will be told that the King is not ony the chief, but the sole
magistrate of the nation; and that all others act by his
commission, and in subordination to him.[2]

[2]
_Allen on the Royal Prerogative_, pp. 1-3.

"In the most limited monarchy," as he says truly the "King is
represented in law books, as in theory an absolute sovereign." "Even
now," says Mr. Gladstone, "after three centuries of progress toward
democratic sway, the Crown has prerogatives by acting upon which,
within their strict and unquestioned bounds, it might at any time throw
the country into confusion. And so has each House of Parliament." But
if the absolute supremacy of the Crown _in the legal point of mew
exactly the same over temporal matters and causes as over spiritual_,
is taken by no sane man to be a literal fact in temporal matters, it is
violating the analogy of the Constitution, and dealing with the most
important subjects in a mere spirit of narrow perverseness, to insist
that it can have none but a literal meaning in ecclesiastical matters;
and that the Church _did_ mean, though the State _did not_ to accept a
despotic prerogative, unbounded by custom, convention, or law, and
unchecked by acknowledged and active powers in herself. Yet such is the
assumption, made in bitterness and vexation of spirit by some of those
who have lately so hastily given up her cause; made with singular
assurance by others, who, Liberals in all their political doctrines,
have, for want of better arguments, invoked prerogative against the
Church.

What the securities and checks were that the Church, not less than the
nation, contemplated and possessed, are not expressed in the theory