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subject. Soon after the decision of the Gorham case by a Committee of the Privy Council, above eighteen hundred clergymen of the Church of England subscribed a solemn protest condemning the judgment, not only as erroneous, but as incompetent, because involving the exercise of civil authority in determining an ecclesiastical question. Dr Pusey's work on "The Royal Supremacy" is intended to defend this important step, though it contains scarcely any general argument, and is filled with "ancient precedents," that is, the actual interferences in ecclesiastical matters of "the Christian Emperors of the primitive church" referred to in the second Canon. These High-churchmen have not yet given any indication of any practical steps by which they mean to follow up their protest; and we certainly do not expect much from them, or, indeed, from any party in the Church of England, in the way of energetic and combined action upon grounds of public principle.

We do not meddle with the soundness of the decision in the Gorham case with reference to its own proper merits, that is, with the question whether or not Mr Gorham had taught any such error as ought to have shut him out from a benefice and a cure of souls in the Church of England. But there can, we think, be no doubt that the decision was pronounced by a competent authority,—that is, by the tribunal which, according to the recognised constitution of the Church of England, was entitled to pronounce it. We agree with Dr Pusey and his friends in thinking it to be wrong in itself, and degrading to the church, that a civil tribunal should possess the supreme or ultimate jurisdiction in a case of this sort. But while this state of matters is wrong scripturally, it is certainly right according to the constitution of the Church of England. We have referred to the proof of this already, and need not now repeat it. We cannot see that there is any room for a difference of opinion upon this point. The church must have known that this provision as to the ultimate disposal of ecclesiastical causes was a part of her legal constitution-a term or condition on which she enjoyed the privileges and emoluments which, as an Establishment, she derived from the State. She must be held to have consented to this arrangement, and so must every clergyman who is in the enjoyment of a benefice. If the Church of England should ever come to entertain scriptural views upon the subject of the constitution of

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a church of Christ, and the relation that ought to subsist between the Church and the State, she would see at once the unwarrantableness of the legal arrangements to which she has hitherto consented; she would forthwith go to the civil power and ask that these arrangements should be altered, and brought into conformity with sound principles; and if she failed in this, she would have no alternative but to renounce her privileges and emoluments as an Establishment. As to the individual clergymen who have protested against the decision of the Privy Council as incompetent, it is quite plain that, by the second Canon, they have incurred the penalty of excommunication ipso facto. We do not know how these sentences of excommunication ipso facto, which the Canons deal about so liberally, are to be enforced; but as there can be no doubt that in this case the penalty has been incurred, by "impeaching a part of the royal supremacy as established by the laws of the realm," surely the two Archbishops could, and should, do something for carrying the sentence into effect; and they might in this way, perhaps, if they had courage enough, get quit of these men, who on other and higher grounds are manifestly unworthy to hold office in any Protestant church.

There is an important difference between the position of the clergy of the Church of England, in reference to the Gorham case, and that of those who formed the majority of the Church of Scotland, and who now form the Free Church, in reference to their collision with the civil courts. It is this: that every clergyman of the Church of England knew, or ought to have known, when he entered it, that the established constitutional provision for deciding finally in ecclesiastical causes, after they had been tried by the Bishop and the Archbishop, was by an appeal to the Queen in Chancery; whereas the interferences of the civil courts, which led to the disruption of the Scottish Establishment, were unauthorized, unprecedented, unexpected, such as the church had no ground to anticipate from anything contained in any statute, from any dictum of any institutional writer, or from anything implied in any decision which had ever before been pronounced by the civil courts in similar questions. When the Bishop of Exeter pronounced a sentence refusing to institute Mr Gorham on the ground of alleged heresy, he knew quite well that the established provision for ultimately deciding this question, contained in the constitution-to which he must be held in all fair

construction to have consented, and under which he enjoyed his status and emoluments as a prelate of the Establishment,—was an appeal to the Privy Council. Upon this ground, he and all other clergymen of the Established Church are precluded, in common honesty, from complaining of the sentence as incompetent,—however erroneous and dangerous they may reckon it;—and have no fair alternative but submission, unless, indeed, they choose to renounce the civil privileges and emoluments of a constitution to which they have consented, but to which they can no longer render obedience. It is of some importance to notice this difference between the position of the Church of England and that of the Church of Scotland previous to the Disruption; for it affords materials which warrant a condemnation of those ministers of the Church of England who protest against the decision of the Privy Council as incompetent, and a vindication of the Church of Scotland in refusing, even in her character as an Establishment, to submit to the decisions of the Court of Session in ecclesiastical

causes.

CHAPTER VII.

RELATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE.*

THE relation that ought to subsist between the State and the church, or between the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, as representing and regulating them, has been a subject of controversial discussion since the time of the Emperor Constantine; and there are some important questions involved in the discussion of it, which still divide men whose opinions are entitled to the highest deference and respect. These differences are not merely theoretical, but have produced important practical results in all ages, and even in our own day; and are likely to continue to exert an important influence upon the actual condition of the world. The subject is now, much more than in any former age, forced upon the attention of statesmen, as involving practical questions which they are called upon to solve, and the right solution of these questions would introduce very important changes. All the erroneous views and practices upon this subject which have at any time appeared in the world are still to be found in it. Even persecution for conscience sake is not yet wholly banished from civilised countries, or confined to those in which the Church of Rome is predominant; and in all Protestant countries the civil powers have usurped, and the established churches have consented to, an exercise of authoritative control by the State, inconsistent with scriptural views of the functions of the civil government, and with the rights and liberties of the church of Christ.

We assume at present that the duties and functions, the rights and privileges, of the State and the church, or of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, are to be determined by the word of God, in so far as it contains materials bearing upon these points. The church is a supernatural institution, having direct relation exclusively to men's spiritual and eternal interests; and we can know

* A lecture delivered by Dr Cun- | of the New College, in November 1851, ningham at the opening of the Session and not hitherto published (Edrs.)

nothing certainly about it except from the supernatural revelation which God has given us in His word. It is otherwise with the State or civil government. This is intended to bear, at least principally and most directly, upon the temporal welfare of men, and ought to be regulated chiefly by a regard to the principles of natural reason. God has not prescribed His written word as the only rule to be followed by nations and their rulers in establishing and administering civil government; and He has not given them in His word sufficient materials to guide them authoritatively in determining all the questions which, with reference to this matter, they may be called upon to entertain and dispose of. But it is not on this account the less true, that there are materials in the word of God which do bear upon the functions and duties of nations and their rulers, and that these relevant materials ought to be applied by them as authoritative in regulating their conduct. Some things, then, respecting the functions and duties of nations and their rulers, are to be learned from Scripture; and everything that determines the obligations and procedure of churches, and of those who represent and regulate them, is to be ascertained from that source. At present, however, we have to do, not with the whole of what is taught or prescribed in Scripture concerning the State and the Church, or concerning civil and ecclesiastical government, but only with so much of it as bears upon the relation that ought to subsist between them; and, even under this head, chiefly with what relates to the peculiar testimony which the Free Church of Scotland has been called upon to bear.

The substance of what is generally regarded as taught in Scripture with respect to civil government, including the relative duties of rulers and subjects, is set forth in the Confessions of the Reformed churches, and in the old systems of theology, under the head, "De Magistratu." By the magistrate, or the civil magistrate, in this connection, is of course meant the party, whether one or many, possessed of the supreme civil power, and entitled to frame the laws, and to regulate ultimately the whole proceedings of a nation. It is only this supreme legislative power, of whatever parties it may be composed, that comes directly and immediately. into contact with the word of God as its rule or standard; all inferior authorities, even the highest executive and judicial functionaries, being bound to regulate their procedure by the existing constitution and laws of the nation; by the provisions which the

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