Vital to tht Rita.
CHURCH-RATES.
August 23rd, 1858. is to be hoped that in the next session of Parliament the church- rate question may be got rid of one way or another. Four plans, it seems, are before the world. Of two of these I wish to speak a few words, those, namely, proposed by Sir Arthur Elton and by Mr. Duncombe. Sir Arthur Elton's scheme, as I understand it, has the great and rare merit of being perfectly fair alike to Churchmen and to Dissenters. For that reason, such is the frailty of human nature, I expect that both Churchmen and Dissenters will rise up against it. The really earnest Churchman, who loathe the scandal of taking the money of Dissenters to support the Church, *ill be heartily thankful for it. The really earnest Dissenter, who feels it a real hardship to have to contribute to a religion which he disapproves, will be heartily thankful for it also. But it will be odious to that type of Churchman whose churchmanship consists in a political and social dislike to Dissenters, and who will have to surrender what he regards as a badge of ascendency over the enemy. It will be no less odious to those Dissenters whose dissent consists in that political and social dislike to the Church which has been naturally engendered in return. Sir Arthur's resolutions, in short, thoroughly combine the great principle of religious equality with a regard to the real legal and historical rights of the Church. The political Churchman kicks at the former, the political Dissenter kicks at the latter. There are two parties, each of which wants more than its due share ; Sir Arthur Elton will doubtless offend both by offering to each its due share and DA more.
The plain principle of religious equality dictates that, within the general limits dictated by social order and good government, every religious body should have full power to preach its own doctrines, exercise its own dis- cipline, regulate its own affairs, enjoy its own property. Such religious body may be, according to its constitution, a single local congregation or a wide-spread society scattered over the whole land. In either case it should have full power of self-government, but in no case should it have any power to meddle with people of other persuasions, nor should people of other per- suasions have any power to meddle with it. Now, as long as the present system of church-rates exists, these principles are sinned against in two ways. The Dissenter is compelled to pay for the maintenance of the Church. In -return he possesses a voice in the internal affairs of the Church. The liberty of the Dissenter is violated by the Dis- senter having to pay. The self-government of the Church is violated by the Dissenter having the right to vote. Some Churchmen would very likely wish to make the Dissenter still pay but no longer vote. Some Dissenters would very likely wish to continue to vote but to leave off paying. That is to say, each wishes to get more than his due, to retain a certain advantage over the other. Sir Arthur Elton offers to each his exact due; he relieves each from his grievance, he deprives each of his advantage. The church- man loses the power of taking the Dissenter's money. The Dissenter loses the power of interfering with the churchman's rights to self-government in his own religious affairs. Now if the question lay between the Wesleyans and the Baptists, pro- bably everybody would fully admit the truth of this reasoning. It would be allowed on all hands that no Wesleyan ought to be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of a Baptist chapel, that no Baptist ought to be able to claim a vote in the private affairs of a 'Wesleyan congregation. But when the case of the Church and Dissent is in question, a number of clouds immediately arise to mystify the argument on both sides. The bn-bmr of the "National Church Establishment" is at once brought up by both parties for their own several purposes. It used to be the Churchman who said, "The Church is the national church, therefore you Dissenters shall pay for it, whether you use it or no." Now it is more commonly the Dissenter who says, "The Church is the national church; whether I use it or pay for it or not, at any rate I will have a voice in its management."
Now I have been for many years trying to find out what the words "Na- tional Church Establishment' mean. I think I can tell what a national church establishment would be, but what answers my idea of one certainly does not exist in England. I can understand a state having an ecclesiasti- cal department, just like a military or a legal department. In such a case, the clergy would be government officers, government stipendiaries, the churches would be government buildings applied to that purpose, just as other government buildings are applied to the purposes of barracks or courts of justice. There would be a national church, just as there is a national armj.
Now this is clearly not the case with the existing Church of England. The clergy are fully subject to the law, but they are not Government offi- cers in the same sense as Post-office clerks or captains of Dragoons. They are not Government stipendiaries ; their revenues consist chiefly of their own freehold endowments. The churches are not Government property, but the freehold of this or that local corporation, sole or aggregate. As far as these points are concerned, there is no real difference between the Church and any other sect. There are Church endowments and there are Dis- senting endowments; the only difference is that Church endowments are older and larger than Dissenting endowments. Both have the same origin, the voluntary gifts of zealous men. Only in one case antiquity throws a veil over their origin, and disguises their real nature. Probably some very ig- norant people imagine that the clergy are paid out of the taxes. And many who are better informed have a hazy notion that, at some distant period or ether the Church was endowed by the State. I wish they could show me when.
That the great mass both of Church endowments and Dissenting endow- ments come from the voluntary system there can be no doubt. That the great mass of existing churches were erected by voluntary gift is still more Clear. Of course I know that there have been, at various times, Parlia- mentary grants to Church purposes. But these make up only an infinitesi- mal portion of Church revenues. And, moreover, therelave been, and still are, Parliamentary grants to Dissenting purposes. Both should be stopped for the future ; but it would hardly do to sue Maynooth for the meane pro- fits, to extort the Regium Donnm of a century and a half from the repre- sentatives of generation after generation of Irish Presbyterian clergy, o to confiscate the churches built early in this century with the Parliamentary grant of a millioft. I hold, then, that, as far as endowments are concerned, the ChIurshohouktof England and any other sect may meet on terms of perfect equality. Each is protected by the law in the enjoyment of property to which it has a legal right. If there is any inequality in the mere form of tenure —that is if it would suit Dissenters better to have their ecclesiastical property held by le- gally recognized corporations instead of by fluctuating trustees,--
support any change in the law which would enable them to do so ; would extend Sir Arthur Elton's proposal for relaxing the Law of blortmak equally to Dissenting chapels as to churches. I cannot think that just now over-munificence is the danger we have to dread.
Where Dissenters have hitherto had reason to complain has not been be. cause the Church has been endowed, but because the Church has been un.. fortunately allowed to exercise a coercive authority over them. That is to say, in ages when the Church and the nation were coextensivet the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church over its own members received a civil sanction. For instance, excommunication, the cutting off an unworthy member, is a power inherent in every religious society. But when there was only one religious society in England the exoommunications and other ecclesiastical sentences of that society became matters of civil sanction and penalty. And as other religious societies arose, this coercive jurisdiction was extended to their members also. Againt it is the plain duty of every member of a religious congregation to contribute according to his means to the support of the fabric and services by which he benefits. Enforce this duty by law, and you at once have a church-rate. While the Church and the nation are coextensive, the only objection to such a rate is that a moral duty is beet left to be enforced by moral sanctions. But when the Church and the na- tion cease to be coextensive, you add the manifest hardship and injustiee of levying contributions for the benefit of one sect from the members of another.
The liability, then, of all parishioners to pay church-rates, the right of all parishioners to vote in vestry, both spring from the supposed identity of the Church and the nation ; a fact in the middle ages, but now a manifest fiction. Sir Arthur Elton's resolutions grapple fairly with the changed state of things. They say, give both Church and Dissent fair play, throw both on the voluntary system, let no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter, neither the Churchman by taking the money of the Dissent- er, nor the Dissenter by voting on the private business of the Churchman. What I desire to see is real religious equality, combined with, what is in no way inconsistent with it, respect to ancient and legal rights. This Sir Arthur Elton's proposal secures, 'Mr. Duneombe's does not. Mr. Duneombe treats the churches as "national property," from the common, confined hazy notion about a "National Establishment." Now, of course I do not deny the right, that is the legal authority, of Parliament to do tibia or anything else, but I do say that it would be an unfair and unjust measure, and, as such, strongly to be resisted.
I cannot see, then, that Sir Arthur Elton's resolutions at all tend to the set- ting up of anything like a "Papal church." Their object is simply to put the Church of England, in one important respect, on the footing on which I hold that all religious sects ought to be—protected by the law in the en'. joyment of their own property and in the exercise of their own discipline over their own members, but hindered from extending either pecuniary de- mands or ecclesiastical censures over members of other communions.
I have two more points briefly to touch on. I have spoken throughout of "the Church," and of "Dissent," I do not know how far such language is felt by Dissenters as any assumption of superiority—I most certainly do not mean it so—I use it simply because I know of no other formula to espress my meaning. And I may here observe that Sir Arthur's scheme is not liable to the objection of " ticketting " Dissenters, which applied to some others. I can quite understand that a man may object to being "ticketed" as something negative—to be tieketted as a "Dissenter" in the general, not positively as a Baptist, Independent, or Unitarian. Now Sir Arthur Elton avoids this ; he does not ticket his Dissenters, he tickets' his Church- men.
Secondly, my whole argument assumes throughout the identity of the ex- isting Church of England with the Church of the middle ages. I do not speak theologically, but historically and quasi-legally. Now historically and legally the society presided over by Dr. Sumner is identical with the society presided over by St. Augustine. There was no time when,. as many people suppose, property and jurisdiction were taken from one society, and given to another. The changes of the sixteenth century consisted not in pulling down one church and setting up another, but in internal changes is the church itself. Important alterations were made both in faith and prac- tice, alterations which Roman Catholics tell us imply a theological inva- lidity, but which do not interfere with the legal and historical identity of the society before and after. And, in fact, the only difference is that in the sixteenth century change was more rapid than in earlier or later times. The Church of 600 differed almost as much from that of 1520, the Church of 1560 from that of 1858, as the Church of 1520 from that of 1560. All I con- tend is that neither the gradual nor the rapid change affects the identityi historical, legal, and moral of the religious society which has continued through them all. To that religious society I wish to preserve its full in- ternal independence, while I would shear it of an outward ascendancy no longer suited to the times. And it seems to me that the adoption of Sir Arthur Elton's resolutions would be a very great step in so desirable a di- reetion.
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