ment of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction. Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our princes the ministering of God's Word, or of the Sacraments ... but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all states and degrees committed to their charge by God himself, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers." Is there anything in the wording of this Article which gives countenance, either to Erastianism or to its reaction, the wish for the complete disunion of Church and State?

But owing to the union the Crown does exercise a certain supremacy over the Church. Of course it does; but the question arises, "Is that supremacy so exercised undue or excessive?"

As a matter of fact, some such supremacy is exercised over all the sects and disestablished spiritual communities, as must be from the nature of the case; for in every one of them the persons both of ministers and people must be subject to the courts of law. Doubtless the views of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth on the royal supremacy were such that no one would allow at the present day, either in things ecclesiastical or things. civil. The royal prerogative has been modified and restricted in both, and must be exercised in a constitutional way, of which neither of those potentates had any idea.

As a court of final appeal some secular court must have ultimate jurisdiction over all religious bodies in the country, whether established or disestablished. It is not the purpose of the present writer with regard to the now defunct Judicial Committee thrice to slay the slain, save only to remark that it affords a most striking example, which lawyers would do well to take to heart, of the old Horatian saying:

"Vis consili expers mole ruit sua.'

We only hope that of its successor it may be said with equal truth,

"Vim temperatam Dî quoque provehunt

In majus."

But as a grave objection is made by Disestablishmentarians, both

Of course, constitutional government.

Churchmen and Dissenters, against the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, be it observed, (1.) "That the State only claims to declare on what terms certain property in churches, graveyards, houses, lands, rents, or dividends, is held by certain spiritual persons, without presuming to attempt any definition as to the absolute truth of any doctrine. (2.) That it claims the same power-although it may not be so openly or so frequently exercised-over all religious communities, whether established or disestablished, within Her Majesty's dominions.

It must be so, for all disputes or questions which involve rights of property must in the end be decided by a secular court, and questions of doctrine resolve themselves finally into questions of property. "Is the holder of such a doctrine-never mind its abstract truth or falsity-entitled to live in such a house, to minister in such a chapel, to receive such emolument, whether the emolument proceed from voluntary contributions which pass through the hands of wardens, or from endowments, which Dissenters are glad enough to have for themselves, and which all the disestablished churches in the Colonies, in the United States, and in Ireland must possess?" The State must be a final judge of the terms of any contract between the payer and the payee. So it was in the early church of the first three centuries. In the third, a church building was claimed for a tavern. The case was brought before the Emperor, Alexander Severus, who gave the final decision in favour of the Church.

An instance more in point is afforded by the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch. He had been deposed for heresy by a spiritual synod, but refused to give up his episcopal residence. Aurelian, the Emperor, gave the final decision. So in England some years ago the State confirmed the present holders in the possession of certain endowments made by the Puritans some two hundred years ago.

The disestablishment of religion, therefore, does not of necessity remove such causes from the control of the State; but it would in many cases subject them to a congregation—that is, to a numerical majority, which would probably comprehend the most unenlightened and ignorant. What is the case among the Congregationalists here, in many parishes in the United States, and, according to recent newspaper utterances, in the disestablished Church of Ireland? The stewards of the mysteries of God, whose lips should teach knowledge, are made the humble servants of those whom they are appointed to teach. The final Court of

Appeal may be unsatisfactory, but at any rate it must be composed of men supposed to be learned in the law, and accustomed to judge purely from considerations of law. What would be the case if a miscellaneous congregation were alike accuser, witness, counsel against, judge, jury, and executioner? Miscarriages of justice take place under the present system sometimes, as they must do before any earthly tribunal. The liberation of religion. from State control would in all likelihood erect a tyranny in every congregation. The whips of a State Court may be unpleasant. What are they to the scorpions of a Congregation, a Vestry, or a Board?

Next follows a most important question, in which the action of the State upon the Church is said to be injurious: its influence over the Episcopate. This resolves itself into two subordinate points,

(a). The election of Bishops.

(b). Episcopal peerages, involving, as they do, a seat and a vote in the House of Lords, and raising a barrier between

the Bishop and the thrones of the second order, which is merely artificial, and works evil.

(a). The mode of electing Bishops has always proved a difficulty in the Church, as must be the case. The spiritual interests involved are so great that none but the best men ought to be chosen; the advantages of position even in a disestablished and disendowed Church must of necessity be so great that evil agencies are certain to work so as to procure the choice of inferior and even bad men. Then many conflicting influences combine, so as to secure the probability that safe men may be appointed, who can carry on the ordinary routine of diocesan government fairly enough in quiet times, but when the Church puts forth her strength as a giant refreshed with wine-when there is a stirring among the dry bones of mediocrity and respectability; or again, when the nation, teeming with active, vigorous, energetic life, plunges boldly into a dark, unknown sea, the extent of which, the depth of which, no precedent from the past helps us to conjecture or to fathom-then such men are utterly at a loss, fail to rise to the occasion, fail to win the confidence of any party. The mode of election, therefore, becomes of transcendental importance.

At present the choice is virtually in the hands of the Crownthat is, with certain checks, of the Prime Minister. The election rests nominally with the chapter, and the confirmation and con

secration with the Archbishop of the province, to whom in the act of consecration immemorial Church rule has added two suffrages at least. But can the Archbishop with his suffragans, or the Dean and Chapter be trusted to do their duty if a wrong appointment were made, as they have the unknown terrors of a pramuniy hanging over their heads. It must be admitted that they have not been really tried during the last two hundred years; no one can say they have been really tried. If they were to hold out against an appointment glaringly unfit, they would certainly be attacked by certain members of the daily press; but they would as certainly have on their side all that is good and true in the Church, and all that is fair-dealing and equitably inclined in the nation. There have been two cases of dispute within the present generation, wherein a strong opposition was raised against the nominee of the Crown. In neither case was the unfitness so great as to call upon the chapters as a whole to dare everything in opposition to the Crown. In each case a minority did act independently, and by so doing vindicated the rights of the chapters, and prepared the people for a rejection, if a real cause for rejection should be made out at any time.

That the rights of the Chapters, or rather of the Church at large, are unduly overborne by the Crown under the present system may be freely admitted, and thus a clear case may be made out for reform, but not for such a revolution as the dissolution of the Union would involve.

We are not concerned to defend the present system as perfect, but be it observed that it does in theory, at least, preserve certain constitutional rights to the Church, which may be quickened into fresh life should need arise in the future. We believe that it was Dean Hook who declared somewhere in his voluminous writings that constitutional forms have their use even after the life has left them. They are in truth a witness to the past, a protest for the present, and afford hope for a revival in the future. There never was a time in England when tyranny more supreme existed under constitutional forms than in the reign of Henry VIII., and yet the forms preserved our liberties.

What if those forms had been abolished under the pretence that they involved a mockery of justice and equity? The history of England, the constitution of England, would not have been what it is now. It may be allowed that there have been plenty of worthless, inefficient Bishops in the past history of

England's Church, both before and after the Reformation; but no one can guess how a man will turn out in any office until he has been appointed. Expectations alike of good and of evil have been disappointed, and even at the very worst periods of the Church's history the Anglican Bishops have, as a whole, proved far superior to their continental brethren. We have had a Bishop of Norwich (Spenser), of the reign of Richard II., who assisted by force of arms to put down an insurrection of the Commons, and afterwards as judge condemned to death, according to the existing law, his prisoner insurgents. But he was simply doing his duty, acting as a magistrate in a public work in which he had no private interest. When he had discharged this duty, he confessed and gave absolution to the condemned. But we never had a Bishop of Liege who for some private personal reasons battered down the houses of his flock about their ears. We may have had men like Hoadley, whose orthodoxy might be justly called in question. We have never had experience of those Italian Bishops who, in the time of the Renaissance, scoffed at the doctrines of which they were the sworn defenders, ridiculed the Mass which they daily attended as a mere mummery, and viewed in somewhat equal light the Gospel and the mythology of Olympus, perhaps upon the whole giving the preference to the last as the more elegant and classical.

We have had our persecuting bishops, and those, perhaps, not the worst of their order; but what were they compared to the persecutors of Italy and Spain? No doubt the present mode of election might be improved, and no sensible man would refuse to take into consideration any well thought out measure of reform, but it does not follow that we should win that improvement which is expected. We have examples of other modes of election in Scotland, in the United States, in the Colonies, and in those missionary settlements among the heathen beyond the British Empire; but we see everywhere the same varied type of character prevailing that strikes us in the home episcopate, instead of that rigid uniformity of thought and character which some would desire, but which nothing save either the straitest Ultramontanism, or the narrowest Puritanism could give, added to which other modes of election bear with them their own evils. In any state of things the selfish desire of personal aggrandisement, personal affection, and party spirit must and will influence such elections. Even in the best of times matters may at times come almost to a dead-lock.