LECTURE VII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, AS A NATIONAL

INSTITUTION.

PATRONAGE-AND LEGISLATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH.

ACTS X. 33.

Immediately, therefore, I sent to thee, and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now, therefore, we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.

I GLADLY pass from the subject of Endowments, in which, between the misdirected profusion of one age, and the rapacity or neglect of another, we have to delve deep into the mines of antiquity for the discovery of any thing pleasing to the Christian mind, to examine the two remaining points of contact which I have named as existing between the Church of England and the State.

I. The first of these is the disposal of Church Patronage; or the power of appointing to their

sphere of labour, the ministry for whose maintenance endowments have been provided: a matter evidently of the utmost importance to the interests of a religious establishment under every mode of regulation, and to which indeed every other regulation must be regarded as secondary and subservient.

We have not, it must be observed, at present to do with the orders of ministers in the Church of England. How far the distinction of order established amongst us is consistent with Holy Scripture will be afterwards examined: we are now to regard diocesan Episcopacy, with its essential feature, superintendance in the bishop over a number of presbyters and deacons, instructors of the people assembling for purposes of Christian worship, in various distinct places and congregations, simply as the form of outward administration, in which our holy faith was first propagated in Britain, and in which it has ever since been maintained and established.

The steps by which parishes were formed, and a body of itinerant missionaries converted into a resident parochial clergy, have already been detailed. In both these characters, the clergy of each diocese were under the control and direction of the bishop. He inquired into their qualifications for the ministry; ordained them to their functions in it; assigned them their sphere of labour; inspected their conduct; and performed all acts of discipline, which, in our view of scriptural order, belonged to his office, and which he still retains entire and unimpaired. With respect however, to the appointment of any pastor to his particular cure, after parishes were

formed and endowed, it was thought reasonable that regard should be had to the wishes of the founders; and that they whose liberality had erected churches and provided residences and means of maintenance for a settled minister, should have the privilege of selecting from the clergy, and recommending to the bishop, the person who was thenceforward to labour for their more immediate benefit, and that of their dependents.

The founders of benefices, as we have seen, were generally the lords of districts; the endowment was taken from their own demesne; the parish was mostly commensurate with their property, which accounts for the many irregularities as to boundary, every where observable; and the parish church arose in the immediate vicinity of the manor house, the situation it still occupies, where the foundation is of any considerable antiquity, in most of the agricultural counties.

In the state of society then existing, and happily not yet altogether gone by, these structures and establishments had very much the character of domestic chapels; and the congregation would as little have thought of a right of interfering in the choice of their instructer, as the children and servants of a family, with the course of family worship, or the selection of the chaplain whom the master might call forward to conduct its offices.

The devout master, like Cornelius, in the history which has suggested a theme for our present inquiries, when himself directed to a teacher of the truth, "called together his kinsmen and near

friends," that "being all present before God, they might hear the things that were commanded him of God;" and not only welcomed him as a guest, but besought him to abide with them, as their permanent helper in the ways of godliness.

If the connexion had less of a household character, and the benefactor were at a distance, still he occupied the same relative position towards the recipients of the benefit; and had the appeal been made by the bishop for their suffrage, in order to decide on his claim to the privilege of selecting their instructer, the cry would universally have been that he was worthy for whom this thing should be done, since he loved their neighbourhood, and by his own liberality had furnished them with their means of instruction.

On these grounds, the appointment of the parochial clergy, or rather their recommendation, (for the appointment is still in the bishop, who, on sufficient cause of objection to the qualifications of the nominee, may refuse his assent,) was placed in numerous instances in the hands of individual laymen, and continued in those of their descendants, appendant to the property from whence the endowment was taken. In other cases, the right of direct presentation has remained with the bishop, who, on the formation of the parish, nominated the stationary minister, as he had before done the missionary. In others, it has been conferred on colleges and corporate bodies. In others, it is exercised by the crown, either in consequence of the forfeiture or lapse of estates to the king as the

supreme lord of the soil, or in consequence of the large territorial possessions of our ancient sovereigns, which gave many bodies of their subjects, in various parts of their dominions, a special claim on their paternal care in this most important matter.

And it is on this principle that the crown nominates not only to numerous parishes throughout the country, but to the bishoprics themselves; their endowments having been principally the gift of the early Saxon sovereigns, with whose dominions the original dioceses were commensurate, as were the parishes with the manors of inferior Thanes; and the mode of election by the chapter, which has still a nominal existence amongst us, having no earlier a date in England, if we may believe our ancient historians and lawyers, than the beginning of the twelfth century.'

Nor is the right of presentation confined to individuals, where several parties have joined in conferring the benefit; nor refused to the whole body of parishioners, where the endowment has been their joint act, or opportunities have been embraced in later days, of obtaining the transfer of the privilege from the heirs of the original patron. In fact, the variety of modes in which this privilege may be exercised is endless; this one general principle pervading all, that it is an acknowledgment of the obligation of the people to those who now claim it, or to their predecessors, for the existence and continuance among them of that greatest of all privi

1 See Appendix, Note H.

M