besides this process, having amplified the stern, should leave the prow in the self-same state as before? And what judgment should we pass upon the misshapen, disproportionate combination?

Let then the EPISCOPAL ESTABLISHED CHURCH have her CONVOCATIONS, not only in name, but in reality. Let the Convocations not only meet, but sit and transact business, with all due and conscientious regard, under GOD, to the just prerogative of the King.

The Bishops and Clergy indeed, cannot now, as in times previous to 25th of Henry VIII. c. 19, commonly termed the Act of Submission, be assembled by the mere authority of the Archbishop. But why should the King's writ, granting to the Archbishop,-not the authority itself, which is the gift of CHRIST alone to his Church, but leave to exert it at a particular time, especially at the commencement of every new Parliament, amount to little more than a bare recognition of their right to meet and act? Let his Majesty be petitioned to direct that the Convocation may exercise its right as often, and at such periods of time, as the good of the Church and Nation may require. Its exact assimilation to parliament, once advocated with too much bitterness, is quite out of the question; but let it be enabled to hold its consultations, if needful, from year to

year, on subjects on which both the Church and the community at large are jointly and vitally interested. The Convocation is farther confessedly prevented, ever since the Act of Submission, from agreeing to canons, that shall have any "validity in law," civil or ecclesiastical, unless the king, by "his letters patent under the great Seal, shall allow, approve and confirm them;" but there remains a wide field of causes for consultation, relative to grievances to be redressed and errors to be corrected, (gravamina et reformanda,) on which the two Houses of Convocation, when duly empowered to proceed to business, may freely by known law and custom deliberate, and offer their petitions, as a synod, to the King, whether in person, or in council, or in parliament, as the case shall need; and may also agree to other acts, such as "synodical letters, to which the royal licence is not necessary.

2. The inactivity of former Convocations is not to the purpose at present. If we should, for argument's sake, concede, what

* Let those who too hastily deny the existence of such powers in the Church of England mark this; Mr. James, for instance; (see his Dissent and the Church, p. 34.) The still valid synodical character of the Convocation is ably proved by the author of the Compleat History of Convocations from 1356 to 1689. 2nd ed. 1730. See especially Appendix, c. 4. The above quotations in italics are from pp. 178, 182, being the language of the royal licence. See also p. 164, respecting petitions.

in fact ought probably on every ground of truth and justice to be controverted, that the virtual suppression of Convocations for more than a century past, since the censure of Bishop Hoadly's publications in 1717, has been wisely ordered; yet in times like these, who would urge the precedent? In times like these, whilst the papal Hierarchy hold their frequent meetings, the Church of Scotland its General Assembly, the Wesleyans their annual Conference, no man forbidding them ;-nay, whilst the Independents have recently instituted and now hold annual meetings of their general Congregational Union,* (county associations they have established long ago,) in spite of the apparent incompatibleness of such meetings with the very essence of Independency, will his gracious Majesty deny to the Church, which he hath sworn to maintain for the whole nation's sake, the bona fide use of her legitimate Convocations?

* In the printed minutes of the third annual meeting of their Congregational Union in London, in May 1833, may be seen a draught of a petition to parliament, which they then, in their full council, prepared for "the entire removal of grievances," and for sanctioning, in effect, the voluntary system. But the Bishops and Clergy, though they are assembled in Convocation at the meeting of each parliament, and though they may tender petitions, yet are not empowered to sit and debate at length upon them. Their's must be undiscussed petitions!

No doubt the disputes about the forms and observances, the rights and privileges of the two Houses, and the consequent party-feuds, which attended their deliberations in 1689, and from 1700, when they were again enabled to transact business, to 1717, (chiefly, it must be confessed, through the encroachments of the Lower House, not without some blameable state-policy, perhaps, in the Upper,) have brought lasting reproach upon the Clergy, and materially injured the righteous cause of the Church, and of Christianity itself. Hence, in regard to this subject, deep and inveterate disgust has prevailed ever since among Statesmen, and we may add, among the Bishops and Clergy themselves. The few laymen, who are at all aware that there is such a thing as the actual opening of the Convocation with every new Parliament to this day, regard the whole as no more than a dead letter. better informed minds, ideas of angry contention and discord have come to be associated with thevery name of Convocation.-But is not this in part mere prejudice? Were there not exasperations of men's minds peculiar to those days, owing to an entire change of dynasty, and to the incessant machinations of Pretenders to the throne? And was not the Convocation, from causes specially affecting its members, more exposed than other great assemblies to a dis

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turbing, not to say tempestuous influence? As to the limits of the contested rights and privileges of the two Houses of Convocation, Bishop Warburton intimates, that it is practicable to define them at the outset, with accuracy enough, to prevent the renewal of discord; and "The Compleat History of Convocations" furnishes a fund of registers and precedents, by which the requisite definitions may perhaps be permanently fixed.

And ought we to forget the many well-known instances, in which the Convocation rendered essential service to the Church and the Nation, by settling that standard-testimony of Protestant doctrine, which is exhibited in the Thirty-nine Articles; by originally discussing and deciding upon, and afterwards revising, the book of Common Prayer; by zealously promoting the translation and circulation of the Scriptures in our vernacular tongue; and by voluntarily surrendering, in 1665,† their right to tax themselves?

3. The Civil Government of the present day need not feel jealousies and apprehensions respecting a general Convention of Churchmen.The Clergy in the main have held fast so much of

* "We may venture to affirm that synods convened and meeting on the principles here laid down," (i. e. in his book,) I cannot possibly be pernicious to the State, or fruitless to the Church."-Alliance, 3rd ed. p. 161.

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See Appendix, No. 1.