and, indeed, many things requiring the care of the government would remain unknown to those whose duty it is to take cognisance of them if it were not for the liberty of the press. Another, and a more general reason in favour of that species of liberty in England is, that in a country where the mass of the nation have so great a share in the government, it is necessary that a knowledge of public affairs should be as much as possible diffused; which cannot be, unless all facts relating thereto be freely published and canvassed, so as to enable the people to exercise the franchises entrusted to them by the constitution, without being totally ignorant of the facts on which their determination should depend, and the reasons of law or policy arising on those facts. These are the principal advantages arising from the liberty of the press and of speech. Their abuse may be sufficiently guarded against by providing laws for punishing the offenders, and giving damages to persons injured thereby.

It is here necessary to add, that it was formerly the usage in prosecutions for libel for the judge to direct the jury to confine themselves to the mere facts of publication, and of the meaning of the words, leaving the question whether the paper were a libel to the court.' . But by stat. 32 Geo. III. c. lx. (extended to Ireland by stat. 33 Geo. III. c. xliii. Irish), it is declared that, on every trial of indictment or information for making or publishing any libel where an issue or issues are joined between the king and the defendant, the jury may give a general verdict of guilty or not guilty upon the whole matter put in issue, and shall not be directed by the court to find the defendant guilty merely on proof of the publication of the paper by the defendant, and of the sense ascribed to it in the indictment.

But the act provides that the judge shall, according to his discretion, give his opinion and direction to the jury on the matter in issue as in other criminal cases; that the jury may find a special verdict; and that the defendant if found guilty may move in arrest of judgment.

This statute is very important as securing to juries their full authority in cases of this kind; but it did not effect any change in the law which determines the relative functions of judge and jury. The act only settles the controverted point, whether the question of libel or no libel is matter of law only or of fact, and law inseparably united, and introduces no exception to the general rules of law.2

VI. The sixth and last of these securities provided by the consti

1 R. v. St. Asaph, Dean, and R. v. Withers, 3 Term Rep. 428. And see Junius' Letters. L. to Sir W. Blackst.

24 Blackst. Com. (by Coleridge) c. ii. p. 152. n. 16.; Annual Reg. V. 33. c. vii. V. 34. part 2. p. 69.; Parl. Hist. V. 29. pp. 551. 591. 726. 741.; Goldstein v. Foss, 6 Barn. and Cress. 154.; Hern v. Stowell, 12 Adol. and El. 730.

tution is the right of the subject to have arms for his defence, suitable to his condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law, which is also declared by the same statute 1 Will. & M. s. 2. c. ii.; and it is, indeed, a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.1

CHAPTER XXV.

OF THE CLERGY.

THE people, whether aliens, denizens, or natural-born subjects, are divided into two classes, the clergy and the laity. The clergy of the established church will be the subject of this chapter. They have certain privileges allowed to them by our municipal laws. Thus, a clergyman cannot be compelled to serve on a jury, nor to appear at a court leet or view of frank pledge, which almost every other person is obliged to do2: but if a layman is summoned on a jury, and before the trial takes orders, he shall nevertheless appear and be sworn.3 Neither can he be chosen to any temporal office; as bailiff, reeve, constable, or the like. During his attendance on divine service he is privileged from arrest in civil suits. But as they have their privileges, so also they have their disabilities. Clergymen, we have seen, are incapable by stat. 41 Geo. III. c. lxiii. of sitting in the house of commons, and by stat. 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. lxvii. s. 28. of being counsellors or aldermen in boroughs. And by stat. 1 & 2 Vict. c. cvi. (repealing some former statutes on the subject) no spiritual person holding any cathedral preferment or benefice, or any curacy or lectureship, or allowed to perform the duties of any ecclesiastical office, shall take to farm, for occupation by himself, any lands exceeding eighty acres in the whole without permission in writing from the bishop of the diocese; nor shall such spiritual person, by himself or any other to his use, carry on any trade or dealing for profit, unless it be carried on by more than six partners, or his share in it shall have devolved upon him by inheritance or other such representative title as in the act specified; and even in these excepted cases it is illegal for him to act as a managing partner, or to carry on the trade in person. The act,

however, permits him to carry on the business of a schoolmaster, or to deal with booksellers as to the sale of books, or to be a managing director, partner or shareholder in any benefit society, or fire or life insurance society, or to buy or sell to the extent necessarily incident to his lawful occupation of land, or to sell minerals the produce of his land, provided that none of these things be done in person in any market or place of public sale. Contracts made by a banking company of which a spiritual person was a member, was void by statute 57 Geo. III. c. xcix.: but now by stat. 1 & 2 Vict. c. x. and 4 & 5 Vict. c. xiv. this is no longer the case.

The clergy of the church of England are those who have been admitted to one or more of the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, according to the laws and canons of that church. The form of ordination in the church of England is prescribed in the book of common prayer. Stat. 13 Eliz. & 44 Geo. III. provides (agreeably to the canons) that no one shall be ordained a deacon under twentythree years, nor a priest under twenty-four years of age: but the archbishop of Canterbury has the privilege of admitting deacons (by faculty or dispensation) at an earlier period. By the same statute none shall be ordained either priest or deacon without first subscribing the thirty-nine articles of religion: nor by 1 Eliz. c. i. & 1 Will, & Mar. c. viii. without first taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. And the thirty-third canon of the Anglican church allows no one to be admitted to holy orders without a title, that is to say, unless he exhibits to the bishop a presentation of himself to some preferment then vacant in the diocese; or shall bring to the bishop a certificate that he is provided with a church with cure of souls or some minister's place in the cathedral of, or some collegiate church within the diocese, or that he is a fellow or in right as a fellow to be chaplain of some college in either university: or that he is a master of arts of five years' standing that liveth of his own charge in either university; or except the bishop himself admits him to some benefice or curateship then void.

The person who confers orders ought to be the proper bishop or diocesan of the person to be ordained; or at least the person to receive orders ought to come with leave from his own bishop for so doing, which licence is called letters dimissory or commendatory', except (by canon thirty-four) he be of one of the two universities.

Power is, however, given by statute 24 Geo. III. c. xxxv. to the bishop of London, or any other bishop by him appointed, to ordain aliens to exercise the office of deacon or priest out of the dominions of the crown, without the oath of allegiance. Persons

Ayliffe, Parerg. 402.

ordained by a foreign bishop are forbidden by stat. 59 Geo. III. c. xxx. s. 3. to officiate here without permission of the archbishop of the province, and to be admitted to a benefice without the consent of both the archbishop and the bishop: and the same statute enables the English bishops to ordain deacons and priests for the colonies.

There is also a very remarkable statute 5 Vict. c. vi. which empowers the archbishops of Canterbury and York assisted by other bishops to consecrate British subjects, or subjects or citizens of any foreign kingdom or state to be bishops in any foreign country, and within certain limits to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of such British congregations as may be desirous of placing themselves under the authority of such bishops. And this shall suffice with regard to the orders of the Anglican church. The officers of that church remain to be considered.

We will therefore proceed to consider the clergy of the Anglican church in their several ranks and degrees, with reference to, 1. the method of their appointment; 2. their rights and duties; and 3. the manner wherein their character or office may cease.

I. And first of archbishops and bishops: an archbishop or bishop, in the Anglican church, is constituted by election, consecration, and installation. The mode of appointing archbishops and bishops has varied greatly since the earliest times of the church. They were first elected by the bishops, with the concurrence of the clergy, as bishops were appointed by the apostles; then by the bishops and clergy and afterwards the people obtained a share in the election, and the consent of secular princes was also required.' These elections becoming tumultuous, Justinian, by his 123d Novel Constitution, chap. i., deprived the commonalty of any share therein, confining the election to the clergy and persons of rank and station in each church. Subsequently the election of the bishops in a great part of the Christian church fell naturally into the hands of the chapters of the cathedral churches, who represented the ancient assemblies of the clergy forming the senate or council of the bishop. The power of temporal princes to approve of elections, in process of time increased into a prerogative of nominating solely; and all others had little else to do but to accept their nomination.2 However, there were diversities in this respect

■ Fleury, Inst. au Dr. Eccles. tom. i. c. x. p. 101, &c.

2 Bingham, Antiq. vol. ii. b. iv. c. xi. s. 18. It may, perhaps, be as well to warn those readers who are unused to ecclesiastical matters, not to confound election to a particular church with ordination or consecration, whereby alone orders can be conferred. Thus, election of a bishop, if he be not already in bishop's orders, is no more than the designation of a person to receive consecration, and then to be bishop of the diocese to which he is chosen.

in different parts of Christendom. The emperors and other sovereigns of the respective kingdoms of Europe also reserved to themselves the right of granting investiture of the temporalities of bishoprics to the newly elected prelates, and thence arose those celebrated disputes between the temporal power and the church of Rome, which were terminated in France and England by an alteration in the form of investiture, so as to remove all suspicion of encroachment on the spiritual character. King John, about a century after this concession had been obtained from king Henry I. by archbishop Anselm, gave up, by a charter, to all monasteries and cathedrals in the kingdom the free right of electing their prelates, whether abbots or bishops; reserving only to the crown the custody of the temporalities during the vacancy; the form of granting a licence to elect (which is the original of our congé d'élire), on refusal whereof the electors might proceed without it; and the right of approbation afterwards, which was not to be denied without a reasonable and lawful cause.' This grant was expressly recognised and confirmed in king John's Magna Charta, and was again established by stat. 25 Ed. III. st. 6. § 3.

"But," as Blackstone informs us, "by stat. 25 Henry VIII. c. xx., the ancient right of nomination was in effect restored to the crown, it being enacted, that at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the king may send the dean and chapter his usual licence to proceed to election, which is always to be accompanied with a letter missive from the king, containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the dean and chapter delay their election above twelve days, the nomination shall devolve to the king, who may, by letters patent, appoint such person as he pleases. This election or nomination, if it be of a bishop, must be signified by the king's letters patent to the archbishop of the province; if it be of an archbishop, to the other archbishop and two bishops, or to four bishops, requiring them to confirm, invest, and consecrate the person so elected; which they are bound to perform immediately, without any application to the see of Rome. After which the bishop elect shall sue to the king for his temporalities, shall make oath to the king and none other, and shall take restitution of his secular possessions out of the king's hands only. And if such dean and chapter do not elect in a manner by this act appointed; or if such archbishop or bishop do refuse to confirm, invest, and consecrate such bishop elect, they shall incur all the penalties of a pramunire." The bishoprics of Bristol, Gloucester, Chester, Peterborough, and Oxford, which were erected by Henry

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