-!S
 
 II. 
 
 PRACTICABLE RE-ADJUSTMENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO 
 THE STATE. 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 EEAD BY 
 
 THE HON. WILBEAHAM' EGEETON, M.P. 
 
 AT THE 
 
 MANCHESTER DIOCESAN CONFERENCE, 
 
 November 22nd, 1877. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS, 
 25, Parliament Street, Westminster. 
 
 1877.
 
 I
 
 A PAPER, &c. 
 
 In discussing this question I wish to lay considerable stress on 
 the word practicable. I do not propose to consider how the 
 relations of the Church to the State could be reconstructed, if, 
 as in America and our colonies, we had to begin de novo, nor do 
 I wish to treat as an open question the desirability of the union 
 of Cluirch and State, which, before such an assembly, I take for 
 granted. 
 
 The civil and ecclesiastical rights handed down to us as a 
 precious heritage from the past have rendered great benefits to 
 the nation and the Church, and we must beware lest we reck- 
 lessly tamper with or diminish any of them. But the changes 
 which have been made in the Legislature during the last half 
 century (the full effect of which the Church is now feeling, and 
 the more acutely in consequence of its very vigour and activity), 
 render necessary some modification of the existing relations 
 between Church and State. 
 
 I propose to treat the subject under these heads, as far as the 
 brief time allotted to me will permit : — 
 
 1. The Eeform of Convocation ; 
 
 2. Ecclesiastical Legislation ; 
 
 3. The relation of the Crown to the Church ; 
 
 4. The Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 
 I. Though Convocation has happily recovered from that sus- 
 pension of its powers which for more than a century paralysed 
 all the legislative activity of the Church, allowed abuses to grow 
 up unrestrained, and discipline to become lax, and now enjoys 
 the privilege of debate and action; yet the representation of 
 the Parochial Clergy in the Southern Province, which is so 
 necessary to add weight and authority to the deliberations of 
 that body before it can be intrusted with any legislative power, 
 is still entirely inadequate. The Northern Conv^ocation has 
 already reformed itself by a larger infusion of the Parochial 
 Clergy, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that he 
 has himself the power to initiate reforms by summoning fresh 
 proctors to Convocation for the newly-constituted Dioceses of 
 St. Alban's and Truro.
 
 An equally important reform would be, without destroying 
 the old Provincial Synods of York and Canterbury, to give them 
 opportunities of discussing together important questions, either 
 by Joint-Committees, or by delegates as in 1661, and of forming 
 a general synod when necessary. Thus reformed and consoli- 
 dated into a compact homogeneous body. Convocation might 
 exercise its ancient prerogative of making canons on subjects 
 of faith and ritual, and the principle of the Bishop of London's 
 Bill in 1874 might be adopted, which proposed that the canons, 
 after the assent of the Queen in Council, and after being laid 
 upon the table of both Houses for forty days without opposi- 
 tion, should have the force of law. 
 
 Any addition to Convocation of a Lay House, sitting as an 
 integral part of it, which finds favour with some of the Clergy, 
 would encroach upon the prerogatives of Parliament, as the 
 representation of the Temporalty, and would never be granted 
 by the House of Commons. 
 
 Any representative assembly of the Laity outside the House 
 of Commons must be a voluntary body, such as the Diocesan 
 Conferences now are, and I think that it would be a great ad- 
 vantage for the ventilation of ecclesiastical questions if means 
 were taken either at the invitation of the Archbishops and 
 Bishops, or in some other way, to enable the Diocesan Confer- 
 ences (themselves elected and representative bodies) to send their 
 representatives to form a central Conference, and bring to one 
 focus the opinions of Lay Churchmen throughout the country. 
 Such a body might be consulted by Convocation on all questions 
 affecting ecclesiastical legislation, and could work with it by 
 means of Committees in the same way that a Committee of 
 Laymen appointed by the Church Defence Institution conferred 
 this year with a Committee of the Lower House of Convocation 
 of Canterbury on the subject of the reform of Convocation, and 
 drew up a memorial, which was presented to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 Such a meeting to ascertain the feeling of Lay Churchmen on 
 the subject of the Burials Question would not fail to have due 
 weight with the Houses of Parliament when the influence of
 
 Nonconformists and the votes of Scotch and Irish members 
 combine to neutrah'ze the opinions and votes of the great majority 
 of English Churchmen on that subject. 
 
 II. In whatever way it may be found practicable to bring the 
 influence of Lay opinion and that of the Clergy expressed in 
 Convocation to bear on the Houses of Parliament (and they 
 both haA^e strong claims to be consulted before legislation), the 
 temporal accidents of the Church, which concern the Laity quite 
 as much as the Clergy, must always in the end be decided by the 
 great Lay Council of the nation. But Parliament, by reason of 
 its mixed religious ojDinions, is no longer fitted, even if it had the 
 time, to discuss the details of ecclesiastical legislation. If any 
 such legislation is to take place, some forbearance must be 
 shown by the House of Commons in dealing with those subjects, 
 as a small Nonconformist or Roman Catholic minority might, if 
 so disposed, stop the passage of any Bill through the House. It 
 surely would not be unreasonable to ask that all ecclesiastical 
 Bills should, after a second reading in either House, be referred 
 to a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament. In 1864 a 
 joint committee of five members from each House, with the 
 Lord President as Chairman, was appointed for consideration of 
 Metroj^olitan Railway schemes. In 1873 Railway and Canal 
 Bills were committed to a joint committee, and a Member of the 
 House of Commons was chosen Chairman. Such a course 
 would enable the Bishops and the representatives of the Laity in 
 Pai'liament to meet ; details might be more fitly discussed, and, 
 with the assistance of the leading Churchmen in both Houses, 
 the progress of legislation might be facilitated. This would 
 remove one of the obstacles to any reforms in the^ Church, which, 
 in the present state of business in the House of Commons, it is 
 almost impossible to carry. 
 
 There are important questions which demand the attention of 
 Convocation and Parliament, such as the discipline of the Church, 
 the consolidation of the Church Building Acts, the reform of 
 the Ecclesiastical Courts and their procedure, and many others. 
 
 I cannot forbear from touching briefly on what is at the 
 present time a burning question, and one where the relations of
 
 Church and State require readjustment. It was reasonable for 
 the State to require the Church, when all the nation was of one 
 common faith to provide burial-grounds for all ; but such is not 
 the case now, when religious sects have shaken off their allegi- 
 ance and have provided in many cases chapels and burial- 
 grounds of their own. 
 
 The churches and churchyards were mostly given by private 
 benefactors for the special use of the Church of England ; and 
 the common law right of burial only exists, subject to the 
 services of the Clergy. 
 
 The difficulty should be met, not by asking the Church to 
 throw open her churchyards to all those who have rejected her 
 ministrations during life, though she is willing to bury all 
 Christians who accept her services, but by the State or the dissent- 
 ing comihunity itself providing means for the burial in ceme- 
 teries of all whose friends do not wish to avail themselves of the 
 services of the National Church. 
 
 The confidence of Churchmen in the Archbishops and Bishops 
 as representing the Church in the House of Lords has been 
 rudely shaken by the absence of 14 Prelates on the recent 
 division on Lord Harrowby's motion, and the hostility of others 
 to the views of 13,800 Clergy exj)ressed in the declaration on 
 this question. 
 
 I regret that on such an important subject the votes of the Bishops 
 were not more in accordance with the Lower House of the Convo- 
 cation of Canterbury, which by 5 1 votes to 7 passed a resolution 
 praying " the Upper House to oppose permission being given to 
 any person other than a Minister of the Church of England to 
 officiate at burials in our churchyards, being assured that such 
 a change in the law would be a grievance to the general body 
 of churchmen, and will have a tendency to unsettle the present 
 relations between Church and State." * 
 
 III. The relation of the Crown to the Church. 
 It is true that the personal will of the Sovereign is no longer 
 supreme, and, as Mr. Gladstone points out, the Sovereign now 
 acts " through the medium or under the control of ministers, 
 
 * Guardia)i,Jxi]y, 11, 1877.
 
 virtually chosen by a majority in a Parliament of mixed belief,"* 
 but I do not think we have any reason to find fault with the 
 present system of the appointment of Bishops by the Crown. It 
 is strictly analagous to the action of the lay patron who presents 
 to a living ; nor is it very different from the election of the 
 Bishops in the early ages by the acclamation of the people, who 
 the Prime Minister now represents. 
 
 I am not in favour of doing away with the conge d* 4lire^ 
 which is not merely a legal form, nor the fiction which it is 
 popularly supposed to be : any Chapter might, on adequate 
 grounds, refuse to accept the Bishop nominated by the Crown, 
 and, if supported by public opinion, might brave, with impunity, 
 the tremendous but obsolete penalties of the " Praemunire." 
 
 IV. The supremacy of the Crown as at present exercised in 
 spiritual causes has been questioned by the English Church 
 Union, who passed a resolution "" that any Court which is 
 bound to frame its decisions in accordance with the judgments 
 of the Judicial Committee in Privy Council, or any other secular 
 Court, does not possess any spiritual authority with respect to 
 such decisions," t but I think that the majority of the Laity are 
 opposed to any other than a Lay Court of Final Appeal, for this 
 reason : The Sovereign in Comicil does not attemj^t to make or 
 to settle doctrine ; the Court simply decides upon the interpre- 
 tation of the laws and formularies of the Church as expressed in 
 her Articles and Prayer-book, and whether that which a Clergy- 
 man has said or done is in conformity with them. 
 
 Some find fault with its latitude of interpretation on points 
 of doctrine, and its historical criticism of the rubrics on questions 
 of ritual; others say that "the living voice of the Church" 
 should be appealed to. Are either of them prepared to submit 
 the whole of our faith and formularies to the crucible of a 
 reformed Convocation, which might re-cast the ritual and narrow 
 the comprehensiveness of the Church of England ? 
 
 The objections taken to the manner of appointing the new 
 Judge under the Public Worship Eegulation Act, seem to me to 
 be more technical than real. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in 
 
 * " The Royal Supremacy," 1877, p. 4.3. 
 \ '' Quai-terly Review," July, 1877, p. 2.54.
 
 his letter to Canon Carter, says he is, both by statute and by 
 appointment from the Archbishops, official Principal — he is 
 therefore an ecclesiastical Judge, if not strictly according to 
 ecclesiastical jDrecedents, yet duly appointed.* 
 
 If some of the provisions of the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act are contrary to the ancient principles of our ecclesiastical 
 law, agitate for their repeal, but in the meanwhile obey the law 
 and the decisions of its lawful officers. 
 
 Churchmen have a right to ask, not that the highest Court 
 shall be formed of Ecclesiastics only, who cannot be supposed to 
 have the judicial training or legal acumen to fit them for it, but 
 that the highest Court shall at least be restricted to Churchmen 
 some of whom shall be learned in ecclesiastical law, and that in 
 any reforms of the Ecclesiastical Courts, Convocation should be 
 consulted. 
 
 Lastly. In most of the countries of Europe a struggle is now 
 going on between the temporal and the spiritual power, and in 
 all cases where the ecclesiastical authority has claimed for itself 
 undue preponderance over the civil, it has brought down defeat 
 and violent reactionary measures on itself. But in this country 
 the influence of the great body of the Laity will prevent any 
 encroachment of sacerdotal power. There is more fear lest the 
 just rights of the Church of England should be overlooked by a 
 Parliament prejudiced against a small section of the Clergy, and 
 that the House of Commons should not act in the same concilia- 
 tory spirit towards Convocation as it did in 1662. I trust that 
 the moderate, and, I believe, practicable reforms which I have 
 advocated may be carried out, so as to strengthen the ties 
 between Church and State, which have done so much to further 
 the cause of religion and liberty in this country. 
 
 * The facts are these : — Lord Penzance, instead of taking the oaths of allegi- 
 ance and subscribing to the thirty-nine Articles on his appointment by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbmy as his predecessor did (which appointment was con- 
 firmed by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury), was appointed under an Act of 
 Parliament by the two Archbishops Judge of the Provincial Court of Canterbury 
 and York, and Her Majesty approved of the appointment through the Secretary 
 of State. He then, on the resignatien of Sir Robert Phillimore and Mr. Vernon 
 became by virtue of the Act of Parliament official principal of the Arches Court 
 of Canterbury and the Consistory Court at York. — " Court of Hrches " return 
 moved by Mr. Hubbard, 1877.
 
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