The Henson Journals

[19]

4th Sunday in Advent, December 18th, 1927.

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The thought gathers strength in my mind that I ought to interpret this crisis in the terms of my speech, and accept the moral obligation of requiring release from the conditions of Establishment, since they are no longer consistent with self respect. So I shall have traversed the whole cycle of sincere tergiversation, and my clerical life will end with my opposing the cause in defending which it began. It was in 1886 at a public meeting in Norwich gathered to resist Disestablishment, which had been given a prominent place in Chamberlain's Radical Programme, that I made my first public speech in the capacity of Secretary of the Layman's League. And now, after 41 years, I find myself no longer able to defend the existing Establishment. If I thought there was a future for the English Establishment, I should be tempted, at whatsoever cost of personal discredit, to try to discover a solution of the problem which has been raised so suddenly, but I can see none. The rise to power of "Labour" has introduced a new and most menacing factor in to the whole question of Establishment, for "Labour" does not respect the conventions or [19] [symbol] accept the principles, which are implicit in the existing relations of Church and State. It is secularist, and it requires of the Christian Church the hallowing (if that word may be thus employed) of its secular policies. It provides its own ethic, not the ethic of the individual, which Christianity has insisted upon, but the ethic of class which gives no authority to the individual conscience. Thus Erastianism in the base sense of Hobbes, not in the spiritual sense of Erastus, or in the lofty application of that Erastian teaching to the actual situation in Elizabethan England which the genius of Hooker advanced, but crude, unprincipled, complete subordination of the Church to the secularised State is the sense in which "Labour" understands 'Establishment'. Revolutionaries are fond of creating ecclesiastical Establishments. The "Constitutional Church" in Revolutionary France and the "Living Church" in Bolshevist Russia are notorious examples. The House of Commons proceeded on the same assumption (viz: that the State had the right to dictate to the Church what its doctrine & discipline should be,) when it rejected the Revised Prayer Book, & called on the hierarchy to take another course than its own.

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Probably the right course would be for the Bishops to put forward a remonstrance addressed to the Nation, indicating firmly but moderately the aspect of the situation which they cannot but take, and making it apparent that they cannot acquiesce in an Establishment which in spiritual things subordinates the Church to the State.

Of course a possible course would be to return the Revised Book unaltered, but here the difficulty arises from the fact that it might well be found impossible to carry it again through either the Assembly or the Convocations. For passions have been so inflamed, the recalcitrant minorities have been so encouraged, and the more timid & hesitating supporters of the Revision so frightened, that the majorities, by which it was originally carried, may have been destroyed. I suppose we could unanimously tender our resignations, and confront the Church and Nation with the spectacle of a bishopless Establishment. That would in some sense reproduce the situation in 1558, when the Marian Bishops with one exception were all turned out.

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The Ordination went through well enough save for the necessity of re–consecration, not once but twice. The new Minor Canon, Wall, was apparently so anxious to avoid the over–consecration which has commonly happened, that he fell into the opposite error. Archdeacon Derry preached an excellent sermon, carefully prepared and very well expressed. The candidates came to lunch at the Castle, and with them came Archdeacon and Mrs Cornwall, the parents of a candidate, Archdeacon Derry, & Shaddock. Ella presided at one end of the table, & I at the other. After lunch Ella & I returned to Auckland.

The "Manchester Guardian" of yesterday discusses the significance of the Vote of the House of Commons in a leading article headed 'A great event': It is brutally expressed:– "The Church of England is revealed naked and undisguised, as a State organisation, a State religion."

"It (i.e. the State) has announced in tones of thunder: 'the Church of England is an Erastian Church: as such it was set up by the power of Kings and Parliaments of old: as such it remains and shall remain today." That is unfair, uncourteous, and untrue, but it indicates fairly enough how the situation presents itself to the ordinary Englishman.