THE CHURCH CONGRESS ON THE LAITY.
THE Church Congress at Brighton does not seem to be very representative of lay opinion. A few Evangelicals like Canon Ryle, and in a modified sense, Canon Fremantle, contend for the representation of the Laity in the Church body,—whether it be called Convocation or Conference,—but for the most part, the clergymen there seem to throw cold water on all plans for giving the laity an efficient voice in the organisation of the Church, and to restrict their views of Church reform to plans for the better
representation of the Clergy. Listen to the Rev. D. Robertson on the subject, and you hear, not exactly the tone of the Church Congress itself,—for there was a vigorous minority who took just the opposite line—but still the tone which was, on the whole, favoured, if not sanctioned, by the majority of the speakers. Mr. Robertson states that "he had examined and discussed over and over again the proposal of a lay element in Convocation, and he meant no offence to his friend Canon Ryle when he pronounced it to be a bubble." Well, they tell us now that the sun is a bubble, though it is nevertheless the influence by which all the planets are guided in their course ; and perhaps the lay element in the Church may prove to be a bubble of like kind and power, in spite of Mr. Robertson's scorn. He goes on to say, "It [a lay element in Convocation] had no connection with the history and con- stitution of the Church of England, and was equally distant from any existing institution of the English nation. It had never existed but in non-established or disestablished Churches. The idea of a lay element in the constitu- tion of our Established Church was the invention of a few persons now living ; it was inspired by nothing higher or older than their breath ; it hung suspended by its own levity, without contact or support from any other thing." How any body can hang "suspended by its own levity," Mr. Robertson probably despises science too much to explain ; but the expression shadows forth to us the condition of his own speech rather than any other earthly phenomenon, and whatever a lay element in Convocation might re- semble, it certainly would not be at all likely to resemble Mr. Robertson's speech. This proposal for a lay element in Convocation, proceeded Mr. Robertson, "changed colour with every passing light ; the moment he sought to reduce it to argument, it vanished in his grasp ; and were not these," he asked, "the properties of a bubble"? "It had not even been decided whether lay representation was to be inside Convocation like an effervescing draught, or outside it like a blister. But what surprised him most was that the bubble was always blown by clergymen who asked us to sacrifice the exist- ing Constitution and even existence of the Church of Eng- land." That is the sort of treatment of the subject which, as far as we can judge from the reports, seems to give most satisfaction to the members of the Church Congress. Now it is not true that the representation of the laity does not exist except in the case of non-established or disestablished Churches, unless the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland be disre- garded; but even if it were so, the very fact that in all non- established Churches it does exist, and exist as the main-spring of Church life, would have taught a less flippant speaker than Mr. Robertson that where there is no representation of the laity there is no real co-operation of the laity in Church work, and that the absence of that co-operation is one of the chief causes why Disestablishment hangs over us like a thunder-cloud. Canon Perry had even the courage to ridicule "ecclesiastical legislation by non-ecclesiastics." He might just as well ridicule legislation about the law by non-jurists. It
is not ecclesiastics, we suppose, who make up the "Ecclesia." The ecclesiastics would be in a very bad way without the
people who constitute the Ecclesia, just as the lawyers would be in a very bad way without the people for whom the law is made. We had a piece of ecclesiastical legislation last Session by non-ecclesiastics. And no doubt it is a piece of legislation which the Church Congress, as a whole, are not at all disposed to approve. But the reason that that piece of ecclesiastical legislation by non-ecclesiastics was necessary, was precisely that the ecclesiastics who have hitherto had the affairs of the Church so completely in their own hands, have despised and trodden on the feelings of non-ecclesiastics, till the rude intervention of a much less punctilious body than any "lay element in Convocation " became absolutely necessary. The truth is that these clergymen really get into the way of thinking that the unction they fancy the Bishop's hands gives them confers on them very nearly as much right to settle the faith of the laity and prescribe their forms of worship, as the Roman theory of an infallible Church gives to the members of an (Ecumenical Council. They cry out against Rome, but their infinite horror of admitting any lay element into the councils of the Church is precisely of a piece with the Roman view, though it is less candid and less consistent.
One thing is very certain. Parliament has the supreme control of the Established Church, and Parliament, containing, as it does, very large elements of non-Anglican belief, will never consent to discuss minutely the conditions of Church membership or of clerical subscription. If a body of any kind can be formed, containing a sufficiently large infusion of a manly lay element, to advise Parliament on the subject of Church comprehension and regulation, it is likely enough that Parliament will take the advice of such a body. But if not,—the knot must be cut, instead of untied. Rather than debate continually articles of belief, in a heterogeneous body of Atheists, Theists, Jews, Roman Catho- lics, and every shade of orthodox and heterodox Protestants, or, still worse, rather than allow itself to be guided by such a body as the Clerical Convocation which now exists,—Parliament will evade the difficulty by telling the Church to shift for herself. Canon Barry was right in saying that the reform of Convocation would do more to avert Disestablishment than anything else ; but unless he be misrepresented in the report, it is not such a reform of Convocation as he advocated,—a reform only of the clerical representation,—which will have any effect at all in this direction.
Disestablishment must come, if the Establishment remains with its hands tied, unable to widen, or even to propose to widen, conditions virtually dating from the sixteenth century, and which seem suitable only to the medicated, shrinking imagination of a lot of clergymen. For Church reform, in the larger sense, is a matter from which all sections of Parliamentary opinion shrink. Indeed even if they did not, nothing would be more certain to produce an immediate disruption of the Church than the reform of its fundamental principles by a body which is subject to all sorts of external influences, many of which are deeply distrusted and dreaded by the members of the Church. The only possible way of averting Disestablishment is to open a way for Church reform without leaving its details to Parliament. That, however, is simply impossible without a true representative Church Body of some kind, and to treat any purely clerical body as adequately representing the Church, is a blunder as ludicrous as it would be to treat the Civil Service as adequately representing the nation. It is the influence of such minds as the Rev. D. Robertson's, which will bring the Church about our ears, if that influence is to prevail much longer. It would be a better augury for the future if such speeches as his were received with less obvious enjoyment in a Church Congress.
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