n the
morning on last Saturday with one set of feelings, and going to bed
with another. Bishops, then, who in spite of the alleged anarchy, are
still looked upon with great reverence, as almost irresponsible in what
they say and do officially, are, it seems, as much at the mercy of the
law as the presbyters and deacons whom they have occasionally sent
before the Courts. They, too, at the will of chance accusers who are
accountable to no one, are liable to the humiliation, worry, and
crushing law-bills of an ecclesiastical suit. Whatever may be thought
of this now, it would have seemed extravagant and incredible to the
older race of Bishops that their actions should be so called in
question. They would have thought their dignity gravely assailed, if
besides having to incur heavy expense in prosecuting offending
clergymen, they had also to incur it in protecting themselves from the
charge of being themselves offenders against Church law.

The growth of law is always a mysterious thing; and an outsider and
layman is disposed to ask where this great jurisdiction sprung up and
grew into shape and power. In the Archbishop's elaborate and able
Judgment it is indeed treated as something which had always been; but
he was more successful in breaking down the force of alleged
authorities, and inferences from them, on the opposite side, than he
was in establishing clearly and convincingly his own contention.
Considering the dignity and importance of the jurisdiction claimed, it
is curious that so little is heard about it till the beginning of the
eighteenth century. It is curious that in its two most conspicuous
instances it should have been called into activity by those not
naturally friendly to large ecclesiastical claims--by Low Churchmen of
the Revolution against an offending Jacobite, and by a Puritan
association against a High Churchman. There is no such clear and strong
case as Bishop Watson's till we come to Bishop Watson. In his argument
the Archbishop rested his claim definitely and forcibly on the
precedent of Bishop Watson's case, and one or two cases which more or
less followed it. That possibly is sufficient for his purpose; but it
may still be asked--What did the Watson case itself grow out of? what
were the precedents--not merely the analogies and supposed legal
necessities, but the precedents--on which this exercise of
metropolitical jurisdiction, distinct from the legatine power, rested?
For it seems as if a form