CONVOCATION.
The author of this famous pamphlet maintained that Convocation had the power of determining its own matters of debate; but in the maintenance of this position, he had to explain away the sense of the words employed in the writ of summons, super præmissis, et aliis quæ sibi clarius exponentur ex parte Domini Regis—words which limit Convocational discussions to topics proposed by Royal authority.[328]
1697.
To this anonymous publication, which roused High Churchmen to activity and filled Low Churchmen with alarm, an answer appeared from the pen of Dr. William Wake, already well and favourably known in the world of letters, through his answers to Bossuet, and other writings on the Roman Catholic controversy, as well as his version of the Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers. He contended that ancient Synods were convened by Royal authority, that when they assembled, the Civil Magistrate had a right to prescribe questions for debate, and that they could not dissolve without his license. The King of England, he said, had supreme power over English Convocations, and the Clergy could confer on no subject without his permission. After certain historical deductions, he denied that sitting in Convocation is an original Church right, or that it is the same thing as the Parliamentary privilege, vouchsafed by the præmonentes clause in writs sent to Bishops. According to Wake’s argument, the 25th of Henry VIII. has restored to the Crown its full authority, and placed the control of Convocation entirely in Royal hands; and he ventures to declare the possibility of Church Synods becoming useless and even hurtful; asking, with reference to opinions then violently expressed, “What good can the Prince propose to himself, or any wise man hope for, from any assembly that can be brought together, under the unhappy influence of these and the like prepossessions?”[329]
CONVOCATION.
Passing over other combatants, we must particularly notice one who entered the field on the other side, and was destined to play a distinguished part in the political as well as the ecclesiastical affairs of his country. Francis Atterbury, born just before the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662, and educated first at Westminster and then at Oxford, distinguished himself at the early age of twenty-five, by the extraordinary ability which he exhibited as a controversialist. He then won literary laurels by answering an attack upon the spirit of Martin Luther and the origin of the Reformation; and soon afterwards, when minister of Bridewell, where his eloquence attracted popular attention, some of his sermons involved him in discussions upon points of moral and practical divinity. Scarcely had he been made Preacher of the Rolls, when he plunged into a conflict purely classical. Charles Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, who had been Atterbury’s pupil at Oxford, published an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop, then recently eulogized by Sir William Temple—a publication which led to a controversy singularly renowned in the history of criticism. Richard Bentley exposed the spurious character of these Epistles by an appeal to external evidence, and thereby paved the way for an application of similar criticism to productions of a far different character.[330] In defiance of the exposure which reflected upon the literary reputation of both Temple and Boyle, some of their friends, with chivalrous devotion, came forward on their behalf; Swift, in his Tale of the Tub, and his Battle of the Books, tilting his lance on the side of his patron Temple; and Atterbury—associated with others under Boyle’s name, in an examination of Bentley’s Dissertations—appearing as the champion of his late pupil. Though no match for Bentley in scholarship, Atterbury possessed immense power in respect of rhetorical style, clever sophistry, cutting sarcasm, and personal invective; and these were employed with such effect as for awhile to overwhelm the illustrious scholar, and to silence his charges against the defenders of Phalaris. However, the triumph was short; Bentley resumed his attacks, and demolished the work of his critics, in a book which, for learning, logic, and humour, is perhaps unrivalled in that class of productions. Atterbury must have been sorely vexed by his discomfiture when in 1700 he threw himself into the great ecclesiastical contest of the period, and published his Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Convocation.
1700.
Indulging in his fondness for personal attack, he abused the recent volume by Dr. Wake as a shallow and empty performance, deficient in historical learning and destructive of Church liberty. After referring to the ancient practice of holding provincial Synods, he treated Convocations as coming in their room, and as constituting necessary appendages to English Parliaments. He insisted much upon the fact of the Clergy having been summoned by the præmonentes clause in the writs addressed to spiritual Peers, and regretted that by a political blunder the legislative representation of the Church had become separated from the legislative representation of the State. Without, however, attempting to revive obsolete proceedings, he asserted most pertinaciously the indefeasible right of the clerical order to sit in Convocation, and to petition, advise, address, represent, and declare their judgment upon their own affairs, notwithstanding their inability to make, or attempt, any new canons without express Royal authority.
CONVOCATION.
The question of assembling Convocation started from an historical point of view, but it came before the public mind in its constitutional and practical bearings; yet, amidst the multitude of publications on the subject, one seeks in vain for a consistent and satisfying treatment of the subject on either side. Those who believed in Convocation, and who wished to see it vigorously revived, did not dare to express all that they believed, or all that they wished; they were checked by the spirit of the age, and hampered by the circumstances of the Church. At the same time they ignored the great change which had come over political and ecclesiastical affairs through the Revolution, and they also shut their eyes to the fact, that it is impossible to enjoy State patronage and emoluments without some abridgment of ecclesiastical action. Those who wished Convocation should not assemble feared to deny its rights, and shrunk from either proposing its extinction or advocating its reform. They only desired to mesmerize it, till clerical animosities should expire, and the Church should be of one mind—a consummation no nearer now than it was then. The prudence forced upon this class of persons by their political position, asserted itself at the expense of logical consistency; and, as is often the case, practical sagacity made men awkward reasoners.