(Menevia, or St. David's) has been made free with in the Papal Brief. In accordance with this act of the Pope, Dr. Wiseman taunts the Church of England with the assertion that the restriction in the Emancipation Act was not supposed at the time to give the slightest security to the English Church. "Speaking of it," he writes, "the Duke of Wellington remarked, that the clause was no security, but it would give satisfaction to the United Church of England and Ireland; according to the laws of England the title of a Diocese belonged to the person appointed to it by his Majesty, but it was desirable that others appointed to it by an assumed authority should be discountenanced, and that was the reason why the clause was introduced." Surely the Duke did not allude to any thing very singular about the clause in question. No law, as such, gives security; it is the moral feeling of respect for the law, and its consequent observance, not the enactments of a law, which gives security: and the Duke, as experience shows, was not very wide of the mark in anticipating that the law would be violated

by an assumed authority." The Duke, whose discernment is appealed to by Dr. Wiseman, said, "the title of a Diocese belonged to the person appointed to it by his Majesty." If this be so, his Eminence must admit, that the title of St. David's cannot be lawfully borne by the nominee of the Holy See, even if it should be found practically impossible for the executive Government to enforce perfect obedience to the law, from the nature of its subject-matter.

The questions which arise in regard to the Law of England will be more simply solved, if the character of the recent act of the Pope can be precisely determined. It is contended by Roman Catholic writers, that the erection of the new Sees is a spiritual act on

the part of his Holiness, and that the Roman Catholic subjects of her Majesty who maintain the right of the Pope to erect such Sees, maintain only the spiritual supremacy of the Holy See, and are within the law. But it But it may be observed, in the first place, that, neither the erection of a See, nor the appointment of a Bishop is a spiritual act. The consecration of a Bishop, by the laying on of hands, is the spiritual act; the appointment is a temporal act, even if it should happen to be the act of an ecclesiastic. For instance, if the appointment were a spiritual act, in the sense in which the consecration is a spiritual act, it could not be performed by laymen; yet Bishops in communion with the Holy See have, from time to time, been appointed freely by the Church at large, i. e. have been elected by the laity and clergy. Such, it may be said, was the rule of the Church until the twelfth century; and even now the temporal Power in many Roman Catholic states, in accordance with a direct or implied Concordat, nominates the Bishops of the land, and the Pope accepts such nomination, and by his confirmation of it, recognises its valid origin. If, on the other hand, the appointment is called spiritual in another sense from that in which the consecration is so termed, it is a loose and improper sense, and only leads to confusion of thought. The appointment of a Bishop should rather be termed "an ecclesiastical act of a temporal nature;" the consecration being, on the contrary, "an ecclesiastical act of a spiritual nature." The appointment does not give the spiritual office, but merely designates the person for the spiritual office, which is conveyed to him at consecration. Thus it may be perfectly true, as Mr. Bowyer justly states, that Rome alone, i. e. the Pope alone, can give to the Bishops of that Church mission;

but to give mission to a Bishop is a different thing from erecting a See for that Bishop within the realm of an independent sovereign, or even from appointing a Bishop. So far is it from "the erection of Bishoprics being an integral and essential part of the exercise of the Pope's spiritual authority," as Mr. Bowyer would contend, meaning thereby to exclude from the act all participation of the temporal power of the State, that, on the contrary, the annals of every country in Europe furnish evidence adverse to his view.*

If, on the other hand, it is merely meant to be asserted, that the spiritual sanction of the Holy See was thought in all countries which have continued in communion with the Pope to be essential in the erection of a Bishopric, this assertion may be within the mark; but the exercise of the Pope's general spiritual authority in such a matter, in the way of confirming the act, does not exclude the exercise of the temporal authority of the individual sovereign, in whose territory the See happens to be erected. On the contrary, as will be seen, when the law of Europe comes to be discussed, the temporal authority of the prince was as essentially requisite in the erection of episcopal Sees, as the spiritual authority of the Pope. If this should prove to be the case in respect of the princes of Europe, who acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, on what principle can the Pope claim to set aside the temporal supremacy of those sovereigns, who do not acknowledge his spiritual supremacy?

Again, if the erection of an episcopal See were held by the Law of England to be a purely spiritual

* See Chapter III.

act, then there might be some plausibility in the Pope turning against the law of the land the weapon which it may have itself furnished to him; but by the Law of England, no episcopal See can be erected by the Crown within her Majesty's realm of England except with the consent of the legislature*, in which it is true the Bishops of the Established Church form part, but do not thereby impart to its acts a spiritual character. There is accordingly no argument furnished by the law of the land to distinguish the realm of the Protestant Queen of England from that of a prince in communion with the See of Rome, in a sense more favourable to the pretensions of the See of Rome. It may consequently happen, that the temporal, and not the spiritual, supremacy of the Crown of England, is impugned by those who would carry into execution the will of the Pope in erecting Bishops' Sees throughout the length and breadth of England, mero motu suo. It is, further, with respect to that temporal supremacy that legal difficulties may arise

* The Sees of Oxford, Gloucester, Peterborough, Bristol, and Chester, known as King Henry VIII.'s Bishoprics, were erected by letters patent of the Crown, pursuant to an Act of Parliament 31 Henry 8. c. 9., authorising the King's Highness to erect Sees and nominate Bishops by letters patent under the Great Seal of England, and to endow them with such possessions as his Highness should think convenient. This statute was repealed by 1 Philip and Mary, c. 8., and has not been revived. The Sees of Ripon and Manchester were erected by order of the Queen in Council, pursuant to the provisions of 6 & 7 William 4. c. 77., and 10 & 11 Vict. c. 108., authorising her Majesty in Council to carry into effect the recommendations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The necessity of an Act of Parliament in the case of new Sees in England, as distinguished from Sees in the colonies, or in British settlements, arises from the fact that the erection of a new See in England involves an interference with the established rights of an old See.

for her Majesty's loyal and faithful Roman Catholic subjects, from which they have been exempt under the previous condition of the English mission. For if it should be a correct view of the law, that the Pope, as a foreign prelate or potentate, in erecting his new sees, has invaded the sovereignty of the Crown of England, such subjects of her Majesty as seek to put the writ of the Pope into use and execution will thereby risk to maintain his temporal superiority and pre-eminence; and thus the Roman Catholic peers and members of the House of Commons, who have taken the oath embodied in the Relief Act, whereby they deny that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm, may find themselves

ensnared.

A further point remains to be considered in reference to the publication and execution of the Brief itself. It would seem that, on the occasion of the enthronement of Cardinal Wiseman, the letter of the Pope was read aloud in a public assembly for religious worship of the Roman Catholic communion with open doors. It has been further put into execution by the Archbishop and several of the Bishops assuming the titles of the new sees, and issuing pastoral and other letters in the names of the Archbishop of Westminster, the Bishops of Hexham, Birmingham, &c. Now the statute 13 Eliz. cap. 2. intituled "An Act against the bringing in and putting in execution of bulls, writings, or instruments, and other superstitious things from the see of Rome," having in its preamble recited that " many persons minding to bring this realm and the temporal Crown thereof (being in very

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