strong elements of opposition continually roused into stern conflict,-unavoidably led to the exercise of irregular acts of power. The wonder rather is, that amid such a seething of violent opinions and wild confusion of new ideas conflicting with old habits, practical principles as to the conjoint action of Church and State, clearly recognising, at least by word, their respective rights and liberties, were authoritatively declared; and this the more as the clergy, by their Act of Submission' (though guarding their recognition of the Royal Supremacy by the qualification of quantum per Christi legem licet), had so far committed themselves as to fetter their rights of free synodical action by the requirement of a royal permission to act. The principles of constitutional government were not always acted on in matters of State. What wonder if spiritual liberties were often ignored, and rights, though sealed by statute, at times overridden? But it is observable that the instances of irregular action of the Crown or Parliament, which may be quoted against the terms of the contract, such as have been proved to exist, are found, not so much during the later more settled periods of our Reformed Church history, when it had acquired consistency and order under Elizabeth and her successors, but previously during Edward the Sixth's reign or the earlier years of Elizabeth. As an instance of this irregular mode of action during those unsettled and violent times, we may quote Fuller's 3 account of what took place in bringing in the Second Prayer-book of Edward the Sixth. This Prayer-book, the result of the influence of the ultra-Protestant Reformers, chiefly those from abroad, was drawn up by a committee appointed by the king, and a new Act of Uniformity was passed in 1552 (April 6), enforcing its use to commence on the 1st of November. It is alleged that this Prayer-book was never submitted to Convocation, though an expression in a letter of Cranmer's at the time seems to imply the contrary; but Fuller asserts it, and thus states the reasons, which may apply beyond this immediate case: Now the reason why the king would not entrust the diffusive body of the Convocation with a power to meddle with matters of religion was a just jealousy which he had of the ill affection of the major part thereof. . . . It was therefore conceived safer for the king to rely on the ability and fidelity of some select confidants, cordial to the cause of religion, than to adventure the same to be discussed and decided by a suspicious Convocation.' It is evident that the clergy generally were unwilling to follow the king in the extreme Protestant direction to which his contemplated reforms tended, and so, if the fact be as Fuller states, he unscrupulously overrode the principles of the constitution to carry his point.

To return to the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it is important here to state, as bearing on a special controversy of the present. day, how the appellate jurisdiction of the Crown was intended to be 3 Church History, Book VII, Cent. xvi. c. 9.

carried out according to the first Reformation statutes. When all appeals to Rome were forbidden by the 24th of Henry the Eighth, c. xii., A.D. 1533, it was enacted that all causes should be finally decided in the archbishop's court, except in cases where the rights of the Crown were concerned, when the appeal was to be remitted to the Upper House of Convocation. In the year following, by a fresh Act it was ordered that in every case of appeal a royal commission under the great seal was to be issued, appointing certain persons to hear and decide the appeal; only in extraordinary cases the king was to issue a further Commission of Review, to revise the sentence delivered. This was the origin of the Court of Delegates. By a later statute, the 37th of Henry the Eighth, c. xvii., it was enacted that laymen should be empowered to share in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, only providing that they should be doctors of civil law. It was in accordance with this provision that the 127th Canon of 1604 ruled that all ecclesiastical judges, besides being learned in civil law, should also be required to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles. With regard to the composition of the Court of Delegates, however, Gibson states that there are no footsteps of any of the nobility or common law judges in commission till the year 1604 (i.e. for seventy years after the creation of the court); nor from 1604 are they found in above one commission in forty, till the year 1639, from whence (in the downfall of bishops and their jurisdiction which ensued) we may date the present rule of mixtures in that court.' The court, during the later years of its existence, used to consist of an equal number of bishops, of judges of common law, and of civilians or doctors in civil or canon law, and so continued till the year 1832, when its powers passed to the Privy Council. But, as has been often stated, only four appeals touching heresy came before this court, and none were settled in it, such appeals being dealt with in the High Commission Court during its existence, or in the Upper House of Convocation.

4

Before leaving this part of our subject it is important to remark that notwithstanding any irregularities committed, during unsettled times, in the conflict of contending parties and powers, yet, as to all main parts of the ecclesiastical system under which we have been living-the Articles as revised and reduced to their present form and number in A.D. 1562; the Canons of 1604 which have regulated our Church courts; the Prayer-book as revised in 1662—as to all alike the legitimate exercise of the powers of Convocation was fully respected, and the concurrent and harmonious action of Church and State confirmed the settlement.

• Vol. i. p. xxi., A.D. 1713. Mr. Freeman disputes Gibson's statement in the Introduction to his Ecclesiastical Judgments, A.D. 1865, but his statements were met by Mr. Perry, who also considers that his objections were disproved by a 'Return,' made in the course of the same year at the instance of Mr. Hubbard, to Parliament, of all Appeals in Causes of Doctrine and Discipline made to the High Court of Delegates from 1537 to 1852.'

We must now change the scene and review the relations existing at the present day between Church and State. All the main features. we have been contemplating in the past are changed. We have Parliament exercising the powers of the Crown. Instead of a Parliament composed of Churchmen, oftentimes of High Churchmen, we have Parliament composed of men of all creeds, and representing a people of whom a very large portion is separated from the Church, and a considerable number openly opposed to it-no less than 105 members being returned from Ireland, and 60 from Scotland, in both which countries the religion of the electors is at variance with that of the Church of England. Instead of an appeal-court composed, mainly at least, of bishops and civilians, we have one of judges of common law, and of which only a single member, the Lord Chancellor, need be a member of the Church of England. Instead of Convocation watching the course of things, and recognised as the legitimate legislative chamber, constantly in action, receiving appeals, and judging books, &c., we have a Convocation which, after a long suppression and great discouragements, is slowly struggling into life, and without any real recognition by the State. Instead of commissions of bishops. and Convocation dogmatically defining the distinctions and lines of doctrine, we have a series of judgments of the Supreme Court which have shaken the Church to its very foundations, and jeopardised its claims to be a teacher of truth, a keeper and witness of Holy Writ,' though again and again, through the infinite mercy of God, truth has avenged itself, and spread far and wide with renewed strength, springing afresh out of its very denial, as though true life would seek new and irregular channels when its legitimate organs of expression were paralysed or out of joint.

Special incidents, like casual remarks, often show tendencies of movements more surely than formal and studied acts. There have been continually occurring such incidents as mark the steady progress of Parliamentary absolutism, fast settling down upon the Church of England. After the Gorham judgment, Bishop Blomfield's endeavour to carry a bill through the House of Lords, providing that questions of doctrine occurring in ecclesiastical suits on appeal should be referred for decision to the Upper House of Convocation, was rejected on the ground that the State would not surrender its absolute claim to decide concerning doctrine through judges of its own appointment. Though the new Lectionary, the work of the Ritual Commission, was submitted to and approved by Convocation, yet when the bill was framed to enforce its use, it was specially insisted upon that any words implying the consent of Convocation, which words stood in the first draft of the bill, should be erased, in order to prevent its being supposed that Parliament could recognise any authority in Convocation, though in the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act' the proceeding of Convocation is recited. When the Supreme Court acquitted the authors of Essays and Reviews, the bishops in Convocation solemnly

condemned the book, upon which they were told in the House of Lords, by one high in office, that they had brought themselves within the penalties of Præmunire. During the late change in the composition of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council much was said of the wishes of High Churchmen being carried out by constituting a court solely of lay judges, the only ground of the silence of High Churchmen being the hopelessness of obtaining from Parliament any real representation of the spiritualty in a court now constituted. When the Privy Council Committee overruled the judgment of the Arches in respect to Mr. Gorham, and resolved that he ought to be instituted, they advised her Majesty to remit the cause with that declaration to the Arches' Court, to the end that right and justice may there be done in this matter pursuant to the said declaration.' They respected the spiritual authority as alone competent to exercise spiritual discipline over a priest in sacris. Mr. Mackonochie was condemned by the same court November 25, 1870, when it was ordered that he be suspended for the space of three calendar months from all discharge of his clerical duties and offices and the execution thereof-that is to say, from preaching the Word of God, and administering the sacraments, and celebrating all other clerical duties and offices.' And again, in condemning Mr. Purchas for contumacy, the court judged it 'right and proper to direct that Mr. Purchas be suspended ab officio et beneficio for the space of one year.' The court had in 1870 advanced so far as to inflict spiritual discipline over priests, which it had not claimed as being within its sphere in 1850. A bill is now before Parliament to do away with the congé d'élire, the last remnant of the semblance of the Church's consent to the appointment of her chief pastors.

The real practical effect of the judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council needs to be well weighed in order to appreciate the full power now in the hands of the State. It is sometimes urged in mitigation of the evil of the entire system of doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church of England being committed to the decisions of a tribunal constituted as the present court of appeal is, that its functions are purely judicial, not legislative, and that whatever its decision in the particular case may be, the Church's doctrine remains the same after as before such judgment is given. The Church's doctrine is embodied in its documents, thus it is said, and the documents are unchanged by the action of the court. The argument would be true if the Church had the power of reforming its own documents, should these appear from the sentence of the judges to be obscure or not sufficiently expressive of the truth which the Church holds. In a matter of the civil law, if a statute were pronounced by a court to be contradictory or inadequately expressed, a declaratory act would be quickly passed to remedy the defect. The meaning of the law would be without delay affirmed. If Convocation, as the legislative chamber of the Church, were in like manner in action,

and able to explain or reform canons or documents pronounced by the court of appeal to be in any way insufficient to convey the meaning intended, the defendant in the particular case might suffer for his inadequate expression of the truth at stake, but the truth itself of the Church would be sustained, and future wrong prevented. It is the impossibility of reforming or correcting supposed insufficient standards or in any way clearing up doubts, in consequence of the suppression of the voice of the Church in her synods, that really places the whole system of the Church under the power of the judge, because the interpretations of the court are the only authoritative and recognised means of ascertaining what the law of the Church is. Now, considering that those to whom this eventful power is committed need be only common law judges, with no training whatever in theology or Church history, with nothing necessarily of the Church's mind, and, with the single exception of the Lord Chancellor, not necessarily even members of her communion, it is obvious that the Church has not any sufficient security for the expression of the truth she is alone commissioned to teach, nor any means whatever even for interpreting language which lapse of time or changed habits of thought may have rendered obsolete.

It is evident that a court having the ultimate decision in declaring what may or may not be held among us, without any check or power of correction or explanation on the part of the Church itself, must exercise an overpowering influence over her whole organisation and life. The universal absolutism of the Papacy dominating the Roman Obedience arose in great measure from the custom of appeals being carried in the last resort before the Roman Curia. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is more and more obtaining a similar absolute rule over the Church of England, and there is reason to apprehend that by like means, as of old, a Papal despotism is really again being established in England, only now in the hands of the civil power representing the popular mind of the day.

It is sometimes thought that the agitation and complaining spirit which at present prevails is only the fruit of the discontent of some who cannot get their own way in ritual matters, and who set up their own judgment against that of the court through some new form of rebelliousness. It is important to observe that this dangerous spirit can plead very high authority, and has a past history, and must therefore have far deeper roots than is generally allowed. For one no less reverenced than John Keble could say so long ago as the year 1850 Redress to such a wrong [he is speaking of the Gorham judgment] as we have suffered and security against its recurrence can only be had (humanly speaking) by one of two processes. Either the governing power in the State must allow the objectionable decision to be reviewed by proper authority, and the usurpation be abated for the future; or the governing power in the Church must demur to