ESTABLISHMENT

By a religious establishment is generally meant, in the present day, the religion, whether Christian or not, which is recognised by the State. Thus Presbyterianism is the establishment of Scotland, Mahomedanism that of Turkey. In England and Ireland the Catholic Church is the establishment. It has not been endowed by the State, which has rather robbed than enriched it; nor has it been established, like Presbyterianism in Scotland, by an act of the legislature. But being endowed by individual piety, it was for many ages the only community in this country which even pretended to be the Church: as such it was recognised by the State, and when in proce of time the Catholic Church in this country a erted its independence of Rome, and reformed the abuses which had crept into it, it continued to be, as it always was, the religious community connected with the State; although, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a sect in communion with Rome was founded in England, and arrogated to itself the name and titles which belong to our ancient Church, and to her alone. A slight reference to history will show what is meant. Soon after Augustine had been consecrated, in France, the first archbishop of Canterbury, his see was endowed with large revenues by King Ethelbert, who likewise established, at the instance of the archbishop, the dioceses of Rochester and London. The other kings of the heptarchy erected bishoprics equal to the size of their kingdoms. And the example was followed by their nobles, who converted their estates into parishes, erecting fit places of worship, and endowing them with tithes. (See Church of England .) Thus was the Church established. For many years there appears to have continued a good understanding between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, the powers of which were, in most respects, as in these days, blended. But, after the moral world had been subdued, and papal tyranny had been established by the marvellous energies of Hildebrand, his crafty succe ors, the popes of Rome, soon perceived that, in order to secure their dominion, it was important, as far as po ible, to sever the alliance which had hitherto subsisted between the Church and the State. Representing the Church as independent, they regarded the king as the head of the State, and the pope as supreme over the Church. No sectarian of the present day can be more hostile to the alliance between Church and State than were those divines, who in the middle ages were devoted to the popedom. Although the pope, however, had here in England, as elsewhere, many creatures and advocates, yet many and manful were the repulses he met with from our clergy, our kings, and the people. His authority, indeed, was, in this realm, a mere a umption, for he was never elected by any synod of our Church as its head. Still, a uming rights to which he could lay no lawful claim, his usurpations were continued until, in the reign of Henry VIII., the clergy, the monarch, and the people, could bear the tyranny no longer, but, throwing off the yoke, declared that the pope was not the head of the Church of England, but that, in these realms, the king is, as in times past he was, over all persons, and in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, in these his dominions, supreme. This is the fact, and the history of the fact. The property of the Church remains with those who have descended in an unbroken line from the clergy to whom it was originally granted. If our title be disputed, it devolves upon the adversary to establish a prior claim. This the Protestant di enter does not attempt to do; and, with respect to the Roman Catholic di enters, we know, that instead of being descended from the original grantees, their line of succe ion began at Rome scarcely more than two centuries ago. Nor can they claim on the ground of greater similarity of doctrine, for transubstantiation, the worship of saints and images, half communion, constrained celibacy, ., the doctrines and practices which distinguish the modern Romanists, were unknown to the Anglo-Saxon Church. Admitting, then, that we may differ in some particulars of practice from our ancestors, yet certainly we do not differ from them so much as the modern Romanists.