THE OPEN COMMUNION. B EFORE we close the correspondence on the
subject of the open Communion we desire to put on record some extracts from the very remarkable article in the Church Times—the able and sincere organ of the High Church Party—to which allusion was made in our correspondence columns last week. The article in question (published on Jane 26th) makes no attempt to challenge the view of the law set forth in our columns by " A. C." Instead, it admits his conclusions to be unchallengeable from the legal point of view: "There have been two articles [in the Spectator] 'by an Ecclesiastical Lawyer,' and one by the editor himself. Without making any minute examination of the authorities cited or of the arguments built on them—for the matter is hardly worth so much trouble—let us say at once that we believe the conclusions arrived at to be in the main perfectly sound. Indeed we should have thought fresh argument hardly necessary, for the case of Banister v. Thompson turned entirely on the same points, and the consistent judgments of so many Courts, up to the House of Lords, are the end of all controversy. Stated as briefly as possible, this is the con- tention. There is a Statute (1 Edw. 6, c.i., repealed under Mary, but revived by 1 Eliz. al.) which expressly secures the right of every parishioner to communicate in his Parish Church, unless he be lawfully excluded. He is lawfully excluded by a formal sentence of excommunication, and the Ecclesiastical Lawyer of the Spectator thinks that certain rubrics also legally authorize the curate to exclude notorious evil-livers and persons in malice with each other. We are doubtful on this latter head, being inclined to think that formal excommunication by a Court of competent jurisdiction is the only ground for exclusion recognized by law. But we are willing to accept the larger rule of exclusion suggested. This being established, the Ecclesiastical Lawyer proceeds to demolish the contention that a rubric appended to the Order of Confirma- tion legally authorizes the exclusion of persons unconfirmed. His argument is highly technical, and seems to us perfectly sound. The conclusion is that every parishioner has a statutory right to communicate as often as ho will in the parish church, save in some strictly exceptional circumstances of rare occurrence. This conclusion we believe to be inexpugnable, and we are grateful to the Spectator for calling attention to it."
The writer goes on to reprove us for not enforcing all the logical consequences of our conclusions, and then endeavours to reach a kind of redur,tio ad absurdum, by suggesting that we are bound to assent to the admission of Jews, Moslems, "professed atheists," or Hindu students ; in short, of "all persons of any religions or irreligious belief or practice." We dealt last week with this amazing attempt to meet our case, and will only say here that if this is a real danger—which, of course, we deny—the exclusion of unconfirmed persons offers no protection. The Church Times must admit that there are plenty of "professed atheists" and persons of "irreligious belief or practice" who have been duly confirmed and who cannot, on any showing, be excluded. But these persons would profane the rite quite as greatly as the pious but inquisitive Jew, Moslem, or Hindu of our contemporary's imagination. These hypothetical cases are, in truth, beside the point. They are like the ultra-Protestant speculations as to what happens to the extreme Roman claims if you suppose an atheist Pope or Bishop who insisted on consecrating the elements or helping to make bishops and priests after he bad ceased to believe, and when his "intention" was not to convey the Apostolic Succession, but to make a solemn mockery of the rite. No Jew or Moslem or Hindu will ever claim the right to communicate, or if he does will ever succeed in getting the Courts to enforce his claim. If the avowed atheist tries, in order to discredit the rite, he is just as likely to be confirmed as unconfirmed. Besides, who can tell the true atheist P Who can dive into men's hearts and say what is their real belief ? The Church of England wisely makes no attempt at such inquisition. If the man's outward behaviour is reverent, it puts the responsibility on him, and not on the minister of religion at whose hands he receives the Communion.
The Church Times goes on to say that it has only one small complaint to make as to the way in which our case was presented:— " The Spectator calls this Statute a law of the Church of England. That is obviously inaccurate. It is a law about the Church, but it is clearly a law of the Realm of England. It is an absurd law • it was an impertinence in its origin, and it is worse than impertinent now. Any attempt to enforce it would be tyrannical. But it is law."
The article ends with the following suggestion:--
" Have we anything to suggest? Do we propose the repeal or amendment of the Statute to meet the changed circumstances ? Repeal would be excellent, but we think there is little chance of obtaining it. The Statute is wrapt up with many others. Amend- meat might be possible, but we should think it deplorable. It would involve a further determination by Parliament of the persons entitled to present themselves for Communion. That would be intolerable. If the intervention of Parliament was an impertinence when all Englishmen were presumed to be Catholio Christians, it would be far worse now. To ask all Members of Parliament to determine such a question would be even worse than admitting all Members of Parliament to Communion. We ask for no amendment of the Statute. It is impossible. And there is a better way. It is to ignore the Statute and all that flows from it. That is nothing new. The presence of such an Act in the Statute Book is a harmless piece of insolence. We will remind our readers, and others, that the Public Worship Regula- tion Act is also in the Statute Book, and nobody is the worse for it. We are quite clear that the Spectator is right in its exposition
of the law, and we can assure everybody concerned that this law will be universally disobeyed."
We do not mean on the present occasion to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom of the Church Times in asking the clergy to set the example of disobeying the law of the land embodied in a positive enactment. The case of a clergyman who sin- cerely holds that it would be a violation of conscience for
him to give the Communion to any person who he knew had not been confirmed is, we admit, a difficulty. We are most anxious that no strain should be put upon a man's conscience even when its voice tends to make him lawless. We very much doubt, however, whether any unconfirmed Nonconformist would insist upon his right at a church where he knew the clergyman was a conscientious objector.
The essential point is that we may now regard it as settled law that a clergyman is not only doing nothing legally wrong, as was often supposed, but actually what is legally right, if he gives the Communion to an unconfirmed Nonconformist. Every Nonconformist may now feel that he has, as we have always contended, a definite place in the National Church, and definite rights in the matter of public worship and Communion, which he may at any moment resume. The fact that he has not hitherto conformed—i.e., has not previously taken advantage of those rights—does not in the least forfeit them. The Church is as wide as the nation, or, at any rate, as wide as those Christian members of the nation who desire to claim their rights in the Church. The Church is a truly
National Church. We are quite content with the establishment of those legal truths, and if only the Bishops will have the courage to see that their spirit is maintained, very great help and support may thereby be given to the cause of the Church. Hitherto, when clergymen have asked their Bishops -whether they ought or ought not to give the Communion to persons who they know have not been confirmed, the Bishops have too often encouraged the clergy, as apparently happened in the case of the Welsh lady mentioned in the Spectator,
to repel unconfirmed persons, or else have tried to get out of the difficulty by saying that Nonconformists who claim the right to communicate must first be confirmed. In future,
instead of taking this attitude, they must, we venture to say, if they are not to defy the law, tell the clergymen who appeal to them that they should obey the law of the land. If they give such admonition, we believe that in the vast majority of cases, and in spite of the opinion of the Church Times, the law will be maintained.
It will be seen that a complete answer has been given to the Welsh lady whose appeal was published in the Spectator some five years ago. We may fittingly close our article by quoting her words:— " I was much struck by the concluding sentences of your review in the Spectator of May 1st, 1909, of Canon Hensley Henson's book on Reunion and Intercommunion : It must be allowed that as a matter of fact the Anglican terms of communion are much easier than those of any other religious body. A Congregationalist or a Wesleyan may present himself at the Holy Table and be received without question.' If this were true, or if the Anglican Church were such a comprehensive body as you, Sir, would like to see it, the position of the Church in Wales would be very different from what it is. But as your correspondent 'C. S.' says (May 1st, 1909), what Welsh (and all English) Nonconformists have to reckon with is the stiff reality of actual fact.' May I illustrate from my own experience? I am a member of the Congregational Church. Upon my marriage I went with my husband to church, he living in a country parish of which he was churchwarden, and the parish containing no Congregational chapel. The rector allowed me to communicate, and for twelve years, though I occasionally attended Congregational services in an adjoining parish, I worshipped regularly with my husband and children in the parish church. . . . The rector who succeeded him refused to allow me to communicate as soon as he learnt that I was a Nonconformist, and this although there were circumstances which rendered his refusal at that time par- ticularly harsh. Our eldest child—a boy of eleven—llad just died and been buried in the churchyard surrounding the little church where he had worshipped with us. I was suddenly prevented from continuing to communicate in the church hallowed to me by twelve years of worship, and made doubly sacred by all its precious associations with my darling child. The rector would not allow me to communicate unless I were confirmed by a Bishop. The reviewer of Canon Hensley Henson's book dwells in happy ignorance, and C. S.' may well describe your ideal of a National Church as a beautiful dream.' If it should seem to any of your readers that my tale is exaggerated, I shall be very pleased to give them privately my name and that of the parish in which I reside."
Happily we can now tell our Welsh correspondent without
fear of contradiction that she was mistaken in her view of the law of the land and of the Church, that our view is not a beautiful dream, and that she has an indefeasible share in the institution that represents, nay, is, the nation on its spiritual side. No one can deprive our correspondent of these rights without committing a breach of the law. Once again—The Church is the Church of the whole nation, and not merely of a part. No one can unchurch an English Christian who does not desire to be unchurched.
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