LAY REPRESENTATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEl " SPBCCATOR.1
Sin,—Though the Spectator is not a frequent visitor in my remote parsonage, I am assured that you think, as well as write, and would rather guide opinion than merely express it. I am desirous of discussing from this point of view your criticism of a paper received, as you confess, with some approval at the Church Congress. The paper was mine, and my friend, Mr. Robertson had no other responsibility than reading it in my absence, which, by all accounts, he did remarkably well.
You think the style "flippant," a censure which I might have expected from the prigs who can see no argument in a joke ; but the Spectator should have remembered that " ridiculum acie fortius ac menus magnas plerumque secat res." The brief extract you have given shows that I hive repeatedly chal- lenged a more serious discussion, and elicited nothing but it stolid repetition of the disputed assertions. Moreover, you quote (without answering) some objections which seem to me beyond a joke. If it be true that the sun is a bubble, that does not prove every bubble to be a sun; and if I was wrongin speaking of a bubble' as " suspended" (instead of " floating ") by its own levity, it was an error of speech rather than of science. All you really bring against me is the lay representation in the Scotch Presbyterian Establishment, which seems to me just one of those exceptiona which prove the rule of Established Churches. At all events, I was not called upon to deal with it in the twenty minutes allowed to me, seeing it has never (that I know of) been adduced in the English controversy. You say nothing to the more formid- able position that the proposed lay representation in the English Convocation is an invention of the present day, having no con- nection with the history and constitution of the Church of England ; is equally distant from any national institution, and. remains to this hour without any practical definition even by its own advocates. Surely such objections require at least an answer... Till they are answered, I must continue to pronounce the whole ideas delusion, wanting the very first elements of practical reform.
You must pardon me if I cannot think your own re- marks exhibit any closer grasp of the question. You say in one place that "the ecclesiastics have hitherto had the affairs of the Church completely in their own hands, and despised and trodden on the feelings of non-ecclesiastics," and to this autocracy of the clergy you attribute the want of lay co-operation. But presently after I read:—" One thing is very certain, Parliament has the supreme control of the Church;" and Parliament, yon show, has just exercised its control in a way which, I suspect,. you like as little as I do. The fact, then, is that, instead of there being no lay representation in the Church, the lay repre- sentation is supreme in every part of our Constitution. The English is the most lay-ridden Church in Christendom. The- laity make all our laws in Parliament, they administer them in the Ecclesiastical Courts, they have the appointment, by means- of the Crown and other patronage, of all our bishops, deans, and half the lower clergy. To talk of the absence of lay representa- tion in such circumatances seems to me the most wilful delusion. The question really is whether the laity of the National Church shall continue to be represented (as they always have been) in the- national institutions, Crown, Parliament, and Vestry ; or whether- a new representation shall be constructed on some ecclesiastical basis not yet defined, and of which all that we are per- mitted to know is that it is not to be national. I confess it surprises me to find the Spectator advocating such a change. You think Parliament "a heterogeneous body of Athe- ists, Theists, Jews, Roman Catholics, and every shade of orthodox and unorthodox Protestants," and consequently unfit to represent the Church laity. This is language which I should have expected_ from the Tablet, and might have smiled at in the Church Times. It surprises, me, I repeat, in the Spectator. You will not deny, I presume, that Parliament, at all events, represents the English nation with tolerable accuracy. Whatever Parliament is, any other representation of the English laity will be no better suited "to debate continually articles of belief," and may be much worse. If all the lay representatives were to be nominated (as a lay friend of mine actually proposes), by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I do not believe they would make as good a Church body as the House of Lords ; if there is to be any sort of General Election, we should be fortunate to get se good an Assembly as the HOUR2 of Commons. We should be far more likely to drop into a magnified Vestry. Where, then, is the
? Why should Parliament listen to a body every way inferior to itself? Its advocates obviously contemplate some- thing less than a National representation, though they will not and cannot say what. At Church Congresses they talk of the Church laity ; the Spectator consents to write, "a body of any kind containing a sufficiently large infusion of a manly lay element to advise Parliament on the subject of Church Comprehension and Regulation." Have we here the slightest approach towards a definition of the laity whom it is desired to represent ? In the first place, what is a lay Church- man? Is it one who acknowledges the Apostolic succession of the English Bishops? or one who approves of the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy of 1662 exactly as they are printed? or one who receives them only in the Catholic, the Calvinist, or some other interpretation? or one who thinks the Prayer-book needs a little revision and explanation ? or one who thinks, as you probably do, that it wants a great deal of both ? Again, I ask, what is your idea of "a manly lay element," and do you really think that you and Canon Ryle are in the least agreed on the people that should advise Parliament on such sub- jects, as "Church comprehension and regulation "? And once snore, be the advisers who they may, is Parliament, in the exer- cise of its supreme control, not to listen to its own " hetero- geneous " members, representing " heterogeneous " constituents, who have, nevertheless, exactly the same legal and constitutional in- terest in the endowment and services of the National Church that you or I have ? Is it not plain that to constitute any new represen- tation whatever, and associate it with the clergy to "discuss [in your own words] minutely the conditions of Church membership or of clerical subscription," and to advise Parliament on the subject of Church comprehension and regulation, is to erect a new Church, which will not be the Church of England—i.e., of the English nation—but of some portion of it hereafter to be defined ? That the Imperial Parliament will ever consent to be advised by such a body any further than it now is by the Wesleyan Society, is another of the chimerical imaginations of the bubble-blowers. But that the constitution of such an Episcopal denomination (sup- posing it to retain Episcopacy) in the place of the National Church would be, ipso facto, Disestablishment, and necessarily involve Dis- endowment, I think no statesman or lawyer would dispute for a moment. For my own part, I do not accept your view of the Parliament, or the nation it represents. I believe that both are substantially Christian, and sufficiently homogeneous with the Church as established by law to carry on the historical and con- stitutional relations of Church and State. I have no fear of the State withdrairing from the Church, because it is ruled by states- men. My fears arise from the notorious ignorance of statesman- ship among the clergy, and the unhistorical tendencies of the pseudo-laity, who think themselves what they are not. —I am, .Sir, &c.,
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