RUBRIC IN COMMUNION SERVICE.

SIR,-In my letter on the violation of the rubric in the Communion Service, which appeared in your number for July last, I find that I confounded the warning and the exhortation for the communion. And, as your correspondent, "M. N.," from his observations on my letter, seems not to have been aware of this mistake, I trust you will allow me to take this opportunity of rectifying it.

The rubric, immediately after Nicene Creed, says-" And then also (if occasion be) shall notice be given of the communion." Which, with "M. N.," I take to mean that "if the minister has occasion to give notice of the communion, he must do it then;" i. e., immediately after the Nicene Creed, while he is at the altar.

As to the form of this notice, or warning, I should imagine that, like the notice of holydays or fasting days, it is left to the minister's discretion. Let us now turn to the rubric before the exhortation.

"When the minister giveth warning for the celebration of the holy communion, (&c.) immediately after the sermon or homily ended, he shall read this exhortation following." From a comparison of this with the former rubric above quoted, I conclude that the minister is to give warning for the communion at the altar, and that in whatever form of words he may think fit; and that on the day of giving such warning, when he has finished the sermon or homily, he is also to read the exhortation, and that from the pulpit, where he then is. Where, then, is the contradiction between these two rubrics of which "M.N.” speaks? Where there is but one service, I conceive that the exhortation alone will give sufficient notice or warning for the communion; but then it should always (as it seems from the rubric) be read from the pulpit, after the sermon; and not from the desk, before the sermon, as is too commonly the case. And I may add also again, that the whole, and not a part only, should be read.

B.

PONTIUS PILATE.

MY DEAR SIR,-You very naturally anticipate answers to the paper of your correspondent "H.," in the last Number of the "British Magazine," and, with that anticipation, exercise a sound discretion in requiring brevity of those who may furnish such answers. I am not going to encroach upon your wish in that respect; though, were I to enter into the subject in proportion to the interest I feel in it, I might perhaps find it no easy task to confine myself within such limits as would satisfy you. For I have always thought the character and conduct of Pilate a particularly interesting subject for moral contemplation to " a heart that watches and receives." It has been laid up for many years among my memoranda of things inviting further digestion and disquisition. I must not, however, at present go into the general question of the Roman prætor's character, lest I should be tempted to transgress due bounds; but I shall confine myself to a few remarks on that passage which is referred to in your correspondent's

paper, p. 630-viz., " Pilate said unto Jesus, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and power to release thee? And Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above; therefore, he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin."

The few expositors to whose comments I have access are, I see, agreed in understanding the comparison contained in the last words as a comparison between the guilt of Pilate, and the guilt of the Jews, or of Judas. Your correspondent disallows this interpretation, in which I concur with him; but he does not give the reason for it which I should give. "He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." "Greater" than what? and why? "Greater" (I think, clearly, from the context,) than he would have incurred, if it had been the case, as before stated, that Pilate "could have had no power at all against our Lord, except it were given him from above." This is, in my judgment, chiefly to be understood as a recognition of the doctrine that there is a legitimate power entrusted to men over men by a standing ordinance of God. And the passage is intimately connected with Rom. xiii. 1, 2. Let the words of the two passages be carefully and thoughtfully compared, and it will appear that there is, at all events, some ground for such acceptation of the text in St. John.

More fully developed, the argument is this. If human power over the persons and lives of men were only an adventitious acquirement, to be exercised under a moral responsibility to the dictates of justice and reason, as each particular case may determine, then "he that delivered Jesus to Pilate" would have less to answer for than he actually had. But lawful power is not only a reasonable and wholesome social provision, but A DIVINE APPOINTMENT. The resistance to it, therefore, is a species of sacrilege. The person who resists" has the greater sin," somewhat after the same manner as he that robs a church is a more presumptuous offender than he that robs a common dwellinghouse.

It may, indeed, possibly be the case, (still supposing the word "greater" to mean "greater than he would otherwise have incurred,") that the aggravation of Judas' sin is restricted to our Lord's own peculiar case; considering the awful proportion which that sin bore in God's "predetermined counsel" of atonement. I mean, that all things connected with that mysterious counsel being magnified in proportion to its singular importance, as a whole, Judas' treachery would be magnified among the rest. It would become a "greater sin" than it would have been in a common case, in proportion as the interests concerned were greater, and more specially provided for by the divine regulation of the whole scheme, which placed Jesus in the power of a Roman officer, that the Roman mode of punishment, by crucifixion, might be accomplished in him, as had been typically signified that it should be.

Nevertheless, this restricted interpretation of the "greater sin" appears to me less natural, and less consistent with all that is said, than that which refers it to the general argument before stated concerning lawful power,

Resuming which view, I would remark, that not only was the sin more presumptuous in its first aggression, but, in its ulterior effects also, it was more pernicious-the unjust delivery of innocence to lawfully constituted authority, for oppression, tending to make men averse to what God has appointed for their good.

In this view, the text in question is again much connected with the sin of Hophni and Phineas, which, it is stated, "was very great" (and here" very great" is tantamount to " the greater sin" affirmed of Judas)" before the Lord; for men abhorred the offering of the Lord." In that instance, the abuse of a sacred and generally beneficial appointment alienated the conscience from its dutiful feeling towards God. The sin, therefore, of him that delivered Jesus to Pilate, was "the greater," because it drew aside the moral judgment of men to perverseness, and would eventually seem to justify resistance to that order, peace, and seemliness, comprehended under one word, LAW, of which (to adopt Hooker's beautiful expression) "no less may be affirmed than that its seat is the bosom of God, and its voice the harmony of the world."

Believe me ever, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,

PRYTANIS.

SCHOOL AT LIVERPOOL.

SIR,-As I have time for a few lines, I beg to thank "Clericus" for his able statement of the church and dissenting schools in Liverpool. (See pp. 78-81 of your Magazine for July.) I need not suggest to "Clericus" the importance of being guided by "fact" in our computations; and I am sure he will not take it amiss if I point out to him what appears to me to be inaccurate amongst so much that is excellent. Clericus" will observe that in my paper (May, 1834,) charged the calumniator of the church with adding, in the non-church schools, "the full complements of the day and Sunday scholars together, as if they had been entirely different children," thus nearly doubling the real amount of attendants; but that, with regard to the church schools, he took care not to compute by the same rule. If I am not mistaken, "Clericus" has undesignedly committed almost the same act of injustice to his own side of the question. "Clericus" estimates the number of children attending schools, not connected with the church, on Sundays, as amounting to 3030; and this entire sum he adds to the full number of children who attend the same schools during the week. Now the point which I would respectfully suggest to his consideration is this-How many of these 3030 Sunday scholars do, in fact, attend some of the day schools, and are consequently reckoned twice over. there be one in five who are exclusively Sunday scholars, and who do not go to any of the enumerated day schools? I think not one in ten. So that "Clericus" might, with truth, have produced a much more favourable result than he has done; though, I conceive, he has merited the best thanks of the church for the practical demonstration he has exhibited of its power, its munificence, and its benevolence.

Will

I did not think it necessary to write to you purposely on this point, and perhaps it is now too late; but accuracy of" fact" is so desirable, and the paper of "Clericus" is so valuable, that any remarks which may tend to lay a more perfect foundation for such calculations, if necessary in future, may not be unworthy of record.

R. W. B.

THE CONVOCATION OF THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY.

NO. IV.

Ir may be recollected that I proposed three questions for consideration on the subject of the convocation :-what was its real nature and history relatively to the church? what was the principle, and what the actual extent of the civil governor's jurisdiction over it, and assumption of its powers? and, thirdly, what was the place which the lower house held in its constitution? The last of these three has been discussed, as far as is necessary to illustrate the history of its suspension in the beginning of the eighteenth century. And for any other purpose, one may hope it ever will be unnecessary; for it was (to say the least) a heavy calamity that members of the lower house should have felt it their duty, from the circumstances of the times, to stand upon their rights against the authority of their bishops. Not to dwell on the unbecoming appearance of such an opposition, it must be borne in mind that the privilege actually conceded on all hands to the lower house, the veto on the proceedings of the upper, is in itself almost too liberal a grant of power for the episcopal principle; and is only defensible (I suppose) on the ground of the size of the dioceses, and the crown's prerogative in the choice of bishops. "Maximo enim," says Wilkins, "præ aliis nationibus presbyteri synodi Anglicanæ fruuntur privilegio in concilio provinciali, ut dissensus eorum universa domús superioris decreta irrita reddere valeat." Having this veto upon all proceedings of their bishops, surely the clergy should have been satisfied. But, perhaps, those of them who had released themselves from their pledge of canonical obedience to their deprived bishops, might consider lightly of the obligation which subjected them to those who had succeeded in their place; perhaps, also, there was reasonable ground of jealousy as regards those whom William's government had promoted. But, though much might have been said in their defence had they refused altogether to recognise the new prelates, one does not see the consistency of taking them for their rulers and then not submitting to them. But enough on this unpleasant subject. Now let us pass to the consideration of a second of the questions originally proposed-viz., the nature and history of the convocation relatively to the church. And first a few words in statement of the controversy respecting it.

Atterbury, Binckes, and their party, maintained in the pamphlets mentioned in my first paper, that the convocation was an essential part of the constitution, established by law, "by the same law as the gentleman receives his rent, or the member enjoys his privilege." When required to produce the particular law which makes its as VOL. VII.-Feb. 1835.

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sembling imperative on the sovereign, instead of its being (as the court party maintained) at his option, they allowed as much as thisviz., that his writ was absolutely necessary for its assembling, but they maintained, at the same time, that it was absolutely necessary that he should grant it, and that for two reasons: first, if the meeting of convocation were a privilege or liberty of the English church (which no one could deny), the king was bound in two ways, by his coronation oath, to issue his writ according to custom. For Magna Charta (they argued), to which the king had sworn, pronounced "quod ecclesia Anglicana libera sit, et habeat omnia jura et libertates illæsas;" next, that one especial part of the oath administered by the archbishop contained a promise on the king's part to "preserve to the bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them;" so that, since the assembly of the clergy in convocation was, beyond dispute, a privilege recognised by the law, no particular law was necessary to bind the sovereign, who was bound more solemnly by his express oath, which the law imposed.

Next, they maintained that their assembling was matter of constitutional right; for the convocation, they said, was a member or a necessary adjunct of parliament; so that, independently of law or promise, it could not constitutionally be abolished or suspended. They shewed from history that from the earliest Saxon times the clergy had been summoned with the laity to the king's great council; that, as time went on, the mode of their assembling, from being indeterminate, became definite and regular; then again, from circumstances, was varied, and lastly became fixed in the particular form which had then for centuries been matter of usage; that, on the other hand, during this process and ultimate settlement, the ordinary annual church synods gradually came into disuse, so that the convocation, as then constituted, was the representation both of an important political privilege, and a standing ecclesiastical ordinance of the church; that at first they met in one body with the laity, or parliament (as it is now called), afterwards separated from it, and then again divided themselves into two provincial synods; that this arrangement was for awhile interrupted by a new writ from the king (the præmunientes clause inserted into the bishops' writ), summoning them to parliament, which was a fresh evidence of their constitutional right, but that the former custom was again restored and had so continued to that day, the above-mentioned clause being still retained in the bishops' writ, though not acted on, in token that their right remained where it was; that under all these changes, under whatever irregularities of time, place, and form of meeting, the great rule obtained that they met in connexion with parliament, as a member of it, (closer or more detached, as the case might be,) but still as constitutionally annexed to it; lastly, that since the Reformation the convocation had invariably met with the parliament and been dissolved with it, except in the solitary and extraordinary instance of 1640, when it sat after the parliament was dissolved, and which no one would urge as a precedent, though after all, even as such, it only affected the question of the termination of

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