to its publication, to be confirmed by his imperial placet."

In the like manner, "those who have the cure of souls are not allowed to inflict any external and public punishments upon penitents, by their own authority, and without the knowledge and consent of the provincial government."

That "though bishops may visit slight offences of the clergy, which incur no civil punishment, with some temporal chastisement of a gentle nature, such as a moderate confinement and fasting, yet it is only in consequence of their having a license to do so from the Emperor."

That though cathedral chapters " may enact statutes for the canons, to bind their successors they must have the consent of the bishop, and, according to the Austrian laws, must likewise be confirmed by the Empe

ror."

Under the other branch of this head of their Report, the appellate jurisdiction, or recursus ad principem," your Committee find the Austrian laws distinctly recognizing the principle, that "the right of the sovereign to prohibit the summoning of his subjects before any ecclesiastical court not within the limits of the country, is so firmly grounded in the universal rights of the state, that it does not stand in need of any privilege," and that "he may, therefore, forbid his subjects recurring to the See of Rome in those ecclesiastical affairs which belong to the primitive power of bishops, or he may allow this recourse to be had only under certain limitations."

In accordance with this express declaration they accordingly forbid any causes concerning the nullity of religious vows to be laid before the court of Rome."

In matrimonial causes, however, when they come under the cogni

zance of the ecclesiastical courts, if the bishop of the diocese, in the first, and the metropolitan, in the second instance, should differ in their judgments, "judges are to be appointed, who have not been parties to either of the former judgments, from whose sentence there is to be no further appeal." But if the metropolitan, or an immediate bishop, were judge in the first instance, and a court of delegates had heard the appeal, and the two judgments should differ, the metropolitan is, in case one of the parties to the suit requires it, "to ask that a judge may be delegated by the See of Rome, which office, however, is to be intrusted only to a native bishop of the country."

It is also clearly established by the Austrian laws, that "an appeal may be made to the sovereign, against any abuse of the ecclesiastical power," in which case it is his duty, or that of the civil judge acting on his behalf, to pronounce sentence, "if the matter relates to the defence of civil rights, to the maintenance of the tranquillity and safety of the country, or to the integrity of its privileges."

But if the question turns purely upon ecclesiastical rights, it is the province of the civil judge, who is in nowise to touch upon the internal state or merits of the cause, merely to compel the ecclesiastical judges to observe that order of proceeding which is prescribed by the laws.

Upon this and the preceding point, the "Manual of the Austrian Code of Ecclesiastical Laws," refers for further information to the works of Van Espen; and your Committee have, therefore, thought that they could not better discharge their duty than by putting the House in possession of such parts of the authorities collected by this celebrated jurist, as seemed most pointedly to illustrate this long disputed question; adding

thereto some extracts from the writings of Schram and Zallwein, two other German jurists of great authority.

Under their third, or miscellaneous head, your Committee have arranged in their Appendix various extracts from the ecclesiastical law of Austria, illustrative of its nature, source, and authority; by one of which all the Aulic and provincial tribunals, are ordered to take care that "no episcopal consistory deviates in the least degree from the imperial statutes, without having first duly solicited and obtained the consent of the Emperor."

With this point, they have connected others which may be of great use in explaining the nature of the jurisdiction exercised by the secular power, in ecclesiastical affairs; such as-The distinction between the internal and external affairs of the church, and between matters of faith and points of doctrine, and mere disciplinary regulations :

The power of the Pope, particularly with regard to dispensations, and that enjoyed by the bishops and other prelates in the Austrian dominions:

The interference of the civil power, in regulating the external rites of the church, monastic institutions, and the regular clergy:

And, finally, such of the Austrian laws, with respect to marriages, in which the jurisdiction of the civil and ecclesiastical power is laid down and explained.

And though the general instruction to your Committee, "to report upon the laws and ordinances existing in foreign states, respecting the regulation of their Roman Catholic subjects," might authorise them to enter into a detail on each of these points, they conceive it would be needless to do more than refer them to the very clear view, which the do

cuments they have arranged in the Appendix will readily furnish, of the provisions of the Austrian law upon the subject; and which provisions will be found to form a consistent part of the system of ecclesiastical regulation, the leading principles of which they have already developed.

In concluding this head of inquiry respecting Austria, your Committee have annexed, in the Appendix, extracts from the dispatches of his Majesty's minister plenipotentiary at the court of Vienna, explanatory of the several documents transmitted by him to the foreign office; and advices of a subsequent date appear to have been received from authentic sources, intimating that the Austrian government persists in the resolution of "not permitting the publication of any papal rescripts or pastorals from any foreign bishop, without the application of the Regium Placitum; and that the edict, on this head, has been renewed, as the congregation della Riforma was desirous to revive certain ultramontane claims."

II.-The Electoral Archbishopricks of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, the Archbishoprick of Saltzburg, and Congress of Embs.

Under this head of inquiry, your Committee have examined the " proceedings and result of the Congress, held at the Baths of Embs, by the four archbishops of Germany," dated the 25th August, 1786.

It appears that the electoral college, on the 19th of March, 1784, addressed the Emperor in his charac ter of " Supreme Advocate and Protector of the Roman Empire,"complaining of various usurpations of the court of Rome, particularly respecting the interference of its tribunals with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the church of Germany,-of

The electoral bishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, exercising also temporal sovereignty within their respective states, had also, in the year 1769, addressed a memorial to the Emperor, complaining of the great abuses of the tribunals of the Roman Nunciature, and of the judgments in causes brought before them.

In 1785, the Archbishop of Saltzburg, exercising also temporal jurisdiction within his principality, uniting with the ecclesiastical electors, remonstrated with the See of Rome upon the subject of those abuses, but without effect. In the same year, on the 12th of October, the Emperor addressed a rescript to the four archbishops, declaring, "that in his character of chief of the empire, he was determined to acquit his duty by maintaining the authority of the bishops in their dioceses, and to do all in his power to restore the ancient discipline of the church: and that he would notify, immediately, to the court of Rome, that he would not, in future, acknowledge the nuncios, otherwise than merely as political envoys of the Pope, without allowing them any ecclesiastical jurisdiction."

It does not appear that this determination had any weight with the court of Rome, as a nuncio was soon afterwards sent to Munich with the faculties of a legate à latere.

Your Committee observe, that this proceeding gave birth to great contestations. On the 12th of October, 1785, the Emperor issued an edict, suppressing the tribunals of the nuncios, against which the archbishops of Germany had so strongly remonstrated; and interdicting the exercise of all jurisdiction of the nuncios, which could interfere with the authority of the ordinaries. The nun

ciature at Brussels had been suppressed by an interior edict.

It appears that in the month of August, 1786, a congress was held, at the Baths of Embs, by all the ecclesiastical electors, in conjunction with the Prince Archbishop of SaltzburgAt this congress twenty-three articles of regulation, recognizing the independence of the church of Germany, with reference to the usurpations of the court of Rome, were drawn up and ratified.

Those resolutions state," that his Imperial Majesty has engaged himself to the episcopacy of the German church, not only to maintain their episcopal rights in their several dioceses, but to take measures for reinstating the bishops in the privileges which they may have lost by unwarrantable usurpation; and that he has caused it to be intimated to the Holy See, that he would never allow the archbishops and bishops of the empire to be disturbed in the exercise of their diocesan rights."

In these resolutions the ancient dis. cipline of the German church is asserted, with respect to nominations and elections to ecclesiastical benefices, and it is declared that " no bulls, briefs, or ordinances of the Pope, shall be binding on the bishops, unless the latter regularly signify their formal assent."

They also declare "that the oath required for bishops, devised by Pope Gregory VII., and inserted in the decretals, which enforces the duties belonging to a vassal, rather than canonical obedience, ought to be no longer taken; the more especially as the German episcopacy thereby actually bind themselves to what, as members of the empire, they cannot possibly observe." Another oath, therefore, was to be substituted in its stead, so worded, " as not to trench on the

Pope's primacy, or the riglits of the bishops."

As the proceedings of this Congress, containing many interesting articles of ecclesiastical discipline, are stated at length in one of the official papers referred to the examination of your Committee, they have annexed it to their Report, in the Appendix; and as the abuses and encroachinents upon the German church are traced in a great measure to the fabrication, about the middle of the 9th century, of the decretais, known by the name of their alleged collector Isidorus, your Committee have made an extract from Professor Pütter's "Historical Developement of the Constitution of the German Empire," a work of much credit, and which treats the ecclesiastical affairs of Germany with great intelligence. From the same work the Committee have extracted a letter of Pope Leo III., to the Emperor Charlemagne, written in the year 798, when he demanded the archiepiscopal pall to elevate the Bishop of Saltzburg to the primacy over the other bishops of Bavaria. The style and tenor of this letter denote the relations at that time subsisting between the chief of the empire and the head of the Roman church.

It may be proper to observe, that all these official documents relating to the Congress of Embs, and the encroachments which occasioned its convention, were published also in France, by authority of the crown; this remark being added to the official approbation of Monsg. Le Garde des Sceaux, "que l'impression en sera utile." A Paris, le 30 Juliet, 1787.

In the article No. II. of the Appendix, relating to the period of the decline of the Carlovingian race, your Committee have been induced to add a short extract of a tract, by Mr

Brown, a gentleman at the bar, sometime since transmitted to the office of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and recently published, which traces back the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by temporal sovereigns, to the period of Constantine the Great. From the evidence adduced by the author, he arrives at these conclusions: That "the Emperor presided in the ecclesiastical councils of his empire:-That there are no traces of any distinction then existing between the supreme head of the church, and the supreme head of the state:"That "the Emperor, in his character of guardian of the peace of the church, convened the general councils "That " from the decision of those assemblies, he received and heard appeals, in causes ecclesiastical, at least, as they respected matters of external discipline; and that the Bishop of Rome then possessed no authority over his fellow bishops, except that which might arise from the patriarchal dignity, or from the voluntary respect which was paid to him as presiding over one of the largest and oldest dioceses, generally believed to be founded by St Peter.'

Your Committee having examined the authority upon which the document, containing the resolutions of the Congress of Embs, has been transmitted, beg to state, that it was received at the office of his Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, from the British envoy at the court of Munich, and was printed by an order of the House of Commons, of the 4th of July, 1815.

It has been thought advisable also to annex in No. II. of the Appendix, certain articles of the treaty of Westphalia, which was considered as a fundamental law of the empire, and which regulated, in a great measure, the chief points at issue between the

states of the empire, of the Roman communion, and those of the Protestant churches.

In examining and reporting upon the state of the laws and ordinances of the Austrian dominions, and of the proceedings and result of the Congress of Embs, your Committee have gone into greater detail than may be deemed necessary in the further stages of their inquiry, as affecting other states. The ecclesiastical code of the Austrian empire, regulating the external discipline of the Roman Catholic church and its relations with the See of Rome, has implicitly adopted that, which constituted the more general law of the empire of Germany, anterior to its dismemberment: and the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Electors of the Empire, in conjunction with the Prince Archbishop of Saltzburg, at the Congress of Embs, although originating with themselves, were sanctioned by the Emperor in his character of Advocate and Protector of the German Church. For these reasons your Committee were induced to be more particular in their Report, under the preceding heads, as well as in the selection of authenticated documents substantiating it.

III.-The States of Italy: The Mi

lanese, and Austrian Lombardy.

From the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, and the Ecclesiastical Electorates of Germany, your Committee proceed to those Italian States, which, by the recent arrange ments, have for the most part been re-annexed to the Imperial Crown of Austria.

To the Milanese, and the whole of Austrian Lombardy, the Emperor, Joseph II. extended most of those regulations which still constitute a great part of the ecclesiastical law of Aus

tria, and which your Committee have already detailed.

I. As it respects the nomination of Bishops, and the collation to Ecclesiastical Benefices, " no further admission into Austrian Lombardy was allowed of any provision or collation to any clerical benefice whatever, which had, till then, been made by the Holy See, by virtue of the reservations stated in what are called the Rules of the Apostolical Chancery."

"The Archbishoprick of Milan, as well as the bishopricks of Pavia, Cremona, Lodi, and Como, were declared to be at the immediate nomination and presentation of his imperial and royal Majesty, who would, however, with regard to the four latter bishopricks, principally appoint those subjects that might be recommended to his Majesty by the Pope." But before they entered into possession of their respective churches, both the archbishop and bishops were obliged, like those of the other Austrian dominions, to take a special oath of allegiance to their sovereign before the imperial governor.

II. As it respects the intercourse of the ecclesiastics of Lombardy with the See of Rome, it was expressly declared, that "the sovereign right of the Royal Placet and Exequatur remains in its full force and exercise. But it follows, of course, that bulls concerning dogmatical points are submitted to the royal inspection, only so far as this is necessary to ascertain that they are purely dogmatical, and that they contain no improper article."-Applications to Rome for dispensations in matrimonial causes, were allowed under very similar restric tions to those which have been already stated to prevail in Austria, and it is expressly declared by an imperial edict, that " he who wishes to have recourse to Rome, is to apply