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On the Constitution of the Church and State, According to the Idea of Each
On the Constitution of the Church and State According to the Idea of Each Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830 edition. Excerpt: ...of a victorious party rather than representatives of the State, the Right and Power here asserted might have been wisely ... more »vested in the Judges of the realm: and with at least equal wisdom, under change of circumstances, has the right been suffered to fall into abeyance. Therefore let the potency of Parliament be that highest and uttermost, beyond which a court of Law looketh not: and within the sphere of the Courts quicquid Rex cum Parliamento voluit, Fatum sit! But if the strutting phrase be taken, as from sundry recent speeches respecting the fundamental institutions of the realm, it may be reasonably inferred that it has been taken, i. e. absolutely, and in reference to the Nation, to England with all her venerable heir-looms, and with all her germs of reversionary wealth--thus used and understood, the Omnipotence of Parliament is an hyperbole, that would contain mischief in it, were it only that it tends to provoke a detailed analysis of the materials of the joint-stock company, to which so terrific an attribute belongs, and the competence of the shareholders in this earthly omnipotence to exercise the same. And on this head the observations and descriptive statements given in Chap. v. of the old tract, just cited, retain all their force; or if any have fallen off, their place has been abundantly filled up by new growths. The degree and sort of knowledge, talent, probity and prescience, which even when exerted within the sphere and circumscription of the constitution, and on the matters properly and peculiarly appertaining to the State according to the idea (i. e., the interests of the proprietage of the realm, and (though not directly or formally, yet actually), the interests of the realm in its foreign relations, as affecting the...« less