which she is responsible, viz., a political sovereignty and civil co-active jurisdiction over all her subjects.

We pass on to the canons of 1604. Of these we are now concerned with the 1st, 2nd, and 36th canons.

The first two are in effect the same as the 37th Article, but more diffusely worded after the fashion of legal verbiage. The only new feature is that they enjoin the observance of all "laws and statutes made for restoring to the Crown of this kingdom the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical, and abolishing of all foreign power repugnant to the same." This is just the old point of the political allegiance of the clergy, only the assent to the laws in question is carefully though lightly guarded by the use of the word "restoring." If any law or statute attempted more than “restoration," it receives no support or sanction from this first canon. And the second is as cautious: "Whosoever shall affirm that the King's Majesty hath not the same authority in causes ecclesiastical" (not more," nor "as much," nor like," but "the same") "that the godly kings had amongst the Jews and Christian Emperors in the primitive Church; or impeach in any part his regal supremacy in the said causes restored to the Crown, and by the laws of this realm therein established, &c."; the laws being sanctioned so far as they were directed to the establishment of that restored authority, not if in any case or in any degree they endeavoured to extend it beyond the acknowledged limits. Restoration, not innovation, is the

object ever in view.

The first article in the 36th canon is merely a repetition of the king's political supremacy over the whole realm in all things and causes ecclesiastical and civil, with the addition that no "foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual," within these realms all which is obviously an amplification of the simple statement in Article 37, that "the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England," expanded to meet, as far as possible, all the Protean forms in which he might be supposed capable of advancing claims to authority over or in it. It is a distinct and most righteous denial of his supremacy civil and (pace Cardinal Wiseman) ecclesiastical also. Finally, to make all secure the 3rd article of this canon reinforces the 37th among the other Articles of 1562.

We have now reached the canons of 1640, of which the first alone treats of the royal supremacy.

The political circumstances of the time were such as to

work up all feelings of loyalty and allegiance to the Crown to the highest possible point of fervour, and we should therefore expect that the influence of these feelings would probably be more or less strongly impressed on the acts of the Church, whose cause, so far as concerned her outward peace and wellbeing, was at this juncture so closely bound up with that of the King. And such we find to have been the case, though these motives operate, for the most part, only in a rather more emphatic reiteration of the old familiar ideas.

First, a general injunction to observe the laws made for the acknowledgment of the king's authority over the state ecclesiastical and civil, the mention of the "estate civil" being added on account of the rebellious mood of the nation in general. Then follows an assertion of the divine right of the kingly order, as being the ordinance of God Himself, founded on the prime laws of nature, &c. This, however, being a question as to the necessary form of civil government, is not within the spiritual cognizance of the Church, and can rank only as, at most, a "pious opinion." It is then stated of the members of this order, and truly wherever it exists, that "a supreme power is given to them by God Himself in the Scripture, which is that they should rule . . all persons of what rank or estate soever, whether ecclesiastical or civil, and restrain and punish with the temporal sword all stubborn and wicked doers;" nearly in the words of Article 37. It proceeds, "The care of God's Church is so committed to kings in the Scripture, that they are commended when the Church keeps the right way, and taxed when it runs amiss, and therefore her government belongs in chief unto kings, for otherwise one man would be commended for another's care, and taxed but for another's negligence, which is not God's way." Now, it is clear that, mutatis mutandis, the very same might be said of the ecclesiastical rulers of the Church under both the old and new covenants. Yet there is no contradiction, for both are true, according as the words are applied to the functions of the one or other of the two supreme powers which are capable of being exercised over the Church of God. The one political, temporal, co-active by the civil sword, such as Saul, Solomon, Manasseh, Josiah, Herod, Nero, Dioclesian, Constantine, Henry, Elizabeth, Charles, had; the other ecclesiastical and spiritual, co-active only by the sword of the Spirit, such as in their respective measures, first the Aaronic, and then the Apostolic priesthood received. It is a question not of degree, but of kind; not whether it be a partial, a chief, or a supreme authority, but to which jurisdiction it belongs; for

in either and both it is equally true that he who has the least degree as of right has the whole. In the case under consideration there is no room for doubt; the authority and power spoken of are external and political, over all persons, to restrain and punish the stubborn and wicked, yet only" with the temporal sword;" so that there is no room for " any independent co-active power, either Papal or popular," within "their said realms or territories," "to set up, maintain, or avow" which is truly said to "undermine their great royal office, and to overthrow that sacred ordinance which God Himself hath established, and so is treasonable against God as well as against the king." This, therefore, the only power spoken of, is that which kings have exercised in the chief government of the Church from the earliest ages until this day, the power of the Apostolic Commission not being brought under consideration at all: it is the inherent inalienable prerogative of the independence and supremacy of the State.

The Canon proceeds,-" The power to call and dissolve Councils, both national and provincial, is the true right of all Christian kings within their own realms and territories;" this is undeniable; "and when, in the first times of Christ's Church, prelates used this power, it was therefore only because in those days they had no Christian kings." This statement sounds strangely at first, and requires a few words in explanation. One thing, nevertheless, is certain. It cannot possibly mean, that as soon as kings became Christian, they only, to the exclusion of prelates, had the power of calling national and provincial councils, and in consequence that they only, to the exclusion of prelates, actually did so we say the canon cannot possibly mean this, simply because we know that Laud and his brother bishops of both provinces were not idiots, and could not conceivably have meant to assert solemnly as a truth what not one member of either house of either synod could possibly have imagined to be true. If, as Mr. Joyce says, a volume might be filled with precedents of English synods called by the sole authority of the metropolitan, a dozen might be filled from the annals of the Catholic Church since the accession of Constantine with like instances and numberless decrees of synods requiring that very thing as a matter of course.

Should any one be inclined to maintain this odd construction, we can only say in the words of Bramhall on another subject, It is nonsense to say so, I hope I may have leave to write common sense.' The simplest, and no doubt the real meaning may be expressed in some such words as these:

"When in the first times of Christ's Church prelates [only, and Christian kings never,] used this power, it was therefore only because in those days they had no Christian kings." And this is good sense and good history too, for it is certain that ever since there were such kings they have used this power with all freedom, and often at the request of the most eminent prelates. So did Constantine, even before his baptism, as Eusebius testifies, "Verum Ecclesiæ Dei præcipue curam gerens, cum per diversas provincias quidam inter se dissentirent, ipse, velut communis omnium Episcopus a Deo constitutus, ministrorum Dei concilia congregavit." (De vit., Const., lib. i. c. 44.)

And here closes the evidence from the acts of the Church. Let us condense it into a few propositions and see what it amounts to.

1. That the sovereign is the supreme political head and governor of all his subjects, of what estate or degree soever, ecclesiastical or civil, to the exclusion of all foreign authority. (Recognized in the title "Supremum Caput," Art. 37, 1562; Canons 1 and 36, 1604; Can. 1, 1640.)

2. That as such he may restrain and punish with the civil or temporal sword all stubborn and evil doers whosoever. (Art. 37; Can. 1, 1640.)

3. That this civil cognizance and government extends over all persons in all causes, and is the same that all godly Jewish kings and primitive Christian emperors always had; and that in this sense, and in this only ("that only prerogative," Art. 37) the chief government of the Church is committed by God to kings. (Art. 37, Can. 2, 1604; Can. 1, 1640.)

4. That the laws made for restoring and confirming this power be observed. (Canons 1, 2, 1604; Can. 1, 1640.)

5. That the power of convening and dissolving councils is the true right of all Christian kings within their own realms. (Can. 1, 1640.)

6. That the Church, although possessed of an inherent and independent legislative and judicial power and authority, nevertheless for the avoidance of contention with Henry VIII., promised him not to meet in convocation nor make new canons there, without his assent by writ; and also consented to repeal such then existing provincial canons and constitutions, as on review by a certain committee, specially including the king himself, might be judged by a majority, the king himself coinciding, to be repugnant to the laws of the realm. The whole submission and promise being in

terms applicable only to the period of the king's own life. (Declaration of the Synod and Submissio Cleri.)

And this is all that the Church has said or done. Let it be compared point by point with the general principles laid down at the outset, and let it be said whether in any particular it contravenes one of them. Whether it amounts to treason against her Divine Lord and King, and to a betrayal of her own divine commission and authority, let her Supreme Head and God, Jesus Christ Himself, and the Holy Church Universal, judge. Whatever lies outside of this belongs not to her, but to the history and proceedings of the State religion of England by law established; which for our sins and grievous neglect of our own spiritual prerogatives, has been allowed by God well nigh to obliterate from our minds the very knowledge of the Church's true position, and to involve us in clouds of well-deserved perplexity and sorrow. Indeed among all the wonderful dealings of God with the Church of England, none is more wonderful and merciful than this, that amidst all the flood of practical Erastianism which has seemed for ages to have swept away almost all our landmarks, the doctrine of the Church has been kept undefiled, like the delicate tracery of some primæval shell preserved in all its freshness and beauty under the crushing weight and rayless darkness of the superincumbent strata.

Thanks be to God this dreary time seems about to pass away; day by day we hear more clearly the echoes of the voice bringing glad tidings: "Thy people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, thou shalt weep no more: He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear He will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left."

One word, in conclusion, on the recent Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

It will be readily gathered from the whole tenor of this paper that we do not share in the apprehensions and distress of mind which it has occasioned in many, or at most in a very secondary degree only. We allow its influence to be most mischevious, as encouraging the heretically-disposed to give trouble to the Church under the, at least, quasi-sanction of the State. We should be thankful to see the State Courts of Appeal so constituted as to give reasonable hope that their