Church courts. It deals with all the matters which concern the Christian, because all have some relation to his eternal salvation, and it is the office of the Church to promote this. But this full extension of jurisdiction now belongs only to the inner tribunal of conscience; the outer tribunal takes notice of offences belonging to a more limited range, such as cause public scandal. The discussion of a Christian's duty before God in the Church and the world, is the duty of the casuist or moral theologian; hence priests must show that they have some considerable knowledge of moral theology before they can be licensed as confessors. The discussion of the more open offences which come before the outer tribunals of the Church belongs to the canonist as well as to the casuist, though the former must depend upon the latter. This is how it comes to pass that several moral questions are treated of in the canon law.

3. The causes which the Church has, in Christian countries, reserved to its own courts for decision either in the whole or in part, may be ranged under three heads: (1) those which are purely spiritual, though they may have temporal accidents annexed by the civil law; (2) those which are mixed, such as disputes about benefices, where there is an essentially spiritual office united to temporal property; (3) those which are purely temporal, though they may have spiritual accidents annexed, such as the temporal goods of which the Church is possessor. In this last case, the temporal ruler has also a judiciary power; hence it is desirable that Church and State should agree upon a court to decide upon cases of this sort. If they cannot agree upon such a court, then each retains full right

of judgment, and if the civil and ecclesiastical judges give contrary decisions in any case, then the case remains undecided. With regard to the second class of causes, the mixed causes, the general rule is, that while a certain authority is allowed to the secular magistrate in these causes, yet the pastors of the Church are competent both to try and to decide them; for mixed causes are those which relate to patronage, benefices, tithes, the secularization of Church property, and the like. The temporality is attached to the spiritual office, and as the ecclesiastical judge has full (and sole) power to decide as to the latter, he really decides the whole cause. Of course, the civil magistrate may protect a beneficiary deposed by the ecclesiastical judge, and secure to him the full possession of the revenues of the benefice; nevertheless, before the Church the benefice is vacant, and the duty of the bishop requires him to fill it up, and all Christians are bound to recognize the authority of the cleric so appointed.* On the other hand, the civil magistrate may keep any beneficiary out of the enjoyment of the fruits of his benefice, but this does not make the benefice vacant.

4. It is with regard to causes purely spiritual that the ecclesiastical judges have full power beyond the possibility of control by the civil magistrate, and for this reason laymen are forbidden to be judges in such causes, even as delegates. It is no objection to this to say that the Church has no earthly territory, but lives in the world within the limits of secular States, and can therefore have no outer

* Thus Dr. Colenso, formerly Bishop of Natal, but now deposed and excommunicated, still enjoys the revenues of that see under the protection of the secular power.

tribunal, for the Church's powers and duties are as distinct from those of princes as its nature is from the nature of their principalities; so that every Christian is subject to two independent rulers as a Christian and as a citizen, and if he offend against either he may be publicly tried and condemned by that power whose laws he has broken. On the other hand, it is the duty of Christian princes to assist in every way the ecclesiastical judge, and to prevent his authority from being despised, and not to limit or harass him by pretences of defending their rights from sacerdotal aggressions, or of defending the Church itself from the tyranny of its own rulers. There are seven kinds of purely spiritual causes which are thus exclusively subject to the ecclesiastical judge: (1) Causes, whether of law or of fact, which concern Christian faith and morals, saving the rights of the prince as to their civil effects; for instance, in England a sentence of excommunication carries with it a sentence of outlawry which the prince may refuse to give, without, of course, annulling the excommunication. The Church itself is the ultimate judge of what causes belong to this class. (2) Causes about the administration or denial of the sacraments. (3) Causes concerning the validity of Christian marriage; hence the decisions of the present divorce courts established by the State do not affect anything but the civil status of the parties; for instance, if a civil divorce is given in a case in which the Church does not allow divorce (in the sense explained above, § 2, art. 8), and if one of the parties marries again during the lifetime of the other, the State will consider this union as a marriage and will call the children legitimate, and allow them to inherit property

and titles; but the Church takes the opposite part, refuses the sacraments to the offenders, and considers their children "irregular." (4) Causes belonging directly to the worship of God; but some accidentals are in the power of the civil ruler, such as processions through the streets. (5) Causes concerning the duties of clerics as clerics. In this matter the civil magistrate may acquire certain rights by a concordat, such as the right of refusing a bishop duly elected. (6) Causes relating to the vows and duties of regulars, because the religious state exists expressly for the sanctification of the soul. (7) Causes relating to censures and other ecclesiastical penalties. Formerly, princes used to claim the power of stopping sentences of excommunication in certain cases.

CHAPTER I.

PROCEDURE.*

A.-Competence of a Court.

5. THE tribunals before which all disputes and accusations are to be brought for decision correspond to degrees in the hierarchy, and are, therefore, either of Divine or human law. To the former belong the courts of the pope and the bishop; to the latter, the court of the metropolitan, archdeacon, and rural dean. Before the judges in these courts causes are brought for a decision; thus there are three principal persons concerned-the judge, the prosecutor or complainant, and the accused or defendant, witnesses being accessories. And the judge may proceed in two ways, either by the ordinary procedure of the court, or by a summary method, provided he takes care to inform himself of both sides of the question, so as to pronounce a real sentence and not a mere opinion. The judge's acts are called “judicial" when performed with reference to judgments properly so called, either in the preparatory stage or in the examination of witnesses or the like; his acts are called “extrajudicial" when performed

* Ayliffe is very full on these matters.