The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-15 00:00:00

CHURCH AND STATE.

On Sunday the Rev. Canon Liddon, DI)., preached
to a large congregation under the dome of St. Paul's
Cathedral, selecting his text from the 19th Chapter of
St. Luke, which refers to Christ's driving the money
changers and buyers and sellers from the Temple.
Sometimes, the preacher observed, into the Temple—
the visible church there intruded that which moved
the anger of the Son of Man, and especially was this
apt to be the case when the Church of Christ had
been for many ages bound up with the life and hiotory
of a great nation, and was, what we called, in modern
language, established that WM to say, recognised
by the State and secured in its property and position
by legal enactments. 'Whenever it happened
to a great church, or to its guiding minds, to
think more of the secular side of its position than of
the spiritual, to think more, it might be, of a seat in
the Senate or a high social rank than of the work of
God among the people—if, in order to save income and
position in times of real or supposed peril, there was
any willingness to barter away the safeguards of faith,
or to silence the pleadings of generosity and justice in
deference to some uninstructed clamour, then they
might be sure, unless history was at fault, we might
listen for the footfalls of the Son of Man on the outer
threshold of the temple, and we should not listen in
vain.

On Sunday night the Church of St Albans, Hoh
born, was crowded to the doors, to hear the Rev. Mr.
Mackonochie, the rector, preach. During the evening
service four immense wax candles were lighted on the
communion table, or "altar," and before it burned
seven silver lamps. Mr. Mackonochie wore over the
alb a cope similar to that used by a Monsignor of the
Roman Catholic Church, and on his head, when
entering the pulpit, was the baretta or tonsure
worn by the clergymen of that church. The rev.
gentleman preached from the text, "By what
authority doest thou these things ?" A question asked by
the Jews of our Lord when they had seen His miracles
and power. What, he asked, had the Church of
England to do with th eDivine authority? The clergy
of the Church of England professed to stand, not upon
the particular work of the last three centuries, but
upon the primitive Christianity of the first six cen-
turies. She stood by the first four councils of the
Catholic Church. People nowadays told them that
the State made the Church. He wondered who that
desired to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of
Death and to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ,
would be foolish enough to trust to the State for his
Church —to the State created by Act of Parliament.
How could that Act of Parliament do anything with
respect to God's Church—to the standard by which
she should be tried—to the means by which the souls
of men were proved and sanctified? He asked, how
could a State or an Act of Parliament do anything in
these matters? They must have something more than
an Act of Parliament. The Church claimed a spiritual
authority which no Act)of Parliament could give, when
she said to the recipients "Receive ye the Holy Ghost."
The Church of England protested against other
churches only so far as they had lost their primitive
Christianity. The Church had had to take her stand
in troublous times just as those he addressed had now
to do, but this was a heritage for the Church to keep
and treasure as a means of the faith that was in her.