THE GORHAM MOVEMENT.
'COMPROMISE is a great parent of unsettlement and disorder; be- cause it only suspends a conflict, and where the causes that in- dithed the conflict are suffered to remain, the mere suspension sel- dom does more than to accumulate the arrested action until it breaks through restraint more violently than ever. Penetrating Judgment and decided action applied just now to the conflict in the Church and about it, might serve to prevent further internal con- test : if, however, Lord John Russell isto be understood literally, Ministers are not prepared to take the course dictated by the event, but will 'Wait for action until they be compelled to move. The indisposition to act can Scarcely be imputed to any cause but a want of insight into the facts of the past and their bearing on the future ; and we are not surprised at that blindness in Ministers, since others whose business it is to think display an equal want of clearness. We do not speak only of a contemporary, fond of call- ing names and aspersing motives, who accuses us of being " High Church," because we are not afraid to descry, or to declare, the conseguences involved in the present course ; but of others, not enemies, who positively hail an agitation which shakes the corpo- ration of the Church and brings its authority into contempt, be- cause they think that this species of acute decay will force on re- formation.' As if ruin were the redemption of the spendthrift, or delirium tremens the first step in the reformation of the drunkard ! The uncertain state of opinion is indicated by two classes of objection which have been advanced against our remarks of last week. The Globe accuses us of having become " 11-h
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Church" ; objects, that our principle of making the Church the strict expositor of its own doctrine would exclude from it such men as Whately and Arnold ; and concludes by declaring that the Ministerial journalist, our accuser, is content to have doctrines left obscure and indeterminate. The Ministerial journalist appears to us to avoid a smaller and present danger for one more remote but larger. It is not to be presumed that such men as Arnold would leave the Church because certain doctrines received a more deter- minate shape and a more express agreement; for men of Arnold's stamp have accepted whatever of the Church's doctrine was set down in a peremptory shape. But to what does the proposition which we are accused of gainsaying amount ? It is this—that in order to permit the semblance of adhesion in some men who are by intellect fitted to be ornaments of any corporation, but who on any strict test would prove to be schismatic, it is desirable to maintain that absence of authority and rule in the Church which is now tearing it to pieces with dissension and anarchy. We are not say- ing that Arnold and Whately would in any case have been schis- matics ; but that is the position of the Globe.
Again, the Globe objects to our assumption that the Privy Council have decided on a point of doctrine : " they have," he says, " done no such thing." But this objection, with another cognate to it, is worked out more clearly by an esteemed' correspondent of our own, " who writes from Lincoln's Inn.
" I fear," he says, " that your observations will encourage the very erroneous and mischievous notion that clergymen are the only proper interpre- ters of ecclesiastical law. You take the case of the Army, and say, in. substance, that because court-martials are composed of soldiers, ecclesiastical courts with society beietyo but stetedteoefnclietrgyab extra, But, v e Army is yitne: cellar one nit is a body which is complete the itaelof, which does no;cminPje which requires and is for that purpose furnished with exceptional powers and specially ex- empted from ordinary law, by acts which it is considered unsafe to continue for more than a year at a time. Take any other profession and the fallacy be- comes obvious. The physician does not interpret medical jurisprudence, and the merchant does not apply the rules of mercantile law. Were your reasoning correct, each profession would administer its own law, and nothing would be left to the lawyers but the management of their own concerns. By a parity of reasoning, physicians would cure none but physicians, and clergy- men would give spiritual assistance to none but clergymen. Lawyers are not legislators ; but when any particular body, or that union of all bodies politic which we call the State, has framed rules, it is the peculiar function of law- yers to interpret and apply them. Gorham's case is a case in point. The Privy Council had not to determine whether certain theological doctrines were true or false, or whether the Church of England was to adopt any particular opinion, but simply to decide whether particular opinions were positively excluded by certain formulie of words, which have been settled by competent legislative authority and contain the constitution of the Church. The question is ana- logous to questions arising on the construction of acts of Parliament and of private instruments, and is similar not only in its general character, but even in its subject-matter, to questions which the Court of Chancery has to settle daily in construing gifts to charitable and religious uses. It is one, I will venture to say, which a lawyer, whatever his opinions, would decide more clearly, fairly, and temperately, than any clergyman. The power of looking at both sides of a question, and of bringing the lumen Mecum of reason to bear on the single point to be determined, is one which is not gained without long practice and education. It constitutes the one virtue of lawyers; the want of it is the peculiar vice of clergymen."
But may it not be precisely because the lawyer's "lumen" is so very " siccum," that it cannot apply to the subject-matter of re- ligious doctrine ? For religious doctrine was involved in the de- cision. One reason of the confusion on that point has been the fact, that three wholly distinct questions have been confused in the discussion of Mr. Gorham's case,—the right of the citizen to the temporalities implied in the presentation ; the fitness of the presentee to be a teacher of the established religion ; and the com- petency, of the authority for deciding on his fitness. This will be seen more clearly if we restate the case in its simplest aspect : and, using our terms entirely in the popular and " natural " sense, we challenge candid construction in the endeavour so to restate it.
Mr. Gorham was presented to the vicarage of Brampford Speke, and the Bishop would have been compelled to induct him if he had been duly qualified. But, said the Bishop, you are not qualified to be a minister of the Church of England, because you hold doctrines alien to the Church on the subject of baptismal regeneration. Mr. Gorham denied the fact, and applied to an Ecclesiastical Court. The Court gave judgment against him. Mr. Gorham then appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—a lay tribunaL It appears from the judgment, that the Committee has consulted a variety of authorities, and that it finds discrepancies in the differ- ent versions of the Prayer Book and in the writings of eminent di- vines. We will not now stop to investigate a prime. facie case against the Committee of having so garbled quotations as to reverse their meaning, but simply state the fact as it appears on the record of the proceedings. On this evidence, the Law Lords decided—what ? That the doctrine in question was not determinate—was not es- sential, and therefore that the Bishop had no sufficient reason for rejecting Mr. Gorham. This is not merely deciding on "ecclesi- astical law," but also upon the very position, substance, bearing, and value of a doctrine ; and that, we say, is a function beyond the province of lay lawyers. Technical law is only to be decided by persons versed in the technicality ; and the very instances cited by our correspondent F. , prove the fact. The merchant does not " apply the rules of mer- cantile law," but our correspondent is too good a lawyer not to know that he declares what is the " law-merchant," and that the judge accepts that declaration as final within the range of the said law. The physician does interpret medical jurisprudence in many respects, and notably do the authorized medical corporations decide upon the fitness of medical men to undertake medical duties. The distinction seems to be this,—the doctrine which lies exclusively within the scope of the profession is to be determined by the pro- fession • on the receipt of such doctrine authoritatively declared, the tribunal which decides on the law between the different sec- tions of the community acquires the data for applying the doctrine according to law.
The exercise of lay reasoning, however dry, is soon driven to a reductio ad absurdum in the ease of religious doctrine. Admit the argument of our correspondent, and there would be no reason for excluding Unitarians from the ministry of the Church of Eng- land. Suppose the Reverend Mr. Madge, or any other eminent Unitarian minister, had beenpresented to the vicarage of Bramp- ford Speke, had been rejected bythe Bishop on the ground of has entertaining doctrines on the Trinity not proper to the Church, and had appealed to the Privy Council : now it is quite apparent that the most logical lawyer, cui lumen siccum, would utterly fail to establish any tangible conclusion on grounds of pure reasoning; that he would be lost in the mazes of the Platonical idealisms, the generalizations, and the modern refinements with which that ab- struse conception is now surrounded; and that the only result must be a decision like that in Gorham's case—that the doctrine was not so distinct in itself or so exclusively pertaining to the Church of England as to establish a warrant for the Bishop's re- jection. And if you say that this question transcends the facul- ties or attainments of lawyers,—that it requires a peculiar insight into the nature and bearing of doctrine, " not gained without long practice and education,"—so we say of the more abstruse doctrine
of baptismal. -regeneration. /fbt being competent topronoimce, what is the doctrine—liable to.take his own blindness for Boner- isbenee, his own wrong appreciation fortriviality in the. thing-r-the, 1ryer cannot judge its.aonexistence.or its nonessentialnese The whole anomaly of the recent decision lies in that naked fact- The thing needed for 'a competent decision was a declara- tion of the, doctrine by as ecclesiastical autherity, such, only more . solemn and distinct, As a merehaat woad& make in posseesing.a judge of the ." law-merchant." Thelasvjuckeesdecided vrithoutacle- plate information. They' admitted documents not evidence,— sermons and other compositions which ! are not authoritative do- cuments. Our correspondent is much nearer the-common sense
of the matter when he says—" The thing which the Chunk- does really. want. is legislative power : whethenit-is at this time expe- dient client or feasible to supply' this. want, is a very grave question., A'question, however; which. presses for inquiry, and one. which
the easier settled for being more explicitly. stated. It will be observed_ that there are points. which we have pur- posely abstained from discussing, because they would only confuse the right. appreciation of this particular case and its bearing at this stage. We have not discussed the. nature- of the doctrine at issue ; we have not discussed the question of an established church in its relation to the state, nor its dependenee.on-temporalities held by the tenure of allegiance ; stilt less the question whether-it. is desirable to have an established 'church at all. If it is desirable to abandon such an institution, it is best to ascertain that fact explicitly ; but while the institution does exist, it should at least biktompetent to maintain its own organization and the principles of its own vitality.
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