to, and to dovetail with, other institutions of the State, equally important; otherwise, it would disfigure the body politic, and prove a weakness to it; and whoever, from obstinate adherence to antique forms, (I speak not of acknowledged principles,) attempts to build them on modern usages, will beget the preposterous, and expose himself to the charge of folly. But it is not my present intention to enter into any discussion of this kind; I have to do with principles. The ancient existence and high authority of Convocation, are indisputable. Its authority in ecclesiastical matters is as transcendent as that of the British legislature in civil affairs. It is the true organ of ecclesiastical government.

The Assembly of Convocation has power to correct abuses; censure and depose bishops; to examine and censure improper books and scandalous persons; to enact and publish canons; to alter and reform the Liturgy; and, in short, to do whatever may be done by a spiritual authority.

We perceive, therefore, that all power necessary for the government of the Church is vested in Convocation. But it went further than this, and, independent of the House of Commons, had the sole power of imposing taxes on the clergy; which, while it is another argument for the independence and sacredness of church property, must be acknowledged to be an inordinate power, and inconsistent with public unity. This power remained with Convocation till the reign of Charles II. when the exercise of it was yielded up to Parliament, with a reservation of the right so that the Convocation still has that power, as a reference to the acts of that time will fully prove.* * Not that it will ever be wise and. reasonable to assert it; but such is the case.

Since the Convocation conceded the privilege of granting supplies to the crown, the State has infringed on its freedom, and there has been a tacit acquiescence on the part of Convocation. All other business has been disused. From this cause, the evils of the Church have accumulated, and are now prodigious. Throughout the reign of Charles II. the Convocation was assembled by writ through the archbishops, and members residing about London, and met every week, till Parliament was dissolved; but no synodical act was passed. At the commencement of the reign of William and Mary, A. D. 1689, the Convocation was not only called, but met, and proceeded to business. Considerable expectations were entertained with respect to its deliberations, but they were not realized. After this, the Convocation lay in a state of inactivity till A. D. 1700, when the Archbishop of Canterbury made considerable efforts to restore the ancient use and authority of Convocation. Nor were his efforts altogether in vain; for, ever since that time, at the meeting of Parliament, the Convocation has been regularly convened, and solemnly opened. The Lower House has uniformly chosen its prolocutor; and the assembly has continued to sit occasionally, till Parliament has broken up, or been dissolved: and it is on all hands allowed, and sanctioned by the express words of Bishop Beveridge, that "the Convocation is of right to be assembled concurrently with Parliament, and may come to many preparatory resolutions, without a royal license!!"-(State of Convoc.)

Such is the state of Convocation. I have used no colouring in its history. The bare statement of the facts sufficiently shows the long Echard, Charles II.

injustice and oppression under which it has laboured. Had such an institution been unnecessary, it would never have existed. Such insti. tutions do not owe their existence to the enterprises of theory, but to the stern laws of necessity. In the progress of the social league, man. kind found such additions were wanting to the public weal. They rose as they were necessary, on the experience of man. But the wants and experience of man are the same in all ages. They may vary their appearance, but not their essence. Convocation, or some assembly embodying its power, is as necessary now as it ever was. It ought, indeed, never to have been disused; it has been in opposition to the law of universal order; and the consequences have been fearful, and are now alarming. The time, however, has at length arrived, which imperatively demands its restoration to its fullest power. The welfare, the EXISTENCE of the Church of England, is involved in the question! This is manifest.

When the Convocation was willing to give up the privilege of taxing itself into the hands of the legislature, the other concerns of that assembly began, by degrees, to be considered as at the discretion of Parliament; nor was the tacit consent of Convocation so much to be wondered at.

The doctrines, and articles, and liturgy of the Church, were then well and happily settled; and in allowing the House of Commons to deal with the secular part of its affairs, the Convocation did not think they were acting unwisely. At the period alluded to, the members of the two Houses were also members corporate of the Church of England. In committing her concerns into their hands, she reasoned on the simplest and most rational grounds, that HER SONS WOULD DO HER NO HARM. Nor have they, upon the whole, betrayed their trust. They have carried her triumphantly through many a stormy hour. But the imagined exigencies* of the State have required that others than her sons should be admitted into the assembly of Parliament. Be it so. But let

not this act injuriously affect the interests of the Church. The implied compact between Convocation and the House of Commons is now at an end; the parties are not the same; and the present constitution of the House of Commons renders the exercise of church legislation at once unlawful and impossible.

In vain will it be urged, that the Church may still safely confide her interests in the hands of the legislature, since the majority of its members are true to her interests. But what does this admission imply, but that a proportion of both houses are inimical to her interests? It

* In a debate (1832) on the reduction of army expenses, Lord Althorp is reported to have said, "That he was one who had used the argument that Catholic Emancipation would enable the government to reduce the army, but he was sorry to find that he had been wrong in his expectations." In a debate on Irish tithes, in the same year, Lord John Russell is reported to have said: "When he had advocated the restoration of the Catholics to their privileges, he little thought that as soon as they possessed them, they would, by means of their numerical strength, try to turn equality into tyranny." In a debate on the affairs of Ireland (1833), Lord Grey is reported to have said: "Their lordships well recollected the Catholic question. Nobody was more sanguine upon that question than he was. He thought, that necessary, permanent, and fundamental measures, would have produced peace and contentment in Ireland. He however said it, for truth obliged him to assert it, that in that hope he had been most grievously disappointed."-Archdeacon Brown's Charge,

1833.

amounts to the rational and encouraging announcement, that the enemies of the Church are constituted her legal advisers and faithful guardians. And though, at present, such a legislating power might not be able to effect any great or injurious changes in her polity, yet a power will exist that must necessarily be working to her disadvantage. And is it to be expected that the opposing party will remain stationary? Is it not now registered as a fact, in the history of human affairs, that even a small party in any assembly or society, knit together by strong and influential motives, gradually increase their influence, till they attain sufficient strength to attempt their object? And in the present case, the party within the house are aided by a strong and energetic party without; and when the strength within the house is sufficient to enforce that which is demanded without, the plea of the Church Reform will be the platform of her overthrow.

But, supposing that such a catastrophe is visionary; yet, from the very elements of our constitution, it is evident that whilst the affairs of the Church, her discipline, and revenues remain at the disposal of Parliament, when the representatives in that house of different religious societies increase, every thing connected with the Church will become a matter of contention, and give rise to jealousies, heart-burnings, and all those evils attached to a deliberative assembly, the individuals comprising which are swayed by contending interests, and impelled by conflicting motives. When the vessel of the State is once launched on such a sea of difficulties, who shall attempt to detail the consequences? Not the Church only, but the State itself will be endangered. What counsel can be taken amidst perpetual bickerings and alarm? What safety can exist, when counsellors are disputing among themselves for private emolument or individual pre-eminence?

But enough: who sees not the necessity for immediate change? The demand is imperative, the necessity is overwhelming, the power of legislating for the Church must be restored to its original and legitimate assembly, the CONVOCATION.

The period for its restoration has, indeed, long since arrived, but it has been overlooked; not because the heads of the government did not think it a subject of sufficient importance, but because they did not care to encounter the difficulties, which they considered to be connected with it: nor is it to be expected that rulers, in the midst of their high and laborious employments, will create unnecessary trouble for themselves, Whilst the machine works well, and they can perceive no positive evil likely to arise from the operation of any existing institution, they ought to be the last to enter upon great changes; but when they perceive an irregularity of motion, from which they have reason to apprehend some disorganization of its structure; or when, from a peculiarity of working in some important part, they foresee injury must arise to the whole; then it is their duty and wisdom immediately to apply a remedy. To hesitate at such a moment-to be either indolent or pusillanimous— would prove them unworthy of their high station; and to refuse to act, would for ever stigmatize them as traitors to their country. And can any man doubt whether we are now under those circumstances, when such interference is necessary, and such a remedy ought to be applied?

Every person perceives that this present moment is a CRISIS-that something must be done, and that a great effort must be made. No policy can be more fatal than shutting our eyes to real danger. The evil is then allowed to take its own course; and by receiving no check, makes the more rapid progress, and by meeting no resistance, brings on a more certain overthrow.

THE CONVOCATION MUST BE RESTORED.

The writer of this article does not mean to imply that the constitution of Convocation does not require revision. Such an assertion would be approaching, but could never reach the rashness, of those who are always declaiming on the superior light and knowledge of the present age, and condemning as faulty every thing that is antiquated. Man is neither omnipotent nor omniscient; and, consequently, his works are fading and imperfect. The noblest edifice gives way to time, and requires to be fortified against the ravages of succeeding years. The same law must operate upon civil and moral institutions; and, as in the former case, the materials of which his edifice is constructed (whatever changes or modifications they may undergo) can never be annihilated,-so, in the latter case, whatever repair or alteration may be required in the civil or moral institutions of society, yet the principles upon which they are founded, are the LAWS impressed by the Supreme Ruler upon the condition of man, and are imperishable. This august view of a vital principle, which pervades all the institutions of man, and acts as the wheels of universal society, impelling it forward in one harmonious whole, to its grand and ultimate limit, ought ever to be present to the mind of him who wishes to reform. It will give prudence and caution to his counsels, and prevent that rash enterprise, which is the offspring of ignorance, and the parent of confusion. Hence innovators are always found to be presumptuous, crying up their own untried theories, and despising the dear-bought wisdom of ages. They hurry back at once to the simple elements of things, and considering these as a mathematical point, generate the straight line of their system, and leave out of their calculation all the windings and revolutions of ages, by which those elements have been mixed up and incorporated with the body of society.

Whilst we should keep as far as possible from the counsels of such men, we must avoid falling into the contrary extreme of denying the necessity of all alteration whatever. The ancient institution of which we are speaking, in its origin, was, in some measure, accommodated to the prevailing taste of that day, and adapted, of course, to the modes of their social existence; and as far as these accommodations to the then state of society were allowed to prevail, it must be granted that they are of a mutable nature, and may change as the modes of society change. It does not become us to say how this adaptation of the Convocation is to be effected. We do not, however, think it such a difficult question as some people apprehend. All we wish at present is, to vindicate the rights of our venerable and beloved Church; and to establish the principle, that THE CONVENTION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MUST, OF NECESSITY, BE RESTORED TO ITS ANCIENT INDEPENDENCE AND AUTHORITY.

ON THE UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

"They did not object to the Dissenters educating their youth in the highest degrees of human learning; but he called on them not to desecrate those walls which for three centuries had been hallowed by the prayers and praises of the reformers of England, who had maintained the pure episcopalian form of government, which he hoped was now permanently established, by admitting men of all religions, who would either convert them into the arena of turbulent disputation, or, which perhaps would be even still worse, deprive them of the guardianship of Christian faith and hope; which once withdrawn, would render the age of peculiar temptation more critical and dangerous than ever, and deprive the State of England of that continued accession of Christian and good subjects, which it had been the honour and privilege of the Universities of England to supply."-Sir R. Inglis's Speech in Parliament.

"Amidst all this confusion and error through seasons of political anarchy and religious tempest, the Church of England has ever been the pole star which has guided the bewildered mariner to a haven of rest; the Universities of England have stood in the gap, and unflinchingly maintained the monarchical institutions of the country, and the rights and liberties of the people. They have, with equal courage and success, resisted the tyranny of a king, and the oppression of a parliament. Has all this been accidental, and the fortuitous result of temporary coincidence? Has it not rather risen from the principles of Christian unity and freedom, which a common religious training instilled, and a common sense of danger called into action?"-Lay Member of the Senate.

HAVING in some former papers maintained the independence of the Church of England, and established her identity with the ancient British and Apostolic Church, by a line of argument which in the opinion of many whose judgment I esteem, is considered unanswerable, I am urged, from what has lately occurred in Parliament, to offer a few observations on the same undeniable principle, with a design to secure inviolate the unity and integrity of our ANCIENT UNIVERSITIES.

It will be allowed, without much difficulty, that the two Universities, with respect to their origin and destination, stand upon the same footing, and that the line of argument which applies to one, may with equal force and propriety be extended to the other.

My first object will be to remove a false and erroneous impression from the minds of the public, which has been long and deeply, and almost universally imbibed; I mean that the Universities are of Roman Catholic foundation. And as the records of the University of Oxford have been better preserved than those of Cambridge, I shall have recourse to them in order to show, that like the Church of England, these venerable seats of learning extend back, in their ORIGIN, even to the remotest periods of British history, and that their institutions were celebrated and famous many ages before the Roman Church unhappily found a resting place in England!

The indefatigable and oracular Camden thus gives his testimony, which is founded on the study and collation of ancient historical documents.

"The wisdom of our ancestors, as appears in our history, consecrated