We pretend not to any extraordinary acquaintance with the history of the country and its civil and religious constitution; but we have always been disposed to the opinion, that before the Norman Conquest, the Church of England was independent of foreign jurisdiction, and that if the king's supremacy was not then formally asserted, it was because it was not disputed. After the conquest, attempts were made to introduce the foreign jurisdiction, and to set up the supremacy of the pope; and these attempts were resisted by the native spirit of our institutions, and by the independence of the barons and prelates who had been trained under these institutions; and they were not successful until the weakness of the prince succumbed to the ambition of the foreign and regular clergy. The supremacy of the pope, which was thus obtained, betrayed itself in various encroachments on the proper rights of the sovereign; and when Henry VIII. recovered this supremacy, he declared it chiefly in resuming the rights which had been invaded: and the arbitrary power, which seems to have identified itself with the supremacy under the Tudors and the Stuarts, and to have mainly contributed to the unpopularity of the doctrine, was restrained at the revolution, when the power of the sovereign was limited by law. This is the view which we have always been disposed to take of the king's supremacy, and we think that it is agreeable to the course of English history, and to the spirit of the laws passed at the reformation, especially the preamble of the Act 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. which recites, that the crown of England is independent, and that all classes of men, whether of the spiritualty or temporalty, owe obedience to it; that the Church of England has been accustomed to exercise jurisdiction in courts spiritual; and that the encroachments of the Bishop of Rome had been checked by the king's renowned progenitors. We cannot see how this doctrine of the king's supremacy is an "anomalous" or very "absurd" maxim, or that there is any occasion for doubting, in what sense Henry could be said to recover a right, which had never been possessed by him, or any of his predecessors. "If we are right in the view which we have taken of the king's supremacy, though we wish not to contend for a word, we cannot conceive a more appropriate term than recovery for the resumption of rights, inherent in the royal sovereignty of Henry VIII. of which his predecessors had been despoiled; and although the Edinburgh Review affects to call it "rather a curious account" which is given by Mr. Todd, they will find an equally "curious account" in the Commentaries on the Laws of England. "The reformation of religion under Henry VIII. offers an entirely new scene in ecclesiastical matters; the usurped power of the pope being now for ever routed and destroyed; all his connexions with this island cut off; the crown restored to its supremacy over spiritual men and causes; and the patronage of bishoprics being once

more indisputably vested in the king. And had the spiritual courts been at this time re-united to the civil, we should have seen the old Saxon constitution, with regard to ecclesiastical polity, completely restored." 4 Blackstone, p. 430.

While the commentaries are open before us, we wish to refer to the doctrine of attainder, without taking any other notice of the circumstances of the Earl of Strafford's attainder, than reciting a part of the preamble of the act for reversing his attainder, 13 and 14 Charles II. c. 29. in which it is stated, that the earl "made a particular defence to every article objected against him, insomuch that the turbulent party, seeing no hopes to effect their unjust designs by any ordinary way and method of proceeding, did at last resolve to attempt the destruction and attainder of the said earl, by an act of parliament to be therefore purposely made to condemn him upon accumulative treason, none of the pretended crimes being treason apart, and so could not be in the whole, if they had been proved, as they were not." This is not a very favourable account, which an unrepealed statute exhibits of a particular act of attainder, therefore purposely made to condemn its object, The Edinburgh Reviewer, however, lays down the broad proposition: "That there is a certain amount of public danger, which will justify a legislature in sentencing a man to death by an ex-post-facto law, few people we suppose will deny." This is assuming the concurrence of the multitude in a very sanguinary and atrocious doctrine: it is charging a christian people with approving a revival of the exploded heathenism of proscription and tyrannicide; for "sentencing a man to death by an ex-post-facto law," not for any crime, but in consideration of the public danger, is neither more nor less than an act of deliberate murder, and each of the persons conspiring in this act, is as guilty of murder as if he individually applied the dagger of the assassin. The Reviewer very quietly passes over the question of the competence of the parties, who are to measure the amount of public danger, which is to justify this murderous sentence, whether Pompey is to be the judge of the proceedings of Sylla, or Sylla of those of Pompey, whether Brutus is to be the arbiter of the destinies of Cæsar, or Cæsar of those of Brutus, and whether some error may not creep into the estimate of public danger, from the private prejudices and passions and interests of the judge. "An act of attainder is surely not more a departure from the ordinary course of the law than a civil war; and we are therefore unable to discover on what principle it can be maintained, that a cause which justifies a civil war will not justify an act of attainder." Circumstances, and the violence of faction, may render a civil war unavoidable; but it is an extraordinary cause which justifies a civil war: and it is a saying of proverbial wisdom, that it is nothing but the successful issue of revolution, which takes away its treason. But the

Reviewer believes that the great rebellion was justified; and therefore the attainder of Strafford was justified: and what objection remains to the execution of Charles? The movers of the rebellion had the power to judge of the amount of public danger, and to act according to their judgment: and it was the same sense, real or imaginary, of the public danger, supported by the same possession of power, which, at a later period, led to the execution of Russell and Sidney. Were these acts also justified? The country is now agitated by the discussion of a great question, from which, as it is carried or rejected, men of different parties anticipate the most imminent danger to the country: now what would be thought of an enactment to this effect; "Whereas, the question of Parliamentary Reform is fraught with public danger, and Thomas Babington Macauley, Esq. by the zeal and talent with which he maintains the rights of the people, may excite the said people to a civil war for the possession of those rights; be it enacted for the prevention of the said public danger of civil war, That the said T. B. Macauley, Esq. be hanged by the neck, &c." Such an enactment might try the principles, while it alarmed the fears of the Edinburgh Reviewer, and yet would it be more than a justified act of the legislature, sentencing a man to death by an ex-post-facto law, in consideration of a certain amount of public danger? But there are other lawyers than those of the Edinburgh Review. Blackstone argues upon the unreasonableness of making laws ex-post-facto, "when after an act indifferent in itself is committed, the legislature then, for the first time, declares it to have been a crime, and inflicts a punishment upon the person who has committed it. Here it is impossible that the person could foresee that an action innocent when it was done, should be afterwards converted to guilt by a subsequent law: he had therefore no cause to abstain from it; and all punishment for not abstaining, must of consequence be cruel and unjust." 1 Blackstone, p. 46. If all such punishment be cruel and unjust, what must be thought of sentencing a man to death? Mr. Christian remarks, upon this passage of the Commentator: "An ex-post-facto law may be either of a public or a private nature; when we speak generally of an ex-post-facto law, we perhaps always mean a law which comprehends the whole community. The Roman privilegia seem to correspond to our bills of attainder, and bills of pains and penalties; which, though in their nature they are ex-post-facto laws, are seldom called so." Mr. Christian was led to the notice of the Roman privilegia, by a passage of Cicero, to which the learned commentator appeals in support of his argument; and it is not only a matter of curiosity to know the opinion of the Roman orator on these privilegia, or bills of attainder, but his opinion derives authority from his personal acquaintance both with bills of attainder and with civil war. We quote from the edition

of Ernesti: "Tum leges præclarissimæ de XII tabulis tralatæ duo: quarum altera privilegia tollit; altera de capite civis rogari, nisi minimo comitiatu vetat; nondum initis seditiosis tribunis plebis, ne cogitatis quidem, admirandum, tantum majores in posterum providisse: in privos homines leges ferri noluerunt; id enim est privilegium; quo quid est injustius? cum legis hæc vis sit, scitum esse jussum in omnes? ferri de singulis nisi centuriatis comitiis noluerunt: descriptus enim populus censu, ordinibus, ætatibus, plus adhibet ad suffragium consilii, quam fusè in tribus convocatus. Quo verius in nostrâ causâ vir magni ingenii, summâque prudentiâ, L. Cotta dicebat, nihil omnino actum esse de nobis: præter enim quam quod comitia illa essent armis gesta servilibus, præterea neque tributa capitis comitia rata esse possunt, neque ulla privilegii: quocirca nihil nobis opus esse lege, de quibus nihil omnino actum esset legibus." De Legibus, III. 19. Again, he says: "Quo jure, quo more, quo exemplo, legem nominatim de capite civis indemnati tulisti? Vetant leges sacratæ, vetant XII. tabulæ, leges privis hominibus irrogari; id est enim privilegium: nemo unquam tulit; nihil est crudelius, nihil perniciosius, nihil quod minus hæc civitas ferre possit. Proscriptionis miserrimum nomen illud, et omnis acerbitas Sullani temporis quid habet, quod maxime est insigne ad memoriam crudelitatis? opinor, pœnam in civis Romanos nominatim sine judicio constitutam. Hanc igitur, pontifices, judicio atque autoritate vestrâ tribuno plebis potestatem dabitis, ut proscribere possit, quos velit? Quæro enim, quid sit aliud, proscribere? Velitis, jubeatis, ut M. Tullius in civitate ne sit, bonaque ejus ut mea sint." Pro Domo, 17. FEW PEOPLE, as we venture to suppose, will have much difficulty in choosing, whether they will subscribe to the opinions of the Edinburgh Review on sentencing a man to death by an ex-postfacto law, or to those of Blackstone, Christian, and Cicero, on the unreasonableness, the injustice, and the cruelty of bills of attainder.

It is a pity to be obliged to spoil the ecclesiastical as well as the political theories of the Edinburgh Review; but the vulgar virulence with which episcopacy is assailed, and the conceit with which the wisdom of the nineteenth century is called to revolt from such things as Bishops, requires that a stand should be made in defence of the constitution of the Church, and that some of the arts with which it is attacked should be enforced. We have been taught and accustomed to hold the very highest notion of the Divine institution of Episcopacy, and of the apostolical succession, or the tradition from the apostles through their successors, of authority to minister in the Church: we say, authority, which it was the office of apostolical men to convey, and not grace, which it is in the power of God alone to bestow. This apostolical succession is held in the Romish Church, to the exclusion of all Protestants, although the validity of the English ordinations in this respect

was powerfully vindicated by the learned Courayer, in a work which exposed him to the persecution of his own Church; and for which he received the degree of D.D. from the University of Oxford. It is also held in the Greek Church, and in the Protestant Episcopalian Churches of England and Ireland, of Scotland, and of America; its want is felt and acknowledged in some of the Lutheran Churches on the Continent, and was the principle of Grabe's attachment to the Church of England: and even such of the Dissenters as admit the laying on of the hands of the Presbyters, can hardly deny the succession of Presbyterian power. It is easy for the Edinburgh Reviewer to talk of "the traditionary jargon about the apostolical institution of episcopacy;" but have his researches in ecclesiastical history enabled him to refute this jargon, or to define the period in which episcopacy was surreptitiously introduced, in which there was no episcopacy, and no three-fold division of the Christian ministry? Let him try his strength with the Scotch Bishop Skinner's "Primitive Truth and Order," or with any other unanswered or unanswerable defences of episcopacy. The Reviewer, indeed, promises, that "if in any book written by the apostles, or during the apostolical age, there can be pointed out a passage, which either directly or by implication sanctions the government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons and Chancellors," he will admit the present hierarchy to be the successors and representatives of the apostles : but let him state who of the approved defenders of the Church has maintained this doctrine? not surely Dodwell, Hicks, or any of the nonjurors who adhered to the deposed Bishops, and called for Bishops without baronies; not Bishop Hobart in America; not the distinguished family of the Skinners, or any of their coadjutors in Scotland, from Bishop Sage to Bishop Gleig; nor Baitt, nor Maurice, nor Hammond, nor Potter, nor any of the giant divines of England. He calls it "superannuated bigotry," to say that a Church without Bishops is no Church; and yet this is not only the practical principle of the Catholic Church throughout the world, but the very doctrine and language of the apostolical age, to which in the preceding sentence he offers to defer. He asks, "If all Presbyters had been denominated Bishops, would the substitution of one name for another have removed the impediment?" But does he need to be informed, that in the New Testament, Bishops and Presbyters are convertible terms, and that the authority of episcopacy rests on the distinction not of a name or title, which has undergone many alterations, but of an order and an office which has always been peculiar. With the same discrimination he calls the defenders of episcopacy apostolicals, and confounds them with the Spanish apostolicals, who derive their name from upholding the apostolicity of the whole