power over their juniors; but there is a corporate aptitude there which the late assault of Rome has called into life and activity. A spirit of combination has been displayed by the laity of her communion which promises well, and it has met with no trifling encouragement from the most enlightened members and ministers of the several dissenting bodies.

Yet it will appear in the sequel that the first attack has been levelled at the Church through the Queen's supremacy, against which, whatever theoretical objections it may be open to, it is perfectly manifest a victory would be decisive. It would be a victory, not only over the Church, but over the law of the land. No party, whether ecclesiastical or lay, has affected to deny that it is the law of the land, that the Queen of these realms is, "under God, in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, in these her dominions supreme." The court of Rome regard this as our weak point. Many dissenting bodies deny it in the ecclesiastical sense; a large portion of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects have been released from acknowledging it in that sense; and for the most part confidently believe that the Church will find no allies to defend it out of her own body, of which many members, they know, have secretly protested against it, and carried many of the laity along with them.

In order, therefore, that no misunderstanding may exist as to the character and capabilities of the position thus selected as the first object of attack, we must first ascertain what this supremacy amounts to in the law and practice of the constitution. We

may then inquire with better effect what that supremacy is which the Papists set up against it; whether it be of the same, or of a different nature-more or less extensive or despotic-- more or less liberal or restrictive of the religious liberties of the subject. It may be speculatively of greater importance to estimate rightly the character of this latter, than of the former kind of supremacy; but practically, the question is, whether by the overthrow of the one, a path might not be opened for the admission of the other, as has been done already in Ireland with such calamitous success.

§ 7. Supremacy of the Queen.

We therefore proceed to inquire what is the nature and extent of her Majesty's supremacy as head of the Church according to the law and practice of the British Constitution? This preliminary question must receive an answer before we can determine the legal character of the late Papal measure; that is, before we can ascertain its consistency or antagonism to the Common and Statute Law of the land, by which alone-be it remembered -we, the clergy and laity of England are, or will ever consent to be bound.

For the sake of perspicuity it will not be amiss to adopt the distinction as to ecclesiastical jurisdiction proposed by Cardinal Bellarmine.* According to that celebrated divine, whose works have always been admitted as of great weight in his church, the aggregate of ecclesiastical powers is two-fold. 1. The Potestas

* De Pont. Rom. Lib. iv. c. 22.

Ordinis, and 2. The Potestas Jurisdictionis. The first of these includes the powers requisite to determine the doctrines and administer the sacraments of the church; the second comprises two distinct powers, viz. that of preaching or instruction, which is called the internal jurisdiction, and the right to execute or enforce the ordinances of the church, to watch over the due performance of their duties by the clergy, and to defend the ecclesiastical system from all harm both from within and from without; and this is called the power of External jurisdiction. This second item of the "Potestas Jurisdictionis" is clearly a matter external to all that is material to the constitution of a church; it belongs entirely to that outward political authority, by which the internal and essential character of the church, its spiritual powers and attributes are preserved; it watches over the purity of doctrine, restrains those who violate ecclesiastical law, checks encroachments upon the laws of the land, and takes care that the officials of all orders neither fall short of, nor transgress the limits of the duty assigned to them.*

The history of English constitutional law shews that our monarchs have uniformly claimed and exercised this external jurisdiction, scrupulously reserving to the churchmen the entire internal jurisdiction both of order and of indoctrination.

*This was the doctrine of the Gallican Church, as we learn from the treatises of Claude Fauchet (Libertés de l'eglise Gallicam, Par. 1612, p. 234, et ed. 1639, p. 179), and from that of Charles le Faye, (ed. 1649, p. 230.)

This view of their ecclesiastical prerogative is clearly discernible in the laws of the Saxon princes of this country from the age of Ina* to that of Edward the Confessor. King Edgar (A.D. 966) told his clergy, that "they wielded the sword of Peter, he, the sword of Constantine;" he declared that he was in his kingdom as "the diligent husbandman of the Lord, the pastor of pastors-the vicegerent of Christ upon earth." The same conception of the plenitude of this external jurisdiction is every where traceable in the laws and capitularies of the Frankish kings; in none so clearly as in those of Charlemagne and of his saintly son Louis the Pious.‡ The laws of our Saxon sovereigns respecting ecclesiastical affairs are numerous; they were indifferently called "Leges" and "Canones," and were all enacted by the king, with the advice and assistance of his clergy of every degree. In all cases the first movement appears to proceed from him, and from him they derive their legal character and effect. It is true that the distinctions between the internal and the external jurisdictions were not always very accurately discerned, nor that some trespasses on the proper domain of the hierarchy may not be detected. But whenever this occurs it was cured the concurrence and assent of the

* King of Wessex; he flourished between the years 687 and 725.

+ Wilkins Concil. Vol. I. p. 242, col. i. "Agens, Christo favente, in terris quod ipse juste egit in cœlis."

The French writers usually designate him by the name of Louis Le Debonnaire. The authorities for this statement are before me.

latter, and no complaint is heard of such trespasses from any quarter.

The powers thus exercised without contradiction by the princes of France and England in the period intervening between the conversion of the Saxons and the Norman invasion are best expressed by what we understand by the Visitatorial powersthe right, namely, and the duty to carry into execution the laws of the church by the temporal authority of the prince; to hold the officers of the church to the performance of their duties, if need be, by penalties and by deprivation of the temporalities; and to remove and punish abuses of every kind without any other ecclesiastical authorization than that implied in his sovereign office. In the same power was also uniformly included the right to nominate and translate bishops, to call national councils and to preside over them in person.

Meanwhile, however, a great change had occurred on the continent of Europe. The Papal authority, effete and dormant during almost the entire course of the 10th century, had arisen from its long sleep with a power hitherto unprecedented. The laws and canons of the church had been diligently collected and arranged mostly from Roman sources,* by ecclesiastics devoted to the extension of papal

*

* By Rhegino of Prumes, Burchard of Worms, and Anselm of Lucca, all living between the beginning of the 10th and the latter half of the 11th century. These compilers were followed towards the close of that century by Ivo of Chartres, and a few years later by Gratian of Chiusa Tuscany.