The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-06 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 6, 1850.

With regard to the creation of the prelates; we
shall limit ourselves to 'the remark, that, notwith-
standing Mr. AltsraT's ingenious special pleadiag to
the contrary, we still think the recently appointed
hierarchs fall within the letter of that act of EDWARD
prohibits the impetration
elf "dignities,
isears,woffie haceZeawndneenesees," from the Roman
wart; and we are equally confident that all who have
bean concerned in 'smog out or procuring" the
papal "brief or buil" by which the new bishops have
been appointed, though no longer liable to the exact
penalties, are still within the prohibition of the 13th
of ELIZABETH.
With reference to the excess of jurisdiction
*meted in the POPE'S late Letters Avesta's], and
accepted in the Pastoral of Cardinal WISEMAN, it is
needless to say that we not only agree with Mr.
Ammer, bet go much further than he perhaps can
fairly be expected to do. No plainer denial of the
Queen's ecclesiastical (as distinct from her spiritual)
supremacy. can well be imagined than is involved in
the following pump of the Letters Apostolic/al:
Bat In the sawed government of clergy and laity, and in
all ether things appertaiolog sate the pastoral office, the
erelthishop and bishops of England will henceforward enjoy
all the rights and faculties which the other catholic arch-
bishops and bishops of other nation', according to the
Peon= ordinances of the sacred canons and spoo-
led* mmatitutions, use, and may use, and are
waft bound by the obligations which bind the other
arolabishope and bishops according to Ca .me 001111011 die
alphas of the catholic church. And whatever regulations
either in the lustiest system of the Aegliess churches or in
the subsequent missionary state may have been in force
either by special constitutions or privileges or peculiar col•
tome will now henceforth carry no right nor obligation :
sad in order that no doubt may remain on this point we, by
tke plenitude of oar apostolic authority, repeal and 'brume
ell power whatsoever of imposing obligati= or conferring
right is those peculiar constitutions and privileges of what-
ever kind they may be, and in all customs by whomsoever
er at whatever mast ancient or immemorial time brought
‘ in.
Bow it will for the future be solely competent the
iIiNSINcRop and bishops of England to distinemis what
M belong to the execution of the common ecclesiastical
Ara, and what, according to the common discipline of the
eibusuA, are entnuded to the authority of the bishops.
We defy any man to reconcile such assumption
with even the most liberal construction of that clause
is the act of the let ELIZABETH, which confers upon
the sovereign of these realms that ecclesiastical supre-
macy to which, as Mr. ANSTET admits, Roman catho-
lic, are by law as much subjects as other lieges; and
which in plain terms exacts that no foreign prince,
or prelate spiritual or temporal, shall exercise any
manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, authority er pre-
eminence in these realms. The claims asserted by
the Pore in this passage are claims not to spiritual
power, but to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and as each
they are understood by Cardinal WISEMAN' in that
passage of his Pastoral in which he tells his flock
that " At present, and till such time as the Holy See
shall think fit otherwise to provide, we govern, and
shall continue to govern, the counties of Middlesex,
Hertford, and Essex, as ordinary thereof, and those
of Surrey, Sussex, Rent, Berkshire, and Hampshire,
with the islands annexed, as administrator with or-
dinary jurisdiction."
What amount of ecclesiastical supremacy it is that
the POPE has failed to assert, and Cardinal Wiseman
to accept, within the limits of his jurisdiction. would
be an inquiry more curious than profitable. Without
endeavouring to solve the problem with minute accu-
racy, it may, at all events, safely be inferred, that
more is asserted sad more is accepted than is at all
consistent with any sound and constitutional views of
the QuEEN's supremacy in its relations with the
Roman catholio church in England.
That Mr ANSTZT is of the earns opinion may. fairly
be inferred, both front the candour of his admiasions,
and the discretion of his silence. In spite of the re-
serve; almost necessarily imposed by his position, and
with certain exceptions already pointed out, we can
confidently recommend his pamphlet as containing,
on the whole, a compendious and constitutional state-
ment of the branch of law on which it treats.

GERMANY.