Yet sure a holy seed were they, Th' atoning blood had drench'd them o'er, And may the blood atone no more, Silence, ye brethren of the dead, Then bear them as they lie, their brows Nor leave unwept their desert grave, 2. THE BURNING AT TABERAH. THE fire of Heaven breaks forth, When haughty Reason pries too near, Weighing th' eternal mandates' worth In philosophic scales of earth, Selecting these for scorn, and those for holy fear. Nor burns it only then : The poor that are not poor in heart, Who say, "The bread of Christian men, We loathe it, o'er and o'er again,”— The murmurers in the camp, must feel the blazing dart. Far from the Lord's tent door, And therefore bold to sin, are they : "What should we know of Faith's high lore!" Oh! plead not so-there's wrath in store, And temper'd to our crimes the lightnings find their way. 3.-DATHAN AND ABIRAM. "How long endure this priestly scorn, The promised fields and vineyards fair? Are these-ye cannot blind them quite- KORAH. "And we too, Levites though we be, Did we not hear the Mountain Voice Our censers are as yours: we dare you to the shrine." Where was their place at eve? Ye know, And altars scath'd with fires of woe! The shuddering ear long time will haunt. Dire is the fame for you in store: Th' atoning altar must inlay ; 4.-ELIJAH AND THE MESSENGERS OF AHAZIAH. OH! surely Scorner is his name, In mockery own them "men of God," O'er whom he gaily shakes the miscreant spoiler's rod. But if we be God's own indeed, Then is there fire in Heaven, be sure, Wing'd are they all, and aimed on high, Against the hour when Christ shall hear his martyrs' cry. Oh! tell me not of royal hosts- To tell their Lord how dire the church's lightnings burn. CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions THE CONVOCATION OF THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY. NO. III. I AM fearful of tiring the reader with the minute details of the quarrel which took place in the convocations of 1700 and following years, yet it has been my object, as it shall be in the sequel, to confine my account of it to those points which involved some question of right or privilege between the two houses, or between both and the crown. In continuing the history, I will only remark that such a dissention scarcely can occur again. It arose from a new upper house being grafted by a new king on an old clergy; whereas, in a settled state of things, there is a regular and close connexion between the bishops and the lower house, the members of the latter being appointed for the most part either by the crown or the episcopal bench. I say it scarcely can recur; because it is not to be supposed that the great body of the clergy will ever again find themselves called upon to shift their allegiance to new bishops at the command of a foreigner scarcely seated on the throne. Comparing the two houses with each other, the dignified and temperate conduct of the upper house forces itself upon the notice of the reader. However, it should be remembered that nothing is so easy as composure, good humour, and good sense, when we have matters in the main our own way. Let those laugh who win, is a familiar proverb. The bishops were at this time on the winning side; they had the king with them, and their political principles had gained the victory. Besides, a sort of constitutional tranquillity and clearness of head are often the attendants on the cold, unenthusiastical temper which had, at that era, triumphed in church and state, as may be illustrated in the case of some well-known writers of that and a more recent date. At the same time, there were members of the upper house as free from the charge of placidity and insensibility as any of the lower. On one occasion, Burnet, whose writings had been attacked by the lower house, was provoked to interpose, in answer to a question from the prolocutor to the archbishop, on some immaterial point of dissention," This is fine, indeed, the lower house will not allow a committee to inspect their books, and now they demand to see ours!" and on the prolocutor replying that he asked nothing but what he was concerned to know, and what of right he might demand, Burnet returned, "This is according to your usual insolence." "Insolence, my lord!" said the prolocutor, "do you give me that word?” "Yes, insolence!" replied the historian, "you deserve that word and Think what you will of yourself, I know what you are." VOL. VII.-Jan. 1835. worse. This prolocutor was Hooper, soon afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, whom Burnet repays in his history, for reporting the above conversation, with a line of description in accordance with what he then said to his face; saying, that he was "a man of learning and good conduct hitherto," but "reserved, crafty, and ambitious." The convocation of which I have hitherto spoken came to an end by the dissolution of parliament. A fresh one, summoned in the beginning of 1702, was first interrupted by the death of the prolocutor of the lower house, and then dissolved by the king's death, in spite of Lord Rochester's attempt to give it the same continuance of existence as the parliament enjoyed, as if it were a constituent part of the civil assembly.. Little need be said of the proceedings of the convocation for the following nine years. Their dissentions continued unabated, and the situation of the church and kingdom was such as to supply abundant matter for jealousy and factiousness to act upon. In the opening of the new reign, the bishops offered, by way of accommodation, to allow the lower house, during the intervals of sessions, to appoint committees for preparing matters; and, further, when business was brought before them, to give them sufficient time, before their prorogation, for debating upon it. The lower house would not accept these terms, and wished the controversy referred to the queen's arbitration; which the bishops declined, lest they should compromise the right of supremacy over presbyters, inherent in the episcopate. The lower house then addressed themselves to the commons, but could only obtain from them a general promise of standing by the just rights of the clergy. Then they addressed the queen, who referred them to her ministers, and the premier being with them, and the judges (as it was supposed) against them, nothing was done. Lastly, they passed a declaration that episcopacy was of Divine and apostolical right; but the bishops, apprehensive of incurring a præmunire by what would have seemed the enactment of a canon, declined to assent to it. The sessions of 1705-6 were scarcely begun when a protest was presented to the bishops against the majority in the lower house by forty-nine of its members. In this document the following innovations are specified :-Their prolocutor's proroguing the house with the consent and authority of the house itself, not by authority of the archbishop's schedule (a practice begun in the last convocation of King William), and the consequent introduction of intermediate sessions; their claim of a power of putting the prolocutor into the chair before he was confirmed by the upper house, and so beginning debates without formal leave from it; their giving leave of absence to members, and of voting by proxy; their electing an actuary, in prejudice of the archbishop's right, whose officer, the register of the whole convocation, had constantly received fees from the lower house, in which he acted by deputy; and their insisting on drawing up an address to the queen, at the opening of the then convocation, instead of accepting or amending that sent down to them from the bishops. It is observable that among these forty-nine protesters, only ten were proctors of the clergy; whereas, in the counter-declaration, subscribed by the majority of the lower house soon afterwards, there are twenty-nine such, out of seventy-five signatures. In the convocation of 1707, the archbishop was armed by a letter from the queen (who had already interfered in 1705-6), declaratory of her intention to maintain her supremacy, and the due subordination of presbyters to bishops in the church of England. When he sent for the lower house to communicate it to them, few of them were found assembled, and the prolocutor was absent; so that the archbishop was necessitated to communicate it to the clergy generally, in a circular letter, addressed to the bishops of his province. However, it is but fair to state the circumstances which led to these strange irregularities on the part of the lower house. In truth, they found, or thought they found, that their obedience as presbyters to bishops was to be made use of in order to betray and destroy the church; they were in a net from which they could not disentangle themselves, and having lately had their bishops' sanction to the doctrine that, in extreme cases, it was lawful to renounce the Lord's anointed, and his heirs after him, they were tempted to believe that on similar grounds, and much more in a case of conscience, it was religious to engage in a systematic opposition to the successors of the apostles. In the year 1707, the act of union with Scotland was passed, and the body of the clergy saw in it what the event has proved, the depression of the church catholic, their own bone and flesh, in that country, and the practical recognition of the kirk by English protestants. Lord North and Grey had moved the addition of the following proviso to the bill:-"Provided always, that nothing in this ratification shall be construed to extend to an approbation or acknowledgment of the truth. of the presbyterian way of worship, or allowing the religion of the church of Scotland to be what it is styled, the true Protestant reli. gion;'" but it was rejected on the second reading by 55 to 19, only one bishop (Hooper, of Bath and Wells,) voting in the minority. The lower house of convocation had taken the alarm, and were proceeding to make application to the commons against the union, when the queen (contrary, as the clergy maintained, to the custom of the church ever since the Reformation,) prorogued the convocation, while the parliament sat, for three weeks, i. e., till the Act of Union had passed both houses and received the royal assent. Their indignation at what they considered tyranny added to treachery, occasioned the queen's letter concerning her own supremacy, and their absence from the convocation, when the archbishop communicated it in form, as above related. Again, their refusal of the upper house's address to the queen, in 1705, disrespectful as their conduct was, and irregular, arose from the wish of the bishops to represent that the church was in no danger, while the lower house, fully as they might trust the queen, did consider that there were parties in the state very hostile and dangerous to its interests, Nor must it be forgotten, to the lower house (aided by the nonjurors externally) we are indebted that no change was made in our services and discipline in 1689; the innovations contemplated being such as would literally have been fatal to us as a church, such as |