BISHOP-MAKING.
WE are sorry that our first observation on the letter from Mr. Minton which we print to-day must be of the disillusioning order. Our correspondent has been living in an imaginary paradise. The Clergy Discipline Act of 1892 made no such change in the'law as he supposes. He runs precisely the same risk of being " worried " as to his orthodoxy that he ran in 1891. What the Act did was to set up a cheaper and more rapid method of pro- ceeding against a clergyman for moral offences, and to provide that this new procedure should not be used where questions of doctrine were concerned. These questions, says Mr. Minton, are "excluded from the jurisdiction of the Court." Yes, from the jurisdiction of the Special Court created by the Statute, but not from the jurisdiction of the Courts existing before the Statute was passed. The Clergy Discipline Act of 1892 did not repeal the Church Discipline Act of 1840. It only made certain specific changes of procedure as regards a particular class of offences. Thus "the expressed will of the com- munity" affords no "evidence of a desire to avoid" questions relating to doctrine ; it simply affords evidence of a desire not to make the institution of suits for the determination of such questions easier or more frequent than they were before. Whatever facilities for bringing any doctrinal error before Lord Penzance existed ten years ago exist still. Consequently our proposal, if suggestions so general and unprecise deserve the name, will not revive, as Mr. Minton fears, a state of things which has passed away. It would not subject a Bishop-Elect to any risk of prosecu- tion to which he is not subject already ; it would merely give a chance of being heard to a class of persons who, under the law as at present interpreted, are expressly called upon to state objections which they are not allowed to put into words. Nor, again, can we admit that Mr. Minton's quotation from Stephen's "Commentaries" contains quite all that he seems to find in it. We do not mean to deny him whatever consolation can be derived from the assurance that "no canon contrary to the common or statute law, or the prerogative Royal, is of any validity." What we fear is that he will find much that is expressly enacted by statute law, and yet does not correspond with his "mental development." "Orthodoxy," he says, "is what the law for the time being declares it to be." But this seems to imply that the declaratory law is continually changing, whereas, as a matter of fact, it has not materially changed for more than two centuries. Particular state- ments which were formerly supposed to be inconsistent with the law, have of late been determined to be con- sistent with it ; but Mr. Voysey and the "Theistic Church" are a proof how rash it is to push this conclusion beyond the recorded decisions. What has changed is the disposition to appeal to the law. A suit implies a suitor, lnd suitors nowadays are hard to find. No doubt this want of inclination to put the law in motion does in some degree insure that the clergy shall not be "worried as to their orthodoxy." But it is very far from constituting that express statutory protection which Mr. Minton sup- poses himself to enjoy.
Moreover, this protection, such as it is, would not be the least weakened by an Episcopal Confirmation Bill of the kind we suggested. Let us see how it would work in such a case as that which happened the other day. Without wishing in the least to disparage Mr. Brownjohn, who has given proofs alike of honesty and courage, we may fairly say that there are not many like him. Probably, indeed, he is the one man in England to whom it would now have occurred to question Archbishop Temple's orthodoxy. Allowing, therefore, for the ordinary uncer- tainties of life, health, and locality, it would be rash to assume that Mr. Brownjohn would be able to object to more than a small fraction of the Bishops to whom the proposed Act would apply, and it is highly improbable that any one else will be found to take his place. More- over, where would have been the harm of allowing him to state his objection ? The Court would then have had to consider first whether he had rightly understood the Arch- bishop's views, and next whether, supposing him to have understood them rightly, they constituted any reason for delaying the ceremony of confirmation. We feel little doubt that his case would have broken down on the first point.
r. Brownjohn, we believe, sees in evolution something which the Archbishop does not see in it, and attributes to it consequences which in the Archbishop's view do not follow from it. The judgment of the Court would probably have turned on this discrepancy. We express no opinion, they would have said, on the view which the objector thinks inconsistent with the office of an English Arch. bishop ; it is enough for us to say that it is not held by this particular Archbishop. Let us grant, however, that the first point might have been made good, and that the view charged against Archbishop Temple could have been shown to be really his, are we any nearer that "endless controversy " which Mr. Minton fears ? No nearer at all. Archbishop Temple's opinions about evolution are probably the opinions of the great majority of educated clergymen who have given any attention to the subject. What reason, therefore, have we for supposing that the Court which sat in Bow Church would have sustained Mr. Brownjohn's plea ? No reason that we can see,—rather a multitude of reasons pointing the other way. Mr. Minton regards it as a striking proof of the progress of theological freedom that the Court "did not even listen to Mr. Brownjohn's objection." But the value of this testimony is surely very much lessened by the circumstance that the Court had no option in the matter. What the proceedings really showed was not the growth of liberty of opinion, but the survival of Royal autocracy. When Mr. Minton says that "if the laws of the Established Church will not expand with the ideas of the age, they will be broken through," we are the less careful to contest the statement, because we do not clearly understand it. So we will content ourselves with pointing out that a slavish reproduction of Tudor ideas in the sixtieth year of Victoria is rather an odd idea of expansion. What we meant when we suggested that when objectors are called and promised a hearing it is better to hear them, was in brief this. Appointment by the Crown is probably as good a method of making Bishops as any other, and the only one that stands much chance of being adopted in an Established Church. In days when the Prime Minister was not open to popular influence, or when this influence had little in common with the religious feel- ing of Churchmen, it did not always work well, but, as things are, there is not much chance of a positively bad appointment. If there are instances to the contrary they are rare and probably accidental. Still, as the ceremony of confirmation is in existence, and must either be abolished or amended, we prefer the latter process. It provides a safeguard which, if it is never likely to be found of any value, can at least do no harm. There is not the slightest probability that the Court which sits to confirm a Bishop will be in any hurry to declare that an objection taken to him is so serious as to make it the duty of the Judges to delay, if not to refuse, their assent to his consecration. But the fact that under such an Act they would be bound to hear the objector and to investigate the import of his objection would act as a check upon a Prime Minister if be were exceptionally autocratic or exceptionally wrong- • :leaded. If it is urged that it is very unlikely that a Prime Minister should display either of these qualities to an extent which would lead him to force an unorthodox Bishop upon the Church, we reply that it is most unlikely. But every system of law is full of precautions directed against very improbable contingencies, and it is because it is full of them that the contingencies have become so improbable. Perhaps Mr. Minton would be shocked at the notion of any views whatever being treated as a hindrance to a man's becoming a Bishop. He would merely say that in "progressive societies" "social opinions are always more or less in advance of law." But we do not think that Churchmen in general are prepared to go quite this length, and unless thay are we do not believe that they will share Mr. Minton's dread of the very modest change in the ceremony of confirmation which has now been described.
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