LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
WHAT IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND P
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—When you tell me that I am a member of the Episcopal Church whether I will or no, whether I do or do not conform, I think it requires little intelligence to "grasp your con- tention." It was because I grasped this amazing and preposterous claim that I wrote my letter which you pub- lished onlAugust 4th; and I venture to think that every line of that letter was very much to the point. Your note certainly demands a further reply. How can a Church include those who do not belong to it ? Such a contention is a contra- diction in terms, and suggests that remarkable architectural anomaly,—a roof without support.
A Church is a body of free men or it is a tyranny. I regard it therefore as a presumption for which I find no sanction in Galilee for any Church to include or to assert authority over men who refuse to join it. As to the legal aspect, which I must perforce, and gladly, leave to the lawyers, we all know that the statute- book has certain quadrupedal sections which do not bind any one. No law can bind the spiritual nature of a man or dictate to his conscience. There is an " Inward Must " which impels men often to action against their wills. Wesley when justifying his extempore prayers, his lay preachers, and his societies said : " We did none of these things till we were convinced we could no longer omit them but at the peril of our souls."
The more emphasis the Episcopal Church places on the national name, the more obvious does thelailure of that Church to realise its ideal become. Ecclesiastical. labels will not stick on uncon- seating parties, even if applied by the united efforts of all the Judges and all the Bishops. It is an empty boast to say that the Episcopal Church is the national Church. The exact size of the Episcopal Church can be measured to a nicety,—it is the exact number of those men and women who voluntarily are associated with it. The rest of the population have no connexion with it whatever in the ecclesiastical sense. Any other contention is damaging to that Church as a Church, for the world assays in its own mint each word uttered by the Churches; it is a false assumption of which a Church should not be guilty ; it is as immoral as placing a director's name on a prospectus without his authority.
Freeman, the historian, was no Free Churchman, and was in favour of the Establishment; but he was under no delusion as to the comparative place which that Establishment occupied in the nation. "The Established Church," he says, "is a religious body which once was coextensive with the nation, but which has ceased to be so." Freeman adds : " The growth of other religious bodies has caused it to be no longer coextensive with the nation." The figures I quoted on August 4th proved this. He declares, too, that "there was no moment when the nation or its rulers made up their minds that it would be a good thing to set up an Established Church." It is of course true that the Episcopal Church is the one Church in England which is in legal fetters and whose decrees " are not binding on the laity till they are further confirmed by Parliament" (Freeman),—which to-day means that they are not binding till two hundred Nonconformist M.P.'s give the word. You say (August 4th) that " the Church of England is the national Church because she does not exclude any Christian Englishmen from her ministrations if they are willing to use them." That, by the way, is not true, for very few Episcopal Churches, if any, would administer the Communion to a Non- conformist. But my chief point is that Nonconformists, if they were so foolish, have just as much right to make that claim and say that the Nonconformist Church is "the national Church because she does not exclude any Christian Englishmen from her ministrations if they are willing to use them.' The last phrase is absolutely true of the Nonconformist Churches, and true of them alone.
But I deny the right of either Episcopal or Free Church to make an arrogant claim to the national name. It ought not to be ,forgotten that your assertion of an impossible jurisdiction over other Churches can equally well be made by the Church of Rome over the Episcopal Church. And, if one judges by the Report of the Church Disorders Commission, the Church of Rome would have some justification for this assertion with regard to the !Episcopal Church, because some of her priests would be priests of the Roman Church if they had a little intellectual, or even. :common, honesty; The Episcopal Church may wish to arrogate to itself the national name in theory, but in practice the theory breaks down. One has only to read the discussion which took place as to the lay franchise for the Representative Church ,Council, to see how .it breaks down (Times, November 23rd, 24th, 25th, 1905). It is of importance as representing the latest official vote defining the sectarian limitations of the Episcopal Church. After much discussion, a "Qualified Person" for the Lay House was finally declared to be "a lay member of the Church of England who (1) has the status of a communicant, —that is to say, either (a) is an actual communicant, or (b) has been baptised and confirmed and is admissible to Holy Communion, and does not belong to any religious body which is not in communion with the Church of England.' He has also to sign a statement to that effect.
Canon Hensley Henson wanted these last words omitted, because "he believed they would operate badly in emphasising the lines of denominational division," and his proposal was rejected by "a large majority." That is to say, "the Church of the nation" by this vote deliberately excluded from its Church Council all Nonconformist laymen. In doing this they were quite consistent with the authors of "Lux Mundi" and all those who have always contended that there was not enough legitimate ChurChmanship in all Nonconformity to complete one real Episcopal Churchman. I had always thought that the majority of Episcopal Churchmen wished for the exclusion of Noncon- formists from their Church. Anyway, by the vote on Canon Hensley Henson's amendment the Episcopal Church proved itself to be a sect, and not "the Church of the nation," as you contend. No reasonable person would expect it to do otherwise, or to allow Nonconformists to be members of its Church Council. But what becomes of your contention that Nonconformists "are in law and in fact members of the national Church" ? For the law on this matter I care nothing,—the fact is everything.
A lady once said of certain people that they lived in her square, but not in her circle. The Episcopal Church, if it accepts your rule, wishes the Nonconformists to live in her square, but "a large majority" of her Representative Church Council evidently will not have them in her circle. Which' is just what I should expect. There is no harm in the clan system and in applauding clan victories of exclusion as they did at the Church Council : the mischief only begins when one clan pretends that it includes all the other clans.
These points I think are worthy of your consideration, but more important than all was my first contention that " no Church can permanently arrogate to itself the national name except by sheer force of spiritual supremacy." Do you doubt it ?
Ifield, Sussex.
[We print the above communication, but must now close this correspondence. Mr. Parker's second letter leaves us as much un- convinced as his first, and if the maxim be true that heat in argu- ment is a sign that a man feels his case to be weak, we should say that Mr. Parker did not feel very sure of his ground. We are very sorry that Mr. Parker should be annoyed at the state of the law ; but in spite of his protest, the law is a fact, which cannot be altered by vehement assertion. We agree with Canon Hensley Henson in objecting to the exclusive terms of the franchise agreed on by the Representative Church Council; but the well-meaning, though, as we think, mistaken, gentlemen who passed the vote had no right whatever to speak in the name of the Church of England or to narrow the basis of her membership. It is Parliament, and Parlia- ment alone, which can alter the conditions under which the national Church exists. The fact that a large number of clergymen, and a certain number of laymen, would like to narrow the Church to a mere Episcopal Church is of no effect. Till the sovereign power in the State wills it otherwise, the Church of England is the national Church, comprehensive enough, as Jeremy Taylor showed, to include all Christian Englishmen who desire to be included,—a Church in which membership is open, and based on no dogmatic tests.—ED. 13pectator.]
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