executed without the royal assent. 4. After the royal assent, they cannot execute any, but within these four limitations :-that they be not against the king's prerogative; nor against the common law; nor against any statute law; nor against any custom of the realm.

Whenever a new parliament is called, writs are issued by the crown to the two archbishops to call a provincial synod; the first to meet at London, the other at York. As before mentioned, the clergy taxed themselves, up to the time of the long parliament. After the Restoration, archbishop Shelden made a private agreement with lord chancellor Clarendon, that the clergy should silently waive the privilege of taxing their own body. This has made convocations unnecessary to the crown, and inconsiderable in themselves. In lieu of this, the clergy were granted the privilege of voting at county elections as freeholders. From that time, 1664, neither synod has passed any synodical act. They were regularly summoned, but rarely met, and never in full solemnity. In the reign of king James II., the writs issued out, of course, but the members did not meet. In 1689, a convocation was not only called, but began to sit in due form; but archbishop Sancroft refused to transfer his allegiance, and therefore was incapacitated from sitting. Since 1700, the convocation of the clergy has been solemnly opened at the meeting of every parliament, and the clergy of the lower house have been permitted to constitute themselves, and to choose a prolocutor. And now it seems to be granted on all hands, that they are of right to be assembled concurrently with parliaments, and may act and proceed as provincial councils, when his majesty in his royal wisdom shall deem it expedient.*

There is a difference in the customs of parliament and of the convocation. It is but one session of the former, if they meet daily for three or more months; but every day's meeting and sitting is, in the language of the convocation, a distinct session. A prorogation of parliament breaks off all business, so that every thing must begin de novo next session. But by a continuation of the convocation, all business remains in the same state, and may be resumed where they left off the preceding session. Parliament is prorogued, but convocation is continued.

Writs are issued to all the bishops to come to parliament; præmunientes, that is, "warning him to bring with him the deans and archdeacons within his diocese, one proctor for each chapter, and two for the clergy of his diocese." An English synod or convocation as it now stands for the province of Canterbury, consists of the archbishop, who is the president (or moderator), twenty-one bishops, twenty-two deans, fifty-three archdeacons, forty-four proctors or representatives for the diocesan clergy,

Johnson's Vademecum, 152.

and twenty-four proctors of the chapters. The members of the convocation enjoy the same privilege of freedom from arrest as the members of the house of commons. It is enacted," that the clergy called to convocation by the king's writ, together with their servants and families, shall fully use and enjoy such liberty, or defence, in coming, tarrying, and returning, as the great men, or commonalty of the realm do, or ought to enjoy."* This act has always been so understood, that proctors chosen by the provincial writ have been as safe from arrest, as if they had been chosen by virtue of the pramunientes.+

Reference is frequently made to our Lord's words: My kingdom is not of this world. From the context, however, it cannot be made to say anything either for or against an establishment. Pilate was made to believe that Christ claimed the rank and title of a temporal prince, and as such was an enemy to Cesar. To ascertain the truth of this accusation Pilate demanded of our Lord, Art thou the king of the Jews? Our blessed Lord admitted the fact: Thou sayest that I am a king. But to undeceive the Roman governor as to the nature of his kingship, he added: My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence : that is, mine is a spiritual kingdom, altogether different from Cesar's. His kingdom is of this world, mine is not of this world, and therefore my sovereignty cannot interfere with his rights. As a proof of which, I have not commanded my servants to fight for me, which, had my kingdom been a temporal one, I should certainly have done. Here, however, was an opportunity for condemning an establishment, had it been improper. Among the Jews, the church and state were very closely united. The Jewish church was as much established in Palestine, and that by God's own authority, as the Christian church is in Great Britain. There is no established church in America. In the cities and towns of that country, where religion is regarded as a luxury, churches and chapels abound. But in the rural districts, the population is either utterly destitute of pastoral supervision, or depends for the sacraments and for spiritual education on the visits, few and far between, of some chance missionary. Where there is no national establishment, those who require instruction must have none at all. And therefore, whether we look at the fact with the eye of a legislator or of a Christian, the circumstance of stationing a man of education, respectability, and religion, in each parish, where the inhabitants are too poor to support, or too ignorant to desire, an instructor, is an advantage to the country, which will only then be properly appre

* & Henry VI., c. 1.

Johnson's Vademecum, 159.

ciated when it is lost. Again, the position of the higher ecclesiastics, as the compeers of the royal and the great, gives to English society that moral tone which is the glory of the country. By intercourse with the good, the irreligious learn to respect virtue, and their children are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Religion is thrust as it were into every man's face, inquiry is courted, and inquiry leads to sobriety and conviction.*

We conclude this subject in the words of a learned and pious writer : "That every church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, will not now, and could not at any time be questioned, by any sound and sober Christian, so that there be nothing decreed contrary to Scripture, and so that all things be done decently and in order. This power the church of England asserts and claims in her twentieth article. That she has exercised it in conformity with Scripture, and made all her arrangements in conformity with St Paul's injunctions, she not only believes, but has proved as often as the truth has been questioned. The liturgy we can examine. We can learn its import, and prepare ourselves for its useprepare ourselves so as to add the spirit of prayer to the form which we know. The united church of England and Ireland claims to be a part of the catholic church, or spouse of Christ, the mould in which the heirs of immortality are begotten, nurtured, and prepared for their heavenly inheritance. It is a remarkable fact, well worthy of the most serious reflection, that the church of England, reformed by the most sober-minded, learned, and judicious divines of that most remarkable age, stands now as she stood then, the same in doctrine and discipline-the acknowledged bulwark of pure, true, and undefiled religion, against popery, fanaticism, and all the various degrees of infidelity;—which unity of faith and discipline cannot be predicated of any other church of the reformation which we know; while of most of them, the direct contrary must with equal grief and indignation be acknowledged."+

The church of England, and indeed the whole of the Western church, was crucified, like her divine head, between the usurpation of the popes and the king. The contest between these rival powers, raged fiercely from the grand usurpation of pope Hildebrand up to the reign of Henry VIII. For several hundred years the Anglo Saxon church and state made their respective laws in perfect concord; and there cannot be shown one single Saxon law that is in contradiction to the canons of the church. It was William the Conqueror who first invaded the rights and liberties of the English people, and that first broke in upon the freedom of the English church. He would not suffer the primate in a convocation to enact

Hook on Establishments.

Bishop Walker's Life of Archbishop Whitgift.

any canon, of which he himself did not first approve, neither would he suffer any bishop to censure, or inflict any ecclesiastical penances upon any of his ministers or courtiers. And what is very remarkable, although he pretended to be a true and zealous son of the church of Rome, yet he would allow none in his dominions to acknowledge any pope without his consent. "Thus," says Eadmer, "all divine as well as human affairs were governed by his beck." Rome's encroachments, however, were not all accomplished in one day. The pope's supremacy in England fluctuated according to the weakness, the necessities, or the superstitious devotion, of her sovereigns. Henry I. yielded to the pope the patronage and donation of his bishoprics and all other ecclesiastical benefices. Stephen granted

that the clergy might appeal to Rome, which in effect yielded the whole dispute. Henry II. conceded to the clergy the right of exemption from the secular power, so that a clergyman, as such, could not be tried by a lay judge, but only by his spiritual peers. The turbulence of Thomas à Becket occasioned the famous constitutions of Clarendon to be drawn up, which considerably curbed the pope's supremacy. A dispute between king John and Innocent III. about the investiture of the archbishop of Canterbury, so incensed that haughty pontiff that he laid the whole kingdom under an interdict for six years. During all that time, the ordinances and the sacraments of the church were suspended, and the whole kingdom was without any religion whatever. This claim, and most tyrannical exercise of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a foreign potentate, was productive of such ruinous effects, that the king and the temporal estates were roused, and even the spiritual estate took part with their sovereign, and joined vigorously in resisting this foreign usurpation. Accordingly severe laws were enacted by Edward I., II., and III., Richard II. and Henry IV. Yet notwithstanding these efforts at resisting the papal supremacy, partly by sufferance, partly by negligence, the whole nation being popish, and held under a devotional slavery, there was not any successful opposition exerted till the reign of Henry VIII. In his reign the parliament complained of appeals to Rome," in cases of matrimony, divorces, tithes, &c. to the great inquietation, vexation, and trouble, costs, and charges, of the king's highness and many of his subjects," &c. And in the next session, they further complain," that the subjects of this realm have been greatly decayed and impoverished, by intolerable exactions of great sums of money, claimed and taken out of this realm by the bishops of Rome, as well in pensions, census, Peter-pence, procurations, provisions, delegacies, rescripts in causes of contention, and appeals, as also for dispensations, licenses, faculties, &c., who assumed a power to dispense with all human laws, uses, and customs of all realms."

A short time before Henry's breach with Rome, and before there wa

any word of a Reformation, but while the whole kingdom was in ful' communion with the pope, the convocation, 22 Henry VIII., fully acknowledged and recognized him " to be supreme head on earth of the church within his own dominions." This monstrous title naturally roused the king's ambition and avarice, and in consequence, one fine morning, in the 26th year of his reign, the old Defender of the Faith appointed Cromwell his vicegerent in all ecclesiastical affairs. But the church so detested this novel and monstrous office, that it was never revived; it was beheaded with its first possessor. Henry fortified his headship, which he founded on the declaration of the popish convocation, with an act of parliament, to the astonishment of all Christendom;- Albeit the king's majesty justly and rightly is, and ought to be, the supreme head of the church of England, and is so recognized by the clergy of this realm in their convocations; yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion, within this realm of England, and to repress and extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, it is enacted by authority of this present parliament, that the king our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed, the only supreme head on earth of the church of England, called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy, annexed to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honours, dignities, and pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities, to the same dignity of the supreme head of the church, belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority, from time to time, to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend, all such errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority, or jurisdiction, ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity, of this realm, any usage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority, prescription, or any thing or things to the contrary thereof notwithstanding."* In consequence of this act, both houses petitioned the king to tender an oath for the exclusion of the long usurped power of the pope, the preamble of which was, I, A. B., having now the veil of darkness of the usurped power of the see of Rome, clearly taken away from mine eyes, do utterly testify," &c.

66

The church of England concurs with that of Scotland, in maintaining

* 26 Hen. VIII., cap 1.