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torical fact but according to its true idea, and God's purpose, for the general improvement and well-being of man; and that this object has been pursued more or less successfully according to the more or less correct views which have prevailed as to what man's well-being in the highest sense is; will see that government, when endowed with Chris. tian knowledge, is then and then only in a condition to accomplish its object thoroughly, that then its object becomes identical with that of the Church; and two societies with the self-same object and the selfsame members, must inevitably, unless there be a necessary hindrance in their formal constitution, blend together into one. The alleged apostolical succession would be such an hindrance, unless the society chose to take that form of government, and become a priestly aristocracy: but those who reject the pretended succession ought not surely to see any objection in point of principle to that perfected form of a Christian commonwealth in which the knowledge of the Church is blended with the power of the State, and both are combined to work out man's highest good.

III. WHAT CAN AND OUGHT TO BE DONE BY THE CHURCH? This Reply to the Question was first issued in the Sheffield Courant, 1832.

It is now about 120 years ago since a Tory clergyman was impeached by the House of Commons for preaching a sermon full of the most violent doctrines of Toryism. During his trial the popular feeling ran so strongly in his favour, that as he passed backwards and forwards from his lodgings to the House of Lords, the populace obliged all persons to take off their hats to him: the members of the House of Commons who conducted the impeachment, were abused and insulted, the houses of the Whig ministers were attacked, and the Queen, who was supposed to have no great affection for her ministry, was greeted with shouts of "God bless Your Majesty and the Church." Nor was this feeling confined to London : I read in the history of those times that Birmingham, Bristol, Norwich, and many other places were the scene of riots, in which the popular cry was "Down with the Whigs! High Church and Sacheverel for ever."*

In his Letter on the "State of Parties," Dr. Arnold remarked- -"The liberal governments of George the First and George the Second's reigns, had the steady support of the Crown, because so long as a Pretender was to be dreaded, resting his claim

But this was more than a hundred years ago. Well then, it is only just forty years since "Church and King" was again the war cry of a riot. In the year 1791, the Birmingham mob, with this cry in their mouths, committed the same or even worse atrocities than those which have been lately committed at Bristol; and as a dinner given to an Anti-Reforming Recorder was the excuse for the Bristol riots, so those at Birmingham were excited by a dinner given by a number of eminent liberals and reformers, to celebrate the anniversary of the first French Revolution.

It appears that a bishop has been lately burnt in effigy at Birmingham, on the very spot where Paine, the noted author of the “Age of Reason" and the "Rights of Man," had received the same tribute forty years before. But it is paying far too great a compliment to the actors in either of these burnings to call their acts an instance of the change of public opinion! They are merely an instance of the ease with which ignorant men are excited to violence, without knowing why or wherefore. The populace of 1709 shouted, "God bless the Church," with just as much reason as the populace of 1831 are shouting, "Down with the Bishops." And if there is any one fact undeniably certain, it is that the clergy of the English Church, far from having fallen off since the days of Dr. Sacheverel, were never so enlightened, never so zealous, never so generally exemplary in their lives, as they are at this present hour.

The Established Church has always had the fortune to be defended and attacked with equal violence and equal unreasonableness. At this day, when the cry is all against it, there is no subject of which popular writers are so profoundly ignorant. The writers for the public press, whether lawyers, or men in trade, or young men who live by their writings, know and can know next to nothing of the clergy. They seldom fall in their way, their habits and views of things are so different as to preclude much intimacy when they do meet, and while, from residing in large towns, they see a quantity of the evil which the Church has not prevented, they know little of the many thousand country parishes where it is daily more or less effective in doing direct good.

When men attack the Church it is very desirable to know for what reasons they dislike it. Many excellent men amongst the dissenters are unfriendly to it because they think it a hindrance to religion; but a greater number I fear hate it for the very opposite reason, namely

on Tory principles, the Crown was obliged to be liberal-Had not Charles Edward sunk towards the end of his life into utter personal degradation, and had not he been the last of his race,—for his brother, the Cardinal, was out of the question,- George III. would not have dared to be a Tory."

because it recommends religion. Many good men complain of its total want of discipline among its own members; but a notorious declaimer against it in an adjoining county has been annoyed by what he thinks its over strictness. He is violent against Church abuses, because his moral character in one particular is such, that the clergymen of his parish will not visit him. I am always anxious, therefore, when I hear any attacks against the Church, to know what sort of a man they come from; for though a great deal that is said against it may be very true, yet considering the principles of many of those who say it, I should exceedingly object to any remedy of their proposing.

The most general complaint against the Church turns upon the excessive amount, and the unequal distribution of its property, and especially upon the burdensome and impolitic nature of the tithe system. There is also a strong popular feeling against the political opinions of the clergy, particularly of the bishops and other dignitaries among them; and this, with the evils of the tithe system is, I believe, the main cause of their unpopularity among persons who are not ill affected to religion itself.

My conviction of the benefits of a Church Establishment arises from this that thus only, can we insure the dispersion of a number of well educated men over the whole kingdom, whose sole business is, to do good of the highest kind; to enforce, in their public teaching, the purest principles and practice that mankind have ever yet been made acquainted with; and to exhibit these in their own persons in all their daily intercourses with their neighbours, instructing the young, visiting the sick, relieving, advising, and maintaining the cause of the poor ;—and spreading amongst all ranks the wholesome influence of a good life, a cultivated understanding, and the feelings and manners of a true gentle For these reasons, I most earnestly admire and love a Church Establishment; and because it has in it the means of doing all this better, I think, than any other sect of Christians, therefore I value and would most rigorously reform the actual Church Establishment. Nor are the needful Reforms so difficult as many persons imagine.

man.

I will state them, even at the risk of seeming to dogmatize, because I have not space to state at length the arguments on which they rest. 1. A commutation of tithes, even if it can only be effected at a great loss to the Church, because it is far better that the Church should be somewhat poorer, if at such a price it can remove what is at present a great cause of offence.

2. An entire remodelling of the Episcopal Order, that many scandals may be removed, and the Church obtain an efficient government.For this object it seems essential,—

1. That Translations should be made illegal.

2. That the incomes of the smaller Bishoprics be so increased out of the larger ones, as to supersede the necessity of annexing to them Deaneries, livings held in commendam, or any other ecclesiastical preferment whatsoever.

3. That the Dioceses be divided, so as to give the Church an efficient government. For this purpose all Deaneries should be made Bishoprics, retaining their present incomes, and with no seats in Parliament. The Prebends should be annexed to underpaid livings in large towns, and the largest Church in all such towns should be erected into a Bishop's See; so that there should be no great town throughout England without its resident Bishop; who, without being raised to any undue elevation in rank and fortune, would yet in both be sufficiently respectable to maintain the just influence of the Church with the higher classes as well as with the poor.

4. That in all large towns and populous districts a sufficient number of new parishes be created, with a resident minister to each. Funds might be provided by annexing, for the future, every one of these new parishes to some valuable country living, if possible in the same neighbourhood or county. Any incumbent accepting such living for the time to come being bound to reside in his town parish nine months in the year, and to keep a resident curate on his benefice in the country.*

* The following paper was circulated by Dr. Arnold in 1841, and develops another part of his "Principles of Church Reform." It is appended in this place as more suitable than when standing disconnected from its congenial subject.

ORDER OF DEACONS.-The want of a sufficient number of ministers of the Church is more or less felt everywhere; but in large towns, and in the extensive and popu. lous parishes of the manufacturing districts, it is a most serious evil. To provide a maintenance for as many additional clergymen as are needed, is clearly impracticable. It has been suggested whether the desired end could not be attained by giving efficiency to the order of deacons; and restoring to them that importance in the Church which in ancient times belonged to them.

To get a sufficient number of deacons nothing seems wanted but the repeal of all laws, canons, or customs, which prevent a deacon from following a secular calling, and also of all such as subject him to any civil disqualifications, or confer on him any civil exemptions.

It is conceived that if this were done, many pious and active members of the Church would be very glad to be ordained deacons, and to take a part in the ministry. In all spiritual functions they would be under the direction and control of the presby. ters of their respective parishes; but in temporal matters, such as the management and distribution of funds for charitable purposes, and in making provision for the bodily wants of the poor, they would form a council, of which the presbyter would be the head, and to which all such matters might be entrusted.

5. The Church government being thus rendered efficient, by reducing the size of the dioceses to what would be within the power of an individual to manage, a system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction should be framed, for the prompt punishment, not only of scandalous vice in the clergy, but of what may be called unclerical conduct and neglect of duty; so that the class of "sporting clergy," as they are called, should be gradually weeded out of the establishment.

These reforms would, I am persuaded, work a change in the usefulness of the Church, and in the state of feeling towards it, especially in the manufacturing districts, which would be well worth purchasing at the cost of far greater innovations. Of reforms of a more strictly religious character, such as relate to the liturgy and articles of the Church, I have purposely said nothing. But there are some other points of a less serious nature, such as the relations of the Church with dissenters, and its excessively aristocratical character, which I shall notice.

XIII.—It happened to me some years since to be visiting at the house of a Scotch clergyman, the number of whose parishioners amounted to nearly five thousand souls. I asked him how he found it possible to look after so large a population without assistance. His answer was, that he had assistance: that there were three or four dissenting congregations in the town, and that the ministers of these were very

According to the present form of ordaining deacons, no deacon is authorized to preach, except he shall obtain the bishop's license to do so. This provision might be enforced, and the license to preach given only to such deacons as the bishop should judge expedient, and might be granted only durante bene placito.

It is conceived that besides the great benefit of increasing the number of ministers of the Church, other advantages might be looked for from allowing deacons to follow secular callings. A link would be formed between the clergy and the laity by the existence of an order partaking of the character of both. The confusion of confining the term Church to the Clergy would be dispelled: inasmuch as there would be not only members but even ministers of the Church who did not belong to the clergy considered as a profession. As the deacons of the Church would be expected to live in all things as became Christians, the same standard would be followed by them which general opinion requires the clergy to conform to, but which it does not always enforce in the laity; as for example in the case of duelling. The ministry of the Church would thus also be safely and most beneficially open to persons of inferior rank and fortune, who cannot afford the expense of an university education, and have no prospects of a maintenance by entering into the ministry as a profession, but who may have gifts which enable them to serve the Chuch effectually, and who may naturally and lawfully wish not to let these gifts lie idle. It does not seem improbable that many persons who now become preachers amongst the dissenters, without objection to any of the doctrines of our Church, but simply because they have no means of following what they feel to be their calling in our communion, would gladly become deacons on this system, and would thus be useful to the Church instead of being in some sort opposed to it.

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