THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS AND THE NATION.* THOSE interested in the
proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, but who may have no time or inclination to sift bulky Blue-books for themselves, will find in Mr. Holland's book a very convenient and well-arranged digest of the facts. Dr. Stubbs's valuable contributions to the historical portion of the Commissioners' work are, indeed, so condensed and compact already, that they must necessarily lose in any summary of them, however carefully made. It is different with the evidence given before the Commission. That can bear compression with advantage, and Mr. Holland has compressed it with judgment. Yet even here, too, Mr. Holland's summary omits points which are important. That is, perhaps, only another way of saying that it is a summary. His purpbse was probably to give a sufficiently accurate and complete view of the facts to persons who would be unlikely to go to the original sources ; and in that he has succeeded admirably.
• Before summarising the various objections made to the -present ecclesiastical judicature, Mr. Holland very properly calls attention, mainly on the authority of the Dean of St. Paul's
* A Summary of the Ecclesiastical Courts Cunmission Report, and of Dr. Stubbes Historical Reports; together with a Review of the Evidence before the Commission. By Spencer L. Holland, BA., Barrister-at-Law. London andOxtord : Parker. 1884.
Principles of the Commonwealth. A Ti eatise. By Edmund Lawrence. London: Ridgway. 1884.
and Mr. Gladstone, to the fundamental difference between the character of the Royal authority now and in the times of Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns. Formerry the relationship of the Sovereign to the Church was that of a personal protector, some- what like that of the Hebrew Kings to the Jewish Church, or of 'the Czar to the Church of Russia. Indeed, from the time of Constantine to that of the Reformation, and in England down to the Revolution, we trace this quasi-spiritual character ascribed to or claimed by Christian Sovereigns ; "the hand of the Church," as Mr. Gladstone has expressed it in his essay on the Royal Supremacy, "being guided by the mind of the Church." In England not only has it always been necessary that the Crown itself should be formally in communion with the Church of England ; it was also, until comparatively recent times, incumbent on the Legislature to profess the Established religion. In the great statute in which Henry VIII. defined the Sovereign's position as "supreme head" of the State in its civil and ecclesiastical character he very clearly drew the line between spiritual and temporal jurisdiction. In the civil sphere secular authority was to make and to interpret secular law ; but "the law divine" was to be under the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical authority. So far was this rule acted upon that down to the eve of the'Revolation the Clergy were not taxed by Parliament, but by their own Convocation. All this is now changed. The Sovereign roast still belong nominally to the Church of England; but this bond is so loose that the reigning Sovereign deems its obligation consistent with communicating in a Church which proscribed Prelacy as contrary to the Word of God. Laws seriously affecting the Church, like the Public Worship Regula- lation Act, may be made by Parliament not only without. the consent, but against the protest, of Convocation. And this Parliament is not only not bound to profess the religion of the Church of England ; so far from it that not 8. single Member of it need even be a Christian, except the Lord Chan- cellor and the Bench of Bishops. Moreover, the Church Courts have been practically abolished. The chief ecclesiastical judge, so-called, is a creation of Parliament, pure and simple. In reality, he has no ecclesiastical character whatever. And even if he had, it would not matter, since his decisions are all liable to be revised and reversed by a Court of Appeal, "only one of whose members," to quote Mr. Holland, "(the Lord Chancellor) need necessarily be a Churchman ; and which is nominated by, and under the influence of, a Government de- pending upon and responsible to a House of Commons not one of whose Members need necessarily be a Christian." "More- over, when that very Parliament can impose upon the Church laws and Courts of its creation, is it not clear that the Church is no longer in the hands of a spiritual, or of a lay, but of a strictly secular State ?" In short, "the House of Commons is the heir to the Royal Supremacy without one of the original qualifications inherent in its ancestral use ;" nor is it likely ever to become endowed with any of those qualifications. The evidence given before the Royal Commission seems to show that, in view of this fact, probably a majority of the Clergy, backed by a considerable following among the laity, have made up their minds to regard the present Courts as having no legitimate claim on their allegiance in spiritual matters. This conclusion has doubtless been forced upon the mass of Churchnien rather by the proved incouipetency of the Courts than by their defective jurisdiction. If the tribunals had proved themselves competent by knowledge and impartiality, it is likely enough that the flaw in their credentials would have been over- looked. But their decisions have been so riddled with irre- futable criticism that' it is not their learning or impartiality merely which is now in question, but their original title to judge at all. This, of course, is illogical ; for the jurisdiction of the Courts is one thing, and their practical competency is quite another. But, after all, men are not governed by logic, but by feeling. And the English, in particular, are not prone to pry curiously into the foundations of institutions which work well in practice. They do not trouble themselves about anomalies until the shoe begins to pinch. Whatever the result of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission may be, it has certainly destroyed the moral influence of the existing Courts to such a degree, that the Bishops will probably feel themselves backed by public opinion if they exercise their veto pretty liberally in stopping prosecutions in ritual and doctrinal matters.
We have bracketed Mr. Lawrence's book with Mr. Holland's at the head of this article because it affords evidence, where it touches on ecclesiastical matters, of a temper of mind which, if
Disestablishment come, will probably be found the most potent factor in the catastrophe,—the temper, we mean, which refuses to look at Church questions from an ecclesiastical point of view. Mr. Lawrence is an able and a thoughtful writer; and though he evidently feels strongly, he keeps his feelings under control, if we except a few hard hits at the Ritualists. We take him to be opposed to Disestablishment, though partly on Erastian grounds. New, what strikes us as curious, is that men of ability like him fail to see that any attempt to reduce the Church to the condition of a mere department of Civil Government would either pre- cipitate Disestablishment by a junction of forces between its external assailants and a body of Churchmen sufficient to decide the issue; or would, on the other hand, if the Church became so dead to its spiritual obligations as to accept the thesis of Erastus as defining its normal condition, deprive her of all moral influence,—in other words, make her politically useless. "The conclusion to which all statesmen have come," says Mr. Lawrence, "that no absolutely separate and inde- pendent jurisdiction shall be allowed, is the product of a very advanced state of civilisation ; one in which the science of jurisprudence approaches to completeness. It was not evident, and could not be evident, to people living in the Middle Ages, that Churchmen are not the most competent to be judges in matters affecting the Church ; on the contrary, it appeared to them, as it would appear always to most of the uninstructed and inexperienced; that they are." We have no reason to believe that "all statesmen" have come to any such "conclusion," as Mr. Law- rence imagines. Churchmen in Scotland have an "absolutely separate and independent jurisdiction," and we have not heard of any responsible statesman who has proposed to abolish it. Moreover, the independent jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland has worked much better, and given more satisfaction all round, than the" State tribunals" which Mr. Lawrence admires on this side of the Border. And have not military tribunals an independent jurisdiction P Mr. Law- rence, indeed, appears to think that ignorance of the res adjudicanda is a positive qualification for a judge. "Experts," he says, "make the best witnesses ; and, for that very reason, the worst judges." If that 8.rgument is good for anything at all, it is good for the abolition of the legal profession altogether. In his zeal against Church Courts Mr. Lawrence has, in fact, sawn through the core the branch on which he has been sitting. He has proved too much ; which means that, on this subject, he has proved nothing at all. This is all the more surprising, since he is really an acute and a well-read thinker, and does not ordinarily allow himself to be carried away by his prejudices. Witness, for example, his terse and sensible explanation of the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, "erroneously supposed by multitudes to be of some superstitions meaning ; but," in reality, "merely the exposition of the constitutional practice of the Catholic Church in the matter of regulating the conferring of legal powers upon its Ministers."
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