"And certain it is, that this Kingdom hath been best governed, and
peace and quiet preserved, when both parties, that is, when the
justices of the temporal courts and the ecclesiastical judges have
kept themselves within their proper jurisdiction, without
encroaching or usurping one upon another; and where such
encroachments or usurpations have been made, they have been the
seeds of great trouble and inconvenience."

Because none can resist the principle of your proposal, who admit
that the Church has a sphere of proper jurisdiction at all, or any
duty beyond that of taking the rule of her doctrine and her
practice from the lips of ministers or parliaments. If it shall be
deliberately refused to adopt a proposition so moderate, so
guarded and restrained in the particular instance, and so
sustained by history, by analogy, and by common reason, in the
case of the faith of the Church, and if no preferable measure be
substituted, it can only be in consequence of a latent intention
that the voice of the Civil Power should be henceforward supreme
in the determination of Christian doctrine.

We trust that such an assurance, backed as it is by the solemn and
earnest warnings of one who is not an enthusiast or an agitator, but
one of the leading men in the Parliament of England, will not be
without its full weight with those on whom devolves the duty of guiding
and leading us in this crisis. The Bishops of England have a great
responsibility on them. Reason, not less than Christian loyalty and
Christian charity, requires the fairest interpretation of their acts,
and it may be of their hesitation,--the utmost consideration of their
difficulties. But reason, not less than Christian loyalty and charity,
expects that, having accepted the responsibilities of the Episcopate,