The Express.
London, England, 1857-10-07 00:00:00

TEN ARCHBISHOP or CANTERBURY ON

iiinica iia Fr-11,T

CANTERBURY, MONDAY.
This morning the Archbishop of Canterbury
met a large body ofi trnbihe yat the cathedral, when his
Grace delivered a address on relating
to the present condi of the church. Itettrriag to the
Divorce Bill which weed through parliament tower& the
close of the last Sc,ssion he remarked that it would be of little
use to open afresh the qtastion of marriage and divorce,
which had recently been the subject of anxious par-
liamentary legislation. There were portions of the measure
which had become law in which he mold never caner, and
he rejoiced that so many of tho awry had agreed in pretesting
against the liberty granted to divorced pmsous to claim
again the rites of the marriage Milo°. He believed, how-
ever, that persona under such eirentunanose would not be
analogs to present themselves at church, particularly
as there bad be provided for there a legal re-
source of which they could without difficulty avail
themadree. Adverting to the church-rata question hie
Grace remarked that it woe in Oohs peo, • ctreurnatance
not much to be mrettad, es it had given time for en
Inquiry which °odd not fail to be highly berieficial, since
it bad tended to show in how small • proportion of
wishes—only flee In 100—there wu any opposition to
church rate+ It would therefore be no leee unjust titan
unreeeonable to abolish the impost upon the request of en
email • number lumens. He, however, advised that in all
owe where It was imposed the object of the rate should be
plainly stated, and that nothing should be charged upon it
but things which were absoluteljt required for the genies of
the church and the someone= tel the fabric. In large
however, there were instances in which pastime
been separated and formed into independent winless
Deal districts, having their own district churches. As they
derived no /penal deadeye, they ought to be sam+lo
from all, except, perhaps, a very small portion of the rate,
to which the mother church should be entitled, SA a tribute
toward. the religion of the country, with which
had been from time immemorial. The subject,
had no doubt, would undergo further consideration, and be
hoped it would be settled with advantage to all claws of the
community. He congratulated his rev. brethren upon the
fact that there had been none, or hardly any of those dirties-
sing perversions—he might call them apostacies from the
truth—to which at pr.viona wetting* he bed thought it ne-
emery to adverthlthough there were still portions of the Lord'.
vineyard where tendenctes were observable towards doctrines
and motion which belonged rather to the church from which
May had serrated than to that to which they belonged.
It was • subject greatly to be regretted, but he treated that
the grounds of complaint would gradually decrease. He
regatta tossthat of late some disparagement was net
upon the Non of the Holy Scriptures. Questiona
had ha in induemtial quarters concerning the
D:vins Inspiration of that authority which for so
many years had been unquestioned. U the caw
staassents c 4 the New Testament were made amenable
to man's judgment—if their anthers could have
erred or been misled—where would be the Gem-
_

datloa of any 07;;; Christian rights? The .iii7tt
was too important to be amused in a donator/ manner,
but it appeared to him that to doubt the insptrattrn of
tura, or to alma that it contained anythhog not ho .
area with the mind of God, was to attribute to the Almighty
a want of foeeelght which, not to speak irreverently, maid
not even be expected to fallible man. It Wig AM if the in-
ventor of one of those wonderful and compiketed machines
which the trim* of there latter days bad contrived were to
depodt to it some distant land, or too to adjust It that persons
tnight tamper with it to their own destruction. The
mantic plan of the Most High for the &Mystics of men,
laid down from the foundation of the world, at first
obscurely hinted at, wee made more plain to Abraham, and
still plainer to Moms, and the light ail, kept on %crossing
through the long line of prophets until the expectations of
devout persona were oo ripened that they Ire looking
for the redemption of Israel at the very time that our
Lord was made manifest In the flesh and proved Ws God-
head by a display of Almi4hty power and by a life of
offering. To doubt the Divine wisdom in the matter of
revelation wee to believe that God so loved the world ea to
give his only-begottm Son to die for oar sins, and yet to
make no e&emal provision to acquaint mankind with the
object for which hie Son was sent, or the mode in which
what He did was available for the salvation of airmen. To
his mind, it would be less difllenk to reject the Scripture
altegether than to doubt the inspiration of any part of it.
His grace haying next spoken of the inesams of churches
and schools in hie diocese, adverted to the extension of the
eplacopate. Since 1840 nineteen now ass had been founded,
and this ha held to be among the rnbjecta which the church
had for congratulation. On the oMe hand, they had to
deplore the spread of Moorish principles and of latitudinarian
eperulation, together with the andithreses and demoralisatioa
of the working-cissees and the desecration of the Lord's-day
consequent on the introduction of railways. The arch-
bishop ooncluded with some practical advice to the clergy
on the manner Is which their parochial mini/graham should
be conducted.