gaining the afcendant in that auguft affembly, by pouring in at pleasure an unlimited number of new-created lords. But the bill was ill-relished, and mifcarried in the house of commons, whofe leading members were then defirous to keep the avenues to the other house as open and eafy as poffible." It will be foreign from my purpose to attempt an investigation of the original creation or distinction of the nobility of this realm; or even of the manner and time of their becoming a conftitutional branch of the legislature. After the murder of king Charles the First, the house of commons, on the 6th February 1648, *" voted that the house of peers in parliament was useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished; and that an act should be brought in for that purpose as alfo, that the peers should not be exempted from arrefts; but did admit that they should be capable of being knights and burgeffes in parliament, in cafe they were elected." This was a most audacious ufurpation by the house of commons (or whatever that convention of the regicide party were to be called) upon the very effence of the conftitution; and the enormity of the * Dugdale's Short View of the late Troubles, c. xxxiii. P. 385. precedent The houfe of lefs in 1648, lords voted use. Difputes about the original rights of the commoners in legislating. Leveller's hor- cracy. precedent gave rife to many elaborate, and fome erudite, but all violent differtations upon the original feparate rights of the lords and commons. Thefe difputes became at last refolved into this fimple question, whether the commons of England, reprefented by knights, citizens, and burgeffes freely chofen, had formerly (viz. before the 49th Hen. III. A. D. 1274) any vote or share in making the laws of the kingdom, or whether they were not made by the king, with the advice and confent of the magnates, proceres, optimates, nobiles, prelates, abbots, comites, earls, barons, wites, fapientes, &c. fummoned by the king? no defcription of whom anfwers to the modern idea of a member of the houfe of commons. Either alternative of this warmly contefted difpute, may, I conceive, be fafely adopted without the flightest abatement of that respect and fubmiffion, which every loyal fubject owes to the prefent form of the British conftitution. The predominant feature of the republican, or independent, or levelling party has ever been a fovereign horror of any fuperiority of power in others; this therefore operated generally against the ariftocratic part of the conftitution; for the commonalty were in many refpects refpects certainly inferior to the peers of the realm. The crown and the mitre however were the hateful marks, at which they have unwearily directed their rancorous fhafts of difcontent. It has therefore been strenuously and artfully argued, fuppofed, and affirmed, that the spiritual lords make no conftitutional neceffary part of the house of fecond estate is conftituted of both the fpiritual the lords fpi peers. *The The fecond ef and temporal lords jointly; for" (fay they) "though the archbishops and bishops are denominated Spiritual, yet they fit in parliament as temporal barons only, (i. e.) by reafon of the temporal baronies annexed to their bishopricks, and not as they are spiritual perfons. And they further urge, in confirmation. of their opinion, firft, That no bishop, notwithstanding his election, confecration, confirmation, &c. can be a lord of, or fit in parliament, till the king has granted to him Lex Parliamentaria, p. 3. which refers to Cotton's Records, 709. 710. 4 Inft. 1. Hales of Parliaments, i. Finch's Nemotecnia, lib. ii. c. 1. Sadler's Rights of the Kingdom, p. 79 to 93. Kelway's Reports, 184: Stanif. Pl. Cor. 153. See Bagfhaw's Readings, p. 17 to 21. N. B. Though this ftatute was repealed by queen Mary, yet that repeal was repealed by queen Elizabeth, &c. as the parliament at Bury, 24 Edw. I. 1 Eliz. all the acts about religion paffed diffentientibus epifcopis. See Journal Dom. Procer, 11 H. VII. 27 Bro. Par. 107. Kelway, 184. I the tate confifts of ritual and tem poral. I the temporalities of the bifhoprick. Secondly, That by virtue of the statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 2. ftill in force, the king may conftitute bishops by his letters patent only, without any election or confecration*; and thirdly, That Whoever believes that our bleffed Lord has eftablished a church upon earth, must never lose fight of the difference between the real fpiritual right, power, and jurifdiction of the paftors of that church, and the right, power, and jurifdiction, which they may derive from the civil establishment of religion. The real fpiritual elevation to the epifcopal order or dignity can only be effected by the confecration, which no fovereign of this realm ever pretended or attempted to perform; and the validity of this confecration muft depend upon the capacities or fpiritual qualifications of the parties confecrating and confecrated; if the latter be not in holy orders, and the former rightly ordained and confecrated, no one can be fo raised to the spiritual dignity of a bishop in the church of Christ, as to command the spiritual obedience or submiffion of any member of his church. Neither the recommendation by conge d'elire, letter miffive, nor nomination and prefentation by letters patent under the great feal, nor confirmation, inveftiture, nor admiffion to the temporalities by the king, can change the quality of a man from lay to clerical, nor elevate him from fimple priesthood to the dignity of a bishop. The cafe is fimilar in the presentations, inftitutions, and inductions of the inferior clergy. The prefentation of the clerk to the bishop by the patron is a mere civil right given by the laws, which conftitute the civil establishment of religion, and may be exercised by a prefbyterian, quaker, or Jew, as well as by a member of the established church. By the inftitution, the bishop, in exercise of his real fpiritual power, or paftoral jurifdiction over a part of the church of That parliaments have been, and may be holden, exclufo clero, exclufive of the bishops and clergy, and that fome of our most beneficial statutes have been enacted, whereto the whole body of the clergy diffented; all which, they fay, prove the bishops to be no effential part, or any of the three eftates of parliament. And in Trinity term, 7 H. VIII. it is agreed by all the judges of England, that the king may well hold his parliament by himself, and his lords temporal and commons, without any bishops or fpiritual lords at all. Chrift commits the care of the fouls of the parish to the charge of the clerk, who from that time becomes the Spiritual fubject of his bifhop. Inftitution therefore is properly the inveftiture of the spiritual part of the benefice. The induction is directed by the civil establishment of religion, and is nothing more than an open and notorious delivery over to the clerk, of the corporal poffeffion of the church, to notify to the parishoners their new minifter, to whom tythes are to be paid; and this is properly the inveftiture of the temporal part of the benefice, Mr. Collier, fpeaking of Bishop Bonner's commiffion to execute all the branches of epifcopal authority under his highness Lord Cromwell, vicegerent and vicar general, &c. fays, (pt. ii. b. iii. p. 169.) "But if the church is a diftinct and entire fociety, if in pure fpirituals fhe is conftituted independent on all the kings on the earth; if fhe is furnished with powers fufficient to answer the ends of her charter; if these powers were settled by our Saviour upon the apostles and their fucceffors to the world's end; if the hierarchy can make out this title, then must I crave leave to think thofe, who fuggefted the draught of this inftrument were no great divines," &c. However |