In the disputes with his barons some time afterwards, seeing the difficulties of his situation, and the danger of the whole kingdom's declaring against him, and knowing very well the mighty influence which the Clergy had in the nation, and to curry favour with them, John on January 15, A. D. 1215, by the common assent of his barons, and with a saving of the custody of vacant prelacies to himself and his heirs, granted a charter establishing for ever the right of free elections in all churches, monasteries, cathedrals, and conventual societies, obliging himself and successors neither to deny or delay a congé d'élire (if he did, they were allowed to proceed to a choice without any), nor to hinder the elected person's taking possession of his dignity; nor yet to deny the royal assent to such elections, without a reasonable objection. In the same year, by the Great Charter signed at Runnimede, the entire freedom of elections to bishoprics, abbeys, deaneries, and other ecclesiastical dignities, without the recommendation or nomination of any person by the Crown, in a letter missive (as granted by John's late charter of January 15) was expressly confirmed. Carte's History of England, vol. i. pp. 824. 829. 832. How far the popes had advanced in their encroachments in the reign of King Edward III., may be known from the complaint made in the famous statute of premunire passed in the twenty-fifth year of his reign: "That now or late, the Bishop of Rome, by procurement of clerks and otherwise, hath reserved, and doth daily reserve to his collation, generally and especially, as well archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, and priories, as all other dignities and other benefices of England, which be of the advowry of people of Holy Church, and give the same as well to aliens as to denizens.” At length, after many struggles by former monarchs, King Henry VIII. passed an act in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, that no person thereafter should be presented, nominated, or commended to the pope for the dignity or office of any archbishop or bishop of this realm; but that on every avoidance of every such archbishopric or bishopric, the king might grant to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church where the see should happen to be void, a licence under the great seal, as of old time had been accustomed, to proceed to the election of an archbishop or bishop, with a letter missive containing the name of the person which they should elect and choose; by virtue of which licence, the said dean and chapter should with all speed, in due form, elect the same person named in the said letters missive, to the dignity and office of the archbishopric or bishopric 30 being void, and none other; such election to be afterwards certified to the king, who, by letters patent, should signify it to the archbishop, requiring him to confirm the said election, and to invest and consecrate the person so elected, without any suing, procuring, or obtaining any bulls, letters, or other things from the see of Rome, for the same in any behalf. The act then declares, that if the dean and chapter proceed not to election, and signify the same within twenty days; or if any archbishop or bishop refuse to confirm, invest, and consecrate every such person so elected, or any other person do any other act to the let of due execution of the said statute, he should incur the penalties of the statute of premunire. The act also contains a power to the king to nominate by letters patent in default of election by the dean and chapter. This statute was repealed by an act of the first year of King Philip and Queen Mary, but revived by an act passed in the first year of Queen Elizabeth. On 66 The Disposal of Higher Church Preferment," since the period of the Reformation, the numbers of the "British Magazine" from February, 1837, to September, 1844, furnish a series of valuable papers said to be from the pen of a learned archdeacon of our Church, and drawn from records and other authentic sources; the last of which numbers, comprising a brief summary of the whole, contains the following observations :- 6 "The main facts which it was the object of these extracts to prove, were thus stated in the first number of the series, adopting, in fact, a statement which had then recently appeared in one of the leading public journals— that the nomination to ecclesiastical offices by the minister of the day, was 'an usurpation on the part of ministers, and that of comparatively recent growth;' that 'from the period of the Reformation until towards the middle of the last century, the king really, as well as nominally, appointed to ecclesiastical preferment;' and that, in the discharge of this sacred trust, the spiritual heads of the Church were habitually consulted on all important appointments.' Abundant evidence, it is hoped, has been supplied in proof of these statements; and the exceptions which have been found at different periods of the history, are such as tend strongly to show how salutary was the general rule, and how mischievous in its effects was any departure from it. We may refer in particular to the records of the Duke of Buckingham's administratiou in the reign of James I.; of the Cabal ' ministry under Charles II.; the ill-fated reign of James II., and the tyranny of cabinets over the sovereign at the middle of the last century. "The recognition of the ecclesiastical office of the Crown in regard to the Church, and consequently of its sacred prerogative in appointments to spiritual offices, as claiming to be exercised irrespectively of state politicians, and by the advice rather of its chief spiritual counsellors, is clearly marked in the annals of the earliest days of our Reformed Church. "How entirely in those days such appointments were recognized as being with the king, not with his ministers, is evident from the way in which those who were most intimate with the king's confidential servants expressed themselves when writing to them. Thus, when in the year 1552, in the month of November, Grindal was nominated for a bishopric in the north,' of this, his designed preferment,' says Strype, Bishop Ridley was very glad, giving God hearty thanks, as he said in his letter to certain of his friends at court, viz. Sir John Gate, Vice-Chamberlain, and Sir William Cecil, Secretary, that it had pleased him to move the heart of the king's majesty to choose such a man, of such godly qualities, into such a room.' Those who could thus speak in their private correspondence with the king's confidential servants, implied and took for granted as what was perfectly understood and felt on all hands, that the appointment to Church offices rested in the breast of the king himself, under God's supreme guidance of His chosen servant, His minister herein for the good of His Church. “But it was in the latter half of Queen Elizabeth's reign, under the primacy of Archbishop Whitgift, that the theory of the ecclesiastical functions of the Crown was still more fully and uniformly realized. Whitgift's own appointment to the episcopal office was the queen's special act; she knowing well (says Strype) his great deserts towards this Church, and excellent abilities in learning and government, which were things now-adays specially regarded in appointing bishops over the Churches.' Isaak Walton, in his Life of Hooker,' has religiously and wisely marked the special providence which, at so critical a period, placed such a man at the helm of the Church; and has given also a beautiful picture of the mutual relation which the queen and the metropolitan bore to each other. He has been tracing the progress of the nonconformists, and how, when the Church's lands were in danger of alienation, her power, at least, neglected, and her peace torn to pieces by several schisms, and such heresies as do usually attend that sin, for heresies do usually outlive their chief authors; when the common people seemed ambitious of doing those very things that were forbidden, and attended with most dangers, that thereby they might be punished, and then applauded and pitied; when they called the spirit of opposition a tender conscience, and complained of persecution, because they wanted power to persecute others; when the giddy multitude raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves and others, and the rabble would herd themselves together, and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority; in this extremity of fear, and danger of the Church and State, when, to suppress the growing evils of both, they needed a man of prudence and piety, and of a high and fearless fortitude, they were blest in all by John Whitgift, his being made Archbishop of Canterbury; ... and, not long after, the queen made him of her privy council, and trusted him to manage all her ecclesiastical affairs and preferments.' 'She saw,' we are told, 'so visible and blessed a sincerity shine in all his cares and endeavours, for the Church's and for her good, that she was supposed to trust him with the very secrets of her soul, and to make him her confessor; of which she gave many fair testimonies . . . . and would often say, she pitied him because she trusted him, and had thereby eased herself, by laying the burden of all her clergy-cares upon his shoulders, which he managed with prudence and piety. And that he made her's and the Church's good the chiefest of his cares, and that she also thought so, there were such daily testimonies given, as begat betwixt them so mutual a joy and confidence, that they seemed born to believe and to do good to each other; she not doubting his piety to be more than all his opposers, which were many, nor doubting his prudence to be equal to the chiefest of her council, who were then as remarkable for active wisdom as those dangerous times did require, or this nation did ever enjoy. And in this condition he continued twenty years, in which time he saw some flowings, but many more ebbings of her favour towards all men that had .... opposed him, especially the Earl of Leicester; so that God still seemed to keep him in her favour, that he might preserve the remaining Church lands and immunities from sacrilegious alienations. And this good man deserved all the honour and power with which she gratified and trusted him; for he was a pious man, and naturally of noble and grateful principles; he eased her of all her Church-cares by his wise menage of them; he gave her faithful and prudent counsels in all the extremities and dangers of her temporal affairs, which were very many; he lived to be the chief comfort of her declining age, and to be then most frequently with her, and her assistant at her private devotions; he lived to be the greatest comfort of her soul upon her death-bed, to be present at the expiration of her last breath, and to behold the closing of those eyes that had long looked upon him with reverence and affection 8.' 66 The picture which Izaak Walton thus draws of the relation which the queen and the metropolitan sustained towards each other in ecclesiastical matters, is recalled to mind in the annals of later times, under the reigns of the two royal sisters, Mary and Anne, and the consultations which they religiously held with the chief pastors of the Church, to enable them the better to discharge the sacred trust which, with the crown, was committed to them, and which they felt to be a heavy responsibility. It is not necessary here to do more than allude to the account which has been given, in extracts from the Life of Archbishop Sharp, of the manner in which he was called to serve his royal mistress as 'her principal and guide,' in things relating to the Church; a description which revives the recollection of that which Isaak Walton had given of earlier times, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It will be sufficient here, in briefly summing up the history through which we have gone in detail, to recall to mind how it was the peculiar happiness of him whom Walton thus eulogized, that he was so highly esteemed for his wisdom, learning, and piety by both his sovereigns, Queen Elizabeth and King James,' that they both consulted with him in all matters of the Church, and in making laws and orders for the well governing of it, and likewise in taking always his advice for proper men to be placed in the chief preferments thereof; and that he who had his confidence while he lived, and on his death by the special choice of his sovereign, succeeded to his office 1, exercised, himself, or through others, the like power; and in like manner his successor, after him; and that then again, when, through the influence of a favourite 2, corruption and evil policy had crept in, in the disposal of Church patronage, it was again, with the best results, placed in episcopal hands, and confirmed in them by the religious feeling of Charles I.; and again, that it was this mode of procedure which gave us such an episcopate as adorned the restoration of our Church and monarchy under Charles II.; and that, even in the worst times of that monarch's reign, evidences of 8 Walton's Life of Hooker, Works, ed. Keble, vol. i. pp. 45-49. 2 Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. the better system are found; and again, in the first days of the reign even of his misguided brother, until, taking other counsellors, he made appointments which seemed to have for their direct object the degradation and betrayal of the Church. We saw again how the religious principle quickly asserted its rightful superiority over all political claims in the era of the Revolution; and the patronage of the Church, committed into Mary's hands, was faithfully and anxiously dispensed under the advice of the chief prelates; and so also in Queen Anne's reign, though with too frequent interference from political parties and ministers of state, Archbishop Sharp being her majesty's principal and guide,' in regard, especially, to ecclesiastical promotions.' We saw, finally, that the same system was acted upon in the first days of the Hanoverian succession; and that, even under Walpole's administration, there was 'an ecclesiastical ministry" fully recognized and acted upon, to the incalculable benefit to the Church, exposed as it then was to so great peril from corrupting and secularizing influences. More than this rapid outline of the chief points in the history which has been traced out fully in detail, cannot be required here. The records which have been given, carefully considered, will clearly show what was the original theory of our ecclesiastical establishment in this important particular; and that, in exact proportion to the faithfulness with which it has been adhered to, has been the welfare of the Church, and of the State, whose welfare is so closely bound up with it; and that in whatever degree it has been violated or departed from, the most sacred interests of the Church and of religion have proportionably suffered." British Magazine for Sept. 1844, pp. 270–282. (24) Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. iii. pp. 129, 130. (25) Cardwell's Documentary Annals, vol. ii. p. 353. (26) It is incumbent on the Sovereign to make religion, which includes the most valuable interests of mankind, the principal object of his care and application. He ought to promote the eternal as well as the present and temporal happiness of his subjects. This is therefore a point properly subject to his jurisdiction. Professor Burlamaqui's Principles of Natural and Politic Law, vol. ii. part 3. c. 3. A gross error it is to think that regal power ought to serve for the good of the body, and not of the soul; for men's temporal peace, and not for their eternal safety; as if God had ordained kings for no other end and purpose but only to fat up men like hogs, and to see that they have their mast. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. book viii. ch. iii. 2. Blessed Lord, who hast called Christian princes to the defence of thy faith, and hast made it their duty to promote the spiritual welfare, together with the temporal interest of their people, &c. Prayer for the king as supreme governor of this Church, in the inauguration service. (27) Our lord the king, seeing the mischiefs and damages before men |