It does certainly appear something worse than absurd, that assemblies forming integral parts of the Constitution-necessary, as it would seem, to good ecclesiastical government-indeed essential to the very idea of a Church-and expressly sanctioned by law-should be, the one wholly disused, and the other periodically convoked for no other purpose than to be instantly dissolved. It is therefore very natural that, whenever any such difficulties as those we are now discussing occur in Church matters, there should revive amongst the clergy (and in many of the laity also) a feeling of dissatisfaction at so violent an inconsistency between the theory and practice of the constitution, and a strong desire that Convocation, at least, should be allowed to perform its natural and legal functions. This feeling, however, generally dies away with the crisis that prompts it; and a more sober consideration satisfies men's minds, that, like many other anomalies of our constitution and condition, the practical result is the wise one, Instead of an occasional crisis, which produces temporary regret at the absence of the Convocation, we should inevitably have, if Convocation were to be restored to the actual exercise of its theoretic powers, a constant agitation in the Church-a never-intermitting fever of feud and faction, more intense, more uncontrollable, and more passionate than that which parliamentary elections and debates create in the political world; and a development, we fear, of individual vanity, paradox, and ambition, which could not fail to multiply sects, schisms, and contentions, and, within no long period, to scatter the Church, and religion itself, to the windsnot of heaven! We need not, for our present purpose, enter into any details on this subject. We know that the broad opinion which we thus summarily express will be unpalatable to many, particularly of the clergy-to some, for instance, that we ourselves know, amiable and most respectable persons, of the best intentions, warm piety, and great abilities-yet the very men, we are convinced, whose heat and talents, if developed and excited in a popular and elective assembly like the Lower House of Convocation, or indeed in either house, would probably give the Church, the country, and themselves, reason to curse the day in which Convocation was recalled to activity.

The objections to a Synod, though not so many nor so strong, are still so serious that common sense, and the experience derived from all the synods, councils, and conferences which have ever been held, have convinced mankind that, however plausible in theory, such assemblages are mischievous in practice, tending always to widen breaches, and sure, if we may be allowed so homely an allusion, to make more holes than they stop.

On the other hand, the independent action of our bishops, each

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each within his own diocese, and pro re nata, which in theory seems unpropitious to unity and deficient in collective authority, has, however, by the prudence and piety of the prelates, and by the blessing of God, sufficed to maintain as much practical union, and uniformity of doctrine and discipline, as perhaps in this free country, and with the self-sufficient spirit of modern times, can possibly be realized-infinitely more, we are well assured, than could have been preserved through the debates, and divisions, and rivalries of synods and convocations. It is a great advantage in the existing system, that by attaching to each bishop individual responsibility, it is not only made imperative on the government to select creditable persons for the Episcopal bench, but the persons so selected are stimulated to a diligent maintenance of their position and character, and to a constant and active interest in the affairs of the whole Church, as they are expected, on every adequate occasion, to pronounce their own separate opinions, e cathedrá, and are debarred from the convenient shelterwhich want of learning, or of zeal, or of judgment, can so easily find under the collective impunity of an assembly.

And, again, this kind of seriatim judgment, pronounced by our bishops, has a much greater effect when it happens to be, as it generally is, nearly or altogether unanimous: it is, if we may use the expression, a volunteer unanimity, which cannot be suspected of being produced-as even the verdicts of juries too often are, and as the decisions of a Synod would be-by weariness of the duty, by indifference as to the result, or by a lazy deference to the opinions and importunity of other busier men. Then, again-these opinions, so respectable and so respected, claim yet no exemption from, but indeed rather invite, freedom of discussion; they pretend to no infallibility; and command, we are satisfied, a greater deference from the very circumstance of being liable to the full ordeal of criticism and question. In the course of this article we shall have to exemplify this advantage, or, as perhaps some may think it, disadvantage, by venturing to question the opinions of an individual bishop for whom we feel the greatest public reverence and, we may even add, private regard. And, finally, this personal responsibility and liability to public observation serves to check inconsiderate interference in light or unimportant matters, and reserves the ultima ratio of Episcopal interference for cases that really require it.

These are some of the causes which, in our opinion, have superseded the necessity of convocations and synods in the English Church, by a safer substitute, and which have given, under God, the bench of Anglican bishops so high a station in the Christian world; but it is not to be denied that this safer substitute is

liable to be somewhat tardy and imperfect in its operation. On subjects of Doctrine it is perhaps better for the peace of the Church that it should be so; but in matters of general Discipline we cannot but think that more of concert and collective authority would be occasionally desirable, and that for this end somewhat more than has lately prevailed of private and previous consultation amongst the prelates might be advantageously employed. Every one knows that such has been the practice in some important and remarkable cases, in which the archbishop has occasionally invited the advice and assistance of some of his brethren, selected either for personal considerations (for, even amongst men of similar merits, there will always be room for choice), or, as in the sudden and momentous case of the Seven Bishops, because they happened to be at hand: we believe that until the last dozen years something of this kind was habitually practised, and we venture, with unfeigned deference, to suggest that some such closet convocation might now be usefully employed to settle more clearly and authoritatively than has been yet attempted the doubts which have arisen on the construction and practice of some of the Canons and Rubrics and we suggest it on this occasion because, in fact, the decision of most of these cases is by the Rubric itself vested in the Bishop, and, ultimately, in the Archbishop; and it is obvious that, whatever is finally decided for any one diocese, should be extended to the whole Anglican Church at home and abroad. It is, for example, not seemly-if the matter be at all worthy of Episcopal interference, as we think it certainly is—that a preacher should be enjoined to wear a white gown at one end of London Bridge, and a black one on the other, which must be the case till the Bishop of Winchester shall have adopted the Bishop of London's views, or, which we rather hope, the Bishop of London may reconsider the case, and revert to what has been, we think we can show, the undeviating practice in parish-churches at least since the Reformation.

Though we decline entering into any questions of Tractarian Doctrine, there is one point in some degree doctrinal to which we have already alluded, but which we must more particularly notice before we enter into the detail of the Tractarian innovations, because it seems to us to be a strong symptom of that indirect approximation to Romanism which is our main objection to the whole Tractarian system-we mean the prominent and emphatic reverence with which they use the term Catholic, contrasted with the low, disparaging, and even repudiating tone in which everything Protestant is mentioned.

All Christians using the Apostles' Creed acknowledge themselves to be members of one holy Catholic or Universal Church

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and so all who profess and call themselves Christians are, in this view of the matter, and according to the interpretation of our Liturgy, Catholics. But the Roman Church, which acknowledges no salvation out of its own pale, which recognises no other Church than itself, and treats all the rest of Christianity as heretics, arrogates to itself the exclusive title of Catholic. The premises are false, but the conclusion is logical, and they who believe they are the only Church may very naturally pride themselves in the title of Catholic. On the other hand, the Reformed Churches have never pretended to be exclusively Catholic, and while they denied the Church of Rome to be the Catholic, they admitted it to be a Catholic Church-they therefore were not very zealous in stickling for a name, which being, in their view, common to all, could be no distinction to any—and they, protesting against the errors and arrogance of Rome, set no peculiar value on a title which they were to share with Popery. The result of all this was that, throughout Europe, the Roman and Reformed Churches were popularly contra-distinguished as the Catholic and Protestant Churches; and even in England-though, when more strictness was called for, we talked of the Roman Catholics '—we heard, in common parlance, of nothing but the 'Catholics-Catholic Emancipation'-the 'Catholic Question' -the Catholic religion,' and so forth. It was in this state of things that those pious persons, to whom we have already alluded, thought it expedient to remind the Church of England of her own claims to the title of Catholic, and began to call her the Catholic Church in a manner more emphatical and peculiar, and more in the style of the Romish pretensions, than the Anglican Church had ever before heard of. Our old divines, indeed, in their controversies with the Romish theologians, who insisted on their own Catholicism as a proof of our heresy, retorted upon them that we were as Catholic and even more Catholic than they,** and always insisted that we were a Catholic Church in doctrine, though our proper denomination was the Anglican Church. This innovation —or, rather, this equivocal application of an old term-though, on maturer consideration, it appears to have been at first unnecessary, and eventually mischievous-met, as we all know, a pretty general acquiescence, and was adopted by parties in the Church of England who agreed in that alone. Those who originally broached it, did so, we have now reason to suspect, with the view of facilitating our return to the doubtful traditions and obsolete usages of early times (which, if rich in piety, were pitiably over

*The Church of Rome is called a Catholic Church, and the Bishop of Rome a Catholic Bishop; yet other Churches and other Bishops may be as Catholic or more Catholic than they.'—Archbishop Bramhall's Just Vindication, P. I. Dis. ii.

tinctured

tinctured with superstition), and of so far, at least, approximating to what Rome calls Catholicism. On the other hand, the most zealous antagonists of Rome were very ready to strip her of whatever authority or reverence the exclusive title of Catholic' might be supposed to confer. So that the most opposite opinions seemed to concur on this new nomenclature, and we ourselves on more than one occasion, as our readers may have observed, did not hesitate to employ this now popular denomination; but we did so, certainly, with no view either of approximating towards or of further receding from Rome. We need not here enter into any critical or theological examination of the various senses which ingenious men have given to this term-which, be it observed, is a merely secular word, not occurring anywhere in the Holy Scriptures. Suffice it to say that the Church of England uses it as it was used in the earliest ages of the Christian Church -as nearly synonymous with orthodox,* and as designating that apostolic Church to which in the Apostles' Creed we profess our devotion; but when, in the further development of the system in which this apparently innocent innovation took its rise, we saw that the title thus emphatically bestowed on the Church of England was on many important occasions used in the peculiar sense given it by the Church of Rome—when auricular confession was talked of as Catholic-when a more rigid observance of fasts than had been usual in the Church of England was preached up as Catholic-when the priest's praying with his back to the people, contrary to every form and principle of common prayer,' was recommended and practised as Catholic-when burning tapers at noonday on the Communion-table of an English parish-church was pronounced to be Catholic-when we heard of a bishop interfering to rebuke a clergyman for having a sort of cross sewed on the back of his surplice, by way of conforming to Catholic example-when we heard of an English clergyman actually proceeding with a crucifix in his hand to administer the Sacrament to a dying parishioner more Catholico-when the Church of England was described to be in a state that required 'means of recovery and re-establishment to make her a pure branch of the

* This sense is found in St. Augustine, and many other fathers, and seems indeed its most common sense: see Bishop Pearson's notes. It is in this sense that Bishop Beveridge entitled his discourse of the Thirty-nine Articles, Ecclesia AnglicanaEcclesia Catholica; or the Doctrine of the Church of England consonant to Scripture, Reason, and the Fathers.' Take-in addition to the very terms of his title-one or two out of a hundred instances. He translates a decree of the Elibertine Council-Nec inter CATHOLICOs connumeratur qui pascha, pentecoste et natali Domini non communicavit (Gratian)-Neither is any numbered among the orthodox who at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, doth not communicate.' And the word Catholicus, in another decree (of the Council of Agde) to the same point, he translates Catholic, or rthodox.'-Beveridge on the Thirty-nine Articles, vol. ii. p. 339.

Catholic