THE PROPOSED CHURCH COUNCIL [To THE EDITOR or Tan "
SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—That the position may be quite clear it is, as usual, necessary to define terms. For the sake of putting beyond doubt the question whether English citizenship carries with it membership (Non-conforming or Conforming) of the Church of England, will you please say whether you would include in the Church of England : (1) English Jews who are loyal to the faith of their fathers ; (2) professing Christians who are
AU Saints', Huntingdon.
[Mr. Latham's questions are questions of law, not of what we or anybody else think the law ought to be. (1) Our view of what the law is is that the Courts would not hold that a cleruman could be required to give the Communion to English Jews who declared them- selves to be " loyal to the faith of their fathers." (2) In our opinion, tho Courts would not hold that a clergyman is entitled to require proof of baptism from a would-be communicant who professed Christianity. A Quaker parishioner of good life would, that is, be held to ho within the governing rubric. The Church of England as by law established wisely refuses to allow the minister to decide who is eligible and who is not on the grounds of belief. To have given the minister the power of exclusion from the rite would have established that sace. dotalam which it was one of the essential objects of the English Reformation to destroy. Therefore in the supreme case the individual conscience IS left the responsibility of deciding whether the man or woman is fit to partake of the Lord's Supper. We do not desire to publish any more letters on this subject—unless some recognized legal authority can show that our view of the law is mistaken. Such a statement would of course be published by us.—En. Spectator.]
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