BX 
 
 5157 
 . A44 
 1850 
 
BX 5157 .A44 1850 
 Allies, T. W. 1813-1903. 
 The royal supremacy viewed 
 in reference to the two 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2015 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/royalsupremacyviOOalli 
 
THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 
 
 VIEWED IN REFERENCE TO 
 THE TWO SPIRITUAL POWERS OF 
 
 ORDER AND J U R ISD IGTIj^-J^ f)F PR/s^ 
 {. UcC 2 1975 
 
 BY T. W. ALLIES. M^^^^^^S!^ 
 
 RECTOR OF JLAUNTON, OXON. 
 
 "When was such a thing heard of before from the beginning of the 
 world ? When did a judgment of the Church receive its validity 
 from the Emperor / or rather when was his decree ever recognized 
 by the CMiurch? There have been many Councils held heretofore, 
 and many judgments passed by the Church, but the Fathers never 
 sought the consent of the Emperor thereto : nor did the Emperor 
 busy himself with the affairs of the Church." — 
 
 S. Atlianasius, torn. i. p. 376. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM PICKERING. 
 1850. 
 
 A. BOZ.TON, 
 
 Bookseller & Bookbinder, 
 117 Grafton-St. 
 
N. B. I have often in these pages had occasion to use 
 the words of others ; but the particular specification of 
 every such use would too much interrupt the text of a 
 pamphlet. I content myself therefore with this general 
 acknowledgment. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Importance at present of the Royal Supremacy .... 5 
 
 Mr. Lewis, Mr. Maskell, Mr. Irons upon it 6 
 
 The 37th Article, Queen EHzabeth's Injunctions, and the 
 
 act 1 Eliz. c. 1, viewed as a whole 7 
 
 The power of Order not assumed by the Royal Supremacy . 12 
 The Papal Supremacy is so assumed, which consists in acts 
 
 of Jurisdiction, and not in acts of Order .... 12 
 
 Necessity of considering Order and Jurisdiction .... 14 
 
 A. The power of Order 14 
 
 This power declined by Queen Elizabeth 18 
 
 B. The power of Jurisdiction, two-fold 19 
 
 I. Jurisdiction in foro externo ; its existence proved . . 20 
 
 1. By Scripture 20 
 
 2. By the use of it in Scripture 21 
 
 3. By the history of the Church 22 
 
 Its distinction from Temporal Government 23 
 
 1. In its end 23 
 
 2. In its origin 24 
 
 3. In its subjects 24 
 
 Borne witness to by the ancient Christian Emperors ... 23 
 
 By the Fathers — Hosius 27 
 
 S. Athanasius 28 
 
 S. Ambrose 29 
 
 S. Gregory Nazianzene 29 
 
 S. .John Damascene 30 
 
 Pope Gelasius in a. d. 493 31 
 
 Pope Symmachus, about 500 32 
 
 Pope Nicholas I. about 838 , . . . 33 
 
 This power annexed to the crown by Henry VIII. and 
 
 Ehzabeth 34 
 
4 
 
 Page 
 
 Testimony from Collier, Bishop Gibson, and Dr. Cardwell 
 
 to this effect 36 
 
 Statement of the Royal Supremacy by Hooker 37 
 
 Unreality of any inferior view of it 39 
 
 Difference between the Regale of earlier times and other 
 
 countries, and the Supremacy established by Elizabeth 40 
 
 It was not the mere abolition of appeals abroad .... 42 
 
 Historical carrying out of Elizabeth's Idea 43 
 
 1. Parker's Consecration 43 
 
 2. Suspension of Archbishop Grindal by Queen Ehzabeth 49 
 
 3. Suspension of Archbishop Abbot by Charles I. . . . 50 
 
 4. Absolution of Archbishop Abbot by James I. ... 31 
 
 5. Deposition of Archbishop Sancroft, and modern acts of 
 
 the crown and parliament 32 
 
 One consistent rationale of these acts 33 
 
 II. Jurisdiction in foro interno 53 
 
 Power of the keys belonging to Order in its essence, to Ju- 
 risdiction in its exercise 34 
 
 Bearing of the Royal Supremacy on this power .... 38 
 
 Two grounds on which the Royal Supremacy is based . . 60 
 Results of the Supremacy on the status of the Church of 
 
 England 62 
 
 As to jurisdiction 62 
 
 As to the supreme judgment of doctrine 63 
 
 Appendix, No. 1. A discourse concerning his Majesty's 
 supreme power ecclesiastical, written in the reign of 
 Charles II. and extracted by Collier from the Paper 
 
 Office 65 
 
 No. 2. Observations on the pamphlet of Mr. Irons . . 77 
 
THE ROYAL SUPREMACY, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 THE Royal Supremacy in causes ecclesiastical 
 has by the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of 
 Exeter been brought before the minds of all church- 
 men as an object of engrossing interest. And this is 
 true in two points of view. Whether we regard the 
 power claimed by the crown to judge as a final court 
 of appeal, in causes most purely spiritual, or whether 
 we look at the decision itself recently given, the 
 Royal Supremacy may be said to be now affecting 
 the spiritual condition before God of every member 
 of the Anglican Church. This being the case— that 
 is, the Catholicity of a whole Communion, and by 
 consequence, the salvation of the souls belonging to 
 it, being at issue, — I feel it impossible to deal with 
 the subject in a controversial spirit. I must not ad- 
 vocate a cause, but simply state the truth. I must 
 not turn away my eyes from certain parts of the sub- 
 ject, because they are disagreeable, nay, in the highest 
 degree oppressive to my convictions and feelings as a 
 Christian. All that I have to deal with is the truth, 
 the actual state of things, and the poets praise is the 
 highest here, " nothing extenuate, set down nought 
 in malice — for to make things appear better than 
 they are, because the reality is very trying, very 
 
6 
 
 agitating to tender or to doubtful minds, because one 
 would wish things otherwise, because as a question 
 of common Christian right, of English liberty, they 
 ought to be otherwise, — this is, I think, in a matter of 
 such moment, playing with souls. 
 
 And I would not wish to repeat what others have 
 said. There have already appeared in exposition of 
 the Royal Supremacy two pamphlets, with which I 
 presuppose the acquaintance of those interested in this 
 matter. One, published in the year 1847, by Mr. 
 Lewis, which has only just fallen into my hands, and 
 of which I cannot but acknowledge the great force, 
 as well as the general moderation of tone, and the fair- 
 ness, considering the author's position. The other is 
 Mr.Maskell's first letter, just published. These writers, 
 from different points of view, one a Roman Catholic, 
 the other, amongst our own most learned and able 
 authors, agree in nearly the same estimate of the 
 Royal Supremacy ; viz. that at the Reformation the 
 Spiritual Primacy of the Roman see was transferred 
 by act of Parliament to the Sovereign of these realms, 
 and that the Church of England partly, at least, 
 enacted, and wholly submitted to the change. 
 
 On the other hand Mr. Irons has put forth a pam- 
 phlet deprecating this view of things, and endeavour- 
 ing to prove, that the Royal Supremacy existed in 
 substance before the Reformation as much as after it, 
 nay, that the Reformation itself had a tendency to 
 diminish it, and that writers since the Reformation 
 of authority in the Church of England have explained 
 
7 
 
 and limited it, so as to be, if not innocent and Catholic, 
 at least not the reverse. 
 
 Comparing together the acts of parliament, the 
 articles and canons of the Church, the other-less au- 
 thoritative documents, and the facts enumerated by 
 Mr. Lewis and Mr. Maskell, with the counter autho- 
 rities produced by Mr. Irons, especially on the third 
 point, viz. the interpretation of the Royal Supremacy, 
 as at present existing, I am forced into the conclusion 
 that the case of the former is exceedingly strong, and 
 that of the latter exceedingly weak. To meet a tre- 
 mendous array of laws on the part of the spiritual, 
 and on the part of the temporal power, proving the 
 case of the transfer of the Supremacy from the Pope 
 to the Sovereign, Mr. Irons alleges a quotation or 
 two from Hooker, one from Usher, one from James I., 
 one from Andrewes, one from Stillingfleet, one from 
 Sanderson, and one from Wilson. These quotations, 
 instead of being precise, and distinct, as the legal 
 authorities on the other side, are extremely confused 
 and indeterminate, and after reading them I was at a 
 loss to know what their writers exactly believed the 
 Royal Supremacy to be. But see Appendix, No. 2. 
 
 But on the other side, nothing can be plainer than 
 the meaning of the acts of Parliament ; nor are the 
 articles and canons ambiguous, when it is considered 
 that they follow these acts of Parliament in time, and 
 and have reference to them in their subject matter. 
 
 For instance, the 37th Article says " The Queen's 
 Majesty hath the chief power in this realm of Eng- 
 
8 
 
 land, and other her dominions, unto whom the chief 
 government 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 either of God's 
 Word or of the Sacraments, the which thing the in- 
 junctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen 
 do most plainly testify ; 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, whether they be ecclesiastical 
 or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the 
 stubborn and evil-doers. The Bishop of Rome hath 
 no jurisdiction in this Realm of England." 
 
 Now, supposing that question may arise as to the 
 nature and extent of this " chief government " here 
 asserted, so far as the article itself goes, yet it refers 
 to two other documents in explanation of its own 
 meaning, viz. to the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, 
 and, in them, to a certain oath imposed by a certain 
 act of Parliament. 
 
 Let us see whether these two authorities leave us 
 in any doubt as to the meaning of the article. 
 
 The injunctions run thus : * 
 
 * Gibson, i. 54. 
 
9 
 
 " The Queen's Majesty being informed that in 
 certain places of the reahia sundry of her native 
 subjects, being called to ecclesiastical ministry of 
 the Church, be by sinister persuasion and perverse 
 construction induced to find some scruple in the 
 form of an oath which by an Act of the last Parlia- 
 ment is prescribed to be required of divers persons 
 for the recognition of their allegiance to her Majesty, 
 which certainly never was meant, nor by any equity 
 of words or good sense can be thereof gathered ; 
 would that all her loving subjects should understand 
 that nothing was, is, or shall be meant or intended 
 by the same oath to have any other duty, allegi- 
 ance, or bond required by the same oath, than was 
 acknowledged to be due to the most noble kings of 
 famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, her Mu- 
 jesties father, or King Edward the Sixth, her 
 Majesties brother. 
 
 " And further, her Majesty forbiddeth all manner 
 her subjects to give ear or credit to such perverse 
 and malicious persons, which most sinisterly and 
 maliciously labour to notifie to her loving subjects, 
 how by words of the said oath it may be collected, 
 that the Kings or Queens of this realm, possessors 
 of the crown, may challenge authority and power of 
 ministry of divine service in the Church, wherein her 
 said subjects be much abused by such evil-disposed 
 persons. For certainly her Majesty neither doth nor 
 ever will challenge any authority thati that was 
 challenged and lately used by the said noble Kings, 
 of famous memory. King Henry the Eighth and 
 
10 
 
 King Edward the Sixth, which is and was of ancient 
 time due to the Imperial Crown of this realm ; that 
 is, under God, to have the sovereignty and rule over 
 all manner of persons born within these her realms, 
 dominions, and countries, of what estate, either ec- 
 clesiastical or temporal, so ever they be, so as no 
 other foreign power shall or ought to have any 
 superiority over them. And if any person that hath 
 conceived any other sense of the form of the said 
 oath shall accept the same oath with this interpreta- 
 tion, sense, or meaning, her Majesty is well pleased 
 to accept every such in that behalf as her good 
 and obedient subjects, and shall acquit them of all 
 manner of penalties contained in the said Act against 
 such as shall peremptorily or obstinately take the 
 same oath." 
 
 The oath here mentioned to be taken by all eccle- 
 siastical persons and temporal officers runs as follows 
 in the Act 1 Eliz. c. 1, which imposes it, sect. 19 : — 
 
 " I do utterly testify and declare in my conscience 
 that the Queen's Highness is the only supreme Go- 
 vernor of this realm, and of all other her Highness's 
 dominions and countries, as well in all Spiritual or 
 Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal ; and 
 that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or 
 Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Jurisdiction, 
 Power, Superiority, Preheminence, or Authority, 
 Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within this realm, and 
 therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign 
 Jurisdictions, Powers, Superiorities, and Authorities, 
 and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear 
 
11 
 
 faith and true allegiance unto the Queen's Highness, 
 her heirs and lawful successors, and to my poiuer 
 shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Privileges, 
 PreJieminences, and Authorities granted or belonging 
 unto the Queetis Highness, her heirs and successors, 
 or united and annexed to the imperial crown of this 
 realm.'' 
 
 This same Act, in sect. 17, runs thus: — 
 
 " And that also it may likewise please your High- 
 ness that it may be established and enacted by the 
 authority aforesaid, that such Jurisdictions, Privi- 
 leges, Superiorities, and Preheminences, Spiritual and 
 Ecclesiastical, as bi/ any spiritual or ecclesiastical 
 power or authority hath hetrtofore been or may law- 
 fully be exercised or used for the visitation of the 
 ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, 
 order, and correction of the same, and of all manner 
 of errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, con- 
 tempts, and enormities, shall for ever, by authority 
 of this present Parliament, be united and annexed 
 to the imperial crown of this realm." 
 
 Bishop Gibson, from whose Codex I quote this 
 Act, puts beside of this section, as its summary, 
 "Such spiritual jurisdiction, as hath heretofore been 
 exercised, shall be for ever annexed to the crown." 
 And his heading of the page is, " Supreme Head of 
 the Church of England, Papal and Regal." 
 
 I should think that no man living, of competent 
 knowledge and fairness of mind, looking at these 
 three documents; first, the article referring to cer- 
 tain injunctions, then the injunctions referring to 
 
12 
 
 and interpreting an oath, which oath is contained 
 in an Act of Parliament enacting further provisions 
 in elucidation of it, which the oath records and era- 
 braces, and bearing in mind that the article was 
 accepted and enacted by the Church after the in- 
 junctions and the Act of Parliament, would fail to 
 draw the conclusion, that both article and injunc- 
 tions, and Act of Parliament, concurred, in annexing 
 to the Crown whatever spiritual jurisdiction had 
 before been possessed by the Pope. 
 
 And I think it is equally clear, from the words of 
 the article, and of Queen Elizabeth's injunctions, 
 that the authority and preeminence thus annexed to 
 the crown belonged to the power of Jurisdiction, and 
 not to the power of Order. " Her Majesty forbiddeth 
 to give ear or credit, that the kings or queens of 
 this realm, possessors of the crown, may challenge 
 authority and power of ministry of divine service in 
 the church." 
 
 The change, therefore, did not touch anything 
 which belonged to the mere power of Order. 
 
 Nevertheless the Supremacy thus transferred from 
 the Pope to the Sovereign was the full Papal Supre- 
 macy; for that in which the Pope differs from any 
 other priest or any other bishop is not a power of 
 Order, but a power of Jurisdiction. 
 
 This is stated very lucidly by one of the greatest 
 Roman theologians thus, " The pontifical power is, 
 as it were, the primal example of all spiritual power 
 of jurisdiction, for no one will deny that that is a 
 
13 
 
 true spiritual power of active jurisdiction, nay, in 
 that order the highest which can exist in mere men. 
 Now that power is not given to the Pontiff by any 
 consecration, but by election, and the bare grant of 
 God ; for when He said to Peter, Feed my sheep, 
 He impressed on him no new consecration or cha- 
 racter, but gave him a mere power of jurisdiction. 
 So too the Pope, when rightly elected, is immediately 
 true Pope as to such power, and as to that receives no 
 consecration ; nay, if not already a bishop or a priest, 
 he must be afterwards consecrated or even ordained, 
 and nevertheless in the mean time he can exeixise all 
 acts of mere e.vternal jurisdiction. Therefore, in the 
 same manner the proper power of jurisdiction is 
 granted to other bishops by election, or simple con- 
 cession, not by consecration, for the principle is the 
 same, not only because the episcopal power is but a 
 certain participation of the papal power, but likewise 
 because, as in the appointment of the Pope to apply 
 to him matter (for the exercise of his jurisdiction) is 
 nothing else but to make the whole Church subject 
 to him, and to make it subject to him is nothing 
 else but to give to him a true and new power over 
 it ; so, when a see is given to one only consecrated 
 bishop before, matter (for jurisdiction) is applied to 
 him no otherwise than that certain persons become 
 his subjects which before they were not ; nor do 
 they become his subjects save by giving him a new 
 power as a superior altogether distinct from the 
 power of Order or from consecration. Lastly, be- 
 
14 
 
 cause, like as acta of po/tt/Jical Jurisdiction, as suc/i, 
 are not acts of Order or of consecration, nor flow from 
 it, so neither are acts of episcopal jurisdiction ; and 
 a like argument may be drawn from the jurisdiction 
 of the apostles, as will be clear to any one who con- 
 siders it." — Suarez, de Legibus, Lib. 4, c. 4. 
 
 I consider, therefore, that the whole subject of the 
 Royal Supremacy, of its nature, of its limits, its 
 bearing on the spiritual condition of the Church 
 subject to it, and on the administration of certain 
 sacramental acts of the highest importance as well 
 to the external government of such a church as to 
 the salvation of individual souls, cannot be under- 
 stood without a previous understanding of the dis- 
 tinction between the power of Order and the power 
 of Jurisdiction, and of the acts severally belonging 
 to them, which I will therefore endeavour briefly to 
 call to remembrance. 
 
 Spiritual power is manifold, yet it is usual to 
 divide it into the power of Order and the power of 
 Jurisdiction. 
 
 A. The power of Order may be briefly defined as 
 a certai,n moral faculty directed to the religious wor- 
 ship of God, either by the celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist, or by the administration or dispensation 
 of the sacraments instituted for the sanctification of 
 the faithful, or by any other ceremonies which may 
 fitly accompany the holy sacrifice, or the sacraments. 
 
 Or it may be set forth thus a little more at length. 
 In the mystical Body of Christ spiritual grace is 
 
15 
 
 conferred under the sacrament of visible things. And, 
 as every action should bear a proportion to the agent, 
 the dispensing of such sacraments should take place 
 by visible men possessing a spiritual power. For 
 the institution and virtue of sacraments derive their 
 source from Christ, of whom the Apostle said, " Christ 
 loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He 
 might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water 
 by the word." So, too, in the last Supper, Christ 
 gave the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, and 
 instituted it to be repeated ; and these are the chief 
 sacraments : as, then, Christ was about to withdraw 
 His corporal presence from the Church, it was neces- 
 sary to make others His ministers, to dispense the 
 sacraments to the faithful, as the Apostle says, " Let 
 a man so account of us, as ministers of Christ, and 
 stewards of the mysteries of God." Thence it was 
 that He committed to His disciples the consecration 
 of His Body and Blood, saying, " Do this in remem- 
 brance of me." He gives to them likewise a power of 
 remitting sins, according to John xx. 23, " Whose sins 
 ye remit, they are remitted." Also He laid upon them 
 the charge of teaching and baptizing, saying, Matt, 
 xxviii. 19, " Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them." Now the minister stands in such a relation 
 to his Lord as the instrument to the chief agent. For 
 just as the instrument is moved by the agent to effec- 
 tuate anything, so is the minister moved by his Lord's 
 command to execute. And the instrument should 
 bear a proportion to the agent : whence the ministers 
 
16 
 
 of Christ too must be conformed to Him. Now 
 Christ, as the Lord, wrought our salvation by His 
 proper authority and virtue, in that He was God and 
 Man : in that He was Man suffering for our redemp- 
 tion ; in that He was God, His passion being salu- 
 tary to us. So then must the ministers of Christ be 
 men, and partake somewhat of His Divinity accord- 
 ing to a certain spiritual power : Since the instru- 
 ment participates in somewhat of the virtue of the 
 principal agent. Of this power it is that the Apostle 
 says, " the power which God hath given me to edifi- 
 cation and not to destruction." 
 
 Nor can we say that such a power was so given to 
 Christ's disciples, as not to be derived through them 
 unto others : for it was given to them for the edifi- 
 cation of the Church, as the Apostle has just said. 
 Therefore this power should be perpetuated, so long 
 as the Church must be edified. And this must con- 
 tinue after the death of Christ's disciples unto the end 
 of the world. Spiritual power therefore was given 
 to Christ's disciples, to devolve through them on 
 others : so that the Lord addressed His disciples as 
 representing the rest of the faithful when He said, 
 Mark xiii. 37, " What I say unto you, I say unto 
 all ;" and again, to his Apostles He said, " Lo, I am 
 with you alway unto the end of the world." 
 
 In as much then as this spiritual power is derived 
 from Christ into the ministers of the Church, and 
 spiritual effects derived into us from Christ are set 
 forth under certain sensible signs, it was fitting that 
 
17 
 
 this spiritual power should be delivered to men under 
 certain sensible signs. Such are certain forms of 
 words, certain determinate acts, such as the impo- 
 sition of hands, the giving of a book, &c. which 
 belongs to the execution of spiritual power. But 
 whenever any spiritual thing is given under a bodily 
 sign, this may be called a sacrament. Now it is 
 plain that in the bestowal of spiritual power a certain 
 sacrament takes place, which is called the sacrament 
 of Order. And it beseems God's bounteousness when 
 He confers on any one power to work any effect, to 
 confer likewise such things without which the effect 
 cannot suitably be wrought. Now the administration 
 of sacraments, which is the end of spiritual power, is 
 not suitably wrought unless the ministrant is helped 
 thereto by divine grace ; and so in this sacrament, as 
 in the rest, grace is conferred. 
 
 Now as the end of the power of Order is the dis- 
 pensation of sacraments, and of these the noblest and 
 most perfect is the sacrament of the Eucharist, the 
 power of Order should be considered chiefly in refer- 
 ence to this sacrament, every thing being named 
 from its end. Moreover it seems to belong to the 
 same excellence to give a certain perfection, and to 
 prepare the material to receive it, just as fire has 
 power to transfuse its own form into something else, 
 and to dispose the material to receive that form. 
 The power of Order, then, reaching to this, to make 
 the sacrament of the Body of Christ, and to deliver 
 it to the faithful, that power should reach likewise to 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 rendering the faithful apt and fitting to the perception 
 of this sacrament. And a Christian is rendered thus 
 apt and fitting, in that he is free from sin : for 
 otherwise he cannot be spiritually united to Christ, 
 to whom he is joined sacramentally, in receiving this 
 sacrament. So, then, the power of Order must reach 
 to remission of sins by the dispensation of those 
 sacraments whose end is the remission of sin ; and 
 these are baptism, and repentance. Thence it was 
 that the Lord gave also the power of remitting sins 
 to the apostles, to whom he committed the conse- 
 cration of His Body. Now this power is understood 
 by the keys, of which the Lord said to Peter, " I will 
 give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." 
 For the heaven is opened or shut to any one in that 
 he is subject to, or cleansed from, sin : and so the 
 use of these keys is said to be to bind and loose, that 
 is, from sins. 
 
 It would seem, then, that as all grace and pardon in 
 the mystical Body flow from its Head, it is in essence 
 the same power by which a Priest can consecrate, 
 and bind and loose, if he has jurisdiction ; nor does 
 it differ, save in the mode of its application to different 
 effects. And this double power makes up the cha- 
 racter of Order, which is indelible. 
 
 Now I conceive that the Royal Supremacy did not 
 assume to itself any thing that belongs strictly to the 
 power of Order, and this is the value of Queen Eliza- 
 beth's disclaimer in her injunctions, and of those in 
 the thirty-seventh article, there called the ministering 
 
ID 
 
 of God's word, and of the sacraments. And so again 
 of Bishop Andrewes, quoted by Mr. Irons, " Neque 
 vero id agit rex, ne patitur quidem, ut sibi potestas 
 sit, vel incensum adolendi cum Ozia, vel arcam at- 
 trectandi cum Oza, quod vos toties tam odiose incul- 
 catis, vestrum illud, (quod ad Primatum Pontificium 
 propria pertinere dicitis,) docendi munus, vel dubia 
 legis expUcandi, non assumit : non vel conciones ha- 
 bendi, vel rei sacrae praeeundi, vel sacramenta cele- 
 brandi ; non vel personas sacrandi, vel res ; non vel 
 clavium jus, vel censurae. Verbo dicam : nihil ille sibi, 
 nihil nos illi fas putamus attingere, quae ad sacerdo- 
 tale munus spectant, sen potestatem ordinis conse- 
 quuntur." I said above, which belongs strictly to 
 the power of Order, for as the power of the keys 
 cannot be exercised without jurisdiction, we shall see 
 presently what effect the assumption of supreme 
 jurisdiction by the civil authority has on that power. 
 
 B. The second spiritual power above mentioned, 
 that of Jurisdiction, is usually divided into interior and 
 exterior : so called, not because both are not exer- 
 cised by sensible and outward acts, for both having 
 to deal with men in respect of other men must 
 necessarily be exercised by external acts. But they 
 are so called because one has reference to the sacra- 
 mental forum, which belongs only to the conscience, 
 and the inward good of souls, and therefore is named 
 interior jurisdiction. Now of this I will speak further 
 presently. 
 
 I. But the other power has reference to the govern- 
 
20 
 
 ment of the Church in the external forum, by means 
 of judgments, penalties, and whatever else is neces- 
 sary for the right constitution and government of a 
 human commonwealth. And this is called the power 
 of exterior jurisdictmi. To this belongs the directive 
 power of enacting laws obligatory on the conscience, 
 which exists in the Church : and to this likewise 
 coercive power, and therefore it is also called the 
 power of the contentious forum. 
 
 Its principle is, that every well ordered common- 
 wealth needs a power of jurisdiction, as well directive 
 as coercive, in order that it be suitably governed ; 
 and that is clear of itself, even by the light of nature ; 
 but Christ set up His Church as one Body politic, to 
 be ruled and governed by men, as is plain from the 
 Gospel, and the Church's own tradition : and from 
 the Creed, " I believe in One Holy, Catholic, Apos- 
 tolic Church." 
 
 There is, then, in this Church a peculiar power 
 for ruling and governing it. This may be proved, 
 first, by Scripture. As in our Lord s words to S. 
 Peter, " I give to thee the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven;" and John 21, "Feed my sheep;" and 
 again to the Apostles, " He who heareth you, heareth 
 me, and he who despiseth you, despiseth me:" and 
 again, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. As my Father 
 hath sent me, even so send I you." Now Christ was 
 sent not only as a teacher, but as a legislator and a 
 governor, as the Psalm prophesied of Him, " I will 
 give to Thee the heathen for thine inheritance, thou 
 
21 
 
 shalt rule them with a rod of iron." Therefore He 
 sent His Apostles likewise with a sufficient partici- 
 pation of that power. For the reign and rule of 
 Christ in the Church militant were not to terminate 
 with His mortal life, or with His visible and corporal 
 presence on earth, but to last for ever, as was fore- 
 told, " The Lord shall give unto Him the throne of 
 His father David, and He shall reign for ever." 
 Therefore it was necessary that He should leave on 
 earth a power holding His place, by which this spiri- 
 tual regimen might continue. 
 
 Secondly, this power is proved bij its use. For 
 the first act of this power which is read of in Scrip- 
 ture seems to have been the Apostolic decree in Acts 
 XV., " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, 
 to lay on you no further burden than these necessary 
 things: to abstain," &c. For here two human ca- 
 nonical precepts are contained : one imposing this 
 burden as necessary; the other declarative, that from 
 that time nothing else of the ceremonial law of Moses 
 should be observed as necessary. And presently it 
 is said of Paul and Timothy, that " they delivered 
 them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of 
 the apostles and elders." St. Paul, in his Epistles, 
 often mentions this power, as when he says, " The 
 power which the Lord gave him to edification, and 
 not to destruction;" and so again, " Will ye that I 
 come to you with a rod?" For a rod signifies the 
 power of government, which, in that it is directive, is 
 called " a sceptre of right," Psalm xlv. ; and in 
 
22 
 
 that it is corrective, is called " a rod of iron," Psalm 
 ii. Thus St. Augustine explains it, saying in the 
 former place, "'A sceptre of right,' which ruleth 
 men. Approach that sceptre ; let Christ be your 
 King: let him rule you with that sceptre, lest He 
 crush you. For that is an inflexible rod." And in 
 the latter, " A rod of iron is inflexible justice." 
 " Some he rules, others he crushes : the spiritual he 
 ruleth, the carnal he crusheth." Such, then, was the 
 rod of St. Paul, of which a share was given him by 
 Christ ; and he uses that rod of iron where he says, 
 " I, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have 
 judged already . . with the power of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ . . to deliver such an one to Satan." But of 
 the "sceptre of right" St. Paul speaks in Acts xx. : 
 " Take heed . . to all the flock, over the which the 
 Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the 
 church of God." And to the faithful he says, 
 *' Obey them that have the rule over you, and be 
 subject unto them." And again he says, "Against 
 an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or 
 three witnesses," where he supposes in the Church 
 a proper judgment and tribunal. 
 
 And, thirdly, that power which is shown thus in 
 Scripture as begun, is continued on in History through 
 all ages of the Church in diocesan, archiepiscopal, 
 and primatial governments, in provincial and general 
 councils, and borne witness to everywhere by the 
 Church's rulers and writers. 
 
 And the principle of all this is manifest, that the 
 
23 
 
 Church is one mystical body of Christ, one divinely 
 constituted kingdom. Now, a kingdom cannot be 
 maintained without a power to rule it, in proportion 
 to it. Thus, as one out of a multitude, St. Epipha- 
 nius says (torn. i. p. ] 18), " For the throne of David, 
 and the royal seat, is the priesthood in the holy 
 Church, which dignity, both royal and high-priestly, 
 the Lord having joined together in one, hath bestowed 
 it on His holy Church, translating unto it the throne 
 of David, which faileth not for ever." 
 
 This power is spiritual and supernatural, requiring 
 indeed, and presupposing orders, but not given in 
 them indelibly as their character, for it is capable of 
 increase or diminution in individuals, and exists in 
 different degrees in those who have the same rank of 
 orders. It can also be taken away, and given again, 
 which is not the case with any power given by con- 
 secration. 
 
 Now, from all that has been said, it is plain that 
 this spiritual power of government is quite distinct 
 from the temporal. And that, first, and chiefly, in 
 its end ; for the end of the temporal power is to pre- 
 serve the peace and honour of the commonwealth, as 
 St. Paul says, bidding us pray for kings, " that we 
 may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness 
 and honesty." Whereas the end of the ecclesiastical 
 power is the attainment of eternal salvation, as Sj|^ 
 Paul says, " for the perfecting of the saints," and, 
 " Obey them that have the rule over you ; for they 
 watch for your souls as they that must give account." 
 
24 
 
 Another difference is in its origin, inasmuch as 
 the temporal power derives its origin from God as 
 the author of nature, through the medium of natural 
 reason, and so, considered in itself, is of natural 
 right ; but in so far as it is seated in a King or in a 
 Parliament, it is of human right. Whereas the 
 ecclesiastical power is of positive Divine right, and 
 the special promise and grant of Christ. " I will 
 give to thee the keys." " Feed my sheep." "As 
 my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." For 
 as the end to which this power is directed, and the 
 acts and means by vs'hich it subsists, are above na- 
 tural and human strength, so must the power itself 
 have its origin above human or natural right. In 
 fact, these powers ditfer, as the material and spiritual, 
 the natural and supernatural, the earthly and hea- 
 venly. 
 
 Once more ; not only in their end and oingin do 
 they differ, but in their subjects; the one being, kings 
 and other rulers of the temporal State; the others 
 the rulers in God s Church, according to the grada- 
 tions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This may be 
 proved by the authority of Scripture. For this spi- 
 ritual power, derived from the direct and special 
 grant of Christ, is 7iot found, in the New Testament, 
 given to those persons who were temporal kings; 
 and is given to Peter, and the rest of the Apostles ; 
 is found to be used by St. Paul, and other bishops. 
 For before there were in the Church temporal kings, 
 there were therein pastors with true spiritual juris- 
 
25 
 
 diction to rule the Church ; therefore this power does 
 not of itself depend on the Royal power, nor is joined 
 ■with it by any power of it. 
 
 The Emperors, on the one hand, in the primitive 
 Church, and the Fathers and rulers of it, on the 
 other, were perfectly familiar with the existence of 
 this right of spiritual jurisdiction: the former ad- 
 mitted it, and the latter enlarged on it, and set it 
 forth. The Emperor Constantine convoked, we are 
 told, the Nicene Council ; and no doubt he did so, 
 at the instance, probably, and certainly with the con- 
 sent, of the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria; at 
 any rate, he said to the bishops there assembled, as 
 Ruffinus (lib. i. Hist.) has recorded for us, " Deus 
 vos constituit sacerdotes, et nobis a Deo dati estis 
 Judices, et conveniens non est ut homo judicet Deos, 
 sed ille solum de quo scriptum est, Deus stetit in 
 synagoga Deorum : in medio autem Deus dijudicat." 
 The Emperor Theodosius summoned the third Ecu- 
 menical Council : be it so ; in conjunction again with 
 the ecclesiastical power ; and he sent a Royal Com- 
 missioner to attend the Council, " servandi ordinis 
 cura :" and he writes to the Council thus : " Igitur 
 Candidianum praeclarissimum sacrorum domestico- 
 rum comitem ad sacram vestram synodum abire jus- 
 simus : sed ea lege et conditione ut cum qusestionibus 
 et controversiis quae circa fidei dogmata incidunt 
 nihil quidquam commune habeat : nefas est enim qui 
 sanctissimorum episcoporum catalogo adscriptus non 
 est, ilium ecclesiasticis negotiis et consultationibus 
 
26 
 
 sese immiscere." Mansi. torn. iv. p. 1 1 1 9. Again, 
 the bishops of the Hellespont and Bithynia asked 
 the Emperor Valentinian to let them assemble " for 
 correction of doctrine." The Emperor replied, " I, 
 as a layman, have no right to interpose in such mat- 
 ters. But let the bishops, who are charged with 
 them, meet by themselves where they choose." So- 
 zomen. lib. vi. c. 7. And of the same Emperor the 
 same historian writes, lib. vi. c. 21 : "In the West 
 reigned Valentinian, who supported the doctrine of 
 the Nicene Council, and was very piously disposed 
 towards God ; so that he laid no command on the 
 bishops, and would not meddle either for what seemed 
 to him good or bad in the Church's laws. For he 
 considered these things superior to his own judg- 
 ment, though he was a most excellent prince, and 
 showed it by his government." To the bishops as- 
 sembled at Milan, for the election of a bishop there, 
 who was afterwards St. Ambrose, the same Emperor 
 said, " Put there such an one in the Pontifical seat 
 as that we too, who govern the empire, may sincerely 
 bow our head to him, and for our transgressions as 
 man receive, as we are bound, his advice, as the 
 remedy of a physician." Hist. Trip. lib. vii. c. 8. 
 The great Emperor Justinian, who carried, certainl3\ 
 high enough his notions of imperial power, and his 
 practice of imperial interference, yet says, " Maxima 
 quidem in omnibus sunt dona Dei a superna collata 
 dementia, sacerdotium et imperium : illud quidem 
 divinis ministrans, hoc autem humanis praesidens, aut 
 
27 
 
 diligentiam exhibens, ex iino eodemque principio 
 utraque procedentia, humanam exornant vitam.'' 
 Lastly, among the acts of the Eighth General Coun- 
 cil, there is a speech of the Emperor Basil, in which, 
 addressing the laity, he says, " De vobis quid am- 
 plius dicam non habeo, quam quod nullo modo vobis 
 licet de ecclesiasticis causis sermonem habere. Haec 
 enim investigare et queerere, patriarcharum, pontifi- 
 cum, et sacerdotum est, qui regiminis officium sortiti 
 sunt, qui sanctificandi, ligandi, atque solvendi potes- 
 tatem habent, qui ecclesiasticas et coelestes adepti 
 sunt claves, non nostrum, qui pasci debenius." 
 
 What is thus conceded by the highest temporal 
 power, is assumed as incontestable by the spiritual 
 itself. S. Athanasius has recorded for us a letter of 
 the aged Hosius, President of the Councils of Nicaea 
 and Sardica, to the Emperor Constantius, in which 
 he says, " Cease, I beseech thee, and remember that 
 thou art a mortal man. Fear the day of Judgment : 
 keep thyself innocent unto that. Mix not thyself in 
 ecclesiastical matters, nor give us thy orders respect- 
 ing these : but rather learn thou these from us. Into 
 thy hands God hath put the empire ; to us has he 
 entrusted the affairs of the Church. And as he who 
 stealeth away thy power contradicts the ordinance of 
 God, so fear thou, lest drawing to thyself matters of 
 the Church, thou become involved in a great crime. 
 It is written, " Render to Caesar the things of CcBsar, 
 and to God the things of God." Tom. 1. 371. Pre- 
 sently in his own person S. Athanasius says, " If a 
 
28 
 
 judgment had been passed by bishops, what concern 
 had the emperor with it ? or if it was only a threat 
 of the emperor, what need in that case was there 
 of the so-named bishops ? When was such a thing 
 heard of before from the beginning of the world? 
 W/ie?i (lid a judgment of the Church receive its vali- 
 dity from the emperor 1 or, rather, when was his de- 
 cree ever recognised by the Church? There have 
 been many councils held heretofore, and many judg- 
 ments passed by the Church, but the Fathers never 
 sought the consent of the emperor thereto ; nor did 
 the emperor busy himself with the affairs of the 
 Church. The Apostle Paul had friends among them 
 of Csesar's household, and in his Epistle to the Philip- 
 pians he sent salutations from them : but he never 
 took them as his associates in ecclesiastical judg- 
 ments. Now, however, we have witnessed a novel 
 sight, which is a discovery of the Arian heresy. 
 Heretics have assembled together with the Emperor 
 Constantius, in order that he, alleging the authority 
 of the Bishops, may exercise his power against whom- 
 soever he pleases, and while he persecutes may avoid 
 the name of persecutor ; and that they, supported by 
 the emperor's government, may conspire the ruin of 
 whomsoever they will ; and these are all such as are 
 not as impious as themselves. One might look upon 
 their proceedings as a comedy which they are per- 
 forming on the stage, in which the pretended bishops 
 are actors, and Constantius the performer of their 
 behests, who makes promises to them, as Herod did 
 
29 
 
 to the daughter of Herodias, and they, dancing before 
 him, accomplish through false accusations, the ba- 
 nishment and death of the true believers in the Lord." 
 Tom. 1. 376.— Oxf. Tr. p. 266. St. Ambrose, de- 
 scribing the attempts made to induce him to admit 
 the Avians to communion, says, " Command is sent 
 to me, Give up the church. I answer, it is neither 
 lawful for me to give it up, nor is it expedient for 
 thee, O Emperor, to take it. Thou canst not with 
 any right violate a private man's house ; thinkest 
 thou that thou canst take away the house of God. I 
 am told that to the emperor all things are lawful ; 
 that every thing belongs to him, I answer. Trouble 
 not thyself, 0 Emperor, to think that thou hast any 
 imperial right over the things which are divine. Set 
 not thyself up, but if thou wouldest reign long, be 
 subject unto God. It is written, ' To God the things 
 of God, to Cffisar the things of Caesar.' To the 
 emperor belong his palaces ; to the bishop, the 
 churches. Right over the public walls is committed 
 to thee, not over those which are sacred." Tom. 2. 
 857. Epis. 20. St. Gregory of Nazianzum, preach- 
 ing before the Prefect of his province, thus addresses 
 him. " But what of you. Princes and Rulers, for to 
 you I now address myself, that I may not seem quite 
 unfair, and while I advise others of their duty, yield 
 to your power, as through shame or fear declining 
 the liberty which I have in Christ. What then say 
 you, and how do we agree? will you bear my free- 
 dom of speech ? The law of Christ subjects you too 
 
30 
 
 to my rule and to my tribunal. For I also have a 
 government, nay, a greater and more perfect one, or 
 must the spirit yield to the flesh, and the heavenly 
 to the earthly? I know that thou wilt receive my 
 freedom, being a sheep of my flock, a sacred sheep 
 of a sacred flock."— Tom. 1, p. 322. Orat. 17. 
 S. John Damascene says, " We will not endure to 
 obey an imperial decree which endeavours to over- 
 throw the customs of the Fathers. It belongs not to 
 religious princes to overthrow ecclesiastical laws. - 
 Such things belong to councils, not to kings, as the 
 Lord said, 'Where two or three shall be "gathered 
 together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
 them.' Not to kings has Christ given the power to 
 bind and to loose, but to apostles, and to their suc- 
 cessors, and to pastors and teachers."— Tom. 1. 329. 
 And again, ' It belongs not to kings to legislate for 
 the Church. What says the divine Apostle ? And 
 "God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, 
 secondarily prophets, thirdly pastors and teachers' 
 for the perfecting of the church.' He said not, kings. 
 —It was not kings who spake to us the word, but 
 apostles and prophets, pastors and teachers. ' Ren- 
 der unto all their due,' cries the Apostle Paul, 
 ' honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear, tribute 
 to whom tribute.' To kings belongs political ad- 
 ministration ; to pastors and teachers the rule of the 
 Church. This is an inroad of banditti, brethren. 
 Saul rent the robe of Samuel, and what became of 
 him ? God rent the kingdom from him, and gave it 
 
31 
 
 to meekest David. The Lord said, ' Render to Cjesar 
 the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God.' 
 We yield to thee, O Emperor, in the matters of this 
 life, in tributes, taxes, presents, wherein thou art 
 charged to administer our affairs : but in the consti- 
 tution of the Church we have pastors who have 
 spoken to us the word, and have laid down the type 
 of ecclesiastical legislation. We take not away the 
 ancient boundaries which our fathers set, but we hold 
 the traditions as we have received them. For if we 
 begin to pull about, even in little things, the fabric of 
 the Church, very soon the whole will be broken up." 
 —Tom. 1. 338. In the year 493, Pope Gelasius 
 thus wrote to the Emperor Anastasius. " There are 
 two things, august Emperor, by which in chief this 
 world is ruled, the sacred authority of pontiffs, and 
 the power of kings. Of which the weight borne by 
 the pontiffs is so much the heavier, in that they must 
 render to the Lord in the Divine Judgment, account 
 for the kings themselves. For thou knowest, most 
 gracious Son, that, pre-eminent as thou art above the 
 human race in dignity, thou dost yet devotedly bow 
 the neck unto those who preside over divine things, 
 and from them thou seekest instruction in the way of 
 salvation, and acknowledgest that thou oughtest rather 
 in the order of religion to be subject to them than to 
 rule them, as to the taking of the heavenly sacraments, 
 and the fit disposing of these. Thou knowest then, 
 that on such subjects thou shouldest wish to depend on 
 their judgment, not to bend them to thy will. For, 
 
32 
 
 if as regards the order of public administration, recog- 
 nizing the empire bestowed on thee by disposition from 
 above, the very prelates of religion obey thy laws, 
 lest even in earthly matters they should seem to op- 
 pose a sentence not observed, with what affection, I 
 ask, oughtest thou to obey them who are set in charge 
 of the venerable mysteries ? " — Mansi, Tom. 8. p. 31. 
 To the same emperor, shortly after. Pope Symmachus 
 says, " Let us compare the rank of the Emperor with 
 that of the Pontiff, between which there is this diffe- 
 rence, that the former has the care of human things, 
 and the latter of divine. From the Pontiff, as Em- 
 peror, thou askest baptism, takest sacraments, beggest 
 prayer, hopest a blessing, solicitest admission to 
 penance. In sum, thou dost administer human things ; 
 he to thee dispenses divine. The honour is, I will 
 not say superior, but at least equal. Perhaps thou 
 wilt say that it is written, that we should be subject 
 to every power. We do indeed accept human powers 
 in their place, until they set up their wills against 
 God. But if all power is from God, rather therefore 
 that which is given to divine things. Defer unto 
 God in us, and we will defer unto God in thee. But 
 if thou deferrest not to God, thou canst not use His 
 privilege, whose rights thou despisest." — Mansi, Tom. 
 8. 215. Lastly, Pope Nicholas L at the very com- 
 mencement of the middle ages, before the time of our 
 own Alfred, is only summing up the unanimous and 
 undeviating testimony of the eight centuries before 
 him when he writes thus to the Emperor Michael. 
 
33 
 
 " Do not usurp the things of the Church : do not 
 wish to steal away what is committed to her sole 
 trust : knowing that every administrator of earthly 
 things should be as far removed from sacred things, 
 as every one in the robe of the clergy, and of God's 
 combatants, should be involved in no secular busi- 
 ness. In fine, we are utterly ignorant how they, who 
 are allowed to rule only human and not divine things, 
 presume to judge of those who have the divine minis- 
 try. Such things were before Christ's coming, that 
 certain should be typically kings at once and priests, 
 such as the sacred history tells us holy Melchisedec 
 to have been ; and this the devil imitated in his own 
 members, being one who ever strives to arrogate to 
 himself in a spirit of tyranny what belongs to divine 
 worship, so that Pagan emperors were at the same time 
 high priests. But when the True One was come, at 
 once King and Pontiff, no longer did emperor claim 
 to himself the rights of the priesthood, nor pontiff 
 usurp the name of emperor. Since the same mediator 
 of God and man, the man Christ Jesus, in such wise 
 distinguished the offices of both these powers by their 
 proper acts and their separate dignities, willing us to 
 be raised on high by His own humility, which was 
 for our healing, not to be sunk again down to hell by 
 human pride, that Christian emperors should need 
 pontiffs for the attainment of eternal life, and pontiffs 
 for the course of merely temporal things, should have 
 the commodity of imperial laws : and so spiritual 
 c 
 
34 
 
 action should be at rest from inroads of the flesh." 
 Mansi, Tom. 15. 214. 
 
 Such is then the right of spiritual jurisdiction be 
 longing to the rulers of the Church, by the positive 
 grant of Christ, with which they were invested in 
 different degrees according to their hierarchical rank, 
 and of which the highest and most complete example, 
 to say the least, was seen in the see of St. Peter, 
 through an uninterrupted succession of fifteen centu- 
 ries down to the time of Henry VIII. That see, as 
 the source and centre of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 then received appeals from the whole Church : and 
 by a necessary consequence it was the Supreme 
 Judge of doctrine : for it is impossible in practice 
 to dissever supremacy of jurisdiction from carrying 
 with it the supreme judgment of doctrine. Did then 
 Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth deny this 
 power of spiritual jurisdiction to exist in the Church ? 
 by no means. Did they think it undesirable, and 
 therefore to be abandoned by the Church ? as little. 
 They so fully admitted it, and so entirely liked it, 
 that they seized upon it, and annexed it to the impe- 
 rial crown of their realm. That which in end, in 
 origin, and in subjects, was entirely distinct from the 
 civil power, that which sprung from the gift of 
 Christ to St. Peter, and the apostolic body, they ap- 
 propriated as an engine of temporal government. 
 They would have their crown supreme not only in 
 temporal matters, as it had always been, but in 
 spiritual also : have both the human and the divine 
 
35 
 
 power flow forth from their own persons. — And what 
 was the result? — that within ninety years after this 
 new thing had been finally settled by Elizabeth, and 
 the power of Christ attributed to an earthly sove- 
 reign, another new tiling was beheld, an awful pre- 
 lude to the last times of lawlessness. In that monar- 
 chy which had thus laid hold on things divine 
 subjects were seen to rise against their sovereign, de- 
 throne, imprison, judge and execute him, and bathe 
 in the blood of its wearer the crown which had 
 stolen Christ's prerogative. A most abominable 
 crime, but as fit a retribution. The world had seen, 
 and the Church had suffered, no such ambition as 
 that of Henry the Eighth, and of Elizabeth — the 
 world had seen and the Church suffered no such 
 crime as the murder of Charles I., the public and 
 quasi-legal execution of the source of temporal juris- 
 diction, God's representative in the human polity, by 
 his own subjects, — since the passion of Him who 
 gave the spiritual jurisdiction which that monarchy 
 had invaded. And is there not another further re- 
 tribution ? That monarchy, so eager to attribute to 
 itself the springs of all power, which would nominate 
 bishops as Lords Lieutenant, and give them commis- 
 sion to exercise Christ's power during its own bene 
 placitum, has been itself put into commission, and 
 its power, both as to temporals and as to spirituals, 
 is wielded by the nominee of a parliamentary majo- 
 rity. The prime minister for the time being is the 
 real source of spiritual jurisdiction in the Church of 
 
36 
 
 England. " Saul rent the robe of Samuel, and what 
 became of him ? God rent the kingdom from him." 
 
 I can well understand the extreme unwillingness 
 of Churchmen to admit the real state of things as 
 existing in fact among us : viz. that the civil power 
 is made the root and source of spiritual jurisdiction. 
 To all those who have been brought up in, or who 
 have attained to, any knowledge of the Church's spi- 
 ritual constitution, or of its history during the fifteen 
 hundred years preceding this claim, to all again who 
 believe that there is one visible Church, not in name, 
 but in reality, and that it is one divine imperium, 
 I will not ask what this claim must appear, either 
 by the light of reason, or by that of Revelation. 
 Nevertheless, all lawyers are agreed that such, so far 
 as law goes, is the actual constitution of the Church 
 of England. It is well, when things are disputed, to 
 refer to past times, and I therefore print at the end of 
 this pamphlet (see appendix) the case of the Supre- 
 macy, as preserved for us by Collier, and drawn by 
 him out of the State Paper office, the work, he says, 
 of an able hand in the time of Charles II. — Again, 
 Bishop Gibson, more than a hundred years ago, in- 
 terpreting the 37th article, says of it, " The Queen 
 hath the chief power and government. Ecclesiastical 
 and Civil, which is not to be extended to ministering 
 in the Church, but only to ecclesiastical Jurisdiction." 
 What the Queen's Supremacy is in civil matters, we 
 all know. All courts of justice are held in her name : 
 all laws derive their force from her confirmation : the 
 
37 
 
 Supremacy means, that she is the source of civil 
 power. So must it be likewise in spiritual matters, 
 always excepting what belongs strictly to the power 
 of Order, which Elizabeth expressly declined, — she is 
 the source of the Church's jurisdiction in foro exteriori. 
 And Dr. Card well in the year 1839 says : " It would 
 appear from the principal act of Queen Mary (1 and 
 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8.) and the statutes repealed 
 by it, that the Pope's jurisdiction in England was 
 comprised under the five following heads: 1. He 
 was acknowledged as chief Bishop of the Christian 
 Church, with authority to reform and redress heresies, 
 errors, and abuses within the same. 2. To him be- 
 longed the institution or confirmation of Bishops elect. 
 3. He could grant to clergymen licenses of non- 
 residence, and permission to hold more than one be- 
 nefice. 4. He dispensed in the canonical impedi- 
 ments of matrimony. 5. He received appeals from 
 the spiritual courts. So that the Supremacy of the 
 crown in this respect may be summed up in the words 
 of Hooker, after the following manner : " There is 
 required an universal power which reacheth over all, 
 importing supreme authority of government over all 
 courts, all judges, all causes; the operation of which 
 power is as well to strengthen, maintain, and uphold 
 particular jurisdictions, which haply might else be of 
 small effect, as also to remedy that which they are 
 not able to help, and to redress that wherein they at 
 any time do otherwise than they ought to do. This 
 power being sometime in the Bishop of Rome, who 
 
38 
 
 by sinister practices had drawn it into his hands, 
 was for just considerations by public consent annexed 
 unto the king's royal seat and crown. From whence 
 the authors of reformation would translate it into their 
 national assemblies or synods ; which synods are the 
 only help which they think lawful to use against such 
 evils in the Church as particular jurisdictions are not 
 sufficient to redress. In which case our laws have 
 provided that the king's supereminent authority and 
 power shall serve : as namely, when the whole eccle- 
 siastical state, or the principal persons therein, do 
 need visitation and reformation : when in any part of 
 the Church errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, 
 contempts, enormities are grown, which men in their 
 several jurisdictions either do not or cannot help : 
 whatsoever any spiritual authority or power, (such as 
 legates from the see of Rome would exercise,) hath 
 done or might heretofore have done for the remedy of 
 those evils in lawful sort, (that is to say, without the 
 violation of the law of God, or nature, in the deed 
 done,) as much in every degree our laivs have fully 
 granted that the king for ever may do, not only by 
 setting ecclesiastical synods on tvork, that the thing 
 may be their act and the king their motion imto it, 
 but by commissioners few or mairy, who having the 
 king's letters patent may on the virtue thereof execute 
 the premises as agents iji the right not ' of their own 
 peculiar and ordinary, but of his supei^eminent power T 
 Hooker, Vol. 3, p. 543. 
 
 I recommend the above passage to the consideration 
 
39 
 
 of those who dream of a certain civil supremacy in 
 ecclesiastical matters, as the meaning of the 37th ar- 
 ticle, and especially to one revered person who has 
 lately thus written : " The word supreme speaks of 
 there being no earthly authority over the king, that 
 he is entitled by virtue of his authority from God, to 
 give redress to any of his subjects. Yet, as in tem- 
 poral matters he gives that redress according to the 
 civil laws, so must he in spiritual matters according 
 to the laws of the Church. The Bishops were the 
 judges in ecclesiastical matters in this land nearly 
 eighteen hundred years ago. The king, in referring 
 a matter to them, refers it to an existing authority, 
 anterior to his own. The word ' supreme,' as I said, 
 implies that he has the highest authority : it does not 
 imply anything as to his being ' the fountain of au- 
 thority.' It implies that he may in a legitimate way 
 have wrong things righted : it does not imply that he 
 may act in an illegitimate way. — Synods are the 
 Church's appointed way for hearing ecclesiastical 
 appeals. (Bishops judged in matters of faith up to 
 the Reformation. Henry VIII. himself recognized 
 this as their office.) Queen Elizabeth professed to 
 claim no other authority than that of our English 
 Sovereigns of old. The Church, by no act of her 
 own, gave up her right. SJie has acquiesced only in 
 a system not vicious at first but gradually becoming 
 such.'' 
 
 Did then the English Sovereigns down to the time 
 of Elizabeth wield over the Church the full powers 
 
40 
 
 of the Papal Supremacy ? What can be more utterly 
 opposed than the words of Hooker setting forth the 
 actual state of things, and justifying it, and those of 
 the Guardian's revered correspondent? 
 
 But, Dr. Cardwell continues, " Large, however, 
 as is the field allowed by the statute for the exercise 
 of the supremacy, its boundary is made more indis- 
 tinct, and at last vanishes in the distance, when we 
 include within it the further range that was claimed 
 and recognised at different periods of our history, 
 under the title of the King's prerogative. It was 
 decided in the well-known case of Cawdry, that the 
 Act of Supremacy (1 Eliz. c. 1.) " was not a statute 
 introductory of a new law, but declaratory of the 
 old;" and that if it had never been enacted " the 
 King or Queen of England might make such a com- 
 mission, as is there provided, by the ancient preroga- 
 tive and law of England." So that independently of 
 the power acknowledged in the statute, there was 
 yet in reserve within the capacious bosom of the 
 common law an undefined authority, which, being 
 similar in its character, might also be equal in its 
 amount, to the omnipotence of Rome." Annals, Pre- 
 face, p. xi. &c. 
 
 The difference between the regale as exercised by 
 the earlier or later Norman princes, and that supre- 
 macy which was settled on the Crown in 1559, is a 
 difference not of degree but of kind. There are a 
 vast number of mixed causes in which the civil and 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction may seem to come in contact, 
 
41 
 
 and in which, unless wisely and considerately wielded, 
 they will clash. Here such princes as Edward I. 
 and Edward III. would be jealous of their temporal 
 authority being infringed — but that they claimed to 
 themselves supremacy of spiritual jurisdiction might 
 about as reasonably be contended as that S. Louis in 
 France did so, whose jealous care of his temporal 
 prerogative is equally well known, and who yet has 
 been canonized by the Roman Church. The same 
 prerogative in spiritual matters which was claimed in 
 right of their crown by Henry VIH. and Elizabeth, 
 belonged, so far as it was legitimate, to the crowns 
 of France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and all the 
 Princes of Europe. Which of them has ever been 
 accused of annexing to his throne a spiritual supre- 
 macy ? Louis XIV. pushed to their furthest extent 
 what are called the Galilean liberties, but will any 
 one say that he claimed to give to his bishops their 
 spiritual jurisdiction, or to be the supreme judge of 
 doctrine ? Is there not the greatest possible differ- 
 ence between the occasional clashing of two powers, 
 one founded in men's belief and opinion on the special 
 grant of Christ, and the other strong in material 
 force, and representing the natural right of society to 
 govern itself, wherein the latter would often commit 
 acts of injustice on the former ; between such a state 
 of things, I say, on the one side, under which fall the 
 acts of our own ante-reformation princes, and of the 
 French, Spanish, and Portuguese kings, and the 
 German emperors in all times ; and on the other 
 
42 
 
 side, the settled and undisputed combination of the 
 two powers of jurisdiction, civil and spiritual, in one 
 head? The latter has been taken to be the true 
 account of the state of things among ourselves by all 
 continental w^riters from the beginning to the present 
 day. And all our history bears witness that this is a 
 correct judgment. 
 
 Does such a state of things allow the existence of 
 the Church of Christ at all as one spiritual empire all 
 over the earth 1 Or does it make it " only the 
 ministry which the secular power uses for teaching 
 such religious doctrines, duties, and observances as 
 the state from time to time shall choose?"' I sup- 
 pose the answer to this question will carry with it 
 the answer to another, Is it Christian or Anti- 
 christian ? 
 
 Had the intent been simply to take away a foreign 
 court of appeal, and to make all spiritual causes de- 
 terminable in this country, the obvious way would 
 have been to allow no appeal from the Court of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of all England. 
 This would in effect have made him a Patriarch, so 
 far as British rule was concerned : but the civil 
 power was as far as possible from having any such 
 intent : it coveted and it seized the supreme spiritual 
 jurisdiction, — the whole Papal Supremacy — for itself. 
 For it will be seen that this supremacy, as defined above 
 by Dr. Cardwell, from Dr. Lingard, consisted in func- 
 tions all springing from the power of Jurisdiction, and 
 not from the power of Order. 
 
43 
 
 Nor in the world's history hitherto has any idea 
 been more thoroughly worked out in act, and carried 
 forth into every possible consequence, than the idea 
 of the civil power being the source of spiritual juris- 
 diction in the Church of England. Since 1559, this 
 may be called the basis on which all the relations of 
 the State to the Church have been settled. The 
 first act of the state to the nascent communion typi- 
 fied and summed up in a wonderful and prophetic 
 way the whole regimen for three hundred years. 
 Our actual Episcopate is derived from Parker : it 
 possesses whatever jurisdiction he had, neither more 
 nor less. The following is Mr. Lewis's account : I 
 am not aware that any facts which he has stated are 
 incorrect — and if not, I am sure they are so important 
 that they ought not to be shirked, but an answer 
 given to them, if an answer can be found. 
 
 " The Catholic Bishops, at the accession of Queen 
 Elizabeth, were deprived of their sees for refusing to 
 take the oath of supremacy, the Bishop of Llandaff 
 excepted : to him, therefore, with certain other 
 Bishops, the Queen issued a Commission to confirm 
 the election of Parker, and to consecrate him to be 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 " The first of these prelates, that is, the Bishop of 
 Llandaff, and the last, Bale, Bishop of Ossory, are 
 described as in actual possession of their sees. The 
 others were such as had been deprived of their 
 bishoprics, and had not yet obtained possession of 
 any, or were suffragans, and consequently had no 
 
44 
 
 jurisdiction in the province of Canterbury, but such 
 as was delegated to them, from time to time, by those 
 whose suffragans they were. The deprived prelates 
 were now elected to bishoprics, except one ; but their 
 election had not been confirmed, consequently they 
 had no jurisdiction of their own. When the day 
 appointed for the confirmation of Parker was come, 
 tlie Bishops who appeared to perform the ceremonial 
 were, Barlow, Bishop elect of Chichester ; Story, 
 elect of Hereford ; Coverdale, formerly Bishop of 
 Exeter ; and John, suffragan of Bedford ; not one of 
 these Bishops was in actual possession of his see, 
 and the suffragan of Bedford depended for his au- 
 thority on the allowance or commission of his su- 
 perior. 
 
 " The Queen, therefore, in her Commission to 
 these prelates, inserted this unusual clause : — 
 
 * Supplentes nihilominus, suprema authoritate nos- 
 tra regia, ex mero motu ac certa scientia nostris, si 
 quid aut in his, quae juxta mandatum nostrum prse- 
 dictum per vos fient, aut in vobis aut vestrum aliquo, 
 conditione, statu, facultate vestris ad praemissa perfi- 
 cienda desit aut deerit eorum, quae per statuta hujus 
 regnij aut per leges ecclesiasticas in hac parte requi- 
 runtur, aut necessaria sunt, temporis ratione et rerum 
 necessitate id postulante.' 
 
 " To this clause in their Commission the prelates 
 make particular reference in the sentence of con- 
 firmation. The election of ' the venerable man, Mr. 
 Matthew Parker, we confirm,' they say, ' by the 
 
45 
 
 supreme authority of the said most serene lady, our 
 Queen, committed unto us in this behalf : supplying 
 by the supreme royal authority, of the Queen's mere 
 motion and certain knowledge, delegated to us, 
 all defects in this election, as well in those things 
 done by us, and proceeded with according to the 
 commandment given us, or that are or shall be in 
 ourselves, or in the condition, state, or capacity, of 
 any one of us for this performance.' (Bramh. 3. 
 202.) Parker was consecrated December 17, 1559, 
 by Barlow, assisted by Scory, John of Bedford, and 
 Miles Coverdale. Barlow and Scory w^re after- 
 wards confirmed in their respective bishoprics by 
 Parker, whom they had confirmed in his before, and 
 Coverdale never resumed his episcopal functions. 
 Supposing that the consecrators of Parker were 
 themselves Bishops, validly ordained, Parker's con- 
 secration was good, so far as the episcopal character 
 is concei^ned. It appears, however, that his conse- 
 crators had no authority to consecrate him from any 
 Bishop in the actual use of his jurisdiction : which 
 makes the act defective in the point of authority. 
 They had no more right to consecrate an Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, than they had to consecrate one for 
 Milan. In their own right they had none : by dele- 
 gation from ecclesiastical superiors they had none. 
 But they proceeded to confirm Parker's election by 
 virtue of the Queen's writ ; and whatever authority 
 they received thereby, that they conferred on him, 
 they had none other : and so they leave it on record 
 
46 
 
 that they confirmed their future metropolitan under a 
 civil writ, by which their service and condition were 
 made available, and their clear deficiencies duly 
 supplied. 
 
 " Whatsoever authority to govern Christian men 
 was received by Parker, that authority, and no more, 
 has he transmitted to his successors ; it is now shared 
 by the living Bishops of the Anglican Church, and 
 whatever it be, it was derived" (i. e. so far as the 
 question of jurisdiction is concerned,) " from the civil 
 power, which he seems to have acknowledged in his 
 act of homage, as we saw before. This consecration 
 was questioned, and doubts were made about it, and 
 the following consecrations, whose validity depends 
 upon it. In order to allay people's perplexities, an 
 act of parliament was passed, 8 Eliz. c. 1, to pronounce 
 ' That all acts and things heretofore had, made or 
 done by any person or persons in or about any con- 
 secration, confirmation, or investing of any person or 
 persons elected to the office or dignity of any Arch- 
 bishop or Bishop within this realm, or within any 
 other the Queen's Majesty's dominions or countries 
 by virtue of the Queen's Majesty's letters patent or 
 commission, since the beginning of her Majesty's 
 reign, be, and shall be by authority of this present 
 parliament, declared, judged and deemed, at and from 
 every of the several times of the doing thereof, good 
 and perfect to all respects and purposes; any matter 
 or thing that can or may be objected to the contrary 
 thereof in any wise notwithstanding.' 
 
47 
 
 " If it be within the power of the civil authority 
 to give strength or completeness to what is or ought 
 to be divine, then the confirmation and consecration 
 of Parker cannot be questioned. 
 
 " The legislative body of the kingdom has not 
 only decided that the consecrations made according 
 to the form of ordination published in the reign of 
 King Edward VI. shall be good, but has also given 
 some reasons for its sentence. These reasons are, 
 that Henry VIII. had ' the supreme power, jurisdic- 
 tion, order, rule, and authority over the estate eccle- 
 siastical,' and that this same power was ' annexed to 
 the imperial crown of this realm,' with which Queen 
 Elizabeth was ' lawfully invested,' who, having in 
 her Majesty's ' order and disposition all the said 
 jurisdictions, powers, and authorities over the estate 
 ecclesiastical and temporal,' had caused divers men 
 to be made bishops. That she had ' further, for the 
 avoiding of all ambiguities and questions that might 
 be objected against the lawful confirmations, invest- 
 ing, and consecrations of the said archbishops and 
 bishops,' not only used such words and sentences as 
 were accustomed to be used in the reigns of her 
 father and brother, ' but also hath used and put in 
 her Majesty's letters patent divers other general words 
 and sentences, whereby her Highness, hi) her supreme 
 power and authority, hath dispensed with all causes 
 or doubts of any imperfection or disability that can 
 or may in any wise be objected against the same.' 
 Here we have the meaning of that singular clause to 
 
48 
 
 which Barlow and his assistants made such careful 
 reference. The canonical difficulties to Parker's con- 
 firmation were removed by a dispensation from the 
 civil power." 
 
 Mr. Lewis's next remark seems much to be noted : 
 " Before the consecration of Parker, the English 
 prelates might perhaps have insisted on t/ieir original 
 jurisdiction, and, disregarding the statutes, claimed 
 their authority, because they had been duly con- 
 firmed by prelates who had entered canonically into 
 their respective sees. But in this case, there is no 
 shadow of ecclesiastical rule ; the confirming bishops 
 were unconfirmed themselves for eleven days after 
 Parker s confirmation ; and on the day of his conse- 
 cration were not certain that even their election to 
 their bishoprics would be allowed by the Queen. 
 They consecrated Parker, December 17 ; but the 
 Royal assent to their election was not given till next 
 day. This confirmation of Parker was made by those 
 who had no authority to make it ; they were without 
 any recognised jurisdiction. Let it be allowed that 
 he (Barlow) had been duly consecrated ; still he was 
 disabled from executing his functions : he and his 
 colleagues had no jurisdiction. — On the supposition 
 that they were true bishops, they had power to ad- 
 minister the sacraments, but in no particular place, 
 nor to any particular persons; they were bishops, 
 but they had no subjects : all acts of jurisdiction 
 performed by them under these circumstances would 
 be null — all acts of their order irregular. Supposing 
 
49 
 
 them to be true bishops, nay, to have been conse- 
 crated by the Supreme Pontiff himself, and under no 
 canonical disabilities, they could not confer orders 
 which should be valid in respect of execution : as 
 they had no jurisdiction themselves, they could con- 
 fer none upon Parker, and that defect must still 
 inhere in Parker's successors ; time cannot cure it. 
 Original sin is not done away with by our distance 
 from Adam, but by baptism. This defect of juris- 
 diction in the original consecration cannot be sup- 
 plied by length of time, (quod ab initio nullum est, 
 tractu temporis non convalescit)." — Notes on the 
 Royal Supremacy, p. 70-6. 
 
 And as Archbishop Parker's jurisdiction was an 
 emanation from that annexed to the Crown, so the 
 Crown thought fit, about eighteen years later, to 
 withdraw his jurisdiction from Parker's successor, 
 Grindal. This prelate was not as zealous as the 
 Queen wished him to be against the Puritans, so she 
 suspended him. In vain did twelve of his suffragan 
 bishops petition the Queen for his restoration, in a 
 Latin letter still extant, wherein they assure Her 
 Majesty of their undoubted loyalty, by the fact that 
 they should not be allowed to survive her a single 
 day. " Nos, quos ecclesice gubernationi prcefecisti, 
 cum a tua majestate discesserimus, nihil habemus 
 humanum, quod speremus vel ad unum diem posse 
 imminentem cervicibus et capitibus nostris calamita- 
 tem avertere." — Cardwell, Annals, i. 391. In vain 
 Convocation pleaded for him ; he remained for years 
 
50 
 
 suspended, and had at last prepared his resignation, 
 when death carried him off. 
 
 This, it may be said, was heat of Tudor blood ; but 
 then Charles I., under Laud's guidance, suspended 
 Archbishop Abbot in like fashion. He issued " a 
 commission to sequester Archbishop Abbot from all 
 his ecclesiastical offices and jurisdiction." It ran 
 thus : " Charles, by the grace of God, &c. Know 
 ye that we, reposing special trust and confidence in 
 your approved wisdoms, learning, and integrity, have 
 nominated, authorized, and appointed, and do by 
 these presents nominate, authorize, and appoint you, 
 the said George Lord Bishop of London, Richard 
 Lord Bishop of Durham, John Lord Bishop of Ro- 
 chester, John Lord Bishop of Oxford, and William 
 Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, or any four, three, 
 or two of you, to do, execute, and perform all and 
 every those acts, matters, and things, any way touch- 
 ing or concerning the power, jurisdiction, or autho- 
 rity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in causes or 
 matters ecclesiastical, as amply, fully, and effectually, 
 to all intents and purposes, as the said Archbishop 
 might have done. And we do hereby command you, 
 and every of you, to attend, perform, and execute 
 this our Royal pleasure in and touching the premises, 
 until we shall declare our will and pleasure to the 
 contrary. And we do further hereby will and com- 
 mand the said Archbishop of Canterbury quietly 
 and without interruption to permit and suffer you, 
 the said George, &c., any four, three, or two of you, 
 
^^ 51 
 
 to execute and perform this our commission, accord- 
 ing to our Royal pleasure thereby signified." — Card- 
 well, Annals, ii. 165-8. 
 
 But the most remarkable act, perhaps, of the Royal 
 supremacy extant, is the absolving this same Arch- 
 bishop Abbot, at a former period, from the canonical 
 irregularity of having killed a man by accident, vi'hen 
 hunting at Bramzill Park. "The occurrence and its 
 consequences vv^ere announced by the Lord Keeper 
 Williams" (then Bishop of Lincoln, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of York) " to the Duke of Buckingham in the 
 following manner : ' His Grace, upon this accident, 
 is by the common law of England to forfeit all his 
 estate unto his Majesty ; and by the canon law, 
 which is in force with us, irregular ipso facto, and 
 so suspended from all ecclesiastical function, until he 
 be again restored by his superior ; which, I take it, is 
 the King's Majesty, in this rank and order of eccle- 
 siastical jurisdictions.'' " " The King," says Bishop 
 Hacket, " saw that whether the person of the Arch- 
 bishop were tainted by this act or not, yet his metro- 
 political function was unsettled in many men's opi- 
 nions ; he heard that the acts of spiritual courts were 
 unsped, and came to no end, till sentence were pro- 
 nounced one way or other by the supreme authority. 
 Therefore a commission was directed from his Ma- 
 jesty to ten persons, to meet together for this purpose 
 about the beginning of October." The result of their 
 deliberations was, that the King appointed a com- 
 mission of bishops, Andrewes being one of them, and 
 
52 
 
 by their means " assoiled the Archbishop from all 
 irregularity, scandal, or infamation, pronouncing him 
 to be capable to use all metropolitical authority." — 
 Cardwell, Annals, ii. 136. The Royal decree runs : 
 " De gratia nostra speciali, et ex auctoritate nostra re- 
 gia suprema et ecclesiastica qua fungimur,— plenam 
 concedimus facultatem et potestatem per prassentes, 
 — quatenus — cum praefato reverendissimo patre su- 
 peromni et omnimodo juris vel facti defectu, censura, 
 sive poena aliqua canonica et ecclesiastica, praesertim 
 vero irregularitate omni, seu irregularitatis nota, (si 
 quae forsitan ratione praemissorum contracta fuit, vel 
 quibusdam contracta esse videantur,) utque in sus- 
 ceptis ordinibus et jurisdictionibus secundum concre- 
 ditam sibi ratione ordinis et archiepiscopatus sui 
 potestatem libere ministrare, frui, exercere, et gau- 
 dere valeat, ad majorum cautelam dispensetis." — 
 Collier, ix. 378, who observes in loco, " By this in- 
 strument, the canons, in case there was need, are 
 overruled and dispensed with. The force of Abbot's 
 character was revived, and he is fully restored to the 
 exercises of his functions. This is a wonderful relief 
 from the Crown ! and supposes a patriarchal at least, 
 if not a papal authority, vested in the King. Vol. 
 vii. 418. 
 
 What boots it, after this, to mention the deposition 
 of Archbishop Sancroft by Queen Mary II., or the 
 numberless acts of modern times erecting bishop- 
 rics, altering the jurisdictions of existing bishoprics, 
 naming commissions to which supreme ecclesiastical 
 
53 
 
 jurisdiction over the whole Church for certain pur- 
 poses is given, appointing a supreme court for heresy, 
 and in one case, which is without a parallel, assign- 
 ing Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and Abyssinia to be the 
 limits of the "spiritual jurisdiction" of a certain 
 bishop. These acts in former times were not reputed 
 tyrannical, at least the Church herself never com- 
 plained of them, and they have been borne very 
 patiently in the present day, until at last the supreme 
 ecclesiastical court — deriving its jurisdiction from 
 the civil power — has thought fit to annul an article 
 of the creed. There is then no other way of inter- 
 preting the acts of three hundred years, manifold as 
 they are, and yet stamped with one aspect, but this, 
 that they have indeed their proper rationale, which 
 is, that the supremacy of spiritual jurisdiction over 
 the Church, by many Christians supposed to have 
 been conferred by our Lord on St. Peter and his suc- 
 cessors, has, so far as regards the British dominions, 
 been transferred by Act of Parliament, or, as others 
 say, in virtue of a prerogative always latent in the 
 crown — though why in this rather than in other 
 crowns does not appear — to the sovereign for the time 
 being of these realms. 
 
 II, Let us now proceed to say a few words on the 
 other division of the power of spiritual Jurisdiction, 
 that in foro interno. 
 
 Jurisdiction iii foro interno is the lawful use of 
 the power of remitting sins upon confession of them. 
 This power itself, as we have seen above, is part of 
 
54 
 
 the power of Order, which theologians divide into 
 two, that which is over the true Body of Christ to 
 consecrate it, and that which is over the mystical 
 Body of Christ for the sanctification of the faithful 
 and their deliverance from sin. 
 
 But though this power is in itself a part of Order, 
 and of the sacerdotal character, which is indelible, 
 as being given by consecration, yet the lawful exer- 
 cise of this power belongs to Jurisdiction. For, by 
 the words used at the consecration of a priest. Receive 
 the Holy Ghost ; whose sins thou dost remit, they 
 are remitted, and whose sins thou dost retain, they 
 are retained ; a true power is given of itself, and in 
 its own order, sufficient to remit the sins of those put 
 under him, when he has them; but by these words 
 jurisdiction or subjects are not given. The power, 
 in its own nature, stretches to the absolution of all, 
 and therefore these words of our Lord, repeated by 
 the bishop in his person, are so indeterminate and 
 universal ; but the use of that power is limited ac- 
 cording to the jurisdiction possessed by the priest, 
 and this must come by a further grant from his 
 superior. 
 
 We are in practice very familiar with this distinc- 
 tion ; e. g. a man is ordained a priest by a bishop, and 
 from that time forth he is as much a priest as any 
 one can be, yet he can perform no priestly act in- 
 volving spiritual jurisdiction, without cure of souls, 
 delegated to him either permanently, or at least 
 during the performance of that act. A bishop who 
 
55 
 
 had resigned a colonial see was lately resident in a 
 country parish, yet, though superior in power of 
 Order to the parish priest, he could perform no one 
 act in that parish involving Jurisdiction save by the 
 permission of the parish priest. 
 
 Or, again, the analogy of temporal government 
 will illustrate this law of the divine commonwealth. 
 A man holds the rank of captain in the navy, as 
 another does that of priest; but as the former does 
 not therefore hold a right to command any particular 
 ship, or seaman, without a special commission there- 
 to, which may continue or be withdrawn, without 
 aflecting his rank as captain, so neither has the latter 
 authority to exercise the power of the keys over this 
 or that person unless he has legitimate jurisdiction, 
 i. e. the office of a spiritual superior, over him. 
 
 Even the material key can only open its proper 
 lock, nor can any active virtue take effect save on 
 its proper matter. Now a person is made the proper 
 matter of the power of Order by means of Jurisdic- 
 tion, and so no one can use the keys upon one over 
 whom he has no jurisdiction. 
 
 According to all this, for absolution from sin after 
 sacramental confession a two-fold power is required, 
 the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction. 
 The first is equally in all priests, but not the second, 
 which descends from superiors to inferiors, and must 
 be used according to the limitation imposed by the 
 superior. 
 
 And there is another most important distinction 
 
56 
 
 between acts flowing from Order and acts flowing 
 from Jurisdiction. Acts flowing from Order, though 
 done wrongly and illicitly, are yet, when done, valid; 
 but acts flowing from Jurisdiction, if done upon those 
 over whom the doer has no jurisdiction, are abso- 
 lutely invalid and null. So that all absolution pro- 
 nounced by a priest over a person not spiritually 
 subject to him, is utterly without force. And a per- 
 son cannot make himself subject to another at his 
 own will, for this power descends from above, and 
 does not ascend from below. 
 
 Let us see the effect of this. A bishop has juris- 
 diction over his own diocese : he imparts a portion 
 of that jurisdiction to every priest to whom he gives 
 the cure of souls : and in that cure of souls are com- 
 prised all means necessary for their well-being, of 
 which the hearing confessions and giving absolution 
 is assuredly one. Consequently all parish priests 
 may be said to have ordinary jurisdiction for this 
 purpose over their own flock, but not over others. 
 
 Again, a bishop may delegate such power of using 
 the keys to any priest over any, or over all, persons 
 in his diocese ; for they being his own spiritual sub- 
 jects, he can impart a portion of the pastoral care 
 over them to any person duly qualified, i. e. by sacer- 
 dotal orders, whom he pleases. 
 
 But in default of either ordinary or delegated 
 jurisdiction, a priest cannot, by the mere power of 
 Order, hear confession and give absolution ; and if 
 he does so, his absolution will be null and void. 
 
57 
 
 These are not rules and principles of the modern 
 Church, or of the western Church, merely, but of 
 the ancient and the Catholic Church. For many 
 hundred years this power of absolution seems to 
 have been exercised immediately by the bishop, or 
 by priests living in common with him, and under 
 his immediate superintendence. And when, in pro- 
 cess of time, the bishop communicated a part of his 
 pastoral charge to priests living at a distance from 
 him, this law of jurisdiction was universally ob- 
 served. 
 
 Now all power which cannot issue into act save 
 on the presupposition of certain rules depends on 
 the power which makes those rules. But the priest 
 cannot absolve and bind unless the jurisdiction of 
 a superior in him be presupposed, by which those 
 whom he absolves are subject to him. But he may 
 consecrate any matter determinated to that end by 
 Christ, nor is anything more for this required of the 
 necessity of the sacrament. 
 
 But one exception there is to this necessity of 
 jurisdiction, by the universal practice of the Church 
 from the beginning, or rather in this particular case 
 the practice has given the jurisdiction, viz., that any 
 priest may absolve any penitent from any sin, in 
 articulo mortis. 
 
 All this doctrine may be summed up thus. All 
 spiritual power of the sacerdotal character is given 
 together with a certain consecration, and therefore 
 the keys are given with Order; but the use of the 
 
58 
 
 keys requires its proper matter, which is a people 
 made subject by jurisdiction, and therefore one, be- 
 fore he has jurisdiction, has the keys, but has not the 
 act of using them. 
 
 A consequence of this is, that while in all schis- 
 matics, heretics, excommunicated, suspended, or de- 
 graded persons, the power of the keys remains as to 
 its essence, yet the use of the keys is barred through 
 defect of matter. For, the use of the keys requiring 
 superiority in the user over him on whom it is used, 
 the proper matter on which the use of the keys 
 is exercised is a spiritual subject; and since it is 
 through the order of the Church that one is subject 
 to another, therefore a former subject may be sub- 
 tracted from his obedience by those who have the 
 rule in the Church. Whence, as the Church deprives 
 heretics, schismatics, and such like, by withdrawing 
 their subjects, either simply or partially, so far as 
 they are deprived they cannot have the use of the 
 keys. 
 
 And now for the bearing of the Royal Supremacy 
 on all this. We have seen how it seized upon and 
 appropriated the full Papal Supremacy as to Juris- 
 diction in foroexterno; did it also lay claim to Juris- 
 diction in foro interno? My belief is, that it troubled 
 itself very little about the matter, and, considering it 
 as depending on the power of Order, which it is, and 
 on that alone, which it is not, was willing enough 
 that, so long as the whole outward jurisdiction was 
 allowed to flow from itself, the inward might accom- 
 
59 
 
 pany those whom it selected for its agents. I sup- 
 pose, moreover, that for fifty years after Elizabeth's 
 accession sacramental confession was very little prac- 
 tised in the Church of England, by some ames 
 d elite, like Hooker's, perhaps, but never by the mass 
 of Christ's poor. When, in the times of James and 
 Charles, our divines had risen to higher notions of 
 the Church and its functions, they supposed this 
 power of inward spiritual jurisdiction to reside in 
 bishops and priests. 
 
 But in the mean time a certain consequence had 
 not been heeded. The supreme power which be- 
 stows one part of jurisdiction bestows the other like- 
 wise. Thus, if the civil power take a county from 
 one see and give it to another, not only the power of 
 external jurisdiction but that of internal likewise is 
 thus attempted to be conveyed from one person to 
 another — one bishop to another. For the parish 
 priests derive their jurisdiction from the bishop, and 
 the bishop from the power that gave him such a 
 county for a part of his see ; and if that power have 
 by the law of God and the grant of Christ no au- 
 thority to convey spiritual jurisdiction at all to the 
 bishop, it will follow that all spiritual acts involving 
 jurisdiction done in such county are null and void. 
 
 Looking therefore at Christ's kingdom as a real 
 thing, not a state creation, not an engine of tem- 
 poral government, not a toy for statesmen to play 
 with, nor a treasury from which they are to draw 
 rewards for their followers, (Oh, shame and unspeak- 
 
60 
 
 able disgrace that such things can be said, and so 
 truly said, that the mere saying them sounds like a 
 libel on existing powers!) looking at Christ's Church 
 once more, as His kingdom, not of this world but in 
 it, nothing less than inextricable confusion, than the 
 rendering dubious all spiritual powers most necessary 
 for the soul's good, than the reducing minds in pro- 
 portion as they are tender and conscientious into the 
 uttermost doubt about all holy things, — can arise 
 from the claim of the civil power any where to be 
 the source of spiritual jurisdiction. 
 
 That claim — let us as Englishmen, as Christians, 
 think of it well — exists now — and in past time has 
 existed in one communion only on the face of the 
 earth calling itself Christian, \-iz. the Anglican 
 Church, and on the part of one sovereign only 
 calling himself Christian, the sovereign named the 
 Defender of the Faith. 
 
 I quite agree with Mr. Irons that " in these active 
 times, (and those more active that are coming,) it 
 will be necessary that we ultimately have a theory 
 and practice of churchmanship that will bear the in- 
 spection of common sense." 
 
 I ask, is that theory the theory of 1 Eliz. c. 1 . ? 
 and that practice the practice of the last three cen- 
 turies ? 
 
 Let us see the two main grounds on which it is 
 based, 
 
 1 . It is based on the denial that the Church of 
 Christ is one mystical body^ — one simple kingdom 
 
61 
 
 dispersed throughout the whole world, g-overned by 
 spiritual officers, who derive their title and their 
 power so to govern from the express grant of our 
 Lord to his Apostles. 
 
 Instead of this it mixes up the Church of Christ 
 in each nation where it may be locally situate, with 
 the order and jurisdiction of temporal government : 
 yet these are two things in their end, their origin, 
 and their subjects essentially distinct, as has been 
 shown. 
 
 The highest notion of the Church to which it 
 rises would seem to be that of the synagogue under 
 the old law. Now the Jewish Church was national 
 only, and therefore no standard for a Catholic Church, 
 and again, it was typical, both its kings and its 
 priests prefiguring in their office and functions our 
 Lord — so that to argue from the power of godly 
 kings in Israel to the like power of godly kings in 
 the Church of Christ, would be, as has well been 
 said, to overlook the fact that our Lord has come in 
 the flesh, and has taken up into His own Person both 
 the priesthood of Aaron, and the royal power of 
 David, and derived forth from that Person for the 
 government of His Church, a new power embracing 
 both, according to the quotation from S. Epiphanius 
 given above. 
 
 2. It is based on the further similar denial that 
 there is no proper priesthood in the Church of Christ, 
 and therefore no special power to govern it, beyond 
 that which is in the civil magistrate, or in any com- 
 
62 
 
 munity, by riglit of nature, for the preservation of 
 order. 
 
 It seems indeed, but only seems, to escape from 
 this by urging the distinction between actions re- 
 quiring the power of Order, and those requiring only 
 Jurisdiction. It is said that the sovereign may exer- 
 cise every act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by himself, 
 and has, unto this, supreme power, and so that this 
 is sufficient for him to hold a spiritual primacy, 
 though he cannot exercise of himself the other actions 
 which require a power of Order. But this is espe- 
 cially opposed to Christ's institution ; for it was His 
 will that the Church should be ruled by those whom 
 He made the chief ministers of the word of God and 
 of the sacraments, that is by bishops, in whom the 
 power of Order exists in excellency. Moreover it is 
 sufficiently absurd for the Church's supreme governor 
 not to be able to exercise in his own person the chief 
 acts which are directed not only to the worship of 
 God, but to the sanctification of the faithful. For in 
 civil government inferior magistrates can do nothing 
 in respect to that which their power has for its end, 
 which the sovereign cannot do in higher degree in 
 order to the same end. Much more then, in the 
 Christian commonwealth, ecclesiastical power, whether 
 of Order or Jurisdiction, being directed to a spiritual 
 end and the sanctification of souls, these two powers 
 ought to be so arranged in reference to each other as 
 to be joined in the supreme head of the Church in 
 all their perfection and excellency. 
 
63 
 
 If these are the grounds, what are the results ? 
 
 I have supposed throughout that the orders of the 
 Church of England are valid, and untouched by the 
 operation of the Royal Supremacy — for this is ano- 
 ther and a very difficult question, and I wish to take 
 only what is indubitable — but if unto the right use 
 of Orders valid Jurisdiction is required, for the Arch- 
 bishop as Primate, for the Bishop as Diocesan, for 
 the Parish priest as incumbent, for sinful souls who 
 need absolving, for anxious souls who need comfort- 
 ing, and for God's blessing on all acts of Christian 
 ministry, — and if acts flowing from jurisdiction, but 
 done without jurisdiction, which as much bi/ the 
 Word of God as by the tradition of the church comes 
 from the grant of Christ and not from the temporal 
 power — if such acts are absolutely 7iull and invalid, I 
 leave for others to trace in this respect the result of 
 the Royal Supremacy on the Church of England. 
 
 One other result must be briefly mentioned. Su- 
 premacy of spiritual jurisdiction carries with it neces- 
 sarily the right and the burden of supreme judgment 
 as to doctrine. The act of 1 Eliz. c. 1, mentions the 
 power of naming commissioners to judge of heresies 
 — those who judge of heresies must define truth : and 
 Hooker is careful to say after mentioning heresy 
 " whatever any spiritual authority or power hath done 
 or might heretofore have done for the remedy of these 
 evils in lawful sort, as much in every degree our laws 
 have fully granted that the king for ever may do, not 
 only by setting ecclesiastical synods on work, that the 
 
64 
 
 thing may be their act and the king their motion unto 
 it, but by commissioners few or many, who having the 
 kings letters patent may in the virtue thereof execute 
 the premises as agent, in the right not of their own 
 peculiar and ordinary but of his supereminent power." 
 Thus the Sovereign is not bound to act by synod or 
 convocation — why should he ? It was the very idea 
 of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth to put the Supremacy 
 in his single person — his confirmation alone gives 
 their force to canon or dogma, according to this idea. 
 In short the clavis potentiae and the clavis scientiae — 
 the universal power of government in Christ's Church, 
 the power to rule, to distribute, suspend, or restore 
 jurisdiction, and the power to define verities of the 
 faith and to interpret holy Scripture — this power 
 with liberty to exercise it " by commissioners few or 
 many," and, it may be added, lay or clerical, believers 
 or unbelievers, has descended by act of parliament, 
 or a prerogative inherent in their crown and quite 
 unique in the history of the world, together with their 
 ample temporal dominion, on the shoulders of the 
 kings and queens of England. 
 
 But what is the effect of this on the status of the 
 Church of England ? It is that the actual bond of 
 her existence — her characteristic as a religious com- 
 munion — that which makes her a whole— is the right 
 of the civil power, now lately exercised, to be the su- 
 preme judge of her doctrine. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 A PAPER introduced by Collier in his Church His- 
 tory, Part 2, Book 2, (vol. 4, p. 253, Straker's 
 Edition,) transcribed by him from the Paper office, and 
 written, he supposes, in the reign of King Charles II., 
 entitled — 
 
 " A Discourse concerning his Majesty's supreme Power 
 Ecclesiastical, established by the Laws of this King- 
 dom, at this present time in their full force and vi- 
 gour. 
 
 " Whereas in the title of a petition of the clergy, A discourse 
 for the release of the praemunire, king Henry VIII. (//^ king's 
 was styled the supreme head of the Church and ''^pZ'lcy! 
 clergy of England, ' quantum per legem Christi licet,' A. 23. R'egni 
 as far as it was lawful by the law of Christ ; that doubt- 
 ful mitigation being offensive to the king, the clergy in 
 their synod unanimously, and without ambiguity, de- 
 clared him supreme head of the English Church. ' Om- 
 nium sententiis sine ulla ambiguitate Ecclesiis Anglicanse 
 supremum caput declaratus est.' — See Archbishop Par- 
 ker's Antiquitates Britan. p. 326. 
 
 " Shortly after, upon a paper sent them from the 
 king, that no constitution in their synods or convoca- 
 tions should be made, enacted, promulged, or exer- 
 cised, unless the king first give his assent to their 
 deliberation and maTcing, and afterwards approve the 
 same under his broad seal, the clergy made their abso- 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 25 Hm. 8. lute submission.— See the act of parliament, and king 
 James's declaration before the constitutions, 1603 ; and 
 king Charles I. before the canons, 1640. 
 cfp^i9'^' " ^" aforesaid act, a power is given the king, 
 with the advice of the major part of thirty-two persons, 
 whereof sixteen to be laymen, to reform all the old canons 
 and decrees of the Church; which thirty-two persons 
 are to be chosen and appointed by his majesty to annul 
 such laws as shall be thought, by the more part of them, 
 worthy to be annulled ; and to appoint and confirm 
 such others as shall be judged by them to stand with 
 cIp^iTand the laws of God. See the statutes whence this power is 
 35 Hen. 8. given him during his life, and the same was given to 
 A?3.aml4. king Edward VI. It is true that these statutes were 
 Edw. 6. but temporary : yet the effect of them is now in force, 
 A. 1571. which is the body of ecclesiastical laws, compiled by 
 them, entitled, ' Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum,' 
 printed several times, with the declarations of king 
 Henry VIII. and king Edward VI. before them: and 
 one of those laws, very remarkable, and particularly 
 belonging to his majesty's supreme authority in causes 
 ecclesiastical, is this : ' Rex tam in archiepiscopos, epis- 
 copos, clericos, et alios ministros, quam in laicos, intra 
 sua regna et dominia, plenissimam jurisdictionem tam 
 civilem, quam ecclesiasticam habet et exercere potest; 
 chm omnis jurisdictio, et ecclesiastica et secularis, ab eo 
 tanquam ex uno et eodem fonte derivatur.' All juris- 
 diction, ecclesiastical as well as secular, is derived from 
 him, as from the same and only fouutain of both. 
 
 " And this great and fundamental maxim for ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction in the Church of England is founded 
 upon the express words of several statutes, giving all 
 manner of spiritual and ecclesiastical authority to the 
 king, and taking it away from the bishops, except it be 
 by dependence and delegacy from him, explained, and 
 more particularly set down, in 1 Eliz. cap. 1, Where it 
 
67 
 
 is enacted, that 'such jurisdictions, privileges, and pre- 26 lien. 8. 
 eminences spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual ^' 
 and ecclesiastical power have heretofore been, or may 
 lawfully be, exercised or used for the visitation of eccle- 
 siastical estate and persons, and for reformation of all 
 manner of errors, heresies, schisms, crimes, vices, &c., 
 be for ever united to the imperial crown of the realm.' 
 And 37 Hen. 8. cap. 17. 'Whereas the royal majesty 
 is justly supreme head in earth of the Church of Eng- 
 land, and hath full authority to correct and punish all 
 manner of heresies, schisms, errors, vices, and to exercise 
 all other manner of jurisdictions, commonly called eccle- 
 siastical jurisdiction.' It is added, that the ' archbishop 
 and bishops have no manner of jurisdiction ecclesiastical, 
 but by, under, and from the royal majesty.' — See also 
 1 Edvv. 6. cap. 2. ' All authority of jurisdiction, spiritual 
 and temporal, is derived and deduced from the king's 
 majesty, as supreme head of these Churches and realms 
 of England and Ireland, and so justly acknowledged 
 by the clergy of the said realms, so that all courts eccle- 
 siastical within the said two realms be kept by no other 
 power or authority, either foreign or within the realm, 
 but by the authority of his most excellent majesty.' 
 
 " Amongst these jurisdictions it is evident that ex- 
 communications, suspensions, and deprivations, ab offi- 
 cio, and all manner of dispensations belonging to the 
 Church are to be understood annexed to the king : not 
 that it is affirmed that the king did ever exercise himself 
 the power of the keys, but that this right was annexed 
 to the imperial crown ; that no clergyman, being a 
 member of the Church of England and Ireland, should 
 exercise it in his dominions, in any cause, or any person, 
 without the leave and appointment of him, the supreme 
 head of the Church, nor any forbear to exercise where 
 he the head commanded it. As before the reformation 
 the inferior clergy might not exercise any Church cen- 
 
68 
 
 cap 
 
 sure contrary to the commands of their lawful superiors, 
 — which jurisdiction of their former spiritual superiors 
 was now enstated on the king-, not as one subordinate 
 to any ecclesiastical jurisdiction herein, but as one by 
 God primarily invested with the disposal thereof, from 
 whom the ecclesiastical governors within his dominions 
 derive their authority, as it is in the preface of the fore- 
 2 Edw. 6. cited statutes ; and consequently we find the king and 
 parliament authorising archbishops and bishops, &.C., by 
 virtue of their act, to take informations concerning the 
 not using of the form of Common Prayer, and to punish 
 the same by excommunication. And in statute 5 and 6 
 of Edward VI. cap. 1, concerning the New Common 
 Prayer Book, it is enacted, that, by virtue of that act, 
 the archbishops and bishops should punish by censures 
 of the Church all persons who shall offend : which 
 clause, by virtue of that act, implies that the bishops 
 might not excommunicate and use the Church censures 
 for that matter without the king and parliament's li- 
 cense, and ought to excommunicate in all matters 
 wherein the king and parliament commands it. Where- 
 by it is more clearly to be understood, that the jurisdic- 
 26 Hen. 8. tion spiritual, ascribed to the king or queen in the acts 
 Concerning afore-mentioned, involves the jurisdiction of excommu- 
 miJngwhat nication, as well as others, if not exercised by himself 
 are heresies, gud his vicescrents, and other commissioners — lav per- 
 
 See25 II. 8. ^ , . , ■ • , ,. . , . 1. 
 
 cap. 14. sons; (which practice, notvvitlistandmg, in king Henry 
 
 ffen"8.^^ the VIII. 's days, seems to be recorded and farther con- 
 
 ^ii n 8 firmed, by allowing them to be married persons, in the 
 
 cap. 26.' ' act 37 Henry VIII. cap. 17, — see the statute;) yet so 
 
 cap/il'^^' ^' established in the king as to appoint when, and for what 
 
 and 1 Eliz. matters, the clergy within his realms shall execute or 
 
 cap. 1. re- 
 
 pealing the not execute it. And indeed this is but suitable to the 
 
 of 11*611. ^4."^^ act of submission : if the clergy may not make nor 
 
 and 5. con- enjoin any new or old spiritual laws, — if they may not 
 
 cerning J •' . ^ . ' J J 
 
 heretics. correct what they judge heresies (as appears by the 
 
69 
 
 statutes repealing the ancient ways of judging and 
 punishing of heretics) without the king's consent had 
 thereto, it is but reasonable they should not excommu- 
 nicate his subjects without his consent, for not obeying 
 such laws, or for being thought guilty of such crimes. 
 
 " As the power of all ecclesiastical censures is enstated 
 in the king, so is that also of giving all manner of li- 
 censes, dispensations, faculties, grants, &c. For all 
 laws and constitutions merely ecclesiastical, and in all 
 causes not being contrary to the Scriptures, and the 
 laws of God, it is not only taken from the pope, but 
 from the clergy of this Church, and is committed to the 
 king, after the manner enacted 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 21, 
 where the archbishop is constituted the king's instru- 
 ment in giving the said licenses, &c. But if he shall 
 refuse or deny to grant them, that then upon examina- 
 tion had in the court of Chancery, that such licences, 
 faculties, dispensations, &c. as may be granted without 
 offending against the Scriptures, the king shall com- 
 mand the archbishop to grant them by a new injunction, 
 under a penalty ; and if he refuse still to do it, the king 
 may appoint by his commission two such spiritual pre- 
 lates, or persons, as will grant them. 
 
 " And for appeals in causes spiritual, it is enacted, 25 
 Hen. VIII. cap. 19. First, that no manner of appeals 
 shall be made out of the kingdom. Secondly, that for 
 lack of justice in the court of the archbishops, commis- 
 sioners appointed by the king shall have full power and 
 authority to hear, and definitively to determine, every 
 such appeal, with the causes and all circumstances con- 
 cerning the same; and no further appeals to be made. 
 
 " Now for the exercise of this supreme jurisdiction, it 
 was enacted both in Henry VIII.'s reign, and queen 
 Ehzabeth's, anno 1 Eliz. cap. 1, and anno 8 Eliz. cap. 1, 
 that the king shall have full power and authority to 
 name and authorize by commission under his broad seal, 
 
70 
 
 such person or persons as his majesty shall think meet, 
 so they be born subjects of England, (note, that king 
 Heniy was limited to choose half of them clergymen, 
 which the present king is not,) to execute and exercise 
 under his majesty, all manner of jurisdictions, &c. to 
 visit, reform, and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, 
 &c. which by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical 
 power may lawfully be reformed, &c. See the statutes 
 with the proviso, concerning the judgment of heresy, 
 according to the canonical Scriptures, the four first ge- 
 neral councils, or any other general councils wherein the 
 same is declared heresy, by the express and plain words 
 of the said canonical Scriptures, the judgment whereof 
 belongs to the said king's vicegerent and commissioners, 
 or ultimately to the king himself, or such as shall here- 
 after be judged and determined to be heresy by the high 
 court of parliament, with the assent of the clergy in their 
 convocation. In the same statute of queen Elizabeth it 
 is added, that the branches, sentences, and words of the 
 several acts made in king Henry VIII. 's time, touching 
 supremacy, and every one of them, shall be deemed and 
 taken to extend to her highness, her heirs and successors, 
 as fully and largely as ever the said acts did extend to 
 the late king Henry VIII. Whereby it appears, that 
 though the title-head was left off, yet the supreme au- 
 thority ecclesiastical was united and annexed to the 
 imperial crown of England in queen Elizabeth's time, as 
 fully and largely as ever king Henry enjoyed it, and in 
 some respects more advantageously. 
 
 " By virtue of this supremacy ecclesiastical, Henry 
 VIII. committed the former canons and laws of the 
 Church to the arbitrement of thirty-two persons nomi- 
 nated by him, to be abrogated, corrected, reformed, as 
 they with his confirmation should think meet ; and so 
 may his majesty now reigning do the like in regard of 
 any canons, constitutions or articles, so they be not 
 
71 
 
 ratified by act of parliament, with this advantage above 
 Henry VIII., that his majesty is not limited to any 
 number of persons, nor obliged to nominate half of 
 them clergymen, but any person or persons being natural 
 born subjects to his majesty, 1 Eliz. cap. 1. And by sEliz. c. l. 
 virtue of this supremacy, king Henry VIII. did consti- 
 tute the lord Cromwell his vicar-general in spiritual 
 and ecclesiastical causes, to visit, reform, and censure 
 all manner of persons; and together with him, and 
 under him, were several other officers and judges, au_ 
 thorized with the king's commission (lay persons) to 
 exercise and execute his majesty's ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity ; and so may his majesty now reigning by force of 
 the two forementioned acts of the 1 and 8 of Elizabeth ; 
 which vicegerent or vicar-general is in parliament to 
 take place of the archbishop of Canterbury, 31 Hen. 
 VIII. cap. 10, and in the synods, or convocations of 
 the clergy, he subscribes his name before the said arch- 
 bishop, and according to the commission his majesty 
 -•shall be pleased to give him, sends out his injunctions 
 in the king's name, visits, reforms, and corrects all 
 manner of ecclesiastical persons, and in all ecclesiastical 
 causes, using and exercising the ecclesiastical censures as 
 he shall judge meet; and all this, though the said vicar- 
 general be a lay and married person. By virtue of this 37 Hen. 8. 
 supremacy ecclesiastical, the king's majesty is made the '^^P' 
 ultimate judge of heresy, and the determinor of what is 
 agreeable or repugnant to God's law. And all his subjects 
 are obliged to receive, observe, and submit unto godly 
 instructions and determinations set forth by his majesty. 
 And if any spiritual person or persons shall preach or 
 teach contrary to the determinations which are or shall 
 be set forth by his majesty, that then every such of- 
 fender offending the third time, shall be deemed and 
 judged an heretic, and shall suffer pains of death by 
 burning. See the statute, 34 and 35 Hen. VIII. cap. 1, The title of 
 
72 
 
 which though it be not in force in regard of the par- 
 ticular matters therein contained, viz. Tyndal's trans- 
 lation of the Scripture, and the confirmation of the six 
 articles, yet the ground-work of the statute, the king's 
 supremacy to all intents and purposes of the determina- 
 tion of what is true or false, what is godly or ungodly, 
 and what is conformable or repugnant to the Word of 
 God, is still in force, revived in queen Elizabeth, and 
 annexed to the crown for ever. And his majesty may 
 exercise this power of determining what ought to be held 
 and believed, by setting forth books, and by his procla- 
 mations as is expressed in that statute, by his judgments 
 in his court of Chancery, and by his determinations 
 upon appeals from the sentence in the archbishop's 
 court. 
 
 " Since some causes and controversies may haply 
 come before him not determined by former councils ; 
 how can appeals be admitted to him from the judgment 
 of his clergy, if he be to follow the judgment of the 
 clergy in the things appealed in ? It is true, that in the- 
 forementioned act, the printers are obliged to put the 
 superscription and subscription, ' By the king and his 
 clergy:' but the meaning was not that the clergy in 
 convocation had assented to it ; but either that the king 
 had communicated his writing to some of his clergy, as 
 he did his famous book called, ' A necessary Doctrine 
 for all sorts of People,' which book occasioned this very 
 statute, as Dr. Heylin relates; or that it was the result 
 of the major part of the thirty-two persons, whereof 
 sixteen were laymen ; or of eight persons in king Ed- 
 ward VI. 's reign; or of six clergymen and six laymen 
 in the same king Edward's time ; according to whose 
 determinations, the ' Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasti- 
 carum,' (see the preface,) and the Ordinals for bishops, 
 priests, and deacons, came to be published by the regal 
 jurisdiction in spiritual affairs. This great prerogative 
 
73 
 
 of his majesty's supremacy may be farther manifested ^^^^ 
 by king Henry Vlll.'s last speech made in parhament cap. ii. 
 not Ions: before his death : and those words in Crom- See Lord 
 
 f ' . , , . , . Herberts 
 
 well's speech (when he presided as the kmg s vicar- Hist. p. 506. 
 
 general over the clergy assembled to state something in 
 
 the controversies of faith), that his majesty would not Fox, Acts 
 
 ^ . , , 1 1 / 1 1 and ISIoau- 
 
 suffer the Scripture to be wrested and defaced by any ments, 
 glosses or any authority of doctors or councils. P" 
 
 " By virtue of this supremacy, king Henry VIII. put a. d. 1536. 
 forth certain injunctions concerning matters of faith 
 and discipline, entitled, 'Articles devised by the King's 
 Highness to stable Christian Quietness and Unity 
 amongst the people.' In like manner, other injunctions, 
 two years after, by his vicegerent Cromwell, and others 
 in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-nine ; 
 amongst which it was ordered that English Bibles 
 should be provided and put in every Church, &c. And 
 this last thing he did without any consent of his clergy. 
 King Edward VI. also by his council set forth his in- 
 junctions: (nothing being deferred herein because of 
 his nonage, though this was much sued for by some 
 bishops) and in the beginning of his second year by 
 proclamation, inhibited any to preach that had not the 
 license either of his uncle the Protector, or archbishop 
 Crannier: and about the same time restrained the 
 bishops themselves (thought too actively busy in divers 
 places of their dioceses) not to preach but in their own 
 cathedrals. At last by a proclamation put forth Sep- 
 tember 23, he inhibited the whole clergy throughout 
 the kingdom to preach in open audience, in the pulpit 
 or otherwise, because that his majesty minded to settle 
 very shortly one uniform order throughout this his 
 realm, and to put an end to all controversies in religion ; 
 for which cause at that time, certain bishops and no- 
 table learned men by his highness's command were 
 congregated. Queen EHzabeth likewise sent forth her 
 
74 
 
 25 Hen. 8, 
 cap. 20. 
 
 Fuller's cii. injunctions, a.d. 1559, before she had any clergy to sit 
 Fox 388. convocation, as she did afterward articles under title 
 
 of the ' Queen's Articles of Visitation,' and her Admo- 
 nition : all which are lately printed in one volume, with 
 the ' Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarura,' and other 
 things which concerned the reformation : by R. Norton, 
 1661. All which makes it evident, that his majesty, by 
 his regal jurisdiction, may devise, publish and constrain 
 to be observed, such injunctions as may stable Christian 
 quietness and unity amongst his people, and rectify 
 their judgments in things that they ought to believe 
 and practise, according to the examples of his royal 
 predecessors the supreme heads and governors of this 
 Church. 
 
 " By virtue of this supremacy, the clergy are bound 
 to admit and consecrate, what person soever the king 
 shall present to any bishopric, upon penalty of incurring 
 praemunire ; and the consecration is to be performed by 
 such and so many as the king shall appoint; which 
 persons are to do this work not by virtue of any eccle- 
 siastical jurisdiction in them, but as the king's dele- 
 gates, who by his letters-patent commands them to 
 consecrate the elect bishop ; and in them if there be 
 any canonical defect or impediment, the king by his 
 royal supreme spiritual jurisdiction dispenses with it. 
 Both which things are evident by the patent for the 
 consecration of archbishop Parker in queen Elizabeth : 
 by the instrument of the said archbishop's confirmation, 
 and by the practice ever since. 
 25 Hen. 8. " By virtue of this supremacy, as the bishops and 
 clergy of the Church of England and Ireland cannot 
 meet in any assembly, synod, or convocation, but by 
 his majesty's writ: so being convened, they cannot 
 open their mouths to deliberate or make any constitu- 
 tions touching doctrine or discipline, without the king's 
 assent first had under his signet : and having made any 
 
 cap. 19. 
 
75 
 
 constitution they cannot enact, pronaulgate, publish, or 
 ])ut in use the same, before it be confirmed under his 
 majesty's broad seal. See the De- 
 
 -r, . r. 1 • 1 • claratlou of 
 
 " By Virtue of this supremacy his majesty may issue King James 
 out a commission, to such person or persons as he shall Canons^j'ieoa- 
 think fit, to visit, and inquire after the management of ^^jf^rieTf 
 the Church revenues, and may correct and reform the before the 
 persons, that do not expend them according to the 1640. ' 
 pious uses for which they were bestowed on the Church ; 
 and where those revenues are ill employed, his majesty 
 may translate them to pious uses. King Henry VIIL, 
 in the thirtieth year of his reign, by his letters-patent 
 under the great seal, translated the prior and convent 
 of the cathedral church of Norwich, into the dean and 
 chapter, and discharged them of their special names ; 
 which was in these words : — 
 
 " ' Authoritate sua regia, ac authoritate sua in terra 
 supremi capitis Ecclesiae Anglicanas, de gratia sua spe- 
 ciali, &:c. Coenobium de priore et conventu ecclesiae 
 cathedralis, sanctse Trinitatis Norwici in decanum et 
 capitulum ecclesiaB cathedralis sanctde Trinitatis Norwici, 
 transposuit et mutavit; et ulterius concessit quod de- 
 canus et capitulum et successores sui omnia et singula 
 dominia et maneria, terras, &c. quae ad praedictos 
 nuper priorem et conventum, &c. spectabant, habere, 
 tenere, gaudere, et possidere sibi et successoribus va- 
 leant.' ' In this case,' says Coke the attorney-general, 
 ' the said translation was good in law, by reason of the 
 king's supremacy as head of the Church ; and by virtue 
 of the statute, 25 Hen. VIIL, and others, extinguishing 
 the Pope's jurisdiction; because the pope having an- 
 ciently had that power of the economy of the Church 
 revenues, and the same authority that the pope had 
 being given to the king by the same statutes, such vide Dean 
 translation of Church revenue must needs be legal.' of korwich^ 
 
 " Many more instances might be given of the exercise f'ase, Coke's 
 
76 
 
 ^t^aTl 73 °^ ^^'""^ regal, supreme ecclesiastical authority and juris- 
 pt. . o . 73. jJJj^j^Jqj^^ consisting with the other laws of this kingdom : 
 but it may suffice to add this only concerning penalties 
 and censures ecclesiastical ; that whatsoever the bishop 
 of Rome could lawfully do in the time preceding the 
 statute, 25 Hen. VIII. either in relaxation of the pe- 
 nalty, or suspension of the inferior ecclesiastical juris- 
 ' diction; all that is now legally enstated in the king, as 
 is evident from these two maxims universally acknow- 
 ledged by lawyers, and in the statutes since that time. 
 First, that all manner of spiritual jurisdiction, formerly 
 lawfully exercised in England and Ireland, does now 
 belong to the king. Secondly, that all spiritual juris- 
 diction exercised by any subject in the said kingdoms, 
 is held and exercised from, by, and under the king. 
 
 " And concerning temporal penalties, the resolution 
 is to be grounded on this maxim touching his majesty's 
 royal prerogative : every offence or crime, made crime 
 by act of parliament, which is not malum in se, the king, 
 before the fact committed, may dispense with the act of 
 parliament, and give power to commit the fact; and all 
 manner of offences whatsoever, whether evil in them- 
 selves or not, the king, after the offence committed, 
 may pardon them." 
 
 The power mentioned in this last clause has, I believe, 
 been taken away by the progress of civil liberty; but 
 the rest remains — if it once existed, it is enough. 
 
77 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Observations on a Pamphlet by Mr, Irons, culled 
 " The Present Crisis." 
 
 LET any reader compare the above exposition of the 
 Royal Supremacy, made in the reign of Charles II., 
 with the attempt to soften it down recently put forth by 
 Mr. Irons. He will observe in the former a clear com- 
 prehension of the subject, and a specific reference to the 
 authorities on which the view maintained is founded ; 
 and in the latter a perpetual confusion between the two 
 spiritual powers of order and jurisdiction, which causes 
 almost all the acts of the temporal power, and the eccle- 
 siastical authorities, quoted by Mr. Irons, to be irrele- 
 vant. Mr. Irons puts forth three grand denials, (p. 3.) 
 
 I. " We deny that the Queen is supreme governor in 
 any sense greater than her predecessors had been from 
 the Conquest." 
 
 II. " We deny that the Church, since the days of 
 Queen Mary, has enlarged, and we affirm that she has 
 aimed to diminish, the royal prerogative." 
 
 III. " We deny that all jurisdiction ' in rebus divinis ' 
 proceeds from the Crown." 
 
 Let us take these a little in detail. 
 
 I. First, what does Mr. Irons allege to prove that 
 " the Queen is not supreme governor in any sense 
 greater than her predecessors have been from the Con- 
 quest?" 
 
 He alledges a variety of arbitrary acts on the part of 
 the Norman kings ; but how far the Church submitted 
 to them, and how far she protested against them, he does 
 not specify. 
 
 Secondly, these acts, with one partial exception, do 
 not set forth any royal claim to originate jurisdiction in 
 
78 
 
 matters spiritual. The exception is, the eighth article of 
 the Constitutions of Clarendon. This is thus quoted — he 
 says not where from — by Mr. Irons, (p. 8.) 
 
 " That all appeals in spiritual causes should be carried 
 from the Archdeacon to the Bishop, from the Bishop to 
 the Primate, from him to the King, and should be carried 
 no further without the King's consent." 
 
 In Collier, vol. ii. p. 273, I read it thus, 
 
 " In case of appeals in ecclesiastical causes, the first 
 step is to be made from the Archdeacon to the Bishop ; 
 and from the Bishop to the Archbishop ; and if the 
 Archbishop fails to do justice, a farther recourse may be 
 had to the King, by whose order the controversy is to be 
 Jinally decided in the Archbishop's Court. Neither shall 
 it be lawful for either of the parties to move for any far- 
 ther remedy without leave from the Crown." 
 
 Here I would first ask Mr. Irons if it is honest to 
 quote in this manner ? 
 
 But further, Mr. Irons omits to inform us, I. that of 
 the sixteen articles of the Constitutions of Clarendon, 
 the first, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth (the present 
 one), ninth, tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth were nulled and 
 voided by the Pope, who notwithstanding continued 
 spiritual superior of the Church of England. 
 
 II. That Archbishop Becket laid down his life to wipe 
 out these Constitutions of Clarendon, and that they Ji^ere 
 wiped out in the blood of the Martyr, and 
 
 III. While Mr. Irons asserts " the Constitutions of 
 Clarendon were the law of England," the fact is, that 
 King Henry II. solemnly swore to renounce and resign 
 them ; and Collier observes, vol. 2, p. 337, " Thus we 
 see the Constitutions of Clarendon, drawn up to the dis- 
 advantage of the clergy, were all repealed. The King, 
 after this satisfaction given, had his absolution passed in 
 form by the Cardinals." 
 
 Again, I would ask Mr. Irons, is it honest to quote 
 
79 
 
 history thus ? I confess I am ashamed to answer such 
 citations. And this is the only pertinent one, for on the 
 whole the quotations of Mr. Irons under this head go to 
 prove a series of acts on the part of the Ante-Reforma- 
 tion Kings ; which, so far as they are not excesses of 
 tyrannical power, sometimes borne under protest, and 
 sometimes defeated by the Church, aim to prevent en- 
 croachment on temporal jurisdiction, in mixed causes, by 
 the spiritual. There is not one claiming for the civil 
 power to originate spiritual jurisdiction, which was the 
 point to be proved. And even these latter acts — when 
 carried too far, as they sometimes were, — met with the 
 sturdiest resistance on the part of the Church, a resist- 
 ance which all writers that I have read, previous to Mr. 
 Irons, suppose to have been fully successful. 
 
 II. Mr. Irons' second denial is, " Never, in fact, did 
 the reformed Church any more heartily admit the Supre- 
 macy than the old unreformed Church had done." 
 P. 19. 
 
 If Mr. Irons here means that the Convocation which 
 granted to Henry VIII. the title of" head and supreme 
 governour of the Church" was the Convocation of the 
 unreformed Church, as I fear he does, this evasion seems 
 to me so disingenuous, that I can do no more than 
 mention it. If he means to deny that this grant itself 
 was new, that it was something which Henry's prede- 
 cessors had not held, and something which Henry was 
 moving the whole power of his crown to compass, — I 
 beheve he is quite singular in his opinion. 
 
 But he enlarges on the above, " we affirm that the 
 Church, since the days of Queen Mary, has aimed to 
 diminish the royal prerogative." 
 
 His proofs are, 1, that Queen Elizabeth dechned the 
 title of " Supreme Head," and kept only that of " Su- 
 preme Governour ;" she did so at the suggestion of Cal- 
 vin, who liked not the title of head as given to any man, 
 
80 
 
 and she declared in her injunctions, to which Mr. Irons 
 refers, that she claimed neither more nor less than what 
 had been given to, and exercised by, her father and 
 brother, kings of famous memory. 
 
 2. " No more commissions were taken out by Bishops 
 to hold Bishoprics during the King's pleasure, as in the 
 time of Henry and Edward," — be it so — and no ." vice- 
 gerent" appointed; but likewise no renunciation of this 
 claim was made, and Elizabeth contented herself with sus- 
 pending Archbishop Grindal when she was not satisfied 
 with him, and she wrote letters " to the Bishops through- 
 out England against conventicles, and for suppressing 
 the exercise called prophesying," wherein she hints to 
 them at the end, " in these things we charge you to be 
 so careful and diligent, as by your negligence, if wee 
 shall hear of any person attemptinge to offend in the pre- 
 mises without your correction or information to us, wee 
 be not forced to make some example or reformation of 
 you, accordinge to your deserts." Cardwell, Annals, i. 
 376. She made the abovementioned " example " of 
 Archbishop Grindal, because he would not put down 
 prophesying. 
 
 Such was what Mr. Irons calls Elizabeth's " abate- 
 ment" of the Royal Supremacy. 
 
 3. "In like manner," says Mr. Irons, " the conge 
 d'elire, which had been abolished, was restored in Eng- 
 land. King Edward had declared that such elections 
 were " in very deed no elections, having colours, shadows, 
 or pretences of elections, serving nevertheless to no pur- 
 pose, and seeming also derogatory to the King's preroga- 
 tive royal." I can imagine that there may be persons 
 among us, who, seeing what the exercise of the conge 
 d'elire has been even in our own times, might prefer a 
 plain spoken to a deceitful tyrant— but good Mr. Irons 
 puts it down as a real abatement, and adds, " Queen 
 Elizabeth proceeded here upon the old canonical forms." 
 
81 
 
 4. " There had been a power also conceded to the 
 Crown of the greatest danger, to say the least, a power 
 to appoint Commissioners for the exercise of Ecclesi- 
 astical Jurisdiction. It is true that they were forbidden 
 to judge any thing for heresy, without the convocation : 
 (no proof whatever of such limitation does Mr. Irons 
 give, and where will he find it ?) but the power was ex- 
 cessive and unjust. This was taken away so lately as in 
 the eleventh year of the reign of King Charles I." 
 
 Who would judge from this most meek mention that 
 the terrible Court of High Commission was in question, a 
 court which during its existence, from 1559 to 1640, 
 went nigh to rival the deeds of the Spanish Inquisition ; 
 and which was finally abolished by the Puritan party in 
 the Parliament, indignant at the outrages which it had 
 committed upon them, and influenced by the most bitter 
 hatred to the Church of England itself : which had no 
 hand in giving up this court, and whose primate was 
 shortly after executed for causes arising out of his use of 
 the Royal Supremacy in that court. 
 
 But Mr. Irons omits to state that the " power to 
 appoint Commissioners for the exercise of ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction" has not been taken away from the civil 
 power ; that it is in full exercise at present, and that an 
 ecclesiastical commission so named by Crown and Par- 
 liament is in possession of the whole jurisdiction of the 
 Church of England, for certain purposes, at this moment, 
 a jurisdiction derived from the civil power as its source. 
 
 5. Lastly, Mr. Irons finds in the substitution of the 
 Court of Privy Council for the Court of Delegates, as 
 supreme judge of doctrine, a subversion " of the original 
 principle of the royal supremacy." 
 
 To me, on the contrary, it seems a very convincing 
 exercise of it. I cannot imagine what right six laymen. 
 Christians unattached, in the forcible language of Mr. 
 Shiel, could have to pronounce judgment on any doctrine 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 as being or not being part of the belief of the English 
 Church, save that they are commissioned thereto by the 
 " Supreme Governour " of that Church; nay, in strict 
 law, the judgment is not theirs, but that of their supe- 
 rior, who may annul, ratify, alter, or amend it at his 
 pleasure. 
 
 This, I can assure Mr. Irons, is the full Papal Prero- 
 gative, and it belongs, as decisively as law can make it 
 belong, to the sovereigns of England. 
 
 And after discovering these five " abatements" since 
 the time of " Queen Mart/," (why d|d he not sav of 
 Henry VII. ?) Mr. Irons gravely adds, 
 
 " For my own part, then, I can hardly conceive of a 
 more frivolous and unreal pretence than that of contro- 
 versialists who hint the existence of some essential, 
 latent sympathy between the Reformed Church and the 
 King's Supremacy." 
 
 Spectatum adraissi risum teneatis, amici ? 
 
 But does Mr. Irons think that he is serving the cause 
 of Truth in so writing ? 
 
 III. Let us look to his third denial : " We deny," says 
 Mr. Irons, " that all Jurisdiction * in rebus divinis ' pro- 
 ceeds from the crown." 
 
 And he produces a short catena from Hooker, Usher, 
 James I., Andrewes, StiUingfleet, Sanderson, and Wil- 
 son, to prove that the pozcer of Order does not proceed 
 from the Crown. Who asserts that it does ? But it is 
 the exercise of that power of Order which constitutes 
 Jurisdiction in rebus divinis, and this Mr. Irons' own 
 quotations prove to proceed from the Crown. 
 
 Thus Hooker's words, cited by him, respect the power 
 of Orders, and concede Jurisdiction to the Crown. 
 
 Usher, as quoted, is generally irrelevant, distinguish- 
 ing the civil and spiritual power, and giving the power 
 of the keys to the latter, but not meeting the question of 
 Jurisdiction, though there is no doubt from his argu- 
 ment that he gave this to the Crown. 
 
83 
 
 The answer of James I. to Usher is for the hke reason 
 irrelevant. 
 
 Andrewes denies the power of Order — under what he 
 ranges " clavium jus vel censurae" — to the Crown, but 
 grants the power of Jurisdiction. 
 
 Sanderson admits the latter, and 
 
 Wilson enlarges on the " power of Order " as coming 
 to the clergy by divine grant. 
 
 I have kept Stillingfleet to the last, because the quo- 
 tation from him is most to the purpose. He tries, by 
 disclaiming all sacerdotal powers, to reduce the Supre- 
 macy to a sort of civil government ; but he concedes the 
 whole point in question at the last, adding, " But as in 
 temporal matters the King's supreme authority is exer- 
 cised in his ordinary court, so likewise in ecclesiastical, 
 which deriving their jurisdiction from the King as su- 
 preme, his supremacy is preserved in the ordinary eccle- 
 siastical court." 
 
 This is the exact idea of the famous statute of appeal, 
 24 Henry VIII. which makes the sovereign head as of 
 the temporalty qua temporalty, so of the spiritualty qua 
 spiritualty. Now head of the latter he is, as individual 
 citizens, but to make him head of them as officers of the 
 one universal spiritual kingdom of our Lord, is indeed 
 that " essential latent sympathy between the Reformed 
 ■Church and the King's Supremacy," the presence of 
 which Mr. Irons conceives to be so " frivolous and 
 unreal." 
 
 In conclusion, I would say one word to Mr. Irons, 
 who charges Mr. Maskell with disloyalty, for putting 
 forth what he believes to be the truth. It may be that 
 the statements of Mr. Maskell— if true — destroy the 
 position of Mr. Irons ; in that case there is only one 
 way to maintain that position, viz. to shew the state- 
 ments are 7wt true. But the ostrich which hides its head 
 in the sand does not thereby conceal its body from the 
 pursuers, and to make such reckless assertions as " that 
 
84 
 
 the Queen is not supreme governor in any sense greater 
 than her predecessors have been from the Conquest ;" 
 or that the Reformation " has aimed to diminish the 
 royal prerogative ; " or, as he does, thirdly, to confound 
 the two powers of Order and Jurisdiction, and their 
 relation to each other, seems to me to be acting the part 
 of the ostrich, to be filling one's own eyes with sand, 
 and exposing one's whole body to the enemy. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 C. WraTTIHGHAM, Chiswick. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 nrr i n i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 HIGHSMITH # 
 
 15230 
 
 
 
iiiiiTifiiiiiii 
 
 1 1012 00035 4987