SIR,

LETTER II.

I HAVE in vain expected the honour of your reply to my letter, dated on the 30th of last month, and conveying a request for information, respecting an important transaction of your vicarial office.— A transaction, very deeply affecting (as already in that letter declared) the interests of the public, together with my chartered rights-as well as the integrity of that high ecclesiastical office.

From the silence thus observed by you, I am therefore led to conclude, that you deem it unadvisable to comply with my request-unless specially enjoined to such compliance by an order from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Having myself already made different, equally fruitless, applications to his Grace for a metropolitan order to that effect-the purpose of this present intrusion (being the further effort intimated in my last letter) is to request that you will join with me, while, again suing to the Archbishop, I renew my solicitations for the vouchsafement of that order—and which, earnestly desired as it is, by me, cannot, I conceive, be less anxiously wished for by you.

Notwithstanding the failure of my efforts, hitherto made, (seconded, even, as they have been by a complete exposure of the deception practised on his Grace) to obtain from the Archbishop of Canterbury, either an order for the discovery of the authors of that deception, or for the hearing of my case, so materially affected thereby; still, should I feel confident in the ultimate success of those efforts, and should rest assured of finally obtaining (in one or other of the objects prayed for) the end of our mutual wishes,-provided I could prevail on you to lend me the aid of your influence and support.

While thus applying for your assistance, in detecting the authors of a falsehood, conveyed to, and imposed upon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, through the channel of your ecclesiastical office; I think it needless to disavow all suspicion of the deception, so practised on his Grace, having been in any wise effected, or even countenanced by you. The nature of that transaction (although one of your office) being such as to render any suspicion of that kind wholly inadmissible.

Nevertheless, do I, having the express testimony of the Archbishop himself to the falsehood (as such it was afterwards in open court publicly proved to have been) uttered to his Grace by his " proper officers," still think it my duty to invite you, in the name of the public, whose dearest interests are concerned-in the name of my chartered rights thereby infringed-for the honour of our holy and catholic church, also implicated therein,-I do, Sir, most earnestly invite you to join with me in petitioning the Archbishop of Canterbury to institute a public inquiry-in order that the authors of the deception, so wrongfully practised on his Grace, may, when brought to light, be given up to the censures of the Church, and to the reprobation of all honest and upright men.

That you will, on further and more mature consideration, be induced to comply with this my request, I yet cannot allow myself to doubt. In the course either of your experience or of your reading, never, I am certain, have you met with an instance of such a deception, imposed on the most Reverend Primate and Metropolitan by his "proper officers."

Should the pure and sacred name of religion, with that of our holy Church's honour and dignity, have been used as a cloak and a cover for such practices,-You, Sir, "a devoted Canonist," must, I am sure, partake in the more than astonishment felt by me, while I contrast the conduct thus resorted to by its ministers, with the genuine laws of that Church, and with the fundamental laws of moral obligation :

Ὁ ΓΑΡ ΟΥΔΕΝΟΣ ΕΚΦΥΣ ΧΡΟΝΟΣ,

ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥΣ ΕΠΑΓΩΝ ΚΑΝΟΝΑΣ,

ΔΕΙΚΝΥΣΙΝ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΩΝ ΚΑΚΟΤΗΤΑ ΕΜΟΙ,

You, Sir, who, as I also have done, have studied both the laws and the history of our Church's discipline, must be well aware, that such practices as these were not wont to be looked to, for upholding that discipline→→ nor that Church's honour and dignity to be so supported.

I shall still refrain (as being, indeed, altogether unnecessary) from troubling you with any exposition of the motives which must have led his Grace's " proper officers," spiritual men as they are, and ministers of the Church, to the adoption of so bold a measure of conscious apprehension. It is not, Sir, in the power of argument to prove, nor of judgment to decree, the injustice of a cause, so as that injustice stands self-convicted, while taking shelter under so daring a falsehood. If (as some have supposed) they who could find it necessary,* by such means, to evade all legal inquiry, must still be looked up to as the sovereign arbiters of those laws, whereby the public courts of justice of the realm are regulated :-If, I say, such deference be, indeed, due to their opinion-here have we evidence incontrovertible, what that opinion is :-Ex quo fit, ut neque disceptatione vinci se, nec ullo publico ac legitimo jure patiantur.

As a further inducement to your compliance with my request, I would, Sir, beg leave to suggest, that, the public hearing I am so anxious to obtain, would, moreover, afford you an opportunity of disavowing a canonical error, into which you yourself had, (I am sure, involuntarily) been led. That, I mean, regarding the canonical disability under which I was, by you, declared to lie; and whereby I was said, by you, to be disqualified from the exercise of that spiritual and canonical office whereto I had been duly and lawfully commissioned.

By whomsoever, and for whatever end and purpose, the existence of my commission was denied,-You cannot, Sir, but be well aware, that it was by that false assertion, aided by the uncanonical one of my disqualification, made by you, that the Archbishop was induced, in opposition both to his own avowed judgment and wishes, and solely, as was also avowed by his Grace, in compliance with the " INCLINATION” of that incorporated society whereof you are a leading member, to recall his metropolitan fiat; in pursuance of which that commission had (in the due and canonical course of ecclesiastical government) been executed and sealed in your office.

By your well-known candour and love of truth, will you therefore, I feel assured, be led to court an opportunity of disavowing the canonical error, into which you had, inadvertently, fallen ;-as well as of endeavouring to repair the injury done to me thereby. Damnum injuria datum dicitur, non solum si dolo, sed et si culpâ sine dolo datur. Semper enim quod non jure factum est, injuria appellatur: ac ut damnum sarciatur justissimum est.

Having once more asserted my persuasion and belief, that the transaction, into which I am suing for enquiry, could not have been either planned or effected by you ;-yet, looking as I still do, to the motives, as also to the end and object of that ecclesiastical transaction ;-- of those who really were its authors and abettors, I would ask, in the words of Cicero-" Quæ tanta ex improbis factis, ad minuendas vitæ molestias, accessio fieri potest, quanta, ad augendas, tum conscientia factorum, tum pæna legum, odioque civium ?"

Assured, as (for the reasons adduced) I feel, of receiving from you an answer favourable to my wishes, I think it wholly unnecessary to suggest, for your consideration, the inference, which must inevitably follow, should that well-founded assurance terminate in disappointment; and should a perseverance be maintained in that silence, whereby the interests of your chartered society have hitherto been so powerfully befriended and upheld.

Equally superfluous do I esteem it to remind you, (deeply read as you are in the laws of our ecclesiastical discipline) that, as the pretensions set up by your chartered company have not an atom of foundation in your charter, "that thing of yesterday," as it was emphatically styled in the House of Commons,-so neither can those pretensions derive the slightest colour or support from any existing law, spiritual or temporal.

The laws by which our courts of civil and canon law, as being public courts of justice, are governed, are to be found in the canons and ordinances of the church, framed by that church, and modified, sanctioned, and promulgated by royal and legislative authority, centuries before that charter had existence. Neither can those laws be infringed, or legally altered, by any authority, save that of the same supremacy, which first gave them a being and a name.

The necessity (as since felt by these Ecclesiastical Ministers) of using every effort to screen their conduct from enquiry, I most readily admit. Of any (supposed) pre-existing necessity for the measure itself, a very apt description may (according to my humble judgment) be found in an expression used by Lord Ellenborough, when attempting to characterize a transaction, viewed by his Lordship precisely in the same light as I view "No necessity," Lord Ellenborough said, "existed for it, except, indeed, that kind of necessity, which is often pleaded at the Old Bailey."

this.

See the Report of a Debate on Lord Sidmouth's Motion, respecting the Expedition to Copenhagen.

To imagine, for an instant, that any bye-law of a chartered company, even if your's had any such, as it, has not, could controul the admission of AN HIGH AND IMPORTANT OFFICER into these Judicial, Courts of the Church, of the King, and of the Nation, would be a supposition too absurd to find countenance any where, but in the practices thus lending it their aid; and which practices being themselves as unlawful, as the pretensions they support are unfounded-both the one and the other may well shrink, as they do, from the ordeal of an open and public investigation. I have the honour to be,

I AM led, by your silence, to consider your reluctance to the measure, proposed in my last Letter, as altogether insuperable: and shall, therefore, cease to importune you on a subject, which cannot, I am sure, be otherwise, than most irksome to your feelings.

I shall, however, while thus abstaining from further inquiry after its authors, yet venture to ask, why was that falsehood committed? Why was the existence of my commission denied to the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Unadvisable, as you will, probably, deem it, to answer this question, also, I shall myself say, why it was so denied. My commission, Sir, was denied to the Most Reverend Primate, BECAUSE, it was known to be a good, a legal, and a valid commission, duly and lawfully obtained; and that there existed no lawful means of getting rid of it :-BECAUSE, it was not believed that his Grace would ever have consented to withdraw his fiat, had he known that commission to have been actually executed, and sealed with the Church's seal :-And lastly, BECAUSE it was very far from being supposed, that either the Archbishop, or I, should ever detect the falsehood; much less that, by comparing notes, we should so clearly and undeniably detect it.

In taking leave of this transaction, and, with it, of the morality newly adopted, or, more correctly speaking, of an antient* doctrine, now revived in the discipline of the Church, through the channel of your vicarial

"To these religious distempers two capital errors are to be added, which, in this age, (the fourth century of the Church) were almost generally adopted, and from which innumerable calamities were derived. The first is, that to lie and deceive becomes a virtue, if religion can be profited by it."

U

Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. History.

office, I would remind you, Sir, that Cicero has said, "Quod exemplo fit, jure fieri potest :" and by Polybius we are also told, “ Non desunt, qui, in tam crebro usu doli mali, necessarium eum esse dicunt ad publicarum rerum administrationem." Should it, therefore, at any future time, be found necessary, for preserving the honour and dignity of the Church of England, to resort to similar practices, there will not be wanting classical, as well as clerical authority for the defence, which it may be deemed advisable to set up.

Having thus, altogether, dismissed the enquiry concerning my ecclesiastical commission, I shall yet beg leave to intrude with a few remarks, on one or two other, not unimportant, canonical matters.

When, on the refusal of the Dean of the Arches to admit me, as an advocate of that court, I applied to the Archbishop of Canterbury; his Grace, after declaring the objection, urged against my admission, to be, in his opinion, unfounded, desired me to apply myself to you on the subject. I did so apply; and you, Sir, a minister of the Church, and appointed to administer its laws, did then positively and expressly declare my admission to be forbidden by one of those laws. Now, this assertion, thus made by you, must have been either founded or unfounded. If the former, why was not that law produced? And why was not my commission also produced, and legally cancelled, as having been unduly granted?—The law could not be produced; there exits no such law; and the assertion was, therefore, unfounded. Could such a law have been produced, spiritual men, and ministers of the Church, would never have burthened their conscience with the denial of my commission's existence.

But further; that assertion having been unfounded, you must, either, at the time, have known, or must afterwards have discovered, it to be so. The former supposition I cannot, for a moment, entertain. But, surely, Sir, when you, afterwards, became informed of the error into which you had fallen, was it not your duty, manfully and honourably, to have acknowledged that error, and to have waived the objection, which had been erroneously opposed to my otherwise just and chartered claim ?

So far from doing this,-when, in consequence of my further application to the Archbishop, his Grace did, under an avowed conviction of the "extreme hardship" of the case, himself undertake to state his own just and liberal opinion thereon-What was then your reply? That law of the Church, that prohibitory canon, whose existence you had so roundly asserted to me, was, in your reply to the Archbishop, dwindled, wasted, and shrunk into an opinion, held by you and your chartered associates, that I "could not be admitted, without gross impropriety."

His Grace having seen fit to refuse any judicial hearing of these matters, I shall, therefore, venture to submit a few extrajudicial remarks on that "gross impropriety" extrajudicially set up, as the pretence for my exclusion from a spiritual and canonical office, to which, as being unexceptionably qualified, I had been lawfully commissioned.

To these remarks I shall premise one short observation-As in most other cases, so in this; the matter may be viewed in two lights. Lawful or unlawful, right or wrong, black or white, all that has been said, and all that has been done, in proof of this "gross impropriety," is one, or the other, of these, according as it is judged of by the laws, on the one hand, or by the opinion of your chartered company, on the other. I need not say, that it is to the former authority, I address my appeal.

In the first place then, Sir, though I shall not again go over the ground, formerly trodden, nor shall, at all, enquire whether the doctrine of Indelibility be founded, or otherwise; still, I shall inform you, that the Church never yet has, and (I am inclined to think) never will deem it advisable to stir that question, nor to bring it, in any instance, to a legal decision. Of this I am sure, that, so long as they, who, while divesting themselves of the clerical character, and addicting themselves to other pursuits, shall yet refrain from interfering with the unchartered pretensions of your chartered company, they will never (any more than they have hitherto done) experience either hindrance or molestation from the Church's lay-advisers. And thus, Sir, it comes to pass, that, of the various pursuits, engaged in by those who quit that of the Church, the only one, they are de facto debarred from, viz. that of an "Ecclesiastical Lawyer," is the only one, excepting, indeed, that of a physician, which, even as clergymen, they might de jure exercise. Surely, Sir, one is called upon for no inconsiderable effort of stoicism, while contemplating such a perversion of law and justice, as your "gross impropriety" involves.

In the few remarks I am about to suggest, I will, however, suppose the candidate, for this canonical office, instead of having merely once been a Deacon, to have been, or even still to be, a Priest, and a beneficed Priest. And I will then ask, whether, of that diocese, wherein are transacted these ecclesiastical matters, and wherein also, in such various instances, the laws of the Church are publicly violated and transgressed :—

whether, I say, of that diocese, you are not the Chancellor; and, as such, consequently, charged with the sacred office of assisting the Bishop, to preserve the purity of his clergy, by maintaining the Church's laws and discipline? Is, Sir, the whole of your vigilance, in the discharge of these holy functions, exhausted, and all your zeal spent and evaporated, while guarding the entrance to a canonical profession; and while preventing the clergy from the "gross impropriety" of performing duties, equally spiritual with those of your own high and holy office?

You, Sir, who, equally with myself, have studied the "King's Ecclesiastical Laws of England," (as Lord Coke styles our Civil and Canon Law) are well aware, that those laws contain no prohibition to the clergy, to exercise these clerical functions ;-That it is the common or secular law, alone, they are, by the canons, forbidden to practise; and, consequently, that the analogy drawn from the restrictions, lawfully imposed by the Inns of Court, is altogether faulty, and the argument, resting on it, untenable.

By the canons of the Church, I say, it is, that the clergy are forbidden to engage in the profane, and carnal concerns of the common, or secular law; but these Spiritual Courts are instituted for the management of spiritual and heavenly concerns, "for the welfare of Christian men's souls." You are all ministers of the Church, and form an assembly, if not of reverend, still of spiritual and holy men.* So spiritual, so holy, and sacred, that, that pious and learned Judge, Chief Justice Holt, could by no earthly consideration have been induced to a sacrilegious meddling with your spiritual affairs, nor (however intreated) to pronounce, with irreverent lips, the unhallowed sound, MANDAMUS, in behalf of a starving Proctor.

Holy, then, and spiritual, as your office is, and spiritual and holy men as (in spite of a few hierophobic propensities) you still are, and must be, where, Sir, would lie "the gross impropriety" (for, as to any law to the purpose, the enquiry has been, long since, blushed into silence) if one, in the orders of the Church, were to join (as, by the laws, both of the Church, and of the State, he is authorized to do) in these spiritual labours and that, more especially, should he, like myself, be as fully, and as canonically, qualified for the same, as you were, when, emerging from a cloistered life, and quitting that profession, in which your former years had been spent, you made your debût in these Spiritual Courts, as a minister of the Church," a "spiritual person," a civilian, and a canonist?

:

And, further, I would ask, not only as to these Spiritual Courts, but even as to the Court of Admiralty, what more "gross impropriety," what greater tendency to the levelling of distinction between spiritual persons and temporal, would arise, if a clergyman, and a beneficed clergyman, or even if the Bishop of London, or the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, were to take a seat in that Court, and were to try and condemn the ships of our enemies, than does happen, while you, Sir, after passing your morning in these worldly affairs, become, in the evening, invested with the sacred character of the Most Reverend Primate, or of that Right Reverend Prelate, and, as their "representative," perform the sacred and holy functions of their spiritual and pastoral office? King James," as we are told on very competent authority, was the most able prince that ever this kingdom had, to judge of Church-work." I should, Sir, have liked much to hear his royal Majesty's opinion of a piece of Church-work, done by a Judge of the Admiralty, with his head ful! of blockade, breach of blockade, and contraband of war.

"Prin

So, however it is, armed for either field, you can, quitting your Prize-Court, and taking your seat, ceps in Consistorio ad judicandum," you can, in an instant, pass from the condemnation of ships to the condemnation of souls, †---can exercise your spiritual and holy calling "for reformation of manners and punishment of enormities of a spiritual nature,"‡---and can proceed in " deciding matters of blasphemy, heresy, and schism, the legality of marriage, and probate of wills, &c.---on which proceedings depends the salvation of souls.” §---And if a clergyman, acting as an advocate, were to exert himself, in rescuing from perdition the souls which you, as a judge, are about to condemn thereto, where, Sir, would be the "gross impropriety" of such an employment, for a Christian minister?

You will probably, as indeed I am aware you may, allege the law of Parliament, which has, conditionally, granted to the laity permission to perform these spiritual functions. True, Sir; but, pray, does not the same law of Parliament likewise sanction their exercise by the clergy? You know it does, and well, therefore, may your "gross impropriety" shrink from all legal and judicial investigation.

"This is no temporal office :-he is a spiritual person."- -C. J. Holt.

+"The temporal judge commits the convict only to the gaoler, but the spiritual judge, by excommunication, to the devil."- -Lord Coke, 12th Rep.

Godolphin. Repert. Canon.

§ Ibid.