From Mr. Maurice, then, I cannot think that Bishop Alexander derives much comfort for his conscience; certainly he provides him with no legal shelter behind which to retreat. Indeed, this latter kind of help Mr. Maurice would evidently think it unworthy to resort to. He sets all lawyers at nought, and canonists he utterly despises. Hastily indeed, I think, and for the purpose of the moment only, can he have given way to such feelings; for he needs not that I should tell him that the Church of Christ rests, not upon speculative truth alone, but upon the positive institutions of our Lord and his Apostles. Surely, then, to trace these institutions from the lowest point at which they come in contact with human existence, whether in nations or individuals, up to the highest to which our eye can follow them, the point of union with the unseen world in which they take their rise, and from which they are the channels of grace and truth and authority to the souls of men-to trace, I say, the outward and visible signs of sacraments, of polity, of discipline, up to the inward spiritual realities upon which they depend, which they impart and represent to faith, or shelter from profanation; to study the workings of the hidden life of the Church by those developments, which, in all ages and countries, have been its necessary modes of access to human feeling and apprehension; to systematize the results thus gained; to learn what is universal, what partial-what temporary, what eternal-what presently obligatory, and wherefore; surely a science such as this, so noble in its subject, so important in its practical bearings upon the unity and purity of the Church, and upon her relations to the temporal power, is not one of which Mr. Maurice would deliberately speak evil. Yet this is the science of the canonist.

Granted that there have been quibbling canonists, have there never been trifling divines? Granted that jurists, in dealing with the laws of particular churches, are often forced into minutiæ, are there in the same churches no petty details of dogmatic teaching? While, on the other hand, was there ever a truly great divine, who was not in part a canonist, or any master of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, who had not founded his science upon the chiefest truths of the Gospel?

When, therefore, I spoke of a "conclave of divines and canonists," I spoke of resorting to the counsel of those, within whose sphere of learning is summed up the whole science, as well of the Church universal, as of our branch of it. Was the occasion one which needed no such "solemn consideration?"* Have the results of what has been done proved such as to show that canonists have rightly been passed by? Certainly, not in the judgment of all the promoters of the scheme; for, if report speaks true, law has after all had tardy homage done to it. A legal power of dispensation has been looked for; the dicta of lawyers in favour of it have been quoted: acts of parliament have been searched to supply it. May I not then reply in the words of St. Bernard, "Utinam non licentiam quæsissetis sed consilium, i. e. non ut liceret sed an liceret." Ye had better have first gone to the canonists to learn what was lawful, than resort to them afterwards to find how you may be dispensed with for doing what is illegal.

There is but one point more upon which I think it necessary to address any remarks to Mr. Maurice.

He maintains strongly two principles of Church polity; one, the independence of National Churches; the other, the direct vicegerency of Bishops under the unseen Head of the Church. Both these principles he considers to have been invaded by the Papal power, and to have been restored by the Reformation. Now let us apply them to the case before

us.

*If Mr. Maurice will turn to my Letter, he will see that I never expressed a desire that "free discussion" should have preceded the erection of the Bishopric. Those words were used in regard to the general state of theology amongst us, and even upon this head I wish for free discussion only amongst those who are qualified and authorized to discuss. But certainly, when individuals, even of the laity, are called upon by insufficient authority to submit to the imposition of new laws, in matters affecting their ecclesiastical condition, they must use such means of inquiry and explanation as are within their reach. I may here notice what appears to me the singularly injudicious mode in which Mr. Maurice involves the promoters of this scheme in the party considerations, which alone can explain such arguments as those which would justify one part of the Church for breaking laws, by suggesting that another part is equally ready to do so.

The united Church of England and Ireland is, I presume, a National Church, within Mr. Maurice's meaning. Her Bishops are entitled to that direct vicegerency for which he contends. Within this Church, now consisting of four provinces and forty-seven dioceses, there have long existed very serious differences in principle; differences which would probably have long since doubled the sects and heresies which prevail around us, but for the point of union supplied by her peculiar constitution, and by her forms, whether doctrinal or liturgical.

At this moment, perhaps, more than any other, the strength of the uniting principle is subjected to severe trial, there being at work a struggle of opinion upon questions which go to the very foundation of the faith, and which, decided hastily either way, can hardly end otherwise than in schism.

Of the points at issue, some bear materially upon the relations in which we stand to other reformed bodies; and though the opinions of some very eminent divines may be cited for a favourable view of the condition of foreign Protestants two centuries since, yet, even as regards that period, our Church has left it open to her members to form a different judgment, while the changed circumstances of those bodies in later times have enlarged this liberty to a degree which places it beyond contradiction. The question, therefore, as far as opinion is concerned, may be called an open one; but there is this material distinction to be observed; the Church having passed no censure upon the foreign reformed bodies, individuals, who are favourably disposed towards them, may take advantage of

* In this number I include the colonial dioceses as given in the Churchman's Almanac for 1842. The right of these dependencies to be consulted, in matters which affect their interests as well as those of the Mother Church, is, I think, obvious, and will, I trust, be considered, when any scheme for a Church legislature is brought forward. In the case of this Bishopric, one colonial prelate, the loved and revered Bishop of New Zealand, is supposed by Dr. Hook to have been one of those who "devised or adopted" the measure. That he assisted at the consecration of Bishop Alexander is indisputable; but under what circumstances, with what information as to the nature of the scheme, and with what concurrence in it, his attendance as a Suffragan on that occasion was given, Dr. Hook should have ascertained more carefully, before he laid so much stress upon his authority.

this silence, and, if they think fit, may, as occasion serves, resort to their communion. But, with regard to her own discipline, this liberty of opinion is allowed no influence; and hence those, who conceive that these foreign Protestants have forfeited the right of Catholic communion, are protected by her from all contact with them so long as they remain within her precinct. In short, she does not so condemn the other reformed communions as to prohibit their being resorted to, nor so allow them as to suffer her own system to be disturbed by them.

This being so, and at a moment when, as I have said, the liberty of opinion which is allowed by the Church on this head is used to the utmost either way, what has been done? Why simply this:-A Prelate, most eminent doubtless in dignity, but still only the Archbishop of one out of the four provinces, with the concurrence, privately given, of some five or six out of the forty-seven bishops of our National Church, has directed Bishop Alexander to take such steps as will force a portion of that National Church, in the name of the whole, to receive these bodies into open and avowed communion, and has authorized him for that purpose to violate the laws, which by common consent are established amongst us, and have hitherto tended so beneficially to the maintenance of unity. This, I say, is the true sense of what has been done; it is not a mere question of giving or withholding, of enforcing or dispensing with conditions, in order to the benefit of foreign Protestants; that is but one side of the business; its most important aspect for us is that presented by the circumstance, that this is an invasion of the spiritual freedom of the Church of England, an act of lordship over her-an act removing her from where she now stands and placing her in new relations-this act being done, in direct contravention of her laws, by the authority of an unauthorized portion of her prelates.

Where in this business will Mr. Maurice find the independence of our National Church? Where the personal responsibility of her Bishops? His theory indeed does not seem to allow room for any Primacy whatever. In his zeal against Rome he has left no place that I can find, even for Canterbury. But granting that his system will admit an

English Primate, will it allow to him all that it denies to the Pope? will it grant to a few assistant Bishops that office which the College of Cardinals by exercising has dislocated the whole polity of the Church? Are we to be told, as a matter of rejoicing, that the new mode of union is "not by the way of Rome," while the mandate of an "Alterius orbis Papa" disposes of the United Church of England and Ireland, as though it were the possession of a particular See? Doubtless Mr. Maurice may say, that there is much in the present condition of our Church which will palliate such irregularities. The suspension of synods, the pressing haste with which questions are urged on, the peculiar relations which exist between the civil and ecclesiastical powers-are all causes which may excuse prelates, eminent in station, of high personal character, and residing near the seat of Government, for acting in the name of the Church. But Mr. Maurice is too just and too well-informed not to allow that palliatives of the same kind originally existed for Rome; and yet, when he reviews the progress and final developements of her power, thus innocent in its rise, he conceives of it so deep a horror that he cannot suggest terms of Christian unity which do not imply division from it, he cannot assert the positive truth of our blessed Saviour's headship of the Church, without at the same time insisting upon the negative with which he deems it pregnant, that negative being the rejection of the supremacy of Rome.

Mr. Maurice then, I conceive, is bound to elect between that portion of his theory which makes him desire that an union with the German Protestants should be effected, and that other portion which condemns so absolutely the authority by which it is proposed to be done. Or rather let him learn, from the difficulties which surround him on this occasion, the lesson which has long since been painfully impressed upon myself; that it is worse than idle to impose schemes upon a Church which is not allowed an opportunity of considering what they mean; that it is an indignity for children to lead forth their parent into new paths of their own devising, while they make no effort and show no care to ascertain her will.

For more than a century no Synod has been holden except