ter, at least it is their own affair, and they may
be more fairly made to take the consequences of their own acts than of
other people's. A strong case, if a strong case were all that was
wanted, might be made out for a change in the authority which at
present pronounces in the last resort on Church of England doctrine.

But the difficulty is, not to see that the present state of things,
which has come about almost by accident, is irregular and
unsatisfactory, and that in it the civil power has stolen a march on
the privileges which even Tudors and Hanoverians left to the Church,
but to suggest what would be more just and more promising. A mixed
tribunal, composed of laymen and ecclesiastics, would be in effect, as
Mr. Joyce perceives, simply the present court with a sham colour of
Church authority added to it; and he describes with candid force the
confusion which might arise if the lawyers and divines took different
sides, and how, in the unequal struggle, the latter might "find
themselves hopelessly prostrate in the stronger grasp of their more
powerful associates." His own scheme of a theological and
ecclesiastical committee of reference, to which a purely legal tribunal
might send down questions of doctrine to be answered, as "experts" or
juries give answers about matters of science or matters of fact, is
hardly more hopeful; for even he would not bind the legal court, as of
course it could not be bound, to accept the doctrine of the
ecclesiastical committee. He promises, indeed, on the authority of Lord
Derby, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the lawyers would
accept the answer of the divines; but whatever the scandal is now, it
would be far greater if an unorthodox judgment were given in flat
contradiction to the report of the committee of reference.

As to a purely ecclesiastical Court of Appeal, in the present state of
the Church both in England and all over the world, it ought to console
those who must be well aware that here at least it is hardly to be
looked for, to reflect how such courts act, after all, where they have
the power to act, and how far things would have gone in a better or
happier fashion among us if, instead of the Privy Council, there had
been a tribunal of divines to give final judgment. The history of
appeals to Rome, from the days of the Jansenists and Fenelon to those
of Lamennais, may be no doubt satisfactory to those who believe it
necessary to ascribe to the Pope the highes