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members, is made up of twenty-four deans, fifty-eight archdeacons, twentyfive proctors for cathedral chapters, and forty-two proctors for the clergy, so that, out of the 170 members of Convocation, 128 are dignitaries, or representatives of the dignified clergy of the Church. What chance have the forty-two representatives of the working clergy of effecting any change in the practical administration of the Church against the representatives of the cathedral bodies? And how could such an assembly command or win the confidence of intelligent laymen?

Even when dealing with matters of detail, Convocation might reasonably be distrusted by all practical men, but when it proceeds to deal with doctrinal questions, every one is entitled to ask of its several members, What are your qualifications to judge, and who gave you authority to judge in these things? For, to take the bishops first, is it not notorious that they have been promoted to their several sees, not because of their great theological learning, but for other, though generally unavowed, reasons? Where are the proofs that His Grace of Canterbury is fit to act as moderator amongst his spiritual peers, should any amongst them be tempted to raise, or be called upon to discuss, some of the questions which press for settlement at this time in the Church? What evidence has he given of profound attainments in biblical science or in the history of doctrines? That he is learned and accomplished as other English gentlemen, and as the great body of the clergy are, is admitted on all hands; but where is the theologian who, perplexed in his researches, would naturally turn to the Right Honourable and Most Reverend C. T. Longley, D.D., to help him out of his difficulty? It would not be difficult to find clergymen in his own arch

diocese, whom he would readily acknowledge to be able to act as his guides in all such inquiries, and who could not, therefore, be expected to receive his judgment on theological questions, save as it accorded with the results of their own learned labours. And of the other members of that Upper House, it is only charitable to say that most of them do not pretend to be learned theologians. They are, no doubt, very pious and hard-working men, but let any one run his eye down the list of their names and find, if he can, those which would be likely to command the attention and confidence of scholars in or out of their own dioceses. To which must be added, that even so far as their theological opinions are formed and known, they are not perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment upon some elementary questions. It would be amusing to read the various definitions of baptismal regeneration, for example, which would be given by the Bishops of Norwich and Oxford, or Exeter and Rochester, and a list of subjects exhibiting similar divergences, and oppositions might be given ranging from justification to apostolical succession! "These be thy gods, O Israel!"

The Lower House contains some very eminent and amiable men, but the majority of its members is made up of those who are admitted on the ground of their ecclesiastical appointments, and not because of their qualifications as divines. And almost as a matter of course, its deliberations are left in the hands of a few fussy men who like to hear their own voices, and imagine that their opinions ought to regulate the consciences and conduct of all true lovers of the Church of England. It is but rarely that the most distinguished of its members take part in its proceed

ings, and their frequent absence from its meetings, and their significant silence when present, declare the estimate they have formed of the debates and proceedings of their House. It is not to be expected that bystanders will think these proceedings of greater importance than the members of Convocation do who could add weight and dignity to them, but do not; nor that the decisions of that small minority of the House which usually deliberates and votes would be entitled to much consideration.

Yet we must not forget that, after all, we are but spectators of a farce! These clerics may talk about all sorts of things, and may assume the airs of legislators for the Church, but they know that their Convocation is but a great sham. They cannot form a canon and promulgate it in their dioceses until they have obtained a license from the Crown to undertake the solemn task; and when they have framed it with the assent of the Crown, they must ask the concurrence of the Legislature to a Bill that shall give it the force of law, otherwise they are powerless: vox et præterea nihil.

Our readers must recollect the panic which was created a few years since by the publication of a volume of "Essays and Reviews," by some learned members of the Anglican Church. The agitation reached the Episcopal bench, and their lordships were obliged to say something to restore, if possible, a calm. They did their best; with what result all Englishmen know! Of course they did not wish to gag opinion, or to stifle the speech of free men they indeed! Yet somehow or other, it happened, we have never been able to discover how, that the statements and arguments contained in the obnoxious book were not refuted, nor even attempted to be met in

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detail by any one of them. Perhaps they gave their countrymen credit for as much penetration and for as accurate a judgment upon all such matters as themselves possessed; but if so, what need was there for denouncing the book at all? Bad books soon find their own place; then why should the bishops try to keep so bad a book as the "Essays and Reviews before the minds of their countrymen? It is manifest that they felt a necessity laid upon them to lift up their sweet voices in a solemn warning to all who would listen to them. And this was the purport of their cry: "Oh! fie, Dr. Temple! How could you be so wicked as to publish in the form of an essay what you had first preached, in substance, as a sermon before the University of Oxford! You ought to be ashamed of yourself: and we'll tell all England what we think of you and of the company you keep!" And so they cried aloud, "That wicked book! Don't read it, don't believe it, take our word for it that it is very dangerous and very false; but don't expect us to answer it !" But people read it all the more; and some, ourselves among the number, thought of the conduct of the bishops after this fashion: You call yourselves "successors of the Apostles do you? Ahem! Is this the style. in which Paul showed that he was "set for the defence of the Gospel?" It seems an easy way to be valiant after your fashion, for the truth. But then, to be sure, Paul was only an ill-mannered Jew, not a Most Reverend or Right Reverend Father in God, and that may account for his withstanding Peter to the face, and for his not giving place by subjection to false teachers, "no, not for an hour," that the truth of the Gospel might remain with his brethren! Lord Bishops could not be so rude! They have learnt good manners, and

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are such gentlemen that they can only say "how shocking!" and then hide themselves in their palaces from further disturbance. But it would do a man good to see a bishop battle with those whom he styles adversaries of the truth, and demolish them in fair fight. He might then be mistaken for a "successor of the Apostles!" At present, notwithstanding their titles and their man-millinery, these archbishops and bishops seem to think that others can fight better than themselves. No doubt they are right, but it is a pity that they must leave the inferior clergy to uphold the truth!

There is no need to review the progress of the suits instituted in the Court of Arches against Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson. The decision of the learned judge was overruled by the highest Court of Appeal, and it was formally decided that the statements and doctrines which had been selected by the prosecutors as the strongest evidence of erroneous teaching in the Essays they condemned, were consistent with the formularies of the Anglican Church. The orthodoxy of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson, so far as it was impeached by the prosecutors, has been vindicated by the Queen in Council; and every clergyman is free to teach, as Anglican doctrine, what these gentlemen were arraigned for.

It is only just and reasonable to give the Bishop of Salisbury and Mr. Fendall (the promoters of the suits) and their astute advisers credit for having selected the clearest and strongest evidence they could find of what seemed to them to be erroneous teaching in the Essays of the two prosecuted clergymen, but which they have now learnt is in no sense incompatible with the standards of the Church. The presumption thus created in favour of the other Essays as orthodox, and

unassailable by any sound Churchman, is too obvious to be overlooked by anyone.

But Convocation must interpose! Committees were appointed to examine and report upon the entire volume, and at length, on the 21st of June last, the Bishop of Oxford brought up the report of the Committee of the Upper House, which was received by their Lordships. He then moved :

"That this synod having appointed committees of the Upper and Lower House to examine and report upon the volume entitled "Essays and Reviews," and the said committees having severally reported thereon, doth hereby synodically condemn the said volume as containing teaching contrary to the doctrine received by the United Church of England and Ireland, in common with the whole Catholic Church of Christ."

This resolution was adopted in the Upper House by seven to three, and having been transmitted to the Lower House, it was "thankfully accepted and concurred in " by thirty-nine to nineteen. So that the plain English of the vote is this, only half of the suffragan bishops in the province of Canterbury gave their voices in this (so called) Synodical act, and only fifty-eight members of the Lower House gave any opinion upon it. Ten bishops and ninety members of the Lower House absented themselves from Convocation when these votes were proposed and taken. MORE THAN HALF OF THE CONVOCATION, THEREFORE, EXPRESSED NO OPINION

UPON THE VOLUME. The vapouring of a minority, consisting of only fortysix members of both Houses, about their "Synodical action," can only be compared with the lofty assumptions of the celebrated Tooley-street Tailors, "We, the people of England,” and should be laughed to scorn by every lover of truth and honesty.

As for the resolution itself, most persons will recognize its parentage at a glance. There is but one man

on the bench of bishops who could have drawn it up, and it is worthy, we think, of its author's reputation. It is enough to say, however, that though it reads very smoothly and is daintily expressed, it is inconclusive as a judgment, and is juggling and untrue in its assumptions and terms. It is "inconclusive " because it does not specify the "teaching" it condemns; and it is "juggling and untrue" because it represents "the doctrine received by the United Church of England and Ireland" as "the doctrine received" by that Church," in common with the whole Catholic Church of Christ." For example, according to this veracious bishop, "the doctrine received by the United Church of England and Ireland" as to Justification, is held by it "in common with" the Romish and Eastern Churches! It may be a matter of course for such a man thus to represent Anglican as homogeneous with Papal and Eastern "doctrine," and then to commit Convocation to that mis-statement of fact; but he might as well expect us to believe that black is white. Does he not know that many doctrines are held by what he designates "the whole Catholic Church of Christ," which are not "received" by his own Church? We wish him to weigh the following sentences from a sermon preached by a bishop whom he, at least, will acknowledge to be wise, and learned, and orthodox. The preacher was the present Bishop of Oxford; his subject was "Rome, her new Dogma, and our Duties," and he closed his discourse with these words :

"See from the first where you must end, and remember that no preference for certain things in her communion can ever justify your accepting in any one the least particular what you know to be falsehood as the truth of God. And yet this they must do who take her as their guide. They must come to bear with her trifling with the truth; with her undervaluing of God's Word;

with her portentous system of priestcraft, whereby, first, the sacred and inalienable then its purity corrupted, and in many responsibility of conscience is invaded, and instances its own life extinguished; they must endure her substitution of another mediator for the co-eternal Son, the Virginborn; they must receive her new-coined dogmas and her spurious articles of faith. See, then, all this from the beginning, and when she comes to you with her fairest promises, with all her grossness veiled from you, and she herself, to work your downfall, transformed into an angel of light, then to disenchant your beguiled senses, read and weigh the warning graven by the finger of God upon her forehead, and upon that of every other carnal perverter of the Church's purity-'MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,

THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."

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If the Papal Church have "newcoined dogmas and spurious articles of faith," how can she be said to hold "the doctrine received by the United Church of England and Ireland?" And if the United Church do not hold "in common with" the Romish communion, "the doctrine " set forth in her Articles and Liturgy, why does this resolution mis-state the truth? Did the writer of the resolution wish to be understood as meaning that only so far as any of the doctrines held in the Anglican communion are also held in the Roman and Greek Churches, could they be If he did, synodically enforced? why was not that position definitively asserted? If he did not mean this, his phraseology is not merely inexact but untruthful, even if none but Protestants are held by him to constitute "the whole Catholic Church of Christ;" and much more is it so if he acknowledge the Greek and Roman Churches to be parts of that "Catholic Church." What a lofty opinion does this brief examination of the resolution inspire of the competency of Convocation to determine what is, or

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what is not, "the doctrine of the whole Catholic Church!" It would be a good thing to assemble the fortysix who have accepted the resolution in one place, and require each of them, without conference with his neighbour, to state "the doctrine" held by their church "in common with the whole Catholic Church of Christ," defining at the same time what each meant by "the whole Catholic Church!" An examination of their papers would soon illustrate, we think, the wisdom and learning of these spokesmen for the Anglican sect, and show with what authority their vote should be received.

It is for Churchmen to congratulate themselves, if they can, upon the concord which is found in the judgment of the Lords of the Privy Council and the resolution of the two Houses of Convocation, concerning the "Essays and Reviews" respectively submitted to their judgment; and it is for Englishmen to determine whether they will permit such a contemptible minority as forty-six clergymen to pronounce a synodical judgment upon any book, as if they represented the church at large. Meanwhile, we would suggest, with all meekness, that we do not see any reason why the statutes of Præmunire should not be enforced in this case with as much decisiveness of manner and quite as lofty a tone towards the contemners of the law as is usually shown towards those who are proceeded against for non-payment of church - rates. The Government should exercise an even-handed justice towards all the subjects of the Crown, and do nothing by partiality. There should be no respect of persons in judgment. And if it were clearly understood that every member of Convocation would be held responsible for any act in derogation of the supremacy of the Crown in all causes ecclesiastical, it is our conviction

that not even the plausible Bishop of Oxford would venture to propose such a resolution as we have now examined, or find forty-five clergymen who would support him by their votes.

For it is to this moment questionable whether-even when no collision, as in this case, with the supremacy of the Crown in interpreting the legal standards of the church is to be seen or to be feared-Convocation is at liberty to pronounce judgment upon any book without having first received a license from the Crown to that effect. A brief historical statement including all the cases which have transpired since the Revolution of 1688, will set the matter fairly before our readers. In the Convocation of 1689, which betrayed a strong sympathy with Archbishop Sancroft and the non-jurors, and which could with difficulty be induced to attend to other questions, the Prolocutor of the Lower House represented to the bishops that dangerous books were in circulation, and more especially that "Two Letters" on that Convocation, and a book "On the Athanasian Creed" were of that description; and he thereupon asked advice how far Convocation might go without violation of statute of 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, to hinder for the future the publication of similar pernicious books, and in inflicting ecclesiastical pains and penalties on their authors according to the canon in that case provided. Two days after (Dec. 13, 1689) the president of the Upper House answered that he and his suffragans were uncertain "whether this Convocation has the power to inflict ecclesiastical ecclesiastical censures upon their authors." On the following day he further stated to the Lower House that he and the other bishops of his province had been advised by counsel learned in the law that "the faults of the authors ought to be punished

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