LORD CARNARVON ON THE EPISCOPAL TRIAL.
WE welcome the speech of Lord Carnarvon yesterday week, because it is the first indication of any adequate appreciation among laymen not specially in- terested in ecclesiastical matters, of the far-reaching con- sequences that may follow upon the trial of the Bishop of Lincoln. Such expressions of lay opinion as we had seen before this were mostly of a kind which in all cases is apt to be exceedingly barren of any useful results. Preventive measures are quite in place before a disease has appeared. After that, they give place in the minds of practical people to measures directed to cure, or at least to arrest, the malady. What does it signify now, to determine the precise degree in which the Bishop of Lincoln was justified or not justified in what he has done ? Let us concede, for argument's sake, that he was quite wrong ; that if the result of the proceedings is to deprive him of his See, he will only have got his deserts,—does this admission twenty times repeated bring us any nearer a conclusion as to the right course to be taken under the circumstances ? On the contrary, it leaves the case just where it was. We are not addressing ourselves to members of the Church Association. Their view of the matter is simple enough. They have to deal with a man who in all but the name is a Popish recusant, and the only end that can be desired for such a trial is the condemnation and punishment of the criminal. In comparison with this great act of righteous vengeance, all considerations of expediency go for nothing. The public we have in view is of another type. It is identical with that large body of laymen who are content with the Church of England as she is, who do not quarrel with the present division of authority between the temporal and spiritual powers, who might not even object to see the Bishop of Lincoln de- prived, provided that they could feel sure that this would be the end of the business.
This, we say, is the public we have in view, and we see in the conversation in the Lords on Friday week, a sign indicating that this public is beginning to see that this will not be the end of the business ; that the present pro- ceedings, though in form they affect only a single Bishop, have in fact a very much larger scope ; that behind this particular decision there lies, in all probability, the more momentous decision,—Shall the Church of England remain established or not ? Lord Carnarvon said in his place in Parliament what we should like to be said over and over again throughout the country,—" What- ever be the issue of the present litigation, it must be disastrous." That is enough for the present. We do not care to follow Lord Salisbury into the difficulties that beset any serious attempt to arrest the present litigation. No one, indeed, can deny that "to interfere with litigation actually progressing, when the Court is opened and the matter actually sub jadice, is a step so grave, so almost revolutionary, that it requires considerations of the very deepest importance to justify Government in doing it by legislation. Our present object is simply to point out what the considerations arising out of the present litiga- tion really are. Those who read us can estimate the importance of them for themselves. We are not going to argue that Disestablishment is a bad or a good thing. Our work is done when we have convinced our readers that Disestablishment, be it good or bad, is likely to be one of the results of "Read v. the Bishop of Lincoln."
Let us take the two ways in which the ease can end, supposing that it is not arrested from without, and does not break down on some point of procedure. It is im- portant to remember that in the present case, unlike some similar cases of an earlier date, there is no controversy as to the spiritual character of the Archbishop of Canter- bury's Court. That is not the question raised by the Bishop of Lincoln's protest. He does not dispute the Metropolitical jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury; he only says that of two possible Courts, another Court rather than that actually sitting is the Court in which that Metropolitical jurisdiction can be most properly exercised. In the end, therefore, the Bishop will submit himself to be tried either by the Archbishop sitting with Assessors, or by the Archbishop sitting as President of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury.
Let us assume, in the first instance, that the Court, con- stituted in one or other of these ways, pronounces in favour of the Bishop. Why, it may be asked, need this be followed by anything very tremendous ? For this reason. The Church Association would not rest satisfied with such a decision. They would carry the case, on appeal, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and there can be, we imagine, but little question that the Judicial Committee would be bound to entertain it. At this point, we admit, a loophole does present itself. It is conceivable—we cannot allow that it is more than con- ceivable—that the Judicial Committee might consent to re-hear a case differing in no material respect from others which it has already decided, and might then reverse its former judgments and confirm that of the Archbishop's Court. Such a conclusion to the trial would put the State in the rational position of saying in effect :- 'We maintain the Established Church for reasons which have nothing to do with differences of ritual ; conse- quently, we leave those differences to be settled by the Church Courts.' But what chance is there that a Court of the character and dignity of the Judicial Committee will thus turn round upon itself ? We should say, a very poor chance indeed. And even if the Court were willing to take this step, would it not be better to attain the same end by legislation, rather than to lower the reputation of one of the two Courts of Final Appeal by making it eat its own words ? The far more likely issue of the appeal would be that the Judicial Committee would reverse the judgment of the Spiritual Court, and direct the Archbishop to deal with the Bishop of Lincoln as though he had himself condemned him. Here, then, we should have the temporal and the spiritual authorities in open antagonism. The Archbishop of Canterbury would either have to refuse to obey the mandate of the Judicial Committee, or he would have to deprive a Bishop for acts which he had himself pronounced lawful. If any one thinks that neither of these con- tingencies would have any effect on the position of the Church as an Establishment, we must be content to leave him unconvinced. We have nothing to add to this part of our argument.
But suppose that the Spiritual Court condemns the Bishop of Lincoln, and the Bishop, as we may safely take for granted he will do, declines to appeal to the Judicial Committee, why should not everything settle down ? The Ritualists will have got what they have always professed to want, a judgment on ritual by a really spiritual Court ; it has gone against them, and their place is to submit. But leaving, however, the possible action of the Bishop of Lincoln altogether out of consideration, is it likely, from what has been seen of the Ritualist's temper in the past, that they will at once give up all that they have been fighting for during the last twenty years ? Is there any precedent in history for such a surrender by a powerful party whose substantial victories have all along been won in the teeth of legal, episcopal, and popular opposition ? If the Ritualists do not capitulate, we may safely predict that the Church Association will not, for the express con- demnation of ritual by the Archbishop of Canterbury will give them an enormous advantage in carrying on the war. It is inconceivable that, in view of that condemna- tion, any Bishop would in future veto proceedings under the Church Discipline or the Public Worship Regulation Act. If a practice is bad enough to justify the deprivation of a Bishop, it is bad enough to justify the deprivation of an ordinary beneficed clergyman. Thus, the crusade that so alarmed Archbishop Tait would begin again on a gigantic scale. Instead of a suit here and there where a Bishop could be got to consent, we shall have hundreds of merely formal suits in which the practice of the condemned ritual will be admitted, and the penalties entailed by it at once inflicted. Thus, however the Lincoln case ends, the probability is that it will be followed by internal distractions in the Established Church to which all that have yet been witnessed would be mere child's- play. How far this state of things would contribute to Disestablishment, we will leave to the imagination of our readers.
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