of the community, provided the fubject matter of the act be in its nature liable to the jurifdiction of human authority, and the thing enacted contradict not the law of God. Hence Lord Hardwicke faid, when he determined the great question, that the canons of 1603 did not, proprio vigore, bind the laity; *«by reason of this reprefentation every man is faid to be party to, and the consent of every fubject is included in an act of parliament.” As the community of this kingdom has thought proper to make a civil eftablishment of religion, fo has it naturally made the king the fupreme head of that establishment; but as the incorporation of a religious establishment with the conftitution is founded upon the affent of the community, fo from' that confent muft originate all the power or authority of the fupreme head of that establishment; and if it originated from the people, with the people muft it for ever unalienably refide. Whatever right, preeminence, jurisdiction, or authority are vested in the king in this quality or capacity, are vested in him by one and the same title, as all the other prerogatives of the crown; for it appears as clear, as the first proposition of * Strange's Reports, 1056, Middleton v. Croft. Euclid, Euclid, that the king never had and never can have (as king) any real true spiritual power or authority over the whole or any part of the church of Chrift; but that over the civil eftablishment of the church of England he ever had, and now has, and ever will have, just fo much right, power, preeminence, authority, and jurifdiction, as the reprefentatives of the nation fhall chufe to admit and allow of. The first or negative part of this affertion is made fo clear by the declaration or act of the convocation in 1562, that I fhall add nothing more unto it. * «For the bishops and clergy, in their convocation of the year 1562, by the queen's authority and confent, declared more plainly, viz. That they gave not to their princess by virtue of the faid act or otherwife, either miniftering of God's word or facraments, but that only prerogative, which they Jaw to have been given always to all godly princes in holy fcripture by God himself; that is to fay, that they should rule all eftates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclefiaftical or temporal, and refrain with the civil fword the ftubborn and evil doers." The countenance and fupport, which the church receives from the ftate were well, exGodol. Repertor. Can. p. 11. preffed preffed in the speech which King Edgar of old made to the English clergy. * " I (faith he) have the sword of Conftantine, you the fword of Peter; let us join our hands and fwords, that we may drive out the lepers from the camp, and fo purify the fanctuary. of the Lord. Ego Conftantini, vos Petri gladium babetis: jungamus dextras & gladium. gladio copulemus, ut ejiciantur extra caftra leprofi, &purgetur fanctuarium Domini." In this junction of hands and weapons originated and confifts the alliance between church and state. The fword of Conftantine different from the fword of Peter. court erected Some few inftances will evince, as well as Ecclefiaftical many, that the whole ecclefiaftical jurifdiction, by the civil. or power, which could produce any civil effect, acquired its establishment only from the consent of the people; for, from the days of our Saxon ancestors, we fee the bishops acting jointly with the civil magiftrates in the hundred courts, and probably judging by one and the fame law; and we then find the establishment of separate ecclesiastical courts to judge by the civil and canon law made by parliamentary authority. †"Before the time of King William the Conqueror, all matters, as well spiritual as temporal, were determined in the hundred courts, where * Godolphin, p. 97. + God. Rep. Can. p. 96. was was wont to fit one bishop and one temporal judge, called aldermanus; the one for matters of spiritual, the other of temporal cognizance; but that was altered by King William (and it feems by parliament; for it was by the confent of bifhops, abbots, and all the chief perfons of the realm); for he ordained, that the bishops or archdeacons should not hold plea of the epifcopal laws, and quæ ad regimen animarum pertinent, in the hundred, but by themselves, and there administer justice, not according to the law of the hundred, but according to the epifcopal laws and canons." So from hence infers Nathaniel Bacon, in his discourses upon the laws and government of England; * their firft foundation was laid by the civil power of a law in the time of William the first Norman king; yet the power of the pope and bishop growing up together, they came to hold the power of the keys by a divine right, and fo continued until these times of Henry VIII. wherein they have a retrospect to the rock, from whence they were first hewn." And this fame author, who seems but little biaffed to popes, kings, and prelates, acknowledges, that the pope t" had holden a power, fupra ordinary, over * Part ii. p. 139. all appeals, by gaining the definitive sentence to the Roman fee, by the space of four hundred years." A right of this nature, continued for fuch a length of time to be affented to by a free, powerful, and independent community can with no propriety be called an ufurpation. It was a grant made and confirmed to the bishop of Rome by the nation, who were as free to revoke, as they had been to make it. I fubmit to my readers, that we should think and speak of these appeals to the juridical courts of Rome, as Bacon does of the old forms of the ecclefiaftical courts in this kingdom. "Nevertheless the courts ftill hold on their courfe, according to their old laws and customs, for their form of proceedings; fome say by prescription, yet more rightly by permiffion." I therefore think myfelf bound to say, that such appeals were at the time of the reformation made to Rome by the ancient cuftom of the realm; else how could Bacon himself have owned, that "the matter concerning the divorce of the Lady Catherine Dowager came before the pope by appeal, and there depended; the king himself also waiting upon that fee for justice, and a definitive fentence upon that matter; and |