Page:Church courts and church rates.djvu/15

11 powers of excluding Dissenters from Church ordinances and worship, the Church of England were contented to allow all that is corrupt in her system of Ecclesiastical Jurisprudence to be swept away, she would find herself in a better position to restore true Church discipline, while the country at large would be benefited by the cessation of a monstrous anomaly. It would be but a just return for her moderation, in abandoning these remnants of secular authority and advantage that she should be suffered to possess a species of tribunals for such questions of internal discipline as have always fallen under the cognizance of her Archdeacons, Bishops and Archbishops, and such as every religious denomination in the country is allowed to manage for itself.

I seem to be writing on the presumption that persons are agreed upon the evils of the present system of Church Rates, but there is always, staring one in the face, the difficult question of how the fabrics of the Church of England are to be repaired? All the plans, with the exception of Dr. Phillimore's, seem to abandon the ancient English system of the local lay element, and, from the necessity of the case, to lead to some degree of centralization. Local rating is the keystone of English local government and the authority of the Vestry and its Church-wardens is founded upon the payment of Church Rates. I am inclined to think, however, that it might be possible to preserve the local power of a