ESTABLISHED CHURCH. (Hansard, 25 June 1834)

§ Sir George Murray

The petition which I hold in 847 my hand is a petition for the protection of the Established Church, and against the separation of Church and State. As it has been transmitted to my care from a parish in the county of Devon, a part of the kingdom with which I have no natural connexion, and by persons to whom I am not personally known, I wish to explain in what points I fully concur with the petitioners, and in what there may be, possibly a shade of difference between my opinions and theirs. I most fully concur with the petitioners in my desire to protect the Established Church; and I also most fully concur with them both as to the existence of endeavours to separate Church and State, and in my determination to oppose those endeavours, in whatever form, and under whatever pretext they may be made. My understanding of the separation of Church and State is this, that it is the casting off, on the part of the State, of all connexion with, and all care about, the religion and the morals of the people. I join the two because I think that although it may, perhaps, be possible for an individual to be a moral man, although he is not quite so assiduous as his friends might wish him to be in the discharge of his religious duties, I hold it to be impossible for a nation to be moral which is not also religious. But, Sir, the separation of Church and State as I understand it is the adoption of that principle which I have sometimes heard advanced in this House, that every man is to be left to call in his spiritual adviser, as he would call in his lawyer or his physician. I cannot give my assent to such a principle, nor can I give my support to anything which has a tendency to introduce it. Such a system would not only sweep away at once the Established Church of England and Ireland, the Established Church of Scotland, and those Presbyterian Establishments which are aided by the State in Ireland by the grant called the regium donum, but it would produce still further evils; for, the State having thus left the religion and the morals of the people to chance, every form of superstition and every kind of fanaticism would gradually creep into the country. Allusion has been made in the petition to certain of the Dissenters who are using their endeavours for the separation of Church and State, and who couple that demand with their prayer for relief from other grievances. I hope that there are great numbers of the Dissenters who have no such object in view; and I am quite certain, that the 848 highly respectable body of Presbyterians in the north of England have not only no such view, but that they sincerely respect the Established Church, and deem themselves to be closely connected with that of Scotland; for I lately received from them a copy of a memorial which they had addressed to the noble Lord, the Paymaster-General of the Forces, by which they expressed their wish not to accept the boon proposed to be given by the noble Lord's intended Marriage Bill, unless it recognised their connexion with the Established Church of Scotland. Although I am desirous, and have always been so, for relief being given as far as possible from every real grievance connected with religious belief, I can never consent to support any claim which connects itself with the principle of the separation of Church and State. I have alluded to the regium donum in Ireland; I think that grant is made upon an admirable principle. Whenever a congregation of Presbyterians is formed to a certain amount in numbers, a certain stipend is allotted to the Minister of that congregation from the public purse; and thus a link of connexion is formed between the State and the religion of the people, which contributes much to the tranquillity and harmony of the country. When there is no such connexion, alienation and discontent take place. We have seen enough in Ireland of the evils which result from there being no link of connexion between the State and the religion of the majority of the people. I should be glad to see such a link established by the grant of stipends to the ministers of that Church. When I had the honour to hold the seals of the Colonial Department, I was desirous of introducing into our colonial possessions the principle of the regium donum. In the Canadas in particular, I wished to leave it open to every Christian sect to become in this manner connected with the State. And, if any sect should decline to join that connexion, then that sect would not, at least, have any just ground of complaint against those which did join it. My system was not that of casting off, but of connecting religion to the State—not that of pulling down, but of setting up—not that of taking away emolument, but that of granting it to those Christian sects which might be willing to accept it. With these explanations, I again express my support of the prayer of this petition for the protection of the Established Church, and against the separation of Church and State.