The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC! JOURNALS.

POST.—The completion of the Reform Bill has
been postponed till after the Whitsuntide holidays.
Mr. Disraeli is doubtless well satisfied with the pro-
gress that has been made, and is not unwilling
to take a little breathing time for the purpose of
considering in what fashion the curious edifice
that has been built up during the past few weeks
shall be crowned. He has obtained in every par-
ticular much mare than he demanded, and in an
emharras des richesses he finds it almost impossible
to decide on his future conduct. He asked for
thirty seats, and he has been given fifty-two ; and,
but for a mere accident, he might have been forced
to accept ten others. If the Ministerial bill had a
principle, as we are constantly assured it has, it is
perhaps fortunate that it never embodied any spe-
cific plan, for from day to day some modification
or another is made by the House of Commons
which completely ignores the intentions of those
who introduce .I it. For instance, Mr. Disraeli
proposed to take a seat from every borough now.
retaining two members, but with less than seven
thousand inhabitants, and went to the trouble of
devising what he conceived to be, an equitable
mode of redistributing the seats thus placed at his
disposal. The House of Commons, however, de-
cided on increasing the limit of qualification for re-
presentation by two members from 7,000 to 10,000,
and thus threw on the Government the necessity of
discovering a means of utilising the additional seats
thereby vacated. When the house resumes after
the recess the Chancellor of the Exchequer has in-
timated that he will submit a scheme necessarily dif-
ferent from that which has now bJen rendered in-
complete and useless. Assuming that Mr. Laing's
proposal to group certain boroughs is accepted by
the house, there will be 52 seats, inclusive of the
seven furnished by the disfranchisement of Lan-
caster, Totnes, Great Yarmouth, and Reigate, to be
distributed either amongst existing constituencies
or new boroughs. Any proposal dealing with such
a matter must to a great extent be arbitrary and.
incapable of being justified by arguments which
would carry conviction to the minds of all, but there
are at the same times use general principles which
should govern any scheme of redistribution, of which
we hope the Government will not entirely lose sight.
It seems to be taken for granted that the numerical
strength of the House of Commons must be retained
at its present standard, and be neither diminished
nor increased, and the reason of this is tolerably
obvious, for it is felt that on the one hand this
country, having increased in population and in
wealth, needs a House of Commons at least as
numerous as in past times, whilst on the other it is
rightly thought that for deliberative purposes the
present house is sufficiently numerous. Mr. Smol-
lett, in the course of the debate on Mr. Sergeant
Gaselee's amendment on Monday evening, ven-
tured to advocate the reduction of the number of
representatives now sent to Parliament, but the
derision with which the suggestion was received
proved how useless any attempt at curtailment
would be even though it were made by a Minis-
ter of the Crown. Assuming, therefore, that
the number of representatives is to remain unal-
tered, and that 52 seats must somehow or other
be bestowed, the only question is in what manner
should this be accomplished. Mr. Laing proposes
that 26" Should be given to counties, and the remainder
either to existing borough constituencies of consi-
derable magnitude, or to newly-created boroughs,
and it is not improbable that the Ministerial scheme
%ill substantially coincide with this proposal. It is,
however, not difficult to show that if the vacant
seats are thus disposed of, not only will the general
basis on which representative power has hitherto
been apportioned
.be entirely changed, but a new
standard will be established, tested by which
existing anomalies will be considerably aggravated.
In the first place, it is said that the counties are
not adequately represented, and therefore it is pro-
posed to give to several of them a third member.
But why ? If you give a county, or for that matter
any constituency, three members, you may as well
give it thirteen. Where is the line to be drawn ?
If two were considered sufficient previous to and at
the passing of the Reform Act, why are three requi-
site now, the aggregate number of the House of
Commons remaining unaltered ? and if three are
the fitting number now;why should they not be in-
creased to four or more, in proportion to the in-
crease of population ? If we start with the prin•
ciple acted upon in the United States, and recently
adopted at the election of the North German Par-
liament—namely, that every.distriet should return

representatives bearing a fixed proportion to the
numbers of the population, then indeed it would
be easy to understand will certain constituencies
which are more numerous than others should
return a larger number of representatives. But
we are careful to repudiate any such notion. The
original system of representation established in this
country seems to have proceeded on the supposed
necessity of the several counties, together with a
variety of .towns, being represented in the great
council of the nation ; but in no case was a consti-
tuency permitted to elect more than two representa-
tives, nor wrre the numbers of a constituency re-
garded as a test for ascertaining how many members
it should return. This may have been a bad system,
and there was no doubt something absurd in a purely
nominal constituency being able to elect as many
members as a populous county. But it is substantially
preserved, and unless it is entirely swept away, new
anomalies will be created by simply endeavouring to
engraft on it a system which rests on some fanciful
ratio between the numbers of the constituents
and those of the representatives they elect. Mr.
Disraeli, a few nights since, expressed the opinion
that every constituency should be limited to a single
representative, and unless it was proposed to adopt
in its entirety the principle of a fixed proportion
between the numerical strength of a constituency
and its electoral power, we are mud inclined to
agree with him. At all events, we fail to see why
the borough representation should be diminished
for the sake of increasing that of the counties. Dis-
franchise a small borough, and enfranchise a more
populous one, and, however, invidious the act may
be, it is at least intelligible. But why a number of
towns should lose one of their tworepresentatives in
order that a third may be given to certain counties,
or overgrown towns, we completely fail to under-
stand. Counties and boroughs have, as far as we
know, proceeded for thepasthalf centurypari passe,
or, if anything, the latter have outstripped the for-
mer. Why, under such circumstances, therefore,
shoUld the electoral power of the boroughs be di-
minished and that of the counties be needlessly in-
creased ?

THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" ON THE BISHOP
OF SALISBURY AND PROTESTANT UNITY.—Any person
who understands the English language, and takes
the trouble of considering the true meaning of
words, must at once see that a Protestant Religion,
a Protestant Church, a Protestant Faith, and Pro-
testant Unity, are inconsistent and contradictory
terms. For Religion is that by which men are
bound to submit their consciences, and protesting
is inconsistent with submission. A Church is that
to which men arc called in peace and harmony,
and protesting is inconsistent with continued peace.
Again, Faith is that which obliges men unhesita-
tingly to accept and embrace what is beyond human
comprehension, and protesting against what we do
not like, or do not understand, is, therefore, in-
consistent with Faith ; and Unity being that which
does not admit of division, cannot possibly be pre-
served if protesting be encouraged in any body of
people. Hence, it must plainly appear, to every
reflecting and impartial mind, that the right of
protesting is inconsistent with, and must be sub-
versive of, Religion, Church, Faith, and Unity.
We are led to make these remarks by the recent
conduct of some of the clergy, churchwardens, and
congregation of the Bishop of Salisbury. But if
the simple truths here enunciated had been im-
pressed upon their minds—if the bishop, clergy,
and people had been taught to feel that they were
all bound to submit to, and uphold, in the true
sense, the Religion, Church, Faith, and Unity which
they profess, none of them would consider them-
selves at liberty to protest in the manner they have
done, and they would not now present, in the eyes
of the world, the saddening spectacle they do, that
of a diocesan Church without a recognized head,
and a bishop dictated to in matters of Faith by his
protesting churchwardens and congregation, with-
out any means of averting the public scandal and
irreligion which invariably flow from such unseemly
divisions. It is manifest to all who have eyes to
see, and will see, how very different this protest-
ing system is from that which existed under the
Apostles, who were the first bishops, and who, as
we read in the Scriptures, authoritatively decided
matters of Faith, whilst " the multitude of the
laity held their peace." Many things have occurred
from time to time during these three hundred years,
since the hydra-headed system of Protestantism
first appeared on the earth, to show the want of
solid principle in the Anglican Church ; but few
things demonstrate more clearly the incohesiveness
of this political institution than the protest just
served upon the Bishop of Salisbury by the rebel-
lious clergy and laity of his diocese. Whilst on
his Visitation, a few days since, the bishop deli-
vered a charge in All Saints Church, Dorchester,
to his clergy, church-wardens, and a numerous con-
gregation. This charge he deemed necessary for
the purpose of teaching them, as he.believed him-
self bound to do, what he considered essential for
their souls' salvation. All true Christians know
that the Redeemer, who was sent by His Father
to teach mankind the truths of the Divine reli-
gion, blessed His Apostles, conferred upon them
the power bestowed upon Himself, promised that
he would be with them to the end of time, and com-
manded them to " go, teach all nations." The
bishops of the true Christian Church are the eccle-
siastical descendants and living representatives of
the Apostles, and therefore the clergy and laity are
bound to hear their voice and observe their teach-
ing. But it is manifest that the clergy, church-.
wardens, and congregation of the diocese of Salis-
bury do not believe that a bishop of the Anglican
communion has this Divine mission, or that he
possesses this Divine right of teaching ; but con-
sider, on the contrary, that it is they themselves
who are best informed in matters of Faith, and
that it is the place of their bishop to sit silently
by, and the duty of the laity to instruct him in the
doctrine which he is to preach ! Hence we find
that the Bishop of Salisbury, having ventured to
read his charge for the purpose, as he supposed, of
teaching them some articles of Christian doctrine,
they immediately draw up a counter charge for
the purpose of teaching his lordship, and actu-
ally denounce their bishop's teaching as " strange
and unscriptural." Now, if the learned Bishop
of Salisbury be not capable of understanding the
meaning of a verse of Scripture, what safety is
there that the masses of the English people are
sure that they rightly understand all the Scrip-
tures? And yet it is on the fact of each person
rightly understanding them that Protestants are
taught to base their hope of eternal salvation. The
churchwardens and laity, together with some of his
lordship's clergy, protest against his episcopal
teaching in the following plain and insulting words :
MfLord,—We, whose names are appended to
this paper, having given our most earnest atten-
tion to your lordship's charge, feel ourselves com-
pelled by our unwavering attachment to the Church
of England, and our jealousy of the purity of her
teaching, to take this earliest opportunity of pro-
testing, in the most solemn manner, against the
strange and unscriptural doctrines set forth in
that charge." Now, if the bishop cannot discover
what Scriptural doctrine is, what safety is there,
we again ask, that the churchwardens and other
laymen have discovered it ? They then go on
protesting against the doctrine of the sacerdotal
power, as taught by their bishop—against the
simple words of our All-Merciful and All-Powerful
Redeemer being taken in their obvious sense, when
he said, " This is My Body ;" and they protest that
it is not, whatever Christ or their own bishop may
say to the contrary. They further protest against
powers being assumed by their ministers as distinct
from the whole congregation. If these things be
so—if a Protestant bishop is not capable of teach-
ing Scriptural doctrine, and if a Protestant minister
have no power, " as distinct from the congregation,"
surely then it must appear to every man of common
sense that it is unnecessary and most unwise to
burden the English people and the State with the
cost of supporting thousands of powerless ministers
who can do nothing for their congregations but
what the congregations can' do for themselves. And
if the bishops of the Church Established by Law
have no certainty of knowing defined and Scrip-
tural from " strange and unscriptural" doctrines ;
and if the churchwardens and laity are able to in-
struct their bishops in such matters, surely every
impartial man of common sense will then admit
that there is no further reason for maintaining
so expensive an establishment as the Bench of
Bishops in the Anglican Church. It is plain
that the Protestant laity of his lordship's
,diocese
consider themselves not only as good but better
judges of Scriptural doctrine than he is and, of
course, the Protestant laity of every other diocese
in England consider themselves as good judges of
Scriptural doctrine as those of Salisbury. Hence,
it follows that bishops are worse than useless in
the Anglican Communion, and only tend to lead
the laity astray by their "strange and unscriptural
doctrines." But let us return to the protest of
the protesting Protestants of the diocese of Salis-
bury. Addressing their bishop, they say, "These
doctrines and statements, set forth by a bishop of
our Church, we declare to be contrary to the
plain and recognized teaching of that Church; and
we most solemnly, as in the sight of God, pledge
ourselves to use every lawful means to prevent the
introduction of them into our Church, by whom-
soever that introduction may be attempted." To
this determined and contumacious protest of his
protesting Protestant • congregation, the bishop
writes in reply—" I am bound to do all I can to
help my clergy to be faithf ul.to their obligation to
minister the doctrines and Sacraments, and the
discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded,
and as- this Church and Realm lath received the
same, and I am persuaded that I have justified

_-----
what I have said in the discharge of this duty
by the authority of the Prayer-book, and other
formularies of the Church of England." so the
dispute rests at present, each party abiding by
its own opinion—the laity asserting that the deed'
unscriptural,". and the bishop
trines taught by their bishop are " strange 8,11,e
doctrines taught by him are justified by the PraYe_r;
book. Is, then, the Prayer-book opposed to the
Scriptures ? And, if so, are the Scriptures to b
asserting that "i
superseded by the Prayer-book ?Or who is to re:
concile the two? The bishop declares that he has
only done his duty in teaching the doctrines enli;'
ciated by him ; and the laity, with some el `lB
lordship's clergy, most solemnly pledge thernselvee'i
in the sight of God, to do everything in th
power to prevent their bishop, and all othets:
from teaching what, he says, " the Lord bath
manded."Now, who is to decide between the t
lo
protesting parties? Some people will be art ho
answer this question by saying—The Que (neon 5 is/
is Head of the Anglican Church. But the/eb
in Scotland, and cannot be expected to allow 51,1 h,
subjects to interfere with her desire to gain L
good opinion of the Scotch Unitarians, 81°"orf
whom she deems it prudent to
every year, and to whom such subjects would hat
most unpalatable. Other's will say, perhaps,
it ought to be settled by her Prime Minister ; °rt..
Lord Derby is too busily occupied with the par
liamentary Reform Bill, and cannot therefore bee "ci
petted to devote his precious time to what he 311,
so many other Protestants regard as comparatila
trifles. • The dispute must, therefore, be alleweo,
to go on—protest must he allowed to succeed Pre,
test—and this unseemly, but by no means unflao
quent, kind of quarrel allowed to rage and Nyl-'0
until such time as the Bishop of Salisbury, or snras
pass a portionte
other of his episcopal brethren, shall produce
more startling Charge, and thereby call off attell:
tion from the present casus belli among the
lican protestors. The independent laymen wi,ir
not, of course, yield to the bishop ; and iTis
,he co aid he fairly expect them to do so, since
Church has taught them to test all doctrine by `,st
rule of their own private judgment, and to Pr°,l,ie
against whatsoever is not agreeable thereto? €
case of the diocese of Salisbury is the case nt,,,"er
Protestant England at the present day; for, whe''lo
we look north, south, east, or west, we find brel
ra•
and fierce contentions respecting doctrines, sacto
ments, and discipline ; and Anglicanism split ilia
as many sections as there are in it men capableeas,
giving expression to their peculiar religious leas,
How different this splitting, qdarrelling, protes
tilb73
system is from that of true Christianity will ire
manifest to whoever is acquainted with the ScriPtilve
history of the early Apostolic Church, of whichof
read in the Sacred Volume, that " the multitune
the believers had but one heart and one mind ;?I„iie
also to whoever will impartially survey the CaL:th,
Church, which, spread over the nations of the eu''''f
and composed as it is of hundreds of mill!°llsn
believers, still retains, after the lapse of eighthc,
hundred years, the same Scriptural characterls.e,
and has " but one heart and one mind " at the 13'
Bent day.