The first change for the better was the Act of 1813. By its operation the punishment of excommunication* ceased to be the ordinary weapon of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and such a substitute was devised as the wisdom of Bacon† had early proposed, and the united assembly of the clergy‡ had · subsequently solicited. Even when excommunication was pronounced as a definitive sentence, it was no longer attended by any civil disabilities, though the Court might follow it by a certain measure of imprisonment not exceeding six months.

This was obviously a progress in the right direction. Instead of exempting certain persons from Church censures, it was to exempt Church censures from perversion. They were freed in great measure from that temporal machinery, which, however it may in past times have contributed to their strength, had long ceased to be other than an impediment. The only record of the past was the power of imprisonment. And this it is proposed to remove by the Act now before Parliament, which provides that for the future no person shall be liable to any civil penalty by means of any spiritual censures.”

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"Instead" of excommunication, "the Judge before whom the contempt is committed, shall pronounce such person contumacious, and signify the same within ten days to His Majesty in Chancery......the officers of Chancery shall thereupon issue a writ de contumace capiendo, &c."-Burn's Eccl. Law, Art. Excommunication.

† Of the Pacification of the Church.

Vide Gibson's Codex, 2. 1059.

This provision, coupled with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, will take away all pretence that the Church is a party to any coercion for the enforcement of spiritual obligations, or that she is backed by the power of the State, when she separates unholy persons from her communion. The civil rights of the subject will henceforth be open to all. No exclusive possession of them by members of the Church will afford an undue incentive to desire to be reckoned among her sons. There will be no sacramental test, to lead men to communicate unworthily. The grounds therefore which have made the exercise of discipline so obnoxious will be removed. The last temporal penalty which attached to excommunication will be done away, or, in other words, its connexion with the civil sentence which has borne the same name will be finally dissevered.

All this is as it should be. One thing only is requisite for the Church's interest, that the nature of this change should be clearly understood, and its consequences adequately appreciated. The sole hope of inducing the people of England to relish such spiritual discipline as is adapted to the present times, is by showing them its total dissociation from that system which, whatever may have been the case in past days, is neither expedient nor attainable in the nineteenth century. The spiritual sword is now to be resigned by the State, because unsuited to its purposes. It is not found to answer in such hands either for the prevention of

vice or the preservation of tranquillity. What is desired then is, that it may be fairly and formally laid aside; that henceforth it may be clearly understood that the Church is to fight her own battles. We are content that so far as this particular goes she should cease to be established. The notion of an Establishment does not depend on the existence of endowments-these are possessed already by various sects among us-nor yet on protection, which all parties receive. That the sovereign must be of the Church of England is a more genuine part of it, as well as that its Bishops, as Lords spiritual, are one estate of the realm, and that its fabrics have a legal claim to maintenance. To these three points a fourth has hitherto been added, that its Spiritual Courts have possessed authority (at least in name) to punish all cases of immorality. This power the Church is not unwilling to see abolished, but it should be abolished plainly and formally. The dead stump of authority should not be left in the ground to preclude the healthier up-growth of the soil. The spiritual Court and spiritual sentence, as at present administered, have become so odious by the ingrafted influence of the worldly authority, that no remedy remains save their total annihilation. Let those things then be formally separated which it were better perhaps never to have united. Let spiritual decrees be backed by no temporal results. Let testamentary and matrimonial cases be committed, as the present Act of Parliament proposes, to

courts held in the Queen's name, under her commission, and by her authority. The Royal Commissioners have declared that "in administering testamentary law, the Ecclesiastical Court exercises a jurisdiction purely civil, and in name only ecclesiastical."* As a question of principle, therefore, no reason can be adduced why a "jurisdiction" which is "purely civil," should not be exercised as a mere civil trust. In what places this jurisdiction shall be exercised, and in whom shall be the patronage of its administrators, are questions to be decided by the ordinary rules of convenience and justice. All that the Church has to desire, is that this worldly jurisdiction may not continue to overlay that spiritual authority, which had its origin from another source, and is directed to another purpose. For let none suppose that Spiritual Courts and Spiritual Authority will be annihilated by any change in temporal law, or that the legislature can do ought but free them from their worldly encumbrances. There is a power behind, which however long it may have been detained as a blinded bondsman in the mill of this world's domination, will one day reassert its proper office and inherent strength. Its enemies may fancy that they are stripping it of the gilded trappings essential to its dignity, but they will find that they are only removing those shackles, which concealed the fair dimensions of the ordinance of GOD.

Report, p. 25.

CHAPTER III.

The present Nature of Ecclesiastical Courts, and subjects of their jurisdiction.

THE causes which have proved fatal to the existing system of Church Discipline have been now detailed. Its gradual overthrow has been shown to be the natural result of the uses to which it was perverted. The bulwarks which had been raised for its safety or embellishment during an age of absolute power, have been shown to be altogether inconsistent with its preservation amidst the turbulent currents of modern opinion. But before we inquire whether there exists any principle of reconstruction, and if so, with what safeguards and limitations it must be accompanied, it will be necessary to explain somewhat more particularly what was the framework of that past system which, in practice, has been already abandoned; what the Church has lost, and what she is called upon therefore in some other manner to supply. The existing Church Courts, their office, and how far they either do or might perform it, shall be the subject of this chapter.