of the individual Clergy of Henry's time promising for themselves, but not binding their successors. "In no submission of theirs are there any words which expressly and in terms bind the future Clergy." (Atterbury, as quoted by Hickes, p. 224.) And, "it is certain that no Clergy in the world could so make over their powers; and if any have done it, it was a personal act of theirs, which was null of itself, and did not indeed bind those who made it, it being of its own nature unlawful, but much less could it bind their successors." (Burnet, quoted ibid. p. 232.) And, "had this act of theirs extended to their successors, yet all they did in Henry VIII.'s reign was undone by them in the reign of Queen Mary; when the Clergy in convocation complained of the act of submission, petitioned for a repeal of it, and obtained it:" and though it was revived afterwards, it "was not at the instance or with the express consent of the Clergy; and they stand bound therefore at present by no act of their own, but by the temporal laws only." (Atterbury, as above.) The Clergy have ever hitherto submitted, rather than incur what appeared a greater evil—“ rather than throw themselves into a persecution.' (Burnet, as quoted, p. 232.)

That the Church still has the inherent right to hold assemblies, as it is obvious in itself, is maintained not only by men so opposed in views as Burnet and Atterbury, but by the great maintainers of the regal power in ecclesiastical affairs, Kennett and Wake.* Thus the former asserts that the Christian Church is "a society endowed with fundamental rights to preserve its own being, and among these a right for the governors to assemble, &c., as at first independent on the heathen, so even now on the Christian magistrate, when the necessities of desertion and persecution so require." (p. 307.) And, if the synod finds some new constitutions necessary, and the prince refuses to sanction them, "in such a case let the Church be true to CHRIST, and to the powers she received from Him." (Ibid.) And Wake to the same effect :-"Should we ever be so unhappy under a Christian magistrate as to be denied all liberty of these assemblies . . . in such a case (which he supposes would be "to the ruin of all true religion and morality among us ")" in such a case of extremity, I have before said, and I still adhere to it, the bishops and pastors of the Church must... meet, consult, and resolve upon such measures as, by GOD's assistance, they shall think their unhappy circumstances to require, and be content to suffer any loss, and to run any danger for so doing." (p. 306.) Wake was Archbishop of Canterbury when the sittings of convocation were suspended. We must presume that he and his successors conceived, as very good Churchmen

* We confine ourselves to the divines quoted by Hickes; they were chosen from circumstances connected with the controversies of the day. The names of Bilson, Field, Morton, Thorndike, Stillingfleet, are alleged by him elsewhere.

have of late done, that those sittings were not for the good of the Church.

We may conclude then that the right of the Church of England to hold synodical assemblies, morally considered, is allowed by her divines. As to the question of the King's supremacy, we find the history of its introduction traced, and the sense in which the Church holds it established; though the subject is not so fully discussed by Hickes here as in the Treatise on the Dignity of the Episcopal order. Henry and Edward assumed the title of supreme head upon earth of the Church of England. Elizabeth only that of governor of the Church. The change was much more than one of a mere word; for those kings had claimed to occupy the position which the Pope had done before; to be the source of all spiritual power-of ordination, as well as jurisdiction. The Bishops were regarded as deriving their authority, not from CHRIST through His Church, but from the king, in the same sense as his civil and military officers did. This was the doctrine taught by Cranmer, who even said that ordination was a mere ceremony which might be dispensed with, and that no more grace was conferred in it than in admission to civil offices. (Cranmer's Remains, Vol. ii. p. 102.) The view was embodied in some Acts of Parliament, though limiting expressions may be found in them. The same notion was set forth in Tindal's preface, and is thoroughly examined and exposed by Hickes. He shows that Bishops possess original and inherent powers independent on any temporal magistrate, and that the utmost Christian kings can claim, is to regulate their exercise: and that this must at least be with the consent of the Church. Thus excommunication cannot take effect except through the sentence of an ecclesiastical court; the convocation is summoned by the Archbishop's mandate, and kings can but enjoin Bishops to consecrate, they cannot exercise such power themselves. (See pp. 300 and 255.)

Such views as those he opposed may be said to have begun and ended as regards the Church with Henry and Cranmer. The later Clergy, as Tindal admits, have universally held that the Bishop's jurisdiction was jure divino: and Laud's view on the matter, as stated in his speech, is given by Hickes, (p. 136,) making the power of the Bishop to be derived immediately from CHRIST, the exercise of it under a Christian king, to be subject to his regulation. So in his Sermons Laud says, (p. 84,) "both Church and State have subordination to the house of David." Indeed, with his noble views of the regal office in the Church, the anointed sovereign became as it were an officer of the Church as a ministering nursing father. The place he gives the king in relation to the Bishops is expressed more fully in another place, (p. 104:)

"The Church, that is not without pillars neither. No, God forbid.

And it resembles in this the kingdoms among which it sojourns. The great master-pillar CHRIST, He is the foundation of all the rest; and other foundation can no man lay of the Church. Next to CHRIST, the Apostles and the disciples are pillars too, and so called. After these, their successors, Bishops and Priests, the Fathers of the Church in their several ages, they came to be pillars, and so shall successively continue to the end of the world. And so soon as Emperors and Kings were converted to the faith, they presently came into the nature of pillars to the Church too. If any man doubt this truth, I will call in the Pope himself to witness it," &c.

All this, be it remembered, supposed a king, a parliament and a nation in the communion of the Church, and acting for her good.

The sense in which we hold the supremacy is expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles; and of that sense, Woodhead (or Walker,) a Roman Catholic writer of James II.'s days, says, "this part of the article (Art. 37,) is couched in such general terms, as that it will be subscribed to by all sides: Fr. à S. Clara (see his Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, the alleged prototype of the last Tract for the Times,) alloweth it; and saith also, 'Hic articulus a Gallis, et parliamento Parisiensi, salva communione Ecclesiæ usurpatur,' " (note, p. 230.) And Bishop Burnet, (quoted p. 231,) "if in the time of our Reformation, some of our Bishops and writers have carried the royal supremacy too far, either in acts of convocation or in their writings, as those things are personal matters with which we are not all concerned, who do not pretend to assert an infallibility in our Church; so their excess in this was a thing so natural, that we have all possible reason to excuse it, or at least to censure it very gently." If any one wonder to see Burnet's authority alleged, it must be remembered that he was the great opposer of Hickes' school; and so the argument becomes a powerful à fortiori one, if such are the views even of Burnet.

After the length to which we have extended our remarks on this subject we cannot do more than allude very briefly to other points which are discussed in these volumes. Such is the difficulty alleged of our Acts of Parliament enjoining the penalty of excommunication: that the jurisdiction of the Bishops and their powers of ordination are derived from the Crown, because the laws regulate the exercise of them the whole discussion on the "necessity" alleged to justify Presbyterian ordination, which is very ably treated, and on which one remark from Bishop Sage, quoted in a note, is worth transcribing: "When Priests duly ordained are wanting, I think the common doctrine of Protestants about the no absolute necessity of Sacraments' should be remembered, and laics ought to worship together, and edify one another the best way they can, but always keeping in their own sphere, and humbly waiting till GoD shall provide them persons duly consecrated," (Hickes, p. 290 ;)

and his retort on the Presbyterians of Scotland, "You have undutifully kicked out of doors those who had the power of ordination : and then you plead necessity, and that you must ordain without them." (ibid.) Bishop Burnet's exposition of the twenty-third Article, which is an attempt to show that the English Church allows such ordination, is thoroughly overthrown; a somewhat lengthy note is added in this edition, detailing the proceedings of convocation as to the censure which the Lower House endeavoured to obtain on that work: and considering the popularity, and almost authority which Burnet's Exposition has had, it is desirable these proceedings should be more generally known.

We may add, that Hickes throughout writes as a genuine son of the Church of England. He was indeed a Bishop, one of the first of the nonjuring succession, but he suppresses all allusion to this, or to any of the peculiar views of the nonjurors, to a most remarkable degree. He calls himself " a poor deprived Priest," and writes with an earnest and affectionate desire for the good of the Church as then established. Indeed there can be no doubt that his views, except on questions of detail, and minor premises, were those of the great body of the English Clergy and the religious laity of his day. With them he identified himself, desiring no change in the rules of the Church, beyond a wish for those alterations of the Communion Office, which Archbishop Laud had regarded as improvements, and had introduced into the Scottish Liturgy. It is plain he thought it was a time when it was necessary to drop points of difference, and to unite with the orthodox of the established communion in opposing a common enemy. His had indeed been an eventful life; born in the days of rebellion, he had gradually made his way to the principles of the Church, and devoted a vigorous and powerful mind, and a great accumulation of learning to the defence of them, and had seen their triumph and their fall. Perhaps he is one of the fairest specimens in matters of opinion, of those Anglican Divines who oppose Dissent on the one hand, and Romanism on the other, and this he did at the cost of every worldly advantage. During the reign of Charles the Second, he had risen to be amongst the most influential of the Clergy; as a preacher in London he divided the town with Tillotson; he was Dean of Worcester, and would have been a Bishop, but that the King (Charles II.) waited for a see to fall which he thought worthy of him. On the accession of James, he at once directed his preaching against Romanism, and all his prospects" as they are called, were blighted, and he was neglected by the Court. Faithful, however, to his principles of loyalty, he refused to acknowledge the Prince of Orange, and was deprived (while he formally protested against the act,) of his Deanery of Worcester. He went over in 1693 to the sovereign whose religious opinions he had so strenuously opposed, and received at his hands an appointment as a suffragan Bishop of the Anglican

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Church, and was privately consecrated by the deprived Bishops. He continued to labour unremittingly, producing his great work on the ancient northern languages, and yet continually meanwhile publishing theological treatises. He lived to see the latitudinarian principles he had ever opposed, develope into infidelity—the principles he had maintained, after enjoying a brief triumph, apparently put down; yet he continued labouring to the last in intense pain, and great weakness, and advanced age, but with his intellectual faculties unimpaired, and his habits of study unrelinquished. He was relieved by the assistance of affectionate friends, and lived in most intimate intercourse with devout men of sentiments agreeable to his own, such as Nelson and Spinckes, and with many of those who conformed to the establishment, by whom he seems to have been much looked up to. He died at the end of the year 1715, when all that he had hoped for, whether for the Church or the realm of England, seemed to have perished-seemed only, for it has revived in greater vigour and under more favourable auspices.

THE TEACHING OF ANCIENT HISTORY:-GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE.

History of Greece. By GEORGE GROTE, ESQ. London: Murray, Vol. i., ii., 1846. Vol. iii., iv., 1847.

It will not be the least honourable aspect of our own day, when it becomes itself a matter of history, that it has produced two most meritorious histories of Greece. Fifty years ago we all know that such a work was unknown, or rather impossible: whenever any author on such subjects rose above the common run of poetical fables clothed in the most prosaic garb, and the dull recital of historical facts without any regard to the evidence on which they rest, or the instruction which they convey, it was to convert the history of past ages into a mere vehicle for modern politics, and thereby to view every event through the false colouring of party prejudice. Such was Mitford; honest, we believe, though completely blinded by prejudice, and in a high degree earnest and animated; his very prejudices and the marked party aim with which he wrote, preventing, as Dr. Arnold most truly observes, his history from at any time becoming dull. And we must freely confess that, did we seek for nothing in a history beyond the mere gratification of well-turned sentences and fluent narration, Mr. Mitford would certainly bear the palm from his successors in the ayŵvioμa és tò