THE COLONIAL CHURCH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IV, Issue 183, 8 July 1854, Page 9

THE COLONIAL CHURCH.

(From the " Morning Chronicle.")

In pursuance of a promise given in the course of last session, the Government has introduced a measure for relieving the colonial clergy from certain unjust and oppressive disabilities. It will be remembered that the Archbishop of Canterbury managed to send down to the Commons, on the 4th of August last, a Bill for the regulation of the Colonial Church, which had been settled in consultation by the Bishops, early in the spring. This Bill was, however, lost,'partly on account of its late and unseasonable appearance, and partly because of its inherent defects. Although the fruit had basked for six months in the sun of episcopal patronage, it was unripe, after all. The measure was perplexed and cumbrous. Careful and minute in its provisions against offence, it offended by its very care and minuteness; and its anxiety to provide against abuse became itself an abuse. It affected to legislate with jealousy, as though it were dealing with some turbulent elements,

of inchoate schism. It bore the stamp of its parentage—being:, on the face of it, a reluctant concession. We regretted its failure only because it was oppossed on wrong grounds. Some affected to believe that it would create a Colonial Establishment; and others sought to persuade the world, though they never could have persuaded themselves, that it would create a spiritual tyranny. In other quarters, again, the scheme was criticised, and not unjustly, on the ground of its attempting too much. It was thought to be too formal, explicit, and definite. It admitted lay co-operation in Synods ; but it prescribed with over-accuracy relations which experience alone can adjust, and it sought to provide against emergencies, and to meet contingencies, which are variable, exceptional, and incapable of being ruled antecedently. On its rejection, it was intimated that the SolicitorGeneral would in the ensuing session, bring in a measure on the subject, under Government auspices. . This measure has been introduced by Sir Eichard Bethell, in a speech as brief and condensed as the scheme which it proposed. On the rejection of the Bill of 1853, we expressed a hope that its successor would be simply of an enabling character ; and our expectations have been realised. All that is proposed is to help the Colonial Churches to help themselves. The Bill simply aims at removing obstructions. The Solicitor-General, with a legal caution which we share, is loth to commit himself to the view that the Colonial Churches are even at present j debarred from synodical consultation and action. Doubts exists, however, on the subject, or have been conjured up by the sensitive imaginations of those who dread some errors or abuses, of the nature of which we are not very accurately informed; and these doubts the Ministerial measure proposes to lay. The thin ghost of prcemunire, whatever it raay be, which walks Canadian forests or haunt's Australian glades, is now to be laid for ever. The Church of metropolitan Sydney is really at last to be permitted to settle questions about curates, licenses, and the propriety of ordering special prayers for special occasions, without' its bishop incurring a dungeon in the tower, or the forfeiture of half his goods. It is at last deemed that the time has come for allowing an Indian prelate and his clergy to consult about missionary Catechisms, without advice from Addington park. So far as we can gather from the SolicitorGeneral's speech, the new Bill does not propose to do much more than this. Its scope may be very briefly stated:—Whereas doubts have existed whether a Colonial Church meeting in J Synod subjects its members to the penalties of 25th Henry VIII., c. 19, such doubts are to be removed ; and whereas it has been apprehended that a Colonial Synod infringes on the Royal Supremacy, such apprehensions are to be quieted. Colonial Churches may do as they please. If they think it is for their spiritual and temporal interests that their ' clergy or ttrat their clergy and laity together, should meet to discuss their difficulties or their duties, and if they wish to agree on rules to be binding on themselves as a voluntary society, the Imperial Parliament henceforth permits them, for good or for evil, to do as they think proper. The responsibility is on the Colonial Churches. As theirs will be the good or the evil, resulting from synodical action, England wisely leaves them to their own choice. It is not intended to compel the Colonial Churches to hold ecclesiastical assemblies, it is not sought to make the future Church Constitutions of the Colonies binding on any persons except the Churchmen who choose to adopt them. All that is conceded is that the Church of England shall have the same simple, common sense, inalienable right that every other religious communion and body possesses, the right, that is. to settle its own affairs after its own fashion. It is proposed, then, to do away with the disability created by the Submission of the Clergy Act in Henry VIII's lime. Whether that disability really exists is, as we have said, questionable j but it is only fair that the technical position should be removed, were it only because the Act of Submission has had a prospective result very foreign indeed to its original intention. Tl at the "Colonial Church is seriously affected in its freedom and efficiency 1.-y an old-world statute, passed before colonies to suy nothing of a Colonial Church, were ever dreamed of, is preposterous enough. But, in fact, the 20 th Henry VIIL was not directed ai^uust. synodical notion in general, and ccv-

tainly not against such synodical action as is now demanded for the Church. With all his faults, the Tudor King did not intend to abridge the Church's power to do her own work, nay, he took especial pains to provide for her self-regulating functions. The 25th Henry VIII. is entitled " the Submission of the Clergy and the Restraints of Appeals." This statute forbids the clergy making canons to be submitted to Rome, and the animus of the whole Act is not against synodical action, which it expressly recognises and provides for, but against such synodical action as involves an appeal to Papal authority. The result of the statute has been adverse to all ecclesiastical action ; but its object was only to interdict a particular and temporary sort of synodical determination, to prevent the clergy from settling canons to be submitted to Rome and from promulgating them under Papal sanctions. But can any rational being suppose .that this danger exists any longer ? "In 1533, it was very possible and likely that the clergy would meet in Synod, would retain the Papal Supremacy; and, to forestall this danger, the Act of Submission was passed. But is this danger very pressing in 1854? Is it likely that the Australian Church will prosecute appeals to Rome ? If, as perhaps Sir James Stephen will assure us, this danger is imminent, then he has certainly made out a case for continuing the restraint imposed by the Act of Submission. In quarters, however, where this fear is not entertained, we apprehend no objections to the Ministerial Bill. Nor will the fear that this measure is likely to perpetuate and enhance episcopal and sacerdotal tyranny be very influential with those who either know what the colonies are, or what the effects of this bill will be. Apprehensions are entertained, in some very respectable quarters, that it will tend towards ecclesiastical democracy rather than to tyranny. As things are, the bishop of a colonial diocese is either an autocrat or he is nobody, he can either dismiss and silence all his clergy by the merest exercise of caprice and despotism, or he cannot restrain and coerce the most flagitious clerical excesses. Either extreme will, however, be made impossible when a Colonial Church sets about framing its own laws. The tendency of the measure is to introduce into the ecclesiastical system that same constitutional and representative principle which every one of the colonies has won in secular matters. ■