The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-11 00:00:00

7RE PRIMATE OF IRELAND ON THE
CHURCH CRISIS.

His Grace the Lord Primate of Ireland (the
Archbishop of Armagh), in his charge at the trien-
nial visitation of his diocese, delivered in Armagh
Cathedral, on Tuesday, said the dangers which

now threaten that branch of the Church of Christ

which had, by the grace of God, for 300 years been

established in this part of the United Kingdom,
were neither unforeseen nor unsuspected. After
alluding to the position of the Church of England

as intermediate between that of Rome and the Dis-

senting bodies, and to that hostility of many of the
other Churches to her, his Grace said that many

persons, relying on the fact that the great majority

of the people of the empire profess the principles of

the Refounation, and also on the faith of England
being pledged in the Articles of Union to the
maintenance of the Irish Church, believed that the

danger from that hostility was still remote. In
order to satisfy the public mind, which otherwise
might be shocked at the infliction of unde,:erved
wrong, plausible grounds had been put forward to

justify a course of action predetermined upon from
other motives. It might be well to consider the
pleas assigned in vindication of the doom pronounced

by a large political party upon the Protestant Esta-
blished Church in this country. We are told that

it is unjust on the part of the State to maintain in
connexion with itself the Church of the minority,
and that this injustice can only be removed by the

disestablishment of the Irish branch of the United

Church. Some weight might be given to this objec-

tion if Ireland were in itself a separate kingdom, and
if the State there maintained the religion of the
minority as a separate and independent institution.
But this is not the case. 'lreland is but the part of a

great kingdom, the religion of whose State is the reli-

pion•—when the whole nation is considered—of the
great majority of the people. The members of the
Church resident in Ireland are part of that National
Church which extends over the whole kingdom ; and
the National Church when viewed in relation to the

whole kingdom, is the Church of the majority.

So long, then, as Great Britain and Ireland are one

united kingdom, under one Sovereign, one law, one
Parliament—and so long as the National Church

remains the Church of the majority, so long will it
be impossible t.) prove that the Irish members of
that Church belong to a minority. If this view is
adopted, the Union is, in fact, dissolved, and a se-
parate State is constituted of Ireland. Ever con-
sidering the question solely with regard to Ireland,
it is to be observed that the Roman Catholics them-
selves cannot be connected by au Establishment with
the State, for the Sovereign, by a fundamental law

of the Constitution, must be a Protestant, and is

supreme, according to the law of England, in all
causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The Roman
Catholic Church claims supremacy for a foreign

potentate, and never has submitted, and never will
submit, to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the
Crown. This renders the case of Ireland ex-

tremely peculiar, even if we were to consider Ire-
land solely by itself. The result is that the Ro-
man Catholics, refusing to have any alliance
with the State, demand that all connexion between
religion and the State should be dissolved in Ireland,.
and the Government constituted upon a new foun-

dation, ignoring religion altogether in the country,
and proceeding in total independence of any reli-
gious body. This cannot be regarded in,any other
light than as a revolution subversive of all the prin-
ciples hitherto considered essential to good govern-
ment, and leading to consequences fatal to the peace
of society. The Roman Catholics themselves can- '
not enter into union with a State essentially Protes-
tant ; yet they call upon Government to eject from
that union their fellow-subjects who enjoy it in
right of a prescription of three centuries. The State
in Ireland is to become, as a religion, without form
and void. In England and Scotland the ssme State
is to remain Christian and Protestant. If a State
has adopted an established religion because it is
true, and therefore most adapted for the good of
the people and the glory of God, it is surely bound
to protect its ministers and respect its endowments.
This is to be the rule in England, but to cease to
govern the conduct of the nation in Ireland. With
respect to the argument derived from a majority
of the people being of a different persuasion,
it is very questionable if at any pe►iod
the Church in Ireland, which was in con-
nection with the Church in England, ever em-

braced a majority of the inhabitants. llis grace
gave an historical review of the position of the
Church of Ireland relative to the Church of Eng-

land anterior to the Reformation, commencing with
the Council of Cashel, at which the jurisdiction of
the Pope and of England were first conceded. Dr.
Lanignan, the Roman Catholic historian, had stated
that after that council the clergy and people still
followed their own ecclesiastical rules, as if that
council had never existed. In fact, there were be-
fore the Reformation two Churches in Ireland—one,
the Church of the Parliament and the English
party ; and the other, the Church of the Irish
clergy and the people. Of these two Churches, or
parties in the Church, that which adhered to Eng-
land was the less numerous. If, after the length-
ened possession which the Protestant Church had
enjoyed of its endowments, and the confirmation of
it by the Treaty of Union and repeated acts of
Parliament, the clergy were now to he deprived of
their property, it was impossible to avoid the infe-
rence that the right to any property would be re-
' duced to a mere possession subject to the capricious
exigencies of party interests. One of the leaders
of the opposition to the Church had referred
to the proposition of uniting benefices where
there was a small number of Protestants to-
gether, and had alleged that the plan was
to take the ministers from those parishes and apply
the revenues to the use of clergymen in Dublin and
Belfast. That statement manifestly referred to a
proposition made by the Irish prelates, through
himself, to Lord Palmerston's Government, and
was founded on an entirely erroneous view of the
nature of that proposition. That proposition was
to enable the bishops, by an improvement of the
law, to unite small benefices together, and thus duly
to apportion emoluments to labour. Others had
joined in an opposition against the Church from a
belief that otherwise we must choose between two
alternatives—the endowment of the Roman Ca-
tholic Church concurrently with the Protestant, or
the disestablishment of the Protestant Church.
These persons, sooner than see a religion they con-
demn aided and acknowledged by the State, would
destroy the means of support appertaining to a re-
ligion of which they approve and to which they be-
long. Whether that were a right principle or not need
not now be discussed, as it seemed to be taken for
granted that no Government is able to induce the
House of Commons to make such an endowment
out of the public funds ; and even if it were, the
Roman Catholic clergy had pronounced against the
scheme. His Grace referred to the declaration of
the Roman Catholic prelates against endowment,
and to the reasons both of policy and interest which
probably induced them to make that declaration.
Statements had been made in Parliament as to the
very large means received by the Church of Rome
from voluntary contributions. One person, who
had not been contradicted, and whose authority he
had no reason to doubt, had estimated the yearly
revenues at not less than £700,000 a year—a re-
venue so large that they could scarcely be expected
to exchange it to become dependent on a Protestant
Government. Another topic urged against the
Church was, that its property had been unjustly
seized from the Roman Catholic Church and trans-
ferred to the Protestant. When the history of
the Irish Church was examined- such statements
would be found not t) be correct. No such
transfer, in the sense in which the expression
was used, took place. Property belonging to one
corporate body can be handed over to another
only by Act of Parliament. There is no statute
declaring that the property should he taken from
the one Church and given to the other. It was the
owners of it—the clergy themselves—who, retain-
ing their property, reformed their creed. In the
reign of Henry VIII. the great nobles acknow-
ledged the Royal supremacy ; and in the reign of
Elizabeth, all the bishops, except two, on oath ac-
cepted the supremacy of the Crowu. How for
they did this in sincerity and truth, and how many
of the clergy really embraced the cause of the Re-