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mebston is cha irman ? Can it adopt , with or without the assent of Sir Benjamin Hali ., any general plan of drainage ? Or can it take any decisive step , in an important matter , without such assent ? These checks upon the action of a metropolitan council may be salutary ; but they are not self-government . Moreover , they radiate to the parochial vestries , which , nominally more popular , are really less independent than formerly , being in large affairs responsible to the Central Board , which is , if not responsible to the CJrown , liable to be overruled by one of the
-Crown ministers . But Iiord PaIiMERSton contemplated a rlarger aggression—the reform of the Xiondon Corporation . His bill raised an opposition which he declined to meet . The City , and the political friends of the City , would not Itave that measure , with , its suppression of free courts , its creation of dependent magistrates , its multiplication of judicial tenantsat-will . Yet the opposition is merely one of objection . The City does not propose to
amend itself , and the unprivileged inhabitants of the City—who , in this self-governed capital , are not citizens—do not signify that , Whether from the Cabinet or from the Corporation , they will have reform . The question stands over . Next year the Government , seeing that the City has nothing to propose , will again prop ose something itself ; and perhaps the metropolis will be centralized after all .
But the local bodies in counties and boroughs , having lost the control of their own police , and the capital , with the exception of the City , having placed its magistracy in the hands of the Government , is it fit that the ancient Corporation of London should be so modified as to confer on the Home Secretary a large additional stipendiary patronage , so as to make the Downing-street influence supreme throughout the entire metropolitan district ? The Lord Mayor says No—and the
Aldermen say No—and the Common Council say No ; but do the Common Council , the Aldermen , and the Lord Mayor suppose that theirs are the only privileges to be respected ? Do they ask for the magistrates of Marylebone the independence they assert for the Alderman of Cheap ? Not at all . Nor do they act in any way , except in opposition . Now if , as we believe , they cannot stay where
they are , they must either move in a direction chosen by themselves , or be forced into the direction chosen by the Government . To say " we will not have magistrates removable by the Home Secretary" is one thing ; but to Bay " we will have only our aldermen" is another thing , which will draw numbers of persons into a reluctant support of the Government measure . The nation that
construes self-government to mean keeping matters as they are , and repelling the interference of the Minister , understands it but slightly . What the Minister attempts , the people should do , as far as possible , in inde-Eendence of the Minister . We should then ear little of new measures for putting religion , justice , police , local taxes , and local officers , more completely under the control of a centralized administration .
. It would be a surprising result ofconstitutionpl progress if this nation , which has manifested the power of conquering bo many liberties , » hould not permanently manifest the , intellectual power of developing and preserving ? them . Tet the men yrtio most Btubbornly resist the introduction of centralizing innovations in local government , are the riten who refuse to njake those innovations unnecessary , by »^ g form and practicability to their own iaea * . ' ; Jealous of the Home Secretary , they do nothing to tako from him hia apology for
interference—generally plausible as it is . And what does the Church do ? and what the Law ? The Church permits the Prime Minister to make an inroad upon its constitution , and when the novelty has been sanctioned by Parliament no one can reasonably object to it , because no one can deny that the retiring bishops had been incapacitated by age or sickness , and that to have incapable bishops is to convert episcopacy into a sham . Consequently , the Church becomes more dependent and the Minister more powerful , and though the change may be of good effect , it is not , in general , for the interest of the nation to arm the Cabinet with new means
of influence , which , under different circumstances , might be exercised with an unconditional intention . The Cabinet is already supre me in the conduct of foreign affairs . It can give up boundary lines , negotiate commercial treaties , annul aucient principles of war , surrender fortresses , dispose of all the result of a victorious conflict , or break the European peace before its acts are known to Parliament or the nation . When did the nation learn that Lord Palmebston had concluded the Turkish Convention of 1838 ? When did it learn that it was committed to maintain the
succession to the crown of Denmark in a line leading directly to the Imperial House of Russia ? As we have little to do in foreign politics but to assent to the policy of the Minister , we may devote some care to the preservation of our municipal institutions against the centralizing process by which states are prepared for despotism . But to resist interference is not enough ; the nation , if it would not be led , must lead ; the Government will undoubtedly do all it can to secure increased power and patronage , for this is the science of all half-liberal administrations .
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DENISON MARTYR . George Anthony Denison is likely to be driven from his archdeaconry , if not from the Church of England , by the sentence which was pronounced at Bath on Tuesday . The expulsion of that oppugnant but able and earnest man would be a real misfortune to the Establishment , which has been so long driving from it men that cannot accept particular interpretations of its doctrines . Or it has been retaining within the pale of the Church those who conform outwardly while
they dissent inwardly , and whose continuance , therefore , stamps the Establishment as one whose members cling to it for the sake of its profits , and juggle the public with ceremonies that they disbelieve . Three months are given to Gjkokge Anthoni for consideration whether he will be content to cry peccavito say he believes what he docs not believoor to quit . A less stubborn man would acquiesce ; Geohge Anthony , we doubt , will go . But either way there is an injury to the Establishment . We have seen it thus
throw off at the two extremities its Baptist Noels aud its Djsnibons ; and the dominant majority within are continually labouring to cast off these extremes . The property of the Church remains the same , while its qualifications are narrowed , and thia laat judgment is calculated to carry still further the process of contraction ^ In one view there is no denying the
practical common senso of the judgment . The archdeacon is charged with preaching the doctrine . " that the body aud blood of Christ are really , after an immaterial and spiritual manner , iu the consecrated bread and wine , are therein and therebytegiven to all , and nre received by all who c 6 mo to tho Lord ' s Supper ; " furthermore , that to those who eat and drink , whether worthily or
unworthily , " the body and blood of Christ are received "—doctrines repugnant to the 28 th and 29 th Articles of Religion . Mr . Denison has appealed to the Scriptures ; but Dr . Lttshington avers that the appeal is closed against him . Parliament has pronounced , says Dr . Lushington , in the given form of the Thirty-nine Articles , what are the doctrines of the Church ; " and no proceeding could be more inconvenient or more opposed to law , than that an individual sermon should
be compared with a number of disputed texts in Scripture . " " Inconvenient "—that is the judge ' s word . We know , indeed , how open to objection the doctrine of Mr . Denison is . On this subject no work could be perused with more advantage than Dr . Whate : ly ' s recently published pamphlet on " Tile Right Principle for the Interpretation of Scripture , " the collected substance of passages in various charges which he has delivered . Dr . Wha . tely argues that the
institution of the communion was established by the founder of Christianity , with the plain original understanding that the bread and wine were to be eaten on future occasions in " memory of Me ; " that the communion , therefore , is a commemorative rite , not mystical , or instinct with any of those virtues which fanciful theologians have put upon it . When Mr . Goeham preached the doctrine that grace entered into the act of baptism at a stage entirely different from the
that assigned to it by his Bishop , argument in his defence was , that the Church of England admits different interpretations of Scripture . We see the wide severance between Denison and Whately ; but Dr . Lttshington tells us that we must not look to Scripture ; we must not compare disputed texts ; we must look to the Thirty-nine Articles—there is the rule by which the Church is to be judged . Now , if we accept the Church of England as a Parliamentary institution—as the appointment of certain qualified persons to diffuse Christianity according to the House of Commons and the House of
Lords , the principle of Dr . Litshington is complete . In fact , his judgment is an avowal that the Church of England is nothing more nor less than a corporation created by Parliament , appointed by Parliament , governed by Parliamentary regulations , and preaching " the Word" as it is in the Statutes at Large . Mr . Denison appealed to the volume which is regarded as the standard of Christianity ; but , says Dr . Lushington , it is not the standard of the Church of England ;—and we are not in a position to contradict the Deputy of the Archbishop of Canteubuuy . Wo must suppose that the Primato and Dr . Lushingxon crive us an authoritative statement of the
relation which the Church of England bears to the Legislature , to the people , and the Scriptures ; standing indeed closely connected with the Parliament , but having a very qualified connexion with tho Bible . If the force of this judgment bo fully understood , we aro quite certain that tho genuine religious feeling and spirit of the great bulk of the people of this country will oblige them to leave the Church of England amongst other rotten corporations , and to exert themselves for developing in some freer spirit tho truo Church " of England , "— that is , the Church of tho people and tho country .
On a second consideration , however , « appears to ua that the judgment of J- > r . Lushington is calculated to promote this movement most decidedly and most beneficially . It so completely narrows the ground for the corporate profession , that there must bo a reaction against it . It is inconsistent with tho facts of tho day , as well as with the opinions of tho majority of Christians who desire to remain connected with tho Church ,
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780 THE IiEADER . [ No . 334 , Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 16, 1856, page 780, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2154/page/12/
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