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སྒྱུ

PREFACE.

TITLE OF BOOK.-In giving this book the title of "The Case for Establishment,'" the author desires to explain, with reference to the word "Establishment," that he does not accept that term as accurately descriptive of any formal Act by which the State established the Church, or gave her status or prestige; nor does he accept the word as legally descriptive of any specific statutable basis of the existing relations between Church and State. He simply takes the term "Establishment " as a word in current use which is popularly but loosely and inadequately employed to represent the union between Church and State; and in dealing with it, while protesting against its historical inaccuracy, for the purposes of discussion he falls in with its popular use.

In calling this book "The Case for Establishment," the author desires it to be understood that he does not, by the use of that phrase, wish to convey the idea that he pretends to have presented the whole case for Establishment, or that he assumes to be able to do so; indeed, so widely comprehensive and far-reaching are the facts and arguments which go to make up the case for Establishment, and which might justly be alleged in its support, that he regards it as almost an impossibility for one person exhaustively to state them;

but he believes that, imperfect as the case now presented may be as to the argumentative ground which it covers, or the method of dealing with the various aspects of the question considered, he has presented a weighty, if not a conclusive and convincing, case in favour of the retention of the Church of England as the national, established, and endowed Church of the country. Readers will fill up the outline of the case for their own use, according to the standpoints from which they consider the various aspects of the questions discussed, and according to the resources of information at their disposal, or as their attention may be called to the omission of a particular argument, or to the defective statement or use of another. The author will have realized his object if he has succeeded in presenting only an outline case which others may fill up and perfect as circumstances require, and if he has furnished material for arguments to meet the opponents of the Church which those who make use of them may formulate and enforce in their own particular effective way.

As this volume has been written for a specific purpose, and to deal in a certain way with given aspects of the Church Disestablishment controversy, it is necessary and but fair to inform the reader that other phases and aspects of the questions herein discussed are dealt with in other publications of the author, written to meet special wants of required information. Thus The Englishman's Brief, etc., will be found, in the main, to be an exhaustive manual on most questions involved in or arising out of the Disestablishment controversy, but, covering the extensive ground which it does, its statements under the various headings are necessarily, as its title indicates, very brief. The Established Church Question: How to deal with it, which was written to supply a common and urgent want amongst Churchmen

in these controversial times, is arranged in a popular form on the plan of enumerating the whole series of the principal objections against the Church as quoted headings to some eighty-three chapters, and replying to them accordingly. The object of the author in his Dead Hand in the Free Churches of Dissent was to put Churchmen in possession of information in the shape of facts and arguments to show that the very Liberationists who seek to liberate the Church from State control are themselves subject to State control in the religious affairs of their own communities in a more restrictive and aggravating form than that of which either the clergy or laity of the Church of England have any experience; while the conversational manual, Talks on Tithes: Why pay them? will present, to persons desiring information on the subject with which it deals, necessary knowledge pertaining to it in a more attractive and perhaps more intelligible form than can be found in mere dry legal statements.

The author feels assured that if these books are studied in conjunction with the present volume, as dealing with different and special aspects of the current Church and State controversy, Churchmen reading them will not only be able to expose the prevalent fallacies of Liberationists, but will be able to make out a strong and convincing case for "Establishment."

To facilitate ready reference to the contents of this volume a copious index is supplied. Readers will do well to make constant use of it.

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