causes had resulted an enormous change in the conditions of material life in England of which the clergy reaped the benefit. The ecclesiastical commissions have redistributed the property and have equalised conditions, but economic changes have been the sole solution of the economic difficulties which confronted the Church in 1603. The other great difficulty in 1603, the lack of coercive force, was remedied, curiously enough, by doing away with the necessity for The High Commission was not "restored" in 1660, because the recognition of the legality of the Establishment by the vast majority of the nation made coercion less necessary, and made the Commission chiefly a high court for ecclesiastical appeals. It was, therefore, not performing, in 1640, anything which the ordinary hierarchy could not do, and the temporal courts still declared its authority to fine and imprison illegal. In 1660, then, the ordinary ecclesiastical administration stood alone. Gradually, the State encroached more and more upon the powers of Convocation and of the bishops; the common law courts successfully filched away the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the authority over the laity for the correction of moral offenses became more and more unpopular, and an opinion began to be circulated that the Canons of 1604, not having been confirmed by Parliament, did not bind the laity] Thus, the field of ecclesiastical administration was gradually narrowed to the supervision of the clergy and the punishment of ecclesiastics for spiritual offences by purely spiritual penalties. Once more the powers of the Church became adequate for the performance of its functions, because those functions which it had not performed well, had been shorn off. Paradoxically stated, the ecclesiastical administration, weakened by the loss of its old jurisdiction, was stronger and more adequate than before. I CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS THE PRECEDENT FOR THE CANONS OF 1604 Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, i. Canon I Queen's Injunctions, 1559, i. (nearly verbatim.) Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen. April, 1592. Strype, Annals, IV, 120. Canon II I Elizabeth c. 1. Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXVII. Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen, 1592. Canon III Visitation Articles for Rochester and Canterbury, 1589, vii . (Strype, Whitgift, I, 593.) Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen, 1592. "A Godly Treatise," (Strype, Annals, III, part ii, 152.) Canon IV Form of Subscription for all ministers, 1559. A proclamation against the despisers or breakers of the orders prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Cardwell, Annals, I. 383. Cf. id., 240, 263. 13 Elizabeth c. 12, sect. 2. Rule of the Ward Court of London, Stow, Survey of London, Book V, p. 320. (ed. 1720.) Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. Articles proposed by Whitgift to the imprisoned Puritans, January, 1591-2. Strype, Whitgift, II, 85. Canon V Canons of 1571, art. i, sect. 3, end; art. vi, sect. 2. 13 Elizabeth c. 12. Visitation Articles of 1576, xxi. Declaration prefixed to the new edition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1604. Canon VI Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 2. Addition to the Articles for acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. Canon VII Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. Articles proposed by Whitgift to the imprisoned Puritans, 1591-2. Means how to settle a Godly and Charitable Quietness in the Church, Strype, Whitgift, I, 387; II, 135. Canon VIII 8 Elizabeth c. 1. Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 2. Canon IX Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXIV. Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical, 1590-1. |