"CHARGE AND DUTY certainly prescribed by God, TO YOUR HIGHNESS' ASSENT, although in very deed "the same is most worthy for your noble, princely, and "excellent virtues, not only to give your royal assent, "but also to devise and command what we should for "good order and manners by statutes and laws pro"vide in the church; nevertheless considering we "may not refrain the doing of our office, we most humbly desiring your grace, as the same hath heretofore, so from henceforth, to shew your grace's "mind and opinion to us, which we shall most gladly "hear and follow, IF IT SHALL PLEASE GOD TO 66 INSPIRE US SO TO DO.

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Furthermore, whereas your said lay-subjects say, "that sundry of the said laws extend to your excellent person, your liberty, and prerogative royal, and to "the interdiction of your lands and possessions: to "this we say, that having submitted the tryal and ex"amining of the laws made in the church, by us and

our predecessors, to the just and strait rule of God's "laws, which giveth measure of power, prerogative, "and authority to all emperors, kings, princes, and potentates, and all other; we have conceived such "opinion of your majesty's goodness and virtue, that "whatsoever any persons, not so well learned as your

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grace is, would pretend unto the same, whereby "we may be brought into your grace's displeasure, "surmising that we should by usurpation and pre"sumption extend our laws to your most noble per"son, prerogative and realm, yet the same your high

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ness being so highly learned will facilly discharge and "deliver us from that envy, when it shall appear that "the said laws are made by us or our predecessors "conformable and maintainable by the scripture of

God and determination of the church, AGAINST

"WHICH,

TC WHICH, NO LAWS CAN STAND OR TAKE EF"FECT."

This was such an apology as convinced HENRY that it was time to provide for their more perfect SUBMISSION; which he did, soon after, by act of parliament. For, how he relished their answer appears from what he said to the Commons when he ordered them to come and receive this answer of the Concocation. "We think (says he) their answer will smally "please you, for it seemeth to us very SLENder. "You be a GREAT SORT OF WISE MEN; I doubt not "but you will look CIRCUMSPECTLY in the matter; "and we will be INDIFFERENT between you. Without doubt, he meant as an umpire, not as a simple spectator: For he was more concerned in the matter than either of them. The Convocation was intrusted with the welfare of the church: the Commons with that of the state; but HENRY was intrusted with the welfare of both.

P. 154. [K]. Yet so perverse or ignorant hath the citizen of Geneva shewn himself, that, after reading all this, he hath declared, that "though the King of England hath established himself head of the church, yet in England as well as in other places there are "two powers, two sovereigns;" and consequently an imperium in imperio. His reason is admirable: the headship consists rather in a power to preserve religion than to change it; that is, to destroy it. So that to prevent an imperium in imperio, nothing will serve him but the right of destroying at pleasure. A right founded on no other principle than this, that religion is a creature of the state, viz, a phantom invented by politicians to keep fools in awe. That this is all the notion which our virtuous citizen of Geneva has of the

matter,

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matter, he declares plainly enough throughout all his writings; and particularly by what immediately follows, "that of all the Christian writers the philosopher, Hobbes, is the only man who has fully seen "the mischief [of this imperium in imperio], and provided the remedy, by daring to propose a re"union of the two heads of the eagle, and by bringing "back every thing to the political unity." But to manifest his good faith, or, at least, his knowledge of the civil constitutions which he thus dogmatically condemns, he says, that in all places where the clergy make and constitute a body, there they are masters and legislators in their department. In England the clergy make a body, and a distinct body; yet they. are neither masters nor legislators in their department. Their department is in CONVOCATION: yet there they cannot so much as enter into any business till they have particular and express licence, from the civil magistrate, for so doing. He pretends to have read what is here said of the Alliance between Church and State, as it exists at present in England: and there he might see, that the first and most necessary consequence of the King's becoming head of the church is, that without the consent and allowance of the state, the church can exert no act of authority or legislation to decree or change any thing either in the discipline or doctrines of religion.

"Parmi nous, les rois d'Angleterre se sont établis chefs de l'Eglise, autant en ont fait les czars; mais par ce titre ils s'en sont moins rendus les maîtres que les ministres; ils ont moins acquis le droit de la changer que le pouvoir de la maintenir; ils n'y sont pas LEGISLATEURS, ils n'y sont que princes. Partout où le clergé fait un corps il est maitre & legislateur dans sa partie. Il y a donc deux puissances, deux souve

rains,

rains, en Angleterre et en Russie, comme tout ailleurs. De tous les auteurs Chretiens le philosophe Hobbes est le seul qui ait bien vû le mal et le remede, qui ait osé proposer de réunir les deux têtes de l'Aigle, et de tout ramener à l'unité politique, sans laquelle jamais etat ni gouvernment ne sera bien constitué." Contract Social, L. iv. c. 8.

Die

P. 156. [L]. The very learned, the president Henault, in his Chronological History of France, speaking in justification of the CONCORDAT, which gives the right of nomination of the greater benefices to the King, and of its just preference to the PRAGMATIC SANCTION, Says—“ Que le roi representant la nation, "c'est a lui d'exercer les droits qu'exercoient les "premiers fideles; et qu'ils lui ont remis lorque l'Eglise a LTE REÇUE dans l'etat, POUR PRIX DE "LA PROTECTION que le roi accordoit à la religion;" p. 603, ed. 8vo; agreeable, to the principles, and in the very words, of the ALLIANCE.

P. 160. [M]. As in these incorporate unions, it commonly happens that the fundamental articles are declared by the contracting parties, to be unalterable; it hath become a question, whether the new sovereignty can alter such articles without dissolving the UNION. The difficulty seems to arise from the very nature of the convention. Two independent states unite in one, on certain conditions, declared, by the contracting parties, to be unalterable. When these two states are equal, a new one arises from their incorporation, composed of the other two; when unequal, the less is melted down into the more powerful; as in this latter case one only of the contracting parties now subsists; so, in the other, neither of them. But good

faith requires, that all contracts shall remain in force, till dissolved by the mutual consent of the contracting parties themselves; but here the contracting parties are no longer in being; So that these articles of union would seem to be perpetual, though that condition had not been expressly stipulated. On the other hand, the incessant flux of human things necessitates society, in course of time, to make changes in the most fundamental parts of the constitution. This is the difficulty: which seems not to be well solved in only recurring to the common power of the sovereignty of repealing and changing the laws; whose very title indeed shews the absurdity of an irrevocable law; as such law would tend to destroy the very power which puts it in force; for the reason of this act of power is founded on a supposition, that the laws, revoked by the sovereign, were of the sovereign's enacting; which is not the fact, in the case before us. For the articles of Union, made before the incorporation, had for their author, powers different from what are now left for their abrogation; one or both the contracting powers being no longer existent.

To justify any alteration, therefore, we must have recourse to a higher principle; which is not the rights of this or that sovereignty, but of society itself, as such. Contracts between independent states are of the same nature as those between individuals. Now a number of individuals, let it be three hundred, or three hundred thousand, agree, in the state of nature, to form themselves into civil society. The first convention (as it is called by the writers on the laws of nature and nations) by which the form of government is agreed upon, is between individuals; where the consent of every one is necessary to make him subject to it. And this form they declare to be unalterable,

as