The Church's " Inalienable Right • 1V EVER did the Archbishop
of Canterbury seem more 4-1 worthy of respect, trust and affection than when he spoke to the .Church Assembly on Monday about the policy of the Church in view of the rejection of the Prayer. Book Measure. He might have appeared to be fortified by exalted principle if he had challenged the decision of the House of Commons. He might—had he been other than he is—have seen in the crisis an issue between spiritual right and secular pretension which 'admitted of no delay in the solution. He might have resorted immediately to one of those numerous expedients, more remarkable for ingenuity than for practicability, which have been pressed upon the attention of the Church in her distress. He did none of these things. In carefully deliberated words which had the grand eloquence of conviction and searched the hearts of all who heard them, he begged that there might be a calm period of consideration. He shrank, as he admitted in effect, from tearing down in a hurry the fabric of the Spiritual life of the nation because Parliament and the Church were temporarily at cross purposes.
Disestablishment may come ; it may have to come ; but the first thing which was clear from the Primate's noble words was that he will not be a party to precipi- tating a dangerous controversy which may never be necessary. He thus proved his care for the nation. For it must never be forgotten that though the Church may writhe under the disabilities and inconveniences imposed upon her by Parliament, these things are the Price which she has paid hitherto for her existence as a National Church. It is a great good for a nation that it should not disinterest itself in its historical faith. We would pay a considerable price, then, to keep the State firm in its declaration of Christian principle, but we would ,not pay so high a price that the Church would be spiritually Maimed.
We must leave to the future the discovery whether the -extremely valuable possession of the Establishment can be preserved on reasonable terms. The Archbishop's 'address was invaluable because it pointed the way to this discovery and this possibility—even this probability. It must not be supposed that because he pleaded for delay his speech was one of those nerveless compromises which settle nothing. On the contrary, he had a decided policy, and to the joy of the Assembly he was able- to announce that in stating this policy he had the concur. Tence of all the Bishops. In the immediate future there will not be divided counsels.
He pointed out that though personally he thought the House of Commons had lapsed from reason, it had adhered to the letter of the law. The Enabling Act gave Parliament the right to reject, and the House of Commons had exercised that right. We may say here that these words, though they are obviously true, err, if at all, on the side of generosity, for we feel sure that When the Enabling Act was passed the general feeling was that a body so unsuited as the House of Commons is to judge the niceties of doctrine or liturgical practice Would in practice be relieved of such a duty. We believed that if the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament sanc- tioned a Church Measure as proper to be laid before Parliament, Parliament would as a matter of course or routine pass it. Such has become by practice the condition under which the Established Church of Scotland conducts her affairs, and we can point to no better analogy of what is desirable for the Church of England. _ _ Nevertheless, the power of rejection, without the power of amendment, was unquestionably vested in Parliament, even though the Ecclesiastical Committee had sanctioned a Measure. Now that it is seen that the House of Commons is determined to claim its pound of flesh a new question arises. Is there any possibility of so changing the law that purely doctrinal and liturgical decisions shall be left to the Church herself, even while the Establishment remains ? To this supremely impor- tant question the Primate obviously referred when he laid it down as a fundamental principle that the Church " must in the last resort retain its inalienable right to formulate its faith and to arrange the expression of that holy faith in its forms of worship." He used those words, he said, with the concurrence of the Bishops without exception.
The true policy of the Church, then, is to try to build up such a state of public feeling that Parliament will give the Church under the Establishment the same degree of spiritual freedom which is enjoyed by the Established Church of Scotland. Clearly time is required for that. Hence the extreme wisdom of the Archbishop's Fabianism. It would be as foolish to present such a demand to the House of Commons in its present mood as it would be to present yet another slightly revised form of the Prayer Book Measure.
While this desired state of public feeling is in the making, what is to be done for the conduct of the Church services ? Nothing, of course, that would even look like a defiance of Parliament. Hotheads have recommended that the Revised Book should be promulgated by the Church as though it had statutory sanction. It was against such fiery acts, such a disastrous mortgaging of the future, that the Archbishop used all his powers of persuasion. He declared that in the revised Book there are many things which will gnidedthe Bishops in deter- mining what= may rightly be permitted or prescribed for the immediate situation. In September the Bishops will meet for the express purpose of formulating permis- sible Church services.
Good comes out of evil in the strangest ways, and if we 'may form one general conclusion from the spirit of the National Assembly this week it is that under pressure from the outside the parties within the Church have cohered more together and that there is a better prospect than for many years of a loyal observance of such disci- pline as may be required by the Bishops. When the Bishops have announced their decisions in the autumn, limits, we believe, will be set which will be transgressed only by disloyalists and ecclesiastical revolutionaries. Then in time the Bishops will be able to present a spectacle of discipline within the Church which will enable them to appeal to Parliament with an entirely new authority when they ask for a spiritual freedom consonant with the Establishment.
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