THE WAR IN THE CIIURCH.
EPISCOPAL tinkering of the Church is pleasant and profitable to the right reverend operators, but causes the patient to writhe and rage, kick and growl. The Deans and Chapters loudly protest against the slashing of their patronage, and the increase of duty consequent on the proposed diminution of Canons and Prebenda- ries. In July last, a memorial, drawn up by a committee of dele- gates from the different Chapters, was presented to the Commis- sioners; which must have satisfied their Coryphaeus, Dr. Bt.ox- FIELD, that he had sturdy spirits to deal with—men who know the value of preferment, and were as loth to part with it as him- self. But it appears that the Canterbury Chapter was not satis- fsql with the intimation of intended resistance to the measure affecting their body ; for, on the 26th of last month, they adopted another memorial, which has appeared in the newspapers this week ; and is an elaborate and almost open attack on the Bishops, imputing to their Lordships that horrible crime—robbery of the Church I They mention an act passed last session, and which, we think, must have been smuggled through Parliament—at any rate it eseaped our notice—whose effect is to suspend the power of Deans and Chapters to present to certain preferntent hitherto in their gift. The act in question is alluded to in the following pas- sage of the memorial- " An act having been since passed, (since the presentation of the mensoria of the delegates) recognizing the 'expediency' of considering, in the next ses- sion of Parliament, tile recommendations which the Commissioners have made the subieet of their Second and Fourth Reports, and in the mean tune ' sus- pending' the power of patrons, and finbidding them tofu up vacant Pre- bends ; we entreat the Commissioners to to revise their recommendations before Parliament shall have reassembled, that we may be protected and secured in full enjoyment of all the rights. immunities, and privileges which were confer- red on us by our royal founder for the maintenance of our Chapter as an effi- cient body , and which our diocesans, as well as the several members of our Chapter, have been successively sworn to maintain."
Here Bishop BLOAIFIELD stole a march on the astute Mr. SYD- NEY SMITH.
The augmentation of poor benefices is admitted to be an excel- lent mode of employing surplus funds ; but the Canterbury Chap- ter think that they are as likely to expend their revenues judi- ciously for that purpose as the Bishops; and they cannot see the justice of being made the sole scapegoats.
" We protest, however, against the principle which seems to be involved in some of the recommendations,—namely, that of laying on ecclesiastical bodies exclusively the whole of a burden which, when necessary, ought to be laid on the collective body of the realm. Nor do we conceive it just that we should be
compelled to 'improve the provision for cure of souls' in parishes with which we are not connected, while our contributions would but enhance the market- price of the presentation or advowson, to the personal gain of the private patron, or enable the public patron to bestow a more lucrative benefice on a more favoured applicant."
The complicated state of the property of the Church, and the obstacles that complication presents to any real reform, are indi- cated in this passage. The mixture of lay and clerical and Crown
patronage—the difficulty of equalizing livings, or proportioning revenue to duty, without the commissiim of injustice to individuals both powerful and alert—will be sufficient, we suspect, to protect numerous abuses in the Establishment for some time to come. The more the institution is examined, the more full of mischief and in- justice it appears. A reform more sweeping than any yet con- templated except by thoroughgoing Radtcals, must be called into action before the abuses of the Church can be cleared away—a reform affecting its very existence as a State engine.
The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury rely upon their Charter, and quote the oath they are under to maintain their privileges in- violate; but an act of Parliament would relieve them from all such obligations. The alliance with the State, which has been the glory and boast of the Church, confers an authority and a right to interfere with its revenues, which will be found very troublesome to well-fed divines.
As respects the exercise of patronage, the Canterbury Chapter profess their willingness to submit to the regulation Parliament may deem fit to impose; but they slyly add-
" If it shall be deemed for the benefit of the Church to impose restrictions on the exercise of patronage, we shall readily accede to them, provident they be
imposed on all patrons without distinction ; and provided no stigma be set OD ecclesiastical patrons of one class, by subjecting them to limitations from which ecclesiastical patrons of other classes are exempted."
The memorial concludes with an intimation that the Bishops are working the downfal of the Church-
" We conclude with solemnly adjuring the Commissioners, in the words of Archbishop, then Bishop Whitgift, addressed to Queen Elizabeth—' as she was,' he said, intrusted by the late act or acts with a great power, either to preserve or waste the Church's lands,' and applying his words to Chapter revenues and Prebendal endowments, 'dispose of them, for Jesus' sake, as the donors intended. Let neither friends nor flatterers beguile you to do otherwise, and put a stop to the approaching ruin of the Church, as you expect comfort at the Last Day."
A correspondent of the Times, whose letters are honoured with a conspicuous place in that journal, charges the Bishops with being as great robbers of the English as Lord MELBOURNE is of the Irish Church- " The bill which shall cut down all Chapters to a Dean and four Preben- daries—which shall rob the wrecks of these old Chapters of their patronage, and at one blow upset the statutes under which for centuries they have existed —is just as much an act of spoliation as the clause in the Irish Tithe Bill, concerning which Whigs and Tories are at issue. It is the sheerest drivelling to deny this. Each Chapter in England is a body corporate by itself, having its own rights, its own privileges, and its own property; and you cannot deprive it of these, no matter what pious purposes you may desire to accomplish, with- out laying the axe to the root of the tree, and destroying all distinctions be- ween mews and trona."
Thus a fierce intestine war is raging in the Church. And let the People of England observe and bear in mind, that the strife is not about doctrine or discipline, but pelf and patronage—MONEY, MONEY, is at the bottom of all the squabbling.
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