we have abundantly demonstrated.

Would it then be

practicable? Is the Liberation Society essaying, what may be accomplished without the total dismemberment and dissolution of civil society? Is their avowed design honestly practicable? That is to say, is it attainable consistently with the security and stability of the commonwealth? Our answer is most unhesitatingly in the negative. Their aim is, whether they are cognizant of the fact, or not, at nothing less than mob-rule, terrorism, and revolution. Nor is this a mere averment. The proofs

are numerous.

Let us examine but a few.

The bishops are, as we have already seen, by corporate hereditary right, spiritual peers. But, they are something more. They constitute in their collective capacity, a distinct estate of the realm,—a fact, which as we shall see by and by, is of the utmost importance in determining the practicability of any attempt at separation between church and state. "The constituent parts of a parliament are" says Judge Blackstone, "the king, or queen regnant, sitting there in royal political capacity, and the three estates of the realm; the lords spiritual,* the

*As to the duties of the archbishops and bishops as spiritual peers, we may here cite the impressive words of the Rev. and Right Worshipful Chancellor Burton :-"The main design of their reception into that house, signified by the title and appellation of its members, the lords spiritual and temporal,' is that they should guard the well-being of the Church; being vigilant in all that relates to it; instant in the resisting of whatever would bar its usefulness, and in the suggesting and urging of whatever would render itself and the labours of its ministers more hopeful to the

lords temporal, who sit together with the sovereign in one house, and the commons, who sit by themselves in another. And the sovereign, and these three estates, together, form the great corporation, or body-politic of the kingdom, of which the sovereign is said to be caput, principium, et finis."* "The lords spiritual are" says the same great legal authority, in "the eye of the law, a distinct estate from the lords temporal, and are so distinguished in most of our acts of parliament." The spirituality, then is, in the actual constitution of parliament, a distinct estate of the realm; and as such is legally indestructible. Parliament is wholly destitute of any power to alter the constitution and more especially so to alter it, as to abrogate the first, or ecclesiastical estate. For such estate was not in the first instance created by parliament, and it takes as high a power to annul as to enact. The commons never possessed the power to create peers either spiritual or temporal. That is exclusively a royal prerogative. But even supposing that it had possessed such power, just as the crown is admitted to possess it, yet it would be impossible to found upon such prerogative any right or power to modify or alter the existing constitution. For any attempt

:

interests of all. No default in any of these respects ought to be made by them; they represent the Church; and it is for them, without fear or favour, to speak the voice of the Church in that august assembly."-The Supremacy. A charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Carlisle at his Visitation in September, 1866. By Charles James Burton, M.A., Chancellor.

* Commentaries on the Laws of England (Stephen's Edition) Vol. II. p. 356.

to modify the constitution to the extent of the destruction of any one of its essential constituent elements, is an attempt not at reformation, but at revolution. And yet,

this revolutionary design has been, and is still publicly and deliberately avowed by the political dissenters of the day! This is the meaning of "Liberation." Nay, sooth to say, it has been sought to pass a measure through the House of Commons to effect this end. On the 13th of March 1834, a Mr. Rippon actually moved a bill-" To relieve the Archbishops and Bishops of the Established Church from their legislative and judicial duties in the House of Peers." This was seconded by Mr. Gillon and supported by fifty-eight members. And since then two other motions made respectively in 1836* and in 1837+ contemplated the same issue, to wit, the expulsion of all prelates from their seats in the House of Lords.

But, as it appears to us, such measures are ab initio null and void. They contemplate a breach of the constitution. They assume the existence in the Commons of powers, wholly alien from its prerogative and jurisdiction. And even if such measures did not contain these utterly false assumptions, they must necessarily fail in virtue of their unconstitutional character. It would be just as

* In this year Mr. Rippon renewed his motion of 1834, which was supported by 55 votes.

Mr. C. Lushington re-introduced Mr. Rippon's motion, and gained 94 votes, comprising all the leading Radicals, Dissenters and Romanists in the Lower House.

S

legitimate, were Mr. Bright to introduce a bill for the relief of Her Majesty of all regal, legislative and judicial responsibilities and prerogatives as it is to talk of "relieving the Archbishops and Bishops of their legislative and judicial duties in the House of Peers."* Yes, and what is more, we shall soon see that if the Commons can relieve Bishops it can also relieve Kings. For where is this revolutionary legislation to terminate? If the third estate of the realm should ever become dissenterist enough to dispense with the first, it will not be long ere it dispense with the second. For neither the crown nor the aristocracy would long survive the Church. The separation of church and state is, therefore, upon the grounds already stated, as a question of legislation, impracticable. It is only accomplishable on the conditions of the great Cromwellian experiment of the seventeenth century.

There is, however, a further ground, upon which all attempts at anti-state-church legislation in the Lower House, are unconstitutional.

All such measures, as every one must admit, affect, ultimately at least, the privileges of the peers. In fact,

* It should not be forgotten that, as a sort of set-off against the baronial rank of the bishops, the inferior clergy suffer a corresponding political disability. A clergyman, in virtue of his Holy Orders, cannot sit in the commons as a burgess. Many of the clergy could by their rank, wealth, and popularity, obtain election as members of parliament, were they not, as clergy, disqualified. A clerical element in the lower house of parliament would be of very great advantage :-let it not be forgotten, however, that this disqualification exists.

their aim is to abolish entirely and for ever one of the two estates of which the peerage is constituted. And if that is not a blow at the rights of the peerage, pray what is? To confine ourselves for a moment to the motion of Mr. Rippon, it is sufficient to remark that as that motion sought "to relieve"-happy euphemism— "the archbishops and bishops of the established church from their legislative and judicial duties in the House of Peers," "—or in other words directly and immediately affected the rights of the peerage, it ought never to have been allowed even a first reading in the Lower House. For according to the lex et consuetudo parliamenti—“ all bills that may in their consequences in any way affect the rights of the peerage are to have their first rise and beginning in the house of peers, and to suffer no changes or amendments in the house of commons, which has, however the power of rejecting them.*" Indeed to cite again from the same high authority,-" The whole of the law and custom of parliament has its origin from the one maxim, that whatever matter ariseth concerning either house of parliament ought to be examined, discussed, and adjudged in that house to which it relates and not elsewhere. Hence for instance the Lords will not suffer the Commons to interfere in settling the election of a peer of Scotland, the Commons will not allow the Lords to judge of the election of a Burgess."

* Blackstone.—Commentaries, (Stephen's Edition.) Book IV., Part i., Chap. i. § 4.