The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-04 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING,

then, could the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
decide on these questions with any show of justice, when
they were incowp itent to understand not alone their
rudiments, but, it might be, even the very terms in which
the propositions involving them were put? There was
another point to be considered also. Very much of the
law in matters ecclesiastical had been formed upon former
decisions of the clergy; much of it, therefore, rested upon
precedent; but as every decision of the Judicial Com-
mittee of the Privy Council in these matters became a
precedent, and as precedents modiked and sometimes
wholly altered the law; so, in course of time, the
ecclesiastical law, of which a great part was not printed
as statutes, might come to be chanced altogether by
means of these decisions, and with it the doctrines of
the Church. He was well aware that the eminent and
learned persons who composed that Committee disclaimed
all authority and power to settle doctrinal points in dis-
pute, and professed only to decide as to the practice; but
it was utterly impossible, in many of those cases, to se-
parate doctrine from authority, or to decide the one
without affecting the other. Though, however, some lay-
men might be well read in divinity, as he knew a judge
himself who was eminently so—still that could not be
the case as regarded the great body of the Committee;
and, therefore, would the decision of those who were
mostly ignorant of the subject become in time the legal
doctrine of the Church. This brought him to the prin-
ciple of the Bill, which was that of the Constitution of
the country—namely, that the decision of spiritual cases
should be left to spiritual judges, and that questions of
doctrine and discipline in matters ecclesiastical should
not be delegated to lay judges. That was the spirit and
essence of the British Constitution from the earliest
period down to the present time• and he would only re-
mind the House of the dictum of that great jurist, Lord
Coke, on the subject, when he laid it down, " that the
kingdom was always best governed in peace and quiet
when justice in the temporal and ecclesiastical courts
was kept within the separate jurisdiction of each, and
without encroachment upon the others, which was
always found to lead to trouble and inconvenience."
Their Lordships might smile when they were referred
back to the Saxon times in this matter ; but it was no-
torious that in those times the bishop and the sheriff sat
together for the administration of justice, the one in
spiritual cases and the other in temporal. The I
laws of King Edgar laid down the same rules,
and the statute Articuli Ceti, declaratory of the
common law and custom of the realm, said that it was
the law that spiritual persons should sue before an eccle-
siastical judge for justice in clerical cases. In the reign
of Stephen it was decided that the duty of the King's
Court was to consult with the divines of the land in
cases where there was doubt, whether they were spiritual
or not; and if the fact were denied to send it before a
jury for decision; otherwise to refer it for decision to the
Ecclesiastical Court. That was
Lwohradtshwe
h(othesaßt isohnopthoef
Loclohny)tdheesirßeidll.in
Thethe tNriebhunleal proposed to be consti-
tuted Committee of Privy Council decided questions of fact;
but they did not consult learned divines as to whether
doctrines involved in those facts were heretical or not.
Either the Judicial Committee might put the question to
the Bishops as to whether such doctrine was heretical or
not—or the question might be solved by a provincial
synod, or by a commission of three or four Bishops
appointed by the Crown. Then with regard to the
Court of Delegates, he (the Bishop of London) be-
lieved it had never been contemplated by the Act
which created it that the judges were to consist wholly
r ea te
r a.
of laymen; on the contrary, he was convinced that it
r
contemplated a proportion of ecclesiastics. Until, and
tel
ievorengn—e
numberwduring,e re
c lae
ofrg greatythme e
judges—indeed
w thereignheni
n of t
he
earlierHenryg legal history
of the country it was stated that certain suits were re-
ferred to the ecclesiastical courts, it was meant that they
were referred to courts presided over by clergymen.
With respect to convocations, Queen Anne stated, in re-
ply to the Archbishop, that according to th© opinions of
eight judges, jurisdiction in spiritual matters was proper
to be exercised in convocation of the clergy. This was
the principle, therefore, that ran through the entire of
British law on the subject of ecclesiastical matters. He
would next offer one or two remarks on the practice of
the early Christian Church in this matter. That Church
admitted, as he had already stated, the supremely of the
Sovereign in practice. The early councils were con-
voked by the Emperors, and many of them were
attended by those potentates themselves. But
their rule was to be bound by the royal decision
in all proceedings only which were in conformity I
with the caniins and regulations of the Church, and
there was no departure from that line on any occasion.
The most celebrated casuist of modern times—himself a
Roman Catholic, and a msn who had incurred the cen-
sure of the Church for his liberality—laid it down that
the Church was the only judge of doctrine, and that the
Prince had no power to interfere except in promulgating
new laws. With regard to the Gallican Church, which
brought him down to a latter period, the end of that dis-
cussion in which Bossuet was engaged with the Doctors
of the Sorbonne, was that the King was held to be the
court of ultimate appeal in questions of ecclesiastical
authority, but not in matters of doctrine, which should
be governed and decided only by canonical rules. One
of the most celebrated writers of the Sorbonne, after-
wards Archbishop of Cambray, and a cardinal, ascribed
to the bishops alone an examination into matters of
faith, and laid it down that to attempt to take
the power of deciding from them would be an act of
injustice. This doctrine was in full force in France at
the present moment ; and the Sovereign for the time
being was incapable of interfering with questions of doc-
trine in the Church, according to the celebrated juris-
consult Laine. He (the Bishop of London) would next
pass to that part of the Bill which was drawn from an
analogy with the courts of common law and equity it,
this country, though he at once admitted that the
analogy was not perfect. The maxim of the courts of
law wag, calque in arte sea credendunt ea—that is, it ad-
vised that those persons who were most competent
should be consulted in all cases. The practice of the
Court of Chancery was to direct parties in a matter of
fact to try the cause by a jury, or to order a special case
to be sent to the judges of the common law courts for
their opinion. In questions of foreign law, as the law of
England took no judicial notice of foreign laws, when
they arose they were dealt with as a science, to be proved
as facts by competent witnesses. The opinions of the late
most learned and excellent Lord Chief Justice o.

the Queen's Bench was to this eff-et, and so was
that of the eminent Learned Judge, Justice Coleridge.
The Right Rev. Prelate also read en opinion of the
Noble and Learned Lord the Master of the Rolls in sup-
port of his view of questions of f reign law. lie next
referred to the course of proceeding in the High Court
of Admiralty. When any question arose there which
was to be decided by the rules of nautical science, the
judge of the High Court of Admiralty called into his
assistance certain members of the Eider Brethren of the
Trinity Howe. In the Established Church of Scotland.
the final decision of all questions of doctrine rested with
the Church Courts. In the Church of Prussia, unfor-
tunately, matters not merely of ecclesiastical judica•
cure, but of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity,
were in such a state, that it was almost impossible te
say what wore the principles and practice of the Church
of Prussia; but, according to the general prin-
ciple of the constitution for the present year
1850, any questions of false doctrine were de-
cided definitely by the Church, represented by a
mixed assembly. With regard to the Boman Catholic
Church in Silesia and the Rhenish provinces, the state
never attempted to interfere in any questions of doctrine,
not even with respect to the appointment of a professor.
In the view he was now pressing upon their Lordships
he was not arguing the question whether or not there
should be any modification of the principle he advocated,
but the general principle of the Bill could not be decided
upon the objections raised against it partly in the public
prints and partly in petitions addressed to the Legisla.
cure. The first of those objections to the measure was,
that it would give a power to the Bishops to frame new
doctrines. In answer to that, it was sufficient to say
that no new power was given by this Bill—that if the
present Court which decided questions of this kind had
any power of framing new doctrines, there was no other
in the matter proposed fir the new tribunal. But it
was not a question of framing new doctrines, but of de-
ciding what was the doctrine of the Church of England,
and, therefore, whatever objection now arose against
the proceedings of the Court proposed in the Bill,
applied with still greater force to the Judicial Com-
mittee of the Privy Council. The next objection
Was, that the Bill excluded the laity from all
participation in the consideration of questions of this
nature. Now, he considered one of the principal merits
of the Bill to be, that it maintained the laity in the pos-
session of its proper functions. He did not mean to dis-
place judges from the functions of interpreting judicially
ooefcti the Episcopal Bench,
n based upon the
the rules of law and administering justice ; he only
wished them to take the tenets and doctrines of the
Church from those who were the most fitted to give
them.
ho should content himself with saying that if there were
a possibility of heresy on the part of the Biships, that
possibility Withef heresy respect on to
the part bj
might form a good reason on the part of the Legislature
to change the mode of electing Bishops, but not of de-
priving them of their legitimate jurisdiction and inherent
right when they wet e once appointed. lie had already
trespassed too long on their Lordships'
time, and he
thanked them for the indulgence they had extended to
him. It now remained for their Lordships to decide the
question of supreme importance to the Church—with
whom was to rest for time to come, at least fur some con-
siderable time to come, the final adjudica'ion of the ques-
tion whether any particular doctrine which was alleged
to be in contravention of the Christian doctrines of the
Church of England was clearly so or not? Putting out
of question who were the proper teachers according to
the religious principles of Christianity, according to the
practice and rules of the early Church, and according to
the theory of our own Church, he would ask who were
most likely to bring to the investigation the qualifica-
tions which would insure a satisfactory decision—
whether laymen, whose thoughts had never been turned
to the subject, or the assembled episcopacy of England—
men who had been trained from their earliest years to
the consideration and investigation of theological doc-
trines. But ho would not rest his ease upon the compa-
rative fi•ness of the men merely. He would also rest it
upon the inherent and Were:Bible right of the Church
to teach and determine upon points of Church
doctrine by means of its ministers, according to
the authority expressly deice:AA to them by
apostolical commission—the right inherent and
indefeasible of the bishops of the Church of Eng-
land to determine finally upon all questions of doctrine.
He now commended the measure to their Lordships'
earnest and serious consideration. In the conclusion,
as well as the commencement of his remarks, he felt
overpowered by a sense of 'the importance of the results
that might follow from their Lordships' rejection of the
Bill. But while not without anxiety and apprehension on
that score, he was at the same time not without hope.
lie trusted at all events that their Lordships would
come to the consideration of the question with more than
usual care, and he would conclude by the expression of
an earned wish _that He .who had committed to his church