The Church's own Consultations, the best, the only means of The Church's own Consultations, among the best means of set- The Church's own Consultations, a principal mean of suggest- ing remedies for statistical defects and for defects in theologi- DUE SELF-REGULATION, &c. CHAPTER I. The Church's cry, generally considered, for permission to hold her legitimate Councils, with a view to her own defence and amelioration, and her greater utility to the whole country. We set out with a proposition, capable of distinct and satisfactory proof, in the opinion of Churchmen, to whom especially the subsequent remarks are addressed;-namely, that the UNITED CHURCH OF ENGLAND and IRELAND ought, on every principle of moral necessity, of Christian duty, and of sound Christian policy, to be retained and supported, and, as far as possible, ameliorated;-for the full discharge of her high and holy trust, as the National Church for England and B ; Ireland; the grand source of blessing, spiritual and temporal, to the whole realm; and, under God, the principal safety-lamp to Protestantism, or genuine scriptural Christianity, throughout the world. For this purpose its essential properties, as an adequate Church Establishment ought, with all possible care, to be watched over, fortified, and kept in a state of vigorous and salutary operation. These properties are, first, its PROFESSION of the PURE SCRIPTURAL STANDARD-TRUTHS of the GOSPEL of CHRIST secondly, its EXHIBITIVE; thirdly, its DIFFUSIVE; fourthly, its PERPETUATIVE capacity, in regard to those truths; fifthly, its scriptural form of CHURCH GOVERNMENT; and sixthly, its SELF-REGULATING POWER. The last is that to which our attention at present is to be directed. Like mechanism of the highest order, sometimes in works of skill, in others of power, which contains within its own framework, a complex apparatus, the effect of which is to nip any nascent irregularity, and to keep the result of the whole steady and uniform ;-or, like the far mightier and far more complicated revolutions in the heavens, which are attended with such a variety of checks and counteractions, inherent in their course, that amidst many minute aberrations, which do occur, and for a time go on increasing, not one of them trespasses beyond a certain limit, whether pro gressive or retrograde ;-the Established Church of England and Ireland comprehends, though of course with far inferior accuracy and success, within the range of the skill and power of its moral machinery, and in the very nature of its own high and heavenly provisions, a special expedient for sometimes checking, at other times moderating and limiting disorders and defects, and, in short, for general purposes of self-preservation and self-improvement. That provision is her great PROVINCIAL SYNODS, commonly called CONVOCA TIONS. Let us take a summary view of the arguments for, and against, the revival of active and efficient Convocations. 1. That revival is due to the Church by way of compensation. The advantage formerly secured to the Church by the provision, that all principal public Officers should be in full communion with her, and by the presumption, that even non-conformists, becoming members of Parliament, would agree to the doctrinal parts of her Articles,* and join in her forms of prayer, which are offered up in both Houses before the commencement of secular * By the Toleration Act, 1 William and Mary, c. 18, Dissenting Ministers were to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, except the 34th, 35th, and 36th, and part of the 20th; and in case of Baptists, part of the 27th. It was presumed, that their hearers would approve of the same articles to the same extent. business, has recently, by great legislative enactments, been clean disannulled; and various classes, avowedly hostile to her doctrines, nay even sometimes to her very existence, have been admitted into the national counsels. Now, what adequate compensation can be devised, except conceding to her the actual exercise of her inalienable privilege as a religious society, to regulate and improve her own spiritual concerns by means of a renewed and active Convocation ;-as far as consists with the rights of the legislature, and with the King's supremacy? And shall this relief-this, as far as appears, only adequate relief, -be denied? The primary part of the national community, in the course of rapid movements, which were deemed needful for the general health, has been put out of joint, and cannot be wholly replaced; and shall not its own necessary adscititious apparatus be granted to it, in order to remedy the dislocation? The principal wheel of the political machine has been, by a new working system, driven out of gear, (so to speak ;) and since it cannot be brought back exactly to its former position, shall not some safe and practical adjustment of other parts be contrived for the sake of restoring its proper use? We have heard of the elongation of a ship of the line by the midway splicing in of new planks; but what should we think of the shipwright, who, |