ORDINARY

The person who has ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as of course and of common right, in opposition to persons who are extraordinarily appointed. In some acts of parliament we find the bishop called ordinary, and so he is taken at the common law, as having ordinary jurisdiction in causes ecclesiastical; albeit, in a more general acceptation, the word Ordinary signifies any judge authorized to take cognizance of causes in his own proper right, as he is a magistrate, and not by way of deputation or delegation.