2. Is the present composition of the appellate tribunal conformable
either to reason or to the statutes of the Reformation, and the
spirit of the Constitution as expressed in them?

3. Is the Royal Supremacy, according to the Constitution, any bar
to the adjustment of the appellate jurisdiction in such a manner
as that it shall convey the sense of the Church in questions of
doctrine?

All these questions I humbly propose to answer in the negative,
and so to answer them in conformity with what I understand to be
the principles of our history and law. My endeavour will be to
show that the powers of the State so determined, in regard to the
legislative office of the Church (setting aside for the moment any
question as to the right of assent in the laity), are powers of
restraint; that the jurisdictions united and annexed to the Crown
are corrective jurisdictions; and that their exercise is subject
to the general maxim, that the laws ecclesiastical are to be
administered by ecclesiastical judges.

Mr. Gladstone first goes into the question--What was done, and what was
the understanding at the Reformation? All agree that this was a time of
great changes, and that in the settlement resulting from them the State
took, and the Church yielded, a great deal. And on the strength of this
broad general fact, the details of the settlement have been treated
with an _a priori_ boldness, not deficient often in that kind of
precision which can be gained by totally putting aside inconvenient
or perplexing elements, and having both its intellectual and moral
recommendations to many minds; but highly undesirable where a great