PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference →
885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDO
4
such as they are, which connect the Church of England, all the world over, with the State, and subject to the Liturgy, the Articles, and other rules if such there be, which the State has imposed.
Now, if you at once remove these ties by legis- lative enactment, you leave the Church of England in each colony without any law, rule, or tribunal whatever. You leave a bishop, clergy, and laity 'without any relative rights, either of law or of defi- nite usage. You leave them to build up for them. selves a system of polity (if not of doctrine) by analogy, as well as they can, to that prevailing in
the mother country. And you leave people to do this who (having been menbers all their lives of a State Church with no self-government) are entirely helpless, and accustomed in everything to rely on what they conceive to be the law. I think you will find throughout the many representations we have had on this subject from the laity in the several dioceses, rather an anxious protest against measures which might render them wholly independent of the mother Church; and I doubt whether any, except one or two far-seeing bishops, are really prepared to cut all loose.
But the example of the Episcopal Church of the United States is cited, to show that all this danger has been incurred before, and that the result was, not the disruption of the Church, but its reconstitu- tion as a flourishing body in close connection with that of England.
I fully admit the force of the instance. It is a very remarkable and a very encouraging one. What- ever may be the defects of its internal constitution, that Chorch affords a singular spectacle of an entirely voluntary adhesion to the old national faith.
But I think it necessary to point out some very
strong distinctions between the cases.
When the United States separated from the mother country, the Anglicans formed a small dis- countenanced remnant, chiefly in one particular region, Virginia and its neighbourhood. They clung to the old institutions as a body thus circumstanced, and forcibly, not voluntarily, torn asunder, naturally would. They formed their constitution for small. numbers, and with very limited views; their Church
Ї
5
bas grown in numbers, and expanded in locality, so gradually that the constitution has admitted of easy extension.
Compare this with the present state of the members of the Church of England in twenty wholly (or almost) unconnected dioceses; nearly without means of communication; forming, if they can form anything, not one Church, but many,
to be held together at hap-hazard; themselves, moreover, not united by depressed circumstances, but flourishing and numerous, and divided, by High Church and Low Church, into the fiercest jealousies and disputes.
I do not say that the problem, even under these circumstances, may not work itself out as it did in America, but I think this far more doubtful than in America. Lastly: I cannot but suggest, whatever the remark may be worth, that in the present state of men's minds a formal and general abdication of ecclesiastical supremacy might be taken as a preliminary of some similar political step. On the whole, therefore, my own impression is, that it would be better first to remove obstacles, and then, as time may call for it, to give powers. First remove the statutable obstacles (said to exist) to the clergy, or clergy and laity, meeting to discuss and regulate the affairs of the Church in every colony. By-and-bye it may be found that this is not enough. They may wish to get rid of their nominal subjection to the Archbishop of Canterbury by appeal, and to the Queen in Council, and feel themselves restrained by the doctrine of Supremacy. They may wish to alter the Prayer Book, and feel themselves restrained by the Act of Uniformity. Give them these powers, when they are seriously demanded. By thus delaying the concession, you will give it when they are far better prepared to receive it, having already constituted something of a governing body for themselves. In political affairs it might be objected that such gradual concession only irritates, but I really believe there is no danger of the kind here. There is a sense of uneasiness and a sense of injustice (no wonder) under the present anarchical system, but there is no violent excitement, nor likely to be
any; C
داماد
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO