THE TRAMMELS ON THE CLERGY.
UR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN has given an opinion, which 111 is probably good law, Mr. Stephen being a very cautious and sound lawyer, and the reasons which he assigns bearing in themselves evidence of intrinsic force, which will make it dangerous for an English clergyman to take any part in the services of any Church but his own, within the limits of the kingdom within which his own Church is established. Mr. Stephen points out that the effect of the Tudor ecclesiastical policy was to establish uniformity of worship, and to a certain extent of belief, throughout the kingdom, and to make it penal to deviate from this uniform standard. When the Toleration Act was passed, Noncon- formists were made exceptions to this rule of Uniformity, both as regards worship and belief. But, as Mr. Stephen points out, the Toleration Act, and the various extensions it has received, have never included among the persons thus excepted from the rule of Uniformity, the clergy who are the ministers of the Established system. The freedom granted to Dissenters has never been granted even partially to the English Clergy, so that they are as much bound by the rule of Uniformity now as the whole English people was in the time of Elizabeth. Consequently a clergyman cannot preach for a Dissenting con- gregation or join in its worship, within the sphere where his Church is legally the Church of the nation, without breaking the law, and incurring the ecclesiastical penalties of so doing. If Mr. Fremantle had actually preached in the Congregational place of worship called the City Temple as he intended to do a few months ago, he would have been guilty of this breach of the law and it is perfectly clear also that if Mr. Stephen's opinion be sound, all the clergymen of the Church of England who have taken part in Messrs. Moody's and Sankey's devotional services at Exeter Hall, or in the Agricultural Hall, Islington, or elsewhere, have actually broken the law ; nay, that the religious exercises of the Evangelical Union, when- ever they have been conducted in any other forms than those of the Church of England, have been transgressions of the law on the part of all the clergyman who have joined in them. Further, it would seem that the use by the clergy of any public form of worship not sanctioned by the Prayer-book, whether in con- junction with Nonconformists or not, would probably enough turn out to be a breach of the principle of Uniformity. It is not flO much the joint worship with Nonconformists as the deviation from the rule prescribed to the Church that constitutes the offence. Mr. Stephen draws a wide distinction indeed between the acts of an officiating minister, and that kind of participation in a service which is implied by attending it as one of the congregation. He thinks that for a clergyman to celebrate the Communion for Dissenters according to a form not sanctioned by the prayer-book would clearly be illegal, but he is not so sure as to the act of receiving the communion, as a layman might, in the course of a service which embodied no doctrines contrary to the teaching of the Church of England. Mr. Stephen thinks that even this would probably be in prin- ciple a breach of the law of Uniformity and theoretically illegal, though it would be difficult, he thinks, to push home the prin- ciple in such a case, having regard to the general inexpediency of punishing any man for merely joining in a service both legal in itself, and embodying no opinions which he is bound to regard as heretical, and this too in a time when uniformity of worship is no longer imposed by law on Englishmen. Still, according to Mr. Stephen, theoretically at least a clergyman is so far bound by the old principle of Uniformity, that he might easily be prosecuted for joining at all in a rite not acknowledged by his Church, and might possibly be adjudged guilty for so joining. No doubt, it might be held, on the other hand, it is only as a public functionary, and not as a private worshipper, that the clergyman is bound by the principle of Uniformity,—and that directly the legality of Dissenting rites was admitted by the Toleration Act, it became not illegal even for a clergyman to recognise those rites, so far as they do not imply his assent to heretical doctrines. Mr. Stephen is apparently disposed to take the opposite view, but it is clear that on this point he is himself doubtful. We imagine him to be right in holding that the prin- ciple of Uniformity of worship still binds the clergyman as an ecclesiastical functionary; but it is by no means so clear that it binds him as a private member of the community.
Still, making the most of this doubt, what can be more unfortunate than a state of the law which imposes a strict uniformity as regards the professional conduct of outward rites, in a world where all sorts of varieties of outward rites are habitually resorted to, on those whose duty it is to be "fishers of men"? That a clergyman of the Established Church should be confined within definite limits as to the doctrines which he preaches and sanctions is intelligible enough, but that he should not be allowed to preach these doctrines to men who use other rites, even though there be nothing in these rites in conffict with his own doctrines, is a policy which virtually puts the State Church in irons, while it leaves the Voluntary Churches perfectly untrammelled.
Now, of course, we shall not get out of the present Govern- ment any relaxation of the very unnecessary trammels which, if Mr. Stephen be right, still prevent the Clergy of the State Church from extending their influence among the Voluntary Churches. But it is worth while to point out that the prin- ciple of Uniformity as regards modes of worship, was originally a mere buttress of the principle of Uniformity as regards belief, and that now, when variety of belief has been formally sanctioned to the widest possible extent, there is no reason at all why the Clergy of the National Church should be more bound by the rule of uniformity of worship, except so far as this is im- plied in uniformity of belief, than laymen themselves. Of course we would not wish to interfere for a moment with one result of uniformity of worship,—the protection of the laity against the caprices of the clergy in the National Church. If the forms of worship in the National Church ever ceased to be regulated by law, the laity would be at the mercy of the clergy, since they could not wield that control over them which the power of the purse gives to Voluntary congregations. Hence on behalf of the laity themselves, it is absolutely necessary that there should be uniformity imposed on the clergy as regards the con- duct of worship in the National Church. But it does not follow in the least that there is any sort of use in curtailing the indi- vidual responsibility of the clergy in relation to acts of com- munion with other Churches, except so far as such acts of communion might involve confessions of faith which would be heresies from the point of view of the National Church. It is simply childish, indeed, to prohibit a man whose faith you wish to see extending itself, from preaching his convictions to any people except those who are already members of his Church, and yet that is the precise effect of the present law as stated by Mr. Fitzjames Stephen. To men who are presumably already Churchmen, the clergy may preach as much as they like ; but to men who are not, they may say nothing at all, unless they can first get them to come to church. How would Christianity have ever been spread, if the Apostles had not preached both to the Jews and to the Gentiles, and, indeed, wherever they were allowed to preach without joining in the confession of principles which they rejected and of falsehoods which they abhorred ? Nothing can be sillier than to fetter
your national clergy, so that they cannot show what they are like to any one who does not really know already what they are like. The Churchmen of the present day are very fond of professing their belief that Dissenters would soon become Churchmen, if they had not inherited a tradition of suspicion and dislike which has long outlived all the grounds for those feelings. Well, but how are these Dissenters to know that their distrust and aversion have outlived the fair grounds for distrust and aversion, if clergymen are not to go beyond the walls of their own churches, in order to show what they are made of ? We quite admit that as regards creed there must be some clearly assigned limit to what a clergyman may preach, and we would hold him quite as responsible for what he preaches in a Dissenting chapel,—at, indeed, he already is for what he publishes in a book,—as he is for what he says in his own pulpit. But to restrain him from showing those who disapprove of the Establishment what the Establishment means,—to insist that the graces and gifts of the clergy of the nation shall be kept a complete secret from all who do not choose to enter the parish churches of the nation, is simply like declaring that whatever the Church of England may be in pagan countries, at home, at all events, it shall not be a Missionary Church at all. Of course we do not mean to imply that it would be at all desirable for a clergyman to preach controversial sermons, unless by request, in the pulpits of men who maintain the other side of the controversy. But there are many modes of missionary effort, and not the least effective is that which shows people how much of common belief and common sympathy which they did not suspect lies beneath the external differences they see and note. Of course that tells both ways. if the abler Dissenting preachers were permitted, as we wish they were, frequently to preach to us Churchmen in Church pulpits, we should learn how much there is to admire in them, no less than the Dissenters would learn how much there is to admire in our clergymen, whenever the abler clergy occupy the pulpits of Dissenting chapels. But of course we believe that the increase of mutual knowledge would tell in favour of the broader and against the narrower basis of Church union,- i.e., in favour of articles of union which admit of widely different shades of Christianity, and against the Congre- gational and Presbyterian principles, which, at the same time and in the same place, practically admit of very slight differences of opinion. But however this may be, if the Dissenters were to gain- at our expense by frequent acts of communion with our National Church, then they would deserve to gain at our expense, and we should not regret the result. But in the meantime, to anticipate anything but good from allow- ing men as wide-minded as Mr. Fremantle to preach to Con- gregationalists or Wesleyans what they preach at present to the members of their own communion, is to give up the whole ground on which the hopes for our National Church are built. No doubt Mr. Stephen has rightly told us what the law is. But it is a misfortune that the law is what it is, and we can hardly look for our Church to be in any true sense national in its spirit, till it ceases to be what it is.
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