*

JERUSALEM, as recorded in Acts xv., and has consequently shadowed out there a sufficient representation, although he did not see fit to give a full and exact prescript, of what He intended for his Church in after ages. So the primitive Church understood it, for there were Councils in many places at different periods, long before Constantine ;-as in Palestine, Rome, Pontus, Gaul, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, respecting the time of keeping Easter, in the second century;-in various places of Asia against the Montanists, and about the rebaptising heretics, still in the second century ;—also in Rome, Carthage, Antioch, and in various parts of Cappadocia, in the third century. The right therefore, indeed the obligation, to consult in a collective capacity by sacred Synods, has been bequeathed by a crucified REDEEMER,-(" He is Lord of all,") - to his Church, in order to her faithful accomplishment of His purposes in her essential internal Discipline, Doctrines, and Services; so that for the civil power to extinguish, or wholly to suppress, such ecclesiastical Councils, would scarcely seem less treasonable against the sovereignty of CHRIST, than to invade the administration of His Sacraments. The sense of Scripture on the subject is summed

*

See also the COUNCIL at MILETUS, of St. Paul and the Elders from Ephesus, in Acts `xx.

+ See Appendix No. 2.

up in the 37th and 20th Articles of the Church of England, as follows;-" Where we attribute to the King's majesty the chief government, we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's Word or of the Sacraments; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly princes, in Holy Scriptures, by God himself, that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal." On the other hand, although it is unlawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written;" yet "the Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith."

Indeed,

to speak of a Society without its consultations, of a Christian Society without its Synod, is almost a contradiction in terms. A national Church, which has absolutely lost its ecclesiastical Councils, will soon probably become, if it be not already,

66

ingens litore truncus, Avulsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus."

It differs but little from a body decomposed, and without a distinct subsistence.-Let us then humbly solicit our earthly Sovereign to grant an active, but at the same time constitutionally regulated, CONVOCATION. Let us hope and pray, that

the convened Bishops and Pastors, trusting wholly in Him, who" searcheth the reins and hearts,” and whose name is "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS," will, according to His promise, be with them to bless them; and by their means to bless this whole Church and Nation.

8. The influence, too, of such a Convocation would be brought to bear with a weight peculiarly its own, upon the correction of abuses, as far as they really exist, and upon the increase of usefulness, in the Establishment; - I do not say, upon Church Reform, lest I should be misunderstood. For I cannot help suspecting, that the plausible term has come to us insidiously from the machinations of popery; whose well-known calumny it is, that ours is no Reformed Church at all, but a mere Law-Church, and needs to be reformed anew. But chiefly is the term objectionable, because Church Reform in the nomenclature of great numbers at the present day, avowedly means the crippling, and mutilating, and despoiling, and may even comprize the total subversion, of the Church Establishment.--And in regard to actual projects for its amelioration, as numerous almost as talkers on the subject, conscious of my imperfect acquaintance with points so singularly difficult, and wondering at the celerity of the process with which each specula

tor springs to his own conclusions;-I have felt much at a loss to conceive how such projects can be either set aside, or adopted, or otherwise disposed of, under present circumstances. Some of them the legislature cannot handle, without first setting itself "in the temple of GOD, showing itself that it is GOD." Nor does it seem right to refer the whole burden of deciding upon these various schemes to those whose station and experience, as Church-governors, best qualify them to judge. Indeed the Bishops themselves have no idea apparently that the task is properly and definitively theirs; for never, I apprehend, do they all meet simply, and for the sole and sufficiently avowed purpose of mutual conference and concert. Besides, when they do all meet by a kind of rule, it is understood to be but during a part of one day in the year;-for weighty consultations, affecting the whole Church and Nation! Besides, for the Bishops to sit in Parliament "is [only] a privilege by usage annexed to the episcopal dignity within this realm; not to their order, which they acquire by consecration; nor to their persons, for in respect to their persons they are not barons, nor to be tried as barons; -but to their incorporation and dignity episcopal." So that they do not sit there as representatives, but as agents of the Church, to

carry on a mutual intercourse of good offices between the Church and the Civil Power.*. But, δος που ζω και τον κόσμον κινήσω, -grant wellordered CONVOCATIONS, really representing and comprehending the collected wisdom, piety, and practical knowledge of the Bishops and Clergy, and then the most arduous and really necessary questions might be grappled with, which could not otherwise be touched; - then definitive measures might be proposed in pursuance of the wishes, or for the approbation, of the King, and the Parliament, as the case might require, and as the limits justly prescribed to ecclesiastical Councils might direct.

We should then be able to say to those beginners in zealous, but misguided piety, whose minds have been perverted by modern abuses of the study of prophecy, and whose feelings have been over-excited by the consequent delusion ;-who deal largely, like the Montanists of old in indiscriminate denunciations against the whole visible Church, including all the Protestant Churches, and particularly the Church of England, and who seem to be on the point of

Judge Hale, quoted by Warburton, Alliance, pp. 132, 160. According to Wake, they are the remnant of the Third Estate of the Realm, which originally consisted of the Bishops and Clergy sitting in Parliament.-State of the Church, &c. p. 80.