legislative functions. But further, it is not perhaps generally known, that there is good reason for believing that the power of receiving appeals in things spiritual was really confided to it inadvertently.

"It is impossible to believe," writes Mr. Joyce, "that it meant to do what it did. One cannot force oneself to the belief that it intended to refer ecclesiastical appeals, along with others of a totally different character, to the Judicial Committee of Privy Council as now constituted, though such was the effect of its enactments. For if it did so intend, how came it to pass, in the first place, that, in detailing the names of the Courts whence causes should be carried to the Judicial Committee on Appeal, the Ecclesiastical Courts were never mentioned at all in the enacting clauses of the statute? They specify the Courts of Admiralty, the Vice-Admiralty Courts, the Courts in the plantations of America, and other his Majesty's dominions abroad, the Courts of Sudder Dewanny Adawlut, in the three presidencies of India, designating each severally by name, the Courts of Judicature to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. But not one word is there mentioned of any one Ecclesiastical Court of England, nor is the slightest reference there made to any appeal of spiritual contention. It is really a most unpardonable omission, under the present supposition, that a large branch of judicature of the most solemn character should have been never even hinted at in the specified detail if there was a deliberate intention of including it. This would, indeed, argue a most careless and inexhaustive method, by no means creditable to any legislative composition, and indeed altogether incomprehensible.

"And, in the second place, if there was a deliberate intention to commit spiritual appeals in the last resort to this Judicial Committee, how comes it to pass that not one single spiritual person was by the statute placed upon it? And this omission, too, in the very face of the recommendation of the commissions which had reported on the subject of the transference of spiritual appeals from the Court of Delegates in the years 1831 and 1832. Those commissions had reported that the Privy Council seems to comprise the materials of a most perfect tribunal for deciding appeals from the Ecclesiastical Courts,' for this reason, among others, that it was partly composed of lords spiritual.' Yet the spiritual element in selecting the members of the Judicial Committee, as now specified, was entirely ignored. It was to consist, as we have seen, of the President of the Privy Council and such members of it as should hold the offices of Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Master of the Rolls, Vice-Chancellor of England, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Judge of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, together with such members of the Privy Council as are ex-Presidents, ex-Lord Chancellors, or as have held any of the other aforesaid offices. Now, is it for one moment to be believed that our statesmen, at the time under consideration, so far disregarded the advice of the Commissioners who had reported on the matter in hand, so far forgot their duty to GOD and the Church, and so completely set all

precedent, reason, and propriety at defiance as considerately and intentionally to assign appeals in the last resort, on spiritual matters of faith and doctrine, to a body of men among whom not one single spiritual person appears? This is, indeed, altogether incredible. It is manifest that to entertain such a supposition would be exceedingly unjust to the memory of our legislators of that day, and would be an unreasonable imputation upon them, to say the least, of most reckless negligence or scandalous impropriety.

"The truth is that the legislative mind was so pre-occupied with the Admiralty, Vice-Admiralty, Colonial and Sudder Courts, and the manner of their appeals, that the question of the Ecclesiastical Courts, at least so far as it involved matters of doctrine (as has been admitted by an eminent legislator engaged in the transactions), was per incuriam overlooked while the legislation, which finally constituted the Judicial Committee of Privy Council as an appellant Court of judicature, was passing through its various stages. Lord Brougham himself said, when speaking of the Gorham' case, 'He could not help feeling that the Judicial Committee of Privy Council had been framed without the expectation of questions like that. . . . being brought before it. It was created for the consideration of a totally different class of cases, and he had no doubt but that if it had been constituted with a view to such cases as the present, some other arrangements would have been made.' And so, though in the preamble of 3 and 4 William IV. 41, Ecclesiastical appeals are certainly mentioned, yet by the time the enacting clauses were arrived at the subject had slipped from memory ; and such appeals never would, in fact, have passed to this tribunal but for some very capacious and wide terms undistinguishably introduced into the 3rd section of the statute. Those terms were by no means intended to secure the anomalous effect in regard to appeals involving spiritual questions which is so deplorable, but rather originated in that unfortunate love of verbiage which often prevails among those learned persons who are charged with the duty of drafting Acts of Parliament. The words are as follow:

"And be it further enacted, that all appeals or complaints, in the nature of appeals whatever, which either by virtue of this Act, or of any law, statute, or custom, may be brought before his Majesty, or his Majesty in Council shall from and after the passing of this Act, be referred by his Majesty to the said Judicial Committee of his Privy Council.'"-Pp. 74-80.

Seven years later a not very successful attempt was made to remedy this blunder, by adding a certain spiritual element to every committee that was appointed to hear spiritual appeals; but this was only done in reference to the Clergy Discipline Act which was then passed, and was not extended to suits commenced under other Acts of Parliament. The result is obvious. Two distinct and independent kinds of Committees of Council are now from time to time constituted. The one altogether Lay, the other a mixed Lay and Clerical tribunal-the Lay element however, even in the latter, far outweighing the spiritual.

of

We borrow from Mr. Joyce the following excellent summary legislative changes which have taken effect in this realm upon the subject; and we shall then proceed to examine the different remedies which seem to suggest themselves as practicable :-

"1. In 1164 the eighth Constitution of Clarendon, in accordance with previous usage, declared that the Archbishop's Court should be here the Court of final appeal, and that no appeal should be taken further, i. e. to Rome, without Royal assent. 2. In 1533 the Legisla ture enacted that this permissive appeal to Rome should be taken away, and that the Archbishop's Court should be the last resort in ordinary cases, and the Upper House of Convocation in such as touched the King. 3. In 1534 it was enacted that from the Archbishop's Court there should be an appeal to the Crown in Chancery, whence was appointed the Court of Delegates, to give definitive judgment. 4. The Courts of Review, Star Chamber, and High Commission existed concurrently for some time with the Court of Delegates. They were not, however, statutably constituted as Appeal Courts, and have all been statutably abolished. 5. In 1832 the Court of Delegates was annihilated, and an appeal from the Archbishop's Court given to the Crown in Council, i. e. to the whole Privy Council. 6. In 1833 the Judicial Committee of Privy Council was substituted instead of the Privy Council itself. 7. In 1840 a mixed tribunal, composed of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council and some specified prelates, was constituted to hear appeals from the Archbishop's Court, in case the proceedings were commenced under a particular Act, but not otherwise. "The foregoing is a summary of the changes which have been made here in the constitution of Courts of final appeal in causes Ecclesiastical. Those Courts are at this moment three.

"I. The Upper House of Convocation, in cases touching the King. "II. The Judicial Committee of Privy Council united with some specified prelates, in cases commenced under a special statute.

“III. The Judicial Committee of Privy Council in ordinary cases.' -Pp. 85-87.

And now we come to the most practical, and at the same time the most difficult portion of our subject, the consideration of the means by which the utterance of a living Voice, whether for legislation or for discipline, may be obtained from this somewhat illdefined Body-the Church of England. The question, though viewed by the two Authors before us according to the specialty of each only under a single aspect, really possesses two phases. Granted, that is to say, the existence of a Representative Synod, constructed on true Catholic principles, it would be ready of course to speak on all matters properly within its jurisdiction, and this would reach as well to the execution as to the framing of laws for the good government of CHRIST's Church among us.

The Charge of the Irish Primate contemplates simply the fusing of the two Irish Convocations with those of Canterbury and

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York. But here a multitude of difficulties press themselves upon us. First of all, there are no Irish Convocations. But even if they could be evoked, when we go on to consider that the Irish Church has lost her Cathedral Chapters and two of her provinces, we may imagine some of the legal hindrances which would come in the way of action. Again, it could never be that the twelve dioceses of Ireland, which combined do not contain as many faithful as one of our larger sees, should be allowed to outweigh the seven sees into which alone the province of York is divided, or to possess only one third less influence than Canterbury. Farther, the Church of Ireland, were she to claim such an influence in and over her English sister, must really be asked to purge herself of misprision of Calvinism and Puritanism. And yet again the proposal is simply intended for Ireland, and omits all those other Churches, Domestic, Colonial, or Foreign, which are in communion with us, and have really quite as much claim upon our consideration-morally, if not according to statute law-as has Ireland.

But lastly and chiefly, an assembly such as this would be to the last degree cumbrous and unmanageable. A difficulty there would even be in bringing York into union with Canterbury, although for this purpose there is abundant precedent, and Mr. Joyce quotes from Wilkins the rules according to which such a combined Synod was to be ordered and guided.

Another principle, which is fully recognised in the records of the Church, is for the smaller Churches to send delegates to attend as Plenipotentiaries in the Provincial Synods of the larger and more important Church. It was thus that the province of York gave its assent when our present Prayer Book was compiled, and this plan Mr. Joyce recommends as an alternative with the union of the Convocations for the purpose of framing a Court of Final Appeal in matters of Clerical Discipline.

The great merit of this latter plan in our eyes is, that it is capable of expansion beyond the scope of the matter on which the propounder was speaking-expansion so as to comprehend legislation as well as correction of faith and morals,-expansion so as eventually to reach to all the different and increasing communions which now or hereafter symbolize with the Church of England, and which doubtless would always be willing to allow certain privilegia as belonging to her, as prima inter pares.

It would thus obviously be within the competency of the Irish, Scotch, American, South African, or other Colonial Church, to act upon this principle, so soon as any one possesses a Synodical Representation of her own, and in this way to accept any legislation that was carried through the English Houses of Convocation.

And for purposes of correction, Mr. Joyce is of opinion that the Crown might now by "Letters of Business,"-a form of communication which the Crown held with Convocation on three several occasions in the last century-suggest to Convocation the nomi

nating of a committee of its body, chosen from both Houses, which might act in conjunction with the Committee of Privy Council; and he considers further, that a liberty which belonged to the Crown in the Tudor days has been specially preserved to it by the 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 92, according to which it might call in such a body to advise with itself in spiritual matters, and make "such rules, orders, and regulations," as might be necessary for harmonizing their united action.

In conclusion, we beg sincerely to thank Mr. Joyce for his very learned and temperate treatise, and we commend it very earnestly to the study of Statesmen and lawyers in and out of Parliament, as well as to the Church at large.

MR. PAYNE SMITH ON THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH.—No. II.

We now add the conclusion of the review of Mr. Payne Smith's volume, which was shut out from our last Number for want of space.

The subject treated of in the fourth Sermon, which is, we think, the best (Isaiah xl. 1), arises out of the distinct character of the prophecy contained in the last twenty-seven chapters of the book, and the remarkable points of difference between this and the earlier chapters. This last and greatest record of the prophet contains one connected whole, occupied with future events entirely. He foresaw the future troubles of the land-to which all the events of his time most certainly pointed-that the last years of Jewish independence had arrived, and therefore by the Spirit he spake those words of consolation-foretelling that better Covenant which should be set up between them and GOD. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your GOD;" pointing no longer to temporal but to spiritual consolations, obtained not through the magnificence of an earthly rule, but through the "Man of Sorrows," whom the prophet envelopes with such "a web of Christian mysteries, truths and doctrines," that caused S. Jerome to say, in allusion to this latter portion of Isaiah's writings," he ought no longer to be called a prophet, but an evangelist." The object therefore of this Sermon is to prove that, notwithstanding the evidence of a different style, the book of Isaiah is the production of one mind, and not two, as some modern critics have supposed. It is certain that the prophet takes a wider and more spiritual view, describing the condition of God's people, whether Jew or Gentile, on the coming of the SAVIOUR. And it is this change in the style of the prophecies, that has led many of the "higher critics" to doubt the authenticity of the latter portion of the book, and to suggest that it was written after the time