Note 265 — Chapter XV · ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (continued 2)

Leslie's Case of the Regale and Pontificate is a long dull attempt to set up the sacerdotal order above all civil power, at least as to the exercise of its functions, and especially to get rid of the appointment of bishops by the Crown, or, by parity of reasoning, of priests by laymen. He is indignant even at laymen choosing their chaplains, and thinks they ought to take them from the bishop; objecting also to the phrase, my chaplain, as if they were servants: "otherwise the expression is proper enough to say my chaplain, as I say my parish priest, my bishop, my king, or my God; which argues my being under their care and direction, and that I belong to them, not they to me."—P. 182. It is full of enormous misrepresentation as to the English law.