Page:Church courts and church rates.djvu/33

29 to keep in view the two-fold nature of the enquiry, in order that, while our Statute-book is rendered conformable to the spirit of the age, the Church of England may not be placed in a fake position.

When Constantine granted the right of citizenship (so to speak) to the Christian Church, he recognized the Canons of that Church as laws of the Empire. When heathenism was subsequently extinguished, the One Church was the universal creed of the people, and her canons were adopted and enforced by the State. It was in their adoptive, rather than in their spiritual character, that they were enforced by the sentence of public tribunals. Thus the ecclesiastical Courts are State Courts, intended to give temporal effect to the spiritual authority of the Church.

In England, in Saxon times, the Bishop presided in the County Courts, side by side with the civil Judge, and they heard, and decided, causes both spiritual and temporal. Under the Normans the Church aimed at greater separation from the temporal authority, but her Courts were no less subject to statutory limitations and regal control.

Before the age of Constantine the Bishops of the Church had only such authority as was conceded to them by the separate consent of each member of the Christian community. The persons, thus acknowledging their claims, did so, as believing them to be spiritually commissioned by the Divine Head of the Church to superintend Her discipline.