[To THE EDITOR OF TES " SPECTATOR."] Sia, — Canon Bdwards Rees
says that "the sire And 1mm:we of the Self-government Association is the recovery by the Church of liberties which she once possessed and exercised." Will your correspondent explain more dehnitely when the chnrah of Eng, land possessed the liberties of ,whicla he speaks, through Nehet organizatioo they were exercised, and how they were lost ? Any one who has read accounts of the proceedings which led to the suppression of Convocation two hundred years ago can hardly wish for a revival of the state of things then brought to an end. Or was the golden age of ecclesiastical self-government before the Reformation.? But it is no use trying to guess. So far as I can see, what Canon Edwards Rees and his friends want is not the restoration of anything that once existed, but the creation of something entirely new; i.e., an ecclesiastical polity based on the view that the Church of England is in no sense the Church of the nation, and cannot ever become so. Upholders of the principle of a National Church are, of course, well aware that nation and Church in this country are not now in fact co-extensiye, as they were when. Hooker's great argument was given to the world. Large classes of the population are for most purpqses outside the Church. This, however, it may be pointed out, is also the case in matters of State. Except in times of crisis like the present, the civil Government does not represent the Whole community: there is at any giyen time cc minority, often a large minority, of citizens whose political opinions differ from those of the Government in power, and who have to submit to the rule of the majority. In the sphere of religion too much importance is often attached to questions of organization and government, as compared with the things of the spirit, but it is desirable in the public interest that these external matters should be settled on a emend basis. A measure of real Church reform, on the lines of expansion and comprehension, not of restriction and exclusion, would be a clear gain, and ought to be carried through without serious difficulty after the war. In the new Bishop of Hereford Liberal Church- men have a leader of whom mach may be hoped. The collapse of the attack on his appointment affords a measure of the strength
of the opposition to his principles.—I am. Sir. he., CMS.
Previous page
