ART. XI-1. On Church Property. 8vo. London: 1834. 2. Speech of H. G. Ward, Esq. M. P., on moving certain Resolutions respecting the Irish Church in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, May 27, 1834. 8vo. London: 1834.

3. Mirror of Parliament for 1834.

4. Animadversions on the Conflicting Interests of the Churches. in Ireland as a chief cause of her disturbed state, with the recommendation of a remedy. By an Irish Landowner..

8vo. London: 1834.

5. An Essay, Religious and Political, on Ecclesiastical Finance, as regards the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland; interspersed with other Matter not irrelevant to the Subject. By the Rev. DAVID O. CROLY, Parish Priest of Ovens and Aglis. Second Edition. 12mo. Cork 1834.

A MONG the important subjects which will probably engage the attention of the Legislature in the ensuing Session, is that question which was the ostensible cause of the secession of four members of the Grey Administration-the question of the appropriation of Church property to secular purposes; and the possible application of the principle to the present state of the Established Church in Ireland. While an enquiry is pending into such cireumstances as will illustrate the condition of that Church, we may befittingly investigate the general principles by which, in dealing with those circumstances, the Legislature should be guided; and ere any part of this extensive question is again contested in the Parliamentary arena, we will endeavour to narrow the ground of debate, and review a few of the popular arguments which the most distinguished disputants deemed it not inexpedient to employ. It would be a waste of time to advert to arguments used by any but the leaders of the opposing party; and if we advert to these, it is because such men, by their talents and authority, have invested weak dicta with fictitious strength-and because, though they may disdain to reproduce such arguments, they will assuredly be used and appealed to by a numerous host of subordinate admirers.

In examining some of these arguments, we have been struck less by their ingenuity than by their weakness; and can scarcely believe that the lurking fallacy should really have escaped the acknowledged acuteness of the very able men who have condescended to employ them. We find arguments eloquently urged, with an apparent unconsciousness, not only that they are unsound, but that, if valid, they would be available, with destructive power,

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against other propositions of the orator who used them. Take, for example, the reply of Sir Robert Peel to Mr Spring Rice, on the 2d of June. The right honourable gentleman,' says Sir Robert Peel, tells us, that if there be an excess of Church property to so great an extent as to endanger the existence of that property, 'then the Legislature not only has a right, but is bound to inter'fere for the purpose of protecting that property. Now, this is one of the most dangerous doctrines that can be promulgated, not only in reference to the property of the Church, but in regard to all property, ecclesiastical, corporate, or individual. If an excess of property is supposed to endanger property, then you are to curtail a part in order to secure the remainder. What safety can there be for any property, if a Government establishes such a principle with reference to an hypothetical case? If this principle be applicable to the property of the Church, why is it 'not equally applicable to the property of individuals? Why may you not equally justify the confiscation of private property in certain cases, on the ground or on the pretence that it is ex'cessive, and that the security of property is endangered by that

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' excess ?'

of

Yet Sir Robert Peel propounded a doctrine equally dangerous, to which these objections are equally applicable. We are told by him, in the very same speech, that the time was come when we must consider whether we could not facilitate the propagation divine truth, and extend the means of divine worship, by a dif 'ferent distribution of the funds of the Established Church. This, too, was no hasty admission; for he deliberately repeated, on the 23d of June, If you show me any mode by which men, really 'friendly to the Church, and actuated by bona fide intentions, of 'contributing to its stability, propose, by a different distribution of Church revenues, to advance the interests of the Established Church, and to extend its influence, I say now, as I said then, I am ready to consider that question.'

*

Sir Robert Peel has thus given his powerful sanction to the principle of redistribution; and we now ask him, in his own words, and with as much reason as he addressed that question to Mr Spring Rice, If this principle be applicable to the property of the Church, why is it not equally applicable to the property ⚫ of individuals?' Why may you not equally justify a different distribution of private property in certain cases, on the ground or on the pretence of contributing to its stability ?-Why? The answer is plain, and equally applicable to our question as to that

* Sir R. Peel's recent letter to the electors of Tamworth, after accept. ing the Premiership, contains expressions to the same effect.

of Sir Robert Peel :-Because the property of the Church and the property of individuals are essentially different; because the one is corporate, the other private; because the one is only a life-interest, which the incumbent has no power to bequeath, the other may be the subject of bequest; because the one is held subject to the condition of performing public duties, while to the enjoyment of the other no such conditions are annexed.

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I cannot,' says Mr Hallam, in his Constitutional History, ⚫ until some broad principle is made more obvious to me than it ever has yet been, do such violence to all common notions on the subject, as to attach an equal inviolability to private and 6 corporate property. The law of hereditary succession, as ' ancient and universal as that of property itself—the law of testamentary disposition, the complement of the former, so long ' established in most countries as to seem a natural right, have ' invested the individual possessor of the soil with such fictitious 'immortality, such anticipated enjoyment, as it were, of futurity, ⚫ that his perpetual ownership could not be limited to the term of 'his own existence, without what he would justly feel as a real 'deprivation of property. Nor are the expectations of children, or other probable heirs, less real possessions, which it is a hardship, if not an actual injury, to defeat. Yet even this hereditary claim is set aside by the laws of forfeiture, which have ' almost every where prevailed; but in estates held, as we call it, ' in mortmain, there is no intercommunity, no natural privity of ' interest between the present possessor and those who may suc'ceed him; and as the former cannot have any pretext for com6 plaint, if, his own rights being preserved, the legislature should alter the course of transmission after his decease, so neither is any hardship sustained by others, unless their succession has been already designated, or rendered probable. Corporate pro'perty, therefore, appears to stand on a very different footing from that of private individuals; and while all infringements of the established privileges of the latter are to be sedulously ' avoided, and held justifiable only by the strongest motives of 'public expediency, I cannot but admit the full right of the le'gislature to new-mould and regulate the former in all that does ⚫ not involve existing interests, upon far slighter reasons of con'venience.'

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Such a distinction must be recognised by Sir Robert Peel. He must admit the right of the legislature to new-mould ecclesiastical property, upon far slighter reasons of convenience' than would justify an interference with private property; else, why is he willing to consider the question of a different distribution ?

From this dilemma, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Stanley, and the other advocates of redistribution, cannot escape :-either there is an essential difference between ecclesiastical and private property, or, in sanctioning a different distribution of the former, they are admitting a doctrine of the most dangerous kind. If there is an essential difference, then all those cogent arguments which consist in representing the appropriation of church property as a precedent dangerous to private property, must fall to the ground. If there is not an essential difference, and the appropriation of the one is a precedent fraught with danger to the other, we maintain that the principle of redistribution is fraught with danger quite as great. The most excitable alarmist cannot predicate worse of the principle of appropriation, than that it would sanction general confiscation; and surely a redistribution of lay property would not deserve a milder name.

We cordially concur with those Tory orators and writers who tell us, that the great question of interference with church property must be contested in limine, on the ground of redistribution. Here, and here only, can the champions of inviolability take their stand. At this point only can they defend any thing which can be called a principle.' If they desert this bulwark, the question will cease to be one of principle, and be thenceforth only a ques tion of degree. They must deny all right of interference, and boldly occupy a position, which, severing them from the alliance of the Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, Lord Henley, Lord Stanley, and Sir Robert Peel, will place these latter in the ranks of the spoliators. They must condemn, as confiscatory, Lord Henley's and Dr Burton's plans for the augmen tation of small livings. They must maintain the immortality of every glaring anomaly, of every revolting inequality, which, pampering on the one hand the great clerical sinecurist, dispensing on the other a scanty pittance to the hard-working curate, has long excited the disapprobation and sorrow of the best friends of the English Church.

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Will the champions of the inviolability of church property take their stand on ground like this? Or will they quit a position which they must be conscious is not tenable, and seriously ask themselves, in the language of Bacon, Why the Civil State should be purged, and restored by good and wholesome laws made every third or fourth year in Parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief, and contrariwise, the Ecclesiastical State should still continue upon the dregs of 6 time, and receive no alteration ?'

It would be a waste of time to contend with those who still

claim for the Church a right of exemption from all interference; and to discuss a principle which its ablest champions have concurred in giving up. The true question,' said Bishop Watson, in a charge to his clergy, in speaking of the original appropriation of church property, is, whether the uses to which it is appropriated are such as an enlightened government can approve of; for we by no means contend that every appropriation once made, whether beneficial to the community or not, must be perpetuated.'

This is the most comprehensive statement of the important question which the legislature will be called upon to consider. But we are content to receive it as exhibited in another and a narrower form; because by so doing, we give to our opponents the benefit of having it stated by the most distinguished arguer on their side. "The question,' said Sir Robert Peel, is simply 'this,-Has Parliament the right-not the abstract legal rightfor who can doubt its right in that sense? But has Parliament the moral and equitable right to appropriate church property to secular purposes?'

Before we attempt to solve this question, let us clear the ground as well as we are able-let us seek to ascertain the meaning of the terms to be employed, and the nature of that which is to be the subject of discussion. We must ask two preliminary questions What is the Church? and what is church property?' Never were there terms which stood more in need of explanation, and on which ambiguity and misconstruction have been more mercilessly inflicted. The Church' has many acceptations, and sophistry has loved to juggle and transpose them. It means sometimes a form of doctrine, sometimes the clergy, sometimes endowments, sometimes the place of worship, sometimes an ecclesiastical corporation; and sometimes is truly understood in that comprehensive sense which is set forth in the 19th Article of the Church of England: The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the 'which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.' In this, its true sense, the term Church,' includes the laity as well as the clergy; and it is plain that in this sense it cannot be a corporate body. But neither is it a corporate body, if it is understood to comprise only the clergy. The clergy, collectively, are not a corporation, any more than the laity are a corporation. If they are distinct, so are the laity- if they are privileged, so are the nobility; but they have, like them, no collective corporate existence.