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PRO ECCLESIA DEI.

Church and State

No. 5, Vol. 1.

The Primacy.

Review.

October 1, 1862.

HE amplificatores presentis temporis are even more numerous than the laudatores temporis acti. The disposition to overestimate the importance of our own times is a more universal and a stronger feeling than the overweening and querulous regret for times gone by. Many people pass all their life in the atmosphere of criseses and climaxes. Public events are to them matter either of boundless exultation or of hopeless despondency.

This way of viewing things does not help to make a useful man. It supplies idle men with apologies for idleness: timid men with apologies for cowardice: excited men with apologies for violence: selfish men with apologies for selfishness: domineering men with apologies for intolerance. It helps no man to make the best of things. It helps all men to make the worst of them.

And, besides all this, there is a want of faith in it, as if there were no other agency concerned with events and their issues but human agency. There is also a disregard of facts. In a settled and wellordered country like our own, single events, of whatever magnitude in themselves, have no such power, either for good or evil, as they are taken to have by these optimists and pessimists. English institutions and English society are a chain of links so many, and so complicated and intertwined, that one a little stronger or a little weaker, or a little crooked, or even a little broken, produces no perceptible effect upon the strength of the chain. But as there are always a good many of us who live upon excitement of one kind or another, and the class is unhappily largely on the increase, there are more than enough reasons to make it the duty of those who seek to guide public opinion to try what they can do towards producing a healthier state of mind touching particular events and prospects.

Quidnunkery, the appetite which craves after and feeds upon to excess the events of the day, belongs, for obvious reasons, more universally to the political life than to any other. But if not in its frequency, yet in its strength, it is developed most of all in the life ecclesiastical and religious. The weaknesses of men, as their virtues, are most gathered round, and intensified by connection with, that which is the highest matter of human concern.

Price IS.

So, at this time, "Who is to be Primate?" Quid nunc? When the appointment shall have been made, and this excitement over, it will be, Quid tum? "What will the Primate do?" Now what we want Church-people to consider a little is that neither the one nor the other, though things certainly important in themselves, are of that overwhelming consequence with which quidnunkery and quidtummery would invest them. The Church of England was not made by an Archbishop of Canterbury, and will not be unmade by an Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church of England may certainly-on an extreme supposition and one not warranted by experience-accept, with little questioning, the influence and guidance of an Archbishop of Canterbury, and there might be nothing slavish about the obedience. But there is no possible appointment to the vacant Primacy which can supply ground for the expectation. So far from it, there is no likelihood that the appointment when made will be one in which Churchmen can rejoice, save by way of contrast and comparison.

Quid tum? Now consider a little. What effect had the primacy of Archbishop Sumner upon the position and the Faith of the Church of England? Take one point of the position. Archbishop Sumner, when Bishop of Chester, was in 1847 of all the bishops the most emphatic in expressing his apprehension of the policy of the Committee of Council on " Education," then first plainly developed in the management clause business. In 1848 the Bishop of Chester became Archbishop, and from that hour supported the Committee of Council. We are writing from information supplied to us by one of the lay members of the Committee of the National Society, now deceased, and proved all through by documents. No doubt the course of the Archbishop helped the Committee of Council to impose upon the Church of England the inequitable terms which they did impose shortly after. But the reaction has come, and the natural sequel of the wrong perpetrated in 1848 to 1852 is bearing fruit in the action of Churchmen in and out of Parliament. When Churchmen see clearly that a thing is wrong and should be redressed it will be redressed. School teaching is a very good thing under conditions. But school teaching such as finds favour with the Committee of Council is a very Committee of Council is a very bad thing. It puts aside, in subordination to its own "liberal" and economical traditions, Creeds and Catechisms and

F

such like, and indeed all notion of fixed and necessary Truth. All this is bad enough. Especially is it bad, when, as at present, it is largely promoted by the Committee of that particular Church Society which has it in charge to provide against every approach to it. But the end is worse, for the end is Socinianism. Archbishop Sumner-we believe unconsciously-helped on this state of things, but before his death the reaction had come.

Again, in respect of the Faith of the Church. The late Primate was no maintainer of the doctrine of the Sacraments as held and taught by the Church of England. His course in the Gorham case is well known. Now let us hear what the Times says about the result of the Gorham case. It says that it "determined that a clergyman of the Church of England need not believe in baptismal regeneration."* We are not endorsing this description; the fallacy of it is on the surface: we cite it only as an expression of popular belief. Again, his opinions touching the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper need no comment in this place. Now it is one of the best ascertained facts of the present state of the Church in these primary particulars that at no time has the doctrine of both Sacraments been better understood and more firmly grasped amongst us than during the last twelve years; that is to say, pending and since the Baptismal and Eucharistic controversies, in both of which the Archbishop took so prominent a part on the adverse side.

It is not only then upon general principles-upon grounds of faith and quietness and confidence-but upon the evidence and warrant of late and patent facts, that we say to Church-people, Be not over anxious and troubled about who shall be Primate, or about what the Primate shall do. Even though he should be so ill-advised as to counsel the laying a finger upon the Prayer Book: even though he should prove to be a disciple of that worst of all heresies from any suspicion of which Archbishop Sumner was wholly free-the heresy of the neologists; the heresy which, yielding to the temptation of "the pride of life," would invent a new volume of Holy Scripture, and which is labouring, under some favouring circumstances, to fasten its poisonous fangs in the vitals of the Church of England, his position and influence would only serve to call forth in wider extent, and in deeper earnestness, the living protest of a sound and implicit faith.

No doubt the appointment to the Primacy of the Church of England is an important matter. The highest place in a Church which has the highest mission in the earth, and the most abundant power to discharge it, can have nothing about it which is not important. No doubt there are things in the political and social and religious condition of the country to make even soberminded and trustful men anxious about the filling of the place: but no more perhaps than at any other time; and all such anxiety is right only when it bears fruit, not in fears for the ultimate issue; not in exaggerated fancies touching the importance of this or that particular event, or this or that particular prospect, but in that increase of humble and faithful obedience which has the hope that "maketh not ashamed," and the promise that never fails.

*The Times, Monday, September 8, 1862.

Political Parties. House of Lords.

OME late remarks on the subject of political parties were confined to the House of Commons; but it is perhaps hardly less important to determine their character and value in the House of Lords. No part, indeed, of the Constitution is more frequently subject to a misapprehension of the powers, the functions, and the duties which belong to it, and nowhere is it more difficult to find the practical mean of action between the precedents of the past and the altered conditions of the present times, between a tendency on one side to magnify, and a still greater disposition on the other to abate its authority or depreciate its influence. And this difficulty sometimes arises from comparing the two branches of the Legislature, which are very different in composition, in procedure, and, it may be said, in the work which is to be done. The House of Lords indeed, though founded on and jealously limited by hereditary right

for the election of Scotch and Irish peers, and the succession of bishops to seats within its walls do not really disturb the principle,-is not less a representative body, not less furnished with legislative powers in all their fulness and stringency; but it speaks in a different tone, it reflects a different side of the national feeling, and it modifies the exercise of its authority by considerations wholly foreign to the House of Commons.

It follows from this that it is at once easier and harder to trace the existence and limits of political parties in the Upper than the Lower House-easier, because a broad and ostensible classification of Whigs, Conservatives, and Cross-benches is possible; harder, because personal ability has here a wider play, and party organization is frequently lost in the subtle undercurrent of individual character and specialties. In that refined, highly-educated, and fastidious assembly, where all are equals, and where consequently it is less easy to rise, but also when risen less difficult to maintain the position gained, the broad features of a popular body are wanting, and the lines of division are often rather to be guessed by instinct than to be laid down by definition.

A casual observer would not improbably select the recognized existence of the Cross-benches as one of the chief characteristics. It is unquestionably a feature well worthy of note, and expresses that moderation of tone and temper which honourably distinguishes the debates: but it may perhaps be doubted whether the direct weight, which is sometimes presumed, attaches to the action of this section of the House. Where the question at issue is not only an open and a fairly debateable one, but is outside the attraction of politics, the division and the vote are generally governed by the judgment of the individual; but where party contention enters in, it is the tendency of the Cross-benches now, as it was two centuries ago the tendency of the House generally, to give their support to the ministers of the Crown. Indirectly, however, the Crossbenches affect as well as represent the general character of the House. Moderate in the midst of

a body which, though itself inclined to moderation, | failed to break by the threat of unlimited creations, is subject to the action and reaction of political feeling, they continually hold up to the House that temperate and weighty form of deliberation which senates have often sought, but which has rarely been found except in the House of Lords. It is not easy to say how large a part of those independent and comprehensive debates which exercise upon the public mind an influence, that grows with the growth of education and general intelligence, is due to the Cross-benches.

Whilst, then, it will always be an object with any Government to maintain in the House of Lords a position of political equality if not of actual command, it is worth noticing that for many years past, and under circumstances apparently very favourable to themselves, the Liberal party have never obtained a majority. The crushing defeat of the Reform Bill was neutralized by the admirable tact and judgment with which the Duke of Wellington held together and directed the strength of the Tory Peers: the ruinous dissolution of Peel's Conservative party, and the alienation of their ablest men in the disastrous struggle on the Corn-laws, failed to destroy them. The errors of friends, the rancour of enemies, the perfidy of renegades, and the long exile from office have been marked neither by defective powers of debate nor by a period of wholly barren opposition. The present Government, indeed, have plainly shown their own sense of the weakness of their position by their continual attempts to improve it: but it may be doubted whether the few votes of individual Peers have not been dearly purchased by a loss of confidence on the part first of the House, and next of that large section of the community in whose eyes the rights and character of the House, have a great constitutional value. Perhaps one of the heaviest charges which can be justly urged against the present and former Whig Governments is the unscrupulous licence that they have claimed in tampering with the numbers, the composition, and the functions of the Upper House.

It would be unjust to draw an inference against the political conduct of any party from a single act of whatever nature: but when a long succession of acts stamped with a common character, and converging upon a common end, can be traced through the course of many years, it is not unfair to presume the existence, if not of a definite policy, at all events of a strong bias. This is particularly true of the Whigs. Espousing sometimes the part of the Crown, and sometimes that of the people, they have --though deriving their strength from their connection with the "great houses"-uniformly shown an antagonism towards the House of Lords. When in 1832 it was resolved to deter from the exercise of their legislative powers the dissentient Peers by the menace of new creations, it was a Whig minister who made the threat; and when subsequently it was found hard to secure a majority for Government measures, the silent but perceptible infusion of the Whig element, which every session has witnessed, has almost justified Lord Sunderland's famous taunt, that the Crown might turn a troop of the Household brigade into the House of Lords.

But the independence which, in 1832, the Whigs

in 1856 they attempted to modify by the introduction of life peerages. That which Mr. Pitt would not do when pressed by a great constitutional difficulty in effecting the union with Ireland, which Lord Grey did not do in the heat of the Reform struggle, which in an earlier generation Bolingbroke and Oxford were denounced for doing in principle, even to a very limited extent; that in fact for which precedents are only to be found in the profligate Court of Charles II, the Whigs, without the pretence of a political necessity, sought to force upon the House of Lords. The most bitter enemy to that House could not devise a more fatal engine of attack. A deluge of new creations, though a heavy blow to its independence, was not the heaviest. Time might perhaps modify, public opinion might restrain, an extreme abuse of such a prerogative: but neither time nor public inclination can bring back constitutional powers once taken away, or can restore to vital usefulness an assembly whose authority rests upon the influences which immemorial antiquity and hereditary descent create, when once it is degraded in popular estimation. Another attempt followed. It was determined to limit-and limitation was the equivalent of destruction-the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in that branch of political economy which in modern times includes all others. The field of finance was chosen, threats of a dissolution were freely circulated, and a minister was put forward who was at once the ablest and the most unpopular of the cabinet. In the event of success his ability would best bear the brunt of the conflict, and in the event of failure his unpopularity would provide his colleagues with a ready victim who had many enemies, and, above all, was himself not a Whig. Thus reviving the controversies of other days, but influenced by a strangely mistaken notion of the public temper, and asserting privileges on behalf of the House of Commons more exclusive than that House had either claimed before or now cared to contend for, the Whig Government sought to restrain the Peers from putting a simple negative on a bill which repealed 1,400,000l. taxation. 1,400,000l. taxation. Had they, indeed, succeeded in these attempts, not only the judicial and the financial, but also the legislative powers of the House of Lords would have irretrievably perished, and the Peerage of England would have been cut down to the ignoble proportions of a French Senate. Fortunately, however, the good sense of the country intervened, and the firmness of the House, in each case acting-as it was well said-upon the right, that is inherent in every legislative body, of being the judges of their own privileges, and the interpreters of those laws which regulate their rights, carried the day against the ministry which attempted to force, and the partisans who were not ashamed to support, a policy which degraded their own order.

It has been frequently observed that the discussion of important subjects suffers no discredit in the House of Lords, and is sometimes even treated with a greater breadth, logic, and dignity than is possible amidst the personal rivalries and electoral influences of the Lower House. But it is, perhaps, more difficult to assign to each party in the House of Lords the exact proportion of oratorical and par

influences they are superior to the House of Commons in the treatment of many subjects which belong to the higher regions of political speculation. Nor are they less open to legitimate impression by public influences and feelings around them. It is

to the credit of those chiefs of the Conservative party, who, commanding a majority though in opposition, have been the real leaders of the House of Lords for the last thirty years, that they have so sparingly and wisely exercised their power, that

liamentary ability which belongs to it. The balance, indeed, of debate, though from various causes generally inclining in favour of the Conservative Opposition, is not unequally maintained. If, indeed, questions were discussed at the length usual in the House of Commons the results might be different; for whilst on the Ministerial benches is to be found a larger number of speakers who rise to, or a little above, mediocrity, on the Opposition side there are a few statesmen and orators whose pre-eminence is absolutely unapproached. This singular difference-excluding the Corn-law question, which is an between the two great parties deserves all the more notice that it has afforded a seeming justification, if it be not the cause, of recent reinforcements to the ministerial ranks. Of mere cabinet ministers, who, from reasons of age, incompetence, or party convenience, are draughted into the asylum which is offered by the Upper House-the Llanovers, Lyvedens, Tauntons-it is needless to take account: but in the late Lord Herbert, in Lord Russell, and in the present Lord Chancellor, the Government received no mean accession of administrative experience and oratorical weight.

Yet, with all these advantages, the Whigs have not as yet obtained a marked predominance in debate, and it may be questioned whether even the number of their supporters and the extent of their influence have greatly increased. To those who look below the surface of passing events the reason of this will be sufficiently clear. In the House of Lords there is and always has been an inherent tendency towards Conservatism in the broadest sense of the term. The descent of their hereditary honours, the nearness of their relationship to the Church and the Crown, their close connection with the soil and those who live by it, conspire to rally round the Peerage the conservative instincts of property, and to identify their existence with that of the Constitution. It is true that a party which is long in office will always count amongst its members many who are destitute of political faith, and whose scruples are in strict subordination to the interests of the day. Janissaries to be hired and apostates to be seduced, no less than sincere converts to be won, there always must be: but, setting aside these minute subdivisions which belong to every party in every legislative assembly, there is an under-current in the House of Lords which happily diverts the most restless demagogues to more moderate counsels: and it is frequently in the mouth of such men as Lord Grey, Lord Monteagle, or Lord Overstone, that the severest but most salutary criticism of Government measures lies.

There will be, then, this difference between the two branches of our Legislature, that, whilst in the House of Commons the weight, disposition, and numbers of the political parties form the principal consideration and cause of anxiety, in the hereditary chamber the question of parties is subordinate to the general character, capacity, and composition of the House.

As at present constituted, the House of Lords can probably command an amount of administrative knowledge and parliamentary ability sufficient to do justice to any questions that can be reasonably anticipated. Oratorically they are at least equal; practically from education, habit, and the absence of electoral

exceptional one-the House has never been com-
mitted to one unnecessary or unsuccessful conflict
with the Country or the Commons. Thus, although
based upon hereditary right and steadily represent-
ing the most ancient parts and principles of a
Constitution, which has always been growing and
never stationary, the House of Lords has main-
tained its relative pace and position to the neces-
sities and temper of a versatile and perplexing
age.
age. And they greatly err who, whether as friends
or enemies, count upon the willingness or ability of
the House of Lords to maintain a mere policy of
obstruction and exclusion even in cases where ob-
struction or exclusion is by many thought desirable.
Like one of those venerable buildings which media-
val architecture has bequeathed to us, but to which
modern necessities have added every appliance
whether of strength or of ornament, that a grow-
ing civilization can suggest, never dissociated from
the traditions of the past, though in entire unison
with the institutions of the present, gaining in moral
influence what it surrenders of actual authority, the
House of Lords still stands in undiminished dignity.
It is the lineal descendant of the same body that
advised the Plantagenets, confronted the Tudors,
and, when with the abdication of James II. and the
loss of the Great Seal, society seemed for a while re-
duced to its original elements, survived alone amongst
all our institutions to represent and to maintain
order in the midst of anarchy. Unlike the senates
of other countries, it has never been restored or re-
modelled, because it has never ceased to exist: and
it is a singular illustration of the continuity of its
political life that to this hour are preserved in its
journals the name of every Peer who for centuries
past, through the Wars of the Roses, the Reforma-
tion, the Rebellion, the Revolution, has attended
each sitting of the House.

Every change, indeed, which is openly imported or which gradually creeps into the body of the Constitution has some effect upon the character and functions of the Peerage: and with each change there is amongst those who exercise an influence need of those rare qualities which can appreciate the temper of the country and the value of the matter which is at issue. As yet most of these changes have been met half way, and none have inflicted real mischief. During the twelvemonth which succeeded to their rejection of Mr. Gladstone's repeal of the paper duty, the radical press was never weary of repeating that the House of Lords, so far from diminishing, had increased its legislative powers by an usurpation in the domain of finance. It is impossible within these limits to discuss that question. It is enough here to say that the judgment of the country approved, and the financial

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