We have next to consider Bishop Gore as a Church Reformer.  We have seen that he desires an autonomous Church, which can legislate for itself.  The dead hand, which weighs so lightly upon him when it forbids any attempt to revise the formularies of the faith, seems to him intolerably heavy when it obliges the Church to conform to ’the laws, canons, and rubrics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which it cannot alter or add to.’[43] The only remedy, he thinks, is a really representative assembly, of bishops, presbyters, and laymen.  In the early Church, as he points out, the laity were always recognised as constituent members of the government of the Church.  In a democratic age, the laity as a body should exercise the powers which in the Middle Ages were delegated to, or usurped by, ’emperors, kings, chiefs and lords.’  The parish ought to have the real control of the Church buildings, except the chancel; the Church servants ought to be appointed and removed by the parish meeting.  It would be a step forward if these parish councils could be organised under diocesan regulation, and invested with the control of the parish finances, except the vicar’s stipend; the right to object to the appointment of an unfit pastor; and some power of determining the ceremonial at the Church services.  The diocesan synod should become a reality; there should also be provincial synods, which could become national by fusion.  But in the last resort the declaration of the mind of the Church on matters of doctrine and morals ought to belong to the bishops.[44]

But who are the laity?  ‘By a layman,’ he says, ’I mean one who fulfils the duties of Church membership—­one who is baptised into the Church, who has been confirmed if he has reached years of discretion, and who is a communicant.’  A roll of Church members, he suggests, should be kept in each parish, on which should be entered the name of each confirmed person, male or female.  The names of those who had passed (say) two years without communicating should be struck off the roll.  Further, names should be removable for any scandalous offences.[45]

It is easy to see that the ‘communicant franchise’ would work entirely in favour of that party in the Church which attaches the greatest importance to that Sacrament.  It would exclude a large number of Protestant laymen who subscribe to Church funds, and who on any other franchise would have a share in its government.  But we need not suspect Dr. Gore of any arriere pensee of this kind.  His ideal of parochial life is one which must appeal to all who wish well to the Church.  We will quote a few characteristic sentences: