THE CHURCH IN IRELAND.

BY THE VENERABLE WALTER B. MANT, M.A.,

ARCHDEACON OF DOWN.

It is remarkable, and would be surprising were it not so common, how men of intelligence and information do, for the purpose of arguing out a foregone conclusion, ignore the facts they ought to acknowledge, and assume, as true, points either irrelevant or incapable of proof. This has been the case in several of the attacks that have been lately made upon the Church in Ireland. Its revenues have been grossly exaggerated, its usefulness and efficiency disparaged; the numerous reforms, mostly from within, by which abuses have been lessened and are lessening are ignored; and the very right to its property has been disputed and denied. Nay, we have been gravely told by one of the first statesmen of the day that we cannot even support the Church in Ireland on the ground of truth, because, forsooth, the State, on a principle of expediency, has granted an endowment to Maynooth.

One of the most remarkable instances of this unfairness in argument on this subject is presented to us in the Preface by Earl Russell to the corrected report of his speech delivered on the 24th of June last. The whole of this production, short as it is, is full of unfounded assumptions and illogical conclusions; but the part to which we desire to draw particular attention is the answer offered by the Earl to a statement made by the Earl of Derby, as an objection to disturbing the Church in Ireland in the possession of its property. It is necessary to place Lord Derby's statement and Lord Russell's answer before our readers previously to making any remarks upon the latter.

Lord Derby is reported to have said, as quoted by Lord Russell, that "the Church established in Ireland has as much right to its property as the Duke of Bedford has to Covent Garden and Woburn Abbey." We think the noble Premier might have gone farther, and have said that the Church in Ireland has more right; but he probably did not wish to raise an historical question, which, however, we shall have occasion to consider.

To this statement Lord Russell replies as follows:-"If this objection is meant to place the right of the present Archbishop of Dublin during his life, and that of the present Duke of Bedford during his life, to property formerly held by the Roman Catholic Church on the same footing, I fully admit that right. But who are their heirs? The heir of the Duke of Bedford is known to the law, and will succeed as a matter of course. The heir of the bishops and clergy of the Church established in Ireland is the State. If the State chooses to dispose of the property in a manner different from its present appropriation, it has a full right to do so. If the State maintains the present appropriation, the heir of the Archbishop of Dublin is the man. who, after a careful education, has embraced the clerical profession, and has so distinguished himself by his morals, his orthodoxy, and his learning, as to attract the preference of the First Lord of the Treasury, and obtain the favour of the Crown. But every man in Ireland,-nay, every man in England and in Scotland, may, upon these terms, look forward to be the heir of the Archbishop of Dublin,-in other words, the nation at large are the heirs of the present holders of Church property in Ireland." Now this answer of Lord Russell to the objection of Lord Derby is contained in six sentences; and we venture to assert, and will proceed to prove, that every one of these six sentences contains a fallacy in the form of either suppressio veri, suggestio falsi, or petitio elenchi, besides one grand fallacy which underlies the whole argument, but is not stated in precise words.

1. "The right of the present Archbishop of Dublin during his life, and that of the present Duke of Bedford during his life, to property formerly held by the Roman Catholic Church, are on the same footing." The fallacy in this sentence is twofold: first, in assuming that the property now held for his life by the Archbishop of Dublin was formerly the property of the Roman Catholic Church as such; and secondly, in concealing the truth that the Church in Ireland and the ancestor of the Duke of Bedford derive their property under very different circumstances. The property now held by the Archbishop of Dublin for his life was never the property of the Roman Catholic Church quoad Roman Catholic. It may be questioned whether it was ever the property of the Roman Catholic Church at all, for the distinctive doctrines of Romanism were not enforced upon the adherents of the Roman See till the promulgation of the decrees of the Council of Trent in 1561, and the supremacy of the Pope

had been renounced and that of the King, Henry VIII., had been affirmed in 1537; and in the meantime, except only during the reign of Queen Mary (providentially short), the authority of the Pope had virtually been superseded in many places, idolatry had been abolished, and a purified form of public worship, together with the preaching of the gospel, had prevailed. So that on the accession of Elizabeth, not only did all the bishops of the Church of Ireland, except two, take the oath of supremacy, but they and the clergy generally accepted the Book of Common Prayer, and thereby, in form at least, renounced the superstitions of Rome.

We need not here enter upon the question lately raised by the Rev. Dr. Brady disputing the accuracy of these statements, and endeavouring to discredit the episcopal succession of the Church of Ireland. That subject has been ably and, as we think, conclusively handled by more than one antagonist, showing the vague and unsatisfactory grounds upon which an Irish clergyman has aimed a blow at the Church of which he is a minister. And hence it will appear that the present Archbishop of Dublin holds for his life some property (not anything like the whole) which was enjoyed by his predecessors in the see from the time it was founded and its endowments given. It must be borne in mind these endowments were not given to the Roman Catholic Church as such; we have no reason to suppose they were in all cases given by the Crown. We do not know exactly what the case may be with the Archbishopric of Dublin; but we do know that in many other cases the endowments not only of bishoprics but of parishes were given by individuals for the promotion of religion, and such grants were sanctioned by the State; and whether by sovereign or private person, these endowments were conferred on the Church of Ireland before the Pope had ever any footing in the country, and they belong to the lawful successors of the bishops and clergy of that Church now that the Pope has no longer any authority over it.

But the sentence on which we are remarking not only assumes that the property now held by the Church was "formerly held by the Roman Catholic Church," that is, by a different body of men which is not the fact; but it suppresses the truth that whereas the Church of Ireland retained its property on giving up its errors, the property of abbeys and other such establishments given by pious persons of their own means (and not State property at all) for the service of God and religious uses was

violently wrested from those who held it, and bestowed by Henry VIII. upon his own minions.

2. "But who are their heirs? The heir of the Duke of Bedford is known to the law, and will succeed as a matter of course." We know no such thing. The line of the Duke of Bedford may entirely fail. The possessor, for his life, of the property may some time or other be a spendthrift, and have the power, and use it, of alienating his possessions. Cases have occurred in history of the descendants of some of those favourites to whom abbey and Church property had been given, engaging in plots and conspiracies, being attainted, and their possessions forfeited. Who then were their heirs? Nay, there is another contingency, which we will place in the words of that very able writer, Dr. O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory: "If the present settlement of property be maintained, the appointment to the see of Dublin will take place equally as a matter of course, and the person appointed as the Archbishop's successor will possess the rights and income enjoyed by him no less certainly and no less as a matter of course than the Duke of Bedford's heir will possess Covent Garden or Woburn. And, on the other hand, if the settlement of property is disturbed, so that the Archbishop of Dublin's successor does not enjoy the rights which he himself enjoys, it will not be very long a matter of course that the Duke of Bedford's heir, or, at least, his successors, shall enjoy Woburn and Covent Garden, even if property held by a different title continued to pass to them."1

3. "But," proceeds Earl Russell, "the heir of the bishops and clergy of the Church established in Ireland is the State." There is some cleverness in the way the ground is shifted in this sentence from the Archbishop of Dublin, his property, and "his heirs," to the bishops and clergy generally. It is to be observed that the Earl of Derby, in the statement which Earl Russell is answering, said not one word about the Archbishop of Dublin, or any other individual ecclesiastic. He said, "The Church in Ireland has as much right to its property as the Duke of Bedford has to Covent Garden or Woburn." Why did Lord Russell change the terms of this proposition in pretending to answer it? Why did he substitute for "the Church," which he must know to be a corporation, not affected as regards its property by the death of any of its members, the name of an individual member of that corporation? The demise of the Archbishop of Dublin, however much the loss of a good and learned man would be 1 "Case of the Established Church in Ireland," p. iv.

lamented by the Church, can in no way affect the property in which he had only a life interest as a trustee, not as a possessor. The interest in that property reverts not to the State but to the Church; and the State has no power to touch one shilling of the revenues, as it might do if it were the heir. But as archbishops and bishops are nominated by the Crown, it was very convenient for the argument to take the case of one who is so appointed, and to assume that the State, which will appoint his successor hereafter, is the heir of the individual man; and having made the most of this assumption, it was very convenient to shift the ground again, and, taking the Archbishop of Dublin as the example, say, “Therefore the heir of the bishops and clergy of the Church in Ireland is the State." If the State were the heir," it might be the privilege, and would certainly be the duty of the State, on the demise of any bishop or clergyman, to assume possession and administration of the property till the successor be appointed. Is this done? On the contrary, the property is so regarded as belonging to the Church, that officers of the Church, not of the State, take care of its safety. If, owing to any delay on the part of the Crown (we knew such a case) bishopric be sometime vacant, the metropolitan not only cormissions some clerical person to be guardian of the spiritual concerns of the diocese, but appoints some proper person to be guardian of the temporalities. If a benefice be long vacant, or likely to be so, the diocesan, in like manner, by his own act and power, issues a sequestration, to secure the property of the Church from loss. The persons so appointed are, of course, accountable to the metropolitan or diocesan, and the State has nothing to say to it.

And here let us remark on another fallacy in this argument— that, namely, of choosing for the example the Archbishop of Dublin or any single bishop. Why was this done? Was it because archbishops and bishops are nominated by the Crown, and so succeed to their property by the favour of the Crown; and if the Crown can give, the Crown can withhold? And is it not implied that "the clergy of the Church in Ireland" generally are similarly circumstanced? But so far from this being the case, a comparatively small proportion of the benefices in Ireland are at the disposal of the Crown; and no matter whether nominated by the Crown or by a lay patron, or whether collated by a bishop of his own prerogative, every incumbent of a benefice is a member of the Corporation of the Church, a trustee, for