ANGLICANISM AND THE NATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 9, 11 January 1908, Page 6

ANGLICANISM AND THE NATION.

BISHOP'S OUTSPOKEN ARTICLE

A very remarkable article by the Bishop of Carlisle, on "The Church and the Nation/ appears i in the National Review. Dr. Diggle begins by contending that the religion ol Jesus was to be a national religion, not in the sense of being the religion of a State Church, but inthe sense ( or being the religion of the nation. In so far as a nation'is pagan, the Church should be the missionary to the nation^ but in so far as the nation is Christian, the Church should be identical with the nation and the nation with the Church/ But a great part of the history of Christendom since the days of Constantine has been adverse to the realisation of the splendid Christian ideal. Clericalism has bred and still breeds caste in religion. It rent a chasm between the clergy and laity. It- has mistaken the clergy tor the Church." . . . The relation,, he says, of the English Church to English Nonconformity is another instance of the poisonous effects of clericalism. The wbxjle hxa-toi-y of Nonconformity should till Churchmen crimson with shanie, and ; compel them on their knees io shed , tears of humble penitence. Moncon- . formity was largely the Churdh's own \ .creatiorii And having by theswedlock \ oi: her pride with her negligence be- ? gotten this offspring, the Church \ forthwith proceeded to pile civil dis- ; abilities on it; with vulgar contumely \ to treat it as vulgar; in extrerae-in-j stance to dub it as the sin of schism, .*} and till quite lately to give it univer- \ sally the cold shoulder and the! ecclesiastical shrug, although God and ; the Holy Ghost was all the while I manifestly bestowing His blessing on; it. " It, is sometimes asserted that; Nonconformists; are politicians first and Christians afterwards* I know a large number of them, arid believe

the assertion in the overwhelming majority of instances to be utterly false. But suppose it true. Who-, set' them the example? Nowadays, happily, Churchmen are by no means always of one party. But there was a time, and that not long since, when Churchmen were almost wholly ,oi one political party, and that, as then constituted, not the party of civic equality and religious freedom. And, it Church-people are now suffering from political anti-churchmanship, they are only reaping: the harvest of their own seed of political .nonconformity. The Bishop holds that if the English Church is to remain the Church of the nation, it must in no way, either in ritual or in doctrine, be a narrow sectarian church. It must belong exclusively to no political or ecclesiastical party. The Bible must be its standard of doctrine. While Rome holds the belief it does at present, it must set its face against all thought of reunion with Rome, and turn lovingly towards home reunion. .