Convocation of England

“ It is a fact, to which modern historians of the English Church do not frequently draw attention, that the only Convocation during the earlier Reformation period which was evidently elected without any pressure from the Government, and was the freely-chosen representative of the clergy of England, should thus have declared its opinion, to all appearance unanimously, in favour of the Roman faith and the Roman obedience. ”

“ Convocation, alive to the futility of resistance, apologised for its iniquity and admitted the justice of the punishment. Thereupon, in the preamble to the bill by which they were to mulct themselves, the King required the insertion of a clause which designated him "Protector and Only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England". This roused general resistance. Convocation proposed conferences, and sought some compromise which they could reconcile with their consciences. The King would have no compromise, demanding instant submission. ”

“ It is by no means impossible that one assembly might adopt canons which the other might reject, that one assembly might condemn as heretical propositions which the other might hold to be orthodox, 501 In the seventeenth century no such danger was apprehended. So little indeed was the Convocation of York then considered, that the two Houses of Parliament had, in their address to William, spoken only of one Convocation, which they called the Convocation of the Clergy of the Kingdom. ”

“ The essential conditions of a Convocation of Canterbury are that it must meet by authority from the Crown; that it consist of two Houses, one composed of Bishops, and the other of Presbyters, both purely clerical; that the members of the Lower House must be dignitaries, together with Proctors, elected by the Clergy, and that nothing which they do has binding force without the consent of the Sovereign. What is there in these distinctive features of an English Convocation to connect it with Synods before the era of State Establishments? ”

“ Omnipotent in Parliament and Convocation, the King inclining in their favour, carrying with them the sympathy of the wealth, the worldliness, and the harder intellect of the country, freed from the dreaded minister, freed from the necessity of conciliating the German Protestants, the Anglican leaders made haste to redeem their lost time, and develope their policy more wisely than before. ”

“ Pope of England.' This is in fact, though not in name, what both the Convocation and the Parliament had done; it is what Henry VIII. fully intended that they should do. Pope of England he was, and Pope of England he remained, and so did his successors after him; and though Edward, from the necessity of his age, and Elizabeth from a certain sense of personal dignity and the fitness of things, placed their papal authority, if I may say so, 'in commission,' neither of them dreamed of abdicating it. ”

“ Convocation does not much disturb itself as to the view General Convention is likely to take of its sayings and doings, and even disestablishment might proceed without our being called into consultation. And yet the Concordat difficulty will have to be reckoned with; and the dire spectre of a possible disowning of us by our mother the Church of England will have to be laid, before any alterations in the Book of Common Prayer will be accounted by some among us perfectly safe. ”

“ The magnitude of the innovation can now be with difficulty appreciated, when the novelty of the sixteenth century has in its turn been consecrated by time. Of the strange features of the change the strangest was, perhaps, that the official opinion of Convocation was scarcely asked even in form. Parliament now discussed the faith of England, and laymen decided on the doctrines which the clergy were compelled to teach.
The minor business of the session has first to be related. ”

“ In England the name “convocation” is specifically given to an assembly of the spirituality of the realm of England, which is summoned by the metropolitan archbishops of Canterbury and of York respectively, within their ecclesiastical provinces, pursuant to a royal writ, whenever the parliament of the realm is summoned, and which is also continued or discharged, as the case may be, whenever the parliament is prorogued or dissolved. ”

“ Such a state of things drove the two parties wide as the poles asunder, and we cannot wonder that on the question of the canons the House of Commons, revolting at Anglo-Catholicism, read all which Convocation had done in the light of those well-known principles by which Convocation was actuated. Whatever the bishops and clergy there, might honestly say about popish ceremonies and the idolatry of the mass, they were chiefly bent on crushing the Puritans, and [97] accordingly the Puritans grappled with the Anglicans as in a struggle for life. ”

“ It is generally believed, and the fact is of lasting importance, that the Convocation of the clergy, a commission of the spiritualty, the Primate-Archbishop and a number of bishops, took part in the change; but yet the decisive decrees went forth from the Parliament, to which the spiritual power had been irrevocably attached since Henry VIII, and sometimes from the Privy Council alone. To establish a normal form of doctrine, men set to work to compose a Confession, which was completed at that time in forty-two Articles. ”

“ It required time to amalgamate the two classes of knights and citizens in one house; the knights, as belonging to the aristocracy, looking down on the citizens, and they in their turn having a very humble idea of themselves; but we shall see that all that gradually corrected itself. The clergy now regularly voted their funds in Convocation, and no longer sat in the Commons by their proxies. It does not appear exactly when the judges ceased to sit ex-officio in Parliament, but they had ceased to do so in Richard II.'s time. ”

“ Whether Convocation has any jurisdiction in cases of heresy is a question which has occasioned some difference of opinion among lawyers. Hale, as quoted by Phillimore (Ecc. Law) , says that before the time of Richard II., that is, before any acts of Parliament were made about heretics, it is without question that in a convocation of the clergy or provincial synod “they might and frequently did here in England proceed to the sentencing of heretics.” ”

“ We think that no reasonable man would judge them to have such a pre-eminence in a Parliament, that though the King, the Lords, and Commons assent to an Act, the proctors in the Convocation House (though they were but seven or eight in number, as sometimes they be here no more) shall stay the same at their pleasure, be the matter never so good, honest, and reasonable. It doth well appear that it is a crafty cast devised betwixt their masters the bishops and them. ”

“ The convocation or ecclesiastical synod, in England, differs considerably in it's constitution from the synods of other christian kingdoms: those consisting wholly of bishops; whereas with us the convocation is the miniature of a parliament, wherein the archbishop presides with regal state; the upper house of bishops represents the house of lords; and the lower house, composed of representatives of the several dioceses at large, and of each parti-270-cular chapter therein, resembles the house of commons with it's knights of the shire and burgesses [i] . ”

“ The King would not be unwilling to call a synod of godly and learned Divines, regularly chosen according to the laws and constitutions of the kingdom, to which representatives from Scotland might be admitted—an Assembly which, in fact, would be a Convocation, whose spirit and proceedings were very well known. ”

“ The ecclesiastical legislation of this short Parliament, for it lasted but a single session, being dissolved on July 18, is a matter which more immediately concerns us, and it was not altogether of an unimportant character. Amongst its Acts were two which tended to extinguish completely any lingering rights or quasi-rights of the See of Rome in England, and others which dealt with the discipline of the clergy. The proceedings of Convocation in this session are of greater interest. ”

“ It were certainly to be wished that those liberal reformers who were so shocked at burgage tenures and rotten boroughs, would extend their compassion to the disfranchised clergy, some five or six hundred of whom are "represented," without their consent or opinion asked, by a prelate appointed by the Crown.
On the whole, the Convocation is "the true Church of England by representation" (Canon 139) in such matters as belong to the Church as distinguished from the State; but in Parliament, which is the State, the Spiritualty is represented by the Bishops alone. ”

“ Collier remarks,—"that the clergy were gainers by this change is more than appears." [459] And he is right. No doubt the change struck a fatal blow at the importance and authority of Convocation; for Convocation, like Parliament, had been valued by Sovereigns because of its [331] holding the purse-strings of a portion of the people; and when money no longer flowed into the exchequer in the form of ecclesiastical subsidies, Convocation sunk into neglect. ”

“ They were the doctrines of the King, not of the Church, and were enforced upon the Church in England by the authority of the State alone. Convocation, bridled by the Submission and presided over by Cromwell or Cromwell's lay deputy, could be in no sense a legitimate organ of the Church. Thus when Henry died a complete revolution had been effected in the position of the Church. ”

“ The Lower House of the Convocation of the Irish Protestant Church made the canon law of the English Church the subject of free discussion, and a committee of Convocation had already framed a canon which insisted on the maintenance of the Irish articles, even [Pg 51] A.D. 1634. under pain of excommunication. Wentworth regarded this as a sort of revolt. In severe language he pointed out to the Convocation its presumption and want of subordination in wishing to pronounce judgment on laws of the English Church. ”

“ Kennet. ↑ Historical Account of the Present Convocation. ↑ That there was such a jealousy as I have described is admitted in the pamphlet entitled Vox Cleri. "Some country ministers now of the Convocation, do now see in what great ease and plenty the City ministers live, who have their readers and lecturers, and frequent supplies, and sometimes tarry in the vestry till prayers be ended, and have great dignities in the Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Exeter. ”

“ These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation. The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will be magnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and will soon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all in full cry. ”

“ The best narratives of what passed in this Convocation are the Historical Account appended to the second edition of Vox Cleri, and the passage in Kennet's History to which I have already referred the reader. The former narrative is by a very high churchman, the latter by a very low churchman. Those who are desirous of obtaining fuller information must consult the contemporary pamphlets. Among them are Vox Populi; Vox Laici; Vox Regis et Regni; the Healing Attempt; the Letter to a Friend, by Dean Prideaux the Letter from a Minister in the Country to a Member of the Convocation ”

“ And afterwards the Convocations of both the provinces of Convocation.Canterbury and Yorke being by His Majesty called and assembled and now sitting His [524] Majestie hath beene pleased to authorize and require the presidents of the said Convocations and other the Bishopps and Clergy of the same to review the said Booke of Comon prayer and the booke of the forme and manner of the making and consecrating of Bishops Preists and Deacons. ”

“ We have also seen that those early measures of Elizabeth, on which the permanent establishment of the Reformation hangs, were carried out in the teeth of the unanimous opposition of the clergy both in the House of Lords and in the Convocation—the only Convocation of the age which is above suspicion of having yielded to governmental pressure. ”

“ From these quotations it does not seem very faulty to infer, that the clergy as represented by Convocation are the second Estate of the realm; and are not, as represented by "the Lords Spiritual," the first, which is the Estate of the nobility represented by the Peers.
Against this CANON. EBOR.'S arguments are two: first, "that the phrase 'assembled in Parliament' has no application to the Convocation;" and next, that the "Convocation does not sit at Westminster." ”

“ That out of Our Princely Care that the Churchmen may do the Work which is proper unto them, the Bishops and Clergy, from time to time in Convocation, upon their humble Desire, shall have Licence under Our Broad Seal to deliberate of, and to do all such Things, as, being made plain by them, and assented unto by Us, shall concern the settled Continuance of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, now established ”

“ The whole of the high nobility to a man agreed to it: the Lower House raised the resolutions of the clergy into law.
How completely did the German ambassadors, who had come over with the expectation of seeing the victory in England of the theologians who were friendly to them, find themselves deceived! They still however cherished the hope that these resolutions would never be carried out. Their ground for hope lay in the King's marriage with a German Protestant princess, which was just then being arranged. ”