THE ENGLISH LAW COURTS. VI. THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. FROM the Queen's Bench Division, which formed the subject of our last paper, to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Divi sion, might seem to be the natural transi tion. But for the sake of historical clearness it is desirable to treat of the Ecclesiastical courts before proceeding to discuss the tribu nal to which many of their former functions have been transferred. The English Ecclesiastical courts at one time exercised a very extended jurisdiction, comprising not only what we should ordi narily call ecclesiastical causes, but matri monial suits and divorces a mensa et thoro, all testamentary causes and suits, suits for church rates, and suits for defamation. These different species of jurisdictions have, however, in comparatively recent years been stripped off. The jurisdiction of the Ecclesi astical courts over all matters and causes testamentary, including suits for legacies, was taken from them by the statute 20 and 21 Vict. c. 75, and conferred upon the Court of Probate, now the Probate Division. Their jurisdiction in matrimonial matters was trans ferred to the Divorce Court — now the Di vorce Division — by 20 and 21 Vict. c. 85. Church rates were abolished in 1869, and the jurisdiction to entertain suits for defama tion was done away with by the statute 18 and 19 Vict. c. 41. The business of the Ecclesiastical courts is now practically confined to the trial of charges against clergymen — heresy, im morality, simony, and kindred matters. The principal courts of this description are the Consistory Court of the Bishop in each diocese, the Court of Arches, so called because its judge or dean, who is the Arch bishop's deputy, originally held his court in the Church of St. Mary le Bow (Sancta
Maria de Areubus), and the Judicial Com mittee of the Privy Council, which is the final court of appeal. It may be interesting, in dealing with the Ecclesiastical courts, to deviate from the lines, which we have hitherto followed in these sketches, of biographical notice, com ment and criticism. The modern life of the ecclesiastical tribunals of England is summed up in the history of the Catholic revival and Ritualistic movement in the English Church, and an account of these will enable us to grasp its true character better than any other method of inquiry. Some time ago a distinguished member of the late Liberal government, Mr. George W. E. Russell, when presiding at a meeting in which the nonconformist element predomi nated, was challenged to say whether he was a Protestant or not. " I am a Protest ant," he replied, " against the Pope; I am also a Protestant against your kind of Protestantism." Here we have in a nutshell the position of the historic Church of Eng land. Long before the Reformation she protested against the Papal claims; she pro tests against these claims still; and adds to that an emphatic protest against the later Roman "developments" — Papal infallibil ity, the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin, and the rest. On the other hand, she claims herself to be an integral part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church of the Nicene Creed, and professes in her prayer-book the whole faith of that Church including the doctrines of apos tolic succession, baptismal regeneration, confession — within limits as to frequency — priestly absolution, and possibly also the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. In the eighteenth and the early part of the
