The fpiritual and civil powers often tend to the fame end.

rights, powers, and jurifdictions had been clearly fet forth and afcertained; and confident am I, that if fuch incroachments had been avoided, the mutual refpect for each other would have greatly increafed the energy of their respective establishments, and forwarded the ends of their respective institu

tions.

When I fay, that thefe powers are of a different nature from each other, I do not affert, that they neceffarily act in oppofition, or in a different direction from each other: but their fources of action are different. The church prohibits, and may punish the fin of murder; the ftate alfo prohibits and punishes murder as a crime; both prohibitions and punishments tend to the fame end, though they differ effentially in their origin, means, and effects; and certainly nothing can be more laudable, than for human laws to be directed to the noble end of feconding the views and intentions of Almighty God upon his creatures, which in his goodness he has revealed to us. This is the true principle, upon which communities make civil eftablifhments of religion.

* "Our bleffed Redeemer, in his all-wife

The Cafe of the Regale and the Pontificale ftated, printed in 1702, p. 19.

providence,

The church

independent of

all civil powers

upon earth.

providence, foreseeing the confequence on both fides, as he fet up his church independent of all the powers of the earth, fo he gave her no authority, that could poffibly interfere with the civil powers. He altered nothing of the civil powers, but left them as he found them. He gave to Cæfar all that was Cæfar's; but the things of God, and the administration of the fpiritual kingdom of heaven upon earth, that he left in the hands of his church, and accountable to none but himself. That as it is rebellion and ufurpation in the church to extend her commiffion to civil power, fo it is the highest facrilege and rebellion against Christ, for the civil power to extend their commiffion into the fpiritual kingdom, and ufurp upon the facred office. It is confounding of heaven and earth; and each may and ought to affift the other, without incroaching upon one another's province. The state may protect and honour the church, without invading any part of her office; as the church ought to inforce obedience to the civil magiftrate in all lawful things, without affuming any temporal power over him. This is the concordat Incorporation and agreement betwixt the church and state, state. upon what we call their incorporation; and there is no other incorporation but this; it

of church and

Civil effects

taken for fpi

ritual.

is not giving up their power to one another; that would be confufion, and an eternal feed of debate and jealousy of each other; the best way to keep up the agreement is, to preferve their powers diftinct and independent of each other."

Since the incorporation of the civil estabfometimes mif- lifhment of religion with our conftitution, many acts, orders, and regulations, which relate to or affect ecclefiaftical or fpiritual matters, are frequently reprefented as ecclefiaftical or Spiritual, which notwithstanding in fact are purely temporal or civil. And although these powers, authorities, and jurifdictions may often appear compound, yet they are easily analized and refolved into their original component parts, and the different effects are obviously traced to their primæval principle, or efficient caufe. The unerring criterion to determine, if an act proceed from the real true fpiritual jurifdiction or power of the church, is to examine if any civil or legal effect be annexed unto it; for a civil effect will indifputably prove, that it proceeded from the civil fanction or establish-· ment of religion by the ftate; as all the effects of this civil establishment must neceffarily be in their nature temporal or civil. It will appear to any one, who confiders cooly

and

and impartially the words and tendency of the 24th of Henry VIII. for the restraint of appeals, that it was intended to produce no other effect, than an alteration in a part of the civil establishment of religion; but this I fhall confider more fully hereafter.

24 Henry VIII.

intended to al

ter the civil

establishment.

certain grievances in the civil establish

on.

"If we attend to the nature of the complaints, which the kingdom was perpetually making in the days of popery of the Roman ufurpations, we fhall find, that they did not fo much respect these ufurpations themselves, as the perfon claiming and enjoying them. The grievance was, that ap- Complaints of peals fhould be made to Rome; that provifions fhould come from thence; in a word, ment of religi that all caufes fhould be carried to a foreign tribunal, and that such powers should be exercised over the fubjects of this realm by a foreign jurisdiction. The complaint was, that the pope exercised thefe powers, and not that the powers themfelves were exercifed. So on the abolition of this fupremacy, the act, that placed it in the perfon of the king would naturally be taken to transfer upon him all the privileges and pre-eminences, which had formerly belonged to it, And thus, though the act was fo properly

The king becoming the fupreme head of

the civil estab

very exalted

drawn as to make a difference in the two cafes, yet the people at large, and much more the king himself, would infer from the conceffions, that the pope had ufurped his powers on the crown;' that therefore the crown had now a right to those powers. And the circumftance of this tranflation's pafsing by act of parliament, does not alter the matter much, with regard to the king's notion of it. For in that time of danger, and for the greater fecurity of his new power, he would chufe to have that ratified and confirmed by ftatute, which he firmly believed inherent in his perfor, and dignity.

"Then, to fee how far the current opinions of that time were favourable to the extenfion of the regal authority, on this alliance with the papal, we are to reflect, that however odious the adminiftration of the pope's fupremacy was become, moft men had very high notions of the plenitude of his power, and the facredness of his perfon. "Chrift's vicar upon earth," was an awful title, and had funk deep into the aftonifhed minds of the people. And though Henry's pretenfions went no further than to affume that vicarial

lifhment raifed authority within his own kingdom, yet this limitation would not hinder them from con

notions of the fovereign.

ceiving of him much in the fame way as of the

pope