2. Confining then our attention to the ecclesiastical law under which the parish priest holds his position and acts in this country, we note in the first place, that the Church being here established, this ecclesiastical law is equally the law of the Church and the law of the State. This is true whatever be its origin, and however it came into force; and it has always had this double aspect, since (with the exception of the brief interval of the Commonwealth--a period which is not recognised in our jurisprudence as having had any legal existence) there never has been a time in our history when the Church of England has not been the Established Church of the nation. Portions of our Church system and Church law have had an exclusively ecclesiastical origin, by canon or otherwise, and have been adopted or acquiesced in by the State. Further portions have been created by the joint or concurrent action of the Church and the State. Other portions again have been due to the sole action of the civil legislature, which has received the tacit assent of the Church but has never been confirmed by any formal ecclesiastical ratification. From whichever of these three sources any particular point of our Church law may have been derived, its validity and obligation is the same. It binds the Church and her ministers and members irrespectively of its origin, and is at present in force unless it has either been formally repealed or become obsolete and fallen into desuetude. 3. Again, like our civil law, our ecclesiastical law is in part written and in part unwritten or customary. Foreign canon or conciliar law or papal law is only binding in England so far as it has been received by immemorial custom, and has thus become part of our unwritten law, or has been incorporated into our written law by the ratification of an Act of Parliament, or a canon or constitution of our own Church; and the binding force of the English Pre-Reformation canons, ordinances, and provincial constitutions stands on the same footing. For the Commission authorised by the Act for the Submission of the Clergy of 1533 to examine the English canons and constitutions, and, with the king's assent, declare which of them should be in force and which should be abrogated, was never appointed, although the time for its appointment was extended by Acts of 1535 and 1543, and the scope of its inquiry was extended by the latter Act so as to include foreign canons and ordinances.[1] Consequently the only written Church law is to be found in Acts of Parliament and the Prayer-Book,[2] and in Post-Reformation canons, which, however, except so far as they are confirmed by Act of Parliament, or declare the unwritten law of the Church, are only binding on the clergy.[3] Of these the chief are those known as the Canons of 1603, which were agreed upon at the sitting of the Canterbury Convocation begun in that year, and were separately passed two years afterwards by the York Convocation.