SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT AND THE CHURCH.
WE do not understand the impression, though it is obviously current, that Sir William Harcourt has receded from his attitude towards the Established Church. He has on reflection moderated the rancour of his tongue, and he has apologised to his Irish followers for an indis- creet description of their faith, but his moderation in speech on Tuesday only made the virulence of his mean- ing a little more clear. Judging by his words on that occasion, he detests the High Church party, and would turn them out of the Church, if he could, neck and crop. He begins by asserting the Erastian theory, which is, of course, very offensive to that school, in the most vehement way. He dwells with unction on the fact that the laity, through Parliament, rule the Church—which is true even in Roman Catholic countries if the laity choose to use their legal prerogatives—and repeated with a certain malice of intention the legend that the Act of Uniformity is the only Act of the British Legislature avowedly passed without the consent of the Lords Spiritual, and in defiance of a resistance from them which, with a single exception, was unanimous. This cardinal principle established, he proceeds to declare that of all faults which should dis- qualify an English clergyman from claiming the "advan- tages "—he means the emoluments—of his position, the most serious are faults of doctrine and "practice." We give his words as reported in the Times. He holds the Benefices Bill introduced by the Government to be "essentially defective" because 'it excludes misconduct in respect of doctrine and practice, which are the prin- cipal and most important duties of any man holding ecclesiastical office. To say that you are dealing with misconduct in the ecclesiastical office when you are not dealing with the most important duties of the ecclesias- tical office seems to me wholly illogical and irrational. That such misconduct of a grave character does exist at present to a great extent in the Church of England no man denies." And he leaves us in no doubt what, in his judgment, a perfect Bill should be. It should contain clauses ex- pelling clergymen guilty of faults of doctrine or practice from their livings. "If the clergy of this country desire to be delivered from those obligations whieh they may con- ceive to be onerous and irksome they can be discharged only by putting an end to that compact by which they hold their preferments and their offices. They can be dis- charged, of course, by Disestablishment and Disendow- ment. If each man claims—and we hear this claim to-day —to be the judge of the doctrine he shall preach and the practices he shall follow, he can be so, but it can only- - be by the repeal of the Act of Uniformity, the object of which was to put an end to diversities of doctr:ne and practices within the Church of England. There must be a surrender of the advantages and the privileges and the rights which they hold under that Act of Uniformity. We do not complain of any man who holds these opinions, or who has those desires, but he must accept the conse- quences of that which he demands." Perhaps the word "expel" is too strong. Clergymen are not expelled in our day by a generation which professes to be devoted to religious liberty, and a tolerance pushed to the verge of the old Roman indifference. They are only compelled to choose between their consciences and their livings. The High Church party is to be compelled to quit the Estab- lishment by Act of Parliament because it is " treacherous " and because some of its more extreme members "attempt to identify the doctrines and practices of the Church of England with the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome." If this is not Sir William Harcourt's inten- tion should he be vested with power at the next Electior, there is no sense in words ; but lest there should be any mistake, he quoted the Act of 1874 as his exemplar. He utterly denied that that Act had failed, though his very complaint, his very charge against a large section of the clergy—" thousands," he said in his previous speech—is proof that it did fail. "That was action taken at the instance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was sup- ported by the Prime Minister of England, and it was carried by an overwhelming majority of the House of Commons. I entirely deny that it was ineffective. It had a great effect, and for a long period, in checking and. restraining those practices. It would have been a great. deal more effectual if the Bill had passed into law as it left the House of Commons, and if it bad not been mutilated in the House of Lords." Sir William Harcourt. in fact, considers that although the very essence of English High Church conviction is anti-Roman, they holding that the Anglican Church is the ancient Church, that their Orders have been properly transmitted, and that the Pope has no jurisdiction to decide otherwise, still to think as Roman Catholics think on certain points is treachery to the Establishment which would. justify expulsion. He is, in fact, appealing to the "Protestant" feeling of Englishmen to give him power.
We believe that he will fail. He is making, as Lord Beaconsfield made, and as scores of English politicians have made, the cardinal mistake of thinking that English- men are logical. History might have taught him, if not observation, that they are not, for if they had been, the Church of England, with its Calvinist Articles and. Catholic methods of worship, could not have endured a year. He perceives certain convictions, and does not per- ceive the mental habitudes which prevent those convic- tions from transmuting themselves into acts. It is, we believe, quite true that a large majority of the laity within the Church of England remain rather strongly "Protestant." They reject absolutely the claim to final authority in matters of faith and discipline so firmly, and, as they think, so audaciously, advanced by the Bishop of Rome. They reject the cardinal doctrine of the Roman Church, the performance of an actual miracle in the celebration of the Communion. They are stirred to positive anger by any approach to worship of the Virgin Mary, of which even the moderately " High " among them say there is not one trace in Revelation. They contemn in their hearts, in the most curiously silent yet immovable way, the whole idea. of sacerdotalism, and this whether they accept or do not accept the Apostolical Succession as a historic fact. Ana they dislike, though in widely different degrees of intensity, all innovations in practice, and especially in the Sunday- parochial services, which seem to them to tend towards the acceptance of the repudiated ideas. But they hold a cer- tain kind of spirituality displayed in life and conduct greatly more important than any doctrine or practice con- sistent with a belief in the supernatural and the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. If a preacher preaches well they will throng St. Paul's to hear him, whether he is Canon Liddon or Dean Stanley. No possible agreement with his doctrine, however complete, would make them pardon a drunken minister, but if a clergyman is of pure life, if he is known to devote himself to their service, above all, if he is believed to be absolutely sincere, they will, within limits which range from Deism to &In tnism., let him preach what he thinks right, and conduct public worship in the manner which seems to him most reverential. There will be much sharp criticism at home. There may be a few desertions. Here and there a parishioner of strong convictions or cantankerous temper may make a vehement protest, perhaps in the church building itself. But the great majority will tolerate in the man of saintly life, and spiritual mind, and benevolent conversation, almost any opinion that can possibly be called Christian. (We ought to say that there is an exception to this in the case of Mariolatry, which seems to be opposed to some immovable Eng- lish instinct.) They are, in fact, in their ideal of what should be, if not in their lives—often so grossly earthy—essentially a Puritan people. They bore with what they considered the oppressiveness of the Evan- gelicals because they were Puritans ; they bear with the excesses of some High Churchmen of the saintly temper because in all but theology they are Puritans, most self- devoted, industrious in good works, and sincere. They would regard legislation which compelled such men to resign their livings as grossly oppressive, and would at the next Election make their feeling manifest in the most unmistakeable way. That their system of thought is utterly illogical, and inconsistent with any complete system of theology, or any definite kind of ecclesiastical polity, must be acknowledged at once ; but it is their system, and has been ever since the days of Elizabeth, and Sir William Harcourt will find himself as powerless to change it as any of the rulers who have broken their power in the experiment. How he, with his historical knowledge, can make such a blunder we are at a loss to understand, though we have a vague suspicion of the cause. His speech gives us the impression, for the first time in the many years that we have watched his career, that Sir William Harcourt has a strong conviction. It is Erastianism. He believes with all his heart and soul that Parliament has a right to make a creed and organise a Church. So do perhaps half the English Churchmen ; but even upon this point Sir William Harcourt stands apart from the people of his own opinion. He is logical, they are not. Believing in Erastianism, he would act on his belief, and set Parliament to govern the Established Church. They, though believing always that it has a right to govern, would rather it let such government alone. Hardly will they support a Bill against criminous clerks, and a Bill against or for new doctrines would rouse a ferment before which statesmen would shrink appalled. The English decision, as Sir William will find, if he ever solidifies his views into Bills, is that the Church can be improved, if needful, as to conduct, but that as to doc- trine and practices, it is to be left as it always has been,— viz., a most illogical but most comprehensive and good- working Church. They may, if the ultra-Ritualists cannot bring themselves to accept Canon Gore's advice, quoted elsewhere, make it easier—which in practice means cheaper—for the Bishops to check aberrations, but we are not quite certain even of that. There is a great dread in this country of creating Diocesan Churches, so that Exeter shall be of one persuasion and Liverpool of another, and a very keen jealousy of allowing a Bishop to imperil an incumbent's freehold. If there is to be more discipline there must be more punishment, and of punishment not administered by lay Judges Englishmen have an incurable suspicion. They would not bear Courts-Martial if it were possible to help themselves, and they will only bear Clerical Courts if they are very moderate, and take "previous good character" much into consideration.
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