TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GEDGE'S MOTION.
IT is most sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Gedge's Motion —to be proposed next Tuesday—which is intended to bind the Government to give no patronage to any members of the English Church Union, will meet with a firm negative on the part of the House of Commons. As our readers know, we do not say this out of any sympathy for the English Church Union, or because we desire to see the opinions it represents prevail in the Church. On the contrary, we personally dislike and distrust those views, and believe, further, they are not the views which are held by the majority of English Churchmen, clerical or lay. Again, we should consider it a grave blunder in the use of patronage if the Government were to appoint to high and responsible positions in the Church persons holding the opinions so truculently set forth by Lord Halifax. But between wishing that the English Church Union shall fail in its efforts, and the wholesale boycotting and proscription of all the members of a society which is not alleged for a moment to be guilty .of anything but doctrinal and disciplinary offences, there is a whole world of difference. The demand that the gates of prefer- ment shall be shut upon all members of the English Church Union merely because they are members of that Union, and irrespective of any personal considerations, seems to us a most odious and detestable piece of persecution. And like all acts of persecution, the proposal is as foolish as it is wrong. In the first place, it gives the English Church Union a prominence and an importance which it does not deserve, andlo which unaided by its indiscreet opponents it could never have attained. The moment a corporate body is strongly assailed it acquires a homogeneity which it never possessed before. The sense of persecution develops loyalty and comradeship as nothing else can. Think, too, of the fas- cination exercised on the minds of young men by the thought of the semi-martyrdom which is to be enjoyed by joining a persecuted body. To the enthusiastic curate the notion of Joining the English Church Union will be doubly attractive when he feels that his joining is an act of renunciation of advancement in the Church. No one will be able to say after that that he -is entering the Church from worldly or material motives. Again, men actually in the English Church Union will, if this persecuting Motion be adopted, find it almost impossible to leave the Union. Not only will they have the Englishman's usual dislike of- deserting friends under fire, but they will feel that their action is sure to be misconstrued. ' Have you heard that the rector is leaving the English Church Union ? I suppose he knows Barchester Deanery is likely to be vacant in a very few months.' That is not the kind of thing men like to risk having said about them. Depend upon it, then, the effect of Mr. Gedge's Motion, if it were carried, would be to increase the numbers of the English Church Union, and to make those who are now members far more tenacious than before in their membership.. But apart from all these questions of convenience, there is the essential injustice of condemning a whole body of men together and in one batch. And in this case the members of the Union are not to be condemned for anything in the constitution of their body, or, indeed, for anything that their accredited representatives have done ; but, in truth, merely because their chief, Lord Halifax, has made foolish speeches and written " heady " pamphlets. What could be more unjust ? A parallel to the proposal of Mr. Gedge is -to be found in the action that was taken against Dissenters by the Stuarts. Certain Dissenters held and preached doctrines that were supposed to be subversive to Church and State, therefore no Dissenters were to be allowed to take any share in the government of the country. This was the spirit which inspired the Test Acts. In truth, Mr. Gedge's proposal is a new form of the Test Acts. Unless clergymen are in a position to swear that they are not members of the English Church Union they are to be excluded from all Church preferment at the disposal of the Crown. That a proposal at once so unfair and so grotesque should be seriously placed before Parliament, and may con- ceivably be carried, is a sign of the mental confusion and excitement which has been occasioned by the present con- troversy in the Church. When people, think of fighting so-called Romanisin, but what we would rather call extreme sacerdotalism, by such methods as these, it is pretty-evident that their minds are unhinged by panic. It is like the attempt to prevent the spread of the Papal power by an - Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. As a matter of fact, the Papal power has not spread,'but it was not the Ecclesiastical-Titles Act which stemmed the tide ; for that ridiculous measure was repealed, as will be Mr. Sidney Gedge's Motion should it unfortunately be passed. In the present controversy the fatal error of the opponents of the extreme sacerdotalists is • their belief that you can win in a spiritual fight-by means of merely temporal weapons. When the conscience is involved it is perfectly useless, at any rate in the case of Englishmen, to force men by temporal pains and penalties to do what they think wrong. But, properly understood, this need not make us in the least despair of the present state of the Church of England. If people will only keep their heads, try not to let themselves be inflamed by passion and " awed by rumour," and endeavour to make the Church comprehend as much, not as little, as possible, all may, and indeed, will, still go well. The majority of English Churchmen of all forms of opinion, and indeed of the English pwple as a whole, are most anxious to maintain the established Church, and, though they are confused by controversy, they are also anxious that the Church should be as widely comprehensive as is consistent with the maintenance of the Reformed faith. They want the Church, that is, to go on including the High;- the Low, and the Broad. But though in matters of doctrine they are in effect willing to comprehend almost any one who is sincerely and seriously anxious to be comprehended, they desire in matters of ceremonial and observance, not strict uniformity, but a certain organisation and regularisation of the allowed diversity. But as men make ceremonial a matter- of conscience, how is this organisation and regularisation to be obtained without either oppression of conscience or else expulsion ? Our answer is,—through the power of the Bishops. This is the instrument • which can and ought to be used to effect a reasonable discipline in the Church. Fortunately, with the High Church clergy it is a -matter-of- consciencematter-of to obey the Bishop, and though men do not always act up to their religious theories when their blood is hot, you can have no martyrs for conscience' sake when the Bishop- gives the order. It is, then, through this conscientious dislike of disobeying the Bishops that we ought to work. It is, of course, arguable that the Bishops will not do their duty or are on the. side of the law-breakers, but if so the remedy is in the hands of the State which appoint§ the Bishops. Though we would have no persecuting general exclusions, we hold that Ministers should be most careful to appoint no men as Bishops who are not loyal to the Church.- But this, we contend, is what all the present Bishops are, and they show it in nothing more than in their refusal to give way to panic cries for violent action' against the clergy of their dioceses. As a rule the cry of lukewarmness in a Bishop comes from the fact that instead of taking third-hand hearsay evidence as to ' the more than Roman superstitions_practised at St. Barnabas,' he prefers to investigate the-facts. • At any rate, as long as. the clergy obey the Bishops, and the State-i.e., the nation acting through its representatives in the Government and the Crown—appoints the Bishops, there need be no ground for despair.
And here we would suggest that the demand of the -Hi Churchmen to have Church cases judged, not by tie Judicial -Committee, but by an ecclesiastical Court to which they are conscientiously obliged to yield obedience, appears to us one which !aught to be considered by the Government' and with the utmost care. Personally, we do not think the Judicial Committee a godless Court, or one incapable of deciding Church questions. But that is not the point. The wise statesman is always anxious to obtain for any and every Court the maximum of sanction and of respect from those who will be required to obey it. The problem, then, is to find a con- patent tribunal which the High Churchmen can discover no ex- cuse for disobeying. If such a Court could be erebted, the 'power of bringing the extreme High Churchmen into line would be enormously increased. We believe that such a Court is to be found in the Court of the two Archbishops ; but abating for the moment that this Court could not be'developed to cover the whole ground, we hold that a new Court could be erected which would be just as efficient, from the point of view of the State, as the Judicial Committee, and infinitely more powerful, because it", would have com- mand over the consciences as well as over the bodiei and purses of those who came . before it. Into the . details of the: organikation . of such a • Court we do, not pro- pose to enter, .but that a satisfactory Court could be foimded on the unchallengeable powers of the Bishops and the . Metropolitans. we do not doubt. If it were actually .composed:of Bishops, as we should prefer, it might no doubt be. a little weak in .ecclesiastical law, but that would be no great matter. We want to see the usage of the Church shaped by common-sense, by.a wise spirit of charity and of comprehension, and with a due respect for the rights of the laymen as well as of. the clergy, rather than by legal technicalities. Meantime, of one thing we are sure,—Mr. Gedge's attempt to set up a new form of.tests for high office in _the Church is utterly to be condenined, and we most sincerely trust that it will be rejected by Parliament. If, however, Parliament must do something in the matter, let some reasonable and moderate member propose to substitutefor Mr. Gedge's Motion-one in. effect declaring that no one shall receive Church patronage from the Crown unless the Govern- ment is assured of his loyalty to the Church of England. As that is the principle upon which Ministers already act, such an assertion of it could do no harm.
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