpractical manner. I do so, because this particular stage ef the argument appears to me to be simply and exclusively an historical and legal one. The truth of the dogmas, the merit of the discipline, the general value and efficiency of the existing Church are not to the point. Nor am I arguing the question whether it is or is not desirable for Parliament to med- dle any further with ecclesiastical property. I fully allow the ultimate power of the State over ecclesiastical' because I allow its ultimate power over all property. I only deny that ecclesiastical property is in any sense national property further than that in which all property is. This a purely historical question, and can be maintained or confuted only by his. toneal arguments. Let me illustrate my case by an opposite one. I hold that the English Church has a full legal and historical right to its endowments, and I see ne ease made out to justify the State in the exercise of its extraordinary power of alienating them. Let me point to another neighbouring church which seems to me to stand in a totally different position, both historical and practical. I have just returned from a journey in Ireland. What do we see there? A Church, which is eminently not the Church of the people, possessing lands, tithes, peerages; pastors without flocks, revenues without dutiea, churches, sometimes cathedrals, lying in ruins because those who possess them cannot use them, and those who would use them are not al- lowed to possess them. Whatever may be the legal and historical explana- tion of such a state of things, here is surely a case for the extraordinary power of the State to step in. And when we look for the historical ex- planation we find it to be briefly this. The Church and people of England accepted the changes of the sixteenth century; the Church and people of Ireland rejected them. Invasions, conquests, penal laws, succeeded only in establishing a body of sheepleea shepherds and in laying waste the ancient temples of the land. The endowments which had belonged to the Church of the Irish people were transferred to the Church of the English colony. Look to the third portion of the kingdom. Ireland remained Roman Ca- tholic, Scotland became Presbyterian. To maintain the Episcopal Church in its possessions was so clearly contrary to all public policy, that the State was fully justified in the religious settlement of 1689—barring, of course, the " rabbling " of the curates and the monstrous penal laws against the Episcopal clergy. When we hear extempore prayer in Glasgow Cathedral we feel that historic rights have fairly yielded to practical necessity. When we see the Rock of Cashel standing desolate, and the Catholic Primate and his flock driven to worship in some hole or corner, we feel that both are trampled on alike. In England, the case is different from either: the his- toric rights of the Church seem to me unanswerable, and I see no practical necessity to justify any use of the State's extraordinary power in the way of alienating her vested endowments, though I am as anxious as your cor- respondent can be to deprive her of the unjust power of taxing the members of other communions. In conclusion, I have only to add that I did not apply the word "hazy" to Mr. Duncombe's proposal but only to the legal and historical positions on which it is founded. The proposal, as a proposal, is intelligible and straightforward enough. But it evidently rests upon those notions about a "National Church,' "national property, &c.," which, to me at least, seem to arise from mere confusion of history.
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