* An act of parliament," fays Sir Chriftopher Hatton," is a law agreed upon by the king or queen of England, having legal authority, the lords fpiritual and temporal, and the commons lawfully affembled, which taketh ftrength and life by the affent royal." An act of parliament therefore is an act of the highest human authority, which can be done in this or any other country; for as I have frequently before said, it is the complete act of the representatives of the community or people, from whom all human power and fovereignty originate. We are to confider an act of parliament, which gives any rights,

or confers any privileges, or vefts any authority in one or more individuals,' like any other human act or inftrument, which operates in a fimilar, though inferior manner. We must therefore confider first the right, power, and capacity of the granting party, who is commonly called the grantor; fecondly the nature of the thing intended to be granted; thirdly the capacity or ability of the party, to whom the grant is intended to be made, who is commonly called the grantee; and fourthly the nature and operation of

A treatife concerning ftatutes, by Sir C. H. A. late chancellor of England, p. 2.

Acts of parliadeeds of grant

ment like other

The grantors are the community of this nation.

May grant what they can hold.

the act, deed, or inftrument, by which the grant is intended to be effected.

The grantors in the present instance are, properly speaking, the whole community of this nation, and therefore are capable of granting whatever they are capable of holding; (that is) they are capable of deputing or delegating all thofe rights and liberties to others, which they are capable of poffeffing and exercising themselves. The thing fuppofed or intended to be granted, was the fpiritual headship or fupremacy of the religion, which the nation at that timè voluntarily and freely profeffed and followed: this was the Roman catholic religion. The nature therefore of the thing intended to be granted can only be properly known by the nature of the fubmiffion and fubjection, which the members of that communion pay and acknowledge to the fpiritual head of their What the Ro- church. I fay then, without apprehenfion of being contradicted, that the Roman catholic church never did allow the fpiritual fupremacy of the pope of Rome upon any other ground or title, than that of his fpiritual ordination and election, by virtue of which they believe and maintain him to be the regular and lawful fucceffor of St. Peter, and the reprefentative or vicegerent of Chrift upon earth.

man catholics

call the fpiritual fupremacy.

Now

Now it is evident and clear, that this title to that fupremacy, which they thus acknowledged, could not be in the gift or disposal of the English nation; for the Roman catholics never acknowledged any spiritual supremacy, which they did not hold or believe to extend, as the word catholic imports, over the universal congregation of chriftians, who believed in the tenets of their faith. Now no lay individual of this nation, nor the whole community collectively, ever pretended to the power of conferring holy orders; nor have I ever met with a claim fet up by the whole or any part of this nation, during the thoufand years, that the Roman catholic was the church establishment of this country, to fend deputies or representatives to vote in conclave for the election of a Roman pontiff.

As clear then as it is, that no fhare, portion, or degree of this merely fpiritual fupremacy was at the difpofal or in the gift of the English nation, fo clear is it, that every particle of power, authority, and jurifdiction, which enters into it, or is derived from the civil establishment of religion, was in the gift or difpofal of the community, as by their free affent alone it could ever have been adopted and fettled. The headship therefore, or fupremacy of the civil establish$ 3

ment

Neither infants

nor women ca

pable of ordination.

Even chriftian baptifm not neceffary for the fupreme head

of the civil eftablishment.

ment of religion must for ever in its nature be transferable or extinguishable by the community, which incorporate it with their civil constitution.

According to the doctrine of the church of England, every man is generally capable of receiving ordination or holy orders; but it must be from the hands of those, who are qualified to confer them; and according to the fame doctrine, no woman nor infant is capable of receiving ordination or holy orders. Though Sir Edward Coke should conjure up his virgin queen, like a new goddefs, from an ocean of his fpiritualizing chrism, fhe would ftill remain deftitute of every particle of that Spiritual power, authority, or jurisdiction, which were given to the apoftles to guide, rule, govern, and preferve the church of Chrift. Yet though unanointed with this holy oil, nay even though not regenerated in the facred font of chriftian. baptism, * queen Elizabeth would have been fully capable of receiving all that power, authority, or jurifdiction over the civil establishment of religion, which the community were capable of giving; and I have endeavoured

It is fingular, that the proof of christian baptismis not required by the law of England to qualify a perfon for any benefit or advantage in the state.

before

before to prove, that they could confer whatever could not be imposed upon them without their confent.

It is my indifpenfible, and indeed my only duty, to confider the operation of the laws now fubfifting, that affect the king's fupremacy over the church of England, which I am happier to fet forth in the words of others, than my own. *«Here one interpofed and defired to know, how all this would agree with our present laws, and fince the reformation, and inftanced the statutes 25 H. VIII. c. 19. and 37 H. VIII. c. 17. &c. with the commiffion, that archbishop Cranmer took out for his bishoprick from Edw. VI. which is inferted in bishop Burnet's Hift. of the Reformation, part 11. Collect. Record. to book i. n. 2. p. 90. and the like done by other bishops, whereby they held their bishopricks during pleasure of the king, and owned to derive all their power, even ecclefiaftical, from the crown, velut à fupremo capite, & omnium infra regnum noftrum magiftratuum fonte & fcaturigine, as from the fountain and original of it, &c. To this it was faid;

"That all this is to be understood only The king's fu

Cafe of the Regale and Pontificat. p. 60. & feq.

premacy to be understood on. ly of the civil power, &c.