The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-03-14 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF_ LONDON ON

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CHURCH AND STATE.

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On Sunday afternoon the Bishop of London preached
at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, in London, one of the
Lenten sermons, which, during his lordship's epieco-
pate, have become so famous. The bishop selected for
his text the 24th chapter of the Book of Joshua, verses
14 and 15, Clown you this day Ishosi ye will serre. But
as for Inc and my house, we will aree tlie Lord. Ile ex-
plained the nature of church and state as it existed
in Jewish times, and spoke of other times when
church authority was repudiated- when a declaration
of religion, however tolerant, was considered to
be an interference with the rights of individual 1
conscience, and argued that it was necessary that
there should be a national religion, as the foundation
of national strength. In this country there was
doubtless a tolerant spirit, whether we owed it most
to Cromwell, to Locke, to William of Orange, or to the
principles which fl,wed out of the reformation. Be.
I cause they had suffered from evils in the past it would
I certainly not be urged that they were bound to aban-
don corporate religion altogether. The complicated
I questions connected with this union of church and
state were not to he discussed in a single sermon; but
he held that such a union might be sustained in a large
and comprehensive spirit without sacrificing one jot
- or tittle of Christ's truth, or abandoning one of the

smallest rights of Christian citizens. A notion seemed
to have got abroad that national progress would on
some day or other put an end to the profession of a
national religion. If this were so, he must remark
that the progress must be in the wrong direction. It
was no doubt greatly to be desired that a national re-
ligion should be accepted by a majority of the people;
but it could not be maintained that what was to be
good for a nation was to be determined by show of hands.
When, therefore, the church had allied itself with the
state, fsm the good of the state, with the deliberate
• sanction of all that was best in the state, it was not
right that its doctrines should be tested in a manner
which would be repudiated by any other body. If,
for example, there could be a community in which the
majority of the people were rogues, that could be no
reason why an effective system of government should
not be established, or why an effective system of
police should not be maintained. He believed that all
modern European experience taught that the main-
tenance of a national state religion was in no wise
inimical to wise toleration or to the rights of individual
conscience. On the whole a national estabi idled church
was more likely to be tolerant than any independent
body. The church of Christ undertaking to
aid the ruling powers of a gteat nation in
guiding and tending the various ranks of its Multi-
tudinois people could not well lose the largeness
of Christian principle in the narrow disputes which
occupied so much of the time of other Christian
bodies. Then, again, there were many doubts and diffi-
culties which the state had to meet, and which the
state cauld not effectually overcome without calling
in the aid of the church of Christ. For example,
in all civilised countries how large a portion of modern
legislation was concerned with the arrangement and
distribution of charities, and the management of the
poor -with education, with the prevention of crime
and the reform of criminals. How could all these
matters be managed except on Christian principles,
and how could Christian principles be applied unless
the state allied itself to Christ's church? Doubtless
the state was benefited by an alliance with the church.
and the church would not suffer from the union. Of
course, the time might come when the state repudiated
gospel teaching, and the church might stand apart, as
it did in a lieathen land ; but there was no such
symptoms of apostacy in this country at present, nor
was it likely there would be while all the learning and
thought of the country were at connnand, to adju t
the difficulties of the church as they arose. 'fhe
church of this country opened its doors to all classes of
the community, and he trusted that no unwise exalta-
tion of church authority on the one hand, or any undue
craving for liberty on the other hand, would tend to
the destruction of those privileges which England now
enjoyed. His lordship dismissed the congregation with
the benediction.