all its branches for this discovery, as well as for the unwavering zeal with which he has maintained in Convocation the claims of the Church of England against the tyrannical encroachments of the State. The testimony to the Elizabethan Prayer-book given by the Caroline statute (13, 14, Car. II. 4), that it was compiled by the Rev. the Bishops and clergy,' disputed by Erastians and Romanists hitherto as being not contemporary evidence, is now conclusively established, and that bulwark of the enemy, the supposed Parliamentary origin of the former book, is now demolished. We will merely refer to Mr. Joyce's letter (Guardian, July 17, p. 768), as giving the best criticism upon the alleged precedents in favour of parliamentary procedure without consulting Convocation, which we have seen.

Lathbury, quoted or abridged by Mr. Joyce, speaking we believe of the year 1689, further says, 'The dissenters wished 'to settle all matters in Parliament, but the House of Commons were of opinion that the Convocation was the proper place for the consideration of ecclesiastical affairs.' The Houses accordingly joined in an address to William III. that ac'cording to the ancient practice and usage of this kingdom in time of Parliament, he would be graciously pleased 'to issue forth writs, as soon as conveniently might be, for 'calling a Convocation of the clergy to be advised with in eccle'siastical matters.' In Palin's History of the Church of England, 1688-1717, p. 37, this course is ascribed to the House of Commons solely. Tillotson also recommended the same proceeding on the ground that the settlement of such matters in 'Parliament would give colour to the Romanist cavil of a Par'liamentary Church. The author of the famous 'Letter to a 'Convocation Man' in 1707, quoted by Professor Burrows, urges the same argument :

'Besides, the ascribing such a power to either of the two Houses or to both of 'em together, is to confirm the ground of the Papists' cavil at our Reformation, when they say that our religion is merely Parliamentary, and changeable at the will of the Prince and of the majority of the Peers and Commons, an assertion which I believe there is no worthy member of either House but would reject with disdain . . . . Convocation is an ecclesiastical court or assembly essential to our Constitution, and established by the law of it, by the same law as the gentleman receives his rent, or the member enjoys his privilege. The same arguments used for stated and regular Parliaments exactly apply to Convocation. The king has no right to withhold his

summons.'

Speaking of the controversy between Wake and Atterbury on this subject, Professor Burrows says

'It should be observed that they do not differ so much as is sometimes supposed. The controversy is often spoken of as one of principle. It was only a difference of detail. Wake contended for greater power in the Crown

as to summoning Convocation than Atterbury admitted, and for a greater power of action in the Upper House, but his general conclusions on the claims of the Church are as decided as his opponent's, and his distress at the suppression of Convocation no less pronounced.'

Lathbury, also quoted by the Professor, sums up the matter as follows:

'The licence to make canons ought, according to the opinion of all the men on both sides, who took part in the controversy in the time of William III., Anne, and George I., to be granted, whenever the bishops and clergy assembled in Convocation, may represent to the Crown that it is required by the circumstances of the Church.'

These authorities make it clear, or rather confirm the view urged above on the ground of nature and reason, that a purely Act of Parliament-altered Prayer-book may be set at nought by the clergy with a clear conscience. We ought also to add that the present constitution of Parliament itself, and the prevailing temper of the times, make it their bounden duty to resist any such law if they would not be stripped not only of doctrine and discipline, but of decency and self-respect, and become such a Church as would be deservedly hissed off the stage of the world. Let not a rubric be touched. The rubric is the smallest matter; but like the small iron tongue which bolts a door, if it be once violated, there is no security anywhere. When once the liberties of the Church have been deliberately menaced, the Prayer-book is vital in all its parts. Deference and vacillation and ex-post-facto acquiescence may have been justifiable or tolerable in their day, but they are criminal now; everybody will ascribe them to wish to retain establishment with emoluments and endowments upon any terms of whatever baseness. Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. John Bull does not believe that anything is so precious in the clerical eye as this subsistence which the Establishment guarantees. He rather thinks he carries the consciences of the clergy in his breeches' pocket. He expects them, indeed, to keep all their conscience for the Pope, or perhaps allows conscience within narrow limits against any extremely rabid form of dissenter. But as against royal supremacy, privy council judgments, acts of Parliament, and the like, he believes he has bought up all their rights. These things in his eyes are those which claim a 'divine right,' not the spiritualty. The popular incapacity for seeing anything essentially sacred in even the most sacred offices is humourously illustrated by a letter of S. G. O.' which was published in the Times, when Lord Lyttelton's bill for the Increase of the Episcopate was going through its early stages. Clause 13, which had been already struck out of the bill when the letter appeared, pro

posed suffragan bishops. The writer seems to have been alarmed at the colour which the proposal was likely to derive from his own suggestion of gig-bishops' made some ten years ago. He is accordingly in a hurry to explain that the circumstances are changed, and that nos, the 'S. G. O.' of the Times, accordingly mutamur in illis. That any writer in the Times should consider it expedient or necessary to retract an argument, or recant a view, is in itself so refreshing a circumstance, that we are not disposed to deny him the locus pœnitentiæ which he seeks.

But in the first place, why, when the clause referred to had been struck out of the bill a week before, there should be any necessity for an elderly clergyman holding up the hands in horror, and shaking the warning head in the columns of our contemporary against its possible dangers and covered designs, is not easy to see. What but a zeal thrice to slay the slain could have prompted such a sentence as the following!

'I have every reason to believe that the great anxiety expressed to aid aged or incapacitated bishops, to supply help to some whose spheres of labour are too large, covers more than appears. I think it well to warn laity and clergy alike against at the present moment-any measure whatever, which, under any guise, avers a large increase in the number of bishops, with power, however guarded, to act in the United Kingdom.'

He

What it covers' or how much more the thing' covered' is than the thing which appears' is a point on which the writer does not seem to think it worth his while to waste his ink. Yet surely, if there had been anything in the form of an argument which he had to offer, its first requisite was that he should state the danger which he professed to dread. Without such a statement, to write thus is not to argue; it is only to set up a scarecrow. And a mere scarecrow it is which he sets up. seems to have formed his estimate of the average reader of the Times, and to feel assured that argument would not suit the class whom he wishes to work upon, or would not suit the view which he wishes to urge. The scarecrow,' it may be observed, is the favourite resource of would-be popular writers on ecclesiastical questions. The safest way is to point out no blemish, to denounce no evil, in any proposed measure which you wish to damage. Merely shake your head, and whisper 'bogie!' shrug the shoulder and point the thumb, and you bid fair to evoke sympathetic prejudices, the force of which would only be weakened by arguing the point, or even stating it.

The passage which we have extracted calls, however, for one remark as to its language. How can any measure aver a large increase in the number of bishops?' To aver' is to state a fact

as existing. A 'measure' merely proposes it as something to be brought about hereafter. A paragraph in the next column speaks of colonials' (i. e. colonial bishops) falling into deep shadow at initial meetings. Pray, what are 'initial' meetings? What do they initiate? and why is the 'shadow' cast on 'colonials' deeper there than at other meetings? Again, the writer, in explaining his two-wheeled views of the episcopal office as once held, writes as follows in the next paragraph to that in which the 'measure avers' :

'I thought it would be a good thing for bishops to be more often rectory guests, without their butler and the emblematical staff.'

What is, or perhaps we should say, who are the emblematical 'staff?' If the pastoral pedum, symbolical of the office, be meant, why should it not be made to pack in a gig? If the staff consist of persons, as the co-ordination of the word 'butler' suggests, how is it emblematical? After such specimens as these it would be waste of words to dwell upon triangulized hats' and walnut confabs.' There was a time when the established correspondents of our contemporary wrote decent. English. The language has now sunk to the level of the sophistry which it conveys.

We have been tempted out of course by these impertinencies of diction, illustration, and style; but we return to the main thought itself of the epistle, so far as it can be traced.

The writer then, it seems, had once entertained the hope that greater intimacy and more of personal contact between the overseer and overseen' would have done good to both parties. But when he thus hoped, he had not anticipated the full power of an evil, at that time hardly developed.' He explains that an attempt has been made which he could not then for one moment have conceived,' an attempt to exalt the episcopal office to a 'degree which clothes the bishop with an authority from heaven ' above.' So long as a bishop is no more than a colonel or a judge, he might be multiplied at discretion without offence to any; but the moment his powers are recognized as derived from the same source as those of the clergy beneath his supervision, 'S. G. O. is straightway terrified at so portentous a claim. His model bishop would appear to be something like those 'quaker guns' which the Chinese have been known to mount on their ramparts in order to impress the outer barbarian' with a notion of their power in artillery. The peaceful awe thus inspired is to serve the Church's turn without the dangers which attend on explosion and recoil. As regards the estimate which 'S. G. O.' may form of the episcopal office, that is a point with

which we are not going to meddle. Any layman who likes may inform himself by reading over the office for the consecration of bishops,' and the statement contained in the Thirty-sixth Article of Religion regarding it, whether those who maintain or those who impugn the attempt to 'clothe the bishop with an authority from heaven above,' are nearest the truth even as 'established' by Act of Parliament. We are purposely waiving all other and higher ground. The ordinal was specially enforced by Act of Parliament in 1566, and has been continually in use ever since. As a complete Prayer-book may now be purchased for twopence, nobody need complain that the evidence on the point is hard to come by. We leave, however, 'S. G. O.' and his partizans to the non-natural' sense of these documents which their case necessitates. That is their concern. But the fanatical effrontery which resists the increase of the episcopate, precisely because that source of authority is claimed for it which the services for consecration and ordination assume, might be amusing if it were not so mischievous. The question ariseshow far is it due to pure ignorance? I had made my proposal,' says 'S. G. O.,' probably writing ironically, 'in utter ignorance of what a bishop really was.' This is very likely to be strictly true. Most writers in the Times on Church questions have apparently a good deal to learn. Some of them manage to pick up the necessary elements of the Institution of a Christian Man' in the course of some controversy into which they have rushed. But S. G. O.' does not seem to be of this sort.

His next point is that he should 'regret to see such dignity 'lowered by being brought too frequently in contact with 'ordinary men.' Here is an obvious mistake. If a dignitary derive authority merely from a human source, then, in the perpetual collisions which the discharge of duty brings, his dignity is apt to lose. The man has to support his dignity, and finds it an onerous task. But if the source be superhuman, nothing but unbecoming conduct in the person invested with it can cause its detriment. Whilst his conduct is in harmony with it, the dignity helps to support the man. This is the cause of the whole of that social deference which is generally accorded to the clergy whenever it is not offensively claimed by them. If a bishop be a mere 'whited wall,' then 'contact' will rub off the daubing soon enough. But if he be a block of the true grain, his colour may be warranted fast.

Then follows an expression of dread on behalf of the 'ordinary men,' to contact with whom the bishop is exposed. The writer fears that contact would issue in the shaking their faith, as they must see that, so far as common sense can distinguish, 'they (the bishops) are much like other men.' Why, or in