when he said, "the Powers that be are ordained of God," still it will be admitted at once by all members of the Church Catholic, that Civil Governors are not the only Powers on earth that are Ordained of God. Those who believe that when our Lord said to His Apostles, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven," He gave them a commission which was not to perish with themselves, but to continue till the end of the world, will scarce doubt that there exists on earth somewhere a Power quite distinct from the sword of the Civil Governor, and that too ordained of God. And those who on the most solemn occasion of their lives have consented to accept authority to remit and retain sins, will scarce doubt where this Power rests. Let it be once admitted that the Ordination Service of the Church of England is not lightly expressed, and it follows, that besides the power of the Civil Magistrate, there exists also another power, independent and essentially superior, derived through the Successors of the Apostles from Christ Himself,-the power to remit and retain sins.

(2.) If our obligation to obey the Civil Magistrate arises from the fact that "he who resisteth the Power, resisteth the Ordinance of God," the same fact can give rise to no less obligation in the case of other "Powers that be." This is a plain truth, which cannot be set aside

difficulty that may arise out of it.

by any apparent

The obligation

to twofold obedience may and must entail its per

plexities, but be these perplexities what they may, they cannot prove such obligation absurd. It is enjoined by God; "let God be true, but every man a liar;" whether it leaves the way of duty plain to us or difficult, some way there must be of fulfilling it in both its parts.

(3.) Since then in all countries the allegiance which Christ's flock owes to the Powers that be, is necessarily a divided allegiance, and since in such a case it is evidently not the right way to neglect either, we have no choice but to inquire what is due to each.

(4.) Though it might be no difficult task to elicit from Scripture, precepts sufficient to satisfy this inquiry, it may perhaps be a shorter and a surer process, to refer to the interpretation put upon these precepts by persons better qualified than ourselves to judge of them: and for that I shall refer to one of acknowledged learning, and who will not be suspected of any religious prepossession,-the historian Gibbon.

"The distinction," says he, "of spiritual and temporal powers, ** was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of Christianity. *** In the Christian Church, which entrusts the service of the Altar to a perpetual succession of consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less honourable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude. The emperor might be saluted as the father of his

people, but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the Church; * * * The opposition or contempt of the civil power served only to cement the discipline of the Primitive Church. The Christians had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their republic by a code of laws which were ratified by the consent of the people and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual alliance with a distinct and independent society, and the privileges granted or confirmed by that Emperor or by his successors, were accepted, not as the precarious favours of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights of the Ecclesiastical Order. The Catholic Church was administered by the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen hundred Bishops. *** The important review of their station and attributes may be distributed under the following heads.

1. Popular Election. 2. Ordination of the Clergy. 3. Property. 4. Civil Jurisdiction. 5. Spiritual Censures. 6. Exercise of Public Oratory. 7. Privilege of Legislative Assemblies." Of these the 1st and 5th are the ones which require attention.

"1. The freedom of elections subsisted long after the legal establishment of Christianity, and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the Church the privilege which they had lost in the Republic, of choosing the magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As

soon as a Bishop had closed his eyes, the Metropolitan issued a commission to one of his Suffragans, to administer the vacant See, and prepare within a limited time the future election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior Clergy who were best qualified to judge of the merits of the candidates; in the Senators or Nobles of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or property; and finally, in the whole body of the People, who on the appointed day flocked in multitudes from the most remote parts of the Diocese The authority of the Provincial Bishops who were assembled in the vacant Church to consecrate the choice of the People, was interposed to moderate their passions and to correct their mistakes. The Bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission or the resistance of the Clergy and People, on various occasions, afforded different precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws and provincial customs, but it was everywhere admitted as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no Bishop could be imposed on an Orthodox Church, without the consent of its members. The Emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in the choice of a Primate; but those absolute monarchs respected the freedom ɔf ecclesiastical elections; and while they distribued and resumed the honours of the state and army,

they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important offices from the free suffrages of the People. ***

"5. The Bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people. The discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical jurisprudence, which accurately defined the duty of private and public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt and the measure of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual censure, if the Christian Pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the magistrate without controlling the administration of civil government. Some considerations of reli gion, or loyalty, or fear, protected the sacred per sons of the Emperors from the zeal or resentment of the Bishops; but they boldly censured and ex communicated the subordinate tyrants who were not invested with the majesty of the purple. S

Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers Egypt; and the interdict which he pronounced fire and water, was solemnly transmitted to th Churches of Cappadocia. Under the reign of the younger Theodosius, the polite, the eloquent Syne sius, one of the descendants of Hercules, filled t episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near the ruins of the ancient Cyrene, and the philosophic Bishop s ported with dignity that which he had assum with reluctance. He vanquished the monster