Corrupt bargaining for orders. to procure the ordaining or making of any minister, or giving of any orders or license to preach, he shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of 401.; and the party so corruptly ordained or made minister, or taking orders, shall forfeit the sum of 101. And if at any time within seven years next after such corrupt entering into the ministry, or receiving of orders, he shall accept or take any benefice, living, or promotion ecclesiastical, then immediately from and after the induction, investing, or installation thereof or thereunto had, the same shall be eftsoons merely void; and the patron shall present, collate unto, give and dispose of the same, as if the party so inducted, invested, or installed, had been naturally dead. As to what might be considered a corrupt bargaining for taking orders, the opinion of Lord Eldon in the following case appears important; and it appears to be immaterial that the case was decided on other grounds than those to which Lord Eldon alludes; for his observations on the subject are general, and involve a principle upon which the decision of that particular case would not have thrown much light. The late Lord Kircudbright, by his bond, dated the 1st of October, 1793, bound himself to his eldest son, the present lord, in the penal sum of 300l., with a condition to be void, if Lord Kircudbright, the father, his heirs, executors, &c. should pay to his said son an annuity of 1007., until his said son should be instituted and placed in the possession of a living in the Church of England; and from such time, if the said John Lord Kircudbright, his heirs, executors, &c., should pay to his said son, his executors, &c., so much money as, with the net income of such living, should produce the clear yearly sum of 150l., to commence on the day on which he should be inducted into such living, and continue until he should be in the actual possession and enjoyment of a living, which should produce the clear annual sum of 1607. By an agreement in writing between the same parties, and of the same date, reciting the bond, and that previous to the late Lord Kircudbright's entering into such bond, it was agreed that his said son should enter into holy orders, and should accept a living in the Church of England, conformable to the said bond, as soon as the same could be procured for him, the present Lord Kircudbright in consequence thereof did thereby declare and agree that he would forthwith enter into holy orders, and would accept and take to such living as might be procured for him, as * Sect. 10. soon as the same could be gotten; and that, in case he should at any time decline or refuse so to do, the said recited bond should be of no avail. The Lord Chancellor' expressed great doubt as to the validity of the bond of the late Lord Kircudbright, observing, that it was void on a great many accounts. It is a corrupt agreement for taking holy orders, such as the court ought to decree to be delivered up. The policy of the ecclesiastical constitution of this country requires that a man should take orders without any reference whatsoever to considerations of this nature. There is no objection to the bond itself, except as connected with this agreement at the same time for a pecuniary consideration to take holy orders. Another objection to this bond is, that the father is put under these circumstances; that he is to solicit the benefit of patronage for this pecuniary consideration moving from himself, the policy of the law supposing the patron to look out for persons the best that can be recommended to him, which excludes pecuniary considera tion. The case stood over in order that this point might be considered; and on a subsequent day the Lord Chancellor said: "This case raises a very considerable and important question to the purity of the Church Establishment, whether, the principles of it requiring from the candidates for holy orders that they should pledge themselves solemnly as to the motives inducing them to enter into that profession, and considering the purity of their motives as one principal test of their sufficiency, if this had been an instrument between strangers, the court would support it; involving this question, whether one party might not have come here, stating that he was willing to take orders, provided this fund was set apart; and whether he could call upon the court to set apart a portion of the assets, and decree him to take orders. The next consideration is, whether, if there would be any objection to this transaction in the case of strangers, it may not prevail between father and son. It is not necessary in this case to decide either of those questions; but I should be very unwilling to part with this subject, without saying that, however familiar it may be, that this transaction is right, I desire it not to be understood that any court of justice has acceded to that opinion. I should have been very unwilling to put these parties to the expense of arguing the point in a court of law, and would rather have taken the short mode of speaking to some of the judges upon it. Last night I mentioned I Lord Eldon. Notice necessary before or. dination. it to one of the chief justices, who told me his mind was impressed with the same doubt upon this subject as mine. If the attention of people was called to this, the difficulty would not be felt. But circumstances, that are very ill reconciled to what is required upon the resignation and acceptance of livings, and the absence of all contract by ecclesiastical men upon those subjects, happen with a frequency making them so familiar, that men, who, if well informed, would be the last to act incorrectly, will do so, unless they take the trouble to inquire whether such practices are reconcilable either to law or to our ecclesiastical constitution."n A party, who intends to become a candidate for orders, must give a written notice of such his intention to the bishop, by whom he seeks to be ordained. But as to the time at which this notice is to be given, no positive rule can be laid down. It is a matter entirely within the discretion of the bishop; and, consequently, varying in different dioceses-one year, six months, or three months, are the different periods usually required. This notice should state the age, college, academical degree, and usual place of residence of the candidate, together with the names of any persons of respectability to whom he is best known, and to whom the bishop may apply, if he thinks fit, for any further information concerning him." CHAPTER III. OF THE CONVOCATION. Clergy a distinct order in the state. Their councils CERTAIN persons, qualified in such manner as we have. mentioned in our last chapter, having been thus by ordination set apart from the rest of their countrymen, may, for most purposes, be considered as constituting a separate order in the state; having, in many respects, a polity peculiar to themselves, and containing various gradations of rank, from one supreme head and governor, down to the large body of parochial clergy and stipendiary cu ratesa. Of these various ranks and dignities, of their power and assemblies. and authority, and of the manner in which they are de m Lord Kircudbright v. Lady Kircudbright, 3 Ves. 51. "The different forms and testimonials, &c. with which the candidate for ordination must be provided will be found in the Appendix, No. I. a See Black. Com, book 1, chap. 2. pendent upon, and subservient or subordinate to, one another, we shall proceed to speak in their order; but first, we speak of their existence as a recognised separate body in the state, in those representative councils in which formerly they often were, and in which they still may be, convoked, and of their power, privileges and authority when there assembled. Such assemblies are called the Convocation, custom Convocation. having specially determined the sense of that word to an ecclesiastical use. siastics. At a very early period in our annals, and so far back as Ancient counwe have any authentic account of the great councils of cils of ecclethe realm or parliament, the bishop and some of our other prelates were consulted, and acted in them together with the laity. In which parliaments it is probable that the opinions of these ecclesiastics was of great weight, as being the only persons of any learning, who in those days of ignorance met to make laws and regulations; and, independently of these parliaments, the archbishop of each province, when the kingdom was divided into provinces, had the power of calling together his suffragan bishops, and these bishops again, each in his own diocese, had the power of calling together their clergy. of the convoca After the Norman conquest, the prelates and superior Taxation of the clergy were taxed in respect of their baronies, but the clergy the origin body of the clergy were exempt from the charges assessed upon the laity; and it was only when the pope laid a tax upon the Church for the use of the king, that the clergy, obliged to yield to this union of the spiritual and temporal power, contributed to the public revenues; and sometimes the bishop of the diocese, being prevailed upon by the king, held a meeting of his clergy, in which they censented to grant subsidies in the way of a benevolence. But Edward I., desirous of a more certain method of obtaining supplies, remodelled the whole form of representation; and it was a part of his scheme, that, for the purposes of taxation, the spiritual and the temporal estates should be charged separately, though in the same manner, namely, by the consent of the representative body; and hence the origin of the convocation, the inferior clergy being called together by their representatives, in order that they might tax themselves. The bishops, who were already convoked in respect of Convocation their baronies in the temporal parliament, were, as a part unlike the foreign synods. of this scheme, to sit with the assembled clergy. The convocation, therefore, in its origin, was for the purpose of taxation and no other; it was altogether unlike the Gradual as sumption of authority. Two convocations. Power of convo- The Act of Submission. convocation of the foreign synods, which were composed solely of the bishops, collected to declare what was the doctrine, or what should be the discipline of the Church". It is easy, however, to conceive how the clergy, when once convoked, gradually assumed the same power as existed in those foreign synods to which their convocation might appear to bear some analogy. Accordingly, that their power might not be made to depend on temporal authority, they objected to meet, except by a summons from the archbishop of their province, who summoned them in pursuance of the king's writ; and in order that the summons might not appear to be solely in pursuance of the king's writ, the archbishop, it is said, for the most part, varied in his summons from the king's writ, both as to the time and place of the meeting. And still, lest it might appear that their power was derived from temporal authority, they sometimes, in assertion of their privilege, met on the summons of the archbishop, without the king's writ the validity of which convocations the king acknowledged by demanding his supplies. So that the king's writ came to be considered by the clergy as no more than one motive for their convening: but as the authority of the archbishop extended only over his own province, a consequence followed necessarily which was never contemplated in the origin of the convocation; for, instead of forming one, they now composed two ecclesiastical synods under the summons of each of the archbishops; and thus they sat separately, and made canons by which each respective province was bound. But the power of the convocation, whatever it may at any former time have been, as to which it is not always easy to reconcile the authorities, was restricted, or perhaps, more properly speaking, defined, by a statute which has been called the Act of Submission, passed in the 25th year of Hen. VIII. For Lord Coke, speaking of a part of this enactment, says, it was but an affirmance of what was before the statute; for it was held before, that if a canon be against the law of the land, the bishop ought to obey the commandment of the king according to the law of the land. That enactment is as follows: Whereas the king's humble and obedient subjects, the clergy of this realm of England, have not only acknowledged, according to the truth, that the convocation of the same clergy is, always hath been, and ought to be, assembled only by the king's writ; but also, submitting themselves to the king's majesty, have promised in verbo b2 Burn's E. L., Convocation. © 12 Co. 72. |