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 8. BRJOfiE STREET, WESTMINSTER. 8.W. ' 
 
 THE 
 
 Endowments and Establishment 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Church of Enoiand. 
 
 AN ADDRESS, 
 
 Delivered at Blackmoor^ on Monday, 
 January 1 1, 1886, 
 
 BY 
 
 ROUNDELL, EARL OF SELBORNE, 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK d: MELBOURNE.
 
 The Endowments and Establishment 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Church of England. 
 
 MANY people in these days talk, and write in the 
 newspapers and other publications, about the 
 " Disestablishment " and " Disendowment " of the Church 
 of England : which means, doing away with the " Estab- 
 lishment," and taking away the " Endowments " of the 
 Church. 
 
 To understand that, we must first know what is meant 
 by the words " Establishment" and "Endowment." 
 
 The " Establishment " of the Church of England consists 
 in certain relations, different from those of other religious 
 bodies, in which the Church of England now stands to- 
 wards the State, or the Public Law and Government of 
 the country. 
 
 " Endowment " is the possession of property, secured for 
 the purposes of the Church by law. The possession of 
 such property is by no means peculiar to the Church ot 
 England ; the Roman Catholics and the Dissenting bodies 
 have also property permanently secured to them by law. 
 
 Those who speak of " Disestablishment " generally mean 
 " Disendowment " also ; those who advocate Disestabhsh- 
 ment, want to take from the Church its property. I wish to 
 put before you some facts as to that property. But I must first 
 say something of the Church of England itself : not, indeed.
 
 4 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 of what it is, or ought to be, spiritually (about which I hope 
 all who hear me know something already), but of what it is 
 as an organised religious body — that, is a body united 
 together and working under a definite framework or system 
 of means, through which alone it is capable of receiving 
 and holding property, and of standing in any relation to the 
 Government and law of the land. No doubt, the spiritual 
 character and work of the Church, in teaching and main- 
 taining the knowledge and practice of true religion, in dis- 
 pensing the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel, and in 
 promoting righteousness, good-will, and good living among 
 men, is the foundation of all : it is for the sake of these 
 objects that the Church, its government, its ministry, and its 
 endowments exist. If there are men so unhappy (and 
 some such, I fear there are) as to have no belief in anything 
 spiritual, in any religion at all, or in any Divine law of 
 righteousness — who reject the Gospel message of '^ Glory to 
 God in the highest, peace upon earth, and good-will towards 
 men " — it may be consistent in them to wish to take away 
 the means, because they are enemies to the work. And 
 perhaps it may also be consistent in some others, who are 
 so far blinded by sectarian jealousy as to have persuaded 
 themselves that those objects are not really promoted by 
 the ministry of the Church of England. But I cannot think 
 that my countrymen in general, whether they are professed 
 churchmen or not, labour under either of these delusions. 
 It is possible to differ, more or less seriously, from the 
 Church, and to think that there are some (perhaps many) 
 things in it capable of amendment, and yet to see and 
 acknowledge the general excellence and public usefulness of 
 the work which it does. 
 
 Coming, then, to the history of the Church of England 
 as an organised Institution, the first thing of which 1 would 
 take notice is, that it is the most ancient and venerable In- 
 stitution of all in this country. It has existed, in unbroken 
 
 it > '^
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 5 
 
 succession, for about thirteen hundred years, ever since the 
 first conversion of the heathen Saxons by Augustin, the first 
 Archbishop of Canterbury ; from whom the present Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury is the ninety-fourth successor, in a 
 line never interrupted. Our own Bishop of Winchester is 
 (in like manner) the seventy-ninth Bishop, in an uninter- 
 rupted line of succession, from the time when Winchester 
 first became the seat of a Bishopric, just eighty years after 
 the coming of Augustin. 
 
 There was an earlier Church of the ancient Britons, 
 under the Roman Government, which produced saints and 
 martyrs whom we still remember with honour ; particularly 
 Alban, put to death for his religion at the town now 
 called (after him) St. Albans, in the reign of the Roman 
 Emperor Diocletian, just about the time when the pots of 
 Roman coins dug up a few years ago at Blackmoor may 
 be supposed to have been buried. But when the Romans 
 abandoned this island, and the Saxons and other sea-farmg 
 people from the North of Europe invaded it, those heathen 
 conquerors persecuted and drove out that original British 
 Church. Its few remnants were forced to seek refuge 
 in the mountainous parts and remote corners of the 
 island ; and when Augustin came, in the year a.d. 596, 
 as a missionary from Gregory, then Bishop or " Pope " of 
 Rome, he had to make an entirely new beginning, among a 
 race of people ignorant of Christianity, just as if there had 
 been no Church here before. The succession of the present 
 Church of England, as an organised Institution^ is derived 
 from that new Church which Augustin founded. 
 
 It must not be supposed, because Gregory (whose 
 missionary Augustin was) was Bishop of Rome, and called 
 " Pope," that the religion which he professed and taught 
 was like what we now call '' Popery." The word " Pope," 
 in its original and proper sense, meant nothing else than 
 " Father : " and the Roman Christianity of those days had
 
 6 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 not departed, in any matter of substance, from the purity 
 and simplicity of Apostolic times. 
 
 I said that the Church of England was the most ancient 
 of all our English Institutions. It is 230 years older than 
 our Monarchy : for, when Augustin came, England was 
 divided into the seven small kingdoms, called in books the 
 "Heptarchy; " and it was not till about 230 years after- 
 wards, that these were united together under one King. It 
 is at least 670 years older than our Parliaments ; for the 
 earliest date which any historians assign to a Parliament, 
 in which the Commons were represented, is the year 
 A.D. 1265 : 670 years after Augustin. 
 
 I will now describe to you the organisation, at the 
 present time, of the Church of England : that is, the system 
 of outward means by which its government and ministry is 
 carried on all over the land, and its endowments, or pro- 
 perty, possessed and enjoyed. This consists of bishoprics 
 under Bishops, and of parishes under settled clergymen, 
 called " Rectors," or " Vicars." Every bishopric includes 
 all the parishes within a district, called the " diocese " 
 (which, in our own case, is the whole county of Hampshire, 
 with the Isle 01 Wight, part of Surrey, and the Channel 
 Islands) ; and all the clergy of each diocese are subject to 
 the government; according to law, of their Bishop. 
 
 There are now thirty-three bishoprics in England (or 
 thirty-four, if we reckon separately those of Gloucester and 
 Bristol, at present united under one Bishop). Twenty-nine 
 of these have Cathedrals, with bodies of Cathedral clergy, 
 called Deans and Chapters. And it is not without interest 
 and importance (as showing the unity from the first, and 
 the life and growth of this Church of England in different 
 ages), to observe the several periods of time at which these 
 thirty-four bishoprics were founded. Nine were founded in 
 the days of the "Heptarchy," before England was one king- 
 dom — the latest more than 1,180 years ago. Seven others
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 7 
 
 were founded before the Conquest, the latest above 830 years 
 ago ; five more under the three earHest Norman Kings (the 
 Conqueror, and his sons, William Rufus and Henry), above 
 750 years ago. In Henry the Eighth's time, 340 years ago, 
 after the beginning of the Reformation, six more were 
 founded ; and seven more have been founded during the 
 reigns of the present Queen and her immediate pre- 
 decessor ; the latest of them, that of Southwell, in 1884. 
 
 The whole number of parishes (taking old and new 
 parishes together) which I have been able to make out 
 from the " Clergy Lists," and " Diocesan Calendars," an- 
 nually published, is about 13,630. Of this whole number 
 of parishes, 8,467 are old ; the rest are new. By "old 
 parishes," I mean those which were founded before the 
 Reformation : by " new parishes," I mean those which have 
 been founded since (chiefly within the last hundred years), 
 by the division of old parishes which had become too large 
 and populous for the care of a single clergyman. Selborne 
 is an old parish, founded just 800 years ago ; Blackmoor is 
 a new parish, founded in 1869. 
 
 The first beginnings of the parish system in England 
 may be traced as far back as within a hundred years of 
 Augustin's time. It was extended gradually, through the 
 next five hundred years, until it became complete, about 
 1,200 years after Christ. By that time (now 685 years ago), 
 there is every reason to believe that the whole kingdom of 
 England had become divided into parishes, each with its 
 own church, and each church with its own endowments. 
 
 Before there were any such parishes, or any such parish 
 endowments, it had been the custom of the Christian 
 Church (I am not now speaking of England, but of other 
 countries) to collect offerings from its members, for the 
 general purposes of each bishopric or diocese ; which were 
 brought together into a common fund or treasury, and 
 distributed and applied under the direction of the Bishop.
 
 8 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 You know that, under the Jewish law,^ the people were 
 commanded to pay tenths, or " tithes," of the increase of 
 their land and all their substance. That Jewish law was 
 not binding upon Christians ; but Christians, from very early 
 times, looked to it as suggesting a convenient measure of 
 what it would be right for them to give, " as God prospered" 
 them,t for God's immediate service. This grew into a 
 custom, which gradually came to be regarded by members 
 of the Church as a duty, and so to be enjoined upon them 
 by regulations (" canons," as they were called) of the 
 Church ; which for a long time had such authority only, as 
 the regulations of any religious society must always have, 
 over its own members, upon the voluntary principle. 
 
 By the custom of the Roman, and of some other Churches 
 upon the Continent of Europe, in those early times, it was 
 usual to divide the tithes and other offerings brought into 
 the common treasury of the diocese into four parts : — one 
 for the Bishop ; one for his clergy ; one for the repair and 
 maintenance of Church buildings ; and one for the poor. 
 In some countries (as, for instance, France and Spain) the 
 distribution was into three parts instead of four. Whether 
 any similar mode of distribution ever prevailed in England, 
 is a point on which the opinions of learned men have 
 differed. My own conviction, after looking carefully into 
 the historical evidence upon the subject, is that we never 
 had any such general custom ; and that, even if it was at 
 any time followed in the practice of any diocese where 
 collections of foreign canons were made (of which there is 
 no proof), it never, in any part of England, acquired the 
 force of law. Very early after his mission, Augustin asked 
 for Pope Gregory's advice on the question, " how the 
 
 * The citstom, however, was patriarchal, and much older than the 
 Jewish law. (See Genesis xiv. 20 ; and xxviii. 22. ) 
 t I Corinth, xvi. 2.
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 9 
 
 " offerings of the faithful should be distributed?" and Gregory 
 answered that, although the custom in most countries was 
 to make that division into four parts, which I have men- 
 tioned, yet, in the infancy of the English-Saxon Church, he 
 (Augustin) and his clergy would do most wisely by living 
 together, and imitating as far as they could the community 
 of all things which was practised under the Apostles. 
 
 It was a consequence of the voluntary origin and cha- 
 racter of the obligation to pay tithes, before custom had 
 acquired the force of law, that those who acknowledged that 
 obligation, and had made no permanent gift of the tithes 
 arising from their own property to particular churches, re- 
 tained the right to pay them where, and to whom they 
 would, according to their own choice. They were, therefore, 
 able, when parishes were formed, to appropriate them, as a 
 permanent endowment, to the minister of the parish church ; 
 and it became so general a "practice for the founders of 
 parish churches to do this, that the law of the Church, and 
 the common law of England in later times, presumed tithes 
 to be so payable when the contrary did not appear. But 
 there never was in England any general Act of the State by 
 which parishes were formed, or parish churches founded, 
 or tithes or any other endowments assigned to them ; nor 
 was there ever, at any time, any endowment of the Church 
 of England as a whole. Landowners, each dealing sepa- 
 rately with that which was his own, built and endowed 
 churches upon, and out of, their own estates. Kings, where 
 they had in their own hands lands not granted out to any 
 subject, did this, as well as other landowners — William the 
 Conqueror, for example, having in his own hands the manor 
 of Selborne, exactly 800 years ago, founded and gave, out of 
 the lands of that manor, the church of Selborne, with half a 
 "hide " of land — a quantity less than fifty acres ; perhaps very 
 much less, for the present glebe of Selborne is only seven- 
 teen acres. Most of the land of the kingdom was then, as
 
 lO THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTARTTSHMENT 
 
 it has been since, in private hands ; and the founders of 
 our old parish churches were generally private persons. As 
 each church was built, the Bishop of the diocese was applied 
 to, to consecrate it, and to give his consent to its being 
 established as the church for that particular district or 
 "parish " which the founder was desirous of having assigned 
 to it ; and this the Bishop did, upon being satisfied that the 
 building was suitable, and was granted and secured for ever 
 for the purposes of Divine worship, to be conducted accord- 
 ing to the laws of the Church by a resident clergyman of the 
 diocese (a churchyard being usually attached to it for the burial 
 of the dead); and that a proper " manse" (or parsonage-house, 
 — the word "manse" is still used in Scotland), with a glebe, 
 was in like manner granted and made secure for the clergy- 
 man's residence and use ; and that due provision was made 
 for his maintenance ; which was done in almost every parish 
 by the assignment for that purpose of the tithes arising from 
 the founder's land within the parish. In this way, each 
 parish church came, generally^ to be endowed with property 
 of four kinds : (i) The fabric, or building, of the church itself 
 and the consecrated enclosure within which it was erected ; 
 (2) the parsonage-house; (3) the glebe ; and (4) the tithe. 
 These are, to this day, the parochial endowments of the 
 Church of England ; the difference, in that respect, between 
 old and new parishes being, that "new parishes " are seldom 
 endowed with glebe or tithe ; but stipends are usually in 
 some other way provided for their ministers. 
 
 Upon this subject, it may be well that I should read to 
 you a short extract from a book written in the reign of 
 King Charles the First, by one of the most learned men 
 and best lawyers and statesmen of that time, — a very liberal 
 thinker also, who took part with the Parliament against the 
 King, and had no prejudice in favour of the Church : — 
 John Selden, whose statue may be seen in the entrance 
 hall to our Houses of Parliament. The book I refer to is
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. IT 
 
 his " History of Tithes." He says that the origin of our 
 parishes was from the devotion "of most laymen of fair 
 -' estate, who desired to have chaplains always resident and 
 " ready for Christian instruction among them, their families, 
 "and their adjoining tenants;" and who built churches, 
 which, "being hallowed by the Bishop, were endowed with 
 "peculiar maintenance from the founders for the incum- 
 " bents " : — and that " the lay-founder, according to the 
 " territory of his demesnes, lands, or neighbouring posses- 
 "sions, made and assigned both the limits within which the 
 " holy function" (that is, the clergyman's duty) " was to 
 be exercised, and appointed the persons that should repair 
 " to the church and offer there, and also provided a special 
 "salary for the performance;" for which reason, the revenue 
 so provided became perpetually annexed to the church of 
 the clergyman who received it, and ceased to be paid into 
 the common treasury of the diocese. "Out of these founda- 
 " tions " (he adds) " chiefly, doubtless came those kinds of 
 " parishes which are at this day in every diocese : their 
 " differences in quantity being originally out of the differ- 
 "ence of the several circuits of the demesnes or territories 
 " possessed by the founders." 
 
 When tithes had been thus appropriated, the landowner, 
 if he kept the land in his own hands, retained nine-tenths 
 of the fruits or profits for himself, and had to pay or render 
 the other tenth, or "tithe," to the clergyman to whom it 
 had been perpetually granted. If he let the land to a 
 tenant, the tenant had to pay or render to the clergyman 
 the tithe, over which the landlord had so ceased to have 
 power, and which he must have paid or rendered himself it 
 he had kept the land in his own hands. The rent agreed 
 to be paid by the tenant to the landlord was less, by the 
 estimated yearly value of the tithe, than it would have been 
 if the land had been let tithe-free ; and such land as is, at 
 the present day, tithe-free, is let, as a matter of course, at a
 
 12 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 proportionally higher rent. If the tithe were simply abolished, 
 the landowner, and not the tenant-farmer or the labourer, 
 would receive the whole benefit. This is what actually 
 happened, under the first French Revolution, in France. 
 
 What is called " lay-patronage " in the Church arose out 
 of the foundation and endowment of parish churches, in the 
 manner which I have described. The Founder of the 
 parish church might either give to others (as, for example, to 
 the Bishop) the right of nominating a fit person, on every 
 vacancy, to the office of Minister of the church which he 
 had founded ; or he might reserve that right (as he 
 generally did) to himself and his heirs, or those who might 
 succeed him in his estate. 
 
 The clergymen of our old parish churches are some- 
 times called "Rectors," sometimes "Vicars." I will try to 
 explain to you the meaning, and the history, of that differ- 
 ence of title. The word " Rector " properly signified Ruler 
 or Governor : the Rector of a church was so called because 
 he was the • principal person entrusted with the care, or 
 " cure," of the souls of those members of the Church who 
 were his parishioners ; nobody else, except the Bishop, was 
 set over him ; he was, in the view of the law, the " parson," 
 or personal representative of the Church in his parish ; and 
 he was entitled to all the tithes and other fruits of its whole 
 endowment. So it continues to be, to this day, in the case 
 of those clergy v/ho are still called Rectors of parishes ; as 
 (to take examples in our own neighbourhood) the Rectors 
 of Greatham, of Headley, of Bramshott, and of Liss. But 
 the incumbents of Selborne, and Alton, and of many other 
 old parishes, are Vicars, not Rectors. The whole number 
 of old Vicarages is 3,469; and there are 4,998 old Rectories. 
 Until a very few years ago, the clergymen of new parishes 
 (such as Blackmoor) were called " Perpetual Curates," and 
 not Rectors or Vicars ; but, under a recent Act of Parlia- 
 ment, most of them are now called Vicars. There are also
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I3 
 
 a few new Rectories, so called under other Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, in London and other large towns. 
 
 The word '' Vicar " properly means a deputy, or a man 
 who does another person's duty for him ; and the way in 
 Avhich it came to be applied to the clergy of so many old 
 parishes was this. There were, in the Middle Ages, par- 
 ticularly after the Norman Conquest of England, many 
 colleges or bodies of clergy, or of monks, bound by vows to 
 a religious profession, living together in Abbeys, Priories, 
 and other Monasteries or Religious Houses. All these 
 were considered in law " spiritual " or Church Corporations, 
 capable of undertaking spiritual duties, such as the service 
 of parish churches. By the act, or with the consent, of 
 the "patron," or representative of the Founder, and by the 
 allowance of the Bishop and some other authorities — Pope 
 or King, or both — the "Rectory" of such a church might 
 be, and often was, perpetually annexed and united (" appro- 
 priated," the word was) to one of those Monasteries or 
 other Bodies; sometimes to a Bishopric. When this was 
 done, that Corporation became entitled to the tithes and 
 other endowments of the parish church, of which it w^as so 
 made perpetual Rector, on condition of providing for the 
 spiritual duty and service of the church ; w^hich it did by 
 means of clergymen, whom it appointed as its " Vicars" or 
 Representatives to do that duty. The Vicar, in all such 
 cases, became the resident parish clergyman, with a right to 
 hold that office as long as he did its duties ; and the tithes 
 of some particular kinds of produce, called ^' small tithes," 
 were permanently assigned for his maintenance. The 
 Abbey, Monastery, or other Corporation, to which the 
 Rectory w^as annexed, kept for its own use all the rest — 
 generally the largest and most valuable part. In this way 
 the tithes of many parishes, in every diocese, became 
 divided into " great " or " Rectorial " tithes, and " small " 
 or " Vicarial " tithes. Whenever the clergyman of an old
 
 14 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 parish was a Vicar, and not a Rector, there were these two 
 separate rights to these two kinds of tithe. This was, no 
 doubt, an abuse ; for the Monasteries, and other Rehgious 
 houses of the same kind, were (even when most might be 
 said for them) an artificial out-growth ujoon the Church 
 system, and not an original or a necessary part of it ; and 
 they did nothing, generally, for the parishes whose Rectories 
 were annexed to them, except through the Vicars whom 
 they appointed. The Rectory of Selborne was appropriated 
 in this manner to a " Priory," founded in the reign of King 
 Henry the Third, which stood in the valley between Selborne 
 and Oakhanger, where the Priory Farm now is ; and when 
 that Corporation became extinct, in the time of King Henry 
 the Sixth, its possessions, including that Rectory, were trans- 
 ferred to Magdalen College, at Oxford. By that " appro- 
 priation " the parish church of Selborne became a Vicarage. 
 At the time of the Reformation under King Henry the 
 Eighth, all the Abbeys, Monasteries, and other Religious 
 Houses then in England (except Cathedrals and a few other 
 collegiate establishments, and Colleges of learning in the 
 Universities), were dissolved and abolished ; and all their 
 possessions were seized by that King, whose Parliaments 
 readily granted him all that he desired. Among the rest, 
 he seized all their Rectorial tithes. Perhaps there may 
 be some people simple enough to imagine that, if the tithes 
 still left to the Church were now taken from it by Act of 
 Parliament, they would cease to be paid by those who now 
 pay them. To that idea, what was done under King Henry 
 the Eighth* certainly gives no encouragement. Parliament 
 gave the tithes which had belonged to' the Monasteries to 
 the King ; and King Henry the Eighth, with the prodigality 
 which generally follows any violent interference with property, 
 squandered the greater part of them among his courtiers and 
 
 * I might have added : or what has lately been done in Ireland
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1 5 
 
 favourites. Most of the large landowners of the kingdom 
 became, in this way, possessors (in place of the dissolved 
 monasteries) of what have been since called "lay rectories" 
 and " lay tithes." From the tithe-payer, every penny's worth 
 of those tithes continued to be, and is still, exacted as strictly 
 as when they were in the hands of the Church. I will give 
 you two or three examples from parishes in this diocese of 
 Winchester. The tithe, as you all know, has been " com- 
 muted," or changed by law, into a rent-charge, varying in 
 amount, according to the value over a series of years of 
 certain descriptions of agricultural produce. The rectorial 
 tithes of Selborne, which belong (as I have said) to a college 
 at Oxford, were in 1882 ;£447 ; the vicarial tithes, which 
 alone belong of right to the Vicar of Selborne, were ^336. 
 The rectorial or lay tithes of two parishes at Basingstoke, 
 also belonging to a college or colleges at Oxford, were in 
 the same year ;£"i,6i7. A lady received the rectorial tithes 
 of Bishop's Sutton, amounting to ;^i,43i ; and one of the 
 London Companies those of Chertsey, amounting to ;^i,i 12. 
 I do not know whether any one looks upon the dis- 
 solution of the monasteries and the seizure of their property 
 by King Henry the Eighth as an example to be followed on 
 a larger scale with respect to all Church property. So far 
 as it was an act of rapine and violence, it might of course 
 be made a precedent by those who might have the power, 
 and who might be as little troubled by scruples as that King. 
 But, to the minds of reasonable men, there are at least two 
 plain difterences which make it no precedent. The monas- 
 teries were at that time judged by the King and Parliament, 
 (not without the form of a previous inquiry into their state 
 and condition), to have become so corrupt as to make their 
 continued existence not only unprofitable, but mischievous 
 to the country. It will require a large measure, not of the 
 spirit of violence and rapine only, but of blind fanatical 
 animosity too, before any one can seriously propose, on
 
 1 6 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 such a ground as this, to suppress the organisation of the 
 Church of England, as the monasteries were suppressed by- 
 King Henry. And, secondly, when the monastic corpora- 
 tions were dissolved by law, and when the particular persons 
 who belonged to them at that time were dead, there was an 
 end of them altogether : there was nobody left, and no 
 persons could afterwards come into existence, who could 
 claim any benefit from their property, or who would be 
 losers by its being taken away. But nobody can believe, 
 that if all that Parliament could do to disestablish and dis- 
 endow the Church of England were done to the utter- 
 most, there would be an end of the Church ; or that there 
 would not still be, in all its dioceses and parishes, multi- 
 tudes of people professing the same religion, and having the 
 same spiritual and other wants, to provide for which (and 
 for that purpose only) the present organisation and endow- 
 ments of the Church of England exist. 
 
 I have spoken of what was done as to the monasteries 
 at the time of the Reformation. That was the only inter- 
 ference which then took place with any endowment of the 
 Church of England. I know that some people are to be 
 found who pretend that a new Church of England was set 
 up at that time, and the old Church cast out ; and that all 
 the churches, parsonages, glebes, remaining church-tithes, 
 and other endowments of which I have been speaking, 
 were then taken from the Roman Catholic, and given by 
 the State to a new Protestant Church. For that pre- 
 tence there is no foundation, in law or in fact. A 
 church does not lose its identity, or sameness, as an 
 organised Institution, by changes in form or ceremony, 
 or in laws of discipline, or by reforming itself from what 
 it regards as abuses or corruptions. Dr. Hook, the late 
 Dean of Chichester, put this in a very clear way when 
 he said, "that a man whose face has got dirty, and 
 "who washes the dirt off, is the same man after he has
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1 7 
 
 "washed his face that he was before." In the EngHsh 
 Reformation, the organisation of the Church, as the Church 
 of England, was not displaced or broken at any single 
 point ; nothing of importance was done, as to its doctrine, 
 worship, government, or discipline, except by the action or 
 with the concurrence of the Church itself as an organised 
 Institution, though all that was done had also the con- 
 currence of the Civil Power ; and, in matters which directly 
 affected the Temporal State, it was prompted and influenced 
 by that authority. And I think it right to add (though it is 
 not my object to enter at all into theological questions), 
 that nothing was then done which made the Church of 
 England really different, in any point of substance affecting 
 religious faith or practice, from what it had originally been 
 in the days of Augustin, the first Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, before the beginning of divisions in Christendom. 
 
 The principal points of the reforms then made may be 
 summed up under four heads. First, the rejection of 
 foreign interference by the Pope, an Italian Bishop, in the 
 affairs of the Church of England; and the establishment of 
 the supremacy of the British Crown over the clergy of the 
 realm, as well as over all its other subjects. The corrupt 
 Papal system of that day, and the power over kings and 
 kingdoms then claimed by the Popes, were entirely different 
 from anything known or thought of in Augustin's time. 
 Our kings and Parliaments had often before resisted and 
 passed laws against them, especially in the reign of King 
 Edward the First ; though they were not entirely got rid of 
 till the year 153 1. 
 
 Next, there was the restoration to the clergy and lay 
 people of certain rights and liberties, of which they had 
 been unwisely and oppressively deprived ; such, for example, 
 as the right of the clergy to marry, which was restored to 
 them in 1547. Let nobody suppose that the marriage of 
 the clergy was then a new thing. In one-half of the 
 
 B
 
 1 8 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Catholic Church, (that is, in all the Churches of the 
 Eastern or Greek Communion, and of Russia,) it had been 
 from very early times, and is still, the practice, not only to 
 allow the parochial clergy to marry, but to require them to 
 be married. Their Bishops, indeed, are not married ; but 
 that is because they are always chosen from among monks 
 who have taken vows to lead a single life. In the Western 
 Churches, the rule of living single was first imposed upon 
 Bishops by a law of the Roman Church about a hundred 
 years after Augustin's time. That law was strongly re- 
 sisted in England till the time of Dunstan, who was Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury between the years a.d. 959 and 988, 
 and who at last succeeded in enforcing it. This prohibi- 
 tion of marriage was not extended to, or at all events 
 not enforced against, the clergy generally, till the time of 
 William the Conqueror ; when Pope Gregory the Seventh 
 made decrees for that purpose. 
 
 There were (in the third place) certain changes of forms 
 and ceremonies, and the publication, in 1549, of one Book 
 of Common Prayer, in the English tongue, for all England, 
 which was several times afterwards slightly altered. But 
 nothing new in any matter of substance was then, or after- 
 wards, introduced into the worship of the Church ; almost 
 everything in the Book of Common Prayer is ancient, and 
 is taken from the devotions of the purest days of the 
 Christian Church. Nobody, I suppose, would deny to any 
 independent church the power to make changes like these. 
 We have ourselves had a new Table of Lessons, and some 
 other changes in the order of Divine service, introduced of 
 late years ; but nobody supposes the Church of England 
 itself to have been therefore changed. 
 
 The last head of reform consisted in the abolition of 
 some practices deemed to be superstitious, and in the declara- 
 tions as to doctrine contained in the Thirty-nine Articles of 
 the year 1563. These were, no doubt, of much importance ;
 
 I 
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1 9 
 
 but none of the doctrines or practices which the Church of 
 England then cast off as errors and corruptions had been 
 imposed, even by the Church of Rome itself, upon clergy or 
 laity as matters of faith, or as terms of communion, or 
 even (so far as I know) as tests for the ministry, before the 
 Council of Constance, which was more than 800 years after 
 the time of Augustin ; and by far the greater part of them 
 were not so imposed until the Council of Trent, which 
 was held at the very time while the English Reformation 
 was going on, and was not concluded till 1563. If those 
 doctrines and practices coufd not be rejected in England 
 without making a new Church, it would seem, that Pope 
 Pius the Fifth must also have made a new Church of 
 Rome, when he issued a new creed (as he did) 'embodying 
 the points newly decreed by the Council of Trent as Articles 
 of Faith ; to which every member of the Church of Rome 
 was, from that time forward, to be bound in a way that he 
 had not been before. 
 
 Those who disliked the changes made by the Church of 
 England at that time, and who preferred the Papal system, 
 did not break off or separate themselves from the commu- 
 nion of the Reformed Church of England till the eleventh 
 year of Queen Elizabeth (a.d. 1569) ; when the same Pope, 
 Pius the Fifth, ordered them to do so by a " Bull," or Papal 
 decree, in which he took upon himself, not only to denounce 
 the Reformation as heretical, but to deprive the Queen of 
 her Crown, to absolve her subjects from their allegiance, 
 and to give her kingdom to the King of Spain. Those who 
 then separated themselves from the Church of England, 
 and adhered to the Pope, were (in comparison with those 
 who remained in the communion of our Church) few 
 and insignificant in number ; as they have, ever since, con- 
 tinued to be. 
 
 I will read to you about this matter some words of 
 a learned historian of our own day, Mr. Freeman, a
 
 20 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Strong Liberal in politics, who was lately appointed, on Mr. 
 Gladstone's advice, to be the Queen's Professor of Modern 
 History in the University of Oxford. This is what he says : 
 " The ecclesiastical endowments of England have grown up, 
 " like everything else in England, bit by bit. A number of 
 "ecclesiastical corporations have been endowed, at all manner 
 " of times, and in all manner of ways ; but there was no one 
 "particular moment when the State of England determined 
 " to endow one general religious Body, called the Church of 
 "England. And, if there was no one particular moment 
 "when, as many people fancy, the State endowed the Church 
 " by a dehberate act, still less was there any moment when 
 " the State, as many people fancy, took the Church property 
 "from one rehgious Body and gave it to another. . . . 
 "The facts of history compel us to assume the absolute 
 "identity of the Church of England after the Reformation 
 " with the Church of England before the Reformation. . . . 
 " As a matter of law and history, as a matter of plain fact, 
 "there was no taking away from one religious Body and 
 "giving to another. We must remember, that there was 
 " not in England, as some people seem to think, and as there 
 " really was in some foreign countries, some one act done at 
 "a definite time called the Reformation. Under the name 
 " of the Reformation, we jumble together a great number of 
 " changes, spread over many years. . . . As a matter of fact, 
 " they were acts done by different people at different times ; 
 " and those who, at any stage, wrought one change, had no 
 "thought that the others would follow. The final result 
 "might be, that theological continuity was broken; but no 
 " act was done by which legal and historical continuity was 
 " broken. ... In the sixteenth century, as at several times 
 " before and since, laws were made to which the holders ot 
 " ecclesiastical benefices had to conform under pain of losing 
 " those benefices. As a matter of fact, the great mass of 
 " their holders did conform, through all changes. There was
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 2 1 
 
 " much less than people commonly think, even of taking from 
 " one person and giving to another : and the general taking 
 " from one religious Body and giving to another, which many 
 "people fancy took place under Henry the Eighth or Eliza- 
 "beth, simply never happened at all." 
 
 I have not thought it necessary, or convenient, within 
 the limited time at my disposal, to go into any particular 
 account of the endowments of our bishoprics and cathedrals. 
 They were originally given at different times by particular 
 acts of particular persons, as the parochial endowments 
 were, and not by any general public Act or law of the State. 
 Some of them came from private donors or benefactors, 
 others from the appropriation of the rectories of parish 
 churches to the bishoprics, or to the deans and chapters, in 
 the way which I have already described. The bishoprics 
 established in King Henry the Eighth's time (except Sodor 
 and Man, which stands apart), and their chapters, were en- 
 dowed out of the estates of certain abbeys, whose churches 
 then became cathedrals ; and about the same time other 
 monasteries, which had previously been connected with 
 Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, and several other old 
 cathedrals, were converted into deans and chapters, retaining 
 under those altered names and conditions the previous 
 monastic endowments. Those changes were, no doubt, 
 made by royal and Parliamentary authority ; but the endow- 
 ments were old and were already Church property, though 
 the manner of their use for Church purposes was changed. 
 
 I now come to later times, from the Reformation till our 
 own day. During all that period private gifts for the pur- 
 poses of the Church have continued to be made, of the 
 greater number of which there is no general public record. 
 Two funds have also been created under Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, passed in the last and in the present century, for the 
 improvement of poor church livings, and for aiding in the 
 endowment of new parishes. The older of those funds
 
 2 2 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 (the smaller in amount) is called " Queen Anne's Bounty." 
 It was established a.d. 1704, out of the "tenths" and "first- 
 fruits " paid by all the beneficed clergy of England from 
 their livings to the Pope before the Reformation, which at the 
 time of the Reformation were taken from the Pope and given 
 by Act of Parliament to the King. Queen Anne thought 
 that it would be more suitable and just to apply the pro- 
 duce of these exactions from the clergy towards the improve- 
 ment ot poor livings insufficiently provided for (of which 
 the number was found to be large), than to retain them 
 as part of the Royal Revenue. The Parliament of 1704 
 agreed with her ; and so the fund, called Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, was established. 
 
 The other fund is that of the *' Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners," first established by law in 1836. This consists 
 entirely of savings out of what was already Church property, 
 obtained by the better management and more equitable dis- 
 tribution of the produce of the estates and endowments of 
 bishops, and cathedrals, and collegiate churches. The 
 incomes of the bishops and cathedral clergy were before 
 that time extremely unequal, and many of them had become 
 excessive in amount. The establishments, also, of the cathe- 
 dral and collegiate churches were considered to be on too 
 large a scale ; and, as great part of their revenues was de- 
 rived from parochial tithes, no application of any surplus 
 arising from them could be more reasonable and just than 
 towards a better provision for the poorer parishes, having re- 
 gard, in the first place, to the reasonable wants of those 
 places from which the tithes were received. The incomes, 
 therefore, of the bishops, and of such a number of cathedral 
 and collegiate clergy as it was thought proper to retain for 
 the services of the cathedrals and collegiate churches, were 
 regulated, and fixed at their present amounts ; and the sur- 
 plus was brought into a common fund, and employed in the 
 way which I have mentioned. This was done upon the
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 23 
 
 advice, and with the full concurrence, of the principal 
 authorities of the Church. 
 
 It is by means of grants from these two funds, together 
 with private contributions and benefactions, that a better 
 provision has been made of late years for the spiritual 
 wants of some old parishes, and that many new parishes 
 have been moderately endowed. Queen Anne's " Bounty " 
 Fund has been chiefly employed in loans (repayable out of 
 the incomes of the clergy thereby assisted, by instalments ex- 
 tending over a series of years,) to enable the parochial clergy 
 to build, rebuild, or improve their residence houses or other 
 buildings necessary for the cultivation of their glebes. It 
 has also, to some extent, aided in the increase of the endow- 
 ments of poor livings ; to which last purpose the common 
 fund of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners has been entirely 
 devoted. And it is important to observe that the grants which 
 have been made out of these two funds towards the endow- 
 ment of the churches of new parishes have been con- 
 ditional, as a general rule, upon an equal or larger amount 
 being found for the same purpose by private gift or contri- 
 bution. In these cases, therefore, the grant out of the 
 " Bounty " Fund, or by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, has 
 not been gratuitous ; money, often of larger amount, has 
 been paid and contributed by private persons upon the faith 
 of those grants and of their continuance. And the same 
 has been the case with respect to assistance given by 
 the societies which, in this and other dioceses, have been 
 established and maintained by voluntary subscription for 
 similar purposes. The endowment of our own church of 
 Blackmoor, of which the total amount is only too small, is 
 an example. The greater part of it has been provided by 
 private gift, the rest by contributions (in consideration and 
 upon condition of what was so provided by private gift) 
 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, from Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, and from the Winchester Diocesan Church Society.
 
 24 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 I am not aware of money having ever been voted by 
 Parliament for any general Church purposes, except two 
 sums amounting together to ^1,500,000, which were 
 granted rather more than sixty years ago, in the time ot 
 King George the Fourth, for the building of additional 
 churches, chiefly in London. 
 
 I must now tell you something about modern gifts for 
 Church purposes of private persons, not going back beyond 
 the last forty-five years. Much, beyond doubt, was done 
 earlier, as to which I have no exact information. But in 
 the year 1875 an account was laid before Parliament of 
 sums expended since 1 840 in the building and restoration oi 
 churches only. It did not include any case in which the 
 total amount expended was less than ^500 ; it did not 
 include the value of any lands, rent-charges, or money 
 endowments given during the same period of time. The 
 whole expenditure included in that account is ;£24,403,26i. 
 In most dioceses, the sources of that expenditure were 
 accurately distinguished, so as to show the exact amount 
 which arose from private voluntary gifts and contributions ; 
 but in some they were not. Taking the proportions to be 
 generally the same, the total amount of the private voluntary 
 gifts and contributions, which enter into that sum of above 
 twenty-four millions, is certainly not less than twenty-three 
 millions of pounds. That account stops with the year 1874. 
 As to what has been since done, I hold in my hand a letter 
 which appeared the other day (7th January, 1886) in the 
 Times newspaper, from Mr. Burnside, the secretary to a 
 committee by whom a publication, called the "Official Year- 
 Book of the Church of England," is edited. That committee 
 ascertained, by careful inquiry, the amount contributed from 
 private sources only, in one year, 1884, throughout England, 
 for the building and restoration of churches, the endowment 
 of benefices, the building and enlargement of parsonage 
 houses, and additions to church burial-grounds; compre-
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 25 
 
 bending (as you will have observed) objects not included 
 in the Parliamentary Returns of 1875. The total amount 
 of those private contributions for those Church purposes in 
 the year 1884 was ;£i,455,839 — in round numbers, about 
 a million and a half. Multiply that by the ten years from 
 1874 to 1884, and you get, in addition to the former 
 sum, about fifteen millions more. Add the two sums, 
 ;£'23,ooo,ooo and ;^i 5,000,000, together, and you have 
 a total of ;£"3 8,000,000. It is not likely, when we con- 
 sider the threats of Disestablishment which have been 
 in the air, that these private contributions would have 
 been greater in 1884 than upon the average of the nine 
 preceding years ; and it must also not be forgotten, that the 
 contributions for the endowment of benefices, and other 
 things omitted from the Parliamentary Returns of 1875, 
 must have amounted, during the thirty-four years covered 
 by those returns, to a large additional sum. 
 
 I think you will now be able to judge of the life, the 
 activity, the zeal, and attachment to the Church, which there 
 is among the members of the Church of England at the 
 present time ; and to say whether it is to be endured, that 
 at such a time, when so much is being done, and when the 
 enemies of Christianity and of all religion spare no efforts 
 on the contrary side, an attempt should be made to pull 
 down and cripple the resources of the Church of England. 
 And you will also be able to judge whether it is reasonable, 
 in those who care at all for religion, to think of taking away 
 from the Church what it already possesses, when there is such 
 a constant, growing, and practically recognised want, not of 
 less means than the Church already has, but of more, to 
 enable its spiritual work to be properly done. Some other 
 things, of which I have not yet particularly spoken, have 
 happened with respect to bishoprics, to which I should like 
 now to direct your attention, as indications of what is the 
 real feeling of the English people upon this subject, when
 
 26 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 left to express itself in natural ways, without the interference 
 of sectarian or political agitation. 
 
 I will mention, first, what happened with respect to the 
 Bishoprics of Bangor and Bristol. In the reign of King 
 WiUiam the Fourth, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (not 
 the present Board of Commissioners, but Commissioners of 
 Inquiry, who preceded them) recommended the foundation 
 (out of the surplus revenues of existing sees) of two new 
 bishoprics in two of our most populous districts, at Ripon 
 and Manchester ; and those new bishoprics were founded 
 accordingly. The same Commissioners also proposed, in 
 order to avoid any increase of the total number of bishops 
 that the See of Bristol (one of those founded at the time ot 
 the Reformation) should be united, as soon as it might 
 become vacant, to that of Gloucester, and the See of Bangor 
 (which is older than the Conquest) to that of St. Asaph. 
 An Act of Parliament was passed enabling this to be done 
 by order of the Queen in Council ; and in 1836 the 
 Bishopric of Bristol, being vacant, was actually united to 
 that of Gloucester, which union still continues. 
 
 The Bishopric of Bangor did not become vacant for 
 many years afterwards ; but, in the meantime, an Order in 
 Council was made in 1838 for uniting it to St. Asaph, 
 whenever that event should happen. Bangor is a Welsh 
 bishopric ; the Nonconformists are strong in Wales ; and 
 it might be supposed, from what we sometimes hear about 
 the unpopularity of the Church in Wales, that the Welsh 
 people would have been glad to see one of their bishoprics 
 in this way disestablished, or suppressed. But it was not 
 so. The proposal proved to be decidedly unacceptable 
 to the Welsh people; the expression of Welsh opinion 
 against it was very strong, and (to the best of my re- 
 collection and belief) was general and unanimous ; and, 
 out of deference to it, the Act of Parliament and Order in 
 Council for the union of the See of Bangor to that of St.
 
 \ 
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 27 
 
 Asaph \Yere repealed in 1847, under a Liberal Ministry; and 
 Bangor continues to be a separate bishopric to this day. 
 
 I return now to Bristol. The Bishopric of Bristol has 
 been united to Gloucester for fifty years. But in that 
 great commercial city (where the Nonconformists are cer- 
 tainly not weak), a desire has quite lately arisen to have 
 their separate bishopric restored ; and an Act of Parliament 
 was passed under Mr. Gladstone's Ministry in 1884 to 
 enable this to be done, as soon as the amount judged 
 necessary for its proper endowment should be raised by 
 voluntary subscription, the Bishop of Gloucester giving up 
 towards it a certain part of his income. A subscription for 
 that purpose, to which many leading citizens of Bristol 
 have contributed, is now in progress. 
 
 Of the seven new English bishoprics founded in our 
 own time, the greater number (especially three established 
 within the last six years — those of Liverpool, Newcastle, 
 and Southwell) have had their endowments (required by 
 Parliament to be on a Uberal scale, though not equal to 
 those of the older bishoprics) provided chiefly by private 
 gifts and voluntary contributions ; and a subscription is at 
 this moment going on for the foundation of another, or 
 eighth, new bishopric at Wakefield in Yorkshire. 
 
 As to the Bishopric of Newcastle, to which a dis- 
 tinguished son of our own late Bishop Wilberforce was 
 appointed, it gives me pleasure to mention one more fact, 
 which is an instance of the kindly and generous feeling, 
 towards the Church of England and its work, of some 
 liberal-minded members of the Nonconformist bodies. 
 The bishop's residence, a large and convenient house, with 
 suitable grounds, was the gift of Sir Joseph Pease, an 
 eminent member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. 
 
 I have said enough to show that the superintendence of 
 a sufficient number of bishops, with adequate provision for 
 their proper endowment, is as generally understood to be
 
 2 8 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 necessary to the well-being of the Church, and useful 
 in its practical results, as the ministrations even of the 
 parochial clergy. 
 
 Having heard so much about the endowments of the 
 Church of England, and the sources from which they have 
 been at different times derived or increased, you may, 
 naturally, wish to have the best information which I can 
 give you as to their total amount. To be quite exact upon 
 that point is not possible, for their amount is liable to con- 
 tinual variation, and is at the present time lower (probably) 
 than it has ever been before during this century, owing to 
 the general depression of agriculture, and the decline 
 which has been long going on, and which seems to be still 
 progressive, in the prices of agricultural produce — causes 
 which directly affect the incomes of the clergy, both from 
 tithe rent-charges and from glebes. It will be enough 
 (and it is all that I can do) to give you the total amount 
 of the fixed stipends of the bishops and the cathedral 
 and collegiate clergy (which, in some cases, there have 
 not lately been sufficient funds to pay), and of the whole 
 incomes of the parochial clergy, as I have cast them up 
 from the figures given in the publication called the " Clergy 
 List" for 1884. Having in that and some former years 
 been in a position to know something officially about the 
 actual situation in point of income of a considerable number 
 of Church livings, I can state, with confidence, that the 
 figures given in the "Clergy List'' for 1884 are much 
 more likely to be above than under the mark at the 
 present time — to say nothing of the deductions for rates 
 and for payment of curates, to which the incomes of the 
 beneficed clergy of the Church of England are subject. 
 For it must be remembered that, besides the beneficed 
 clergy of the Church of England themselves, the number 
 of curates by whom those clergy are assisted in their 
 ministrations, and whose assistance is in most cases neces-
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 29 
 
 sary, is extremely large, and the stipends of these curates 
 have (generally) to be paid by the parochial clergy, out 
 of the income from endowments which they receive. 
 
 The total amount, as I have reckoned it up from the 
 figures in the "Clergy List" of 1884, of the fixed stipends 
 of the bishops and the cathedral and collegiate clergy 
 is ;£"342,2 37. The total amount, as I have reckoned it up 
 from the same source of information, of the incomes of the 
 parochial clergy from their endowments, is ;£"4,45 7,782. 
 The aggregate amount of both together is, in round 
 numbers, ^4,800,000. I dare say some of you may have 
 seen it stated at a larger figure; but I am confident that 
 this sum of ;£'4,8oo,ooo is really more than the annual 
 value of the whole at the present time. Taking the whole 
 incomes of the parish clergy from endowments at ;^4,457,782, 
 they would give, if equally divided among all the incumbents 
 of all the parishes in England, less than ;£"33o to each. No 
 doubt they are not so equally divided ; and although ab- 
 solute equality is neither necessary nor desirable, (for the 
 capacities and gifts of all men and the wants of all parishes 
 are not the same,) it may be quite a right thing to consider 
 whether parishes of which the endowment is excessive 
 may not properly be made to contribute to the wants of 
 others, especially of neighbouring parishes, in which it is 
 too small. The greater number are less — too many are 
 much less — than the average amount of about ^^330 per 
 annum, \vhich might be produced by a perfect equality of 
 distribution. But, on the other hand, I find, after a careful 
 examination, that the number of benefices of which the 
 endowment may be considerably in excess of the wants 
 of the parish (having regard to population and other cir- 
 cumstances) is by no means large. Of the parish clergy, 
 with those few exceptions, it may truly be said that they 
 receive less, generally, than clerks of the middle and higher 
 classes in our public offices and large houses of business ; and
 
 30 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 that, in comparison with those who succeed even moderately 
 well in other professions, or in mercantile pursuits, they are 
 so poor, that nothing but higher than worldly motives could 
 explain the dedication of their lives to a clergyman's work 
 by so many men of high character, education, and intelli- 
 gence. No doubt there are among them many and various 
 degrees of ability, and inequalities of character. Some — 
 not a few — come up to the highest possible standard of 
 human excellence ; the great majority are good, sincere, 
 charitable, diligent, efficient, and useful men, according to 
 the various measures of their gifts and powers ; those who 
 are not kept, by a sense of duty, and by the natural and 
 proper motives of so high a calling, upon a moral level 
 sufficiently high to make their influence upon those around 
 them wholesome and good, are (I trust and believe) a 
 very small proportion indeed of the whole number. Of 
 course there never has been, and there never will be, any 
 church or religious society in the world without some 
 indifferent and some bad ministers. But, speaking of the 
 parish clergy of England generally, with reference to the 
 endowments provided for their support, my own observation 
 and experience is, that there is no class of men in the 
 country who make such moderate means go so far, or who 
 do the same amount of good with them. Not only in 
 religious, but in temporal good works and charities^ they set 
 an example which may well put richer men to shame. And 
 to our bishops no less, whose incomes are larger, a like 
 testimony is justly due. The scale of their incomes was 
 fixed by law, after much consideration, within the last fifty 
 years. Only one of them, the Primate of all England, 
 receives more than the highest of our judges ; two others 
 only, the Northern Primate and the Bishop of London, 
 receive as much. Most of them receive stipends either 
 just equal to, or less than, those of the ordinary judges of 
 the Supreme Court. The demands upon their means are
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 3 1 
 
 far larger than tliose which are made upon judges, not 
 merely for the constant travelling and other expenses, and 
 becoming hospitalities, of their office, but for contributions 
 to all sorts of church and diocesan, public and private, 
 charities, in which they are expected, and are accustomed, 
 to take the lead. As I said of the parochial clergy that 
 they manage and use their means, small as they are, better 
 (generally) than any other class of men whom I know — so 
 I say of our bishops, that I am astonished at their having 
 the power to be so generous, public- spirited, and open- 
 handed as they generally are ; when I know how soon, and 
 how easily, incomes of greater amount among laymen are 
 exhausted in the management of their properties, in their 
 domestic establishments, and in taxes and other public 
 burdens. 
 
 The " Disendowment " of the Church of England means 
 taking away from it — if the process should be total and abso- 
 lute — everything ; all its churches, parsonage-houses, glebes, 
 tithes, and other endowments of every kind ; if it is not 
 total and absolute, at all events (subject to some regard, 
 more or less, for the vested rights of individual living clergy- 
 men) it means the taking away from the Church, and from 
 its members generally, by far the greater part of all these 
 things. What exceptions might be made, if any were made 
 at all, nobody can, at present, with confidence say. I do 
 not understand those who most loudly call out for " Dis- 
 establishment " to acknowledge the right of Churchmen to 
 have aiiytlwig left to them. I understand them, clearly, to be 
 agai?ist leaving to the Church of England even as much as 
 was left to the Irish Church. The Society, from which the 
 cry mainly proceeds, has suggested a plan, by which it is pro- 
 posed not to leave anything at all to the Church itself; but 
 in cases in which all has been given by a private person, 
 who may happen to be alive at the time of Disestablish- 
 ment, (only if he is then alive,) to let him have his own gift
 
 32 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 back again ; and to let new churches recently built by the 
 contributions of a number of Churchmen be disposed of as 
 they please by " the congregations " (whatever that may 
 mean), who may happen at the time to be using them for 
 public worship. I have not seen that it is proposed to 
 except from the spoil any cathedrals or old parish churches, 
 whatever sums may have been spent upon their restora- 
 tion and improvement by Churchmen, or however recently 
 that expenditure may have been made. With or without 
 particular exceptions, Avhat is proposed is, to take away 
 from the Church of England the general mass of its property. 
 
 Now, who are those whom it is thus proposed to deprive 
 of all this property ? Are they a small or insignificant body 
 of persons? If you take the professed members of the 
 Church of England they are probably not less than half — 
 some impartial men think they are much more than half — of 
 the whole people. There can be no reasonable doubt that 
 they considerably outnumber the members of all the other 
 Churches and denominations in the country put together. 
 Others, also, besides the professed members of the Church 
 of England, do beyond all question derive great benefits 
 from the ministrations of the Church, and would suffer 
 greatly by their loss. 
 
 Can it be said that those, whom it is thus proposed to 
 deprive of the provision, made by themselves or by their 
 forefathers for the service of their religion, have committed 
 any fault against the State to require or justify that for- 
 feiture ? On the contrary, the State has had no more loyal 
 subjects and citizens : none who have served it better in 
 the general education of the people, and in training them up 
 to lead virtuous, moral, law-abiding lives. 
 
 Has there been any notice or warning to those whose gifts 
 created these endowments, that the authorities of the State 
 looked at them with a jealous eye, and were lying in wait 
 for an opportunity to take them away ? So far from it, the
 
 k 
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 33 
 
 law of the land permitted and encouraged them to be given 
 for the purposes for which they were given — for the religious 
 uses of the Church of England. No doubt they were given 
 for these uses, absolutely, out and out. No doubt, while 
 they continue to be so used, they are, and must be, subject 
 to such powers of public superintendence and regulation, as 
 are reasonably consistent with the purposes for which they 
 were given. But that is a different thing from taking them away 
 from those purposes, and treating them as State property. 
 
 Let us think for a moment of such a case as our own, 
 here at Blackmoor. Our church was built and consecrated 
 in 1869; and its minister was endowed with a small rent- 
 charge on land. The site, the cost of the building and its 
 furniture, and the rent-charge, were entirely provided out of 
 private property ; some aid towards its further endowment 
 being also given by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and 
 otherwise, as I have mentioned. 
 
 The church was, by a solemn deed, and a solemn 
 religious service, dedicated and devoted for ever to the 
 worship and service of Almighty God, according to the 
 system and principles of the Church of England. The 
 provision made for the clergyman was in order that he 
 might perform here the services of the Church of England, 
 teach here the doctrines of the Church of England, and be 
 a minister for good to the people of this place, in all pastoral 
 works of piety, charity, and good will, in the name and 
 as the Representative of the Church of England; and 
 for no other object whatever. Is there any man so dead 
 to all sense of justice, as not to revolt against the idea 
 of taking this away, and applying it, as Parliament may 
 choose, towards all or any of the purposes to which 
 Crown lands, or the public taxes and rates, may properly 
 be applied ? 
 
 But, if this would be unjust with respect to property 
 given sixteen years ago, how is it just with respect to property 
 c
 
 34 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 given in like manner, and for like purposes, a hundred, or 
 even a thousand, years ago ? It is a principle, not of law 
 only but of reason and of good sense, that length of 
 possession confirms and strengthens, rather than weakens, 
 the titles of men, and of classes of men, to property 
 of which they are in the actual enjoyment. This was the 
 principle of the " Dissenters' Chapels Bill," to which I shall 
 presently refer. The man who gave an endowment to the 
 Church a thousand or a hundred years ago has (of course) 
 been long dead : but the purpose is not dead. The man 
 who gave it sixteen years ago may be dead also. In both 
 cases alike, it ceased to belong to the giver as soon as 
 it was given. But, in both cases, it was devoted and 
 dedicated to a purpose which did not die with him — a 
 purpose, in which the living men of the particular place, 
 for the benefit of whose souls and for the help of whose 
 lives it was provided, have continued, and still continue, and 
 will continue for generation after generation, to have a 
 permanent interest — the highest, indeed, and the most 
 sacred interest, which any body or class of men can have in 
 anything. They, for those uses, were the true objects of the 
 gift ; it was given, not to any particular clergyman who might 
 for his own life only serve the Church, but for the people to 
 be served by his and his successors' ministrations for ever. 
 
 There are persons who talk as if all this might be taken 
 away, and yet nobody lose anything — who pretend to think 
 that it might be better for the Church to be stripped of all 
 its temporal endowments ; who even accuse those Church- 
 men who wish to keep what is their own, and who repel 
 with indignation schemes for taking it away, of want of 
 faith in their Church as a spiritual institution. A great 
 Englishman of the last century, Edmund Burke, had 
 very little patience with language of this sort, then used 
 by the promoters of revolution in another country : he 
 called it *' the language of fraud " — " the cant and gibberish
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENCLAND. 35 
 
 of hypocrisy." I will use milder forms of speech ; I will 
 only say, that it is difficult to think such talk quite honest 
 and sincere, though doubtless some persons may repeat it 
 who do not perceive how very hollow and unreasonable it 
 is. Is there any man who really supposes that the work of 
 a Church, any more than other kinds of work, can be carried 
 on all over the kingdom, or indeed in any place, without 
 means ? Did not an Apostle say (and he said it was the 
 Lord's ordinance), that " they who preach the Gospel should 
 live of the Gospel ? " Do Nonconformists carry on their 
 work without buildings of their own, appropriated to that 
 purpose, or without a settled ministry ? Can either of them 
 be maintained without money ? Have they not also their 
 own endowments ? and do not they also wish to keep what 
 they have got ? It is not so many years ago * that a power- 
 ful Nonconformist body (one of those most hostile to the 
 Church of England) went to Parliament to be confirmed 
 and quieted in their possession of a considerable number of 
 chapels and other endowments, to which their titles had 
 been found to be more than doubtful in law. They had 
 deviated, in points of the first importance, from the doctrines 
 held by their founders ; but Parliament, by the Dissenters' 
 Chapels Act, gave them what they asked. 
 
 I wonder what those who talk in this way suppose would 
 happen to members of the Church of England, rich and 
 poor, if they were deprived of the means already provided 
 for the maintenance of their ministry, and of their religious 
 services, throughout the land. Take the case of this 
 diocese of Winchester. I reckon the total amount of the 
 endowments of the parish churches in this diocese (exclusive 
 of the Channel Islands) to be ^162,137 a year; not quite 
 jCz^l apiece, if equally divided, for the ministers of its 
 512 parishes. A settled ministry, in each of those parishes, 
 could not be kept up for very much less. If, then, all the 
 
 * 1844.
 
 36 THE ENDOWMENTS AND IlSTAHLISHMENT 
 
 existing endowments, by which this settled ministry is now 
 kept up through the gifts of the present and former genera- 
 tions of Churchmen in all those parishes, were taken away, 
 such Churchmen as may have the means and the will must 
 find that ^^162, 137 a year, or something like it, over again, 
 out of their own pockets ; or else the Churchmen of those 
 parishes must be left, to a greater or less extent, without a 
 settled ministry. Supposing there were Churchmen who 
 could and who would do it, the effect of " Disendow- ' 
 ment " would be, in plain English, to impose upon those 
 Churchmen in this diocese of Winchester a pecuniary 
 penalty or fine of something like ;£"i62,i37 a year, though 
 they are as good and loyal citizens as any in the realm, and 
 have committed no fault against the State. The same thing 
 would be equally true of all the other dioceses in England. 
 The total fine (without reckoning Bishops or Chapters), 
 would be about four millions, or more, a year. Does 
 anybody think, that a burden of that kind, and of that 
 magnitude, could be thrown upon the Churchmen of one 
 generation who might be found willing to make the needful 
 sacrifices, without crippling their means of doing good, and 
 of meeting the other social and private demands on them, 
 in a multitude of ways ; or that it could be endured without 
 a burning sense of injustice and wrong? If the want were 
 not adequately supplied (and it cannot be expected that it 
 would be adequately supplied, all at once all over the 
 kingdom, after so violent a revolution, likely enough to bring 
 other revolutionary changes in its train), then both rich 
 and poor Churchmen would, in varying degrees, be sufferers : 
 the rich, as far as they might actually bear the burden, and 
 contribute to supply the want ; the poor, in those places 
 where the benefits of a settled ministry might be for the 
 time altogether lost, or materially reduced ; which would 
 usually be the poorest places, where the resident clergyman 
 may have been almost the only civilising and moralising
 
 UF thl: chlrch of exijland. 37 
 
 influence, and the chief, if not the only dispenser of the 
 ordinary charities of life. You may depend upon it, what- 
 ever some who make evil-speaking their business may en- 
 deavour to persuade men to the contrary, the presence in 
 every parish of a man whose duty and calling it is to be the 
 friend and helper of all, and especially of those who cannot 
 help themselves, in things spiritual, and so far as he can in 
 temporal things also, is a benefit, the loss of which nothing 
 else could ever supply to the poor. They are, of all others, the 
 class most interested in the maintenance of that institution ; 
 even if its duties may be, in some places, and by some few 
 of the men who are called to them, imperfectly performed. 
 
 On what pretence is it proposed to do this ? I only 
 know one which deserves to be so much as mentioned : 
 The pretence is, that all these endowments are " national 
 property," misapplied (as is said) for the benefit of a part 
 of the nation, when they ought to be brought into the 
 public treasury, and applied for the benefit of the whole. 
 
 I stop for a moment, to observe, that this argument would 
 not be good, even if the endowments of the Church were 
 national property (in the sense which it assumes), unless the 
 Church, with its parochial ministry, were an Institution not 
 beneficial to the nation as a whole. The presence in every 
 place of a settled ministry, acceptable in most places to the 
 mass, and always to great numbers of the people, and in 
 the benefit of which those who, of their own choice, decline 
 its ministrations, may and do, to a very large extent, 
 participate — a ministry, devoted by its profession to all 
 good works, and to the promotion of religion and virtue — 
 is really beneficial, and that in a very high degree, to the 
 whole nation. There is no public use or application, that 
 I am aware of, of any kind of national property, more 
 really useful to the State ; none in which individual 
 members of the nation participate, even directly and 
 numerically, to so large an extent as they do in this.
 
 38 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Upon that point, however, I do not dwell, because it is 
 not true that the endowments of the Church of England are, 
 or ever were, "national property," in the sense assumed by 
 this argument against them. 
 
 Nothing in the world is easier than to suggest false 
 conclusions by the abuse of words. Words are often used 
 in various senses ; and to confound one of those senses 
 with another is a very common error of those who are 
 unconsciously misled, and (I am afraid) a not less common 
 artifice of those who do not scruple to mislead. 
 
 The word " National " is a good example of this. 
 National interests and National relations exist as to many 
 things in which the nation has no proprietary right. Some 
 people speak of all the land in England as "National;" 
 not (I suppose) meaning that the State could, without doing 
 wrong, treat all that land as its own. It is very common to 
 talk of the " National wealth ; " by which is meant the sum 
 total of all the property of every kind in the nation. I 
 have not yet heard that anybody thinks that property mis- 
 applied because it is left in the hands of its owners. There 
 is a true sense (perhaps more than one) in which the Church 
 of England may be called a " National Institution ; " the 
 Church of England has filled a great space, and has been a 
 great power, in the National history ; and, both as repre- 
 senting in various public ways the religion of the country, 
 and as being connected with the State by those definite 
 relations which are summed up in the word " Establish- 
 ment," it has a just title to be spoken of as the " National 
 Church." It is easy to get into a way of speaking of that 
 which belongs to an Institution capable of being described 
 as National, as in itself National also ; but to infer, there- 
 fore, that the property of the Church of England belongs to 
 the whole nation, as distinguished from the Church, is 
 plainly most false reasoning. 
 
 The State, represented by the supreme legislative
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 39 
 
 power, is, of course, able to interfere with and take away 
 the property, either of any private men, or of any Institution, 
 or class of men, in this country. If it had not that power, 
 I should not be here to-night, talking to you about schemes 
 of "Disendowment." To some extent, and for some pur- 
 poses, that power may rightfully be used ; as, for instance, 
 to correct any serious public mischief; or to promote (on 
 terms of fair compensation) some public improvement ; or 
 to provide, by taxation, for the ordinary expenses of govern- 
 ment. But it is not less certain, that States, and Parlia- 
 ments, and Governments, may use their powers so as to do 
 injustice and wrong. There is such a thing as public, as 
 well as private, robbery ; if it were otherwise, there would be 
 no meaning in the words " oppression " and " tyranny," as 
 applied to legislative acts of any Supreme Government in 
 the world. 
 
 I read to you just now, on another point, some words of 
 a very eminent living historian, Mr. Freeman. On this 
 point also what he has written is so much to the purj^ose, 
 that, after the account which I have given you of the origin 
 and history of our Church endowments, I need do no more 
 than just quote it to you. "Church property " (he says), 
 ''is not National property, except in the same sense in 
 ''which all property is National property. It is not 
 "National property in the only strict sense of those 
 *' words. It is not property of which the State is not only 
 "Sovereign, but landlord." . . . ''The local bodies, 
 "which hold what we call Church property, hold estates 
 " which have been acquired at sundry times and in divers 
 "manners, from the first preaching of Christianity in 
 " England till now." ..." But all this does not make 
 "the property of these corporations National property, in 
 "the sense in which the Crown lands, and the money 
 ''which comes in from the taxes, is National property. 
 "Nor (as we have before now seen it put) is the Church
 
 40 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 "'trustee for the nation' — surely the oddest notion of 'a 
 '"trusteeship"^' to be found anywhere. The ecclesiastical 
 "corporations hold their property by the same right as any 
 "other holders of property." 
 
 These words of Mr. Freeman are the more weighty 
 because he writes impartially, and not either against or for 
 Disestablishment or Disendowment. He says (what no- 
 body can deny), that a law might be passed which would 
 make Disendowment lawful. "Every act of the supreme 
 "power is in its own nature lawful." . . . "In this sense, 
 " the State may do anything, and deal with anything ; and, 
 "as it may deal with anything, so it may deal with Churches, 
 "and with all that belongs to them. Disestablishment and 
 " Disendowment are therefore acts, which may be either 
 "just or unjust. If they cannot be shown to be for the 
 " common good of the nation, they are unjust acts : but 
 " they are acts which, if done by the supreme power, are 
 " perfectly lawful." I do not understand Mr. Freeman to 
 think, that such acts would be shown to be for the common 
 good of the nation, and therefore just, merely because they 
 might bring in so many pounds a year to the public 
 revenue, which could be applied in paying the Army or 
 Navy, or the interest of the National Debt, or anything else, 
 which Parliament might determine. 
 
 I have finished what I wished to say to you on the 
 subject of " Endowment" and " Disendowment." The en- 
 dowments of the Church are not effects or consequences of 
 those relations of the Church of England to the State, which 
 are denoted by the word " Establishment." The legal 
 forms under which they have been held by and secured to 
 
 * I have substitnted, that I might be better understood, the word 
 "trusteeship" for the technical term of law, *^ cestui que trust" ; which 
 is used by Mr. Freeman, and which signifies a person for whom proj^erty 
 is held in trust by another.
 
 OF THK CIILKCH OI' LNGI.AND. 4^ 
 
 the Church, and the Acts of the Sui)reme Legislature 
 passed, at various times, for tlieir better protection and regu- 
 lation, have (no doubt) been influenced by those special 
 relations of the Church to the State. But the protection 
 of the Church by the law of the land in the possession of its 
 property is not itself one of those relations : — Noncon- 
 formists are also protected by the law of the land in the 
 possession of property held by them on perpetual trusts for 
 the purposes of their religion, although those trusts may be 
 less ancient, and of less value and amount. Nor is there 
 anything which atiects the substance of the case in the 
 difference between the forms of those trusts, and the form 
 under which the property of the Church of England is 
 generally held — the perpetual succession of its Bishops 
 and parochial clergy, as immemorial corporations, in whom 
 that property is vested. A Nonconformist body might 
 obtain charters from the Crown, incorporating the trustees 
 of any of its endowments, with perpetual succession ; or it 
 might obtain their incorporation under the provisions of 
 public Acts of Parliament (such as the Companies Acts) ; 
 or it might cause any of those endowments to be vested 
 in the Public Official Trustee of Charities, under the 
 Charitable Trusts Acts ; but it would not thereby, or for 
 any such reason, become an " Established " Church. And 
 although the number and the character of the Acts of Par- 
 liament relating to the Church of England and to its property 
 has, undoubtedly, been affected by its special relations to 
 the State, it is not one of those special relations, or any 
 peculiarity of the Church of England, that it should be 
 subject in temporal matters to regulation and control by 
 the supreme legislature. Parliament has passed Acts (not 
 indeed so many, nor of the same character in all respects), 
 and it may again pass others, as to Nonconformist bodies 
 and their property ; as in the instance, to which I have more 
 than once referred, of the " Dissenters' " Chapels Act of
 
 42 IHE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 1844. The property held in trust for the religious purposes 
 of Nonconformists is equally subject with that held in trust 
 for the Church to public superintendence and regulation 
 by the Charity Commissioners, and by the Chancery Division 
 of the High Court of Justice. 
 
 Of the peculiar relations of the Church of England to 
 the State, which make the difference between it as an 
 " Established " Church and other religious bodies as 
 " un-established," it remains for me to say something, but 
 what I say shall not be long. 
 
 Those relations (whatever appearance some of them 
 may wear) will be found, when examined, to be in their real 
 nature securities taken by the State against possible excesses 
 of uncontrolled ecclesiastical power, rather than privileges 
 conferred upon the Church by the State. The power and 
 influence, in any country, of a great Church (such as the 
 Church of England is now, and would not cease to be, even 
 if it were disestablished and disendowed) is and must be 
 great. It is a thing necessarily to be taken account of by 
 the rulers of any nation. We are not without experience, 
 very near home, of the disturbance of social and political 
 systems, which may be caused or fomented by such a power, 
 if its spirit is hostile to the State ; which, through human 
 infirmity, a policy hostile to itself on the part of the State 
 may easily make it. In times when there was no balance 
 to the power of the Church of England from any opposing 
 forces of Nonconformity, and when its use of that power was 
 liable to be affected by its foreign connections, the State 
 had reasons for treating its laws and institutions as matters 
 to be recognised, and to some extent regulated and con- 
 trolled, by the public law of the land, stronger, perhaps, 
 than those which still exist. Historically, and as a matter 
 of fact, that result came to pass without any formal conflict, 
 compact, or definite scheme of policy ; it arose^ naturally 
 and imperceptibly, out of the mutual action of the civil or
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 43 
 
 political power on t!ie religious, and of the religious power 
 on the civil. 
 
 The essence of " Establishment " (in my view) consists 
 in the^ recognition of ecclesiastical or Church law as (within 
 its own limits) part of the public law of the realm. In 
 consequence of that recognition, the courts in which it is 
 administered are regarded as public courts, directly con- 
 trollable (when they exceed their proper jurisdiction) by the 
 Queen's Supreme Court of Justice ; and subject (since the 
 Reformation) to a right of appeal, when they act within 
 their jurisdiction, to a Royal Court. For the same reason, 
 all legislation, by which that ecclesiastical law may be from 
 time to time altered, or by which any new means of en- 
 forcing it may be provided, now requires the consent of the 
 State, by its proper constitutional authorities — the Queen, 
 for some purposes ; for others, the Queen and Parliament. 
 
 The difference, in this respect, between the Church of 
 England and Nonconformists is, not that Nonconformists ) 
 are exempt from State authority and control as to their laws, 
 or as to the voluntary tribunals by which they enforce them ; 
 but that the powers of the State over them are exercised 
 under different forms, and (in practice) to a more limited 
 extent. If any of them should have, or should happen to 
 make for themselves, any laws contrary to the general laws 
 of the State, the courts of the realm would as surely deny 
 efficacy and authority to those laws as to any canons of the 
 Church of England made without the assent of the Crown, 
 or (if made with that assent) inconsistent with Acts of 
 Parliament. The voluntary tribunals of Nonconformists 
 stand upon the footing of mutual agreement among their 
 members, and are not recognised as public courts ; they are, 
 therefore, not subject to "prohibition," or to a direct appeal 
 to any Royal Court. But, if the validity of any of their 
 sentences, affecting pulpits, chapels, or the interest of any 
 minister or other person in any of their endowments, is 
 
 1
 
 44 I^HE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 disputed, they can only be enforced by the Queen's 
 authority, as exercised in the ordinary courts of the realm ; 
 and any person who thinks himself aggrieved by any such 
 sentence may seek redress in those courts. In any such 
 case, it is for those courts to decide, whether, in the 
 procedure which has led to the disputed sentence, there 
 has been any departure from the essential principles of 
 justice ; and, if not, whether the tribunal which pronounced 
 the sentence had authority to do so as to the matter in 
 question, consistently with the general laws of the realm, 
 and also with the laws, doctrines, and discipline of the 
 religious body concerned, and with the terms of any 
 particular deed of trust which may affect the case. 
 
 Of the existing terms and conditions or political inci- 
 dents of the "Establishment" of the Church of England, 
 one — the presence of Bishops as " Lords Spiritual " in the 
 House of Lords — is as old as the beginning of our Parlia- 
 mentary system, of which taxation was at first the main 
 object. The Bishops and the heads of the greater abbeys 
 (who were then also summoned to Parliament) stood to- 
 wards Church lands in much the same position as the great 
 barons who held their estates directly from the Crown stood 
 towards the general body of other lay landowners. The 
 chief motive for originally calling them to meet the King 
 in Parliament was in the one case lay, and in the other 
 ecclesiastical, taxation. And the assembhes of the clergy 
 of the Church of England in their Convocations summoned 
 by the Archbishops under the Queen's Writ as often as a 
 new Parliament is elected, and dissolved simultaneously with 
 the dissolution of every Parliament, had also a similar origin. 
 
 Laws affecting the Establishment of the Church, in some 
 very material points, were made at the time of the Reforma- 
 tion ; but to say that its " Establishment " consists in, or 
 was originated by, those laws, is a plain historical error. The 
 most important of these were the laws by which the clergy
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 45 
 
 were prevented from holding Convocations without the 
 King's writ, and from enacting or putting in force any 
 canons without the permission of the Crown — by which the 
 right of nominating all English Bishops was secured to the 
 Crown — and by which appeals to Rome in ecclesiastical 
 causes were prohibited, and that Royal Court of Appeal 
 from the sentences of Church courts established, which 
 continued till about fifty years ago, when its jurisdiction was 
 transferred to a new court, then in like manner established 
 by Parliament. 
 
 These statutes were all limitations and restraints by 
 the State, in its own interest, and on grounds of public 
 policy, upon the powers of the Church. There are, pro- 
 bably, Churchmen, to whom " Disestablishment," if it 
 meant only the abolition of such limitations and restraints 
 as these, might be more or less acceptable. If the 
 authorities of the State should consider that these terms and 
 conditions of " Establishment," or any of them, had ceased 
 to be necessary or useful, and if a proposal were made to 
 remove or relax them without stripping the Church of its 
 endowments, it would hardly be from the clergy that the 
 chief opposition to such a proposal might be expected to 
 come. But, as that is a proposal which is not likely to be 
 made, it may be well for the clergy, and for all laymen to 
 whom it might be attractive, to remember that our fathers, 
 for above three centuries, endured without any impatience 
 those terms and conditions ; that they have not prevented 
 the Church of England from doing efficiently and well, upon 
 the whole, its proper work, nor from continually renewing 
 and extending its spiritual life, energy, and usefulness ; and 
 that the extent to which, and the manner in which, the civil 
 power might interfere with the external rights and forms of 
 action, even of a disestablished, but still powerful, Church, 
 must always, and necessarily, depend on the will of the 
 supreme Legislative Power of the State.
 
 46 THE ENDOWMENTS AND ESTAIJLISHMENT 
 
 I wish, before concluding, to refer, for the assistance of 
 your judgment on this question of " Disestabhshment " and 
 " Disendowment," to the testimony of a very remarkable man 
 upon the Continent of Europe ; a man of great age, virtue, 
 and learning, and also of great opportunities of observation 
 and knowledge of the present condition of the Church and 
 the world ; a man, too, whose own ecclesiastical position is 
 so peculiar, as to give the weight of complete impartiality to 
 his opinion. I mean Dr. Dollinger, the famous leader of the 
 " Old Catholics," who separated themselves a few years ago 
 from the Roman Catholic Church on account of the decree 
 made by the Vatican Council at Rome for establishing 
 the Infallibility of the Pope as an article of faith. A 
 distinguished clergyman of the Church of England (Canon 
 Liddon) visited Dr. Dollinger, in Bavaria, last year, at the 
 time when Mr. Gladstone's Address to the Electors of 
 Midlothian appeared. There was a paragraph in it relating 
 to the question of Disestablishment, as one which this country 
 might possibly have to decide at some future time. Dr. 
 Dollinger said, with respect to that paragraph : — " For 
 " my part, I think that any such measure should be firmly 
 "resisted. It would be a blow to Christianity, not 
 " only in England, but throughout Europe." He re- 
 peated his words with increased emphasis. " Without 
 " maintaining that intimate association with the civil power 
 " had always been an advantage to religion, or that the 
 " existing relations of Church and State in England are 
 " of an ideal description, or that, if disestablished and 
 " disendowed, the Church of England would perish as a 
 " religious body, or that she might not, after an interval, 
 " enjoy a more vigorous life than now, at least in some 
 " respects — he yet held that the broadest and most serious 
 " aspect of such a catastrophe would be that of a blow to 
 " the cause of religion throughout Christendom. If such a 
 " measure were adopted by a country with a history like
 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 47 
 
 " tnat of England, there could be no mistake as to its 
 " significance. It would be well understood, alike by the 
 " friends and by the foes of Christianity ; in Germany, in 
 " France — throughout the civiHsed world." 
 
 Canon Liddon made this conversation public, in a letter 
 which appeared in the Times newspaper, of the 17 th 
 October last, adding these observations : 
 
 '■'■ Dr. DoUinger is 86 years old. There is nothing to 
 " engage his sympathies on either side in English politics, 
 " unless it be his long friendship with and sincere regard 
 " for Mr. Gladstone. But he probably knows more of the 
 " history of Christendom than any other living man ; and 
 " few there are, if any, who can review, with a survey so 
 " comprehensive and so equitable, the various influences 
 " which, from without or from within, affect, in whatever 
 " sense, the Christianity of our day. Dr. Dbllinger's 
 " opinions partake of the moral elevation and disinterested- 
 " ness which is illustrated by his whole career. His 
 " judgment in the present matter will not weigh with those 
 " who have persuaded themselves that the Christian creed 
 " is untrue, or that the practical influence of Christianity is 
 " mischievous. But such a judgment will not be wholly 
 '' disregarded by any Christians, whether within or without 
 " the pale of the Church of England, who can understand 
 " the claims of high character and wide knowledge to 
 " pronounce upon a question, the more important bearings 
 *' of which are apt to be lost sight of among our more 
 " confined horizons, and especially in the heat and dust of 
 " poHtical conflict." 
 
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