THE KING'S DECLARATION.

Evening Star, Issue 11668, 1 October 1901, Page 7

THE KING'S DECLARATION.

[By Sir- Alexander Miller, K.C.]

The course of the discussions which have taken place on this question, not only in the House of "Lords, but in the Press, leads one to fear that the matter may be decided on a wrong issue. The principle enunciated by the Government is indeed unassailable; what is required to maintain inviolate the existing securities for the Protestant succession, while removing from the declaration any expression calculated to'give pain needlessly to. any body of His Majesty’s subjects. But the absolute fatuity of the proposal of the Committee and the mistaken direction of the amendment adopted in the Bill have naturally encouraged not only those who desire to get rid of the declaration altogehter but those also (and they seem to he the larger number) who have apparently misapprehended its scope and object.

It was well observed by Dr Parker in his recent letter to ‘ The Times ’ that, looked upon as a question of religion pure and simple, there is no justification consistently with the principles of religions liberty for requiring the Sovereign, any more than any one of his subjects, to adhere to any particular religious body (Christian or other), or to make any public announcement of his belief or want of belief. Those therefore who have proposed to substitute for the present declaration a “ positive ” statement: on the part of the King, either that he is a member of the Established Church of England or that he believes in the Protestant religion, seem to be intermeddling with a matter with which they have, and ought to have, no concern. The King is constitutionally bound to maintain the Episcopal Establishment of England and the Presbyterian Establishment of Scotland so long as they continue to bo established by law; but there is not the slightest reason in the world why he should personally be a member of either, nor would be or anyone else be one whit the worse were he to-morrow to proclaim himself a Baptist or a Wesleyan Methodist. The defence of the declaration must rest on far other and purely political grounds. In the multiplictiy of religious denominatios, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other idolatrous and non-idolatrous creeds (to say nothing of Judaism or Mahomedanism, the only two creeds known on earth perfectly free from idolatrous varieties), it is, with one exception, of no consequence to anyone but himself and his immediate surroundings to which he may please to belong. But whatever may have been, or may be, the case in former times or ip other places as regards other forms of religion, there is now one, and but one, religions organisation whose claims to spiritual supremacy constitute a standing menace to religious freedom in Western Europe. The political aspirations of the Church of Rome—aspirations which she is essentially unable either to abandon or modify—are incompatible with the exercise of religious liberty in any case where she has the power to prevent it. I do nob know whether Lord Llandaff, who now thinks no declaration required, still adheres to the view that Mr Henry Matthews maintained so stoutly and supported so eloquently so many years ago in my hearing, that it is not only the right but the duty of a ruler belonging to “ the true Church ” to coerce his subjects, if within his power, to at least outward conformity with that church, on the ground, to the best of my recollection, that as be knows himself to be certainly right on a point of the highest importance, he ought to treat persistence in opposition thereto as criminal perversity. That at least was the substance, if not precisely the form, of his argument, and it is in strict accordance with the latest utterances of the highest authority. So long as the Pope claims a supremacy by divine appointment over all Christian kings, princes, and governors, &o that those who reject his authority are to be deemed rebels against a divinely-ordered ■ governmentso long as the clergy of the Church of Rome claim an especial and exclusive light to dhec, and control the education of the young, and the consciences of the mature (and those claims have been constantly asserted and never disclaimed); so long* will the profession of that faith be incompatible with the government of a free people, the great majority of whom passionately reject such claims as intolerable usurpation. While, therefore, there is no legitimate object in determining or requiring the King to define what his religious faith is, it is of the first importance that he should publicly and authoritatively declare what it is not. He may safely hold any belief whatever, so long as it is not that of Rome. The declaration, therefore, should contain (and be confined to) such a profession of belief as no Roman Catholic could make consistently with his self-respect, and such as not to bo a bar to any other person whomsoever. Whether this end can be best attained by a solemn repudiation of that dogma which is a fundamental and characteristic doctrine of the Roman Church and which is not part of the authorised teaching of any other Christian community (though tenets barely, if at all, distinguishable therefrom have been, and still are, openly professed by many members of other churches), or, as I understand the Bishop of Salisbury to advocate, by an explicit disclaimer of Papal supremacy and infallibility, is matter of expediency outside my present purpose. Probably the best solution would be the inclusion of both points. No one who had any difficulty about cither would be acceptable as a ruler of this kingdom. But in no case can it be needful to brand the repudiated doctrine as “ superstitious and idolatrous,” whether you believe it to be so or not; the disclaimer is not made more valid by “ the addition of an opprobrious epithet! ” But the disclaimer should be made in unmistakable and unequivocal terms, and such as not only to leave no loophole for evasion, but to make it clear what is the reason for the requirement and what the precise object aimed at. It ought not, one would think, to “ pass the wit of man ” to devise the needed formula, but none such seems to have been discovered as yet; and in default of something more satisfactory than anything yet put forward from any quarter, I fear it may be found necessary to retain the existing form, not because it is desirable, but because it is there, and “ for want of a better.”