The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, called, par excellence, the Convocation, is generally known to us as the State meeting of the clergy, convened, as the representatives of the Church, at the commencement of every new Parliament, and as consisting of two Houses, the bishops in the Upper, and, in the Lower, the deans, archdeacons, and proctors (that is, representatives) of the chapters, one for each, and of the parochial clergy two for each diocese. The whole number of the members of the Lower House is between a hundred and forty and a hundred and fifty, of which about one-third is parochial clergy. It is generally known, moreover, that the Convocation is called, under king’s writ, by mandate of the Archbishop; that it is opened with divine service and a sermon; that an address follows from the Archbishop, its president, to all its members; that, at the direction of the Archbishop, the Lower House withdraws and chooses a Prolocutor, or Speaker, from among its members; that, though the Convocation thus assembled may address the King or Parliament on behalf of religion, or the redress of Church grievances, it is not at liberty to confer to constitute canons, that is, to act as a Council, without the king’s license, nor even with it to execute any which are against the king’s prerogative, the common or statute law, or any custom of the realm; lastly, that, in matter of fact, after the introductory solemnities, it is always prorogued, and has been in this dormant state for about a hundred and twenty years. This is as much as is generally known about the Convocation. Now it is a question which often rises in a churchman’s mind, “Is it not an anomaly that we have no ecclesiastical synod?” And times may be coming of so grave an aspect as to turn this anomaly into a great practical evil and misfortune. Then the questions follow, “Are we still to account this long-suspended Convocation the synodal representative of our Church? If so, what if the king altogether refuse his writ to assemble, or license to debate and enact canons? or what if, on the other hand, the Convocation is made use of by the civil power, to force upon the Church measures destructive of her purity or constitution?” Questions such as these become more urgent year by year; and the first step towards answering them is to be put into possession of the facts of the case, that is, the history of the Convocation.
This history was fully discussed and brought to light in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the course of those dissensions which ended, A.D. 1717, in its suspension. I propose to give some account of this quarrel, and such information concerning the constitution and history of the Convocation as may be necessary to illustrate the points debated in it.
1.
When King William was called from Holland to the throne from which James had retired, he promised the nation such a comprehension as should heal the chief differences which distressed the Protestant world. With the circumstances which encouraged him thus to pledge himself we are not concerned here,—his own feelings on the subject are obvious. Being external to the Church himself, he naturally thought it a matter of little consequence whether a man were without or within it; Protestants might be considered as all of one religion, inasmuch as they were not Papists, the enemies of intellectual and political freedom; and, coming, as he professed and was acknowledged, as the Great Liberator of the Church of England “from Popish tyranny,” he reasonably expected churchmen to sacrifice somewhat of their prejudices and peculiarities for the blessing of his patronage. Accordingly he promised a comprehension; but, when it came to the point, unexpected difficulties encountered him. First, as many as nine bishops refused to acknowledge the obligation under which he had laid the Church, in taking the place of James, and declined the oath of allegiance. Four hundred clergy followed their example; and there seemed a danger (which in the event was realized) lest he should be obliged to have recourse to measures against the Church even more arbitrary than those which had disgraced the dethroned monarch. Under these circumstances, to have altered the liturgy or discipline of the Church at his own royal will would have been a gratuitous insult, as impolitic as it was unprecedented in the history of the English monarchy since the reign of the tyrannical Henry.
There were persons however, at the time, even among the dissenters, the especial champions of liberty of conscience, who were desirous of such a measure, pointed to the precedent of Henry, and maintained with truth, that the Church would never be reformed to their satisfaction without some such summary process on the part of the civil power. Calamy takes this line in his account of his own life and times. “I am well assured,” he says, observing on the failure of William’s attempt, “that it is the wish of many … that, when the next fit opportunity arrives for such an healing attempt, … it may be taken with more vigour and less formality. The Reformation had never been brought about had it been left to a Convocation; nor will our breaches be ever healed but by a true English Parliament.” And he speaks of the proceeding actually advised by Tillotson, as the “unhappy step of this great and good man.”